> However, she said incidents of inappropriate behaviour have increased dramatically and are harming city employees, and making it more difficult to recruit new employees.

> "The thousands of women and men who work every day to serve Montreal have the right to protection from their employer, which is us."

So basically it was pushed through despite being unpopular or unfinished because they have legitimate employment problems in government right now.

There's erosion of trust in the government, and the solution will further erode trust. Unfortunately this is not an exclusive problem to Canada right now.

Quotes from the mayor (in French) who reassures us all that we can still flip off officers, that law will never be abused.

https://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/grand-montreal/2026-09-21...

This is likely the consequence of that : https://www.ctvnews.ca/montreal/article/montreal-police-mayo...

The police woman is amazingly patient.

There needs to be tit-for-tat fixes to the way the public and police interact.

If we cannot say mean things under extreme duress, then they shouldn't be allowed to lie/mislead to extract evidence. (The inverse is illegal afaik -- to lie to an officer)

Unpopular distraction, elections are Oct 5th

Reasonable minds can disagree on a citizen’s right to speak freely versus his neighbor’s right to not have their feelings hurt by words, but I can’t fathom a reasonable argument why such a protection should only apply to government workers and the police.

I'm pro people having dignity in their jobs, but considering how unnecessarily complex and sometimes even hostile modern bureaucracy is this is going to remove one feedback mechanism that may have been globally good.

"Giving the middle finger, it's not what will give you a ticket," Montreal Mayor Soraya Martinez Ferrada said before the council meeting."

...

"It also includes provisions saying city employees could refuse to provide services to someone who misbehaves. However, the bylaw doesn't define what could be construed as an insult."

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1. If what constitutes an "insult" is left undefined and up to discretion, then this law will be used as an tool for police to fine and harass anyone they don't like at a given moment. It will be abused.

2. This law also bans things, such as threats, that are already covered by the law. If you threaten police, they already have the tools to arrest and charge you. This should not have been included in a law that covers insults and is likely only there to provide camouflage.

I sincerely doubt this law will stand up to its first test in court.

If they're all into civilized disagreement, why not ban insults against everyone? What makes police and bureaucrats special to merit such exception?