I Grew Up 4 Blocks from where Pierre Laporte was Kidnapped

STORY BY: Sean Richens
YEAR: 1970
LOCATION: Winnipeg, MB

Sean is "a real GenXer" who grew up in Montreal. He was born in 1963 at the "downslope of the demographic bulge", and the end of the post-war baby boom. Sean shares a story about growing up in Saint-Lambert, on the South shore of Montreal, during the height of the FLQ crisis. After a series of events, including the kidnapping of politicians James Cross and Pierre Laporte, Canadian Prime Minister Pierre E. Trudeau invoked the War Measures Act, and soldiers were sent to the streets of Montreal. Later, in his teens, Sean used to go and "hoot in the back of this convent school", taking his friends' cousins into a field near the school. He would point and tell them, "that's where Pierre Laporte was kidnapped". He grew up 4 blocks away, and in 1970, he remembers a tank parked at the end of his street. It was "all very much part of that time". Thanks for sharing, Sean.