Tear gas, police violence and broken glass at Montreal Rad Pride protest

What organizers say is normally a festive event came to a quick close this year following heavy police intervention

NewsIndia Das-Brown — Published August 12, 2025 6 minutes

The march began around 9:30 p.m. at Place Émilie-Gamelin, near the intersection of Berri St. and Ste. Catherine St. in the Ville-Marie borough, and was intended to follow a route into the Village neighbourhood, previously known as the Gay Village. It did not extend farther than the streets directly surrounding Place Émilie-Gamelin.

“Traditionally, Rad Pride walks in the Village―that is supposed to be our Village―and this year, the police used a ton of violence to make sure this wouldn't happen,” said protest organizer and member of the P!nk Bloc, Camille, who was granted last name anonymity for safety reasons.

At approximately 9:40 p.m., a message “calling for peaceful protests” was broadcast aloud by an SPVM patrol car, according to the SPVM.

At around 9:50 p.m., protesters began marching down St. Hubert St. toward Ste. Catherine St., where they were met with a line of dozens of police officers with shields, helmets, batons and bikes. 

When police were about a metre away from the roughly 50 protesters and some bystanders, they advanced, punching, pushing and hitting them with their shields. More officers with batons, helmets and shields soon arrived, running down St. Hubert St. to reinforce the line.

“I was very scared, to be honest with you, especially since I saw the level of police presence that was there even before the march started. [...] The scale and response of it felt like a military execution of a plan.” — Isabelle Boucher

In a statement to The Link, the SPVM claimed that “protesters began confronting and pushing police officers. Pyrotechnics and objects were thrown at them."

The force also reported that the window of a banking institution was smashed by demonstrators at the intersection.

Isabelle Boucher, a protester who was granted a pseudonym due to safety concerns, said the window was already broken before the protest, and the police pushed them against the already broken window, causing it to crumble.

“When the cops charged, essentially everyone that was against the wall, including me, panicked and kind of slammed ourselves against the wall [window] to try to be out of the way,” Boucher said.

She said that when backed against the window, she felt that the glass pane had already spiderwebbed-fractured into pieces, yet still held in place. She said she believes it was partially broken before the protest but remained intact.

“I moved because I was like, ‘Oh shit, if I stay in this area, the glass might fall on me if someone else hits it,’” she said. “I was really afraid of getting hurt by the glass.”

The protester said she was a few metres away when it finally collapsed.

“Whoever it was [who broke the glass], I think they were just terrified to be there,” she said. “[They] lifted their hands up in a kind of ‘don't shoot’ position and slammed against the back of the wall to try to be out of the way as much as possible, and the glass kind of broke down on top of them.”

This was not the only altercation at the intersection on Saturday. After demonstrators made a short loop around the square in the other direction, holding flags like the Palestinian flag and the transgender pride flag, and trailing a plume of pink smoke, they were again met with the line of cops with shields. 

This time, police ran forward toward protesters, knocking some over, then began shuffling forward and hitting their shields with batons.

The advancement sent demonstrators fleeing into Place Émilie-Gamelin, where a salsa dancing evening was taking place with Espace Yambae. Some demonstrators were chased down and pushed by police, who also fired what appeared to be tear gas into the dance square.

The SPVM did not respond to The Link’s question about whether irritant gas was used at the square; however, they confirmed it was deployed that night.

Protesters, parents, children and other bystanders then fled the square, with many coughing, wiping their eyes or wiping the eyes of their children.

“There was nowhere else I could go,” Boucher said over the phone through tears. She described how north and south on Ste. Catherine St., as well as north on St. Hubert St., was blockaded by cops.

“I had just seen them punch a bunch of people, so I was not going to go towards them,” Boucher said. “So I ran into the square.”

As a result of the disruption, the dance evening was cut short.

“We are a community; we are here for you, and the demonstration today is a planned demonstration, so you don’t have to be scared. This demonstration is to be shared,” said someone affiliated with the dance event in French, to a round of cheers by bystanders who were attending the event.

During the short-lived march, protesters chanted slogans in French like, “Everybody hates the police” and “Solidarity with the people who resist.” They were joined in their claps and chants by a few cars that honked along.

Protesters reported that throughout the night, police hit multiple people on the head with batons and kicked them in the stomach.

“I was very scared, to be honest with you, especially since I saw the level of police presence that was there even before the march started,” said Boucher. “The scale and response of it felt like a military execution of a plan.”

Rad Pride was designed as a “combative and festive” evening march without corporate sponsorship or police cooperation, both to reject what organizers see as the commodification of queer culture and to confront the far-right, transphobic and queerphobic movements in Canada, according to Camille.

“Today and yesterday and the day before at the [Fierté] Community Days, [the SPVM] had stands showing up pretending to be allies of the community,” said Camille, referring to police information booths at Fierté Montréal. 

“At the same time, they're using this extreme level of violence against our communities to try and prevent us from accessing a village that's supposed to exist as a safe space for our communities,” Camille continued, “a village that was built, and a community that was built, through similar acts of struggles to the ones that were happening [Saturday].”

Camille also called for Fierté Montréal to “drop any ties with any sponsor or partner that has money invested in the genocide in Palestine.”

“It’s selling our culture and our history to the highest bidder, basically,” they said.

Camille says they hope they can prevent people from getting hurt next year, while retaining the “combative festivity that has been synonymous with Rad Pride for the last two years.”

Rad Pride was first organized by six groups: P!nk Bloc, TRAPS, FLIP, OPEN Maisonneuve, FAGS and Brûlances. This year, organizers said it was backed by 30 additional organizations, ranging from student associations to community groups and activist collectives.

The protest thinned out not long after demonstrators fled into Place Émilie-Gamelin, and the crowd fully dispersed by 10:30 p.m. No arrests were made, according to the SPVM.

All accounts in this report are based on multiple eyewitnesses, video footage and observations by The Link’s on-the-ground reporters.