MONTREAL - Two wise men came in for a political chinwag with Paul Karwatsky Friday, to discuss the big events of the last week, Friday's Victoriaville riots and Thursday's metro smoke bomb attacks.
Jean Lapierre blamed a relatively small group of agitators.
"It's always from the same type of people," he said. "We're talking about 100 to 200 bandits who are pretty active and use any pretext, the Stanley cup, the protest against police brutality, those people need to be identified and arrested."
"That's got to be addressed first, but meanwhile we're going backwards on the other issue, education," said Lapierre.
Robert Libman agreed that the most vehement troublemakers need to be rounded up.
"The biggest problem is the professional agitators that join into any instability, the unions are also bolstering the ranks of these demonstrators," he said.
The popular bump briefly enjoyed by Premier Charest might not be reflected in future polls, Libman opined.
"At first the Charest government seemed to be gaining popular support for their tough stand on this very difficult issue but things start to spin out of control and people started to lose confidence that we're living in a state that's ruled by democracy and law, that will probably have a negative impact on the government and seriously affect his chances of reelection," he said.
Lapierre also criticized Montreal Mayor Gerald Tremblay's passivity but congratulated him on his more-recent tough stand on masked protesters.
Libman said that the mayor is essentially helpless until the issues get resolved.
Watch the video at the right to see the entire interview.
