During last spring’s student protests in Quebec over proposed hikes to tuition fees, the city of Montreal passed a bylaw (P-6) that made it illegal to wear a mask during a street demonstration. Yesterday, during a protest against the bylaw, and its negative impact on the Charter rights of Freedom of Speech and Assembly, police seized the head of Anarchopanda who was the unofficial mascot of the 2012 demonstrations.
The man in the human-size panda suit is a Quebec philosophy professor who is a self-described pacifist. During demonstrations, he typically acted as a buffer between the police and students to try to defuse the potential for violence. According to this CBC report, in addition to having his mascot head seized, the professor also received two $637 fines after he was caught up in a police kettling operation against demonstrators.