Skip to main content

Fact check: False claim that police removed their identification at Freedom Convoy protest

Bayliss Wagner   | Paste BN

The claim: Quebec provincial police force removed identification at a Freedom Convoy protest

In February, social media users accused a Canadian provincial police force of dodging accountability after several prominent online figures shared claims that officers at the Freedom Convoy protests in Ottawa had removed identification badges from their uniforms.

The claims were based on a video of officers from the Sûreté du Québec, Quebec's provincial police force, standing shoulder-to-shoulder in a line to prevent protesters from advancing. The Ontario Provincial Police had called the Sûreté for reinforcements after failed attempts to quell the protests, which began as a trucker-led demonstration against cross-border vaccine restrictions and grew into a dayslong occupation of Ottawa.

One Feb. 20 Instagram post of the video from body armor company Hoplite Armor racked up over 24,000 views in less than three weeks.

"Justin Trudeau's SQ (Quebec provincial police service) officers removed their identifying names and badge numbers from their uniforms in Ottawa," text above the video reads in the post.

In its caption of the video, Hoplite Armor condemned the company that had sold the supposedly anonymous uniforms.

 "If companies refused to sell gear to these thugs they’d have nothing to oppress you with," the page wrote. "Sadly, I stand alone in that."

Contrary to this and other posts, which totaled hundreds of thousands of views, the officers didn't remove any IDs. Names and badge numbers were on the officers' helmets.

Paste BN reached out to Hoplite Armor and others who shared the post for comment.

Follow us on Facebook! Like our page to get updates throughout the day on our latest debunks

Police ID numbers were on officers' helmets 

The video that accompanied the claims of police misconduct at the Freedom Convoy is authentic, but it doesn't show police without identification.

It was first posted by Seán O'Shea, a reporter for Canadian television outlet Global News, on Feb. 19.

He captioned the tweet "Quebec police hold a line."

Conservative influencer Ian Miles Cheong reposted the video on his Twitter page that day.

"The police are making themselves unaccountable to the very laws they’re supposed to enforce in their suppression of a peaceful protest," he wrote.

His tweet, which over 11,000 users shared on Twitter, became the basis for the dozens of reposts of the video.

At first glance, this video seems to corroborate the claim. No badges are visible on the SQ's dark green riot gear. However, the officers' badge identification numbers can be seen in large white print on their black helmets. Photos from Canadian news outlets similarly show the officers wearing the numbers on their helmets.

These badge numbers are unique, Lt. Benoit Richard, a spokesperson for the Quebec Sûreté, wrote in an email to Paste BN. Richard said citizens who provide the badge number to a police board will be provided with the officers' names.

"Badge numbers refer to only one individual," he wrote. "The officer’s name can be found by any official instance if needed. For example, a citizen could file a complaint to a police board with the officer’s badge number."

Richard said the officers typically wear badges on their uniforms, not their helmets, but "moveable parts of the uniform are not worn during protests for security reasons."

Our rating: False

Based on our research, we rate FALSE the claim that the Quebec provincial police force removed identification at a Freedom Convoy protest. The officers' identification is found on their helmets when they are wearing riot gear, a spokesperson for the police force told Paste BN. The original version of the video that accompanied the claim shows the badge numbers displayed in large white print on officers' helmets. 

Our fact-check sources:

Thank you for supporting our journalism. You can subscribe to our print edition, ad-free app or electronic newspaper replica here.

Our fact-check work is supported in part by a grant from Facebook.

Facebook Twitter Email