in their own right.

In 1976, a massive work strike started in the federal prison called Archambault in Sainte-Anne-des-Plaines, Quebec. 350 prisoners began a work strike to force an improvement in their living conditions and to express sympathy for a strike that was already underway at another federal prison called St. Vincent de Paul in Laval, Quebec. The Archambault strikers’ central demand was for physical contact with visitors.

An outside group composed mostly of wives, families, and friends of the prisoners organized two demonstrations during the 1976 strike; one in front of Archambault and one in front of St. Vincent de Paul. Prisoners at a provincial prison on the island of Montreal began a sympathy hunger strike. Two former St. Vincent de Paul prisoners accidentally blew themselves up with abomb they were trying to place in a bus station near the prison as a gesture of support for the strike. The Archambault strike ended after about five months when the prison administration formally recognized the prisoners committee. Permission was also given for frequent visits to the institution by a citizens committee. Prison officials also announced that physical contact during visits would begin in spring 1977.

In 1978, Archambault warden Michel Roy was murdered. Paul Rose, an imprisoned member of the FLQ, who was then a member of the prisoners committee at Archambault, told a Montreal newspaper that conflict at the prison had become serious. He and other members of the prisoners committee had been transferred to the segregation block at a different federal prison in Quebec as a