Vallieres was the spokesman and lead idealogue of the group, but yes, his hands are not clean.
Listen, I am in no way endorsing the FLQ. I grew up in Westmount. One of the mailboxes in front of my elementary school was bombed. You must understand though, that circumstances surrounding the October Crisis are ugly on all sides. Many members of the FLQ were socialist patriots who got swept up in events specific to that era. Think for example of the Weather Underground, the Black Panthers, etc...
I found myself at that bar that night purely by chance and, if you really want to know, defended Canadian unity (in French) to a less than receptive crowd.
The FLQ was an amateur organisation that yearned to be a big player on the revolutionary map, and many of its members were disgusted and shocked by the murder of Pierre Laporte.
My onetime drinking companions were self-imagined patriots who ended up behaving like terrorists. I find that abhorrent. But I would still follow my curiosity if such an occasion presented itself again (and I haven't even told you about the time I sat in on a meeting with one of Osama bin Laden's brothers!).
