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Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s office informed provincial police about protestors who gathered at the legislature last week against the Progressive Conservative government’s planned cuts to health care, social services and education.

The epic arts-and crafts project they carried — a fake guillotine splashed with red paint and accompanied by signs reading “No cuts but this cut,” and “May history repeat itself, Chop, Chop!” —constituted a “credible threat,” said Social Services Minister Lisa MacLeod.

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There’s dispute about whether an effigy of the premier was actually decapitated, French-Revolution style.

But regardless of whether the stuffed premier lost his head, the flesh-and-blood one arguably did —stating that the protest went “way overboard.”

Even MPP Sara Singh, deputy leader of the opposition NDP, agreed it was “inappropriate.”

And while the protest may have been fatal to standards of decorum and good taste, legally it did not cross a line. Experts say protests — even provocative ones — are protected by Section 2 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which covers freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression. Also, this was a stunt, not a threat.