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The SPVM will no longer have undercover police wearing masks at protests, they told the city’s Public Safety Commission — just one of the revelations that came out at a historic public hearing Tuesday on the force’s tactics at demonstrations.

It was a rare admission by Pascal Richard, the police inspector in charge of operational planning, that the Montreal police had, in fact, used undercover officers posing as protesters in recent years, during and perhaps after the student protests of 2012.

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Richard also told the commission — and the public — that the SPVM is no longer applying the P-6 bylaw, which made wearing a mask at protests illegal in itself and forced protesters to give police their planned itinerary or risk having the protest declared illegal.

Both of those provisions of P-6 were struck down by the courts, the first in 2016 and the second in 2018. But Richard told the hearing that police were no longer applying any part of the bylaw.