Numbers down at Montreal F1 race marred by protests

A weekend that brought Montreal’s social unrest to the international stage ended Sunday with police cracking down on an attempt to disrupt the city’s Formula One race.

Anti-capitalists and students upset about tuitionfee increases held demonstrations throughout the four-day event.

The protests gave visitors a taste of the dramatic scenes that locals have been witness to for months.

Many of those scenes played out just steps away from a huge, non-stop party connected to the race, considered the biggest annual tourist event in Canada.

Every night, a group of students and anti-capitalists descended on the popular nightclub strip to protest against the event. On several occasions, there were violent clashes between protesters and riot police, with tourists caught in the middle.

“It’s been a tough one this year,” Grand Prix Formula One promoter Francois Dumontier told reporters following the race. “I think we had a good weekend overall here. We weren’t perturbed despite all threats, people had no trouble getting onto the site, and the warm temperature helped our attendance.”

Dumontier admitted ticket sales to the race, which pumps about $100 million into the local economy, were down by five or six per cent.

There were no major incidents on Sunday despite much-discussed plans by an anti-capitalist group to disrupt the subway line, which shuttled thousands of fans to the race course.

Leading up to the race, officers were posted at stations throughout the subway, with sniffer dogs and lines of police at the station near the track. Police said 34 people were arrested and 40 more were forced from the island where the race was held.

As the tumultuous Grand Prix weekend wrapped up, Quebec Finance Minister Raymond Bachand hinted — not for the first time — that the students’ dispute would soon be settled at the ballot box.

“I think the people of Quebec want to settle this issue and they want to talk, they’re scared to talk,” said Bachand, the architect behind Quebec’s increasing reliance on the user-fee model and the author of the student tuition fees written into the 2011 budget. “But in a democracy, you have one major right you can do silently — you can vote.”