Special Group (Canada) (Cinco De Mayo)

The Canadian People's National Police - Quebec Division Special Group, known simply as Special Group (French: Groupe Spécial) was an extrajudicial, paramilitary secret police organization within the state police force in Quebec during Communist rule. The Special Group did not officially exist and was tasked with investigating anti-Communist and sovereigntist organizations and assassinating their leadership, leading it to be classified as a "Death Squad." As a secretive organization of an already oppressive state police, the Special Group was never recognized and many senior Ottawa officials, including Premiers Pierre Trudeau and John Turner, were never made aware of its existence. The Special Group was organized by Governor of Quebec John Paul Harney in 1973 in response to the rise of the FQ, FLQ and other anti-state groups with chapters in the province, and expanded in size and authority in 1977 following the assassination of General Secretary David Lewis by the FQ.

The Special Group was known to many civilians as the Specials, mostly in rumor. The Specials are estimated to have murdered between four and five hundred people, all of them civilians and political activists, between 1973 and 1988, when Harney was forced to step down and the existence of the Specials was revealed. Special Group officers were often Anglophone natives of Quebec, recruited outside of the traditional police structure directly by Harney and the head of the Special Group, Robert Blunt. Specials received direct funding, training and supply from the British MSI, and in many ways effectively served as the UBPR's secret police and intelligence wing in Quebec, without the direct approval and supervision of the PRC's upper leadership. The Specials were disbanded in 1989 and both Harney and Blunt were held responsible for their crimes, with Blunt being murdered in prison in 1996 after being convicted to three consecutive life sentences.