I recently became aware of an event called the Quebec Biker War, and I was really quite astonished about the level of violence described in this Wikipedia article. More that 150 people were killed and many more wounded, and so recently too with the war ending in only 2002 (and there's been nasty biker related violence since then). Maybe this is just playing into national stereotypes but I never really would have thought Canada would have such problems with gang violence.
So can I take the contents of what it says on Wikipedia, especially concerning the death toll at face value, and if so why was this gang war so particularly violent? It seems to be worse than anything the American Mafia ever got up to for example.
In order to understand why the Quebec Biker War was so deadly -- 160 people were slain by the end of it, including some innocent civilians -- you would need to understand the stakes involved.
They were high: Montreal was the entry point for many illicit drugs since the 1950s, such as heroin, cocaine, etc. with street values totalling billions of dollars. The cocaine trade accelerated in the 1970's onward under a triumvirate of some of the most powerful organized crime groups in North America: the outlaw MC's, La Cosa Nostra (mafia) and the Colombian cartels. A fourth player, the West End Gang were primarily importers of cocaine and hashish and had thrived on its influence in the Port of Montreal, with corrupt dock supervisors and workers on its payroll. Well-connected, these groups controlled the shipping of drugs from here to all points in North America.
The Rizzuto crime family dominated the drug trade in Montreal at the time and, before the 1990's, there was relative peace in the Montreal drug trade due to each group's willingness to accept their roles of specialization in the network, mutual respect of boundaries and their collective deference to the Rizzuto crime family and its considerable influence. Independent operators were free to buy and sell on the open market. But the Rizzutos had overextended their reach by the 1990s, and the peace their pragmatic methods had forged in the underworld was fraying.
This is where the bikers/outlaw motorcycle clubs come in. They were heavily involved in the distribution of illegal drugs, especially cocaine, and rivalry over dominance of the wholesale cocaine trade escalated in the 1990's. The first shot (literally) began with the fatal shooting of Pierre Daoust at his repair shop by rival club the Rock Machine on July 13, 1994. He was linked to an associate club of the Hells Angels, the Death Riders. The next day police arrested members of the rival Rock Machine club who were preparing for an attack on another Hells Angels affiliate club, the Evil Ones.
(A few months earlier, the Hells Angels had issued an ultimatum that any dealer had to buy from them exclusively, or face reprisals. MC's opposed to the Hells Angels' efforts to monopolize the drug trade had formed an entity called the Alliance to challenge them.)
Two days after the Daoust killing, high-ranking members of the Hells Angels met at a hotel in Longueuil. Police would later learn that these meetings were held to inform members that each chapter in Quebec would need to hold a vote to decide if they wanted to take part in the war. The vote was unanimous as all four Quebec chapters voted to go to war. This expanded the war beyond Montreal to the rest of the province and gave the Hells Angels more support than the Alliance.
This triggered off about a decade of tit-for-tat slayings as either side targeted rival clubs and dealers who didn't pick sides. The killing of innocent bystanders, including children, galvanized the public's outrage at the wanton violence. The weaker Alliance clubs were overmatched by 1999 and losing badly. That summer, the Rock Machine became probationary members of the Bandidos, another outlaw MC with chapters around the world. Fearing that the Bandidos intended to expand into the neighbouring province of Ontario, the Hells Angels offered a truce to the Rock Machine. It is also likely that the Rizzuto family had pressured both sides to call a truce because the war had brought too much media attention to the underworld and caused disruption to the drug trade.
The Hells Angels used the peace during the fall of 2000 to persuade several members of the probationary Bandidos to defect. Despite this, the remaining Rock Machine members joined the Bandidos in Jan. 2001, but the Bandidos had inherited a "disorganized mess", according to one ex-Bandido.
The Hells Angels were dealt a blow in March 2001 with Operation Springtime, when authorities arrested 40+ members on drug trafficking and murder conspiracy charges. This opened up a void in the drug trade in Montreal and the Bandidos swept in to take over. The police had launched a probe in 2000 into the Quebec Bandidos and in June 2002, they arrested 62 people affiliated with the club -- essentially putting their entire membership behind bars and ending the Quebec Biker War.