It took two and a half years, but someone is finally ordering Montreal police officers to take those union stickers off their cars.
An arbitration tribunal has ordered the police union to stop pasting their cars with protest stickers, and to have the ones that are already on removed at the union's expense.
The stickers began appearing on police cars, bulletproof vests, and on the windows of police stations, in the summer of 2014, as police officers began protesting upcoming changes to their pensions.
The arbitrator, Nathalie Faucher, issued her ruling late last month. She rejected the union's freedom of expression defence, claiming the stickers constituted vandalism of public property.
The tribunal did not address the issue of another long-standing protest tactic — police wearing camouflage pants instead of their regular uniforms.
A spokesperson for the union tells CJAD 800 News they're currently studying the decision, and won't comment at this stage.