Showing posts with label bill blair. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bill blair. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
New Evidence of Police Brutality at the G20
There is a compelling video on today's Star website in which Toronto student Dorian Barton explains how attempting to take some pictures of police horses during the G20 led to the police breaking his upper arm and arresting him for obstruction. Originally investigated by the SIU and dropped due to lack of evidence, it is to be hoped that this new spotlight will encourage them to revisit the assault. As matters now stand, Barton is suing the Toronto Police Force.
Monday, July 19, 2010
More Disturbing Video of Police Violation of Charter Rights
As most people probably know, on June 26 in Toronto, the police attacked and arrested many protesters at Queen's Park, the site designated as an official G20 protest zone. Although the following video is largely unedited, watching only a few minutes of it provides ample evidence of the need for a full public inquiry, something Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty continues to insist is unnecessary. The evidence on the video represents just one more reason he has lost my vote.
Saturday, July 10, 2010
How Long Can McGuinty and Harper Ignore the People?
Given the fact that the Toronto Police Board and the Office of the Ontario Ombudsman are each going to launch probes, however narrow, into the violation of Charter Rights at the G20 Summit, the following story about an impending mass rally today at Queen's Park demanding a public inquiry into the fiasco leads one to wonder how long Messieurs McGuinty and Harper can ignore the legitimate concerns of the people. The key, it seems to me, is to keep the issue in the spotlight as long as possible.
Thousands expected at G20 public inquiry rally
Demonstration at the Ontario Legislature to protest police crackdown during the summit
Toronto — The Canadian Press Published on Saturday, Jul. 10, 2010 11:33AM EDT Last updated on Saturday, Jul. 10, 2010 11:38AM EDT
Two weeks after police cracked down on G20 demonstrations in Toronto, protesters will march again.
Thousands are expected to gather at the Ontario Legislature this afternoon to demand an independent public inquiry into security costs and police actions during the G20 summit.
Provincial New Democrat Party leader Andrea Horwath is expected to speak at the rally, which begins at 1 p.m.
Demonstrators are expected to march through the downtown core.
Almost 1,000 people were arrested during the summit weekend, after a group of vandals broke away from protesters, smashing windows and burning police cars.
Demonstrations are also expected in Halifax, Kingston and Montreal.
Thousands expected at G20 public inquiry rally
Demonstration at the Ontario Legislature to protest police crackdown during the summit
Toronto — The Canadian Press Published on Saturday, Jul. 10, 2010 11:33AM EDT Last updated on Saturday, Jul. 10, 2010 11:38AM EDT
Two weeks after police cracked down on G20 demonstrations in Toronto, protesters will march again.
Thousands are expected to gather at the Ontario Legislature this afternoon to demand an independent public inquiry into security costs and police actions during the G20 summit.
Provincial New Democrat Party leader Andrea Horwath is expected to speak at the rally, which begins at 1 p.m.
Demonstrators are expected to march through the downtown core.
Almost 1,000 people were arrested during the summit weekend, after a group of vandals broke away from protesters, smashing windows and burning police cars.
Demonstrations are also expected in Halifax, Kingston and Montreal.
Friday, July 9, 2010
Some Heartening News
The Globe and Mail reports that the Office of the Ombudsman, led by Andre Marin, is launching an investigation into the 'secret powers' granted to police for the G20 Summit. A tenacious and thorough individual, we can only hope that Marin is able to get to the bottom of the McGuinty Government's role in the entire shameful episode:
Ontario ombudsman to investigate secret G20 law
Probe to look at origin and communication of the sweeping changes to civil liberties in downtown Toronto, passed ahead of June summit
Karen Howlett
Toronto — Globe and Mail Update Published on Friday, Jul. 09, 2010 10:45AM EDT Last updated on Friday, Jul. 09, 2010 11:39AM EDT
Ombudsman André Marin announced on Friday that his office is launching an investigation into sweeping new powers for police secretly approved by the McGuinty government.
The controversial rules allowed police to question and potentially arrest anyone near the security zone for the G20 summit in Toronto who refused to produce identification or be searched.
Mr. Marin said his office will probe the origin and subsequent communication of the sweeping changes to civil liberties in downtown Toronto, passed by the province prior to the June 26-27 G20 summit.
His office has received 22 complaints relating to the G20, including several alleging that a lack of transparency and public communication about the regulation led to an atmosphere of secrecy and confusion and contributed to violations of civil liberties.
“The complaints we’ve received so far raise serious concerns about this regulation and the way it was communicated, and I think there is a very strong public interest in finding out exactly what happened and how that affected the rest of the events of the G20 weekend,” Mr. Marin said in a news release.
In his first comments to the media this week about the regulation, Premier Dalton McGuinty acknowledged that his government could have done a better job to clear up confusion surrounding it.
His government has come under criticism from civil liberties experts and opposition members for failing to tell people that their rights had changed.
New Democratic Party justice critic has said: “This law was not only passed in secret, it was kept secret.”
The law was approved June 2 through an order-in-council, with no debate in the legislature. The regulatory amendment was quietly posted June 16 on the government's e-laws website. It came to light only after a York University student was held for five hours on June 25 for refusing to show identification near the security fence.
Mr. Marin said his office expects to complete its investigation within 90 days.
He is inviting anyone who has a complaint or relevant information to call 1-800-263-1830 during business hours or complete an online complaint form at www.ombudsman.on.ca .
Ontario ombudsman to investigate secret G20 law
Probe to look at origin and communication of the sweeping changes to civil liberties in downtown Toronto, passed ahead of June summit
Karen Howlett
Toronto — Globe and Mail Update Published on Friday, Jul. 09, 2010 10:45AM EDT Last updated on Friday, Jul. 09, 2010 11:39AM EDT
Ombudsman André Marin announced on Friday that his office is launching an investigation into sweeping new powers for police secretly approved by the McGuinty government.
The controversial rules allowed police to question and potentially arrest anyone near the security zone for the G20 summit in Toronto who refused to produce identification or be searched.
Mr. Marin said his office will probe the origin and subsequent communication of the sweeping changes to civil liberties in downtown Toronto, passed by the province prior to the June 26-27 G20 summit.
His office has received 22 complaints relating to the G20, including several alleging that a lack of transparency and public communication about the regulation led to an atmosphere of secrecy and confusion and contributed to violations of civil liberties.
“The complaints we’ve received so far raise serious concerns about this regulation and the way it was communicated, and I think there is a very strong public interest in finding out exactly what happened and how that affected the rest of the events of the G20 weekend,” Mr. Marin said in a news release.
In his first comments to the media this week about the regulation, Premier Dalton McGuinty acknowledged that his government could have done a better job to clear up confusion surrounding it.
His government has come under criticism from civil liberties experts and opposition members for failing to tell people that their rights had changed.
New Democratic Party justice critic has said: “This law was not only passed in secret, it was kept secret.”
The law was approved June 2 through an order-in-council, with no debate in the legislature. The regulatory amendment was quietly posted June 16 on the government's e-laws website. It came to light only after a York University student was held for five hours on June 25 for refusing to show identification near the security fence.
Mr. Marin said his office expects to complete its investigation within 90 days.
He is inviting anyone who has a complaint or relevant information to call 1-800-263-1830 during business hours or complete an online complaint form at www.ombudsman.on.ca .
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Adam Radwanski is Still Working the G20 Charter Rights' Violation File
It is reassuring to know that The Globe and Mail's Adam Radwanski is continuing to pursue the very troubling questions that remain regarding the violation of Charter Rights during the G20 Summit in Toronto. Below I am reproducing one of his online columns that demonstrate his ongoing concern about these issues and why they matter. I have put in bold a few of his more salient points:
Why the 'five metres' mattered
Although it got a more positive response than I'd expected, a few people have asked me why I spent so much time last week covering the "five-metre" law that didn't really exist. After all, it wasn't what was used in most of the dubious arrests during the G20, which happened much further away from the security perimeter.
In her Saturday column, Christie Blatchford more or less summed up that line of thinking (though I have no idea if it was even remotely directed at me):
...in Toronto Star lingo, since “the sweeping powers” granted the police via the “secret” law saw them, according to Toronto Chief Bill Blair, arrest exactly one (1) person under the temporary regulation to the Public Works Protection Act, isn’t the angst-ridden, hyperbolic debate rendered, as someone brighter than me remarked recently, nothing but an intellectual exercise?
It would quite one thing if the 1,000 folks who were detained on G20 weekend were detained under the temporary regulation. The discussion would be meaningful.
But when it’s all said and done, it will turn out that most of those detained were arrested for breach of the peace or to prevent a breach of the peace, which is an arrest authority, not a criminal charge.
In my view, it’s a vile authority too, generally speaking easily misused by police, and it may have been misused here as well.
But the point is, it wasn’t under the new secret sweeping power, which was only partly secret and not very sweeping. It was under long-established common-law police authorities, such as arresting people for breach of the peace or to prevent a breach of the peace that has yet to take place, that most people were picked up.
You want to be angry about something, be angry about that.
Minor quibbles aside (it seems likely to me that at least two people were arrested under the new law), this seems as good an opportunity as any to explain why holding the province to account over the Public Works Protection Act is more than just an "intellectual exercise."
Admittedly, it happens to be the post-G20 angle I'm best-positioned to cover. Provincial politics is my beat, and this - unlike most of the other things that happened both inside and outside the perimeter - is where Dalton McGuinty's government played a role, and deserves to be held to account. That's especially important because, as I explained toward the end of one of my columns last week, the Liberals' lax handling of the police file has not been restricted to the G20.
But beyond that, it seems to me that the abdication of provincial responsibility in announcing and interpreting the temporary law speaks to a broader phenomenon: the choice of governments, through both their actions and inactions, to give police gratuitous leeway in securing these kinds of international summits.
I wrote about this in the week leading up to the summit, and my former colleagues on the editorial board followed up on it last week. I'll spare you a full rehash of those arguments, and leave it at this: When given a chance early last decade to set out parameters for what police can and can't do to ensure the security of events like the G20, the federal government instead wrote legislation that basically told the police to do whatever they want.
So the message from governments to police, even before the saga over the provincial regulation, was that politicians preferred a no-questions-asked approach to security. Then McGuinty's Liberals took it to new extremes - leaving it to the police to announce a temporary law that could lead to arrests, then failing to publicly correct them when they misinterpreted and misrepresented that law.
As it happened, the province got lucky. If more of the action had been closer to the perimeter, the consequences would have been much greater.
But to some degree, the Liberals' blind faith in the police - including the Premier's unqualified support for Chief Bill Blair in the middle of the controversy - had to reinforce the sense that they had free rein to do as they saw fit, whatever part of downtown Toronto they happened to be in.
Was it the most important story out of the G20? Almost certainly not. But these things didn't all happen in isolation. And if there's any hope that our governments will take more responsibility for the liberties/security balance before the next big international event rolls around, it's necessary to underscore how little responsibility they took this time.
Why the 'five metres' mattered
Although it got a more positive response than I'd expected, a few people have asked me why I spent so much time last week covering the "five-metre" law that didn't really exist. After all, it wasn't what was used in most of the dubious arrests during the G20, which happened much further away from the security perimeter.
In her Saturday column, Christie Blatchford more or less summed up that line of thinking (though I have no idea if it was even remotely directed at me):
...in Toronto Star lingo, since “the sweeping powers” granted the police via the “secret” law saw them, according to Toronto Chief Bill Blair, arrest exactly one (1) person under the temporary regulation to the Public Works Protection Act, isn’t the angst-ridden, hyperbolic debate rendered, as someone brighter than me remarked recently, nothing but an intellectual exercise?
It would quite one thing if the 1,000 folks who were detained on G20 weekend were detained under the temporary regulation. The discussion would be meaningful.
But when it’s all said and done, it will turn out that most of those detained were arrested for breach of the peace or to prevent a breach of the peace, which is an arrest authority, not a criminal charge.
In my view, it’s a vile authority too, generally speaking easily misused by police, and it may have been misused here as well.
But the point is, it wasn’t under the new secret sweeping power, which was only partly secret and not very sweeping. It was under long-established common-law police authorities, such as arresting people for breach of the peace or to prevent a breach of the peace that has yet to take place, that most people were picked up.
You want to be angry about something, be angry about that.
Minor quibbles aside (it seems likely to me that at least two people were arrested under the new law), this seems as good an opportunity as any to explain why holding the province to account over the Public Works Protection Act is more than just an "intellectual exercise."
Admittedly, it happens to be the post-G20 angle I'm best-positioned to cover. Provincial politics is my beat, and this - unlike most of the other things that happened both inside and outside the perimeter - is where Dalton McGuinty's government played a role, and deserves to be held to account. That's especially important because, as I explained toward the end of one of my columns last week, the Liberals' lax handling of the police file has not been restricted to the G20.
But beyond that, it seems to me that the abdication of provincial responsibility in announcing and interpreting the temporary law speaks to a broader phenomenon: the choice of governments, through both their actions and inactions, to give police gratuitous leeway in securing these kinds of international summits.
I wrote about this in the week leading up to the summit, and my former colleagues on the editorial board followed up on it last week. I'll spare you a full rehash of those arguments, and leave it at this: When given a chance early last decade to set out parameters for what police can and can't do to ensure the security of events like the G20, the federal government instead wrote legislation that basically told the police to do whatever they want.
So the message from governments to police, even before the saga over the provincial regulation, was that politicians preferred a no-questions-asked approach to security. Then McGuinty's Liberals took it to new extremes - leaving it to the police to announce a temporary law that could lead to arrests, then failing to publicly correct them when they misinterpreted and misrepresented that law.
As it happened, the province got lucky. If more of the action had been closer to the perimeter, the consequences would have been much greater.
But to some degree, the Liberals' blind faith in the police - including the Premier's unqualified support for Chief Bill Blair in the middle of the controversy - had to reinforce the sense that they had free rein to do as they saw fit, whatever part of downtown Toronto they happened to be in.
Was it the most important story out of the G20? Almost certainly not. But these things didn't all happen in isolation. And if there's any hope that our governments will take more responsibility for the liberties/security balance before the next big international event rolls around, it's necessary to underscore how little responsibility they took this time.
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
A Brief Explanation
Although anyone who happens to read my blog on a regular basis might be wondering if I have somehow lost my balance in that all recent posts have revolved around either news stories, my own commentary or that of others regarding the violation of Charter Rights during the G20, I feel the need to offer a small explanation and justification.
First, I have an almost lifelong interest in politics, especially local, provincial, and national. The entire G20 Summit, whether we are talking about the gathering of heads of state or the actions on the street, were political in nature, in that they affect us on both a micro and macro level.
Secondly, the abuse of authority is something that has preoccupied me since my days as both an elementary and secondary student within the Catholic school system, years during which I and many others were both psychologically and physically abused by nuns, priests, and lay teachers. But that topic deserves its own series of posts, which I may get to one of these days.
The third reason for my seeming obsession with the G20 fiasco is that how we define ourselves as Canadians is in no small part contingent upon the freedoms that we enjoy and far too often take for granted. While all of them are essential rights of citizenship, several of them were curtailed and, I would submit, unconstitutionally violated during the G20 in Toronto: freedom of expression, freedom of peaceful assembly, freedom of association, and freedom of the press.
One of the things I find especially troubling is the fact that many people, while enjoying their freedom of expression, have weighed in on these violations as if their inappropriateness is dependent upon whether or not we agree with the protesters. Several have said that peaceful protesters should have stayed away, that law-abiding citizens move when a police officer tell them to move, etc. Such comments seem to indicate a fundamental lack of understanding of the concept of civil rights. Whether or not we agree with a cause has nothing to do with permitting the expression of that cause, as long as it is done within the boundaries of the law.
And that to me is the crux of the matter: there is ample evidence emerging that countless people committing no crimes were swept up in often violent mass arrests. This fact is not something to be facilely dismissed by anyone, whether you are a Premier, a police chief, a journalist or a private citizen, no matter where you stand on the political spectrum. To do so is to further diminish those rights, leaving them open to the possibility of even worse abuse in the future.
So as long as questions remain and answers are withheld, I will be writing about this topic frequently. As well, I shall continue to reproduce stories from newspapers that I think are relevant, largely because most of those stories tend to be archived after seven days and thus no longer readily available.
Enough said for now.
First, I have an almost lifelong interest in politics, especially local, provincial, and national. The entire G20 Summit, whether we are talking about the gathering of heads of state or the actions on the street, were political in nature, in that they affect us on both a micro and macro level.
Secondly, the abuse of authority is something that has preoccupied me since my days as both an elementary and secondary student within the Catholic school system, years during which I and many others were both psychologically and physically abused by nuns, priests, and lay teachers. But that topic deserves its own series of posts, which I may get to one of these days.
The third reason for my seeming obsession with the G20 fiasco is that how we define ourselves as Canadians is in no small part contingent upon the freedoms that we enjoy and far too often take for granted. While all of them are essential rights of citizenship, several of them were curtailed and, I would submit, unconstitutionally violated during the G20 in Toronto: freedom of expression, freedom of peaceful assembly, freedom of association, and freedom of the press.
One of the things I find especially troubling is the fact that many people, while enjoying their freedom of expression, have weighed in on these violations as if their inappropriateness is dependent upon whether or not we agree with the protesters. Several have said that peaceful protesters should have stayed away, that law-abiding citizens move when a police officer tell them to move, etc. Such comments seem to indicate a fundamental lack of understanding of the concept of civil rights. Whether or not we agree with a cause has nothing to do with permitting the expression of that cause, as long as it is done within the boundaries of the law.
And that to me is the crux of the matter: there is ample evidence emerging that countless people committing no crimes were swept up in often violent mass arrests. This fact is not something to be facilely dismissed by anyone, whether you are a Premier, a police chief, a journalist or a private citizen, no matter where you stand on the political spectrum. To do so is to further diminish those rights, leaving them open to the possibility of even worse abuse in the future.
So as long as questions remain and answers are withheld, I will be writing about this topic frequently. As well, I shall continue to reproduce stories from newspapers that I think are relevant, largely because most of those stories tend to be archived after seven days and thus no longer readily available.
Enough said for now.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
A Shocking Story From the G20
I just found a shocking story of a 57-year-old Thorold amputee who suffered incredible abuse at the hands of police while sitting at Queens Park on June 26th with his daughter and two other young people.
Click here to read about it.
Click here to read about it.
Public Pressure is Paying Off
Public pressure seems to be getting some results, judging by the decision of the Toronto Police Services Board to call for an independent inquiry into police abuse of authority during the G20 Summit in Toronto. This marks a reversal from last week, when the head of the board said no inquiry was needed, echoing the sentiments of both Police Chief Bill Blair and Premier Dalton McGuinty.
Here is the story from today's Globe and Mail:
Independent review of Toronto Police G20 conduct moves ahead
Turnabout comes just days after chair denied the need for civilian probe; Will look at ‘oversight, governance and policy’ on summit security
Anna Mehler Paperny
Globe and Mail Update Published on Tuesday, Jul. 06, 2010 9:58AM EDT Last updated on Tuesday, Jul. 06, 2010 10:03AM EDT
In an about-face, Toronto police are moving to establish an independent civilian review of police conduct during the G20.
Alok Mukherjee, chair of the civilian body that oversees the police, put the motion forward just days after he said he sees no need for an external review despite strident calls to the contrary.
The review, which would scrutinize issues related to police “oversight, governance and policy” during and leading up to the summit weekend, when police arrested more than 1,000 people – only 263 of whom were charged with anything other than breach of peace.
Both police chief Bill Blair and Toronto Mayor David Miller defended police actions last week; in an interview with The Globe, Mr. Mukherjee said last week there was no need for an independent review after the force announced it was conducting its own inspection.
But he added that police may have made a mistake by failing to tell the public they'd misinterpreted added powers given police by the province.
Tuesday's move is a “prompt response” to reactions to G20 policing, Mr. Mukherjee told the police services board.
“This is a fairly complex issue we're trying to deal with,” he said. “It was a federal event and it presents some interesting issues of oversight and governance. This is just the first step in that process.”
Here is the story from today's Globe and Mail:
Independent review of Toronto Police G20 conduct moves ahead
Turnabout comes just days after chair denied the need for civilian probe; Will look at ‘oversight, governance and policy’ on summit security
Anna Mehler Paperny
Globe and Mail Update Published on Tuesday, Jul. 06, 2010 9:58AM EDT Last updated on Tuesday, Jul. 06, 2010 10:03AM EDT
In an about-face, Toronto police are moving to establish an independent civilian review of police conduct during the G20.
Alok Mukherjee, chair of the civilian body that oversees the police, put the motion forward just days after he said he sees no need for an external review despite strident calls to the contrary.
The review, which would scrutinize issues related to police “oversight, governance and policy” during and leading up to the summit weekend, when police arrested more than 1,000 people – only 263 of whom were charged with anything other than breach of peace.
Both police chief Bill Blair and Toronto Mayor David Miller defended police actions last week; in an interview with The Globe, Mr. Mukherjee said last week there was no need for an independent review after the force announced it was conducting its own inspection.
But he added that police may have made a mistake by failing to tell the public they'd misinterpreted added powers given police by the province.
Tuesday's move is a “prompt response” to reactions to G20 policing, Mr. Mukherjee told the police services board.
“This is a fairly complex issue we're trying to deal with,” he said. “It was a federal event and it presents some interesting issues of oversight and governance. This is just the first step in that process.”
Thursday, July 1, 2010
Canada Day 2010
I would like to wish my fellow Canadians a Happy Canada Day, but unfortunately I am not in a celebratory mood, the events of last weekend in Toronto still weighing very heavily on my mind. I was listening to some of the spin being offered by Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair yesterday on CFRB as he was being interviewed by the host, failed politician John Tory. Mr. Tory presented him with questions that, on one level seemed reasonable enough, but upon hearing Bill Blair's responses, I realized were only props to offer the Chief a platform from which he uttered his too pat explanations for the actions of his police as well as his failure to inform the public of the 'fact' that the sweeping powers he allegedly requested months earlier from the MCGuinty Government did not exist. (The latter was explained by telling the audience that he was too busy with protesters to set the record straight.)
As well, interestingly enough, at least in the 45 minutes of the show I heard, no mention was made of the failure of the McGuinty Government to inform the public of the 'truth' about the 5 metre rule.
Incidently, it is now Day 6 since Premiere McGuinty has been heard from, apparently in too many meetings to be able to spend a moment to address some very troubling questions. Or is he hoping that the public has an extraordinarily short attention span and that all will be forgotten by next week?
This morning I read the Globe and Mail's Facts and Arguments page, which offers an eyewitness account of the police storming the peaceful assembly of citizens outside of the detention centre where so many protesters, none of whom were Black Bloc anarchists as far as I know, were being held after having had their Charter Rights violated.
Here is the the essay:
Swept from a peaceful protest
It was like a Sunday school picnic outside the G20 detention centre. Then police officers stormed the crowd of protesters. There was smoke and sounds of shooting
Cinders McLeod
From Thursday's Globe and Mail Published on Wednesday, Jun. 30, 2010 6:05PM EDT Last updated on Wednesday, Jun. 30, 2010 6:27PM EDT
It was a slow start to the day. My teenaged son and daughter turned on the television to find that the number of G20 protest-related arrests had risen to 400 from 70 since the Saturday night before.
Craig Kielburger of Me to We and Free the Children fame was interviewing a young woman who was joining a march to the temporary detention centre in Toronto’s east end because her friend had been arrested the night before. My son Diarmid had wanted me to walk with him on Saturday, but it had been some time since I had marched.
I had gone on quite a few during the years I lived in London and Glasgow – including the infamous poll tax march of 1990. I still had my yellow “The Enemy Within” button from the Thatcher days. (My community took ironic possession of her insult). So I knew the spirit wasn’t completely lost. We had spent most of Saturday in front of the TV. Now Diarmid and Anya were asking me if we could join the group at the detention centre.
I had watched that centre grow over the past few months – watched them bring in the concrete ramparts and fencing and witnessed the growing police presence. It was a menacing landmark in my Toronto neighbourhood, and I didn’t feel good about it from the start. I didn’t feel good about the swell of arrests overnight. And I didn’t feel good about teaching my children that we should just sit and let the world be interpreted to us by TV. Did good citizens stay home and mimic the broadcasters or endeavour to find the truth out for themselves?
I thought since the detention centre was local and far away from the G20 security zone, it would be a gentle introduction into the peaceful art of protest. I cared for the community, I cared for the people who were unjustly detained and I cared that my children cared too.
So we got together a knapsack with water and cameras and walked the 15 minutes to the detention centre. My partner David was going to walk our puppy first, then join us.
It was warm and we were chatty as we walked to be part of something. When we arrived, we stood back from the small crowd. Some were sitting, some standing, all facing the police lined up in front of the detention centre. Some were singing, some chanting, some drawing birds in chalk on the pavement. There were young folk, folk my age, folk with dogs, folk with children on their shoulders, older folk and media.
I think there were three releases from the prison in the hour we were there. Every time someone was released, the crowd cheered and the media swarmed. It reminded me of the Sunday school picnic feeling that existed in Trafalgar Square before the horses stormed 20 years ago.
I should have listened to my parallel thinking, for with no warning, there was a sudden penetration and retreat in the crowd. The police had moved in for a couple of arrests.
I called Diarmid and Anya in closer. David was there now. He was our anchor as we moved in and out to take pictures. Tensions eased a little.
Then, without warning, police officers stormed the peaceful crowd, swinging their sticks and throwing people to the ground.
I saw Anya being pushed by one of the group of police. I screamed out her name. They threw the young man next to her to the ground. Diarmid ran toward the skirmish just as a kind boy pulled Anya out of the policemen’s path. She looked so thin and vulnerable and 14 in her short shorts beside the black, violent swarm.
The front line of protesters sat down again, hands held in the air in peace signs, chanting, “We are peaceful, how ’bout you.”
Someone called out to take care because a line of police officers was approaching from the other end of the street. I had just enough time to take in the notion that we were surrounded when a line of riot police moved in on the crowd. There was smoke and sounds of shooting. Diarmid and Anya ran to us and we all turned to run down a side alley. I felt a punch on my back and calmly thought, “Oh, that’s what a rubber bullet feels like.”
We found our way to the nearest street and headed for home. Diarmid and Anya walked side by side, all sibling rivalry forgotten. They now had a common enemy: injustice. They knew the police had a job to do, but what they had witnessed wasn’t it.
There were three haunting moments for me. One was seeing a young girl being slung to the ground and then forced, skinny limbs everywhere, into an unmarked police van. Another was seeing my daughter stand beside danger. That moment will never leave me. And the last was seeing people walking up the street, hands above their heads in surrender as if they had committed some terrible crime. Walking? Talking? Caring? We didn’t commit the criminal act, unless the laws have secretly changed overnight and the powers that be have neglected to inform us of those changes too.
Once home, we downloaded our photos, posted them online and listened to the news tell us what we knew not to be true (that there were no rubber bullets fired). Anya was on the phone to a local news station wanting to tell her story, but she never got through. I understand why it was so important to her, for the same reason I wrote this.
We tell our stories to regain our sense of self and our sense of our rights after they have been so brutally, and without warning, taken away from us. We tell them to protect the values we feel are Canadian. To serve and protect. Whom? What? O Canada, we stand on guard for thee. Tell me: Who are the guards of Canada?
Cinders McLeod is a design editor at The Globe and Mail and lives in Toronto.
As well, interestingly enough, at least in the 45 minutes of the show I heard, no mention was made of the failure of the McGuinty Government to inform the public of the 'truth' about the 5 metre rule.
Incidently, it is now Day 6 since Premiere McGuinty has been heard from, apparently in too many meetings to be able to spend a moment to address some very troubling questions. Or is he hoping that the public has an extraordinarily short attention span and that all will be forgotten by next week?
This morning I read the Globe and Mail's Facts and Arguments page, which offers an eyewitness account of the police storming the peaceful assembly of citizens outside of the detention centre where so many protesters, none of whom were Black Bloc anarchists as far as I know, were being held after having had their Charter Rights violated.
Here is the the essay:
Swept from a peaceful protest
It was like a Sunday school picnic outside the G20 detention centre. Then police officers stormed the crowd of protesters. There was smoke and sounds of shooting
Cinders McLeod
From Thursday's Globe and Mail Published on Wednesday, Jun. 30, 2010 6:05PM EDT Last updated on Wednesday, Jun. 30, 2010 6:27PM EDT
It was a slow start to the day. My teenaged son and daughter turned on the television to find that the number of G20 protest-related arrests had risen to 400 from 70 since the Saturday night before.
Craig Kielburger of Me to We and Free the Children fame was interviewing a young woman who was joining a march to the temporary detention centre in Toronto’s east end because her friend had been arrested the night before. My son Diarmid had wanted me to walk with him on Saturday, but it had been some time since I had marched.
I had gone on quite a few during the years I lived in London and Glasgow – including the infamous poll tax march of 1990. I still had my yellow “The Enemy Within” button from the Thatcher days. (My community took ironic possession of her insult). So I knew the spirit wasn’t completely lost. We had spent most of Saturday in front of the TV. Now Diarmid and Anya were asking me if we could join the group at the detention centre.
I had watched that centre grow over the past few months – watched them bring in the concrete ramparts and fencing and witnessed the growing police presence. It was a menacing landmark in my Toronto neighbourhood, and I didn’t feel good about it from the start. I didn’t feel good about the swell of arrests overnight. And I didn’t feel good about teaching my children that we should just sit and let the world be interpreted to us by TV. Did good citizens stay home and mimic the broadcasters or endeavour to find the truth out for themselves?
I thought since the detention centre was local and far away from the G20 security zone, it would be a gentle introduction into the peaceful art of protest. I cared for the community, I cared for the people who were unjustly detained and I cared that my children cared too.
So we got together a knapsack with water and cameras and walked the 15 minutes to the detention centre. My partner David was going to walk our puppy first, then join us.
It was warm and we were chatty as we walked to be part of something. When we arrived, we stood back from the small crowd. Some were sitting, some standing, all facing the police lined up in front of the detention centre. Some were singing, some chanting, some drawing birds in chalk on the pavement. There were young folk, folk my age, folk with dogs, folk with children on their shoulders, older folk and media.
I think there were three releases from the prison in the hour we were there. Every time someone was released, the crowd cheered and the media swarmed. It reminded me of the Sunday school picnic feeling that existed in Trafalgar Square before the horses stormed 20 years ago.
I should have listened to my parallel thinking, for with no warning, there was a sudden penetration and retreat in the crowd. The police had moved in for a couple of arrests.
I called Diarmid and Anya in closer. David was there now. He was our anchor as we moved in and out to take pictures. Tensions eased a little.
Then, without warning, police officers stormed the peaceful crowd, swinging their sticks and throwing people to the ground.
I saw Anya being pushed by one of the group of police. I screamed out her name. They threw the young man next to her to the ground. Diarmid ran toward the skirmish just as a kind boy pulled Anya out of the policemen’s path. She looked so thin and vulnerable and 14 in her short shorts beside the black, violent swarm.
The front line of protesters sat down again, hands held in the air in peace signs, chanting, “We are peaceful, how ’bout you.”
Someone called out to take care because a line of police officers was approaching from the other end of the street. I had just enough time to take in the notion that we were surrounded when a line of riot police moved in on the crowd. There was smoke and sounds of shooting. Diarmid and Anya ran to us and we all turned to run down a side alley. I felt a punch on my back and calmly thought, “Oh, that’s what a rubber bullet feels like.”
We found our way to the nearest street and headed for home. Diarmid and Anya walked side by side, all sibling rivalry forgotten. They now had a common enemy: injustice. They knew the police had a job to do, but what they had witnessed wasn’t it.
There were three haunting moments for me. One was seeing a young girl being slung to the ground and then forced, skinny limbs everywhere, into an unmarked police van. Another was seeing my daughter stand beside danger. That moment will never leave me. And the last was seeing people walking up the street, hands above their heads in surrender as if they had committed some terrible crime. Walking? Talking? Caring? We didn’t commit the criminal act, unless the laws have secretly changed overnight and the powers that be have neglected to inform us of those changes too.
Once home, we downloaded our photos, posted them online and listened to the news tell us what we knew not to be true (that there were no rubber bullets fired). Anya was on the phone to a local news station wanting to tell her story, but she never got through. I understand why it was so important to her, for the same reason I wrote this.
We tell our stories to regain our sense of self and our sense of our rights after they have been so brutally, and without warning, taken away from us. We tell them to protect the values we feel are Canadian. To serve and protect. Whom? What? O Canada, we stand on guard for thee. Tell me: Who are the guards of Canada?
Cinders McLeod is a design editor at The Globe and Mail and lives in Toronto.
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Thank God for People Like Adam Radwanski
Even though the front page of today's Globe has been taken over by other news, within its pages is an incisive article by Adam Radwanski that is highly critical of both the McGuinty Government and Police Chief Bill Blair. The article follows:
McGuinty washes his hands of police mistreatment allegations
Ontario Liberals prepared to give police carte blanche
From Wednesday's Globe and Mail Published on Tuesday, Jun. 29, 2010 10:29PM EDT Last updated on Wednesday, Jun. 30, 2010 10:03AM EDT
It’s even worse than it originally appeared.
Not only did Dalton McGuinty’s Liberals place limits on civil liberties without telling anyone – but they also then washed their hands as police misrepresented and misused their new powers.
It’s a glaring abdication of responsibility, reflective of a government overly content to give police carte blanche even in the most volatile situations.
In this instance that free rein seems to have been abused, not least by Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair.
For several days, most everyone was under the impression that the province – through a temporary regulation affecting the Public Works Protection Act – had very quietly given police the power to conduct searches and demand identification up to five metres outside the security fence erected for last weekend’s G20 summit. They were under that impression because police acted as though it was the case.
The legislation was cited in last Thursday’s arrests of at least two activists, neither of whom seems to have tried to enter the zone. There is video evidence of officers citing the five-metre rule as they demanded that one of those activists, a rather harmless-looking, megaphone-wielding member of a group calling itself “the Love Police,” stop filming video well outside the fence.
Chief Blair, who requested the regulation in the first place, now claims that he only realized last Friday that the “five metres” refers to an area inside the fence, at which point he told his officers to stop invoking it. But he seemingly implied to a reporter Tuesday that he was willing to allow the public to continue to think through the weekend that police powers existed where they really didn’t, because he was “trying to keep the criminals out.”
Clearly, Chief Blair has a lot to answer for. But it was the Liberals who set this mess in motion, and declined to put an end to it when they had ample chance.
First, the government failed to announce its new law. A simple press release could have explained what the regulation, which is worded in such a way that even police claim to have been confused by it, did and didn’t cover. Instead, the province buried it on a government website, such that nobody heard about it until an arrest was made.
Worse, the Liberals made no effort over the weekend to set the record straight, even though virtually every media outlet was reporting that people merely passing by the fence could find themselves in deep trouble. Mr. McGuinty could have stepped forward and reassured the public that the liberties of anyone not trying to enter the security zone were intact. Instead, he offered only “a lot of confidence in Chief Blair” and “very strong support of this time-limited extraordinary measure,” which reinforced the impression that the latter included the zone’s surrounding area.
Now, the Liberals are ducking any responsibility for the fact that they effectively (if inadvertently) gave police powers they were never intended to have. “The language of the regulation is very clear,” a spokesperson said, even as other senior Liberals acknowledged that they themselves were confused by it. Meanwhile, the Premier is nowhere to be seen, having not talked to reporters yet this week.
Behind the Liberals’ nonchalance about the whole affair lies what seems to be a wild overreaction to behaviour of the previous government.
Mike Harris’s Conservatives were accused of helping to overheat the standoff with aboriginals in Ipperwash Provincial Park, at which unarmed protester Dudley George was killed by the Ontario Provincial Police. So the Liberals came to office vowing never to interfere with police tactics – a policy they’ve maintained with religious conviction ever since.
It’s raised eyebrows before, particularly when the government seemed indifferent to the controversial way the OPP handled another standoff with natives in Caledonia.
But it’s now been taken to new and absurd extremes.
Nobody else will be arrested under this month’s botched regulation. But the message to police is clear: The current government couldn't care less how they do their jobs, even when they’re doing them wrong - and wrongly applying that government's decisions in the process.
McGuinty washes his hands of police mistreatment allegations
Ontario Liberals prepared to give police carte blanche
From Wednesday's Globe and Mail Published on Tuesday, Jun. 29, 2010 10:29PM EDT Last updated on Wednesday, Jun. 30, 2010 10:03AM EDT
It’s even worse than it originally appeared.
Not only did Dalton McGuinty’s Liberals place limits on civil liberties without telling anyone – but they also then washed their hands as police misrepresented and misused their new powers.
It’s a glaring abdication of responsibility, reflective of a government overly content to give police carte blanche even in the most volatile situations.
In this instance that free rein seems to have been abused, not least by Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair.
For several days, most everyone was under the impression that the province – through a temporary regulation affecting the Public Works Protection Act – had very quietly given police the power to conduct searches and demand identification up to five metres outside the security fence erected for last weekend’s G20 summit. They were under that impression because police acted as though it was the case.
The legislation was cited in last Thursday’s arrests of at least two activists, neither of whom seems to have tried to enter the zone. There is video evidence of officers citing the five-metre rule as they demanded that one of those activists, a rather harmless-looking, megaphone-wielding member of a group calling itself “the Love Police,” stop filming video well outside the fence.
Chief Blair, who requested the regulation in the first place, now claims that he only realized last Friday that the “five metres” refers to an area inside the fence, at which point he told his officers to stop invoking it. But he seemingly implied to a reporter Tuesday that he was willing to allow the public to continue to think through the weekend that police powers existed where they really didn’t, because he was “trying to keep the criminals out.”
Clearly, Chief Blair has a lot to answer for. But it was the Liberals who set this mess in motion, and declined to put an end to it when they had ample chance.
First, the government failed to announce its new law. A simple press release could have explained what the regulation, which is worded in such a way that even police claim to have been confused by it, did and didn’t cover. Instead, the province buried it on a government website, such that nobody heard about it until an arrest was made.
Worse, the Liberals made no effort over the weekend to set the record straight, even though virtually every media outlet was reporting that people merely passing by the fence could find themselves in deep trouble. Mr. McGuinty could have stepped forward and reassured the public that the liberties of anyone not trying to enter the security zone were intact. Instead, he offered only “a lot of confidence in Chief Blair” and “very strong support of this time-limited extraordinary measure,” which reinforced the impression that the latter included the zone’s surrounding area.
Now, the Liberals are ducking any responsibility for the fact that they effectively (if inadvertently) gave police powers they were never intended to have. “The language of the regulation is very clear,” a spokesperson said, even as other senior Liberals acknowledged that they themselves were confused by it. Meanwhile, the Premier is nowhere to be seen, having not talked to reporters yet this week.
Behind the Liberals’ nonchalance about the whole affair lies what seems to be a wild overreaction to behaviour of the previous government.
Mike Harris’s Conservatives were accused of helping to overheat the standoff with aboriginals in Ipperwash Provincial Park, at which unarmed protester Dudley George was killed by the Ontario Provincial Police. So the Liberals came to office vowing never to interfere with police tactics – a policy they’ve maintained with religious conviction ever since.
It’s raised eyebrows before, particularly when the government seemed indifferent to the controversial way the OPP handled another standoff with natives in Caledonia.
But it’s now been taken to new and absurd extremes.
Nobody else will be arrested under this month’s botched regulation. But the message to police is clear: The current government couldn't care less how they do their jobs, even when they’re doing them wrong - and wrongly applying that government's decisions in the process.
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