As I was reading the hundreds of incidents reports that Canadian Civil Liberties Association has received, I was struck by the common themes: astonishment and fear. People could not believe that such conduct could occur in Canada and they now fear the police.
“The people were sitting down, singing and chanting “peaceful protest”. The police surrounded them, there was nowhere to go, people wanted to leave, but the police surrounded them, moved closer and then proceeded to arrest everyone – why?” Because no charges were laid for most people, the legality of the police action will remain a mystery to them unless there is a public inquiry or other mechanism to bring some accountability to these actions. People are entitled to know why the police arrested so many peaceful demonstrators, passer-bys, journalists and human rights monitors because it seems that none of the traditional powers of the police can justify what happen at the G20.
Many people were arrested under the Criminal Code power to arrest for breach of the peace that arises from the famous “common law powers” of the police to prevent crime. However, courts require that there be a “breach of the peace” for the police to arrest, that is, an imminent threat of harm to people or property, not one that occurred five hours before, let alone the day before. Otherwise, there must be a factual basis to assess whether a specific individual is about to engage in a breach of peace, not generalized belief that all people in the city of Toronto who disapprove of the G20 ought to stay indoors.
In addition, the “riot” provisions of the Criminal Code cannot apply when there is no “riot”, that is, when there is no tumultuous, potentially dangerously and out of control crowd, and only a peacefully sitting. Furthermore, the purpose of “Reading the riot act”, is to dismiss the assembly, not to corner all participants and arrest them all.
The illegality of mass arrests must be acknowledged and corrected. Congratulating the police without knowledge will not serve the purpose of ensuring democratic policing. It may indeed undermine the efforts to support the rule of law within policing organizations. This is not the appropriate message to send.
The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees to everyone in Canada the right to freedom of expression and the right to peaceful assembly. It also guarantees the right of all persons to be free from arbitrary detention and unreasonable searches. These constitutional liberties – and the limits they place on government and police – are the foundations of our free and democratic society. They were not suspended during the G8/G20 summit.
The CCLA has been calling on all levels of government to take immediate action to correct some of the weaknesses in the legal framework surrounding public order policing for large scale events. It also demands that independent inquiries be conducted in several aspects of the policing done during the G20 Summit. We continue to hope for an independent inquiry and a message of acknowledgement that policing that goes beyond the law is never an appropriate answer to vandalism or any other criminal behaviour.
Nathalie Desrosiers is the General Counsel of Canadian Civil Liberties Association and the Executive Director of the Canadian Civil Liberties Education Trust
Thanks for posting this. I would add two things, one in response to the original article and one in response to an earlier comment.
The first is in response to this: “As I was reading the hundreds of incidents reports that Canadian Civil Liberties Association has received, I was struck by the common themes: astonishment and fear. People could not believe that such conduct could occur in Canada and they now fear the police.”
I think that new awareness is something that needs to be respected, and the energy that it gives towards new efforts for social change needs to be supported. However, I think we need to recognize that this kind of reaction comes from a particular range of privileged standpoints. I say this because this has been me, after my first real experience of the police in the aftermath of a nonviolent direct action more than a decade ago. However, our struggles against these abuses have to centrally recognize that there are lots of other people in Canada for whom these experiences of the police are an everyday thing, and they would have no “astonishment” about police behaviour at the G20 (except perhaps for who the targets were). I’m thinking particularly of many people who are racialized, poor, trans, or in other ways significantly marginalized, for whom the threat of police harassment and violence is part of everyday life. If we respond to the G20 abuses without recognizing these everyday abuses, we further entrench the marginalizations these people experience.
My other comment is in response to the way that David de Weerdt uses the politial label “anarchist.” He seems to be buying into the more mainstream campaigns to demonize anarchists, which appears to be reminiscent of efforts to demonize using the label “Communist” in decades past. Not all of the people engaged in targeted property destruction at the G20 were anarchists, and the population of people who either explicitly identify as anarchists or who are significantly influenced by anti-authoritarian politics even if they do not claim that label is much larger and more diverse than the small group using such tactics in Toronto.
Of course, I am one of those people who thinks there is no basis whatsoever in history to talk seriously about the “benign intent of the State in Canada,” so we’d probably have lots of other points of difference to discuss too.
I came to Canada when the US army attacked a peacefully protesting crowd of about 100,000 in Los Angeles during the Vietnam War. Since that time I have been aware that no one is safe in any state no matter what the laws of the land. Here in Canada we are lucky that only during events do they attack peaceful protests.
The apathy of the populations in the west will only be affected when people get hungry enough. It will not be an easy time. I can only hope there will be a rich unecologically devastated earth to save.
As they say, “If voting could change the world it would be illegal.”
Thank you for publishing this excellent article. Without a full Public Inquiry, the fallout of the G20 divides Canadians.
On the one hand, we have the majority of Canadians (I heard it said two thirds in one post-G20 poll) who appear not to be disturbed by the actions of law enforcement at the G20. Sadly, without their having it given it much real thought, it would appear that they’ve decided that the civil rights of the G20’s ‘anarchist rabble’ is a Red Herring, unworthy of their concern. To them, this was a story of lawless radicals getting the trouncing they deserved – ‘rights’ talk seems slightly or even very offensive to many, who feel righteously angry that vandals set fires and broke windows. If asked about any ‘innocents’ that were hurt accidentally in police action to restore order, they say these people should have known better than to go near the protests. Case closed, mind closed. This public outcome seems like a satisfying win to the Harper government. It is in fact a black mark on our national reputation.
I should note that the responses from federal Liberal and NDP leaders that I have received (calling for an Independent Public Inquiry) all sidestep the rights issue in relation to the G20. They are instead focused on the G20 issues they believe people DO care about: like the cost of the G20, and why it was held in Toronto when it could have been help somewhere less disruptive. They want the votes of the majority group of public opinion. “There go the people, we are their leaders!” they cry, as they scamper for a place in front of the public opinion crowd, all angry at the chaos that erupted in the downtown core of our largest city.
The small population of anarchists in Canada also feels it has won ground. They can point to the disregard for legal due process and civil rights by law enforcement at the G20, and to the general unconcern about this by political leadership (and by the majority of Canadians). They didn’t need to ‘win’ their pitched battle with law enforcement in the streets of Toronto. They needed to lose. Their win was to provoke law enforcement to break civil rights, and to physically intimidate and hurt innocent citizens. What they won was that story, which they can use to firm the missionary zeal of new recruits to their cause, and sow doubt in the minds of the public about benign intent of the State in Canada. What a great pity that even just a few bright young idealists will be turned against our system of laws.
Civil rights must be defended, even for people we are revolted by or merely disagree with…yes, even for people accused of murder, child abuse, of grand theft, drug peddling, tax evasion and of lesser crimes like vandalism, as occurred at the G20. They must be defended for all. And legal due process must be upheld.
These arguments now fall largely on deaf ears. Clearly, most Canadians do not want to hear them. They misunderstand what is really at stake. While deeply disappointed in the Harper and McGuinty governments, I will not lose my faith in Canadians or in the ideal of Canada. In another crisis, another day, in another ‘moment of truth’ opportunity to define by action that we believe in human rights and in our own Charter, we will stand up for human rights bravely as before. Enough champions of true Canadian values will find their voices to wake the rest to what is at stake in protecting civil rights. Just not today. I wish I were wrong.