Some have objected to my use of the word "riot", but there were thousands of cops and fewer thousands of demonstrators/protesters/rioters in the streets, over 900 arrests, over a million dollars in property damage, burning police cruisers...the lot. If that isn't a riot, what is it?
The G20 leaders and some invited guests (like the president of the great state of Malawi) met in Toronto this past weekend to resolve the problems of the world: recession, fat cat bankers, "maternal health" (read: abortions for Africans) and so forth.
They were invited by Canadian Prime Minister "Call me Steve" Harper, presumably to get even with Toronto for not electing a single Conservative MP to sit in the rows of trained seals behind him in the House of Commons.
Toronto's leftie mayor, David Millertime, and rightie police chief, Bill "The Bill" Blair [you have to be British to get that - ed.] warned that there'd be trouble, but no-one listened, except to decide that maybe now would be a good time to beef up security.
So over a billion Canadian taxpayers' dollars was spent to bring cops in from all over Canada -- as far away as the Northwest Territories -- for an all-expenses-paid weekend in the Big Smoke.
And of course there were toys for the boys:
- shiny black storm trooper outfits straight out of Star Wars
- gas masks to be donned when the world leaders spoke [really? ed.], and
- brand new cannons -- water and sound, the use of the latter being blocked by court order just before the fun began
Some construction work was done too. An old film studio was converted into a temporary "holding facility" -- i.e. a jail -- capable of housing 500 protesters/anarchists/innocent bystanders. And a Really Big Fence was built around several downtown city blocks, either to keep the residents in or keep the rabble out.
The Fence is central to this story. Just before the storm broke, the police announced that anyone approaching within 5 meters (about 16 feet) of the fence could be stopped and asked for ID, searched...and arrested if they didn't comply.
On being questioned about their authority for this, "The Bill" told the media that these powers had been confirmed by the Ontario government a few days earlier, in a secret Order-in-Council which would be gazetted (government-speak for "published") next month. Deputy Police Chief Eric Cartman said, "Don't question my authoritie!" [Are you sure about this? ed.]
It turns out that ... errrr ... there was no such law or regulation on the books. Never was. The cops lied about that. Caught in the lie through the efforts of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association and the media, "The Bill" now says, in effect, that it was better for the public to think the cops had extraordinary powers of arrest, even though they didn't. In other words, the end justified the means.
Here's a quote from this morning's Globe and Mail column by Adam Radwanksi.
"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."
Why would the Ontario government -- and the federal government which was ultimately responsible for this fiasco -- let the police be a law unto themselves? Let me give you two answers.
First of all, the government of Ontario has no policies or principles. The Premier, Dalton McGuinty -- who it is rumoured recently turned down the lead role in a remake of Father Knows Best -- has yet to have Idea One about what a government should or should not do. So he does what "staff" (i.e. the bureaucrats in Queen's Park) tell him is good to do.
That's not the same as "the right thing to do", in spite of his parrotting of this phrase to defend the new Harper Sales Tax. Another case in point: the recent flip-flop over whipping the LGBTQ sex-ed agenda on 8-year-olds in Ontario schools. See Walt's blog, passim.
Reason Two. The plain truth is that our governments -- federal, provincial and municipal -- are afraid of the police. Why else would they spend ten times more than has ever been spent before on defending a city which didn't want the damned summit against a "security threat" which became a self-fulfilling prophecy?!
The whole riot could have been avoided by holding the Big Powwow in a more appropriate place. La Ronge, Saskatchewan, would have been a good choice. Walt lived not far away, once upon a time. Nice lake there. They wouldn't have had to build a fake one...inside a downtown building. But nooooo....
"There's gonna be trouble!", the cops told us. "Better give us more arms, and lots more boots on the ground. Oh yeah, and more power too. When we say 'Jump!', those pinko queer protesters better ask 'How high?" And so it came to pass.
We are left with the disturbing image of what has been called "a police state". Canada is not a police state like China or Zimbabwe. But it is a state which is over-policed.
Let us not kid ourselves that the boys and girls in blue can do no wrong. They can...and they do. Cops are bullies. It's the nature of the beast. The kids at school who wanted to be hall monitors or prefects are the same ones who grew up to be cops.
The police love their authority. They revel in it. They wallow in it. They delight in pushing people around. And unless they get called on it -- perhaps by the inquiry which ought to follow the events of this weekend -- it will just get worse and worse. Don't expect the G20 riot to be the last.
FOOTNOTE: A reader writes in New Canadian English to say that only $122 million was spent on beefing up the police presence. Whether it was $122 million or ten times that amount is beside the point. A small fortune was spent needlessly and Toronto still got trashed. Ed.
No comments:
Post a Comment