Tag Archives: G20 Summit Toronto

Toronto G20 Summit: Harper, McGuinty and police fail acid test of moral responsibility – “Let Right Be Done”

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Political leaders and police slither through gaping holes in public accountability systems

No 516 Posted by fw, July 3, 2012

“…the problem, I think, is so much more at the officer level, at the command level, and then the political level, because, you know, in theory, everyone being on videotape should have been enough intimidation to police, badge number or not, and that didn’t slow them down a bit. So they had to know that they weren’t going to suffer repercussions. So, final verdict on these reports. …I particularly thought the Ontario ombudsman report was at least powerful in describing how serious the problem was. But in the final analysis, I think we’re all agreeing here: no real accountability, and, yeah, it can happen again.” —Paul Jay, The Real News Network

Leaders are supposed to be exemplary role models for the rest of us, setting the tone and standard that nurture societal/organizational cultures promoting moral/ethical behaviour. Political leaders and police forces in particular have critical roles to play in this regard.

The results of various investigations into the Toronto G-20 scandal are now complete. Sadly, it is clear that Prime Minister Harper, Ontario Premier McGuinty and police forces have failed us, they have failed the acid test of moral leadership – “Let Right Be Done”. Or could it be that most Canadians have such low expectations of their political masters that they don’t care to notice this latest moral lapse? On a personal note, I feel less proud of our leaders, less proud of being Canadian.

This post offers a small selection of passages from the long transcript of a 28:30-minute video-recorded interview with lawyers Paul Copeland and Howard Morton. Host Paul Jay, Senior Editor, The Real News Network, leads the discussion revolving around three major investigative reports into chaotic events at the Toronto G-20 Summit in 2010. Added subheadings are intended to identify key ideas.

To read the full transcript and watch the complete video, click on the following linked title.

Could Police Repression at Toronto G20 Happen Again? The Real News Network, June 29, 2012

ABRIDGED TRANSCRIPT

Paul Jay’s introduction –

Well, the last of the three big investigations into the actions of the Toronto Police at the G20 in 2010 is now in. The review, independent review commissioned by the Civilian Oversight Board of the Toronto Police was issued on Friday morning. [Click here for the full Independent Civilian Review into Matters Relating to the G20 Summit  and here for the Executive Summary and Recommendations].

A few months ago, we had the report from the Ontario Independent Police Review director, which is Ontario-wide. About a year before that, we had the ombudsman’s report. And so now, apparently, this has been thoroughly investigated. Recommendations have been made. But the question is, for me, can this all happen again? That is, could we have more mass arrests, more violence, more excessive use of force by police against peaceful protesters in Toronto?

Now joining us to discuss these reports and help answer this question are, first of all, Howard Morton, sitting on your right, if you’re watching here. Howard is a criminal lawyer. He’s a member of the Law Union of Ontario. He’s been a prosecutor for the province of Ontario previously, for 17 years. He also ran the Ontario Special Investigations Unit, which investigates wrongdoing by police throughout Ontario. Thanks for joining us, Howard.

And on your left is Paul Copeland. Paul is a lawyer. He’s been director of the Law Society of Upper Canada since 1990. He’s a member of the Order of Canada. And he’s—has a long list of other credentials, which—I don’t have all of it in front of me. But, Paul and Howard, you’re both renowned. Thanks for joining us.

So, Paul, why don’t you kick things off? So the basic question is: has there been real accountability now? And could this all happen again?

There has not been real accountability

Copeland — I think there has not been real accountability. What you’ve had is snapshots of different pieces of the action. But there’s been nothing whatsoever to look at what the federal government did and how they caused all of this, so that there has been no responsibility there. And I think it could happen again. There are some recommendations that Mr. Morton made which may help in relation to some aspects of it, but without an overall viewing of it, I think we’re likely to see something similar, assuming that they’re stupid enough to have another G-20 meeting in downtown Toronto.

Morton — I agree with Paul. There has been no accountability in the sense of actually doing something about the police conduct that weekend. And it goes far beyond the G-20. I can tell you in a very mini version. Much of the police conduct that you saw during the G-20 weekend happens on a weekly basis in certain neighborhoods in this city. And what the reports failed to do, in my view, is to get at the real root of the problem.

The Independent Civilian Review failed to go to the heart of the issue – Where is the accountability?

The real question, Paul, is this: what is it that leads trained, experienced police officers to act in a way that contravenes several provisions of the Charter of Rights, engaging in what I view as being criminal activity, taking your badge—their badges off so they can’t be identified? What is it that causes officers to do that? And although the Morden report recommends more training, more interaction with the board, it suggests that the lack of lead time had a lot to do with this. But I say that none of those things go to the heart of the issue: where is the accountability of individual police officers to obey the law?

Toronto Police Services Board didn’t understand what they were supposed to be doing

Copeland — Well, that part of the report is amazing to me in how critical it was of the functioning of both the Toronto Police Services Board and, presumably, every other police services board in the province. It says they didn’t understand what they were supposed to be doing and they have to do a much better job, they have to be much more informed about what’s going on. And that goes way beyond just the issues of a mass demonstration in Toronto. One of the things that comes to mind when I was reading this was the general strip search statistics in Toronto, which are very high, and the board has done very little in the way of curbing any of that, even though there’s a decision from the Supreme Court of Canada in the Golden case saying it shouldn’t be a routine matter. So the board has not carried out its function, and he’s pointed it out very clearly in this report that they’re not carrying out their oversight function.

Public inquiry is essential but McGuinty and Harper are not interested in looking at what they caused

Copeland — I would like to see a public inquiry that actually looked at the whole picture and looked at the role of all of the players in it, looked at the role of the federal government, looked at what they caused to happen, look at the role more closely, the role of the RCMP. I think that’s essential. And I don’t think we’ll see it. I don’t see any political party that’s—other than the NDP, but a political party that’s in power that’s interested in doing that. I don’t think Dalton McGuinty’s interested in looking at what they did, and I’m sure that Mr. Harper’s not interested in looking at what he caused.

Federal NDP’s questioning during parliamentary hearing was ineffectual

Jay – And I have to say, just before I ask you, Howard, the federal parliamentary hearings, the questioning from the NDP wasn’t much better than the questioning from the other parties. All they focused on was how much money was spent, and they did very little questioning in terms of the issue of civil rights. But, Howard, let me ask you the same question. How do we—what do we need now?

Recommendations fail to get to the heart of the problem – How do we ensure police abide by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and not engage in conduct which is completely abusive and illegal and even criminal?

Morton —  I too would like a public inquiry where the commissioner would have full powers of subpoena, both of persons and documents, etc. But I think in addition to that my concern is all of these recommendations—and most of them are very good—do not go to the heart of the problem, which is: in any situation, G-20 or otherwise, how do we ensure that the police abide by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and not engage in conduct which is completely abusive and illegal, and in some cases criminal on their part? That’s the root of the problem.

Morton and Copeland have no conclusive answers to Paul Jay’s question: What do we do now?

Morton — I don’t know. I honestly don’t know. It could be in better recruitment policies. It certainly could be in greater training. One of the ways you could enforce it, for example, was the officers who removed their badges—and they would only do that if they were going to do something they didn’t want to be caught at—those officers at a minimum should have been suspended for six or 12 months, at a bare minimum, in order—that’s the only way you will teach the police, in my view, that they’re not to engage in certain conduct. A day’s pay with their salaries, which are very—well, they’re not extravagant, but they’re reasonable, that’s not even a kiss for the conduct that they engaged in.

Copeland — Well, that’s part of it. I mean, presumably the Police Services Board, if they were doing their job, might be able to recommend certain types of penalties in discipline matters, police discipline matters. As Howard said, the one day’s pay was not enough of a deterrent to affect the behavior, and I would think if there’s another demonstration in Toronto, you’ll see a whole bunch of officers removing their badges again. But if the board put out policies that made it clear that there were going to be serious consequences for that, it may change the behavior.

In the final analysis, there’s no real accountability and it can happen again

Jay – But, anyway, the problem, I think, is so much more at the officer level, at the command level, and then the political level, because, you know, in theory, everyone being on videotape should have been enough intimidation to police, badge number or not, and that didn’t slow them down a bit. So they had to know that they weren’t going to suffer repercussions.

So, final verdict on these reports. Some contributions and some specifics. I particularly thought the Ontario ombudsman report was at least powerful in describing how serious the problem was. But in the final analysis, I think we’re all agreeing here: no real accountability, and, yeah, it can happen again.

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Fair Use Notice: This blog, Citizen Action Monitor, may contain copyrighted material that may not have been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Such material, published without profit, is made available for educational purposes, to advance understanding of human rights, democracy, scientific, moral, ethical, and social justice issues. It is published in accordance with the provisions of the 2004 Supreme Court of Canada ruling and its six principle criteria for evaluating fair dealing

“There’s a North American strategy to take away the right to mass protest.” Michael Ratner

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No 232 Posted by fw, July 27, 2011

“We use the word – in the US we call it “it chills your rights” — because it’s basically sending a message to the next demonstration, you come out there, you’re not going home tonight. You better bring your toothbrush. And that’s a bad message for peaceful demonstrators, a really bad message. And it’s a way of undercutting mass protests because, as I said when I began, what they’re afraid of most, I think, in this economic downturn, the austerity measures, is mass protests, which we started to see in Madison, Wisconsin, in the United States, and which we’re starting to see in Canada, which we have certainly seen across Europe. I remember when they were happening in Europe over the years, I kept saying, when are we going to start having this? And now, of course, austerity is kicking in, in the States. We’re seeing it happen here as well.” — Michael Ratner from an interview with Paul Jay of the Real News Network

Watch the full 10:50-minute interview with Michael Ratner here, followed by my transcript of selected portions of the interview, including added subheadings and text highlighting to facilitate browsing.

 

TRANSCRIPT

 There Is A North America-Wide Strategy To Take Away The Right To Mass Protest by Michael Rattner, The Real News Network, July 27, 2011

Paul Jay – A year ago in Toronto, more than a thousand people were arrested while they protested the G-20 that was taking place. Most of them were let go within a few days, and that was part of the problem. No charges were laid, and there was thus no way for people whose rights the Ontario Ombudsman said were violated could have any recourse. In fact, the Ombudsman said the arrests at the Toronto G-20 were the most massive compromise of civil rights in the history of Canada.

But is this only happening in Toronto or is this, in fact, part of a North American-wide strategy on how to deal with dissent? And what about the right to mass protest right across the continent? Now joining us to talk about all of this is Michael Ratner. He is the President of the Center for Constitutional Rights. His is also the co-author of a new book, Hell No: Your right to Dissent in Twenty-First-Century America.

So, first of all, talk a bit about what inspired you to write the book.

According to Ratner, “Protest is a fundamental underpinning of how we make progressive change in the world”

Michael Ratner – Since I’ve been a young activist, protest has been a key part of my life and a key part of how we actually change what’s going on in the Unites States and across the world. Whether from Vietnam to Central America, to the beginnings of the war with Iraq where we really had millions of people in the street all over the world. So, to me, protest is really a fundamental underpinning of how we make progressive social change in the world. And of course we saw recent examples in Egypt, Tahrir square, we saw a recent effort at that in Madison, Wisconsin, where they were protesting the cutbacks on workers – so just the main method really that people have, which is really acting with their feet in an organized way out in the streets.

There’s evidence of a pattern of coordinated action from a variety of police forces and military intelligence particularly against mass demonstrations

Paul Jay – It was interesting what happened in Toronto with the G-20 [protest]. . . . Of course we’ve seen what mass protests in Europe have done. They really are shaking the political debate. But here they seem to have a strategy to suppress. So to what extent do you think this is actually a broader strategy than just one event in Toronto?

Michael Ratner – I think it’s a very broad strategy and I can articulate some of that across the United States in particular. One interesting thing you said is in Canada it was the G-20 and austerity. And if you look at a number of these protests, yes, some are about the Iraq war, some are about other things, but the massive big ones are about economics, the G-20, the G-8, the WTO, the World Trade Organization – those are where you’re getting hundreds of thousands of people sometimes in the streets. That’s Madison, Wisconsin about the austerity that was going to be imposed on the workers in Wisconsin. The WTO in Seattle was again about the WTO making up these trade agreements that were going to really impoverish people. The G-20 in Florida in 2000, in which massive surveillance, massive destruction was done against the demonstrators, was again about austerity. We had a G-8 in Pittsburgh again in which massive demonstrations again massive intervention. And if we look at the techniques used you would have to say there’s a coming together first of a variety of police forces from all over the United States and conceivably even working with people in Canada.

Paul Jay – Well, we know they did because we know the deputy chief of the Toronto Police is now or was the former chair of the advisory committee to the FBI College. So there’s clearly a North American coordinated strategy. The other thing that we also know in the G-20 in Toronto is it wasn’t just the RCMP who ran the show, but there was a big role of military intelligence. And we also know how close the Canadian military intelligence is to American military intelligence. So there’s a lot of cross-border. . .

Michael Ratner – Yeah, we could write the book the same way. At every one of the demonstrations you look at in the United States, the big ones are all the same – military intelligence, helicopters from this unit of the military, FBI, local police – all working in an integrated form.

Police also infiltrate all of the protest organizations, even the completely peaceful ones

Michael Ratner — And it’s not like it just happens at the demonstration. One of the things we point out in Hell No, in the book, is that this stuff starts by the police and the military months, if not years, before these demonstrations. It includes starting to infiltrate all of the organizations, or many of the key organizations who are organizing the demonstrations – even if they’re completely peaceful organizations or even if they’re slightly civil disobedient organizations, which are considered to be an utterly legitimate form of protest. So they infiltrate people into those groups.  They have no right to infiltrate those people into those groups. These are protected groups, at least in the United States, First Amendment, presumably similar kinds of protected laws in Canada. They infiltrate those people, they surveil them physically. They do a variety of tactics against groups.

Paul Jay – There’s pretty good evidence that some of the infiltration that took place with some of the anarchist groups preparing for the Toronto event, that one, at least one, if not more actually, of some of the strongest advocates for breaking windows and some of the more exuberant forms of civil disobedience.

Police use a variety of tactics to suppress mass protests especially ones targetting government austerity measures

Michael Ratner – Not unexpected. We call them agent provocateurs. That’s what they do. They’ve done that for generations in this country [US] and they’re doing it again as protests get more and more massive, particularly around austerity. Sure, we’ve seen it at protests around the war and other kinds of depredations of rights, but the austerity stuff is really bringing out masses of people that aren’t necessarily used to going to demonstrations. It’s bringing out union people, workers, immigrants, lots of people who are really being just cut out of any kind of economic rights in the country.

So they begin by infiltrating, they then demonize the groups. So in the United States, we’ve had purely passivist groups – out of Pittsburgh we had the anti-war groups, the Quaker groups – they were investigated under terrorist designations. So they start terrorism and once they use the word ‘terrorism’ they bring in all kinds of masses of surveillance. So they demonize the groups, and they do it in the newspapers.

Then they all demonize them and say it’s going to be like Seattle. And Seattle is the WTO demonstrations in which they falsely claimed in the newspapers after the demonstration that they threw Molotov cocktails and did all kinds of violence. In fact, none of that happened in Seattle. But they now use what they call the Seattle method of policing once they get into the demonstrations.

So, at least in this country, they put people in pens to demonstrate. You can’t have any mass group any more. They deny permits and make you go to a certain place. So when we had the demonstrations against the war in Iraq we went to, we wanted to demonstrate in front of the United Nations on 1st Avenue. We were prohibited from a demonstration in front of the United Nations. [We] had to be taken away [and] put in pens. Once they have the people in pens who are demonstrating, then they do like they did in Canada – mass arrests.

At the Republican National Convention in 2004 in New York, downtown there were 400 people beginning a demonstration. They [police] took nets, literally nets, and they covered the entire group with nets, including people pushing their baby carriages, people just strolling by. They arrested 400 people in one mass arrest, who had done nothing wrong. I mean nothing. They were demonstrating, and a lot of the people were just standing by the side. Where did they put them? They put them in what we call “Guantanamo on the Hudson” — a big bus warehouse with oil and environmental junk all over it. And did they bring them to court in one day? No! They took three to four days. And they did that purposely so that those people wouldn’t rejoin the demonstration. I could give you a dozen examples like that — a dozen examples where they [enforcement agents] all cooperate.

And what we really talk about in the book is how this has gained since 9/11 in particular on the excuse that terrorism is going to be involved in some way in these demonstrations. They even say well terrorists might attack these demonstrations. And that’s the kind of BS I get.

Paul Jay – Well one of the things they did in Toronto was they used various pieces of legislation. The most onerous one was something called the Public Works Protection Act., which the Ontario Ombudsman called a form of Marshall Law, which allowed them to start asking people to produce identification, to be searched without any probable cause. But they also used something called Unlawful Assembly, which they just declare even if there’s no violence going on. A crazy piece of legislation which I don’t think you have in the United States called Breach of the Queen’s Peace.

The threat of arrest is a way of “undercutting” attendance at mass protests against austerity measures, which authorities are most fearful of

The point of all this is that they arrest a lot of people and most of them they just let go after the demonstration’s over. So it’s actually very difficult to have any sort of come-back or accountability even though you’ve lost the right to protest, you didn’t get charged, so there’s no court case and then you’re in some kind of lawsuit which is very difficult to fund.

Michael Ratner – I was in law school during those days [of the Vietnam War protests]. The real effect — if I’m a young law student, am I going to go out on a demonstration and get myself arrested when I have to through the bar and all the character committees and all these committees to get through? Am I going to want even the notice of an arrest on my record?

We use the word – in the US we call it “it chills your rights” — because it’s basically sending a message to the next demonstration, you come out there, you’re not going home tonight. You better bring your toothbrush. And that’s a bad message for peaceful demonstrators, a really bad message. And it’s a way of undercutting mass protests because, as I said when I began, what they’re afraid of most, I think, in this economic downturn, the austerity measures, is mass protests, which we started to see in Madison, Wisconsin, in the United States, and which we’re starting to see in Canada, which we have certainly seen across Europe. I remember when they were happening in Europe over the years, I kept saying, when are we going to start having this? And now, of course, austerity is kicking in, in the States. We’re seeing it happen here as well.

FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog, Citizen Action Monitor, may contain copyrighted material that may not have been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Such material, published without profit, is made available for educational purposes, to advance understanding of human rights, democracy, scientific, moral, ethical, and social justice issues. It is published in accordance with the provisions of the 2004 Supreme Court of Canada ruling and its six principle criteria for evaluating fair dealing

Ontario MPP Sandra Pupatello’s disappointing non-response to G-20 concerns

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No 115 Posted by fw, February 9, 2011

On January 11, 2011, my wife, Helga Wintal, and I met for a second time with Ontario Liberal MPP Sandra Pupatello’s Special Assistant, Marion Fantetti. We were following up on five previous attempts to get a response from Ms Pupatello regarding our concerns about political and police abuses surrounding the July 2010 Toronto G-20 Summit.

The primary purpose of this post is to recount highlights of our January 11, 2011 conversation with MPP Pupatello’s assistant, Marion Fantetti. But first, to put that conversation in context, here’s a brief chronological summary of events that led up to the Jan 11 meeting – half a year after our initial July 6, 2010 letter!

Putting the January 11, 2011 meeting in chronological context

July 6, 2010 – Helga and I emailed a letter to Minister Pupatello’s constituency office to express our concern about her party’s breach of citizens’ civil rights at the G-20 Summit. We requested a meeting with the Minister at her convenience. Details about this initiative are available here on this blog.

August 5, 2010 – Following at least three follow-up attempts to get a response to our original letter, we finally received an email reply from the Minister’s constituency office with a promise to arrange “a meeting with Sandra or with her Special Assistant.” Details are available here.

October 19, 2010 – At a meeting with Ms Pupatello’s Special Assistant, Marion Fantetti, we presented her with a letter documenting in detail our specific concerns surrounding the G-20 Summit. She promised to brief Minister Pupatello, share our letter with her and keep us informed of relevant developments. Moreover, she mentioned that Ms Pupatello liked to “just pick up the phone and talk to her constituents personally.” An account of this meeting is posted here.

November 19, 2010 – When we failed to hear back from Ms Fantetti (or the Minister), we hand-delivered yet another follow-up letter to the constituency office to express our disappointment at the tardy response. To clarify our expectations, we stated: “We anticipate that our concerns/questions will be addressed by Ms Pupatello . . . by December 10, 2010.”

December 9, 2010 – The day before our December 10 deadline, Ms Fantetti phoned to invite Helga and me to meet with her in the constituency office on January 11, 2011. We accepted.

Selected highlights of the January 11, 2011 meeting with Ms Fantetti

  1. Only four Windsor residents contacted Pupatello’s constituency office regarding the G-20 fiasco. I can’t say that Helga and I were surprised to learn that so few Windsor citizens bothered to contact Minister Pupatello’s constituency office regarding the G-20 abuses. Canadian commentators and scholars are bearing witness to the emerging crisis in Canadian democracy. For example, Murray Dobbin writes this in his article, Four ways Canada’s democracy crisis is deepening, May 3, 2010, The Tyee.ca:

“Canada is witnessing a continuing catastrophic decrease in voter turn out with just 59 per cent voting in the October 2008 [national] election — a result which put us 16th out of 17 peer nations. This aspect of the crisis is largely the result of . . . a deliberate plan by the political right to downsize democracy through relentless partisanship and people’s frustration at seeing their votes count for nothing.”

And in his book, Court government and the collapse of accountability in Canada and the United Kingdom, Donald J. Savoie, professor of public administration at Université de Moncton, argues that Canada now operates under “court government” rather than cabinet government. By court government, he means that effective power now rests with the prime minister and a small group of carefully selected, trusted minions to do his bidding. For things that matter to the prime minister and “his court”, the decision-making process shifts from formal to informal, involving only a handful of players. For things that matter less to them, the decision-making process is horizontal, cumbersome, and consultative, involving a multitude of people from different government departments and agencies as well as a variety of individuals operating outside government. Savoie calls for new accountability requirements that will enable Canadian democracy to confront the twin challenges of reduced political accountability and citizen disengagement in the twenty-first century.

2.  We were disappointed, but not surprised that Ms Pupatello declined to respond to our concerns. Ms Fantetti assured us that she had debriefed Ms Pupatello regarding our October 19 submission, adding, “she cannot respond to your concerns while investigations are in progress.”

That was it? Half a year of follow-ups and waiting . . . for . . . “I debriefed her and she can’t reply.” Although we said nothing at the time, in hindsight, we were very disappointed by the Minister’s non-response. At the very least, Ms Pupatello could have “just picked up the phone” or signed her name to a pro-forma letter to thank us for our sincere and thoughtful inquiry. She did neither. There was so much she could have said, but didn’t bother to.

3.  Ms Fantetti assured us, again, that the Roy McMurtry review of the G-20 would address our concerns and questions. However, as we pointed out to Ms Fantetti, the terms of reference of the Review of the Public Works Protection Action (the exact title of McMurtry’s review) are narrowly circumscribed. As one critic observed, “the review will not look at the effect the law had during the G-20. Mr. McMurtry will not consider or comment on any litigation or legal matters before the courts. . . . the review will look at the law’s historical applications.”

Nor did the media share Ms Fantetti’s enthusiastic endorsement of the McMurtry Review.  Five media outlets greeted the McMurtry appointment with cynical scepticism. “More smoke and mirrors from the Liberals,” read one headline. (Citations to the five articles are provided at the bottom of this post).

An historical review of a 1939 act will not address the key issues. Ontarians deserve, but won’t get, an independent commission with a broad mandate to report on the political and police actions underlying the G-20 abuses. When they opted for a “review”, the Ontario Liberals may well have been looking in the rear view mirror at what happened to the Federal Liberals in the 2006 election: the political fallout from the 2005, 2006 reports by the Gormery Commission Investigation into the Sponsorship Program and Advertising Activities devastated the federal Liberals in the 2006 election. Five years later, they show few signs of having recovered from that disaster.

4.  Ontario Ombudsman’s report addresses our G-20 questions and concerns. Anticipating Ms Pupatello’s  “cannot respond while investigations are in progress” position, Helga and I shared with Marion a side-by-side comparative summary of our original five questions/concerns and the Ontario Ombudsman’s related findings and recommendations. His scathing report answered most of our questions, (excluding, of course, those pertaining to Ms Pupatello’s personal reaction to the G-20 events). Our purpose in preparing this comparative analysis was to illustrate to Marion (and possibly to Ms Pupatello if Marion debriefs her) the high level of relevance of our original G-20 questions/concerns. Moreover, we set out to demonstrate that we are responsibly informed citizens who take seriously flagrant violations of our civil liberties, and are prepared to hold politicians accountable for their missteps and misdeeds.

5.  The G-20 fiasco in general and our politicians’ perceived complacency in particular have further undermined our confidence in Canada’s political leaders and democratic processes. In retrospect, the secretive manner in which five Ontario cabinet ministers simply rubber-stamped a police demand for enhanced powers during the G-20 Summit in Toronto, clearly reflected:

  • a decision-making process in which an elite group of five cabinet ministers unilaterally and arbitrarily decided that police authority took precedence over citizens’ rights;
  • that protection of the interests of privileged elites, domestic and foreign, is paramount; and
  • that the principles of democratic governance are imperiled as we seemingly slip-slide our way towards oligarchy. (I define oligarchy as rule by a privileged elite in favour of other privileged elites).

We left Ms Fantetti with this question for Ontario MPP Pupatello:

“What will you do to rebuild public trust in the judgement of our political leaders and to restore confidence in our democratic processes and institutions?”

Addendum

Today I received another non-response, from another Ontario MPP, Tim Hudak, Leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario. Note the dates: half a year elapsed between the date I sent my email to the date I received a non-response:

Not read: Use of Public Works Protection Act during G20 Conference

From: Hudak-CO, Tim [tim.hudakco@pc.ola.org]

Sent: Tue 08/02/2011 10:29 AM

Your message

To:     Hudak-CO, Tim

Subject: Use of Public Works Protection Act during G20 Conference

Sent:  Mon, 5 Jul 2010 18:51:13 -0500

Was deleted without being read on Tue, 8 Feb 2011 10:29:06 -0500

REFERENCES CITED re media reaction to news of the appointment of Roy McMurtry to head a Review of the Public Works Protection Act

RELATED READING/VIDEO

Caught in the Act. Investigation into The Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services’ conduct in relation to Ontario Regulation 233/10 under the Public Works Protection Act by André Marin, Ombudsman of Ontario, December 2010.

Toronto G-20: Will Police be Held Accountable after Scathing Ombudsman’s Report? A Real News video report featuring excerpts from André Marin’s review of the major findings of his investigation of political and police abuses surrounding the G-20 Summit in Toronto in July, 2010. Watch this 10-minute here.