He confirms what critics had said all along: that police were too often brutal in dealing with anti-summit protesters, that they arrested and jailed hundreds for inadequate reasons, that at times they exceeded their lawful authority.
But what McNeilly’s 286-page report does not examine are the actions of two other parties involved in the wild activities that June: the government that set this fiasco in motion and the protesters who brought their grievances to downtown Toronto.
Certainly, there are no excuses for police excesses. McNeilly describes a scenario in which officers on the ground — and even their chief — did not always understand the laws they were trying to enforce.
He focuses in particular on the so-called five-metre rule, an old World War II-era ordinance, originally designed to prevent sabotage of hydroelectric plants, that was used by officers to conduct illegal searches of citizens.
He criticizes some officers for excessive force and some police commanders for excessive zeal — particularly in one so-called kettling incident where protesters, ordinary citizens and tourists were held for four hours in the rain at the intersection of Spadina and Queen.
He says police were disorganized and that some officers brought in from out of town had little idea of how to get around Toronto.
All of this is bad enough. But what McNeilly had no mandate to discuss — and therefore didn’t — were the proverbial elephants in the room.
First, why did Prime Minister Stephen Harper insist on holding, in the downtown of Canada’s largest city, an event almost sure to attract violence?
Second, what exactly were the protesters protesting?
That there would be trouble at the G20 was a given. Demonstrators have dogged international gatherings since 1999. Almost all have involved some degree of violence.
Indeed, Ottawa’s initial and much shrewder plan was to host the G20 summit, along with the smaller G8 gathering, at an isolated Muskoka resort far from any major city.
To that end, local Conservative MP Tony Clement had already handed out bundles of money throughout his Muskoka riding to build arenas and gazebos.
Then for some inexplicable reason, Harper moved the G20 to Toronto. And not just to Toronto but to the heart of its downtown. Suggestions that the summiteers be quarantined in the relative safety of the Canadian National Exhibition grounds were ignored.
The stage was set.
But another group bears some responsibility for what eventually happened: the protesters themselves.
Don’t get me wrong. Anyone has the right to protest anything. But I never could figure out what most demonstrators had against the G20.
Unlike, say the World Trade Organization or the Summit of the Americas, the G20 was not pushing globalization. Indeed, it was attempting to remedy those excesses of globalization that had caused the financial crisis of 2008-09.
And unlike the G8, which is an exclusive rich nations’ club, the G20 includes a broader range of countries — from South Africa to Brazil.
It’s not clear that the left-leaning government of Brazil, for instance, is trying to promote a soul-destroying corporate agenda.
Yet none of this seemed to matter. Demonstrators used the same old chants even when they didn’t fit the facts.
In the end, it was like a rote exercise: the protesters protested; the vandals vandalized; the police went nuts.
But what precisely was being protested? And why, Mr. Harper, did all of this have to occur in downtown Toronto?
Original Article
Source: Star
Author: Thomas Walkom
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