The Week Canada’s Federal And Ontario Governments Turned Toronto Into A Police State

A Commentary by Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper

With the G-8 Summit hosted this third week of June, 2013 in Ireland, it is hard not to recall the G-20 summit Canada’s Harper government, with the blessing of Ontario’s McGuinty Liberals, hosted in Toronto, Ontario a mere three years ago this June.

John Pruyn, being dragged way by riot police after having his artifical leg removed. The Welland Ontario federal government worker and part-time farmer was locked in a makeshift jail, then released without any charges or explanation for his detention, a day later. He had been sitting on the grass near Queen’s Park in Toronto, listening to citizen activists offer talks on jobs, environmental protection and other issues before being dragged away.

I imagine that few people would remember what transnational business transpired inside the heavily fortified walls and fences of that summit, which officially took place on June 26 and 27, and yet had a heavy presence in the city of Toronto, Ontario for the better part of a week. But few will forget the epic clashes that between police and demonstrators and others, including citizens that had absolutely nothing to do with those demonstrations – clashes that included hundreds of arbitrary arrests in what Ontario’s independent, provincially appointed Ombudsman Andre Marin later described as a “sad legacy” of “ugly scenes” where Canada’s respect for civil liberties gave way to “martial law.”

It remains, in my view, one of the most disgraceful assaults on free expression and democracy in Canada in the six decades since my birth and life in this country, and it was particularly disappointing that so many Canadian citizens, not to mention politicians, reacted by saying that’ you don’t have to worry’ about a massive police assault ‘if you have done nothing wrong,’ and that the people who went to what were mostly peaceful rallies and were hauled off to makeshift jails ‘must have deserved it. …. They should have stayed home.’

Unfortunately, that seems to be the attitude of all too many Canadians in recent years. If you don’t want to get in any trouble, don’t get involved. Don’t even go out and vote any more. Just stay home!

Months after what I will call the police riots in the streets of Toronto, where one officer was actually recorded saying to a citizen that simply wanted to walk down the street without being searched or detained in any way, words to the effect of ‘you don’t live in Canada any more’ – but where then, George Orwell’s 1984? Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World? Iran? Syria? – the then-Ontario NDP representative for the Welland riding, the late Peter Kormos, stood in the provincial legislature and outlined the violence against free, open democracy that unfolded at this event as he also called for a full and open public inquiry in to the activities of governments and police.

During his presentation, which Niagara At Large is posting the YouTube link for here, Kormos also mentioned one particularly grievous incident involving John Pruyn, then a Canada Revenue employee and part-time farmer, who had been sitting on the lawns around Queen’s Park, which was supposed to be a “safe zone,” when police in riot gear converged on him and others.

Peter Kormos knew what it meant to be dragged away by police. Here he was being busted during a protest to save the right of the public to enjoy beaches along the Niagara, Ontario shores of Lake Erie. . Doesn’t that fight still sound familliar? File photo courtesy of Peter Kormos’s collection.

The cops pulled off his artificial leg, which replaced a real one he lost in an accident on his farm, and threw him in a cage without even giving him the right to make a phone call, while his family wondered where he was for more than 24 hours. Niagara At Large broke the story about Pruyn and in the next few days, this site received close to 30,000 visits to that story alone from all around the world.

 Three years later, no one in authority has offered an explanation for why this quiet spoken man, who was then in his late 50s and had come to Queen’s Park to hear speeches by citizen leaders on issues like job creation and environmental protection, was treated like a piece of human garbage. Yet unfortunately, there were Canadians who argued that Pruyn deserved what he got because he was on the lawns around Queen’s Park, listening to speeches by citizens activists. In their view, he apparently should have stayed home watching ‘America’s Funniest Videos’.

In other words, don’t go ought and exercise the rights so many Canadians were sent off to fight and die for during the world wars of the last century. Stay home and shut up!

If anyone wonders why I don’t get as excited about going out and waving a flag on Canada’s Day, that is the reason why. There is more to pride for country than just waving a flag for Canada that is made in China. 

Just as a P.S. or two, It is also disturbing that there are many out there who are reacting the same way many did over the mass detainments at the 2010 G-20 summit over reports in recent weeks of the possible mass monitoring of email and phone records in Canada and the United States – ‘Well, if you haven’t done anything wrong, what are you worried about?’ One might respond to them by saying that maybe a lot of that depends on who is doing the monitoring what what they define as doing something wrong.

Finally, there will likely be those who once again remind us that during the G-20 summit in Toronto, there were a few hundred ski-masked hooligans in a group identified as the ‘Black Bloc’ that went around downtown Toronto smashing store windows and burning police cruisers. My response to that is why didn’t the police authorities, who had millions of dollars of public money for pre-summit intelligence at their disposal, know who these people, who plan these things for months and have done them before at other events, were and were ready to cut them off at the pass. Instead, they were going after thousands of people like John Pruyn while these criminals went on a rampage with little or no police resistance at the time.

Please click on the following link to watch the late Welland MPP Peter Kormos speak to the disgraceful spectacle that unfolded on the streets of Toronto three years ago this June – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PdSHtCTbOg&feature=player_embedded .

You can also read Ontario Ombudsman Andre Marin’s report on the police actions around the 2010 G-20 Summit in Toronto – a report called Caught in the Act – by visiting http://www.ombudsman.on.ca and clicking on the title of the report on the home page.

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