There Are Some Who Want To Blame G20 Mayhem On Citizens Who Gathered There

One Canadian named Barrett Smith keeps lone vigil at Niagara rally protesting G20 security measures. Photo by Doug Draper.

By Doug Draper

Every community has its share of colourful characters.

In the community where I live – Thorold, Ontario, located just south of St. Catharines for some of our American friends and others who may never have heard of the place before – one of our colourful characters is an aging curmudgeon almost everyone who’s lived here for any length of time knows by name.

He is Barrett Smith and he’s often been seen over the years, waving his long arms sharply during a presentation to the local council over the budget, or standing out in front of the grocery store at the plaza with a petition, or hoisting a picket sign he whipped together for a public rally.

This July 17, I found Barrett Smith sitting off on a bench with one or two others holding yet another picket sign that he almost apologized for making up with a black-felt pen on the fly. “I feel like I’m kind of alone out her,” said Barrett as I approached and asked for a picture of him displaying his sign at a rally in St. Catharines, calling for a public inquiry into security measures exercised at the recent G20 summit in downtown Toronto this past June.

Barrett’s crudely produced sign read; “Only One Person Had The Guts To Tackle A ‘Black Bloc’ And You Did Nothing. You Must Feel Proud.’ The message on the sign was not all that different than some of the comments Niagara At Large at www.niagaraatlarge.com has received on this site under previous posts on the G20 mayhem, including a column Niagara MPP and provincial Conservative opposition leader Tim Hudak had posted, first in the Toronto Sun (and later posted here) suggesting that those who gathered for peaceful protests during the G20 should have apprehended the two- or three-hundred Black Bloc hooligans who ran up the streets of Toronto, breaking store windows and torching cars.

Well here are a few questions for Barrett who, by the way, is hardly as alone as he thinks because sadly, I am guessing, there are more than a few Canadians out there who believe that anyone who went to Toronto during the summit to gather for more action on global environmental protection and other social justice issues deserve everything they got if they were arrested.

Why weren’t our intelligence agencies, including the RCMP, Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), along with the Toronto and other police services from across the country that were brought into play at a cost to taxpayers of over $1 billion (and you might think that a strong conservative like Barrett would complain about the cost of that) better ready to deal with this network of ‘Black Bloc’ anarchists before they even road in to town?

If we’ve got any kind of real security intelligence in this country for the big bucks we are spending on it, why haven’t our security and police been able to break through the communications network of this anarchist group and anticipate their plans before they set foot in the city?

There was a great letter to the editor two weeks ago in The Globe and Mail by someone who asked – why, when the British government can track down and identify the hooligans for a soccer game in time to keep them out of the stadium and causing a riot, why can’t we do the same for this Black Bloc network in their ski masks?

It’s a damn good question and the reason we need a public inquiry into what may be the worst assault on civil liberties in Canada in 50 years.

You may have your own questions you wish to post to people like Barrett Smith (and once again, he is hardly alone in his opinion that those who gathered at G20 rallies asked for it) and to our governments. Respond to our governments, and your MP and MPP in particular, by demanding a full public inquiry into this fiasco.

For our American readers out there, Niagara At Large wonders what you think. Canada seems to be portrayed in the American media, to the extent it is mentioned at all, as a nice, placid place. Well, unfortunately, it seems to be a new dawn.

(Click on Niagara At Large at www.niagaraatlarge.com for more news and commentary on this and other matters of interest and concern to our greater binational Niagara region.)