Ontario’s Jim Bradley Is Set On Implementing Provincial Ombudsman’s G20 Recommendations – Says Federal Government Never Should Have Held Summit In Downtown Toronto

By Doug Draper

The province’s minister in charge of cops and correctional services told Niagara At Large this week he is prepared to implement the recommendations Ontario’s Ombudsman, Andre Marin if they serve to cool the chance of another security mess that occurred at the G20 summit last June in Toronto.

Veteran Liberal cabinet minister Jim Bradley

 “I think the recommendations of the Ombudsman are good and implementable,” said Jim Bradley, St. Catharines MPP and Ontario’s minister of community safety and correctional services, in response to a scathing report Marin released this December 7, criticizing the province and police honchos like Toronto police chief Bill Blair for security efforts at last June’s G20 meeting in Toronto that turned ended up looking like a civil rights and public relations fiasco before the province, the country and the world.

“I have assured (Marin) that all of the recommendations will be implemented,” said Bradley. Having said that, Bradley went on to say that he thought it was a bad idea for the federal government of Stephen Harper to hold the G20 in downtown Toronto in the first place. A better place, if it had to be held in Toronto at all, may have been the old CNE grounds where there are at least some physical boundaries between any protesters inclined to do harm and the G20 leaders. But it may have been better off held some place else, he said, away from any one of a number of iconic sites anyone interested in violence may want to target in Toronto.

“It keeps coming back to this,” said Bradley of the location the Harper government picked for the G20 summit – the convention center in downtown Toronto. “It was a totally inappropriate place to have it.”

To review the recommendations by Ontario Ombudsman Andre Marin Bradley says he believes are “implementable,” we are including them below.

Recommendation 1: The Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services should take steps to revise or replace the Public Works Protection Act. If the government wants to claim the authority to designate security areas to protect persons, an integrated statute should be created that could be used not only to protect public works but also provide proper authority for ensuring the security of persons during public events when required.

Recommendation 2: The Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services should examine whether the range of police powers conferred by the Public Works Protection Act should be retained or imported into any revised statute, including whether it is appropriate to give police the authority to arrest those who have already been excluded entry to secured areas, and whether it is appropriate to authorize guards and peace officers to offer conclusive testimony, whether right or wrong, about the location of security boundaries.

Recommendation 3: The Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services should develop a protocol that would call for public information campaigns when police powers are modified by subordinate legislation, particularly in protest situations.

Recommendation 4: The Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services should report back to my Office in six months’ time on the progress in implementing my recommendations and at six-month intervals thereafter until such time as I am satisfied that adequate steps have been taken to address them.

(Visit Niagara At Large at http://www.niagaraatlarge.com for more news and commentary of matters of interest and concern to resident in our greater binational Niagara region and beyond.)