By Bruce Allen
(Bruce Allen, a Niagara resident and the vice president of Local 199 of the Canadian Auto Workers, has been one of the most active voices in this region over the past year for provincial and federal inquiries into police actions at the G20 Summit a year ago this June that arguable witnessed one of the most graceful assaults on civil liberties in Canada’s history.)
A year has passed since martial law was imposed in Toronto during the G8/G20 Summit. Far more people were arrested during it than were arrested in October 1970 when Trudeau enacted the War Measures Act.
Cops laying the boots and clubs and year ago this June at the G20 summit in Toronto, Ontario.
The mass arrests were in addition to countless on the spot interrogations and illegal searches. Most of those arrested found themselves held in make-shift cages without access to lawyers, medical care or adequate water and food. Intimidation and blatant harassment, including sexual harassment, of those who were held was widespread.
Since then only a small minority of those who were detained by the police have even been brought to trial let alone convicted.
By contrast practically no one who was in any way responsible for all of this overt political repression has been made accountable for what took place and there is no short term prospect that they will be. Only a full and truly independent public inquiry concerning the events will rectify this situation.
What took place a year ago has had profound consequences. Public opinion regarding the events has shifted dramatically. Notably support for the actions of the police has plummeted. Attitudes towards the police among many young people in Toronto have changed perhaps irreversibly leaving the police with a huge credibility problem among the youth in the city.
These things duly noted none of what took place came as a surprise to this observer and participant in the events. I anticipated what happened.
Nine years earlier, I had witnessed first hand the actions of the riot police in Quebec City during the summit to promote a Free Trade Agreement of the Americas. Rubber bullets and over 45000 canisters of tear gas were fired at protesters back then. A year befroe I saw Windsor turned into an armed camp full of riot police during a meeting of the Organization of American States. There I witnessed young people engaged in non-violent civil disobedience having pepper spray blasted into their faces.
I can only conclude that last year’s massive repression typifies what to expect whenever people seriously mobilize against corporate interests in this age of capitalist austerity.
Bruce Allen is a life-long resident of Niagara and vice president of Local 199 of the Canadian Auto Workers.
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Corporate interests would prefer that we not attend protests; after all, we might get hurt … or worse. Dictators don’t like protests either.
The violent Black Bloc, or whatever they are called, may well have been enabled by some corporate interests.
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Bruce makes a good point. The Windsor protests were totally nonviolent and still got the same heavy handed repression as happened in the G20 cents.
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How nice that the major media have finally taken up the cry for an investigation, but what a shame that it took them so long. The Toronto G20 was the subject of last week’s Sunday Morning on CBC Radio 1, but at no point during the two hours was there any mention of the reasons that brought thousands of us out to rally and march against the G20 meeting. The people chosen to speak about their arrest and detention were all on-lookers who had wandered downtown to see what was going on — as if they were the only true victims of the crackdown. Does the CBC then share the opinion that serious protesters deserved what they got? I wrote to Sunday Morning to ask if there would be further explorations of the issue. So far, I’ve had no response.
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