The Ontario government has declared that it never passed any
secret emergency law allowing police to demand ID from protesters
on threat of arrest in the vicinity of the G20 meeting in Toronto
last weekend.
Last week multiple reports suggested that police had been given
unprecedented powers to to arrest anyone near the security zone
who refused to identify themselves or agree to a police search.
"The regulation was made under Ontario’s Public
Works Protection Act and was not debated in the Legislature.
According to a provincial spokesperson, the cabinet action came
in response to an ‘extraordinary request’ by Toronto
Police Chief Bill Blair, who wanted additional policing powers
shortly after learning the G20 was coming to Toronto."
The Globe and Mail reported that there were no
limits to police powers during the summit, and
no clear legal precedent specifying what they could and could
not do.
Throughout the weekend reports
flooded in of protesters and even citizens of Toronto
who were merely
passers by being stopped outside the security perimeter
and questioned by police under the amended law.
However, the truth has now emerged that no such amendment to
the law was ever made.
"The Ontario government did not pass a secret law that
gave police additional power to arrest people during the G20
summit in Toronto," said
Laura Blondeau, a spokeswoman for Community Safety
Minister Rick Bartolucci.
Blondeau said that the rules only applied to a limited area
within the security perimeter, not up to five meters outside
it or beyond, as earlier reports quoting Police Chief Bill Blair
had suggested.
Canadian
Press reports: "Asked Tuesday if there actually
was a five-metre rule given the ministry’s clarification,
Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair smiled and said, ‘No,
but I was trying to keep the criminals out.’"
As the Canadian Press article points out, police did cite the
Public Works Protection Act when detaining and searching people
outside the security fences. Furthermore, "Neither the
province nor police set the record straight. In fact, both made
comments about the necessity of such powers" in media interviews
all weekend.
Yesterday, the Chief said he was originally under the impression
that the five-metre rule applied to an area outside the perimeter
but once he was told otherwise, a directive was issued to officers
"on the appropriate application of that regulation."
Asked if failing to clarify the five-metre rule misled the
public, he said: "No, I never spoke publicly again about
that regulation."
So he informed the entire city of something that wasn’t
true, and, despite the ensuing uproar he kept his mouth shut.
And that’s not misleading?
Wrong, chief.
Though Blondeau, the government spokesperson has said that
no arrests were made under the phantom law, there is clear evidence
showing that this is not true.
As we highlight in our feature
article today, British activist Charlie Veitch
was arrested last Thursday, outside the security perimeter,
for failing to provide identification which, he was told, was
a crime under The Public Works Act.
Veitch even received a form documenting his arrest that said
he had been detained under the phantom amendment to the law.
Surely realizing that the truth would emerge, authorities
re-arrested Veitch yesterday on the charge of “impersonating
a police officer” - a weak accusation that stems from
deadpan comments Veitch made in his exchange with his original
arresting officer when he joked that he was a British police
provocateur, in Toronto to instigate trouble so that a harsh
crackdown by Canadian security would be justified.
As we also highlighted in a previous article, plain clothes
security were witnessed literally screeching
up in black vans and abducting protesters outside
the security perimeter, while "kettling" those who
remained and eventually firing rubber bullets and tear gas at
them.
Below is another video of this incident which shows the makeshift
movie studio prison in the background. The building is five
kilometres away from the security perimeter:
The long and short of this is that the Chief of police in Toronto
knowingly misled his officers about a secret law granting them
unfettered powers of arrest, which those officers then put into
force aggressively, setting a new record for the largest
mass arrest in Canadian history.
Despite multiple opportunities to set the record straight,
Chief Blair opted to publicly state that such powers were necessary
and allowed officers all over the city to detain and arrest
people under laws that never existed
Given that this activity is in violation of the Canadian Charter
of Rights and Freedoms and tramples over the right to peacefully
protest, there needs to be an immediate investigation into the
matter, and Chief Blair should face the consequences that go
with such a violation.
The Ontario government has declared that it never passed any
secret emergency law allowing police to demand ID from protesters
on threat of arrest in the vicinity of the G20 meeting in Toronto
last weekend.
