Inside the Public Safety Committee : G20 preventative arrests

At the Public Safety Committee yesterday, Toronto Chief Bill Blair lobbed the following statement about "preventive detention" into the proceedings [just before the 4 minute mark]:

"I think you are all familiar with images of members of that group who were smashing windows, burning cars, looting stores, and generally causing a great deal of mayhem through vandalism and violence in the city of Toronto. We began to take the steps necessary to contain that threat and over the course of that weekend, the criminal conspiracy to commit criminal acts did not end on Saturday afternoon and it did not end when they left Yonge St. It continued. We were gathering intelligence and information from within the crowd and we had other sources of information that made it very clear to us that the criminal intent of the people involved in those criminal acts continued throughout the weekend. Our ability to continue to police lawful peaceful protest was quite frankly compromised by the actions of those who instead undertook the actions of a mob and engaged in criminal acts, and it was necessary, and decisions were made by our operational commanders and by our major [inaudible] commanders that it was necessary to disperse those crowds, and if the crowds refused to disperse, in order to prevent a breach of the peace, to take persons into preventive detention and that did take place over the course of the weekend."

Testimony on one such preventative detention was given by biochemistry student Kevin Gagnon, arrested with around 70 others at gunpoint off the floor of the U0fT gymnasium floor at 4am and held for over 60 hours before being released without charge on the stipulation he leave Toronto within 24 hours.

Don Davies, NDP : "70 out of 70 people had their charges dropped. ....Who made the decision to burst into that gymnasium and arrest 70 sleeping students?"

Blair : "The investigators who were investigating that case and I must tell you it's a very complicated case involving a great deal of evidence which I'm not going to be able to disclose and discuss with you here today."

Davies : "Can we have the names of the investigators who made that decision?"
Blair : "I don't have them here with me today."
Davies : "Could you undertake to provide that to the committee?
Blair : Yes.

Side note : Davies asked about police officers covering up or removing their name badges and Blair responded that it was against his rules so the "approximately 90 officers" who were identified as going badgeless will probably face disciplinary action in the form of loss of one day's pay.

Ok, back to 'preventive detention'.

Roger Gaudet, Bloc : "I saw the pictures. How come you didn't arrest these people who were masked? You entered into a university gym and you arrested people who were sleeping at 4am. This wasn't Halloween; this was June and yet they were masked. How come you didn't arrest them? They were all together - it would have been easy to surround them and then you'd be finished for the whole weekend. Instead you let them be and you arrested poor students in the university in a gym. Show me the logic in that."

Blair : "This was a crowd of several thousand and for the police to penetrate that crowd in an effort to apprehend those individuals ...First of all they had not yet begun to riot tumultuously as they did the following day and so unfortunately there needs to be ..."

Gaudet : "But those people were masked. This wasn't a masquerade. You know what you had to do. You should have arrested them right away but no, the police went into a school the next morning in a university. This is a farce."

Blair : The decision was made not to try to penetrate this crowd because it would have created a more dangerous situation, and in fact an operational decision was made by investigators that a safer place to apprehend people who they believed were involved in criminal activity was in the school gymnasium away from this crowd. That that was a safer thing to do. Our responsibility is to maintain the rule of law and protect the public but also to do our job in such a way which does not compromise public safety and a decision was made not to try to penetrate this crowd to remove this group but to rather do it in a more safe environment, which is why the arrests were made in a school gymnasium in the very early hours of the morning as opposed to out on the street where a riot might have ensued."

Insert joke here about the drunk looking for his car keys under the streetlight because there's more light there.

Maria Mourani, Bloc : "You stated that you made a choice to conduct the arrests in the gymnasium so you're starting from the premise ... they presumed that there were Black Blocs in the gymnasium?"

Blair : "The police had reason to believe that the people they were arresting were involved in criminal activity and there was a number of different investigations .. evidence had been gathered ..."

Mourani : "You had evidence. You say you had evidence. So why is it that the people in the gymnasium all had their charges dropped? Maybe one or two still have charges outstanding because they refuse to plead guilty..."

Blair : I don't have the details ... I can only offer you my understanding of the explanation I have received as to why those charges were dropped and it was because the police did not have the appropriate warrant for the apprehension of those individuals. But that does not negate the fact that they had evidence to make an arrest."

Mourani : "What you're saying is that they had no warrant to have some one hundred people arrested in a gymnasium ... they ended up in a detention centre where their individual rights were violated... there was no warrant for that arrest that was conducted in that gymnasium? That's what I understood just now."

Blair : "The circumstances of that arrest required what is known as a Feeney warrant and the police did not have the appropriate warrant to make those arrests. The Crown also..."

Mourani : "No warrant and they proceeded with those arrests. This is fantastic."

Blair : "The Crown also commented that the officers had reasonable and probable grounds to make that arrest but it was a technical problem with the way in which the arrest was done and that is why the charges were dropped. That's my understanding."

Here's my understanding.
If police knowingly arrest people illegally with the wrong warrant, they are safely assured that those arrests will never make it to court where gross violations of civil liberties like "preventive detention" can be aired and challenged.

And let's not forget the Canadian grand-daddy of legalizing preventive detention, the Combating Terrorism Act, has already passed second reading in the House and is well on the road to never being challenged by this committee.

Public Safety Committee Liberal MPs Andrew Kania and Mark Holland, as already noted by Kady and blogged by Boris, completely avoided any questioning of Blair yesterday as to violations of civil liberties. Not word one. Kady :

"This, by the way, is what happens when the Liberals are terrified to be targeted by Conservative Party InfoAlerteBots accusing them of being insufficiently supportive of police: not a single question about civil liberties or the treatment of the summit detainees, but long, meandering lines of questioning on logistical decisions and, if they can manage it, fake lakes.".

Yeah, well the Libs voted for the Combating Terrorism Act last month too.

Update : Also see Pogge : Preventative detention.
.
Update #2 : Chief Blair explained more about preventative detention towards the end of the meeting when Kania asked why so many arrests at G20, none at G8:

"People were apprehended and detained under that [breach of the peace] legislation [of the criminal code] without intention of bringing them up on criminal charges because there is no charge under breach of the peace. It is simply a preventative detention to maintain the public peace."

.

Bill C-300 : AWOL Libs were lobbied by mining industry

A week ago the Liberal Bill C-300, An Act respecting Corporate Accountability for the Activities of Mining, Oil or Gas in Developing Countries, went down to defeat 140 to 134 because 13 Liberals including Ignatieff, 4 Bloc, and 4 NDP skipped the vote.

According to Embassy Mag today, for the month prior to the vote, opposition MPs were lobbied by consultants hired by Barrick Gold, IAMGold, Vale Canada, the Mining Association of Canada, and the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada.

Barrick hired former Liberal cabinet minister Don Boudria, now a lobbyist with Hill and Knowlton, to target 15 Libs "multiple times" for two weeks - 13 of whom did not show up for the final vote.

The Liberal sponsor of the bill, John McKay, says he does not think that there will be "another attempt at a bill looking at corporate social responsibility for the mining sector until after another election."

You're shocked, I'm sure.
.

Corky Evans on Social Democracy

h/t Damien Gillis

"If it's not embarrassing, you're doing it wrong."

.

Teaboarding the American electorate

The tea partiers are only the end users, writes Zach Carter.

Koch Industries - annual revenue of $100 billion - have spent millions through their tea party 'grass roots' front groups, FreedomWorks and Americans for Prosperity, providing :

"logistical organizing for Glenn Beck’s 9/12 rally, held over 300 rallies against health care reform and hosted “voter education” workshops pushing the glories of deregulation."

And then there's the media connection :

"They even have an unofficial partnership with Fox News, hosting conservative Fox personalities at their rallies, which are, in turn, promoted by Fox programming. Glenn Beck is even featured in advertisements and fundraising pitches for FreedomWorks."

Linda McQuaig :

"Meanwhile, living in splendour befitting kings, the Koch brothers quietly supervise an incoherently angry army that promises to gut what’s left of benefits for the poor while adding to the bonanza of billionaires."

"Today is the first election in American history in which corporations have been allowed to spend their own money to buy political favours."

How'd that work out?
.

Finished with the G-20? Not even close.

And partly because of this wanker here.

At Wednesday's Public Safety and Security Committee meeting into the G20 fiasco, we heard testimony from two very well-spoken students from Montreal who were arrested in their pajamas at gunpoint from the University of Toronto gymnasium, where accommodation arrangements for out-of-town protesters had been made with the university.

Jacinthe Poisson, a student of International Relations at the University in Quebec, was held for 57 hours under the crowded conditions in the cages now familiar to all of us. Ms Poisson was subjected to three body searches. In her own words :

"At the Vanier Institution I had to lean over completely naked in front of these male guards."

She was released at 4am without money or clothes. All charges against the 100 or so students dormed in the gymnasium were dropped.

Ms Wissam Mansour was also arrested off the floor of the gymnasium but was interviewed separately after being recognized by a Montreal police officer who asked if she knew Fredy Villanueva, the 18 year old fatally shot by Montreal police in 2008.

After interrogation, she was released without charge onto the street in her pajamas with no money, no phone, and absolutely no idea where she was. She somehow made her way back to UofT.

So bearing all that in mind, here are the questions Con committee member Brent Rathgeber pictured above saw fit to put to them.

First they both agreed with Rathgeber that destruction of property and burning police cars was, in Rathgeber's term, "offside".

Rathgeber to Mansour and Poisson : " So what was your goal? What was your end game here?"

Poisson : "I went to peacefully protest. I disagree with some positions of this government."

Rathgeber : "But what was your ultimate goal? Did you think that somehow you would have an effect on the outcome, that the G20 leaders would be so moved by your protest that they would change their policies? Was that your goal here?"

Poisson : "My point was not to protest the G20 but to express my political opinions which I have every right to do."

Rathgeber to Mansour : "What did you hope to accomplish by taking several days out of your busy life to go to Toronto? Was your goal to somehow affect public policy? Was it to have some face time with President Obama? Or was it to cause disruption?"

Mansour : "I'm not proud of living in a Canada governed by Mr Harper. I'm not proud of that and I went to protest against political positions that the government has. I didn't go to see President Obama and I knew Mr. Harper was not going to change his mind even with 30,000 people in the streets. I didn't have a short term goal; I have a long term goal."

Rathgeber : "But what is your long term goal? To overturn the Harper government or is it to defeat capitalism generally? I suggest your goal was to get on the evening news."

Alarming, isn't it?

Rathgeber, a lawyer who also sits on the Justice and Human Rights Committee, appears to have no idea that the half dozen accusations he is making against these witnesses are all things which are perfectly legal.

It is because this government expects to get away with punishing people for legal acts that we have to keep pushing for a public inquiry into the G20 fiasco.

.

(edited for typos)

Dennis Edney

Omar Khadr's Lawyer Dennis Edney Speech at FNC from Ezra Winton on Vimeo.

via Art Threat

"Be your own leader"
.

Privacy - Homeland Security-style

The same party that thought the Canadian government collecting info about Canadians via the mandatory census was an egregious violation of privacy and civil liberties is apparently just fine with having info about Canadians collected by the US Homeland Security. Funny old Cons, eh?

We've known this was coming since 2007. Bill C-42 , an Act to amend the Aeronautics Act, will allow Canadian airlines exemption from Canadian privacy laws in order to pass passenger info on to Homeland Security if the flight veers at all into US airspace enroute to its final destination. So even if you aren't going to actually land in the US on your way to a Mexican holiday or even a short hop from one Canadian city to another that touches US airspace at some point, Homeland Security will still have veto power over whether you get to board your flight.

"Canadian sovereignty has gone right out the window," raged Liberal transport critic Joe Volpe in June when the Cons first presented the bill. "You are going to be subject to American law."

Then on Tuesday he voted for it along with all the rest of the Libs and Cons. It passed second reading 241 to 34.

Hey, they may have had difficulty bringing themselves to vote for Canadian mining sector responsibility abroad, but when it really matters, the Libs can still get out the vote.

Fun fact : On the same day, Tony Clements' Bill C-29 - Safeguarding Canadian's Personal Information Act was debated in the House. Volpe made yet another rousing speech about privacy.
.

A Maclean's Conjob MP Circle Jerk

On Tuesday Michael Petrou at Maclean's reported on a controversial Peace Conference organized by two current and two former Green Party members, due to take place in Ottawa today:

"An RCMP “ethnic liaison officer” is urging his colleagues to attend a conference on a “Just and Sustainable Peace” that was organized in part by a Green Party of Canada candidate who believes the 9/11 attacks were an “inside job,” and whose participants include the director general of an NGO that endorses hate-filled stereotypes about Jews. Three academics from Iran are flying in for the event."

A bit further down he notes that Zijad Delic, head of the Canadian Islamic Congress, will also be attending, and that he was advised by organizer Paul Maillet, a retired air force colonel, that, in the group's effort to get a free Hill booking :

"Bloc Québécois MP Richard Nadeau was originally booked as a sponsor but canceled due to a scheduling conflict."

On Wednesday a new piece by the same author at Maclean's reported the following exchange in the House :
Mr. Steven Blaney (Lévis—Bellechasse, CPC):

"Mr. Speaker, we recently discovered that some Bloc members are supporting a conference that will be attended by the executive director of an NGO that sanctions hateful stereotypes about Jews. The spokesperson for the Canadian Islamic Congress claims that all Israelis over 18 are legitimate targets for Palestinians. That organization will be represented at the conference. Those remarks are unacceptable."

Can the Minister of Public Safety comment on the Maclean’s magazine article that reports that the Bloc Québécois member for Gatineau is sponsoring this hateful event?"

Six years after former CIC head Elmasry made his ill-chosen remarks about the Israeli draft system - remarks for which he apologized and resigned - a Con MP pretends those were the words of Zijad Delic, the current head of the CIC, and Maclean's duly reports the Con MP's disinformation at its "World Desk".

Back in the House on Wednesday, Bloc MP Nadeau says he has nothing to do with the Peace Conference and asks Con MP Blaney for an apology :

"I am not giving a speech anywhere tomorrow evening, nor have I given any of my own money or my member's allowance to the organization hosting the conference tomorrow. I would like the Conservative member who said that I support hate groups to explain himself and apologize."

Blaney :

"Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for Gatineau for his point of order. I would just like to remind him that in my question, I was referring to the fact that it was reported in an article published in Maclean's, which is a trustworthy magazine."

And round and round it goes ...

Result : Elizabeth May made a frowny face at the four Greens; Vic Toews ordered the RCMP not to attend.

Actually the most interesting exchange occurred when the aforementioned colonel Paul Maillet showed up in the comments under the first Maclean's article, where he patiently explained to the resident ZOMGs freaking out that peace talks are, by definition, pretty much usually held with people with whom you may at first violently disagree.

It's a difficult point to grasp, I know.
.

The Bill C-300 Walk of Shame

Bill C-300, An Act respecting Corporate Accountability for the Activities of Mining, Oil or Gas in Developing Countries, was the attempt to provide a mechanism for dealing with environmental and human rights violations supported or perpetrated by Canadian companies abroad.

Despite being a Liberal bill, it barely passed second reading in the House on April 22, 2009 by a mere 4 votes, because 20 Libs and 7 Dippers missed the vote.

Yesterday in the House, the Bloc's Richard Nadeau quoted from Not on Our Watch: The Mission to End Genocide in Darfur and Beyond by Don Cheadle and John Prendergast with an introduction written by Barack Obama, published in 2007 :

"The Sudanese regime, supported by Canadian, Malaysian and Chinese oil companies, was able to wipe out whole populations in south-central Sudan, leaving the way clear for the oil companies to start pumping the oil."

and Noir Canada: Pillage, corruption et criminalité en Afrique, 2008

"In Bulyanhulu, Tanzania, bulldozers and the national police force were used to expropriate several hundred small-scale miners and clear the way for Canada's Sutton Mining to exploit the area. Fifty-two people were buried alive in that operation. Sutton Mining was then bought by another Canadian company, Barrick Gold."

The International Trade Committee has been hearing similar testimony and much worse for the last 18 months.

Today Bill C-300 went down to defeat in the House 140 to 134 because the following 13 Liberals, 4 Bloc, and 4 NDP skipped the vote (2 Bloc and 2 Cons were paired). Those with a star beside their name also missed the vote on this bill last time, which might lead one to wonder at the coincidence.

Libs : Michael Ignatieff*, Scott Brison*, Ujjal Dosanjh*, John McCallum*, Geoff Regan*, Scott Andrews, Sukh Dhaliwal, Ruby Dhalla, Martha Hall Findlay, Jim Karygiannis, Gerard Kennedy, Keith Martin, and Anthony Rota.

NDP : Charlie Angus*, Bruce Hyer, Pat Martin, and Glen Thibeault

Bloc : Monique Guay, Francine Lalonde, Carole Lavallée, and Yves Lessard.

A special shout-out to Libs Michael Ignatieff, Scott Brison, and Scott Andrews who were all present in the House today yet somehow failed to vote for Bill C-300.
Bruce Hyer of the NDP was there to vote on the 14 amendments to this bill just prior to the vote but not for the final vote.

Cowards. Shame on you all.
.

Ask not for whom the road tolls, it tolls for thee

Laila Yuile writes about the shadow toll on the Sea-to-Sky Highway.
What's a shadow toll?
It's the one no one told you about, the one you can't see.
But it can see you.

There's an interesting story about Macquarie, the Australian investment bank group which among things acts as transportation project managers and road toll operators all over the world, including the Sea-to-Sky Highway in BC and the Highway 407 Express Toll Route in Ontario, the first privatized toll road in Canada.