Monday, February 28, 2011

A New and Damning G20 Report

As reported in The Toronto Star, a 59-page report by the Canadian Civil Liberties Association and National Union of Public and General Employees, set to be released today, calls for a full-scale enquiry into the abuse perpetrated by the authorities during last summer's G20 Summit in Toronto.

During three days of hearings last November which the police refused to take part in (no surprise there), a strong picture emerged from the testimony of dozens of witnesses who were physically abused and/or had their Charter rights taken away from them (a Kafkaesque and oxymoronic situation if there ever was one in Canada) of large-scale malfeasance on the part of the police, aided, abetted, and emboldened by both the McGuinty and Harper Governments.

Despite the damning nature of this report, despite the compelling video evidence to be found on YouTube and last Friday's fifth estate, and despite the fact that Ontario Ombudsman has said that “the most massive compromise of civil liberties in Canadian history” had occurred during the G20 weekend,
my dark suspicion is that governments will continue to deny responsibility for what they wrought, police chiefs will continue to mouth platitudes about prosecuting where evidence warrants, officers will continue to go unpunished, and the scars of that weekend will continue to haunt the Canadian psyche for a long time to come.

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