Toronto’s Shameful Moment: 2010 G20 and the Bloody Legacy it left in our City

By Sheldon Taylor

There are two sides to every story, sometimes there are even more ways of looking at a problem or incident. But a careful review of what took place in the City of Toronto, Canada’s largest jurisdiction at the end of June 2010, and during the G20 Summit, suggests our nation’s reputation was stained. For all that we hold dear as peace loving Canadians: rule of law; protection of rights and freedoms; holding our politicians accountable; and the paramountcy of civilian authority over the police were seriously undermined. Furthermore, the actions of a minority of police officers who must have been either taking orders from above, or misconstruing what they were supposed to do have cast a pall on Toronto’s identity.

During the G20, by way of television and in the written media, I learned of the rioting that took place with the smashing of downtown storefronts and the defacing of property by what appeared to be a small group of out-of-control protesters. As a Torontonian I didn’t like seeing, reading or hearing about it. After all, we pride ourselves in this city as peaceful and law abiding people; most of us anyway.

After G20 was over, like other city dwellers I too was happy to get on with life and did all I could to forget the unprecedented mayhem that had occurred in our usually quiet and clean metropolis. But so many stories were still surfacing about police brutality and gross violations of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms that like other Canadians I wondered how could such events have taken place? How could so many of our politicians stand idly by and allow people to be brutalized? Anticipating this possible outcome, and the G20 having a history as a magnet for trouble elsewhere in the world, how could they not have ensured proper safeguards were in place? Knowing that whatever was in place did not work, once accusations surfaced, why were there not proper transparent investigations and appropriate responses to what seemed to be out-of-control and authoritarian behaviour?

Being nothing more than a face in the crowd, and knowing fully well that in Canada when you speak out, especially against the police, like the nail that refuses to be hammered down, the Canadian public quickly cuts your head off I thought it best to mind my own business. It calls to mind that famous quotation credited to Martin Niemoller, (1892-1984):

First they came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me.

More recently I stumbled on a live stream thread for the Occupy Toronto event set to begin on October 15, 2011. Included in the unfolding of program events was a documentary detailing confrontations between protesters and the police during the June 2010 G20 Summit in Toronto. The recounting was no doubt meant to remind us of the experiences that hopefully will not again be repeated as protesters march in the pristine streets of Toronto in the heart of one of the more important business districts in the world.

Before continuing I should say here that after viewing events relating to what appeared in those instances detailed in the documentary that show overstepping and abuse by some police officers whose concerted efforts suggest they must have been following orders from higher ups, I thought it best to perform a Google search: G20, Toronto Police Service, Ontario Human Rights Commission; G20, Toronto Police, Canadian Human Rights Commission.

Why did I feel compelled to conduct the two searches? Well, the City of Toronto is a part of the Province of Ontario. And since even before viewing the documentary there were denunciations of the police for what a few people and many of the G20 protesters deemed to be violations of civil and human rights, I thought the Ontario Human Rights Commission (OHRC) would have made some kind of summary statement acknowledging the concerns being expressed by ordinary people.

Keeping in mind that the OHRC is a body to which some of the injured parties could turn to, I did not expect it to make any prejudicial statements that would seem to have it taking sides one way or the other. However, the only thing of note that I found was a short video featuring Chief Commissioner, Barbara Hall, hallmarking a partnership with the Toronto Police Service, the Toronto Police Service Board and the OHRC. As for the Canadian Human Rights Commission, (CHRC) the same expectation applied. Its mandate falls within federal jurisdiction, and the G20 Summit was funded by Canadian taxpayers and federal employees and bureaucrats, along with politicians were involved at all levels of the planning and delivery stages. Therefore, I thought that supposedly impartial body would have been inclined to make some type of noncommittal, but acknowledging statement; couldn’t find any.

There have been all sorts of statements by status quo politicians who spoke in terms of the police actions as isolated incidents, and moreso, of the protesters’ vandalism and anarchy that could not be tolerated. None of this should come as news to anyone reading this blog. By way of disclosure, it is to be noted that I do know and respect some individual police officers, have worked with others, have in the past worked with the Toronto police, and over the years have taken a keen interest in police-black community relations. All of this has been publicly reported in for example: my appearance along with the late Albert Mercury before the Clare Lewis led initiative, The Task Force on Race Relations and Policing, 1989.

Viewing the events portrayed on www.livestream.com/occupytoronto does provoke  sympathy for many of those protesters who appeared to be peacefully demonstrating against G20 policies. Their views are not the issue here. Instead, the outcome and reactions that could even be characterized as orchestrated anarchy and bad behaviour by some of those belonging to the taxpayer funded body many city residents call “Toronto’s finest” are what is called into question.

Whether living in Toronto or not, as protesters they were exercising their rights as citizens, landed immigrants or visitors to the country enshrined in longstanding guarantees to peaceful assembly and free speech. Even if one feels some degree of prejudice toward them, and wishes to support the Toronto Police Service’s actions during the 2010 Toronto G20 Summit, he or she should be compelled to at least side with constitutional guarantees to due process and have some concern that if legal principles are not followed, especially by those called on to serve and protect us in our democracy, might will eventually over take right.

Most of the complaints about police brutality against the Toronto police are usually lodged by the downtrodden, the powerless, the poor and members of some minority groups. There is less of a tendency for many working and middle class white Canadians and even members of certain ethic groups to openly claim police brutality. But there was this Chinese man who works for the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) describing what happened to him on his way to work on that fateful weekend in June 2010. In his uniform that is distinctive, in fact police officers would readily recognize the outfit, and often are called on to assist TTC personnel, yet this man makes the claim he was knocked to the ground and handcuffed. With his transfer punch seized he was spirited off to a detention centre where he is said to have received nothing to eat and was given just four (4) cups of water in 36 hours.

Another story detailed a gay couple who was taken to the detention centre. One of the partners was asked to confirm sexual status, then told, people there wouldn’t take too well to his kind, so while detained: “act straight.” Many protesters in being spirited away to cramped cages in these detention centres were denied their basic human and civil rights. Some of them passed out. Incarcerated women were made to use toilets without doors, and still handcuffed to other women had to rely on others to wipe their private parts after relieving themselves in unsanitary facilities.

The Toronto Star, November 28, 2010 reported in the aftermath of the Summit, even after the Province of Ontario’s Special Investigations United determined there were some cases of abuse by police against G20 protesters that the government mandated body ran into the blue wall of silence with police officers refusing to identify colleagues who may have numbered among the perpetrators of rogue and bad police behaviour.

How does anyone take these accounts from believable individuals, reputable media and government appointed officials with a grain of salt? Claims of abuse and ill-treatment by some of the G20 protesters have been corroborated by strangers they don’t know who suffered similar attacks. This pattern of police brutality is yet to be properly addressed and responded to by Ontario and City of Toronto politicians.

How is it that as Canadians we send our young men and women to places like Afghanistan to fight for democracy, while at home Prime Minister Steven Harper, Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty and both the past mayor of Toronto, David Miller and the current one, Rob Ford have not moved vigilantly to ensure that Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms, an important part of our constitution, remains the valiant safeguard for all of us?

How is it that as Torontonians far too many of us have allowed this behaviour and by being so closed mouth about it appear to have sanctioned or are afraid to respond appropriately to such police tactics, and political negligence? Can we honestly and in good conscience criticize Bashar Assad, Syria’s notorious president for his barbaric acts against his people while we have unresolved issues of brutality haunting our sensibilities in Canada ?

Or are we so callous that not withstanding a few jackasses who should be dealt with in a court of law, we truly believe, the majority of demonstrators, peaceful ones, deserved what was doled out to them on the streets of Toronto during the G20 Summit. Is it fair that a senior federal politician could oversee so many millions of taxpayer funds marked for the G20, and do so supposedly without proper oversight, and allegedly is getting away without being held accountable; suffers no sanctions, but peaceful and unarmed protesters have felt the boot of inhuman attention? If there was anarchy in city streets in 2010 why was so many of the charges brought against innocent people dropped?

Why is it that during the G20 Summit many more of us did not find the kettling of hundreds of mainly innocent people amidst the pouring rain to be wrong? In that regard, even the Chief of Police, Bill Blair has acknowledged that this unspeakable police tactic will not again be used in Toronto. However, many of us in seeing on television people who were not anarchists or rowdy protesters nor had any interest in the unfolding drama but just had to pass by Queen and Spadina to get to and from their daily routines: work, shopping, taking their dog out so that Fido could relieve himself, didn’t stand up to defend their right to be where they were and their right to lawful movement in Canada?

Why is it as Canadians, Ontarians, and Torontonians we often defer without question to the police? That weekend in June much more than the constitution was violated. A woman who is a lawyer, her father used to be a police officer spoke of her abhorrence when in being called to the scene and trying to help some of the detainees she too was detained for nothing more than attempting to ensure due process was not trampled on by state authorities.

Another woman spoke of an officer with a badge number she identifies as sitting on her, thumbing her, punching her, treating her as she said “like an inanimate object.” She was, as she reports, verbally abused. So violent was the behaviour by the police towards her, she urinated on herself in the van she was being held in. And as this was done she claimed sexually charged language was directed at her. Is this our country; our province; our city that are being talked about? For if it is so, I don’t recognize this Canada, and I am shocked that people with the means, the decency and the power to say: “Not in our front or backyards” have looked the other way.

Many people have often taken the easy way out. When some poor and unprotected minority claims police brutality, we look the other way. Community leaders who stand up to the police, despite behind the scenes help and support from a few brave officers and some politicians are maligned, and, are made to understand that one pays a severe price for such action. There was in the documentary portraying dreadful events stemming from that fateful weekend in June 2010 not a group of Blacks who Canadians would quickly denounce and condemn when an allegation of police brutality is passionately claimed. But ordinary white men and women; professionals: lawyers, teachers, friends of people in high places, who were all hung out to dry in the name of authority and order.

As was seen on the television, people were thrown to the ground, hard concrete, then cuffed and dragged away. Unmarked vans and police in civilian clothing would pull up and drag people quickly behind sliding doors. Young women sat on the side of the road sobbing. Popping sounds, then metal scraping the ground could be heard as police in riot gear unloaded tear gas canisters in the direction of unarmed protesters. Meanwhile, other protesters are heard to be singing: “All we are saying is give peace a chance.” Is this what we’ve become? Are we heading in the direction of being a borderline police state, only steps away from that of taking on the appearance of a Gulag?

With the brutal behaviour by a minority of police officers who acted in the name of the more than 6,000 of their colleagues; the repeated violations of the Canadian constitution; the gross indecency of politicians who refused to or are fearful of asserting their civilian authority; living in a country in which as Prime Minister, Stephen Harper after sanctioning the spending of hundreds, maybe billions of taxpayer dollars on the G20 Summit closed his ears to the violent abuse of Canadians, young and old alike, by walking away, as if he is an absolute monarch, who is able to invoke the divine rights of kings; are we ready to say: “never again!”

There are many unanswered questions in what was one of Canada’s darkest moments. It was a time when the clouds that formed overhead in downtown Toronto brought a reeking and raucous rain that as citizens we must live forever with.

The question now is: Will the authorities, politicians and police alike with the G20 wind at their backs and by not being held accountable in June 2010, learn from their mistakes? Will we as Canadians ensure the rights of the Occupy Toronto and Occupy Bay Street protesters who are now gathering in Toronto to respond to shrinking economic opportunities while less than one percent of the population plunder the land that First Nations’ peoples as its stewards now collectively share with us? Are we responsible enough to be mindful that the exploitation and wanton disregard for our constitution is a slippery slide into the abyss? Do we  understand that when well polished boots of authority smash against the head of any person who is innocent or guilty, without due process and regard for law, we all feel the pain?

Or will we, if need be, submit to terror from within, in the hope that the threatening shadows overhead that keep out the sunlight will not forever stay our commitment to fairer opportunities for all. And are we so misguided as to think the vulnerabilities G20 placed before us could be ignored and Canada without the hard work and good will of its people will still remain a country committed to peace, order and good government?

©Sheldon Taylor October 14, 2011
updated October 15, 2011