Police misconduct and thuggery ran rampant during the recent G20 event held in Toronto, Ontario. Some rose to infamy, like “Officer Bubbles“. I haven’t heard anything recent about his attempt to sue YouTube for posting videos that mocked him for being [allegedly] a complete and utter jerk.
Others attempted to hide who they were and were apparently reprimanded, and at least one has been criminally charged for his disgusting assault of a protester during the G20.
The “police state” was alive and well and living in Toronto, at least for a few days this year, all with the full and complete blessing of Toronto’s top cop, who, naturally, has no comment on any of this.
The Ontario Ombudsman looked into the antics of the police during this event, and what he found doesn’t make the police look very good, and in particular our good friend, Chief Bill Blair.
You can read the entire report on the Ombudsman’s website, and the video of his press release is below, for your viewing pleasure.
🙂
Maybe the decisions on whether to proceed with charges would be better left in the hands of a Grand Jury. Maybe it is time to bring back Grand Juries. That way the decision to lay charges or proceed to trial, is not just left up to a single man or woman.
Clone that man!
Then infiltrate the entire “so-called” “Justice” system from top to bottom with his liken images.
This is the first time in many a year I have heard anybody of André Marin’s position speak of common law, case law and the Criminal Code of Canada.
Further, the Ontario Ombudsman pointed out that these laws, already on the books, provide the police with ample requirements to uphold peace and good order, while, simultaneously, the Criminal Code meshes with the Canadian Constitution’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms that protects individual “civil rights”.
The Charter of Rights and Freedoms, however, does not provide carte blanche freedoms to damage and destroy public and private property. The Criminal Code of Canada provides the instrument the police and courts need to arrest, charge and prosecute for such criminality.
Yet, secretly, and perhaps unwittingly, politicians granted the police’s request to resurrect a 71-year-old, antiquated law, namely the Public Works Protection Act of 1939, to deal with the anticipated troubles that might arise in Toronto streets if thousands of protesters showed up to demonstrate during the G-20 Summit.
Mr. Marin questioned the technical legality of waking up this “hibernating bear”, as he called it, an action tantamount to declaring martial law.
In my not-so-humble opinion, if blame is to be laid, it should be placed at the feet of the G-20 Summit itself. This elaborate party was a colossal waste of time and taxpayers’ billion dollars could have been spent more wisely.
What did these talking heads, representing 20 world governments, accomplish in two June days in 2010, yammering about the complex issues surrounding confusion in the global financial system and the unhealthy world economy?
Zippo!
Politicians, heads of state and economists have cussed and discussed this insoluble problem since the dawn of civilization.
What were Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s intentions behind extending invitations to world dignitaries to attend a showcase event that garnered nothing more than a disruption in the daily lives of millions of people?
Only two years ago he had hosted a useless G-8 Summit in Ontario. He acts like he has planted a “For Sale” sign in Canada’s front yard in hopes of interesting a foreign government with the financial wherewithal to partner up with China to buy into this piece of real estate.
It is a sad commentary that in this country that has laws and is supposed to be a country that abides by those laws of “natural justice” and “due process” that the Ontario Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services felt compelled in the spirit of “public safety” and “officer safety”, which they believe trumps “citizens’ rights”, to surreptitiously enact a law that suspended ordinary law.
The politicians and police chose not to give fanfare to the revival of this rustic relic because the legality would have undoubtedly been challenged in court.
Activists erroneously thought they were well-versed about the legalities of exercising their civil rights, freedom of expression, freedom of peaceful assembly, and the right to be secure from unreasonable and warrantless searches and unlawful detention.
What kind of a democratic country usurps laws overnight without notification to the public?
There are no laws in this nation that allows a police officer who does not have reasonable and probable cause and a search warrant to frisk individuals, put their hands down their pants (see pictures in report), grope genitals, ram a Kevlar finger up the rectum–especially out in full view of the public–or churn through groceries and vehicles.
Likewise, there are no laws in this country that requires an individual to carry identification; nor are there laws that allow a police officer to whimsically demand proof of that identification on the street corner, barking “your papers, please!”
Canada isn’t Nazi Germany. Yet. Is it?
But politicians never change their stripes, do they?
”If it’s secret, it’s legal,” was the attitude of the late U.S. President Richard M. Nixon when justifying and sanctioning bungle-ups of CIA covert operations.
Has Canada sunk this low?
Obviously.
But just because the Province of Ontario was caught in the act and the Special Investigations Unit called in to conduct a public inquiry into this shameful display that reflects on the whole country doesn’t mean another province–or Ottawa itself–won’t engage in similar underhanded tactics in the future…
…unless people get molten-lava mad and stamp out the corrupt governments’ enactment of all unlawful and unconstitutional command-and-control schemes.
The police–nay, the whole “Justice” system–have grown too big for their breeches all across Canada and act as though they are above the law. These public servants need to be reined in on a short leash and chained to the Criminal Code and the Constitution.