Police violence at G20-Toronto, like the economic violence engineered by
G20 itself, are windows into Canada’s loss of sovereignty as it continues to
integrate the US military economy and military culture at breakneck speed.
Loss of economic and security sovereignty and the associated planned
plundering (so-called austerity) must be attended by loss of democracy and
civil rights.
What is clear to any observer who reads the victim testimonies, watches the
many videos, reads the civil society association statements, reports and
petitions and follows the corporate and independent media broadcasts is that
the cops and their bosses profiled activists and demonstrators and targeted
them for surveillance, intimidation, interrogations, and assaults as though
they were enemies of the state in a war.
What is clear is that the police and its bosses function under a police
state paradigm in which lawful democratic participation in the form of
organizing and protesting is considered domestic terrorism.
This paradigm is well known in the Latin American (and other) client states
of the USA where the dissident members of civil society (teachers, union
organizers, independent journalists, community organizers, priests, etc.)
are systematically rooted out and murdered by US-trained
government-sponsored commandos.
In addition, it has become routine in Canada’s geopolitical war of
aggression in Afghanistan to disregard the Geneva Conventions and accept
civilian “collateral damage” as a “fact of war” in pursuing suspected
militants; not to mention turning them over to allied factions for torture.
Within the same logic the G20-Toronto paramilitary force was ordered to
indiscriminately actuate mass intimidations and roundups of target groups
(based on profiling), knowing that mostly authentic protesters and many
bystanders would be subjected to the same illegal violence, for the double
purpose of gathering personal information and intimidating citizens away
from participation.
This included turning over select targets to non-uniformed thugs in unmarked
vans for what can only be described as torture and it included extensive use
of embedded agents and hyper surveillance; all the most repulsive tactics
that Canadians have always denounced in totalitarian states.
Either the G20-Toronto paramilitary force was trained and ordered to enact
its anti-democracy commando strategy witnessed by all or we live in a
fucking fairy tale where less broken windows and smashed cars than after a
hockey game in Montreal can justify an ad hoc billion-dollar military budget
and where the best road to national security is a US-insanity-led murderous
war against a nation on the other side of the planet.
The point is that the 10,000 police officers who participated in G20-Toronto
and did not prevent their colleagues from performing massive, sustained and
indiscriminate verbal and physical attacks against citizens and citizens’
rights disregarded their professional oaths of service and acted in line
with received and accepted police training and instructions which are those
of a police state – where citizens who speak out are the enemy.
What is the CCLA (and other recognized human and civil rights groups) doing
about it?
What has been revealed by G20-Toronto cannot be covered up by a
broad-in-name-only federal inquiry operating under the false premise that
“mistakes” may have been made that may lead to the formulation of
recommendations for new procedures and protocols.
These were not mistakes.
What happened at G20-Toronto was planned and runs deep in Canada’s newfound
militaristic and police culture. Canadian civil rights icon Ursula Franklin
recently explained in the national media that Canada is advancing towards
fascism.
This is not business as usual for the CCLA (C for Canadian; Canadian Civil
Liberties Association). The CCLA must not play its establishment role of
aiding the cover up. It must distinguish itself.
As maybe Canada’s leading civil liberties lawyer group, the CCLA has been
working overtime to show leadership in responding to the G20-Torornto mass
police aggression.
Anything else would have been anomalous since the CCLA was founded in
response to a similarly large mass violation of civil liberties: The Quebec
War Measures Act mass arrests of the 1970s. In addition the CCLA office is
in Toronto.
The CCLA had many observers on the ground at G20-Toronto, has vigilantly
collected individual complaints and available data about the arrests, has
coordinated tentative legal actions, and has sent several letters to key
officials pressuring for inquiries. It has also made several media
communications to further pressure responsible bodies to enact measures of
accountability.
Its most significant political success to date is that Ontario’s Office of
the Independent Police Review Director (OIPRD) announced that “systemic
issues” arising from police behaviour at G20-Toronto would be “investigated
thoroughly and in a way that is accountable, transparent, efficient and fair
to both the public and the police.”
This came in response to a CCLA letter to the OIPRD calling for such an
investigation and detailing mass “systemic” violations; that is, incorrectly
using the word “systemic” to mean incidents involving large groups of
victims.
Why does the OIPRD feel the need to express that it will be “fair to both
the public and the police”? Is it not fair to a criminal to be punished for
his/her crime? The OIPRD statement appears to be intended to announce that
its report will be a compromise between justice and police immunity, between
civil rights and police state advancement.
The National Post’s celebration of the OIPRD review as an “unprecedented
investigation by a powerful provincial agency … [with] the power to conduct
searches and seizures, summon documents and summon witnesses, including
officers and police chiefs” suggests that the establishment will use the
OIPRD review to avoid a federal inquiry.
The OIPRD investigation does not have the mandate to examine the role of
political leaders or to examine federal police. The OIPRD investigation is
not enough for the CCLA. Its chief, Nathalie Des Rosiers, has called for a
federal inquiry because the RCMP and CSIS were involved and because such
issues as “national intelligence gathering”, police “baiting”, and high
level “orders” are involved.
The CCLA has put much of its efforts in attempting to secure an official and
“sufficiently broad” federal inquiry. The CCLA should now further and
directly publicly pressure the Harper government and Parliament for the
needed federal inquiry, which will in-principle only benefit from the OIPRD
review.
The CCLA must also learn the proper definition of the word “systemic” and
focus attention on the training and culture of the police and its bosses. It
must sound the alarm: The canary in the coal mine is dead.
And what’s with the use of the word “efficient” used by both the CCLA and
OIPRD? –Sounds like “no replication of analysis” and “not too deep”. On the
contrary, no expense should be spared and plenty of divergent and
complementary reports would be fine. (Is it too late to hold off that order
for another sound canon? What is the cost of lost sovereignty?)
What will be the CCLA’s next push? Will it be placated by the OIPRD review?
It is also of concern that the CCLA appeared to be threatening the federal
government with more lawsuits if a federal inquiry is not ordered – in the
words of Des Rosiers: “if the federal government does not do anything,
individuals who have been wronged should use the possibilities that exist.
Many avenues of redress will rightly be undertaken to get answers and
relief…”
This horse trading attitude indicates that the CCLA might not as vigorously
pursue support for individual and group lawsuits if a “sufficiently broad”
federal inquiry is called. The CCLA needs to provide support for as much
redress as possible for individuals within the limits of the law,
irrespective of inquiries.
In addition, the investigations, inquiries and lawsuits must lead to police
and their bosses being rightly disciplined with formal reprimands, fines,
suspensions, demotions, and firings, in proportion to their violations and
lapses of duty. The police who witnessed their colleagues acting
unprofessionally and illegally and who did nothing to stop their colleagues
must also be disciplined. And political orders must lead to resignations.
A shakedown is needed to avert this next consolidation step towards fascism.
What role will the CCLA play in the continued destruction of Canada?
We don’t need a G20-driven-US-integration-establishment-preserving inquiry.
We need organizations like the CCLA to read the writing on the wall and to
stand for more than just business as usual. This is about Canada’s
integration into the US military economy. It is about desperately needed
sovereignty, the opposite of US-led G8 and G20.
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Police Chief William Blair Be Removed From Office
Ruffian.Angel @ ThemisMusic.com