A Tax on Financial Transactions

The Globe and Mail has an online story reporting Ontario Finance Minister Dwight Duncan's adamant opposition to any consideration of a tax on financial transactions at the G20. Although the article doesn't provide details, most of what I have read about such a measure would involve the following: 0.1 per cent tax on transactions of stocks and bonds and 0.01 per cent on derivatives.

While the advocates of unfettered capitalism are always reluctant to share, given the preferential tax treatment capital gains and dividends receive, such a measure would hardly be punitive, and would contribute substantially to efforts to relieve the grinding poverty in which much of the world lives. In the West, the revenues from the tax could be used for many purposes, including better funding for healthcare, climate change adaptation and costs, etc.

However, just as with proposals to combat climate change, I suspect that nothing will come of the G20 discussion for the same reason, namely that without universal application of such a tax, it would be unfair and counterproductive, or so we are told.

Clearly the North American powers-that-be have not been paying attention to the the needs of the people, as recently reflected in the Occupy Movement.

Two Sunday Morning Links

Echoing some of the sentiments I expressed the other day, this morning's Star editorial endorses the Toronto Police Services Board's decision to deny promotions to nine officers recommended by Police Chief Bill Blair. Is it possible that these officers, who behaved illegally by removing their name tags during last year's G20 Summit, were chosen by Chief Blair to be rewarded for their initiative? After all, if they couldn't be identified while violating people's Charter Rights, wouldn't they have in fact spared the good Chief more serious embarrassment and questions about his flawed leadership during the Summit?

Also in today's paper, Martin Regg Cohn's column, entitled Will Tory Trojan Horse hurt Hudak’s crusade? offers some interesting insight into an extreme right-wing faction of Tim Hudak's Ontario Progressive Conservative Party whose tactics, according to the article, "make the U.S. Tea Party look like … well, a tea party by comparison."

Enjoy the day.

Please sign this petition urging Prime Minister Harper to stop threatening Michaela Keyserlingk and to stop exporting asbestos.

Vindication For Those Abused By G20 Police Forces

The vast majority of the 1100 people abused, assaulted and arrested as a result of the thuggish actions of the G20 police forces, apparently intent on suppressing Canadians' Charter Rights last June in Toronto, must be feeling a deep measure of vindication today, this despite the fact that Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty, Prime Minister Stephen Harper, and Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair have never acknowledged that anything wrong transpired and, of course, have blocked any attempts to hold an inquiry to begin to heal the damage done to our democratic traditions and our trust in the police.

The Toronto Star headline, Aggression during G20 rally ‘perpetrated by police,’ judge rules speaks a truth long evident to those who were either present at the demonstrations or saw a wealth of video evidence depicting an out-of control constabulary wilfully suppressing our democratic right to protest last year in Ontario's capital.

Justice Melvyn Green made his comments after dismissing the charges against a 32-year-old bricklayer from London, Ontario, Michael Puddy, whose only 'crime' seems to have been wearing a T-shirt that offended police sensibilities, leading to his being arrested and charged with obstructing police, concealing a weapon and possession of a prohibited weapon, a pocket knife that he uses in his trade.

As reported in the Star,

The London, Ont. bricklayer was on his way to a concert downtown when he joined the front line of the late-night Saturday rally. Puddy was wearing a “Police Bastard” T-shirt named after a punk band, when he was pushed to the ground and cuffed.

Puddy was shuffled from officer to officer and eventually transported to the temporary Prisoner Processing Unit on Eastern Ave. He spent two days behind bars and was forced to sleep on a concrete floor and use a toilet without a door before he was released on $25,000 bail.

Justice Green made the following comment which, to me, reflects the most serious implications of the unwarranted police actions:

“The zealous exercise of police arrest powers in the context of political demonstrations risks distorting the necessary if delicate balance between law enforcement concerns for public safety and order, on the one hand, and individual rights and freedoms, on the other.”

How do we calculate the true cost of police actions that one normally associates with non-democratic states? How many people, for example, will choose to never (again) take part in a public demonstration or otherwise stand up for their beliefs because of what happened in Toronto?

Even if it is only one person, the cost of the G20 will still have been too high.

the Real News Asks Some Important Questions About The G20 Secret Law

Although hardly the best interview I have seen, the following is worth viewing inasmuch it raises real questions about credibility regarding who the driving force was behind requesting the Public Works Protection Act invoked during the G20 Summit. Was Bill Blair acting on his own initiative, or was it at the behest of the RCMP? Just one of the many questions that only a public inquiry can answer, an inquiry that both Dalton McGuinty and Stephen Harper are steadfast in their refusal to call.

Chief Bill Blair: No Apology, No Resignation

Having released a self-serving 70 page report reviewing the G20 Summit debacle, Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair has concluded he has nothing to apologize for and will not consider resigning. As reported in today's Star, despite a public opinion poll showing a dramatic drop in public support for police actions at the Summit, (2010- 72%) (2011 - 41%), the Chief seems content to talk about things that went right, such as protecting the perimeter fence, while ignoring the widespread violations of Charter Rights in the arrests of over 1100 protesters, promising only that kettling will not be used in the future.

Also absent from the report is any explanation for the obstructionist tactics employed by the police this past year in identifying offending officers, despite the plethora of video evidence submitted by citizens. The fact that only two officers have thus far been charged says a great deal to me about the Chief's 'commitment' to uncovering the identity of these renegades.

Despite the erosion of public trust in the police and despite the ongoing trauma of people who directly experienced last June's police-state actions, something positive emerged for Bill Blair - the opportunity to hone his political skills to the point where his public utterances match the platitudinous quality of the most seasoned of Queens Park or Parliament Hill veterans.

Clearly, should his police career suffer an unlikely reversal, a new one serving the people awaits him.

Canada's Quasi-Police state

While the Premier of Ontario continues to blithely and glibly disavow any responsibility for the horrendous abuses of Charter Rights that took place during last June's G20 Summit, admitting only that he "could have done a better job of communicating," evidence continues to mount that we are living in a quasi-police state.

Thanks to the Toronto Star's superb ongoing coverage, the issues arising from the illegal actions police took during the Summit continue to raise profoundly disturbing questions about the erosion of our freedoms and the almost complete impunity enjoyed by the police responsible for that erosion. The latest revelation, found in today's Star, has the headline, Police sued over hellish 11-hour G20 arrest ordeal. The story reveals how Sean Salvati claims he was arrested, strip-searched, beaten, denied access to a lawyer and left naked in a cell for nearly an hour.

What was Mr. Salvati's 'crime'? Speaking to two female RCMP officers who did not care to be spoken to on the eve of the Summit. Although the term is perhaps used too much, 'Kafkaesque' is the only one that seems appropriate for what followed. Please read the entire article to see what you think.

Tangentially, I guess there is one thing that people do like about Premier McGuinty. He recently promised to make the (GO) trains run on time. And for some, I guess that's all that matters.

With Powers Beyond Those of Mortal Men (And Women)

Loathsome worm that I am, I have spent the past year regularly criticizing the police for their mass suspension of our Charter rights during last June's G20 Summit in Toronto. I saw them as a force gone wild, intoxicated by their own power, emboldened by a police chief (Bill Blair) who withheld from the public that the 5-meter fence rule was a fiction, and abetted by a Premier (Dalton McGuinty), who waited until the Summit had left town to tell the public the truth about the non-existent law.

How wrong I was. In a story carried in the Toronto Star, which has done a consistently fine job in tracking the entire debacle, the real truth has been revealed. The mass arrests were not only defensible, but necessary:

Toronto police maintain, however, they are justified, to preserve the peace, in temporarily holding people they believe are about to engage in criminal activity.

So there you have. In addition to possessing legendary crime-fighting prowess, their secret weapon has been revealed: a highly attuned psychic ability enabling them to see beyond any semblance of innocence into the true hearts of darkness lurking in the over 1000 protesters arrested.

But then again, we do have that rather pesky fact that almost all of the charges were subsequently dropped.

Perhaps a bit more practice is called for, boys and girls in blue?

Finally, a G20 Police Arrest

There is little doubt in my mind that the relentless efforts of the Toronto Star played a major role in the arrest of Toronto police officer Glen Weddell in the G20 beating of Dorian Barton, the Toronto baker whose only crime was to take some pictures of police horses at Queens Park during the G20 Summit in Toronto last June. That it took almost a year for this to happen is a sad commentary on the leadership of Police Chief Bill Blair and the officers on the force who obviously willfully concealed the accused officer's identity.

Whether justice will actually be served remains to be seen, given the double-standard of justice the courts often apply to the 'brotherhood of the blue."

And The Two Chief Culprits Remain silent

Today's story in The Toronto Star shows how the search for the identity of the officer who allegedly beat Dorian Barton is reaching absurdist levels.

Yet despite the increasing evidence of flagrant police obstructionism, Toronto Chief Bill Blair and Premier Dalton McGuinty, the main architects of the massive deprivation of Charter Rights that occurred during the G20 Summit, remain silent.

Despite Police and SIU Obstruction, G20 Lawsuit Moving Ahead

I have already written extensively about the G20 police abuses of our Charter Rights and have cited the McGuinty Government's collusion in those abuses as the main reason I cannot vote for the Ontario Liberals in October. However, a story in today's Star is well-worth reading to remind ourselves of how hard the authorities are working to obstruct any efforts at justice, in this case for Dorian Barton, who was severely beaten for snapping a few pictures last summer at Queens' Park, the so-called official protest zone during the G20.

The refusal of Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair to compel identification of the officer responsible for the beating, despite the fact that it was witnessed by 11 other officers, speaks volumes of how politicized the entire process is, as does the failure of the SIU to accept a civilian eyewitness account of the incident.

Yet Premier McGuinty still insists he has nothing to apologize for, despite the fact of his collusion with the police to wait until the G20 was over before revealing that the secret law regarding a five-metre perimeter around the security fence was, in fact, non-existent. I am convinced that it was the fiction about this law that emboldened police to overstep their authority at every opportunity, leading to mass mistreatment and jailing of thousands of people that notorious weekend in June.

G20 Summit - The Issue That Won't Go Away

Responding to a recent editorial in The Star calling for a G20 Summit inquiry, readers' letters amply demonstrate that this is an issue that won't go away. Click here to read them.

Tim Hudak's Silence on the G20 Abuses

It is hardly surprising that Tim Hudak, leader of the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party, is keeping silent even when conservative elements of Canadian society are demanding that Dalton McGuinty call a full and independent inquiry into the G20 abuses of peaceful protesters. The usually voluble youngster who was mentored by Mike Harris knows better than to risk offending his core supporters who, of course, include the majority of police associations.

Nonetheless, it is perhaps worthwhile remembering where the sympathies of this self-proclaimed defender of 'Ontario's families and seniors' (have you ever heard him give a speech where he doesn't mention at least one of those two groups?) lie. As a guest columnist for the Toronto Sun on July 5, 2010, this would-be premier wrote the following. (I have put in bold some of the key parts.) Not once does he express anything but unwavering support for the police. Not once does he express the least bit of concern over the egregious violations of Charter Rights committed by the police. Apparently Mr. Hudak's sympathies for Ontario families and seniors have some very real limits:

The downtown core of Toronto was turned into a conflict zone by a group of lawless hooligans a little more than a week ago.

These reckless thugs were not in Toronto to protest a legitimate political cause. Instead they are part of a circuit of criminals who travel to international summits with one goal in mind — to destroy property, incite mayhem and terrorize law-abiding citizens.

Sadly, in the wake of the violence, a number of usual-suspect special interest groups are attempting to pin blame, not on the hooligans, but instead on our police services or the federal government.

But it wasn’t frontline police officers who spent a weekend smashing in storefront windows, and it wasn’t federal government officials who torched police cars.

Instead these were the acts of violent anarchists, with a long history of using “peaceful” protest marches at international summits as cover for reckless acts of extreme violence.

That is why I oppose the orchestrated attempt by these activists to demonize our police services in the wake of the G20 violence. I proudly stand behind the men and women of our police services that were faced with a daunting and difficult task of protecting the public against these professional vandals and hooligans.

After a week of silence on the G20, I hope Dalton McGuinty will join me in clearly supporting our men and women in uniform.

McGuinty should also have the courage to finally explain why his government passed a secret law to expand police powers during the G20 summit. I believe the public would have understood the necessity of these new powers to contain the violent thugs, but that does not mean McGuinty had the right to hide these new powers from the public.

We all know Ontario’s police officers have two fundamental responsibilities:
First, they are expected to preserve order and protect law-abiding families and businesses from criminal activity.

Second, they are expected to bring those responsible for criminal acts to justice.

It is on this second responsibility that we should now focus our attention.

We must make sure the thugs and hooligans who trashed downtown Toronto are held accountable for their crimes. The right to speak must never be confused with the right to vandalize property that tarnishes the reputation of our city and province.

The McGuinty government must do everything in its power to ensure the criminals behind this violence are caught, tried to the fullest extent of the law and held personally financially responsible for the cost of the damage they have caused.

In addition, the authorities should co-operate with any resident or business that wishes to pursue a civil action against the individuals and groups responsible for this violence.

In the meantime, the senior levels of government should establish a fund to compensate small business owners for property damages and the interruption of business caused by repairing the damages.

The hooligans behind the G20 violence gave our city a black eye on the world stage. We must not let special interest sideshows distract our attention from holding these criminals accountable for the harm they caused.

Now is the time for us to reclaim the reputation of our city and make it clear to the world that in Toronto, law-abiding citizens get protected, criminals get punished, and justice always gets done.


It is hoped that the perceptive reader will see the irony of some of Hudak's comments, especially those talking about criminals getting punished and justice getting done.

Message to Premiers and Prime Ministers: Even the Right is Demanding a G20 Inquiry

Politicians should know they are in trouble when even the more conservative elements of society, traditionally unquestioning supporters of the police and their tactics, begin to demand a full public inquiry into the massive abuse of people and their Charter Rights that took place during Toronto's G20 Summit. For example, The National Post has published an editorial calling for an inquiry. The Toronto Sun's Joe Warmington writes very critically about the police misbehaviour. The Globe and Mail has solid coverage of the report by the Canadian Civil Liberties Union demanding an inquiry. A more politically balanced paper, The Ottawa Citizen, baldly states that McGuinty is wrong to oppose an inquiry, as does The Toronto Star.

Despite the facile denials by both Premier McGuinty and Federal Public Safety Minister Vic Toews of the need for such an inquiry, a consensus seems to be emerging that it is the only way to clear the miasma of suspicion and cynicism that has engulfed Canadians over what transpired last June. The graphic video footage seen by so many clearly reveals that our complacent assumptions about Canadian rights and freedoms are little more than quaint notions, easily suspended at the whim of our political leaders and their underlings.

Only a full inquiry can begin the healing process.

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.

The Fifth Estate and the Shame of the G20

While I have believed in the power of the written word my entire life, sometimes images are a more potent way to convey the outrages that frequently occur in the world. Probably the best examples of this power have been in the images we have been inundated with since the upheavals in the Middle East began.

Another example is surely to be found in last night's fifth estate program, broadcast on C.B.C., showing the horrific results of having a police force, apparently unfettered by the normal rules and expectations of behaviour in a democratic society, routinely abusing people, with absolutely no regard for their Charter Rights.

Now available on the C.B.C. website, I defy even the most inveterate supporter of the police to watch the program and tell me that the police (aided and abetted by both the McGuinty and Harper Governments) did nothing wrong.

G20 Special on The Fifth Estate

Just a brief post to provide a link to the preview of a Fifth Estate program this Friday (February 25th) showing people's eyewitness videos of police violence during the summit.

An Insightful Comparison Between Egyptian Forces and G20 Security

Now that we are subscribing to the Toronto Star, I have the luxury of lingering over the paper as I finish my morning coffee. Given the many posts I have written over the months about the abuses of our Charter Rights by both the McGuinty Government and the security forces given the task of protecting the G20 politicians and dignitaries, I always keep an especially watchful eye out for stories pertaining to those abuses.

In today's edition, the Star's lead letter, written by Richard Taylor of Toronto, draws a sharp contrast between the way Egypt dealt with its protesters during the recent uprising and how our police dealt with peaceful protest last summer in Toronto. I highly recommend the letter, effectively reminding us as it does of how serious was the abuse of Canadian citizens exercising their democratic rights. As I have written before, it is one of the main reasons, given its collusion with the security forces, that I cannot support the provincial Liberals in the next election.

Thanks to Toronto Star, the Inept SIU Re-opens G20 Investigation

After the Toronto Star recently published photos surrounding the police assault on, and subsequent arrest of Dorian Barton, the student who ran afoul of authorities for taking pictures of police horses during the G20, the province's Special Investigations Unit, an ostensibly inept organization, has agreed to reopen its investigation into the case.

Having previously looked into the case but finding no evidence upon which to proceed, the Director of the SIU now finds himself in a situation where he and his unit can no longer gloss over at least one of the many hundreds of instances of police misconduct during last summer's summit.

At least it's a start.

More Evidence of Police Brutality at the G20

There is a compelling video on today's Star website in which Toronto student Dorian Barton explains how attempting to take some pictures of police horses during the G20 led to the police breaking his upper arm and arresting him for obstruction. Originally investigated by the SIU and dropped due to lack of evidence, it is to be hoped that this new spotlight will encourage them to revisit the assault. As matters now stand, Barton is suing the Toronto Police Force.

How The G20 Radicalized Me

Just a short thought for today. Although I am now at the stage of life where I have more years behind me than I have ahead, and have been an inveterate cynic for many years, I am now starting to wonder if there is just a glimmer of hope for the possibility of real change. Ironically enough, my smattering of optimism arises from the violation of our Charter Rights by the police during the G20 last summer in Toronto.

Much has already been written about that infamous weekend, and I'm sure much more will be, but what I find so heartening, much to the dismay, I'm sure, of politicians and police chiefs, is the fact that the public will not let the issue die. People are refusing to be placated by the usual platitudes such as 'mistakes were made,' and 'the police did their best under very trying circumstances.' While such bromides might have been effective in the past, judging by the wide array of societal engagement on this, they have clearly lost their currency. The fact that a rally at Queens Park is planned for January 8th to demand a full inquiry is yet another indication of public passion and engagement.

I read an article in the December issue of The Walrus, a reflection by Pasha Malla on the G20. In the essay, she interviews activist Jaggi Singh, who says:

 “In Toronto, with over 1,000 arrests, mostly arbitrary, many idealists were swept up in the police repression, or observed it close at hand. This was meant to scare those idealists into pulling away from radical politics. Some folks are definitely traumatized and scared. But many, definitely, have become radicalized, too.”

It is his observation about radicalization that struck a responsive chord for me. While watching the G20 events unfold, I was disgusted by the property destruction wrought by a small group, but I was appalled by the police repression and physical violence they perpetrated against the peaceful protestors. So I guess, to use Singh's language, I became radicalized, affecting, as it has, my decision not to vote for the McGuinty Government again, and reflected in the fact that I can't stop thinking, writing, and talking about how precarious our Charter Rights really are.

And I doubt that I am alone in reacting thus. I think the same has happened to traditional police media supporters such as Rosie Di Manno and Peter Worthington. The Globe's implacable Christie Blatchjford, of course, continues to downplay the gravity of what went on, but I find her musings less and less relevant today, one of the reasons I cancelled my longtime subscription to the Globe and Mail.

But I digress. The thought occurs to me that if people are being reminded of the power they potentially have through the ongoing outrage over the police in Toronto, might we not reach a point where we can apply that power to other pressing issues, such as climate change, sacrificing young people in a futile war, etc. etc. ?

Perhaps all we need are a few more epiphanous moments.

Just a few thoughts from a cynic whose hardened heart has started its journey back into the light.