It took them a long time to start to redress the wrong and they still have not got it right. Here it is ten years down the road and the only people we are confident are being compensated to date are the lawyers. The G20 summit in Toronto in 2010 has often been described as “the most massive compromise of civil liberties in Canadian history.”
And the man in charge at the time is now Canada’s minister of public safety and emergency preparedness. It is a travesty that the person in charge can pass the responsibility to underlings and escape blame for his failure to properly direct his police.
With the already largest municipal police force in Canada, Blair’s police were augmented by federal, provincial and municipal forces from across Canada. It was this massive force that stood off and allowed rampant destruction in downtown Toronto. Fools and anarchists ran amok smashing store windows and burning police cars. In the end, it was mainly innocent bystanders and gawkers who paid the price of illegal detainment, search and incarceration.
The illegal kettling of innocent bystanders the next day was in retribution for what the police had allowed downtown the day before.
And where the hell was Toronto police chief Bill Blair? While he later acknowledged to the citizens of Toronto that the actions of his officers were his responsibility, Blair has never apologized for his failure to act for Torontonians on their behalf.
The G20 that summer weekend will go down in Canadian history in unison with the Winnipeg General Strike as an egregious breach of the rights of Canadians.
Many Canadians would like to know why Justin Trudeau has chosen Blair for election as a liberal MP and for positions at the cabinet table?
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Copyright 2020 © Peter Lowry
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