Lawyers at the disciplinary hearing over a senior Toronto police officer’s actions during the G20 fiasco want Police Chief Bill Blair called to testify. The hearing should also hear why Chief Blair has not been charged with the same offences. Here it is almost five years later and the real culprit has yet to be charged.
If Superintendent Fenton is charged with unlawful arrest and discreditable conduct, just whose fault is it? Already known as the “one of the biggest infringements on civil liberties in peacetime Canada,” the G20 kettling of innocent bystanders was a disgrace that nobody wants to let pass so easily. And as any legal analyst can tell you, the Nuremburg defence—that the person was only following orders—is a fallacious defence. The person responsible for the orders and the person carrying out the orders are equally guilty of the crime.
The fact that Chief Bill Blair has never been charged is itself a crime against Canadian citizens. He had the foresight at the time to question his orders. He asked what law was it that allowed his police officers to keep citizens away (so many metres?) from the walled- off section of downtown Toronto where world leaders were meeting. He was given a law that had no direct connection to what he had asked. He did not question it. He promulgated a falsehood.
Bill Blair thinks that he can pass off the guilt to an underling. He has allowed this fall-guy to be charged under a police act hearing with unlawful arrest and discreditable conduct. This is not even before a criminal court judge who can consider the appropriate criminal sentence. It is only a bloody hearing. The worst the hearing officer can do is recommend the officer be discharged from the Toronto Police Service. Maybe he could even send the miscreant to bed without his supper.
Bill Blair will not be heading the Toronto Police Service much longer. His contract runs out in the spring and it is not being renewed. That was not a unanimous decision we hear but it was the decision and tough beans if Blair does not like it. So far he has gotten off easy. He has not acted honourably.
There have been a few rumours of Blair looking for a riding to run in for the coming federal election. Hopefully, he might run for the Conservatives. They deserve each other and they can lose together. Any suggestion that he might run as a Liberal would likely be met with a wall of resistance. It would probably cost the Liberals the riding.
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Copyright 2015 © Peter Lowry
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