An Open Letter to David Miller and Toronto City Council re: #G20

To Mayor Miller and the members of Toronto City Council,

Our police forces are charged with three basic tasks:

To defend the rights of the people
To protect the safety of the people
To protect the property of the people

Some compromises must sometimes be made between the first two of these, rights and safety with the third being subordinate to the first two.

At the G20 the police failed to protect the rights of the people, they in fact appear to have grossly violated the rights of many peaceful, law-abiding, civic-minded citizens. At the very least, even if none of the hundreds of individual accusations are true police denied citizens the right to peaceful assembly and free speech.

The police failed to protect the safety of people. Police were, in fact, the chief danger to public safety. While no serious injuries have been reported as a result of the black bloc action dozens of complaints have emerged of police brutality, many of them caught on camera and more accusations are being made daily. The black bloc may have posed a risk to public safety but the police failed to act in any way to protect the public during the black bloc riot - putting their own safety (despite having weapons, body armor, helmets and riot shields) above the safety of the defenseless public they were paid to protect.

The police also failed to protect the property of citizens, allowing the black bloc to riot and destroy while an army of 20,000 security personnel did nothing to stop it. They failed further when they themselves confiscated the property of Canadians, primarily cameras and video recording devices without cause or warrant.

Having failed in all three of their primary duties the Toronto City Council then voted unanimously to express their "pride" in the police and tell them what an "outstanding" job they did? If they failed in every major duty assigned to them how can the word "outstanding" even be considered in evaluating their performance? Mayor Miller has even been quoted as saying the police had an "impossible" job to do. Really? Impossible? they only had one real challenge all weekend, and they had the people who presented that challenge outnumbered 200 - 1 in addition to being better trained and armed yet they failed to meet that challenge. I think you need to double check on the definition of "impossible".

Council also extended this declaration to Police Chief Bill Blair: The person who was in charge of a security force of 20,000 whose reaction to 100 masked (though unarmed) vandals attacking the city was to hide. The person who then, after all danger to security personnel had passed, conducted the largest mass arrest in Canadian history - grabbing protesters, onlookers and innocent bystanders alike and subjecting them to conditions that, if this had been a war, would have violated the Geneva Convention on the treatment of POWs. The same Chief Blair who lied to the public about powers given to the police, lied to the public about weapons seized and lied to the public about the repatriation ceremony of a Canadian soldier not for reasons of public safety, or to protect witnesses or private information but to make the police look better - he lied, in other words, for PR reasons.

Yet somehow, our Councilors and our Mayor are "proud" of the "outstanding" work they did. Other than staying for the whole weekend I fail to see how they on any level can even be considered to have done their jobs - much less in a way that warrants special commendation.

Rather than stand with the citizens of Toronto who were wronged by both masked vandals and then by the police paid to protect us, rather than joining us in getting angry, asking questions and demanding answers you have chosen to join the police in failing miserably. You pat the police on the back, ask citizens to file a complaint with the appropriate bodies (code for "tell someone who cares") and then proceed to pretend that nothing happened.

No one who voted for yesterday's measure should ever hold their heads up in this city again, much less run for office. You have failed your city and peaceful, law abiding citizens who trusted you to stand up for their interests and their rights. You should all be deeply ashamed of yourselves, just as Toronto is ashamed of you. Nothing that you do for the rest of your careers will take away the stain of this, and no good you have done previously will be remembered in light of it.

Sincerely,
Justin Beach
Toronto