Ottawa City Hall, 26 February, 2002
My name is Tim Lash. I live at 234 Third Avenue. I was at some of the demonstrations in Ottawa last November. In April last year, I was at the Quebec Summit, and that gave me an interest and perspective (see Annex 1). I saw good things and bad or unwise things done by both police and demonstrators. I hope the Panel will hear and report on individual experiences in enough detail and evidence to lead towards truth, justice and fairness, and reconciliation where appropriate for the particular instances. In my presentation I wish to address some principles.
Guidance for big political events.
Guidance for police, politicians and citizens certainly needs to be articulated now, as the Panel intends to do. Guidance should be informed by specific real events. Equally, it needs to be based on democratic fundamentals, and a clear statement of what we want normal relations to be among citizens, our democratically-chosen representatives and leaders in government, and the agents we charge with serving and protecting us.
Our policing system and approaches at large events should be designed to protect communities and individuals and protect the exercise of their civil rights. It should be designed to forestall, contain and calm violence, particularly violence against people, where it is likely to occur, and with no more force than is reasonably required, erring on the side of gentleness. And finally, very importantly, to act in unusual situations so there is a rapid return to normal.
"Normal" means a situation where three things prevail:
(i) general trust by the public in the police, (ii) general trust by the police in the public, (iii) public confidence that there is wise and accountable political control of the policing forces. Principles:
1. Respond politically to policy questions, not with force. When citizens have strong and evident desires to be heard and to have due influence on a matter of public policy, political representatives and leaders need meet them with equivalent and evident actions to hear, and to duly respond. Clive Doucet's table outside City Hall during the Ottawa meetings is a good example (see Annex 2). The frustration of this intent by police interference in the march
2. Public behaviour by police must be predictable by the public. If police decide to use tactical surprise in a particular instance, it should be according to principles that have been debated and publicly approved beforehand. Then the police should be publicly accountable for the specific use after the fact - able to show that it meets the approved principles, and is warranted by a reasonable assessment of risk.
3. There needs to be effective and positive two-way political communication and interactions for managing these events and issues. This requires responsible action by both elected politicians and active political citizens to improve on and use our representative political processes. Trust was clearly shattered by the police betrayal of the arrangements made with citizen liaison committees last November. It is not effective for liaison committees to be primarily between police and citizens. They have to be primarily between citizens and responsible elected politicians, with police participation.
4. Police accountability requires easy public identification of individual officers. At the Ottawa event in November, the City of Ottawa Police and the RCMP showed ID numbers on their helmets. The Ontario Provincial Police, and I believe the Metro Toronto Police, were individually anonymous within their riot gear.
5. The public - citizens - need to know what is being done with all the video and other information that is being collected by police at these events. What is being done with it in Canada? And how is it shared internationally? 6. Politicians must acknowledge the possibility of police misbehaviour, even to the level of police abuse. They have to be seen to accept for serious consideration citizens' complaints and evidence proffered, and they have to respond seriously. Stonewalling is not acceptable.
7. Actions that are required in unusual or extreme situations need to be shaped so that they tend to return us readily and reliably to our desired normal relations. This includes choosing the kinds of action to take, and helping to create the context in which they are taken.
B. Understanding what's going on
The political and policing strategies at the Ottawa G20 looked different from those at the Quebec Summit of the Americas in some ways. In other ways they looked the same. The strategies chosen have effects on the events themselves, on the civil rights conflicts that arise out of them, and on the larger Canadian society. In both cases, the appearance and tactics of the police were in stunning contrast to how I normally understand the function of police.
1. Who directs police behaviour, and how. The behaviour and attitudes of individual officers on the scene are important, but the directions and policies under which they work are of deeper and longer-term importance to the community and to Canadian society.
2. How politically expressive communities and police interact in event s that deal with global policy will not be solved only by managing local events. Clive Doucet concludes,
I remain more convinced than ever that what is needed are reforms to these international organizations which address the lack of democracy. These reforms should start with three things:
1) IMF and World Bank Board Members should be elected, not appointed.
2) International Meetings should be publicly broadcast and open to the public.
3) International Trade Deals should not be appended to Parliamentary Carriage bills. They should be debated and voted on by Parliament in a free vote.
Until, we achieve these fundamental, democratic changes in how we create
international agreements and arrive at international consensus, I can't
see an end to what amounts to confrontation politics with the police on
one side and the people on the other.
I believe that as well.
Many thanks to the members and organizers of the Citizens' Panel. You're doing what we need.
Timothy J. F. Lash