by: Ian D. Allen

My name is Ian Allen.  My family lives a few blocks south of Lebreton Flats.  When the opportunity came to walk in a Peace March came, my wife and I knew we had to be there.  I teach computers at Algonquin College; my wife is a midwife; she delivers babies.  It was my first march.

I really had to think hard about whether to come to this hearing today. I saw the police do some scary things on that Saturday in November, and I really don't want to relive that fear again.  I hope being here and going through it again will mean less fear for someone else here in Ottawa, next time.

Throughout the march, as I saw what police did, I kept asking myself - "How does this thing, this action by the police, make Ottawa a safer place?"  I'll ask that question over and over, and won't have any good answers.

I don't want things to seem better or worse than they were, so let me first quote to you an excerpt of what I wrote on the day after the march, when things were uncomfortably fresh in my memory.

It was Sunday morning, the day after, and I had just finished listening to CBC radio's Michael Enright sum up his morning broadcast about the march.  Michael's closing words that Sunday morning were: "Nobody got hurt".

Here's what I wrote:

    To: Michael Enright

    It was nice to have met you in person on the flats.  I'm the interviewee who's normally behind a computer.
    I wish I had stayed home - I'm still shaking today.

    Regarding your final comment: "Nobody got hurt".
 
    Perhaps you missed the CBC news web page where it says:

    "Police dogs attacked several people, including journalists covering the protests. CBC Radio's Evan Dyer
    said an officer hit him even after he had identified himself as a reporter. A police dog also bit Dyer."

    I'd have to say that I *am* hurt.  It's not the hurt of the man who's leg was mauled by the dog, nor the
    hurt of my Quaker friend who was pushed away from a fallen man and had her sign ("Non-violence is the
    only way") ripped from her hands and broken into pieces by the riot cops.  (And how does *that* police
    action serve to keep Ottawa safe?)

    It'a hurt of losing my home town, Ottawa, the place where I was born, to the police state.  It's the hurt of
    watching angry men in black see me and other gentle Canadians walking in the streets as an enemy to be
    assaulted and abused.  We all saw the cop who stepped into the crowd and smashed a grey-haired man
    onto the pavement, then threatened to shoot him if he didn't move on.

    That hurts, Michael.  That really, really hurts.

I wrote that on Sunday afternoon, the day after the Peace March.  I was shaking for days after the event, not because of any nasty people who might be in the crowd, but because of what I saw men in black armoured riot gear do to the men and women walking in the Ottawa streets.

I saw a riot cop waving his truncheon at the head of a man, yelling at him to "Get back, get back, get back!".  The man could not move - the officer's police dog had bit deep into his winter parka, and the dog would not let go.  Still, the officer threatened to hit the man unless he moved. The man, panic-stricken, pulled back, the jacket ripped, the man got free.

My dear dear Quaker friend was in tears after a riot cop stole and smashed her peace sign.  The sign was about non-violence.  How does the stealing and smashing of that peace sign contribute to the peace in Ottawa?

A line of men in black armour with shields cut in front of us and pushed us back, smashing the shields into people's faces and yelling "move, move, move!".  They pushed my wife, my wife who delivers babies for a living, backwards over the hood of a parked car.

I couldn't hear what the grey-haired man in a sweater asked, all I saw was the officer in riot gear who stepped off the sidewalk, into the crowd, and smashed the man in the chest and sent him backwards into the pavement.  Other officers with guns moved in and told us all to move on.  The man carried nothing; he wore only a sweater.  He did not approach the officers.  He was smashed into the pavement by a man in full armour, and then we all had guns pointed at us.

How do these police actions meaningfully contribute to the safety of Ottawa?

I wish I didn't have to be here today.  Again, I'm shaking.  I'd like to go back to my classrooms and forget that this happened.

These riot police in black were not peacekeepers.  They were afraid, they were angry, and they were aggressive, not defensive.  Angry men should not have guns, or batons, or big dogs.  Yes, there were probably peace marchers there who were angry and aggressive; though, I didn't see any from Lebreton Flats to the courthouse.  The difference between an angry peace marcher in a sweater and an angry riot cop in armour carrying a gun is that the riot cop can kill or maim you.

The police are supposed to be there to *protect* us from an angry mob - what happens when they *become* the angry mob?