Ottawa Citizen, June 4, 2002

Who will uphold the 'agenda for excellence'?

JOHN BAGLOW

Recently, a blue-ribbon Citizens Panel on Policing and the Community issued a report critical of police handling of the G20 protest in Ottawa last fall. The Citizen dismissed the report out of hand. After all, who can believe the word of "protesters", whose submissions made up the bulk of the testimony before the panel?

Significantly, however, Ottawa Police are sending more positive signals. They issued a discussion paper just prior to the release of the citizens panel report, entitled "Agenda for Excellence," which directly addresses many of the key concerns of those who witnessed and took part in the G20 protest. And they have initiated a series of public meetings to assure us all that the right to dissent in Ottawa is alive and well.

Whether all this is more than good public relations is open to question. The oversight body, the Ottawa Police Services Board, has consistently ducked questions arising from the handling of the G20 protests, despite representations from numerous individuals who outlined instance after instance of questionable police behaviour.

Board members heard excruciating accounts from a number of clergy, a grandmother or two, and numerous other ordinary citizens who didn't fit the "protester" stereotype at all. Section 25 (1) of the Police Services Act clearly allows the board to ask for an investigation or inquiry into police conduct by the Ontario Civilian Commission on Police Services, yet the board declined.

The void created by the board's inaction was filled by the Citizens Panel, which included a former judge and Conservative MP, an Anglican bishop and a former mayor of Ottawa. Most of the submissions to the panel, and its report, can be found at http://members.rogers.com/citizenspanel

The Panel's recommendations were quite mild. They proposed that third-party "accompaniers" be present at protests to be witnesses. They recommended that attack dogs not be used on peaceful crowds. They suggested a First Nations model of a "council of elders" to oversee such events. Their report, in fact, complements the "agenda for excellence."

But how seriously are recommendations for change being taken? At a recent public meeting, Deputy Police Chief Larry Hill could not even guarantee that police officers would wear identification at the next protest. And he was silent on the most crucial point: what is the redress mechanism for enforcing the "agenda for excellence"?

At present, all that exist are the unused powers of the police services board, and the public complaints process. But the latter appears to exist simply to dismiss complaints.

For example, according to the 2001 annual report of the professional standards section of the Ottawa Police, 243 public complaints were laid against police last year. This in itself is disturbing, given that Chief Vince Bevan only a month earlier stated that figure as 371 - a 50-per-cent discrepancy. But the disposition of the complaints is even more disturbing. A number of categories are outlined in the report: "Vexatious," "unsubstantiated," "withdrawn," "no further action required," and so on. Only four complaints even made it to a hearing, and what happened at that stage is unrecorded.

The "agenda for excellence is a fine document. But good will and sound recourse mechanisms are essential to bring it to life. If all we have available is a grossly flawed complaints process and a complacent police services board, the agenda remains nothing more than a statement of good intentions.

To make the community safe for democratic dissent, the least we should be able to expect from our police are:

- visible ID for every officer on duty;
- a clear chain of command when several police forces are involved, and good-faith liaison with protest organizers;
- no use of attack dogs on: peaceful protesters;
- the deployment of neutral "accompaniers," clearly identifled, videocameras in hand, with a guarantee from the police that they will not be molested or interfered with as they act as witnesses for the community

The "agenda for excellence" is a promising start - but will the promise be kept?

John Baglow is executive vice-president, national capital region, of the Public Service Alliance of Canada.