John Baglow's response to the Citizen Editorial on the Ottawa Witness Group

Note: This is John's original "letter". The "guest column" as published was a bit different.

Community witnessing necessary
by John Baglow

As a member (but by no means a “co-founder”) of the Ottawa Witness Group, I was barely able to recognize either our group or our second annual report in your editorial, “The Other Side of the Protest.”

Let me begin by noting that the OWG has never claimed to be an “objective arbiter,” whatever that is. The Group has a clear mandate: to defend public space for dissent, public space which, in the wake of September 11, is increasingly under threat. I don’t think the group would reject your “activist” label, therefore, but we maintain our independence from protesters and report fairly on what we observe. I would urge readers to check out our report for themselves at Witnessreport July 16 2002 A recent Citizen article, in fact, accurately reported the even-handed nature of our observations.

During the G-20 protests in November, 2001, numerous individuals not remotely fitting the stereotypical mold of protesters found themselves victims of police overreaction. A grandmother was smashed in the face by a riot policeman wearing no identification; a CBC reporter was bludgeoned. Despite calls for an inquiry, neither the Mayor nor City Council nor the Ottawa Police Services Board saw fit to take any action whatsoever.

Accordingly, to fill the vacuum, a Citizens Panel on Policing and the Community appointed itself, and took nearly seventy accounts from witnesses at the G-20 events. This blue-ribbon Panel consisted of a former Tory MP, a former Mayor of Ottawa, an Anglican bishop, and a journalist. They issued their report in the Spring of 2002, calling for an apology on the part of the Ottawa police for their handling of the protest.

Needless to say, no such apology was forthcoming. In the absence of any official recognition that a problem existed, the Ottawa Witness Group was formed in June of 2002 and has issued two annual reports since, covering numerous demonstrations and other protests.

Your editorial makes a number of sweeping claims:  that we argue that police are always to blame when demonstrations go bad; that we call for an end to the use of arrests and pepper-spray; that we consider all protesters to be non-violent; and that we do not acknowledge the difficulties of police work.

None of this is the case. We have witnessed demonstrations, such as those against the Iraq war, where police have behaved impeccably—and we have said so. We have also witnessed recent demonstrations, such as the one in support of Algerian refugees, where some police activities were clearly unacceptable, such as the repeated use of taser stun guns on peaceful protesters. We have been critical of arrests and bail conditions that are regularly tossed out by courts and appear to be tactical in nature rather than founded in law. With Amnesty International, we think that the use of tasers and pepper-spray should be halted until an inquiry into the short and long-term effects of these weapons is held. And we believe that the public has a right to know current police policy on the deployment and use of these weapons.

But there is a fundamental point underlying all of this, one of accountability to the community. If we had an effective system of third-party review of police behaviour, and media that did not tend to abandon their watchdog role when policing is at issue, and a City Council and Mayor who took their stewardship of the community seriously, there would be no need for community groups such as ours. If accountability is an issue for public employees in general, why not for the police? And why is the Citizen not right in there with us calling for it?

John Baglow
(John Baglow is an Ottawa writer.)