The Police State For A Week

We’re willing to bet most of our Ontario readers didn’t know this, but as of Monday, your rights as a citizen changed dramatically.  If you are within 5 meters of the G20 Security Zone in Toronto, you are now obligated to produce legal identification on demand of a police officer as well as state the nature of your business.  The penalty is two months in the jug and/or a $500 fine, as well as being arrested.  

This is one of those encroachments on our personal freedoms that happen because the authorities say so.  The Ontario Cabinet decided that an Order-In Council was the route to go, essentially deciding to change the laws for a couple of weeks around the G20 area.

We’ve written before about the outrageous security preparations for the G8/G20 Dog and Pony Show in Huntsville and Toronto.  Most of downtown Toronto looks like a cage, businesses shut down, employees working from home and several dozen major roads blocked off.  All of this is ostensibly to keep protestors away from the G20 meetings, in the name of ‘security’.

Now we’re not saying security isn’t necessary:  Security is important, as a gathering of 20 world leaders is a target-rich environment for those with grudges, behavior issues, electrochemical imbalances, theologically-derived issue-blindness, political ignorance, the consumers of common-sense suppressants and the simply crazy.  No question at all there.

However there is also the right of citizens to protest.  Peacefully, yes, but vigorously too.  Vigorously means loud where I come from:  Whistles, drums, catcalls, chanting, bagpipes, cowbells, air horns, trombones, signs, yelling and vuvuzuelas if need be.  Protestors can use very bad language if they desire, or can hand out photocopies of chants that start with “There once was a PM name of Stevie…”

Downtown Toronto, no matter how much fence you put up, is not a sustainable security environment.  There are too many people, places and ways to circumvent a cordon of security.  The authorities have to rewrite the rules to permit dictatorial police-state powers, if only for a limited time.

The deeper question, aside from the insane costs, is what genius decided that Downtown Toronto is a good venue for the G20 in the first place?  Was there some kind of closed-head injury involved? 

If you want to host a gathering of world leaders and be security conscious, the only worse choice would be at the Apple Store in Times Square.  Invariably some G20 Finance puke from Absurdistan would accidentally cut in line and get his ass kicked by a fanboy who has been waiting for week in line to fondle the brochure for the iPhone 4.  Downtown Toronto is by far, the second-dumbest possible venue imaginable.

None of this excuses the insta-police state that has been established around the G20.  Like it or not, the G20 is an occasion for the regular folks to protest how the stinkin’ rich treat the rest of us.  That’s one of the responsibilities of democracy, you have to let protest be heard. 

At the same time, there is a responsibility placed on the protestors:  It must be peaceful.  There can be no violence, as that tips the very delicate scales of police response from merely holding station to protecting life and property.

The Ontario Federation of Labour, a largish labour organization here, is going to be protesting, with an estimated 10,000 people in what is billed as a ‘family-friendly’ protest.  The OFL is bringing their own marshalls to guide the group and members are encouraged to bring their kids, perhaps the thought being that adults with children in tow can protest the G20 loudly, but without the potential for mayhem on either side.  The police are less likely to turn on the pepper spray taps confronted with a mass of parents and children and the parents are less likely to throw things. 

That is a very wise use of the democratic right to protest.