Movember Day 3 and Good Times at the G20

It’s the third day of Movember, my classmates seem to have been bitten by some rabid mustachioed wolverine because they all have the bug.  There are Mo Bros and Mo Sistas everywhere, they’re packed tighter than peaceful protestors in a G20 jail cell.. and that’s my segue.

Movember day 3

As the G20 kicks off in France, photos are being released of the jail conditions the prisoners endured during the June 2010 meeting in Toronto. The same G20 where the “Ontario’s Public Works Protection Act” was used to protect the area around the summit. The law, enacted in 1939, was meant to protect important locations like Niagara falls from enemy sabotage by allowing police to detain individuals deemed “suspicious”. Along with this law came lies about the law requiring anyone within 5 metres of the fence to show identification or be arrested. The Canadian Press later quoted police chief Bill Blair saying the law didn’t exist and he “was just trying to keep criminals out”.

I remember the G20 footage vividly. My friends had come to record with another friend of mine and as we sat in his basement I watched the events unfold on the internet. From the laptop screen I saw a few bad apples running wild through the streets of Toronto, smashing windows, tagging and setting fire to cruisers. I also remember something that seemed terribly odd to me, in the photos of these people destroying the city were also rows and rows of police. They stood idly by while these protesters created chaos and never once stepped in to mediate the situation. If anything, they stood back and allowed the destruction of downtown.

Fast forward to the next day of the protests, the anarchy has subsided and peaceful protest has taken its place. Now, suddenly, police move in and begin to bust the heads of anyone who refuses to obey their orders. For some reason, this makes no sense. Photographs of police shamelessly assaulting young people, covering their badges and faces. It seemed like an overly aggressive stance when the day before hundreds of people were allowed to tear up the city.

Whatever the logic behind using this antiquated law to subdue citizens acting out their right to peaceful assembly I will never understand. The government needs to work for the people, never the other way around. We should not ever fear the government, the government should fear the people. We have the right to vote them in or out and they should never be able to hold our rights out like a carrot to a donkey to get us in their pockets. All rights or it’s not right.

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