Public Safety Committee on Nov. 3rd, 2010

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Sir, that sounds like a conspiracy to me. If 90 officers--

[Chief William Blair]

Well, Mr. Davies, it may--

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

If 90 officers decide to do this--

[Chief William Blair]

--but let me tell you that the matter was investigated very thoroughly and individuals are held accountable for the choices that they make.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

What's the level of discipline they received, sir?

[Chief William Blair]

That's still to be determined, but the discussion, I believe, is about the loss of a day's pay—eight hours.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Okay. I want to talk about the conditions of detention. We've heard from just about every source that people were toileting in front of each other, were deprived of medicine. You heard some testimony here today that people were deprived of the right to contact counsel, which is a clear violation of the Charter of Rights and the right of a person to contact a lawyer immediately or within a reasonable time upon being arrested; you know that as a police officer.

What steps have you taken to investigate the conditions of detention where there were clearly constitutional and charter breaches that occurred in that detention centre?

[Chief William Blair]

Again, I'm not sure it's as clear as you've indicated. Fortunately, there's a great deal of evidence available to us.

There are allegations that are being investigated by the OIPRD, as I've referenced. He has not yet completed that investigation. It would be inappropriate for me to comment or to make a determination prior to his doing his job. It's an important job. We are cooperating fully with him. He's been given access to all of the information and all of the evidence, and my officers are cooperating with him in that investigation. He's doing that work.

We have also made access to that facility available to those authorities and to the public so they can see precisely what the conditions were there.

There were a number of allegations made. There was some consistency in those allegations. One of the allegations made, for example, was made very early to the public and the media, and that was allegations of sexual assault. When it became more public knowledge that there were video cameras there, those allegations were withdrawn. But there were a number of allegations made.

We were processing a lot of people. We were faced with a rather difficult logistical issue of moving people through that. I believe there were some delays as a result of the number of people processed, but we had in place the facility and the resources to ensure that people's rights were afforded them. We had legal counsel on the premises; we had phones available to them--

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Well, sir, hundreds of people have said that their rights were violated--

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Excuse me, Mr. Davies. Your time is up. Thank you.

We'll now move to Mr. MacKenzie.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to the members of the panel.

I know that some of my colleagues on this side will have some questions coming from the questions on the other side. I'm not sure they really understand the role of the police. Hopefully we can clarify some of that and/or the responsibility lines.

This is to any of the police officers: can somebody tell me if they are aware of the Anti-Capitalist Convergence and what that organization may be?

[Chief William Blair]

I'm not certain, sir. It's an acronym like.... I've heard many names and acronyms with relation to a number of organizations that participated in this. There were a number of coalitions.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Would there be any anarchist groups that participated in the demonstrations?

[Chief William Blair]

There are a number of organizations that call themselves anarchist groups on their social websites and in their communications--indicating that they are anarchist in origin--that were participating in these demonstrations that took place on the summit.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Your organization, the police community, would have been aware that people were going to be there representing those bodies?

[Chief William Blair]

Yes, sir, we were aware.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

I appreciate the photos that you had here. In some of them, I notice that the black bloc was obviously the centre part. There are a lot of other people. I think, Chief, you mentioned that in some of these cases there were police officers embedded, and that's to be expected. I expect there were other bodies—legitimate bodies—embedded within the groups, including the press.

[Chief William Blair]

That's correct.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

I would not have expected that they would turn over their files. In this country we understand that and we respect it. But I'm wondering if you had any dealings with the press, with the actual live coverage of some of the incidents that people did get to see, and how balanced or unbalanced you feel it was. Were there any particular incidents that might illustrate why some parts of the community have different views of the whole?

[Chief William Blair]

There was one particular incident, and it relates directly to the event we've displayed. This took place on Friday evening. There were no criminal charges arising from this event, which is one of the reasons I felt I could bring images of it; it doesn't compromise any ongoing criminal trial.

With this event, there was a clear element within that demonstration. I've spoken to two reporters who were with that crowd, and they were standing within 20 feet of this, yet both of them reported the next day that the crowd was provoked when the police donned their helmets.

I was out there that day and I witnessed what was taking place. There were things being thrown at the police from that group—golf balls and rocks and urine and feces—and the police officers put their helmets on to protect themselves from that assault.

The reporters were there and witnessed that, and yet there was not a single mention, not only of that assault but even of the presence of this group, in any of the media reporting on Friday night or on Saturday morning. I thought it was an extraordinary omission.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

A somewhat distorted view of what occurred on Friday night, then?

[Chief William Blair]

Quite.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Yes. How many police and security personnel would have been involved in the G-20 in the Toronto area, considering that essentially there were police officers from across the country?

[Chief William Blair]

Altogether for both the G-8 and G-20, there was a total of 19,000 security personnel involved in this operation. It was very substantial security operation, perhaps the largest in Canadian history. Of course, the numbers were based on two very different sites that were a great deal of distance apart.

In Toronto, we had two areas of responsibility. One was the summit site, which was primarily the responsibility of the integrated security unit. Then there was the security on the streets of Toronto, which was primarily the responsibility of my service, but we had a lot of help in doing it. We had police services from across Canada, including the RCMP and the OPP, but there were also police services from Alberta, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland, and throughout the province of Ontario as well as the province of Quebec. They came to Toronto and they worked very closely with us to help keep our city and our community safe throughout that weekend.

Frankly, without their help, we would not have been able to maintain the safety of our city, given the threat that existed.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

We've heard from others from time to time who have been critical of the location, saying that it could have been held at the CNE grounds. Would there have been facilities to house over 3,000 reporters, the participants, and all of those others at the CNE grounds?