Government Operations Committee on Nov. 4th, 2010

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Bonne, expliquez.

[Chief William Blair]

—and people were arrested on criminal charges. They were brought before the courts as required—they must be brought before the courts. I heard yesterday testimony from a young man who said that he, along with approximately 60 of his colleagues, was arrested and brought before the courts and that subsequently a legal decision was made by the crown attorney that although there were reasonable and probable grounds to believe a criminal offence had been committed, there had been a technical error by the police officers making the arrest, which made it unlikely that there was a reasonable prospect of conviction, and on that basis they did not proceed with the criminal charges.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Ms. Bourgeois, you have 30 seconds left.

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

That's not enough time. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Mr. Martin.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Thank you.

Chief Blair, I think we've covered most of the ground, but I am still interested when you say that the police have legislative tools and authorities that they need when exercised well. And there are also checks and balances in place to make sure that those authorities don't exceed the rights of citizens, in answer to Blaine's questions.

At the corner of Spadina and Queen, some 200 people were surrounded, I guess—

[Chief William Blair]

They were contained.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

They were contained—or kettling, is that the term that's used?

[Chief William Blair]

I'd never heard the term until I heard it that evening on television. But I know a decision was made to contain what was perceived to be a significant threat at that location.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Under what authority do you detain that many people and on what grounds?

[Chief William Blair]

Again, sir, there is an authority under the Criminal Code where the police have a reasonable apprehension, an honest belief, reasonable, probable grounds to believe that a breach of the peace is about to take place and that it is necessary to detain persons to prevent that breach. There is an authority to do that. That authority only lasts as long as the threat exists and in any event cannot exceed 24 hours. That's an authority under the Criminal Code.

There are also other common law authorities, which of course being common law are not articulated in the code. The police have a duty to maintain the public peace, a duty to prevent crime, and where that duty exists, then a commensurate authority should also exist.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Following Geoff's questions earlier, why would police officers take their badges off? So they wouldn't be identified, I presume, because one of the checks and balances—

[Chief William Blair]

There are a number of reasons why that badge could come off. All that forms part of our investigation. When we receive complaints and we see the person is not wearing the badge because we have photographic evidence, we conduct an investigation.

Because there was Velcro, some of them may have been torn off in a struggle. Some of them may have been purposely removed by the officer. If they were purposely removed by the officer—and again, there may be a myriad of reasons—I might speculate that one might do that to avoid accountability for one's actions, or one might do that because of fear that they would be identified and that their identity would be used for some subsequent reprisal. Those two issues have arisen in the past.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

May I interrupt this questioning?

This is a government operations committee. We are supposed to deal with budgetary matters, the cost of running the summit. I've allowed a fair leeway with respect to questioning by members, but I would ask you to focus your last couple of minutes on budgetary matters, please.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Fair enough.

Were all of your police in uniform?

[Chief William Blair]

No, sir.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Some were undercover.

[Chief William Blair]

Some were working in plain clothes and observing within the crowd to identify people engaged in criminal behaviour, and other operations had been taking place in criminal investigations and intelligence gathering over a number of months. The majority of our resources, of course, were out in uniform.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

You're familiar with the term agent provocateur.

[Chief William Blair]

I'm familiar with the term, sir. There were no agents provocateurs from the Toronto police or any of my policing partners, to the very best of my knowledge, who were in any way involved in this summit throughout its entire period.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

We're back to the dollar figures. Let me just say on behalf of the people in Winnipeg that I represent that they are shocked, horrified, and disappointed at the staggering, seemingly reckless and irresponsible spending associated with this summit. For the record, I believe the government was so bound and determined they weren't going to be embarrassed and they wanted to put on a good show that they ignored the fact that we're at a $58 billion deficit and blew a billion dollars on a three-day party of very questionable value to anybody any time.

Notwithstanding the cheerleading over on that side, the people on this side think it was a big mistake. We don't blame you for that, sir. We think you were given an almost impossible job, frankly, when that was plunked into the middle of Toronto.

I have a hard time understanding how you can say if it were in a venue that was easier to secure, the protests would still have taken place in downtown Toronto. What leads you to say that? What intelligence--

[Chief William Blair]

In my experience, there is no place for the protesters to stay in Huntsville. There are only about 1,300 hotel rooms and they would have all been occupied. They would not have been able to get close to the perimeter. Most of them are going to gather in urban areas where the media gathers, and the plan throughout the G-8 and the G-20 was that the meeting would be located in Toronto. The protesters tend to come to where the media are.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

When the World Trade Organization meets in Doha or someplace, people don't gather in Toronto to protest.

[Chief William Blair]

My reference was to the closest urban centre.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Mr. Martin.

We still have a few minutes for a Conservative question.