Evidence of meeting #35 for Justice and Human Rights in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was riot.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Former Member, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, As an Individual
Yes, I am. During some of the planning I have seen for major events, preventive arrests are very important. I'm not speaking of hours and days ahead. That all depends on what the criminal activity is at the time.
Former Member, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, As an Individual
But at the time, if there is an individual who is committing minor offences, which you may have let slide at any other time, it's very important to get some of the ringleaders out of there, simply because then it takes away the possibility of greater rioting being directed by individuals. This would be one of those tools that we could use in that situation.
Liberal
Joyce Murray Liberal Vancouver Quadra, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Webb, you talked about four different groups and you said that by far the biggest group is those who wouldn't interfere with a criminal act and who are out there in a demonstration to express themselves. Then you said that you see Bill C-309 as being targeted at the fourth group, those who come to commit criminal acts.
You also acknowledged that people come and do wear masks who don't intend to.... I mean, I've recently been at demonstrations with respect to perceived undermining of environmental assessments with respect to pipelines, where people are wearing salmon costumes or they're wearing sea mammal costumes, bird costumes, and costumes that look like an oil slick. So there are a lot of people who are out there expressing their dismay at the government's current legislative direction.
I guess my concern is that you're clear that this bill allows pre-emptive arrests of people with masks. Would you agree that it may well be people in category two and three, who don't have the intent to cause damage or break the law, who would be pre-emptively arrested?
Former Member, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, As an Individual
I think the biggest word to bring out here is the word “discretion”. In policing, with the RCMP we have community policing, which says that we could, if we had the budget and the numbers, put a police officer on every corner, every minute of the day, and crimes would still happen. So we depend so much upon community policing, working together.
Liberal
Joyce Murray Liberal Vancouver Quadra, BC
The question is, do you see the potential for people in categories two and three, who have no intention of committing an offence, being pre-emptively arrested?
Former Member, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, As an Individual
Theoretically, they could be arrested, but in reality I cannot see that as being an outcome, simply because there would be an illogical result of trying to arrest somebody and charge them if they're wearing, as you said, a salmon suit.
Liberal
Joyce Murray Liberal Vancouver Quadra, BC
What I would like to ask of Mr. Stribopoulos is since there will be pre-emptive arrests of people who are not actually a risk.... And the members opposite may laugh at that, but Mr. Webb himself said that there will be, and it will lead to findings of not guilty.
Could you tell me what that does to the justice system in a province like British Columbia, where we are letting serious offenders off the hook because the justice system and the number of prosecutors can't keep up with the current charges? How will that affect our justice system when this net is cast so wide and people might be arrested pre-emptively at the discretion of police in a panicking and potentially urgent situation? Can you paint us the picture of what that does to our actual ability to apply justice?
Associate Professor, Osgoode Hall Law School School, York University, As an Individual
Well, I have sat quietly up until this point, listening to the questions. I have much respect for law enforcement. I don't know the witness, and I appreciate the challenges the police face, but I'm really troubled by what I'm hearing.
With regard to this notion that this provision as drafted would license preventative arrest before there's even a riot, firstly, that's not what it says. But secondly, this makes my point: I think it's open, as it's just been by the other witness, to be misinterpreted in this way.
It would cause the police, and wrongly, in my view.... If you read the language, it says someone engaged in a “riot”. There already has to be a riot under way. You have to be participating in it, and you have to conceal your face.
This is the problem with the provision, though: it will lend itself to this kind of sweeping, overly broad interpretation that could cause the police officer, and wrongly, in my view, to conclude that they can engage in preventative arrest. It will result in legitimate protesters, people wearing salmon costumes and the like, to be swept up, potentially, based on a police officer's error in the exercise of their discretion.
I mean, the powers have to be as clear as they can be. This is the point in the process where they're made clear, at the legislative stage. It's not sufficient to just say, “Give us this ambiguous, open-ended grant of authority and trust us on the ground to sort out the good guy from the bad guy.”
Many police officers can be trusted, to be sure, but younger police officers, police officers who aren't properly trained, will be overly inclusive in their exercise of discretion. They'll sweep up more people than they should. In the process, they might suppress legitimate dissent. Constitutionally protected rights to freedom of expression and freedom of assembly could be undermined. Other people could decide not to even bother coming out to exercise their political fundamental freedoms of protest for fear of being arrested in this misguided kind of way. And it will clog up our courts more so than they already are—
Associate Professor, Osgoode Hall Law School School, York University, As an Individual
—with unnecessary charges.
Conservative
Conservative
Kerry-Lynne Findlay Conservative Delta—Richmond East, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Sergeant Webb, seeing as your testimony has just been misinterpreted now by both the member opposite and the other witness, I want to give you an opportunity here to clarify.
I assumed your response to be within the context of the bill, meaning you are talking about charges within a riotous situation. Is that not correct?
Former Member, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, As an Individual
That is absolutely correct. My words were misinterpreted there.
As I mentioned in my preamble, it has to be a declared riot or an unlawful assembly before anything in this bill even comes into any possibility of consideration. Only at that point would this become important. As I mentioned, it has to be a masked person, it has to be an unlawful excuse to wear it, and only then could it be one of the tools used.
Conservative
Kerry-Lynne Findlay Conservative Delta—Richmond East, BC
I have a son-in-law who I guess could be characterized as a young policeman. He's been on the police force for less than two years.
Is it not true that young police officers go through extensive training before they're actually hired and put into service?
Former Member, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, As an Individual
That is absolutely true. In this type of situation, with a protest, when you are bringing in many members of the RCMP and municipal forces to a location, you're going to be putting the most experienced and the most trained ones in the front lines making the arrest. The rest are going to be there, but they're going to be, for want of a better term, “directing traffic”. They're not given the responsibility. There's a possibility there—they have the right, the power—but there's not the expectation that they would be exercising that.
Conservative
Kerry-Lynne Findlay Conservative Delta—Richmond East, BC
Thank you.
I'm aware of other democratic governments and other jurisdictions—I'm thinking of the United Kingdom, France, and New York, for instance—who have developed legislation that would either limit or prohibit the wearing of disguises.
In fact the New York legislation—and I'm sure that in a big city like New York, they're well used to both peaceful protests and riots and unlawful assemblies—it basically is a strict liability offence. I think you even have to register to be able to wear a mask in a peaceful protest there.
Do you think this bill fills a legislative vacuum that we have now?
Former Member, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, As an Individual
I believe it does, simply because this is a tool that could be used in that type of situation. If it's a peaceful protest, as I've seen so many times in my experience, then law enforcement agencies are more than pleased to just stand back and let it happen, guide traffic, and make sure that everyone is safe and sound and goes home at the end of the day.
This is only a tool to be used in the most dire situations.
Conservative
Kerry-Lynne Findlay Conservative Delta—Richmond East, BC
In fact, with a peaceful protest doesn't law enforcement often dialogue with those organizing it, and even walk along with them, and make sure that everything is in order? You want to protect those who peacefully protest in those situations, do you not?
Former Member, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, As an Individual
That's absolutely true. I've had a lot of contact with people who are protesting. We are Canadian citizens as well. We want to be able to ensure they get their right to be heard. My experience is that the very few numbers of essentially anarchists out there to hijack it are making that voice concealed. They can't hear that voice at all.
Conservative
Kerry-Lynne Findlay Conservative Delta—Richmond East, BC
I'm very mindful of what my colleague has raised, being a British Columbia member of Parliament, that of the so-far 226 approved charges, only two have been under subsection 351(2) in the Criminal Code.
We have heard testimony previously, for instance, of the severe beating of a law-abiding citizen during the recent Vancouver riots where all the individuals beating that law-abiding citizen were masked and disguised. As you've correctly pointed out, identification is a very difficult problem.
I'd like it if you would elaborate a little more on your own training regarding mob mentality, crowd management, security planning, and indicate the kinds of difficulties that arise. You've talked about some very high-profile events you've been involved in.
When you're trying to deal with events such as those dealing with masked individuals, can you give us an on-the-ground sense of what you're dealing with in those situations when they get out of hand?
Former Member, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, As an Individual
The biggest difficulty in those situations is there's a very large number of people. We have found both prior to having discussions with protesters and then in subsequent discussions with protesters afterwards that the common theme on that is the majority of protesters got caught up into something they did not want to see happen. As I mentioned, that stifles their own ability to get their voice heard.
In addition, we also noticed.... As you're from B.C., you're familiar with a young man who apparently would never have participated in the actions he did, except he went along with all the other people around him who were doing violence and destruction. He's paid the price because he was identified.
The difficulty we have is you cannot proceed with a charge on any individual until that person is satisfactorily identified. In other words, you can go to court and make it absolutely crystal clear that that was the person who did those actions.
