Evidence of meeting #45 for Public Safety and National Security in the 40th Parliament, 3rd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was summit.
A recording is available from Parliament.
NDP
Anchor and Senior Editor, TVO
I was hustled out of there pretty quickly. And it was not he who hustled me out; it was two other officers who hustled me out. So I didn't get a chance to follow up on that.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
Of course, we have already heard the information about your witnessing another journalist being assaulted by police. Does it concern you as a journalist in Canada, Mr. Paikin, that police are threatening to arrest journalists for doing no more than bearing witness to events that are going on in public places? Does that concern you?
Anchor and Senior Editor, TVO
I'm trying really hard here not to take any political positions on anything—
Anchor and Senior Editor, TVO
—but yes. I don't say that journalists have any more rights than anybody else, but we don't have any fewer rights than anybody else, and provided that we're not getting in the way of the police doing their business, I'm not sure why.... I understand they're doing their job. We have a job to do. We have a job to do that's actually protected by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It seemed to me that the journalists I saw that night were doing that job and ought not to have been forced to leave. I've never been forced to leave any other demonstration ever before.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
Mr. Paikin, did you have any idea of what he would arrest you for?
Anchor and Senior Editor, TVO
The conversation, Mr. Davies, did not get that specific.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
Thank you.
Mr. Stayshyn, we had some information from the Canadian Civil Liberties Association that talked about some reports they received about other peaceful protests being contained by police, with protestors and passers-by held in torrential rain for hours without cause. Was that what happened to you? You were part of what was referred to as the “kettling” process. How long were you held in the rain for, Mr. Stayshyn?
As an Individual
Yes. It wasn't just a rain. It was a torrential downpour. I haven't experienced rainstorms like that very often.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
How many people, would you estimate, were contained with you in that torrential rain?
As an Individual
I'm not sure. I believe over 300. The numbers went down slowly as they were arresting people one by one. There were officers who were walking behind the line. The line would open up, they would come in, grab someone, drag them off, and then the line would close.
As an Individual
No, luckily. I was told that I would be, that everyone in the kettle would be, so I was told to be patient and wait in the rain, shivering. But that didn't happen.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
So after five hours of being penned in this.... Was it a caged area?
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
So you were penned in by riot police on all sides for five hours in the rain. You then were let go without any charge or arrest or apology.
As an Individual
Buses started to come in. An officer came and said: “I'm telling you two things. One, we've got these buses here to get you out of the rain, and the second thing we'll tell you once you're tied up and secured on the buses”.
As an Individual
He didn't actually clarify. I asked him to. I said, “Historically, when you ask a group of people who are tied up to go on a bus to travel anywhere, you should probably give it some context”.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
Three hundred people kettled, a hundred people in the University of Toronto gym.... Mr. Paikin, I don't know what kind of scope you can give us, but it sounds to me like there were hundred and hundreds and hundreds of Canadian citizens who had their rights, at least on the surface, abused. Does anybody here not think we should have a judicial inquiry into this?
