Public Safety Committee on Dec. 6th, 2010

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Good afternoon, colleagues. This is meeting number 45 of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, on Monday, December 6, 2010. Today we're continuing our study regarding issues surrounding security at the G-8 and G-20 summits.

Later on, we do have 15 minutes on the agenda for committee business. Madame Mourani's motion was before the committee at the last meeting. I don't see her here yet, but I imagine she will be coming. We may reserve the right to move to committee business at 5:15.

In our first hour and three-quarters, we have, from the University of Toronto, John Kirton, co-director of the G-20 Research Group and director of the G-8 Research Group.

We have anchor and senior editor Steve Paikin, from TVO.

Welcome to our committee.

Also, from the Canadian Youth Business Foundation, we have Vivian Prokop, chief executive officer. From the student union at the University of British Columbia, Okanagan, we have Grayson Lepp, the executive chair, and Kirk Chavarie, external coordinator.

Also, appearing as an individual, we have Justin Stayshyn.

I understand that each of those witnesses will have a comment. We're giving 10 minutes to each particular group or organization. We thank you for being here and helping our committee on this study and on this evaluation of the G-8 and G-20.

Perhaps we'll start with Madam Prokop. You are sitting as the only lady there today. My mother always used to tell me “ladies first”, so perhaps you could begin.

[Vivian Prokop, Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Youth Business Foundation]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and members of the standing committee, for allowing me to present to you today regarding the G-20 Young Entrepreneur Summit that took place from June 20 to 22, 2010 in Toronto.

The Canadian Youth Business Foundation was pleased to host this inaugural international summit, and we were delighted when the Government of Canada endorsed the summit.

The Canadian Youth Business Foundation, or CYBF, for those of you who don't know us, is Canada's go-to place for young entrepreneurs aged 18 to 34. We're a national charity and have an extremely effective, efficient, and internationally recognized model for investing in young people with big dreams and great ideas.

Our model is based on that used by the Prince’s Youth Business International, the not-for-profit organization led by His Royal Highness Prince Charles, and is recognized by the Kauffman Foundation out of the U.S.A., which is the largest foundation in the world dedicated to promoting entrepreneurship.

CYBF provides both character-based seed financing and, even more importantly, volunteer business mentors for start-ups across the country every year. In this past year, CYBF financed 600 start-ups from coast to coast to coast.

We offer an impressive and consistent return on investment and are proving ourselves capable of rapidly expanding Canada's pool of successful young entrepreneurs. For example, over the past three years, even through a major worldwide recession, our loan-loss rate has managed to remain at or just under 6%--this is for unsecured credit.

This year I had the pleasure of chairing the first ever G-20 Young Entrepreneur Summit in Toronto. The idea to host such a summit during the G-20 meetings started in July of 2009 when CYBF represented Canada at the first G-8 Young Business Summit in Stresa, Italy. The Stresa summit provided a unique opportunity for young entrepreneurs to meet, exchange ideas with like-minded business leaders from G-8 countries, and to establish international networks and partnerships.

The shared goal of the organizations and attendees at the Stresa summit was to establish an annual young entrepreneur summit that would be recognized as an ongoing component of the annual G-8 or G-20 leaders' meetings. We felt that it was important to expand this international discussion of youth entrepreneurship to the G-20 for the same reason that it has become the premier forum for collaboration between governments on global economic issues: it is small enough to be manageable but diverse enough to reflect the challenges facing countries all over the world.

In light of the recent recession, the slow pace of economic growth around the world, and our focus on championing youth entrepreneurship, we decided that the theme of our summit would be “Entrepreneurship=Recovery=Jobs”. With our summit theme chosen, CYBF worked very closely with our international partners to identify the issues of shared concern, and these concerns are reflected in the communiqué included in the packages that have been distributed to you today.

This communiqué reflects a remarkable degree of consensus around five key issues that either discourage young people from launching new businesses or limit their success for growth. These issues are: insufficient access to funding; excessive regulation and taxation; the need for a more entrepreneurial culture; inefficient coordination of available support; and the need for entrepreneurial education in schools and universities.

On the last day of our summit, the participants jointly signed and delivered the communiqué to the Honourable Tony Clement, Canada's Minister of Industry, and to the Honourable John Manley, the president and chief executive officer of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives, who was the chairman of the G-20 business summit, better known as the B-20, which was held on June 25 and 26. I was honoured to be invited to attend the meeting of the B-20 on June 26 to present the communiqué to the world business leaders in person.

While the communiqué is aimed at G-20 leaders and emphasizes the role of governments in providing a policy environment that encourages entrepreneurship, young entrepreneurs throughout G-20 countries are working with our national governments to address the need to encourage a shift to a culture of entrepreneurship among their countries' young people.

During the Toronto summit, we decided to forge a continuing G-20 young entrepreneur alliance. We met for the first working session of this alliance this past November 7 through 9 in the Republic of Korea. I serve on the executive committee of this new alliance. The organizing members of this alliance either are organizations that must work to foster youth entrepreneurship or are organizations that are led by young entrepreneurs. These organizations must also have a national footprint and have a positive working relationship in both the public and private sectors.

I am pleased to say that CYBF takes its relationships with government and the private sector partners seriously and is seen as a collaborative partner by all. During our first working session, we signed a charter document outlining how we would encourage the G-20 process to include entrepreneurship in its agenda moving forward. We also committed to sharing best practices with each member nation in order to help build supportive entrepreneurial environments worldwide.

Over the next year--until the next G-20 leaders' summit--the new G-20 young entrepreneur alliance will be building a new platform for collaboration among organizations supporting entrepreneurship. We'll be collecting information about what is working and what is not in each country, and we'll be helping each other and governments do a better job of inspiring and enabling young people to be potential entrepreneurs.

My colleagues in France have informed me that they will host the next G-20 Young Entrepreneurs Summit in November 2011 in Cannes. As well, my colleagues in Mexico are working with their government in preparation for a 2012 G-20 Young Entrepreneurs Summit.

Members of the standing committee at this table, I know you'll be very supportive of entrepreneurship within your committees, and I hope that you will also be supportive of this historic new G-20 Young Entrepreneur Alliance that had its birth right here in Canada. It is something that all of us should be very proud of. Canadians took a leadership role in creating an international platform where young entrepreneurs, who will be the job creators, revenue generators, and community sustainers of the future, can bring their ideas regarding ongoing economic and business success to the G-20 leaders' attention and hopefully see some of those ideas embraced.

Young entrepreneurs have the potential, creativity, and energy to launch new businesses and create jobs that will power our economic recovery and growth. And not just in our economy here in Canada: young entrepreneurs will be the drivers of economic recovery in developed and developing nations.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is the legacy of the G-20 Young Entrepreneur's Summit held in Toronto this year. It's something that I believe Canadians should be very proud of, as I am. Positive things did get accomplished during the G-20 summit period, and I am pleased to have been able to give you this first-hand report of that positive accomplishment.

Thank you for your invitation to be part of this today.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Madam Prokop.

Mr. Paikin.

[Steve Paikin, Anchor and Senior Editor, TVO]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I appreciate the invitation to appear before your committee today. I am the anchor and senior editor of a program on TVO called The Agenda. It's TVO's flagship current affairs program.

Just by way of background for those of you who don't know the program, we provide analysis and a forum for debate on issues that are shaping Ontario and the world, and we aim to do so from an Ontario perspective.

We did a lot of programs about the G8 and G20 summits. During the weekend when the G20 was being held, I shared what I saw in downtown Toronto on the Saturday and Sunday via Twitter and my blog. Our program, The Agenda, also did a lot of related programming before and after the G20 weekend in Toronto.

For example, we produced programs on an “outsider looking in” account of the G-20 from the former president of Peru. We did an examination of how emerging powers, such as Brazil, India, and China, are reshaping the global order within the G-20; whether the G-20 was a boon or a boondoggle for Toronto; what Canada's number one priority should be as it tries to define itself on the new G-20 stage; a critical examination of the events of the summit weekend; and an interview with Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair regarding police actions during the summit.

In addition, The Agenda welcomed a number of other journalists who had been present during the events of the G20 weekend in June.

I hope this shows that our coverage was really very comprehensive.

And finally, for the record, I should just say--I guess I should say this--I'm here as a journalist who does not have a stake in the outcome of your proceedings here. I'm here at the request of your committee and feel that it's my civic duty to honour that request, but because I'm a journalist, I hope you'll understand that it's my job to remain neutral.

So I'm happy to answer any questions you may have, but obviously cannot offer any opinions beyond that which I've already put on the record. Merci beaucoup.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. Paikin.

We'll now move to Mr. Kirton.

[John Kirton, Co-director of the G20 Research Group and Director of the G8 Research Group, University of Toronto]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and merci to members of the committee for having two members of the G-8 and G-20 research group testify before you on separate occasions. I am pleased to follow my colleague, Jenilee Guebert.

In assessing the security performance of Canada as a G-8 and G-20 host in 2010, three key standards stand out. The first is a comparative record of Canada and other summit hosts since 1975 through to the latest Seoul summit in November, recognizing the unique challenges that Canada confronted in 2010.

The second standard is Canada's success in meeting the many security requirements, above all for the leaders and their delegations, and then in turn for others producing the summit, for uninvolved Canadian citizens, for summit protestors, and for those suspected of breaking the law.

The third standard is the cost to Canada of ensuring such security and reaping the many other benefits that hosting such summits bring.

When these standards are considered by scholars of such summits, such as myself, even while the evidence continues to evolve, the conclusion seems clear at this stage. Canada, as host of the historic 2010 twin G-8 and G-20 summits, produced a near perfect performance on the central security requirements at an appropriate cost for ample reward.

The first standard of comparative performance requires complete consideration of the unique context that Canada confronted in 2010. Here, the fundamental fact is that for the first time in G-8 and G-20 history, Canada had to host two summits together and to do so in separate locations on one weekend in the summer. This produced the triple challenge, as you know, of securing the Muskoka G-8 site, the Toronto G-20 one, and the transportation corridor in between, as well as the larger areas over longer times, where those intent on disruptive violence could plausibly strike.

Second, unlike the first two G-20 summits in Washington and London and the third in Seoul, both Canadian summits took place beyond the national capital, which is routinely secured for the conduct of the host government's ongoing operations and visiting leaders year-round.

Third, Canada, unlike all other G-8 members save Japan, does not maintain large standing security forces financed from regular government budgets and well trained for the special security requirements that summits bring. The RCMP had the unusual burden of providing security for the Vancouver Olympics earlier in 2010, and in June, there was an expensive need to assemble local police forces from across a large, geographically dispersed country to train with those they had never worked with before, and to serve on a summer weekend in Ontario in prime vacation time.

Fourth, in the lead-up to Canada's 2010 summits, there was ample evidence of deadly terrorist attacks in several G-8 and G-20 states, with Russia and India standing out in this regard.

In the neighbouring United States, on both sides of Toronto, in the six-month lead-up to the summit, al Qaeda-like attacks that almost succeeded occurred in New York City and Detroit. Also relevant may have been the memories of the recent arrest and subsequent conviction of some of the hometown “Mississauga 18”.

These events may have raised the question, as arose when Canada hosted the G-8 in 1981 and 2002, of whether the President of the United States in particular would come to Canada for all summit sessions or even come at all.

In the face of such formidable challenges, Canada, on the second standard of the actual performance, I think put in a near-perfect performance on the core requirements--not all involved.

The first requirement is the physical security of the summit leaders and delegations. All invited leaders trusted Canadian security enough to come to the G-8 in Muskoka. The two who missed Toronto did not do so because of security doubts. All attending leaders and delegations had no visible disruption to them or their summit in any way, in striking contrast to the G-8 summit afflicted by terrorist attacks in Britain on July 7, 2005.

The second requirement is the physical security for others producing the summits, including the service personnel, the accredited media, and the security forces themselves. Here, the only defects in June seemed to come from minor injuries suffered outside the security perimeter by some of the security personnel involved.

The third requirement is the physical security of the uninvolved surrounding citizens, both at the time at the sites and also elsewhere before and after the summits took place. Here, Muskoka had a virtually perfect performance. The defects in Toronto, with only three injuries initially reported by emergency management services, and in the rest of Canada compare highly favourably with the G-20 2009 London summit, where an innocent passerby was killed at summit time. They also compare highly favourably with the G-8 2001 Genoa summit, where mail bombs injured Italian officials before the summit took place.

The fourth requirement is the physical security of the peaceful protestors. In Muskoka, it was, by all accounts, a virtually perfect performance. In Toronto, a few were hospitalized or seriously injured. Regrettably--and I say this genuinely--there was some physical pain, negative ongoing psychological effects, and inconvenience from the police dispersals arrests.

The fifth requirement is the physical security of those engaged in or intent on violence. At Toronto, it appears that minimal force was used in this regard.

The sixth requirement is deterring or pre-empting any violent assaults while permitting the peaceful protests routine in any democratic polity to take place. Here, I think the twin summits did well in this regard. They certainly compare favourably with the Seoul G-20 summit.

The seventh requirement is preventing any summit-associated attacks from outside the country, attacks that cause damage and death in or around the summit host. Here, Canada's twin summits had a perfect record. Some doubt that the Seoul G-20 did, in the aftermath of the event.

Next, Canada's successful security performance came at an appropriate and affordable cost. This one can conclude from the outstanding transparency of the Canadian government in offering summit-specific and largely complete cost estimates well before the summits were held. and the actual expenditures soon after the event.

You know the figures by heart, I suspect. They equal, in actual expenditures, about $429 million for each summit, if one simply divides the overall cost equally between the two.

Estimating the actual costs of G-8 and G-20 summits is a highly formula-sensitive exercise. However, the high point for the G-8 alone appears to have been the Japanese-hosted Okinawa summit in the year 2000, which reportedly cost $750 million in year 2000 dollars.

For the G-20 summit temporally closest to Toronto, that in Seoul, Mark McDonald of the New York Times, on November 10, the day before the Seoul summit started, described preparations as “extravagant” and concluded that: “Korea is not throwing its G-20 party on the cheap.... The organizers have declined to estimate the total cost”.

Beyond the basic requirements of securing the summit, several broader costs and benefits should be calculated before an overall assessment of the cost-benefit balance is made.

One benefit is the unique opportunity afforded for training many police forces from across Canada to work together for the first time to confront a mass emergency event.

A second subsequent benefit is the consequent improvements in procedures in response to the lessons learned about the positive and negative from the summit events.

A third benefit is the enhanced global image of Muskoka, Toronto, and Canada. In the case of the 2005 G-8, Scotland, host of the 2005 Gleneagles summit, calculated large direct economic benefits, even with the deadly terrorist attacks that scarred that summit. As Huntsville was a similarly small, remote, and globally little-known location, it will likely reap large benefits from the largely favourable publicity it received before, during, and after its summits.

This is especially so as, like Toronto with its “Toronto terms” on debt relief from its summit in 1988, Muskoka mounted a peaceful summit from which two globally appealingly named “Muskoka initiatives” came: one on maternal, newborn, and child health; the other on improved accountability to help ensure that G-8 leaders actually deliver on the promises they made.

In the case of the G-20 summit, the most recent estimate of the overall long-term branding benefits comes from the Seoul summit, by an agency of the Korean host government itself. They claim an impressive $28 billion in overall branding benefits. It is interesting to think what the comparable figure for Toronto would be. I would guess that it would be on the net positive side, but again, we need really comparable and transparent methodology to know.

One of the bases for my judgment is that the disruptive violence was much more reported by local media at the time of the event than by the international media at the time of the event, and certainly subsequently that compares with the favourable portrayal of Toronto in the lead-up to and increasingly after the event has long passed.

Beyond, of course,—my penultimate point—lie the policy benefits produced. Over $800 million to physically produce the summit, but Muskoka did deliver $7.3 billion in new money to save the lives of 1.3 million mothers and babies in the poorest places in the world. For the Toronto G-20 summit, the benefits start with containing the euro crisis erupting in Greece, and thus preventing the economic damage from its global contagion, damage that could have done considerable harm to the Canadian economy and our neighbours around the world.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Mr. Kirton, I don't know how much more time you have. We're at about 11 minutes now, so can you...?

[John Kirton]

I can indeed, with my final point, Mr. Chair. Thank you for your indulgence.

Finally, there are the overall foreign policy benefits for Canada as a global leader coming from its selection and success in mounting the two summits together in June. This was the most important contribution to global governance that Canada was called on to make in 2010. Canada met the challenge in a very secure and successful way.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much, Mr. Kirton.

We'll now move to Mr. Lepp, please, for 10 minutes.

[Grayson Lepp, Executive Chair, Student Union of the University of British Columbia Okanagan]

Hello. My name is Grayson Lepp. I'm the financial coordinator and executive chair of the Students' Union of UBC Okanagan, Local 3 of the Canadian Federation of Students.

I was arrested after participating in a peaceful rally planned to coincide with the recent G-20 summit in Toronto. Despite what some pundits would have you believe, however, I am neither a thug nor a hooligan. I am in fact a university student about to graduate from the management program at UBC Okanagan. I was in Toronto not to attack the city, as has been alleged, but to highlight the importance of public education here in Canada and around the world.

I was sent by the executive of my students' union to represent some 7,000 students of UBC Okanagan. For my efforts, I became one of the victims of the largest mass arrest in Canadian history. I was placed under arrest on a variety of trumped-up charges and denied my basic civil rights.

My colleague Kirk Chavarie and I arrived in Toronto on the morning of June 26 and took public transit to the University of Toronto, which was the muster point for a rally organized by the Canadian Federation of Students. Upon arriving around 7 a.m. at an empty campus, we were cut off by a police cruiser that jumped the curb onto the sidewalk, blocking our path. The police proceeded to bend us over the hood of the cruiser and rummage through our belongings. They went through our bags and read through all the text messages on our phones. They even confiscated an article of my clothing.

At this point, they told us that if we stayed out of trouble, we would in turn not be troubled by the police. Unfortunately, this turned out to be untrue.

Later that day, we participated in a peaceful, well-planned, and organized rally in favour of public education. We marched through downtown Toronto and we witnessed no acts of violence, neither against people nor against property. When we arrived at Queen and Spadina, we were told that we should go no closer to the site of the G-20 meetings as we would most likely be arrested if we did so. And we certainly did not want to be arrested.

At this point, we were told that the rally was basically over, so we decided to do a little sightseeing. We had dinner at the Red Room pub and then decided to retire for the night. We had been told that the gymnasium owned by the University of Toronto students' society had been set aside as a hostel for visiting students free of charge. So in order to save on costs, we decided to stay there for the night.

The next morning, at around 9 a.m. on June 27, I was awakened at gunpoint. I was kicked and cursed at by an officer in riot gear—I will not go into details of what the officer said unless the committee asks for that—and was told to wake up. I looked around the room to see other people being subjected to the same rough treatment. One young man who had the audacity to ask what was going on was grabbed by the throat and slammed against the wall by a police officer.

At this point, we were told we were being charged with unlawful assembly. We were placed in zap straps, which were briefly taken off so we could be paraded in front of the media in handcuffs. Other than this brief respite, however, we remained in zap straps for around 16 hours.

We were then escorted to the Eastern Avenue Detention Centre and placed in the holding cages there. I say “cages” because I feel that to call them “cells” is an insult to holding cells everywhere. These were cages made of modular fencing, around 10 feet by 20 feet, and despite the small size, these cages were crowded with upwards of 30 people. We were not given toilet paper for over 12 hours. We were not given water for another two hours after that.

I saw detained people denied basic medical treatment, including one diabetic man who was denied access to insulin until he fell into shock. I saw an officer even make a death threat against a man in my cell. What had the man done to provoke the officer? He'd simply had the audacity to ask for more water.

I was detained for approximately 40 hours and never granted a phone call. Luckily, I was able to see a lawyer, one that had been hired on my behalf by the Canadian Federation of Students. She told me that she'd been looking for me for over a day. After around 36 hours, I was told that the charge against me was conspiracy to commit an indictable offence, to wit, mischief over $5,000--not unlawful assembly, as I had previously been told.

Throughout the entire ordeal, I was never treated as a citizen of Canada, a citizen who had the right to engage in peaceful protest. Instead, I was treated as an invading alien whose supposed rights were an inconvenience to the police who were supposed to be there for my safety.

[Kirk Chavarie, External Coordinator, Student Union of the University of British Columbia Okanagan]

Good afternoon. My name is Kirk Chavarie. I'm the external coordinator for the UBC Student's Union Okanagan, Local 3 of the Canadian Federation of Students. Currently I am pursuing a bachelor of fine arts.

My experiences in Toronto from June 26 to 29 were much the same as my colleague Grayson's. I experienced many of the same things he did. In the Eastern Avenue Detention Centre, however, we were separated, and we weren't reunited until I was released some two days later.

I want to reinforce much of what Grayson said and comment on my own experiences in the detention centre. Like Grayson, I saw people being denied basic medical care. There was a young man in my cell who repeatedly vomited on the floor and who simply lay in that afterwards, too weak to move. Despite this obvious medical emergency, he was granted no care, as the officers assigned to our cell deemed him to be fine. The cell was also not cleaned the entire time I was there, so the rest of us were forced to stand next to this puddle of vomit and, once the toilet eventually overflowed, a puddle of urine and feces.

Also, like Grayson, I witnessed systemic discrimination against francophone detainees. The officers assigned to our cell seemed to be unaware that Canada has two official languages, English and French. This ignorance prompted them to tell us that those detainees who spoke fluent English would be processed first. However, if you spoke French or if the officers deemed your English not good enough, you were sent to the back of the line.

I am told that the integrated security unit contained a detachment of the Montreal city police. Presumably these officers would have been able to process francophone inmates, but it seems they were not available to do so. Still to this day, I am not sure why.

Unlike it was for Grayson, the police made token effort to fulfill my right to a phone call, after I had begged the officers assigned to my cage for over 12 hours. I was glad that my civil rights were finally being recognized and respected, firstly because I believed them to be important, and secondly because I had promised to call my parents on a regular basis and had been unable to do so for 24 hours.

I was marched by an officer into a small room that contained a bank of phones, one of which was off the hook and being held by another officer. He told me that this was who I probably wanted to talk to. I said that I wanted to call my mother to reassure her that I was alive and well and to get her to coordinate in regard to a lawyer for me. The officer then cursed at me and ordered me to answer the phone, so I did. The person on the other line told me that she was shocked at the situation I was in and that she'd get help, and then she hung up. Apparently, the police didn't consider this to be my phone call.

This was typically the way the police treated the civil rights of detainees: as a trivial, bothersome detail to be sorted out at the officer's convenience.

I never received a phone call. I was held for over two days, processed, and released on bail without ever seeing a lawyer. For those two days, I languished in a freezing, urine-soaked cage that I wouldn't wish on a dog.

Like Grayson, I was eventually charged with conspiracy to commit an indictable offence--mischief over $5,000. The charges against me have been dropped, and I still have not been told what evidence the police had against me. However, this is merely a point of interest, as I know what evidence the police had against me—none. I just want to hear them admit it.

Grayson and I, until quite recently, had a great deal of faith in the Canadian government. It was my firm belief that here in Canada civil rights were sacred, and if they were violated, the government would work to make restitution. That faith has been severely damaged, perhaps forever. I now see that my civil rights are a mere inconvenience to be set aside for the benefit of a small group of visiting dignitaries.

On behalf of Grayson Lepp and me, I would like to thank the committee for the opportunity to testify today. It is my hope that this is the first step down the long road to justice for the G-20 detainees and to restoring the damage facing the Government of Canada. The next logical step is a review with full judicial powers.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much.

We'll move to the last member on our panel today.

Mr. Stayshyn, please.

[Justin Stayshyn, As an Individual]

Thank you.

I'd like to thank the committee for allowing me to come before you.

I'm a local resident who was kettled in the rain for over four hours only two blocks away from my house. I was participating in demonstrations that weekend for a number of reasons: international, national, and--as someone decided to have this in my front yard--local concerns. That weekend, I brought my passport with me everywhere to comply with the requests of the integrated security unit, though by the end of the weekend and of my ordeal in the kettle, it was a wet, pulpy, unrecognizable mess.

My experience started on Tuesday, when I took part in a queer demonstration on the second day of themed resistance to the G-20. It was a peaceful protest and, though police presence was heavy, we were allowed to move through the streets largely unfettered.

Only minutes after that demonstration, the Toronto Police Service posted pictures from the event online, with this message: “Police Helping Activists Facilitate Lawful+Peaceful Protests”. It was in that context that I joined the demonstration on Saturday afternoon that marched within 15 metres of my house. I watched that day as my neighbourhood was destroyed while police did nothing. I watched as a police car sat un-towed for five hours until it was ignited.

The next day I went to King Street, and joined the “bike block”. It was a peaceful group that had returned from a peaceful demonstration outside the University Avenue detention centre. I followed them along Queen, past my house, until we reached Spadina. There we were blocked from continuing west, away from the fenced area. We were far from the fenced area. As the crowd continued to chant “peaceful protest” to the police and to each other, I expected this to be like any other protest. The mood of the crowd was similar to that of Tuesday--positive and upbeat.

There we began to feel that things were starting to change. I started to realize the alleys had been blocked and a line of riot police was making its way south toward us. This seemed odd, as no warnings were given, and as I said, when I looked around at the people who were there with me, there was no black bloc and there was no one who was looking to do any violence at that moment.

As the riot police approached, I could hear people behind me crying. We were all very frightened. We didn't know what was happening or why it was happening. I looked around and couldn't see anyone who wanted to do any damage. It was a mix of locals, tourists, and the innocently curious. By that time, we were kettled in a small area. As we were forced to sit in the rain, you could see the doubt on the faces of the officers who were around us. I actually in fact had a conversation with one of them in which I asked them to point out one person in that kettle who they thought could pose any harm at all. They couldn't do it.

By that time, we were wet and shivering. It wasn't a chanting group at all, because it wasn't a traditional protest type of group. It was a frightened group. And many of the officers there knew that. By the time the RCMP shift arrived, wearing massive equipment--they were almost like walking war machines--the crowd was certainly wet and more frightened than it had been earlier. At that point, I had had conversations with people in the crowd: the Sunday cyclists, the German tourists who were getting hot dogs, the four rugby players from Europe...it was a mix of people.

It was soon after the RCMP shift that we were allowed to leave--some of us who hadn't been detained were allowed at that point to leave. But of course we were all left wondering why we were kettled in the first place. Were we paying the price for damages that took place the day before? Who was responsible for keeping us there?

It is my hope that this committee--or someone--can answer these questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much, Mr. Stayshyn.

We'll now move to the first round of questioning.

Mr. Holland, seven minutes, please.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for coming out with some very powerful testimony.

If I may, I'm going to start with Mr. Paikin.

I appreciate your opening statement. I appreciate that you may not be able to answer the questions, but I'm sure, and particularly as the testimony has unfolded, you'll understand the reasons why I ask. I think a number of us are deeply concerned with what took place. Obviously there was some extreme behaviour on the one hand, which nobody supports, and it has to be dealt with severely, but on the other hand, we're hearing from peaceful protestors who had some experiences that are deeply unsettling and could fundamentally impede the ability of people's right to protest or to speak freely.

On June 26.... I'm going to read to you some of your observations. A lot of us were reading your tweets and following what was happening from some of your observations. I'll read you some of them and ask you whether you care to or are able to expand upon what you saw:

i saw police brutality tonight. it was unnecessary. they asked me to leave the site or they would arrest me. i told them I was doing my job.

they repeated they would arrest me if i didn't leave. as i was escorted away from the demonstration, i saw two police officers hold a journalist.

the journalist identified himself as working for “the guardian”. he talked too much and pissed the police off. two officers held him....

a third punched him in the stomach. totally unnecessary. the man collapsed. then the third officer drove his elbow into the man's back.

no cameras recorded the assault. and it was an assault.

the officer who escorted me away from the demo said, “yeah, that shouldn't have happened.” he is correct. there was no cause for it.

i can appreciate that the police were on edge today, after seeing four or five of their cruisers burned. but why such overreaction tonight?

the demonstration on the esplanade was peaceful. It was like an old sit in. no one was aggressive. and yet riot squad officers moved in.

the police on one side screamed at the crowd to leave one way. then police on the other side said leave the other way. there was no way out.

so the police just started arresting people. i stress, this was a peaceful, middle class, diverse crowd. no anarchists.

literally more than 100 officers with guns pointing at the crowd. rubber bullets and smoke bombs ready to be fired. rubber bullets fired.

Do you care to or are you able to expand upon your experiences of that evening and what you saw?

[Steve Paikin]

Mr. Holland, I think that really sums it up. Five months later, I wouldn't change a paragraph, a word, or a comma of all of that. I think that sums up very accurately what I saw that night.

If one defines police brutality as the thoroughly unnecessary over-the-top implementation of violence to achieve something that otherwise could have been achieved without it, then I saw it that night. It was unnecessary. Much of what happened was unnecessary.

I think our friend down at the end of those tweets has asked an interesting question about whether or not the police may have overreacted on Saturday night because they were skittish about what happened during the day on Saturday. I think I'm on pretty solid ground in speaking for the vast majority of Canadians who would say that they have no time for those black bloc techniques, in which people come out of a crowd and start destroying property with pickaxes and that kind of thing.

No one has any time for that. But there is an open question as to whether or not police on occasion may have overreacted on Saturday night during peaceful protests because they had been spooked, for lack of a more technical term, by what had transpired earlier in the day.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

What I think we don't want to see happen in this country is what I think the government has done, where they have lumped all protesters into one group; I think it's a convenient thing.

We've heard from Mr. Lepp, Mr. Chavarie, and also Mr. Stayshyn. Any time we raise the issue of protestors, I'll say to those gentlemen, we're attacked for supporting the black bloc or supporting extremists.

I thank you for coming here and sharing your story, because I think it's important for Canadians to hear this using of the word “security” to get out of accountability. Using the word “security” to get out of having to answer questions about attacking fundamental civil liberties is I think deeply distressing.

One of you, and I can't recall who, talked about restitution, and about the importance, when a mistake happens, of correcting it after the fact. I'm wondering if you gentlemen could share with the committee what happened after these events. You took us to the moment at which you were there and said what transpired.

What did you do after this happened? What actions did you take? What response, if any, did you get from the government or from police?

I'm happy to start with Mr. Lepp, if you like.

[Grayson Lepp]

Kirk and I personally were in shock about what had happened to us. We've never before in our lives participated in any sort of rally, so this is all new to us. I guess our first response was to ask why.... We met with a couple of different MPs, sent out different letters and press releases, and got zero responses, save for Don's, actually. Don was the first one to respond to us and he has helped us with being able to share our story. It has been very minimally received, especially since we're from B.C.

In B.C., no one seems to know about what happened, what transpired. Often I was labelled. There was an article in a local paper in which someone said that “he's probably one of those guys who was throwing stones”. I have a very clean record, I have never done anything wrong in my life, and here I am, persecuted for conspiracy.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

Thank you.

I know that I only have a moment left. This one is just quickly to Mr. Kirton. I hope that maybe I'll hear from the other two gentlemen a little later on.

Mr. Kirton, it's fair to say that we probably substantially disagree on a lot of what you had to say. Take maternal health, just as an example: it's reallocated dollars. This isn't new money. It's money being taken away from other departments and CIDA, taken away from other priorities, and the amount of money that Canada committed was less than was spent on the entire 72 hours. I don't share the heralding of that as a major accomplishment. I think it's good. I think it's good that it did something, but it's bad that it took it away from other things.

I have a question that is more on going forward and taking a look at the lessons from what happened here in the spending of money on infrastructure and what we saw happen with protesters. Would it not make sense, instead of always randomly selecting locations, to have a few designated locations where we could invest in permanent infrastructure, where we could have established protocols on the chain of command and on how to deal with protesters, where they could protest...to have these things prearranged and pre-agreed to? Would this sort of thing make sense to you?

[John Kirton]

Some elements of it would, certainly, and I spoke of the lessons learned. But on the broader question of a site for hosting summits of this sort, assuming that we share the value of such exercises in global governance, I'm deeply aware of the fact that Canada is a very diverse and geographically widely spread country, and I do think--as every Canadian government that has hosted a summit has--that it's probably wrong to simply designate one location: for example, the scenario of hosting both of the G-20 summits in downtown Toronto and not using these events to show the journalists from abroad, the media, the true diversity of Canada.

If I can go back to your—

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

No. No more. We're a minute over.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

I'm suggesting--

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. Holland.

Madame Mourani, please.

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for being here today.

In particular, I would like to say hello to those young people who were a little mistreated, not to say considerably mistreated, during that time, as you were, sir. At the very start, this committee heard from people from Quebec who were in the gymnasium with you. They wound up in those cages and were mistreated as much as you may have been.

If possible, I would like to check something with you. We are now learning that the Toronto police intervened, whereas they did not have the necessary warrants, to arrest some 100 individuals. Did you see any black bloc elements or rabble-rousers in the gym?

[Kirk Chavarie]

Absolutely not.