Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to add to the debate of Bill C-309, a bill to prevent persons from concealing their identities during a riot or unlawful assembly.
I would like to provide the House with a few details here with my 18 years of experience as a former RCMP officer. One of the things in my training involved the participation in a riot as part of a tactical troop. Some of the general public call it the riot squad.
What I am hearing from the opposition could not be further from the truth. It is about trying to protect the civil rights of individuals, when they demonstrate, and ensuring the public peace is upheld.
During riots or civil protests, it is appalling to watch the behaviour of certain individuals, when they are trying to promote or instigate a full out riot, and where individuals are being set up, at the expense of others, for harsh punishment or harsh injuries.
The bill, which was put forward by my colleague, the member for Wild Rose, would make it an offence to wear a mask or to otherwise conceal or disguise one's identity during riots and other unlawful assemblies.
The provisions of the bill are necessary. One might even say they are overdue, as recent events have shown. In the space of just over a year, two large cities in Canada have been the sites of major riots.
Destruction of public property was widespread when anarchists descended on Toronto, using the cover of a peaceful protest during the G20 meetings, to shatter windows, clash with police officers, and threaten innocent bystanders, even news reporters and photographers in their path. Fires burned in the streets and black smoke billowed over the skyline.
Thugs used the excuse of the Vancouver Canucks loss in the seventh game of the Stanley Cup finals to wreak havoc in that city. Police cars were overturned and businesses were broken into and looted. Canadians were heartbroken and horrified to see such mayhem in their country. It is sadly ironic that something as un-Canadian as a violent riot could happen in the wake of the most Canadian of activities, a hockey game of all things.
These riots were also an international black eye for Canada, a nation that is admired as a world leader for peace, order and safety.
These riots started in different cities under different circumstances. However, in both cities much of the violence and looting was carried out by people who concealed their faces with gas masks, bandanas, balaclavas, even hockey jerseys pulled over their noses. Other materials were used to conceal the many faces of the rioters and looters. I believe this is cowardly and the thugs knew exactly what the consequences of their criminality would be.
For the most part, these are not the actions of exuberant or inebriated people simply caught up in the moment. These were calculated efforts by people intent on criminal behaviour in order to avoid prosecution. Leaving themselves anonymous, these hoodlums felt free to assault people, and destroy public and private property.
I remember watching these individuals on the news on television dress up and proceed to smash windows, and then try to flee the scene of the crime. With BlackBerrys and YouTube, innocent good citizens chased these people down, watched them undress to join the crowd again, caught in their black apparel. The Vancouver police are still working to identify some of these rioters and bring them to justice.
I do not fault the police for the time it has taken to trace these individuals because many investigations are very complex and the complexity of this is of huge magnitude to undertake. Rather, I sympathize with the enormous task ahead, as the police tries to identify and charge the perpetrators who, in many cases, had most of their identifying features covered up.
It cannot be easy for the investigators, I know, but members of the House could help make that task less onerous in the future. They could help through the simple act of supporting Bill C-309.
How would that help? It would help in a number of ways. Most importantly, it would help deter violence at such events from escalating in the first place.
In an era of cellphones, cameras and video, when every bystander has the potential to be a reporter, a law preventing people from disguising themselves would give many people a time to pause. The deterrence value alone is of great value for police trying to control a mob and ensure the public's safety is maintained.
I am not blind to the reality, having observed this myself. While deterring crime is the reason behind any piece of criminal legislation, we know there are those who have no respect for the law, no matter what the consequences.
Bill C-309 would give the police a valuable tool to deal with them. It would be another tool in their tool kit. In a riot or an unlawful assembly, law-abiding citizens should be eager to follow police instructions to disperse and clear the area for the sake of their own personal safety, and that safety is the utmost when police are at the scene. It defies common sense to believe that any persons ignoring orders to do so and who, in addition, are wearing a mask to conceal themselves are there for any good purpose, which brings me to a point of reflection.
I remember, through all my training, having to stand in a black jumpsuit, wearing a helmet, steel toe boots, gloves, shoulder protectors and a gas mask in the heat of the day and watching the perpetrators don the same apparel; the shoulder pads, motorcycle helmets, balaclavas and gas masks. They would try to grab members' shields as they were trying to protect innocent bystanders. They would try to antagonize bystanders to start a riot. It was hard for us to be on the other side and keep our temper and watch while the media was in the middle. All these thugs are doing is using the media for their own gain.
As things stand, unless the police witness a person committing an offence, they need to prove a high level of intent before they intervene, even when a person is wearing a disguise or otherwise hiding his or her identity, even in the midst of an all out riot. This state of affairs just does not make sense.
We have 11 police officers in this caucus. Police need to have the ability to diffuse riots, just not to react. That is reacting policing, not preventive policing.
Bill C-309 would unshackle police in such situations by making the very act of wearing a mask in a riot or an unlawful assembly an offence on its own. Police would be able to identify those individuals before a major casualty took place.
Simply put, when police are engaged in measures to control a riot or unlawful assembly, as defined under sections 65 and 66 of the Criminal Code, which this bill would amend, then wearing a facial covering without lawful excuse to do so would become an offence in itself. This provision would help police deal with these individuals for the offence of wearing a mask rather than waiting to witness them commit a separate offence that could harm persons or property before they can take action.
This bill is pre-emptive in a sense that police could use their discretion to arrest or detain people who keep their faces concealed during a riot.
It is my hope that the penalties in the bill would first and foremost deter people from participating in a riot or unlawful assembly in the first place. However, for those who still choose to riot despite the consequences, police would have a new tool in their tool kit to help them control these volatile situations.
The Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees Canadians the freedom of peaceful assembly, which includes peaceful protests, and law enforcement officers understand this. They want to ensure that all people have the right to protest but, utmost, to get rid of the thugs who are causing the problems in the protests. Let those who want to demonstrate do so, but do so peacefully.
I have heard some people say that they worry that this will infringe upon that freedom. Nothing could be further from the truth. Having witnessed this myself first-hand, the police are there just to maintain and ensure that the protestors are safe. This bill deals only with individuals in a riot or an unlawful assembly situation. It is obvious that peaceful assembly has left the building at this point.
Far from violating the Charter of Rights, the bill would help protect peaceful protesters by allowing police to identify those in the mix who intend to commit crimes. I find that interesting. I remember one incident where one masked protester was running back and forth trying to escalate the event.
I hope that, for the safety of the general public, members will consider Bill C-309 as it would give people the right to honestly and protectively protest in peace. I urge the House to consider Bill C-309.
