Toronto G20 rally calls for public inquiry

More than 2,000 people marched Saturday afternoon in Toronto to demand an independent inquiry into police actions during last month's G20 summit.

Organized by labour, community and student groups, the rally headed south from Queen's Park, site of the Ontario legislature, through downtown to the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, where the summit took place June 26 and 27.

"What do we want? Public inquiry! When do we want it? Now!" the demonstrators chanted as they filed into a park across from the convention centre.

Others held aloft placards denouncing violations of civil liberties during the summit, with one sign declaring "Police attack charter," while another called on Toronto police Chief Bill Blair to resign. 

"There are many unanswered questions," Hamid Osman of the Canadian Federation of Students bellowed as he addressed the assembled crowd. "Who was directing police to take away our civil liberties on June 26 and 27?" 

Nearly 1,000 people were detained before and during the G20, hundreds of them at peaceful sit-ins, as part of the largest peacetime mass arrest in Canadian history. Others, including about 50 Quebec protesters billeted at a University of Toronto student building, were rounded up in police raids on homes and buildings.

Police also nabbed innocent bystanders, journalists and even a TTC driver headed to work.

"Mass arrests are unacceptable, they are illegal and unconstitutional, so why did we have them?" said Nathalie Des Rosiers, general counsel for the Canadian Civil Liberties Association. "I think it's about fair that people know what happened, what went wrong."

Toronto theatre director and playwright Tommy Taylor was arrested on the night of June 26 when he and two friends — none of whom was protesting — got caught in a mass roundup outside a downtown hotel. His 10,000-word recollection of that weekend generated thousands of consolatory messages on Facebook, he told the crowd at Saturday's rally.

"I spent 24 hours in a cage with 40 men," Taylor said. "I was not a protester that weekend. I was snatched up, an average Canadian dude. Now I'm a protester."

Complaints pile up

The Toronto Police Service's civilian oversight board and Ontario's Office of the Independent Police Review Director have been swamped with complaints in the wake of the G20.

Hundreds of people have reported arbitrary arrests and detentions, police brutality, random searches of bags in areas kilometres away from the summit security zone, seizures of innocuous items like goggles and clothing, and inhumane conditions in the temporary jail used to detain protesters.

Blair said his force's response was reasonable because a small group among the G20 protesters broke off from the main demonstrations to smash store windows and commit other vandalism. The force says it will conduct its own internal probe of G20 policing, while the Toronto Police Services Board has also pledged a review.

"It's not enough. There are too many questions about the different levels of government involved," said Shanaaz Gokool, chair of Amnesty International's Toronto branch.

Amnesty and the other organizers of Saturday's rally — including the Ontario Federation of Labour, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association and the Ontario branch of the Canadian Union of Public Employees — are calling for a full public inquiry. 

Same-day marches were planned for Halifax, Montreal and Windsor, Ont.

Of the more than 1,000 people arrested during the G20, about 800 were released without charge, while a dozen are still in jail awaiting bail hearings.