Riot police block a downtown Toronto street during G20 summit protests on June 26, 2010.Roger Hallett/The Globe and Mail
The Quebec press is still talking about the G20, but the focus of the debate shifted last week. In the days immediately after the summit wrapped up in Toronto, pundits focused mainly on the communiqué and on the financial costs of holding the summit in a major urban centre. But over the past several days they turned attention to the police response to anti-G20 protests.
In a La Presse column Wednesday, Agnès Gruda agreed with the Canadian Civil Liberties Association's assertion that the police crackdown (after a relatively small group of protesters vandalized police cars and private property) was " disproportionate, arbitrary and excessive." Ms. Gruda quoted a student from Montreal who recounted her 40-hour ordeal in a detention centre after being arrested with about 200 other Quebec students during an early morning raid at the University of Toronto. Ms. Gruda called the student's treatment by police "troubling" and condemned the police's decision to arrest hundreds of peaceful protesters, who she argued should not have been "denied their right to express their opinions loud and clear."
In a post to her blog, Voir's Josée Legault echoed Ms. Gruda's contention that the police response effectively denied many peaceful protesters their rights to freedom of expression and assembly. Ms. Legault noted that the arrests were almost double those that occurred in 1970 during the October Crisis and she opined that there was "good reason" to call for a public inquiry into police conduct at the summit.
In Friday's Le Devoir, Alec Castonguay observed that "the controversy surrounding police activities during the G20 protests in Toronto shows no sign of running out of steam." Mr. Castonguay considered the recent allegations that police used agents provocateurs during the protest and pointed to one "telling" amateur video that appears to show a plainclothes police officer dressed in a manner similar to the "Black Bloc" demonstrators retreating behind a police barricade. Mr. Castonguay quoted Dave Coles, president of the Communications Energy and Paperworkers Union (and one of the people who helped expose the Quebec police's use of agent provocateurs in Montebello in 2007), who called the videos "troubling" and reminiscent of questionable police tactics at previous summits. Mr. Coles argued that "police disguised as thugs, with rocks and batons in their hands, this does nothing to encourage a peaceful demonstration. It raises the level of tension and can incite other young people to let loose."
Not everyone in the Quebec press was sympathetic to the plight of the protesters (peaceful and otherwise) arrested during the G20. La Presse's Mario Roy was skeptical of the allegations of police brutality, arbitrary arrest and illegal detention under inhuman conditions. "With a little luck and another teaspoon of fascism, this whole affair might make it all the way to the UN," he quipped. Mr. Roy went on to question why community organizers and activists leading peaceful protests seemed so unwilling to condemn the tactics of the more violent demonstrations. "Very few activist groups have condemned in a clear way the inevitable acts of banditry [by other groups] Their attitude on the subject seems, for the most part, equivocal," he wrote.
Blogue post of the week
The formerly prolific Chantal Hébert called it quits on her popular Actualité blog last week. On June 30, Ms. Hébert wrote a post titled " Au revoir!" in which she declared that her usual summer break from blogging would be a little longer than usual. Ms. Hébert devoted several paragraphs to praising the increasing usefulness and importance of political blogs before announcing that, as of September, she will be concentrating her journalistic energies on her columns for the Toronto Star, Le Devoir and L'actualité, as well as her radio and television appearances, rather than on her blog.
Ms. Hébert used a skating metaphor to describe the suspension of her blogging career. "After two years, I'm hanging up my blogging skates in order to spend a bit more time in the corridors of politics (and biking, going to the movies and reading) and a little less time on the media ice."
Always the election junkie, Ms. Hébert assured readers that she would revive her blog during the next federal election campaign. "So maybe sooner than later," she quipped.