Your Freedom Isn’t so Free

Editor’s Note: This article contains a very revealing first hand experience from four engineering students who where in Toronto protesting the G8/G20 summits. Consequenty, the four were arrested by police at the intersection of Queen and Spadina during the Sunday of the summit weekend. This article also contains opinions that do not express the opinions of The Iron Warrior, or the Engineering Society.

“Get out of here before I smash your f*cking face!”

So ends another would-be civil conversation with one of Canada’s proud peacekeepers during the protests at the G20 in Toronto. Here are some more of our favourite cop quotes from the weekend of June 25^th:

“If you protest we’ll arrest you.”

“I hope you’ve learned your lesson” (after being arrested for protesting)

Hi. We’re four of your fellow classmates here at UW , and our names are Brayden, Connor, Cyril and Umair. All four of us, along with about 200 other people, were arrested on June 27^th at the intersection of Queen and Spadina. We were told that three of us would be charged with “breach of peace” and one with “conspiracy to commit mischief.” The latter implies that destruction of property was being planned. We were detained for up to four hours before being let go unconditionally.

We’d like to tell you the full story. Let’s start from the beginning: what are the G8 and G20 and why were we even there?

Canada played host to both the G8 and G20 summits from June 25^th to the 27^th. The G8 met in Huntsville, while the G20 summit was in Toronto.

The G8 (the Group of Eight) is a gathering of the 8 most rich and powerful nations from across the world. The G20, a relatively new and increasingly prominent institution, is essentially an expanded version of the G8.

The problem with the G8/G20 is that they are anti-democratic. There is already an international forum for discussion and planning of international affairs. It’s called the United Nations, and it brings together all the nations of the world, not just the rich ones. The existence of the G8/G20 undermines the authority of the UN; the rich countries don’t want to worry about getting outvoted by the poor ones.

Granted, the UN has its problems, but it is the preeminent multilateral institution of our day. In a time when we should be trying to increase the effectiveness of the UN, the G8/G20 seek to circumvent it, and in doing so, are further polarizing our already divided world.

Something prevalent in media reports about the G20 was mention of the large number of issues being protested. The media presented this as if to suggest that protesters with different issues of concern were disunited or even adversaries.

The protesters were united. The vast majority of them came from the progressive side of the political spectrum and although they might themselves have represented one or a few issues at the protests, they stood in solidarity with each other. Someone who is concerned about the unjust exploitation of the third world’s mineral resources will find affinity with those raising their voices for other social justice issues, such as the environmental crisis, indigenous and minority rights, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq etc.

The protesters were all united in the belief that the G8/G20 is an illegitimate forum and should be abolished. That is the primary reason why the four of us went to Toronto; to protest the very existence of the G8/G20.

The Toronto G20 agenda included discussion of the world economy and global financial reform in light of the ongoing economic recession. The idea of 20 rich countries discussing issues that will affect the entire world and the implications of the decisions they make is something not covered very well in the media. The communiqué released at the conclusion of the G20 states that the participating developed countries would cut their deficits in half by 2013. At the same time, it instructs countries to keep the reforms they make “growth-friendly.”¹ In other words, corporate tax rates will remain low, spending for social programs will decrease, and the average person will pay the bill for the bankers’ crisis.

Deficit cuts would be great, if they were accomplished by beginning to tax big business at reasonable rates, reducing military funding, or promoting environmentally sustainable economies. However, keeping in mind the history of economic reform in the developed world, it is predictable that none of these progressive reforms will be implemented.

The cost of the G8/G20 meetings should also be kept in mind. You’ve likely heard about the $1.1 billion it took to host the joint summits. The UN’s budget for an entire year is about $2 billion.²For three days of discussions, Canada spent half of what the UN spends in a year.

In addition to the fact that the G20 shouldn’t exist, in addition to wasteful spending it has created, the G20 refuses to address pressing issues that need to be addressed.

For example, the state of the global environment weighs heavily on our minds; as the minds of the world leaders ponder how help keep the bankers rich. The following is a list of very troubling facts about what we have done to the environment:

• Half of the global rainforests are gone.  At the present rate of removal only 10% will remain by 2030.
• 90% of large fish are gone, victim to wanton predatory fishing practices.
• Half of the world’s wetlands were destroyed in the twentieth century.
• The rate of species extinction is a thousand times greater than before humans existed.
• At least 300,000 people die every year as a result of global warming – the vast majority of them live in the third world, the part of the world least responsible for climate change.⁽³⁾⁽⁴⁾

We have drastically altered the face of the world we live on, but it is not too late to stand up and commit to drastic change.  Yet select world leaders get together to find solutions to the crises we face and only give lip service to the environment and climate change.  It’s certainly a case of misplaced priorities.

Security costs for the summits amounted to more than $900 million out of the total budget.⁵ 19,000 police officers, brought in from around the country, were posted all over the City of Toronto. It was difficult to walk a few blocks without seeing the large groups of police.⁶

Images of burning police cars and broken windows filled news reports about the protests. The fact that only a small number of acts of vandalism and supposed violence occurred, while the overwhelming majority of protesters demonstrated peacefully, was not reflected in the media.

The conditions under which the vandalism took place are in themselves suspect, however. It is our belief, and has also been covered by some in the media, that the police created the conditions for the vandalism to occur. This was done in order to avert attention from reports of abuse of power by police, justify the bloated security budget, and stifle dissent expressed by protesters.⁷

A couple of us were present as police officers drove a police cruiser into a street full of protesters, got out, and left the area. The cruiser was spray painted and damaged by a few of the more daring protesters present. After we had left that we heard that the cruiser was eventually set on fire.

We questioned a police officer about why the police abandoned the cruisers. His response was: “Just because a car was left there didn’t make it alright for anyone to set it on fire.” Well, that’s exactly right; people shouldn’t vandalize or destroy property. And it’s the police’s job to make sure that people who would want to do such things are stopped. It’s not the job of the police to instigate destruction of property. This was a display of extremely irresponsible, and we would charge, unlawful, behaviour by the police. Conspiracy to commit mischief was a charge that was going to be brought against one of us; it should in fact be brought against the police officers who hatched and deployed the plan to bait protesters into destroying police cars.

In any case, the issue of vandalism at the G8/G20 is unimportant. What should be discussed across the country is the large-scale suspension of civil liberties because of the meetings. If you have ever read the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, you will know something of the freedoms afforded to all Canadian citizens; freedom of belief, opinion and expression, freedom of peaceful assembly, freedom of mobility within the country, freedom against unreasonable search and seizure, arbitrary detainment or imprisonment, the list continues.

We have personally witnessed and been victim to the suspension of each and every one of the rights listed above. Throughout the G8/G20 the police regularly intimidated demonstrators and violently disrupted peaceful protests. Hundreds of people were subject to unlawful searches. Movement throughout the city was restricted by thousands of police officers.

While the mainstream media continue to report on the violence and vandalism perpetuated by the protesters, Canadian citizens should consider the scale of the crimes committed by police against peaceful protesters. What will be the implications for our democracy if dissent and protest is outlawed?