Two weeks after the G20 summit concluded the fallout continues, and so it should. Canadians watched an unprecedented attack on our civil liberties and human rights as the result of police action during that weekend. The question is, who issued the orders which allowed this to take place with impunity?

Many Canadians remain blissfully unaware, while others are choosing to be unaware as they don’t believe what happened. Many choose to focus on the violence as justification for the mass arrests which followed the next day. The question should be: where were the police and why did they not move in to corral and stop those who were committing the violence?

All too many Canadians are choosing to ignore the facts and the politicians who should be on the hot seats are able to avoid answering to the public they are supposed to be serving.

An acquaintance of mine seems to be pretty typical of those who haven’t woke up to the assault on them that took place. When the subject came up, he immediately pointed to the violence on Saturday and said the police had to react.

When I responded by agreeing and then asking, so where were the police when this was going on? How come with an an overwhelming police presence in the downtown those individuals were able to rampage for upwards of 90 minutes. He responded blissfully that the police were told to stand back. By who I asked? He shrugged.

When I described to him the video footage I had watched on the web including the real time footage of a group eventually rounded up and arrested near the Eastern Ave detention centre early Sunday morning, his response was “they should have left when they were told to”. I described to him, again, how I watched as the group were surrounded by a ring of riot shields and met with a wall of silence when one young man asked repeatedly in which direction they could leave.

Again he shrugged, replying they shouldn’t have been there. When I suggested he should try telling that to those who were rounded for simply being on the street trying to go about their business, he gave me the same response. When I asked him when martial law was declared that would have told those people they were supposed to stay in their homes, his response was they should have used common sense and stayed away. When pointed out that those people going about their business lived there, he again shrugged.

At no point did he get it that the cornerstone of a democracy is the right to peaceful assembly and protest. He didn’t get it that it is a basic democratic right to be able to go about our daily business without fear of arrest.

The only ones who should have feared arrest were those who carried out the violence on the Saturday. They lacked fear because the police backed away from them and their rampage.  Instead they went on an unconstitutional rampage against the rest of the citizens the following day.

The questions remain and Canadians should continue to push until they are answered. Who issued the orders which allowed rank and file police to disregard the constitution and human rights? Who allowed police to attack and round up citizens with impunity? Who allowed the deplorable conditions at the detention centre to occur?

Canadians have the right to know. We should not have to demand that politicians who are elected to serve us find out those answers. The refusals by the provincial and the federal governments leads to an obvious conclusion that the highest levels of authority allowed this to happen.

So, when does what happened during the G20 start to become the normal conditions under which we live start? Don’t shrug too often, it may be sooner than you think. Complacency breeds greater boldness.

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