Tag Archives: Police Chief Bill Blair

Meet A Mayoral Candidate XXIII

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It’s Friday, and with my colleagues’ absence the task has fallen to me to bring to you the latest instalment in our ongoing Meet A Mayoral Candidate series. The opportunity couldn’t be anymore timely, either, as this one is right in my wheelhouse, as they say. A post with my name written all over it.

So without further adieu, allow me to introduce to you, Reverend Daniel Walker, member of the Church of the Universe!

It should quickly become obvious to everyone that with such a handle, Rev. Walker is Campaign 2010’s first openly pro-cannabis candidate for mayor. And frankly, what’s an election race without one? No matter that drug decriminalization lies within federal jurisdiction, it is important that the public be reminded at every electoral opportunity at all levels that there are people out there who are willing to stand up and be counted as indulgers in the sweet weed. We can demonize them. We can dismiss them as flaky-brained, starry-eyed slackers. We can fill them up with grilled Wagon Wheel sandwiches and whipped cream burritos in the hopes of them just keeping quiet and not making a Bill and Ted sized spectacle of themselves. But, come every election campaign, a dedicated few of them seem determined to rub our noses in the fact that, well, they will continue to get high whether we like it or not, whether we care or not.

Never mind that for some, part of the thrill of the bud is its very illegality. A little of the high comes from the fact that a good chunk of society disapproves of your behaviour. The edge of being an outlaw and ne’er-do-well. Do-gooders like Rev. Walker would put an end to all that, demanding the legalization of marijuana which would mean that anyone could do it therefore reducing the potency of the indulgence. Why would he risk such a thing? For medical purposes, he claims. To make it easier for those who use marijuana as pain relief and appetite enhancers to acquire and use. Rev. Walker also thinks we’d save millions and millions of dollars from the enforcement and prosecution of the marijuana trade that would be better used elsewhere.

That’s all fine and good, sensible and noble even, but what about those who like their pot with the edge of criminality, Rev. Walker? Where do they turn when that’s gone? The harder, still illegal drugs like meth, coke and their ilk. You’re turning marijuana into a true gateway drug with your proposal of legalization, sir. Good thing the matter would be out of your hands even if you were elected mayor of this city.

Of the issues he might be able to pursue as mayor, Rev. Walker would demand a full public inquiry into the G20 debacle and ask for police chief Bill Blair’s resignation. Of all the mayoral candidates, Rev. Walker is the first to come out publicly to demand a 5% cut in the police budget. He’d give half his salary to St. Stephen’s House (take that and your 10% cut, Rocco Rossi) as part of a wider outreach to the city’s homelessnesss problem. He’d build more bike lanes and search for other green transportation initiatives, and by ‘green’, we’re assuming he means environmentally friendly as opposed to marijuana fuelled. Rev. Walker wants to see more parks and less condos. The city under a Mayor Walker administration would be more dog friendly, have more outdoor attractions and our public washrooms would be clean.

There’d be no more alcohol as part of city council expense accounts and he’d see that all accounts were audited to make sure that was strictly enforced. (Will Rev. Walker be as hard-assed if marijuana is legalized and councillors begin to write it off?) He will push for stiffer penalties when it comes to law-breaking police and government officials. Strikes for essential services which Rev. Walker considers both garbage collection and teachers to be, would be banned.

When asked the question we’ve been asking all of candidates —  If the present mayor would like his legacy to be that of the Transit Mayor, how would a Mayor Walker like to see his legacy written? – Rev. Walker responded, more or less, a Mayor Daniel Walker’s legacy will be clothes-food-shelter-transportation.

All very good policies to pursue and, more importantly, consuming enough to keep Rev. Walker from attempting to impose his libertarian drug views on those who aren’t as convinced of their efficacy. Leave people alone to indulge in criminal behaviour as they best see fit and just concentrate on running the city, sir.

— dutifully submitted by Acaphlegmic

Dance And Sing Like A Puppet On A String

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So where were we?

Oh yeah, that’s right. In the middle of a municipal election campaign.

One of the things that linger on after the whole, sad G20 debacle is the minor role our elected local officials played in how everything transpired. Insignificant, one might even say. That is, until after the event, when Mayor Miller stepped front and centre in an attempt to defuse the anger about over-zealous police tactics and defend Police Chief Blair and his troops. Like a former fireballer and ace of the staff whose blown-out shoulder had reduced him to mere mop up duty, used exclusively in games where the outcome is no longer in doubt, the mayor succeeded only in tarnishing his own image.

His performance also revealed just how little power municipalities actually have when the big boys from the senior levels of government come to town. The mayor went to great lengths to deflect outrage off the security forces and onto Stephen Harper for the feds’ seemingly arbitrary decision to put the meeting right downtown instead of at Exhibition Place where the mayor claimed he had suggested. That’s fine, as far as it goes, but we all knew this beforehand. It did little to directly address the issues of excessive use of force or extraordinary police powers in search and detainment that has shocked and appalled a healthy consensus of Torontonians.

Moreover, it raised an intriguing question to our minds here. If Mayor Miller was so convinced about the ill-advised placement of the G20 gathering after having his advice ignored, did he have the power to inform the federal government that he was ordering his police chief not to participate in the defense of the G20 compound? If the PMO was intent on bringing the inevitable disruption and contentiousness to Toronto’s core, it was going to be up to them alone to enforce security without the assistance of the city’s police force. No numbers of water and sound cannons, surveillance cameras and overtime would entice our police into the fray.

If our mayor, council and police services board don’t have that kind of authority, why don’t they? Because if they don’t, it means that those we elect to serve our local needs and wishes are nothing more than handmaidens to upper levels of government, mere facilitators for whatever whims overcome politicians in Ottawa and Queen’s Park. Ultimate control of what happens in our cities does not reside where it belongs: municipal officials.

And by extension, the elections we hold every four years for representatives at City Hall are ultimately meaningless. While we have always argued that the decisions that get made at a local level are of the utmost importance to our daily lives and should be treated accordingly, such import is severely undermined if upper levels of government can simply impose themselves upon us or on the qt unilaterally change laws (or the impression of them) that adversely affect us. That’s not inclusive democracy. It’s rule by fiat.

In the G20 aftermath, this should now be a key election issue during the municipal campaign. Rather than spending time and energy attacking each other on their minor platform differences, our mayoral candidates need to start standing up for the city they want to lead. To ensure that the events of June 25-27, 2010 never happen again, we need to demand more powers for municipalities, a devolution if you will, in order for the citizens to directly hold decision makers responsible for the situations they create.

Anything less should be considered rearranging furniture in a house with crumbling foundations.

— still miffedly submitted by Cityslikr

Who’s In Charge Here? Ain’t You?

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I don’t even know how to begin this post.

The degree of disregard for the truth and our Constitution, the full on dissemination of disinformation and outright lies, the abject contempt in which all levels of the public service involved in the operations of the G20 have held the citizens of this city goes beyond unbelievable or mind-boggling. There’s not a word at my disposal that I can summon to adequately describe the degree of shock, dismay and increasing outrage welling up inside of me.

But, allow me to try.

Unmistainappallindignoustionflimflamfuckery!

There. I feel a little better. A little.

On Friday, we learn of a secret provincial cabinet shuffle of a 71 year-old wartime law that would allow security personnel at the G20 meeting to detain and lockup anyone who got within 5 metres of the perimeter “fence” and did not properly identify themselves. Done and done. Police willingly oblige, nabbing the unsuspecting here and there, sometimes far and away from the 5 metre line of demarcation. Upon learning about this, a sizeable chunk of the population reacts with the appropriate degree of Unmistainappallindignoustionflimflamfuckery.

Then yesterday reports emerge that, in fact, there was no such 5 metre outside the fence rule as part of the Liberal government’s tinkering with the Public Works Protection Act. According to the Canadian Press, when asked if there was an actual 5 metre zone as part of the Act, “…Chief Bill Blair smiled and said, “No, but I was trying to keep the criminals out.” This came in response to an aide for Community Safety Minister, Rick Bartolucci, insistence that “There were no extra powers granted to police for G20. As we stated repeatedly the regulation was about defining property, not police power.” Of course, when copies of the Act started making the rounds on the interwebs it was there, apparently, in black and white for all to see that, in fact, there was a 5 metre zone outside the fence.

DESIGNATED PLACES REFERRED TO IN PARAGRAPH 2 OF SECTION 1

1. The area, within the area described in Schedule 1, that is within five metres of a line drawn as follows: … blah, blah, blah, layers upon layers of lies and bullshit.

But news reports this morning inform us that, no, there never was such a law in place. The police made it up and arrested people on a whim, in a classic example of the ends justifying the means. Now most certainly, the already insanely large bill for hosting the G20 will be added to, as we’ll be paying out compensation for all sorts of illegalities carried out by security forces in order to, as the law-interpreting police chief says, “keep criminals out.”

What gives?

It would be bad enough if we could just chalk all this up to gross incompetence and massive hazy acquaintance with the facts on the part of our fearless leaders. But nobody can be that stupid or gormless in the face of such intensive public scrutiny not even a representative of the cabinet of Premier Dalton McGuinty. There is something much more sinister and responsibility defying at work here.

This is intentional muddying of the waters, a multi-leveled hot potato buck passing conducted for the sole purpose of avoiding accountability by everyone involved. A deliberate creation of a big ol’ wall of confusion so opaque in its Byzantinism that it will be near impossible to uncover even the most basic facts of who knew/did what, when. All in the hopes of people just getting fed up and walking away in disgust, demanding nothing more than to be left alone so they can enjoy their upcoming summer vacation.

And civic political engagement dies just a little more, replaced by a crippling cynicism that only helps perpetuate a lawlessness and indifference to democratic principles by those we elect and appoint to uphold those very things. How dare we try to suggest that the only criminals in this whole sad, sordid affair were those who threw rocks and set police cars on fire. They are property vandals. What we’re talking about here is nothing short of the theft and undermining of our fundamental rights and freedoms that are part of living in an open society. That, I think, is the much bigger, more disturbing crime.

It’s enough to make you want to yell unmistainappallindignoustionflimflamfuckery!!! over and over again until the neighbours start banging on the ceiling, telling you to shut up.

— nails spittingly submitted by Cityslikr