Demand a public inquiry now!.

“It is imperative that there be a full public inquiry into what happened during the G20 in order to get at the truth and ensure it doesn’t happen again. 

The maintenance of public confidence in law enforcement demands nothing less.”

The Canadian Civil Liberties Association and the National Union of Public and General Employees are pleased to present this new report, based on the Breach of the Peace – G20 Summit: Accountability in Policing and Governance public hearings the two organizations held in Toronto and Montreal in November 2010.

• Download the press release

Based on the issues identified over the course of the public hearings, the report offers a comprehensive overview of the major civil liberties violations that took place during the G20 Summit, and puts forward a series of recommendations aimed at protecting constitutional rights in future public order policing operations.

CCLA invites you to download and read this new report. We look forward to your comments, questions and feedback.

Eight months after the events of the G20, there are a number of ongoing inquiries that are seeking to shed light on what happened. However, none of these investigations have a broad enough mandate to look at all the aspects of policing and public safety and their interplay.

CCLA and NUPGE continue to believe that only a federal, public inquiry can deliver the answers that Canadians deserve.

We ask you to take a stand today, and to send the message below to Prime Minister Stephen Harper and/or Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty to demand a G20 Inquiry Now!

Feel free to copy/paste the text and compose your own email, or send a letter.

The Right Honourable Stephen Harper Office of the Prime Minister 80 Wellington Street Ottawa, ON K1A 0A2 Fax: 613-941-6900 E-mail: pm@pm.gc.ca

The Honourable Dalton McGuinty Premier of Ontario Legislative Building, Queen’s Park Toronto, Ontario M7A 1A1 Fax: 416-325-3745 E-mail: dmcguinty.mpp.co@liberal.ola.org

Dear Prime Minister Harper and Premier McGuinty:

RE: Public Inquiry into G20 Summit Security

I am writing to urge the federal and Ontario governments to establish a joint public inquiry into security measures implemented in association with the 2010 G20 Summit in Toronto.

In the days and months following the G20 Summit, it has become clear that widespread violations of Charter rights and civil liberties occurred during the policing of this event, some of which are documented in the Breach of the Peace Public Hearings report recently released by the Canadian Civil Liberties Association and National Union of Public and General Employees. These transgressions have raised many questions which remain unanswered and done significant damage to public confidence in Canada's police services. It is essential that public order policing measures be planned and implemented in a manner that is respectful of Charter rights, including freedom of expression, assembly and association. Unfortunately, security measures during the G20 Summit fell short of this standard.

In a democratic country, such as Canada, the mass arrest of more than 1100 people is an event that must not pass by without proper review and scrutiny. Canadians are entitled to accountability for G20 security excesses and your governments have an essential role to play in providing it. Establishing a comprehensive public inquiry would help address outstanding concerns about G20 security, help restore public confidence in Canadian policing and provide a more respectful framework for future public order policing operations. I implore you to take prompt action to ensure that an inquiry is called.

I would appreciate your attention to this matter.

Sincerely,
[insert your name here]

---

Demandez une enquête publique sur le G20 maintenant!

February 28th, 2011

« Il est impératif qu'il y ait une enquête publique complète sur ce qui s'est passé lors du G20 afin de parvenir à la vérité, et pour s'assurer que cela ne se reproduise pas. 

Le maintien de la confiance du public dans l'application des lois n’exige rien de moins. »

L'Association canadienne des libertés civiles et le Syndicat national des employées et employés généraux présentent ce rapport final sur les questions de sécurité du G20 sur la base des audiences publiques Troubler la Paix - Sommet du G20 : Imputabilité policière et bonne gouvernance : le maintien de l’ordre public et les libertés civiles, tenues en Novembre 2010 à Toronto et Montréal.

• Téléchargez le communiqué de presse

Sur la base des problèmes identifiés au cours des audiences publiques, le rapport offre un aperçu complet des principales violations des libertés civiles qui ont eu lieu pendant le Sommet du G20, et met en avant une série de recommandations destinées à protéger les droits constitutionnels lors du déploiement futur des opérations de maintien de l’ordre public.

L’ACLC vous invite à télécharger et lire ce nouveau rapport. N'hésitez pas à nous faire part de vos questions, commentaires et idées.

Huit mois après les événements du G20, de nombreuses investigations sont en cours pour essayer de faire lumière sur ce qui s’est passe. Néanmoins, aucune de ces enquêtes n’a un mandat assez large pour examiner toutes les facettes du maintien de l’ordre public pendant le G20.

L’ACLC et SNEGSP continue de penser que seule une enquête fédérale publique complète peut donner aux Canadiens et Canadiennes les réponses qu’ils meritent.

Nous vous demandons de prendre position, et d’envoyer le message ci-dessous au Premier Ministre Stephen Harper et/ou au Premier Ministre de l’Ontario Dalton McGuinty pour demander une Enquête Publique sur le G20 Maintenant!

N'hésitez pas a copier/coller le texte pour composer votre propre courriel, ou pour envoyer une lettre:

The Right Honourable Stephen Harper Office of the Prime Minister 80 Wellington Street Ottawa, ON K1A 0A2 Fax: 613-941-6900 E-mail: pm@pm.gc.ca

The Honourable Dalton McGuinty Premier of Ontario Legislative Building, Queen’s Park Toronto, Ontario M7A 1A1 Fax: 416-325-3745 E-mail: dmcguinty.mpp.co@liberal.ola.org

Federal Court of Canada overturns 5 IRB decisions, orders new hearings

OTTAWA — The parallels in the five refugee cases are striking. All feature women seeking to remain in Canada because of well-founded fears for their safety in their home countries.



All had their applications rejected by the Immigration and Refugee Board or officers of Citizenship and Immigration Canada even though, in 1993, Canada became the first country in the world to establish formal guidelines for refugee claims by women facing gender-related persecution.



And in the past month, the Federal Court has overturned all five decisions and ordered new hearings.



Four of the recent cases involve women — two from the Caribbean island of St. Vincent, one from Brazil and one from Mexico — who are victims of spousal abuse. The other is a woman from Guyana who was raped in front of her children during a brutal home invasion.



In only one case was the applicant’s credibility an issue. In the others, the officials either ruled that adequate state protection exists in their home countries or found that deporting them would not cause “unusual, undeserved or disproportionate hardship.”



Three of the cases involved decisions by the IRB’s refugee protection division. The other two were rejections by Citizenship and Immigration officers of applications for permanent-resident status on humanitarian and compassionate grounds, known as H&C applications.



One of the women, 30-year-old Keisha Paul, fled to Canada in 2002 after her partner in St. Vincent beat her so badly she was hospitalized. Her son, now nine, joined his mother four years later.



In 2008, the IRB rejected her refugee claim because it said Paul had not availed herself of state protection in her home country.



Then, about a year ago, an immigration officer rejected her H&C application as well as her pre-removal risk assessment (PRRA) application. The officer adopted the IRB’s findings that state protection in St. Vincent was available and observed that Paul had failed to demonstrate steady employment or financial independence during her eight years in Canada.



Federal Court Justice Richard Boivin overturned the officer’s finding for failing to assess whether the risk to Paul would give rise to unusual, undeserved or disproportionate hardship — the required legal test.



The other St. Vincent woman, Anthea Cato, claimed refugee protection in 2008 after years of abuse by her husband. Cato, who has a three-year-old son, testified that she repeatedly reported the abuse to the island’s police authorities, who failed to act.



In rejecting her refugee claim, the IRB said Cato’s testimony lacked credibility and dismissed her argument that her memory problems resulted from post-traumatic stress disorder.



But Federal Court Justice André Scott said the board “misconstrued some key facts, and more importantly, ignored some key evidence” in concluding that Cato wasn’t credible.



In another IRB case, the board rejected a refugee claim from Rocio Angelica Flores Alcazar, finding that she didn’t make use of the available state protection in Mexico. Alcazar feared persecution from her former partner, a police officer in Mexico, who beat and raped her, twice sending her to hospital.



Justice Leonard Mandamin found the board failed to consider important aspects of Alcazar’s personal circumstances or properly evaluate contrary evidence about the adequacy of state protection in Mexico.



The third IRB case is that of Thatata Sousa, a Brazilian woman who came to Canada to escape her former spouse, a man described as “violent and in prey to psychiatric issues and substance abuse problems.”



After she was attacked and called police, her father-in-law hung up the phone and later told police the matter was nothing more than a couple’s quarrel. He threatened Sousa and told her he had connections within the police.



Again, the IRB found that Sousa didn’t present sufficient evidence that she couldn’t be protected in Brazil. Judge Simon Noël found that assessment was flawed and overturned the decision.



The final case is that of Estardi Beharry, who fled Guyana with her family for Canada in 2002 after she was beaten and raped in front of her two young children.



The family’s H&C submission described the ongoing trauma suffered by Beharry’s children — now in their teens — as a result of witnessing the vicious attack, and their fear of returning to the country where it occurred.



The officer rejected their application, saying Beharry hadn’t shown that returning to Guyana would have a “significantly negative impact” on the children.



But Judge Anne Mactavish said the officer failed to even address the impact that witnessing the attack has had on them, rendering the rest of the officer’s analysis unreasonable.



The disposition of the cases could suggest that the IRB and immigration officials are putting less weight on the 1993 gender guidelines than they once did. If so, however, the trend is not yet apparent to those who work with or study refugee cases.



“I don’t know that it shows a shift. I hope not,” said Joan Simalchik, a former director of the Canadian Centre for Victims of Torture who now co-ordinates the University of Toronto’s Study of Women and Gender Program.



But the recent cases warrant attention to ensure that the “very important provisions” in the gender guidelines remain intact, she said.



Mitchell Goldberg, a prominent Montreal immigration lawyer and refugee advocate, didn’t want to “leap from individual cases to make a generalization. My experience is that the Immigration and Refugee Board is very sensitive to these issues. There’s obviously exceptions.”



The disposition of refugee claims depends in part on who hears the case, he said. “When you walk into the Immigration and Refugee Board hearing room, to a great extent you know whether your client’s going to be accepted or refused depending on who walks into the room.”



The question of whether applicants can be adequately protected in their home countries “is an area of great controversy” in Federal Court case law, Goldberg said.



Making that assessment isn’t easy, said Toronto immigration lawyer Lorne Waldman. “I think it’s one of the most difficult questions that confronts the IRB,” he said.



The Federal Court is generally more “scrupulous” in reviewing the documentation than the IRB or Citizenship and Immigration officers, Waldman said. “It doesn’t surprise me that on issues such as state protection, there are a lot of decisions getting overturned.”



The court has been especially robust in overturning decisions involving applicants from St. Vincent, a country where violence against women is a major problem. In many instances, according to the U.S. State Department, domestic violence goes unpunished there.



Under the Harper government, acceptance of refugee claims from applicants already in Canada has fallen sharply, from nearly 16,000 in 2006 to just more than 9,000 last year. The number of successful applicants on compassionate and humanitarian grounds, which had been averaging between 10,000 and 11,000 a year, fell to 8,848 in 2010.



Those numbers may reflect Immigration Minister Jason Kenney’s publicly expressed concerns about fraudulent refugee claimants, illegal migrants or other abusers of the system, said Audrey Macklin, a University of Toronto professor who specializes in immigration, refugee and citizenship law.



Kenney appoints IRB members, while those who assess H&C applications work for his ministry, Macklin noted. Given his message of “hostility and skepticism toward asylum-seekers,” she said, “one should be concerned that this may exert an illegitimate influence on decision makers.”



Earlier this month, Kenney accused the courts of “intrusive and heavy-handed” interference in decisions made by immigration officials. “The integrity of decisions made by my department is being questioned too often without sufficient justification.”







Read more: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/sports/Striking+parallels+rejection+refugee+claims/4356526/story.html#ixzz1FERem7ki

MOST CANADIANS BELIEVE BEV ODA SHOULD RESIGN FROM CABINET : Vision Critical.

Many Canadians believe International Co-operation Minister Bev Oda should resign from the federal cabinet over the controversy related to a document that appeared to recommend a grant to faith-based overseas human-rights group Kairos, a new Vision Critical / Angus Reid poll has found.
The controversy began in October 2010, when bureaucrats in the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) approved a $7-million grant to Kairos. The original document—which shows the word “NOT” inserted in the recommendation to provide the grant—was shown to respondents of this online survey.
In December 2010, Oda appeared before a House of Commons foreign affairs committee, and denied knowing who inserted the word “NOT” on the document. Earlier this week, Oda acknowledged that the word “NOT” was inserted into the document on her order.
In the online survey of a representative sample of 1,011 Canadian adults, 58 per cent of respondents believe that Oda should resign from cabinet for her actions, while 12 per cent of respondents believe the International Co-operation Minister has apologized and the matter has been dealt with appropriately.
One third of respondents (33%) think Oda was instructed by the Prime Minister to alter the document, while one-in-four (24%) think she acted on her own.
Full Report, Detailed Tables and Methodology (PDF
)

The CRTC has withdrawn a proposal would have considerably narrowed the scope of the current ban to cover only false or misleading news .

The CRTC has withdrawn a controversial proposal that would have given TV and radio stations more leeway to broadcast false or misleading news.




Indeed, the broadcast regulator now says it never wanted the regulatory change in the first place and was only responding to orders from a parliamentary committee.



The committee last week quietly withdrew its request for regulatory amendments in the face of a public backlash.



With that, the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission was only too happy to drop the idea altogether.



The proposed change would have considerably narrowed the scope of the current ban to cover only false or misleading news that could endanger the lives, health or safety of the public.



"All I can say is, 'Thank you, committee,"' CRTC chairman Konrad von Finckenstein told the specialty publication The Wire Report last week.



"I will withdraw this proposal tomorrow. This is the end of this issue."



The proposed change sparked concerns that the CRTC was about to allow into Canada the more toxic — often grossly distorted — political discourse that pervades the American airwaves. Those suspicions were fuelled by the timing of the proposal, only weeks before next month's launch of a new, right-leaning all-news network, Sun TV.



However, Von Finckenstein said the CRTC "never wanted to touch this thing" and had, in fact, dragged its feet for 10 years until "we ran out of stalling devices." He said the CRTC finally proposed the change this year "because we were ordered to do it."



He added that he was always "perfectly happy" with the current ban on false news, which has never been invoked against any broadcaster.



Liberal MP Andrew Kania, co-chairman of the joint parliamentary committee on scrutiny of regulations, challenged von Finckenstein's interpretation of what happened.



He said the committee never ordered the CRTC to do anything. It only asked, 10 years ago, that the CRTC consider whether the blanket ban on false news might violate freedom of speech guarantees in the Charter of Rights. The request was prompted by a Supreme Court ruling in the case of Holocaust-denier Ernst Zundel.



Over the past two years, the committee reminded the CRTC that it still hadn't responded on the matter but did not push for any particular regulatory change, Kania said.



Only last week, in the wake of the public outcry over the CRTC's proposed change, did the committee consider the substance of the issue. Kania said committee members concluded that free speech guarantees don't apply to broadcast licence holders in the same way as they do to individuals.

Opposition MPs say they're going to try to force the prime minister to produce evidence about an altered document at a House of Commons committee.: Oda emails

Opposition MPs say they're going to try to force the prime minister to produce evidence about an altered document at a House of Commons committee.




Liberal foreign affairs critic Bob Rae says the opposition will table motions next week at committee to force the offices of Stephen Harper and International Cooperation Minister Bev Oda to table documents about the infamous "not" inserted on a memo that otherwise would have okayed $7 million in funding for aid organization Kairos.



Rae says the opposition won't drop the issue and vowed to track down whoever inserted the three-letter word, changing the meaning of the typed document.



"Is there an email that says 'do this'?" he asked.



"Who are all the people who received the email? Governments operate with records and with paper. There is a paper trail, there's an email trail. This thing is not going to go away."



International Co-operation Minister Bev Oda in the Commons last week. Oda says it was someone on her staff who inserted the "not" at her instruction. She says the memo reflects her decision.



"We intend to pursue this and I can just say to the government that it's going to be in the dentist chair for weeks to come," Rae said.



"We are not going to allow a minister to mislead the House of Commons and not tell the truth to Canadians about an issue of significance in her department, and simply get away with it."



"If they're refusing to come forward with the information, then the only alternative is root canal. And that's what it's going to be," he said.



Parliamentary privilege

The opposition lodged a formal complaint with House Speaker Peter Milliken last Thursday, arguing Oda breached parliamentary privilege by misleading the House over who recommended denying funds to Kairos.



(CBC) What is the Autopen? The Conservatives officially responded Friday, arguing the facts don’t support the allegation that Oda broke the rules.



MP Tom Lukiwski said the document with the “not” inserted was meant only to communicate the minister’s decision. He said it wasn’t intended to be made public.



The next day, the party reportedly distributed a memo that said Oda was out of town when the decision was due. The memo said her staff inserted the "not" at her instruction and used a machine called an Autopen — that mimics her signature — to sign the document.



NDP foreign affairs critic Paul Dewar says Canadians don't like being lied to. He says the story resonates with voters.



"They care about people not doing their job. They care about when people say they're going to be different and they're not," Dewar said.



"It's about hypocrisy ... (Canadians) don't like when people don't tell the truth and when people try and play them."



Conservatives respond

The opposition has tabled a foreign affairs committee report in the House of Commons that opens the door to possible sanctions against Oda over her responses to the committee last year. Milliken isn't expected to rule on the matter until next week at the earliest.



Conservative MPs filed a supplementary report, saying they don't agree Oda is in breach of privilege or that she intended to mislead the committee.



"The minister does understand that she could have more clearly communicated the purpose and intent of why and how her office implemented her direction, and she has apologized to the House of Commons for how this issue has been handled. In that statement, she clearly said that it was never her intention to mislead either the House of Commons or the committee," the Conservative response read.



If Milliken were to decide Oda's actions constituted a breach, the matter would then go back to a committee to decide whether a vote should be held in the House on the breach question.



If Oda became the first sitting minister to be held in contempt of Parliament, that would put pressure on Harper to remove her from the cabinet.

Derna Libya Soldiers Killed for Not Killing Their Own

Far more Canadians than Americans believe climate change is real, according to a report there's a message there for the federal government.

Far more Canadians than Americans believe climate change is real, according to a report produced by U.S. and Canadian think tanks.



The report, based on the results of two national surveys of public opinion on climate change, was to be released Wednesday by the Public Policy Forum and Sustainable Prosperity and their project partners.



Respondents on both sides of the border were asked their opinion on a range of issues on climate change, starting with whether they believed it was real.



In Canada, 80 per cent believe in the science behind climate change, compared with 58 per cent in the United States.



Alex Wood of Sustainable Prosperity, a research and policy network at the University of Ottawa, says there's a message there for the federal government.



"Canadians continue to believe in very high numbers that climate change is a significant issue," Wood said. "They want to see federal leadership on the issue in terms of a policy regime that will set the course for Canada."



Government responsibility

That sentiment points to another difference discovered by the survey: Just 43 per cent of Americans believe their national government has a great deal of responsibility to address climate change. In Canada, 65 per cent of respondents believe the government has a role to play.



In fact, the poll suggests Canadians want to see all levels of government —from Parliament Hill to provincial capitals to city hall — do something about climate change.



And unlike Americans, Wood says, Canadians are willing to pay for it.



"They believe carbon pricing is part of the necessary policy and they're not scared of it," Wood said.



The poll shows about twice as many Canadians as Americans support both a cap-and-trade system for industry and the idea of paying a carbon tax of up to $50 a month.



The Harper government has said it won't set up a cap-and-trade system without the United States, but Wood says the poll clearly shows Ottawa should reconsider.



The telephone survey was conducted using 916 randomly selected Americans from Nov. 15 to Dec. 9, 2010, and 1,214 Canadian respondents from Jan. 15 to Feb. 4, 2011. The survey's American findings are accurate to within three percentage points and the Canadian survey to within 2.8 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.