It is a pleasure to appear before this committee to outline the involvement of Ontario Correctional Services in the G-8 and G-20 summits and to answer questions this committee might have on provincial responsibility and protocols for the treatment of those who were transferred to our custody.
The G-8 and G-20 summits were the largest domestic security undertaking in Canadian and Ontario history. Ontario worked closely with the federal government, host municipalities, and police services to ensure that appropriate resources and plans were in place for the G-8 and G-20 summits. Since there were no admissions to a provincial ministry correctional institution related to the G-8 summit, I will contain the remainder of my opening statement to the G-20 summit.
The ministry's adult institutional services division is responsible for the safe, secure custody of all Ontario adult inmates held on remand, awaiting trial or other proceedings, as well as adult male and female offenders serving sentences of up to two years less a day.
By the numbers, Ontario's 31 provincial correctional institutions house roughly 8,750 inmates on any given day, both sentence and remand; 76,000 inmates were admitted to our custody last year. Approximately two-thirds of our inmate population is being held on remand and is awaiting trial or other court proceedings. The average length of stay for those inmates on remand is approximately 34 days.
As part of the G-20 planning process we identified two facilities as receiving institutions for individuals transferred to our custody on G-20 summit-related charges. Those facilities were the Maplehurst Correctional Complex for males and the Vanier Centre for Women for females. Both of these facilities are located on the same site in the town of Milton, approximately 50 kilometres west of downtown Toronto and the site of the G-20. A third facility in Hamilton was designated to handle any overflow but was never used.
In preparation for the summit, senior managers from my division were asked to join a working group with representatives from the summit integrated security unit, which included Public Safety Canada, the Toronto Police Service, Ontario Provincial Police, crown prosecutors, and others.
As a result of that process the ministry put together a plan to ensure the continued safe, secure, and smooth operation of our correctional facilities. The plan included having extra staff on duty on every shift to accommodate a possible increase in admissions during the summit, providing two clerk-of-record staff to assist the Toronto police in the processing and transport of prisoners from court, and providing a correctional officer at court to serve as a liaison between the Toronto Police Service and the Vanier and Maplehurst facilities.
I should note at this point that all individuals transferred into ministry custody were done so from the court. No prisoners were transferred directly into provincial custody from the Toronto Police Service's temporary prisoner processing centre on Eastern Avenue in Toronto. Ontario Correctional Services had no role in the set-up or operational policies of the temporary detention centre at 629 Eastern Avenue, which was established and operated by the Toronto Police Service, and at no time during or immediately following the G-8 and G-20 summits did ministry personnel enter that facility.
There have been 170 admissions to the Maplehurst and Vanier facilities on criminal charges related to the G-20 summit. Of those admissions, 125 were male and 45 female.
Let me reiterate: all of those individuals were transferred from court to provincial custody. None were transferred directly from the Eastern Avenue facility.
As of today, only seven males with criminal charges related to the G-20 remain in ministry custody.
The Province of Ontario has high standards to ensure the safety, care, custody, and control of those under our supervision. Those individuals are entitled to appropriate care and appropriate conditions of confinement. I can tell this committee with all confidence that those standards were met during and after the G-20 summit for all of those in our custody.
I should also say that there were minor planned disruptions to our normal operations over the weekend of the G-20 summit. For example, at Maplehurst Correctional Complex, personal visits over the weekend of the summit were cancelled as a precautionary measure. Existing inmates were notified well in advance so that they could advise their family and friends. That said, inmates at both the Vanier and Maplehurst facilities had access to telephones and were permitted visits from legal counsel.
Although interpreters were ultimately not required, the ministry had in place a process for acquiring language interpreters for inmates whose first language was not English.
If individuals attended court and were released while at the court, their property was transferred to the Toronto West Detention Centre, which is a facility close to public transit, and pickup of items was made easier at that facility. Individuals released from either Vanier or Maplehurst were provided with a bus ticket and transport to the local bus terminal, as per standard ministry policy.
All policies and procedures governing the cases and treatment of inmates were followed. I am proud to say that Ontario's correctional services staff conducted themselves in a professional and respectful manner and ensured that our ministry's strict policies for the just and humane treatment of those in our custody were met.
Thank you for this opportunity. I would now be happy to take your questions.
Good afternoon. Before starting, I would like to thank my parents, my grandmother and my friends who are here today for their support. They have been supporting me from the start and they are supporting me in this proceeding.
My name is Jacinthe Poisson and I am 21 years old. I am studying international relations and international law at the Université du Québec à Montréal. Until June 27, 2010, I was a student engaged in my community, working in the summer as a facilitator in a disadvantaged environment.
Thank you for inviting me here today, and I would ask you to listen to me carefully because my experience at the G20 really traumatized me. It changed my life and my perception of my country. I'm here today to testify on my own behalf and that of my sister Maryse Poisson, who is seated at the back, with whom I went to demonstrate at the G20 and who experienced somewhat the situation as I did.
Both of us were arrested in our sleep the day after the demonstration, detained for 57 hours in horrible conditions and charged for nearly four months with conspiracy to damage property over $5,000 following the G20 demonstrations.
I went to the G20 in Toronto to attend my first international summit and to express my opposition to the Canadian government's current international positions. So I spent Saturday, June 26, demonstrating peacefully with more than 30,000 persons. That evening, I slept in the University of Toronto gymnasium, which had been made available by the graduate student association, with some 100 Quebeckers from Montreal who had come to demonstrate.
From that point on, my story is the same as those of hundreds of demonstrators who came from Quebec, who were arrested with me and who experienced the same things as I did.
First, around nine o'clock Sunday morning, tens of police officers entered the University of Toronto gymnasium heavily armed, aggressively shouting to us not to move and pointing their weapons at us. A francophone police officer informed us that we were being charged with participating in a riot. No arrest warrant was presented to us, and I was unable to move, get up, change clothing or go to the bathroom until 2:00 p.m. Police officers circled round us with their rubber bullet rifles. So I was unable to go to the bathroom for approximately six hours.
All my property was seized when I was arrested. The police officer removed my glasses because, he said, I might injure myself if I kept them on in the patrol wagon. I am very nearsighted and get serious headaches without my glasses. So while I was detained, and even after asking a number of officers to give them back to me, I was never able to recover them. That lasted three days. So I was unable to see the badges of the other police officers or the faces around me; it was quite destabilizing. So my sister and I were taken to a temporary detention centre that had been set up for G20 demonstrators. We were separated for most of the detention period.
Now I'm going to tell you about the detention conditions, which in my opinion were humiliating, dehumanizing and cruel—and I'm choosing my words here. I spent 57 hours cold, hungry and afraid. There were 15 to 25 of us detainees per cell measuring approximately four by seven metres. So three of the four individuals could sit down on a small bench; the others all had to sleep on the floor, which I found was freezing cold. During the first half of my detention, I was allowed only a short-sleeved shirt to warm me. The air conditioning was really very high, which prevented me from sleeping. Since we had no beds, we had to sleep on the floor, lying against one another in order to generate a little warmth. The light was really very bright and was on around the clock. So it was not turned off during the night. I got very little sleep.
From the time of our arrest, we had access to no food or water for eight hours. Then we were given a cheese and margarine sandwich roughly every eight hours and a glass of water every five hours. My hands were handcuffed for more than 15 hours, and my sister's for more than 20 hours, whereas we were in cages and presented little danger. We had to go to the bathroom in the cell, in a chemical toilet that had no door. The other detainees, as well as the police officers who passed in front of and around the cages, could see us at all times. None of the girls had access to their contraceptives, and most therefore got their periods. We had to beg for sanitary napkins, which came one by one after a long waiting period. Since no disposals was provided for, we had to leave them on the floor. I don't think I need to tell you that hygiene was really an issue for the women while we were detained.
A number of individuals did not have access to essential medication. In the first cage where I was, one woman asked for her anti-depressants at noon and did not get them until late that night, despite making tens of requests to police officers. In my sister Maryse's cell, one woman was borderline psychotic and told the police officers so when she was arrested. All the detainees in the cell demanded her medication starting early in the afternoon, but the police officers waited until she had a serious episode before dealing with the matter and ultimately taking her to hospital, with her hands and feet cuffed, of course.
She was never able to see a francophone nurse. This aspect is very important because, being a unilingual francophone, she could not say exactly what her illness was. The nurse took her blood pressure, told her that she was suffering from nothing and sent her back to her cage. Another detainee in my sister's cage was suffering from a mental illness, but, since she did not go into crisis, she did not have access to her medication for three days.
Another very important point is that, during my 60 hours of detention, I had to undergo two strip searches, which was very humiliating. The first occurred approximately 10 hours after I was arrested. In my sister's case, it was some 20 hours after her arrest. The second search was conducted at the Vanier Centre for Women, where we were transferred after more than 40 hours in detention.
So I had to completely undress before two female police officers, who seized my bra and shoes. During the second search, there was no door, and a male guard was able to see us. I was asked to turn around, bend over and expose my genitals to the hall. In addition, the insults and discriminatory comments were hurtful and degrading, particularly toward francophones and women. My sister was called a “fucking Frenchy” and an anarchist. One police officer told all the girls in the cell that he thought we were nothing more than animals. One female police officer repeated to me several times that she was my “babysitter”, treating me in a condescending manner as though I were a child.
The last officer who accompanied my sister and me to the court exit told us: “You should have committed your crimes in Quebec.” A number of times, in different places, police officers told us that martial law was in effect and that we no longer had any rights. I think some questions must be raised about the instructions the police officers were given. They seemed to believe they were entitled to do what they were doing.
During those three days when I felt like an animal in a cage, I was always given the impression that I was a criminal. I never felt there was a presumption of innocence, which should nevertheless be the basis of our criminal system. And the discrimination wasn't just verbal. As francophones, we were not given access to the same services. Throughout my detention, I encountered no officers who spoke French. I was told that, if I asked to appear in French, I would have to stay in detention longer. One woman who was with me in the cell was from France. She was visiting here and spoke no English. She was unable to see a lawyer who spoke French until about 50 hours later. I sensed that I was being discriminated against on the basis of my language.
About 40 hours later, we were transferred to the district court, where we were told that, since the judge was tired, we would not be able to appear that day. At 4:00 a.m., the police officers transferred us to a women's prison, the Vanier Centre for Women. In that prison, we were interrogated and strip searched again. We underwent medical tests and had to go back without even being able to sleep, which meant a second sleepless night for us.
Back in court the next day, I was finally able to appear before the judge, and that is where I finally learned that I was charged with conspiracy to commit an indictable offence. At the time of my arrest, we had all been accused of participating in a riot, but it was not until the appearance that I learned my new charge. I had to post bail of $1,000. I was ultimately able to leave, but on very harsh release conditions. I was threatened with being returned to a cell if I took the time to read the document concerning my bail. I was therefore unable to read my release conditions before being released. This is something that very much troubled me.
When I was released from my cell, my personal belongings had been lost. I no longer had any I.D. papers, money, clothing or glasses. It took about a month and a lot of pressure before I was able to recover them. My sister's cellular telephone, black coat and black clothing were confiscated from her, and she still has not recovered them. They are still there four months later.
I had to go four months with a charge of conspiracy to damage property over $5,000 over my head. Fortunately, that charge was dropped not very long ago, on October 14.
I want to become a lawyer. And I was afraid for months that I would not be able to enter the profession I want to practise. Being subjected to serious criminal charges for demonstrating in a peaceful manner is completely unjust, in my view, but the permanent stress especially was very hard to live with over those four months.
Now, if you try to put yourself in my shoes, I will tell you that I felt humiliated, traumatized and stripped of my dignity, simply for exercising the right to express my political opinions in a peaceful manner, which I believe is a constitutional right. I sensed that they violated my rights by arresting me, by arbitrarily detaining me, by subjecting me to clearly abusive searches, by violating my dignity and, I believe, by discriminating against francophone citizens.
I sensed that they simply wanted to discourage me from demonstrating, to shut me up, to prevent me from expressing my ideas and to deter me from demonstrating in future. It's quite unfortunate, but I have now lost the trust I had in my country's democratic values and in its commitment to respect for individual freedoms.
In conclusion, don't forget that 1,100 persons experienced a situation similar to mine. So I've just painted you a picture that represents 1,100 individuals. My specific story is the same as that of nearly 100 individuals arrested in the gymnasium. As a citizen who considers that her rights have been interfered with, I hope for—and I really want—an independent investigation to be conducted to shed light on the G20 incidents.
Thank you very much for holding this parliamentary committee meeting, but I would like much more to be done, and I also hope it will be.
In conclusion, I would like to tell you that Quebec rights advocacy organizations have gathered and compiled some 30 testimonials from individuals who were arrested. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights deemed the reported facts serious enough to hold a meeting, which is quite exceptional.
I attended that hearing in Washington on Monday, October 25, and I saw commissioners who were outraged by this situation and who called for the Canadian government to account for itself.
In my view, the situation is historically serious and Canada has a responsibility to conduct an independent public investigation. As one of the 1,100 unjustly arrested individuals, I believe this is the only valid option.
That is my testimony. If you have any questions, I will be pleased to answer them.
:
Good afternoon. I would like to thank you for the time you have allotted me. I will be brief, but I'm going to stick to the important details.
I was arrested in the gymnasium as well, like Jacinthe, her sister and my friends. However, my story is different. At the time of the arrest, police officers handcuffed us. Police officers from the SPVM, the Montreal police department, were also there and communicated without making any physical contact.
Once my friends were arrested and removed from the gymnasium, a police officer from the Montreal police department entered the gymnasium and recognized me, since he asked me if I knew Fredy Villanueva. I won't go into the details, but, when he looked at the Toronto police officer who was handcuffing me, he told him in English: “You should take her somewhere else because she has information to give you.” At that point, I was handcuffed and taken outside. I was led away from the place where the buses were located and put in a regular police vehicle and taken to a police station.
Once we reached that place, I was filmed, with audio and video tapes, and the charges laid against me, which were breach of peace and unlawful assembly, were repeated to me. That's what one Toronto police officer had said in the gymnasium. In French, it was about participating in a riot.
So I was told that I was charged, and then they put me in a room to search me. Two inspectors in civilian dress then took me up to their office, a little room, to ask me what I had done during the demonstration on Saturday—why, where and how. The interrogation went very well at first, but midway through it, as the inspectors were not satisfied with my answers, and they started raising their voices. They then called me a “fucking little princess from the middle class”.
:
Thank you for your invitation. I am here on behalf of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association. I am accompanied by Graeme Norton.
The Canadian Civil Liberties Association has been in existence since 1964 and is a rights and liberties advocacy agency in Canada. My predecessor is Alan Borovoy, whom you no doubt know. In Toronto, the association had 50 trained volunteers, neutral observers, who circulated throughout the week.
First I will speak in French and then in English. My presentation is divided into three parts. The first part contains the on-site observations that the association made, and I obviously invite you to look beyond the images conveyed by the media to see what actually happened across the city of Toronto. We had the opportunity to obtain evidence and to see it directly.
Second, I will talk
[English]
about the issues that this raises for a democracy, about several factual issues that need to be investigated, and about some really fundamental issues in future public security for other large events in the public policy order in Canada.
Finally, I have some conclusions about the need for a public inquiry. We have some proposed terms of reference that we want to circulate to the committee. I want to conclude on that.
[Translation]
First of all, the association had recruited 50 volunteers. We had met with representatives of the Integrated Security Unit in early May to discuss our evaluation and observation program with them. They were aware of the program. We also discussed certain issues that are generally the same in the context of major demonstrations. Among other things, we tried to raise the capital importance of international relations after large demonstrations, such as
[English]
“Adapting to Protest”, which was done after the London G-20.
In this report that was issued after an inquiry into the policing of the G-20 meeting in London, the first recommendation starts this way:
The right to freedom of assembly places obligations on the police. The starting point for the police is the presumption in favour of facilitating peaceful assembly. [Certainly] police may impose lawful restrictions on the exercise of the right....
But these restrictions must have a legitimate aim; they must be lawful and they must be necessary and proportionate.
[Translation]
The association's findings, based on the reports that have been submitted to it and on the observations it made during that weekend, were as follows.
We have circulated the summary of our report. It is our view that, despite instances of commendable and professional conduct, security efforts, especially after 5:00 p.m. on June 26 and June 27, failed to come up to the standard of constitutional commitments. Police conduct and actions were at times disproportionate, arbitrary and excessive.
We obviously recognize that the task of police officers was difficult, and we also noted that there were instances of competent and professional conduct throughout the week—and we were there all week. In spite of everything, Canadians are entitled to police services that do not undermine constitutional values. It is therefore essential to investigate to determine to what extent constitutional values were disregarded. How is it that we experienced the weekend that we had? How is it that more than 1,100 people were arrested? We now know that no charges will be laid against 1,000 of them. Consequently, 1,105 individuals were arrested and, in 1,000 of those cases, no charges will be laid. These were therefore innocent people.
[English]
I want to move quickly to the fact that throughout our media observations, five of our monitors were arrested in these mass arrests. There was a mass arrest on the Saturday night at The Esplanade and one on Sunday morning that was described very eloquently here. There was another mass arrest on Sunday afternoon at the corner of Queen and Spadina, which has been well documented. Some of our monitors were arrested both Saturday night and Sunday at Queen and Spadina.
I'll just read the quote from our monitor, who, with his partner, was in charge of following the march:
My monitoring partner and I followed the march of about 300 protesters down Yonge Street and onto The Esplanade. A line of police officers dressed in riot gear with what appeared to be tear gas guns formed a line about 300m west of Yonge St. on The Esplanade. The protesters stopped in front of the police line and continued chanting the lines they had been chanting for as long as we had been following them that day: “This is what democracy looks like!”, “Peaceful protest!”, “Who's streets? Our streets!”, and so on. This continued on for about twenty minutes without the police line or the protesters moving, or anything more than chanting and cheering. Then, from the east out of Scott St., a line of police officers in riot gear formed along The Esplanade and marched towards the crowd.
The officers in both police lines began marching slowly towards each other, clattering their batons and shields, and so forcing the crowd together. The police lines stopped when they were about 30 meters apart. The protesters, and anyone else who happened to be on the street or sidewalk, were now boxed in between two police lines, including my partner and I, and three people who had been standing outside of a restaurant, smoking. The protesters chants where more urgent and more often people called out or chanted with “Peaceful protest!” at the police lines. Several times then, and in the time that followed, small groups of officers would suddenly charge into the crowd, grab someone and pull them back behind their line. One protester called out to the crowd to say that everyone should sit down, which many did. The crowd was much more quiet, and we all were waiting. Calls and chants began saying, “Let us go!”, and one protester called out, “Okay, I’ve learned my lesson, I want to go home now!” After an hour or more of waiting like this, an officer announced that if we raised our hands and waited we would all be peacefully arrested. This was the first time we had heard any communications from the police. My partner and I waited for another two hours or so before it was our turns to be pulled from the crowd and arrested.
He stayed in a detention centre for 20 hours. We were unable to call him. His hands were tied for 20 hours, and so on.
This is the testimony. I think you will hear more testimony. It was certainly a sad weekend for civil liberties in Canada. We can do better. These are some of the issues that have arisen.
I want to speak now to some of the larger issues that I think a public inquiry could look at. There are some questions about where the police were, why they were not where the vandals were, why they stayed with the protestors, what orders were given, and why there was dispersement of a peaceful crowd. We were there. We saw that it was peaceful. Was there a miscommunication somewhere? Something went wrong.
Second, I think the larger issues are what I want to discuss briefly. During the G-20 and in preparation for it, I think security imperatives redefined fundamental aspects of Toronto life and Canadian life, without much democratic engagement or discussion and without legal authority.
Space and mobility were redefined. Weaponry was redefined. Privacy was redefined. Policing and criminal law were redefined. Such redefinitions may have been necessary, we don't know, but they occurred without public input and without some legal framework around them. It's not true that martial law was declared during the weekend of the G-20.
The price tag is questioned, but is presented as a fait accompli. Indeed, it is a major issue for our democracy that the security infrastructure is not only costly, but it appears to be immune from any scrutiny or democratic input.
The cost to our liberty, to the freedom of peaceful assembly, and to the freedom from arbitrary detention and arrest and from unreasonable search and seizure are mentioned and presumed necessary. This is dangerous. Our system of government requires that all powers be exercised according to law. The absence of a legal framework for a broad exercise in redefining police powers and space and weaponry is dangerous.
In our report we mentioned the difficulty in how the fence was set up. I think the issue of what the framework is for defining a fence should be looked at in a public inquiry. It's not that people say there shouldn't be a fence; it's how big it would be and who decides how big it will be. Will it be a prioritization where Parliament or some other official can look at and evaluate whether indeed it is necessary, because “reasonableness” and “necessity” are the words that are mentioned in the act? As you know, it's the Foreign Missions and International Organizations Act.
The only thing we're saying is that the way in which it was done...we may learn from what has happened to indeed ensure that there are some appropriate safeguards ahead of time.
It is interesting that in the design of the roots for protest no one paid attention to what the APEC's report mentioned at the end of the 1990s. In the APEC's report, Ted Hughes, who was then the chairman, said that in establishing the parameter of security, the foreigners are not allowed to be completely immune from seeing and hearing the protesters. Their business must be conducted, they should not be interrupted, but the idea that you can create a retreat-like atmosphere completely immune from looking at or seeing the protesters was described as incompatible with our constitutional law.
I understand my time is running out.
:
Thank you very much. I have just one question.
I understand you're with your legal counsel, so if you need his intervention, please feel free to do that.
I'd like to carry on with Mr. Kania because he knows this very well. In the end, the government does decide to host, because being part of the G-8 and the G-20, each country has a responsibility. Mr. Kania also knows that the G-8 is.... In my personal view, if you take a look at the last meeting of the G-8 when the G-20 came, the G-8 is going to morph into the G-20, so there will probably be only a G-20 down the road.
I think the people at home understand--and I know you do--that politicians don't get into who you arrest and who you don't arrest. The evidence of the chief superintendent who was here last simply said that the government told them, “We're holding this meeting. We need security. The police and public safety agencies need to tell us what they need from us to allow them to do their jobs.” So if the rights of someone have been interfered with, pursuant to our Constitution or any law of the country, it isn't.... For example, if one of those police officers had done something criminal, does that mean the Government of Canada did something criminal? The answer is quite obvious that it did not.
For the edification of folks at home and you, in the province of Ontario there is a civilian complaints process called the Ontario Civilian Police Commission. Any person can go to any police officer at any time and make a complaint and it will be thoroughly investigated. I know that because I was part of the system.
So in all fairness, taking the politics out of it and trying not to slam anybody, whether it's a Liberal or NDP government, provincially or otherwise, if something goes wrong there are processes in place already to cure that. Your job is not to protect innocent victims, like the store owners and public property. In this particular instance, I think your job is to make sure that individuals are protected from the intrusion of the state. The government's job is to make sure we have the correct people in place to do it, like the police and other folks.
I'll pass on to Mr. Lobb now.