Update: You may want to check the comments where people more familiar with the law than I am are weighing in. There's also a good discussion of this particular aspect of the law in this Prism article which Jeff House provided in comments. The original post follows:
The parliamentary Public Safety committee met this afternoon to continue its review of the issues raised by the G8/G20 summits this past summer. One of the witnesses was Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair and Kady O'Malley was on hand to live-blog the proceedings. There are a few items that could be pulled out of that record and examined but the most important one is this:
"Our ability to protect lawful protest was compromised, quite frankly," Blair says -- and in order to prevent potential breach of the peace, they *had* to take people into "preventative detention." I didn't even realize that existed!
You and me both. Unless we've time-warped back to the days when the infamous post-9/11 Bill C-36 was still in effect and we're talking about potential terrorist acts. But we haven't and we're not.
Unless O'Malley has done a particularly poor job of transcribing Blair's testimony — which I don't believe for a moment — it would appear that the chief of police of a major metropolitan city just admitted that his officers illegally detained hundreds of people. With his approval. And he has admitted it in front of a room full of members of parliament, no less.
Can I look forward to this making headlines across the country?
Can we have that independent public inquiry now?
Preventive detention has a legal basis in Canada, where police reasonably believe that there is about to be a breach of the peace. Many fine lawyers think it is illegal today, given the Charter.
http://prism-magazine.com/2010/07/the-illegality-of-the-g20-mass-arrests/
I agree that the arrests were probably illegal but up till now, no court has said so, because people are typically arrested for a day, then released. They fail to press for a court holding.
Olivia Chow has a bill ENLARGING the right to arrest so shopkeepers don't get charged for typing up shoplifters and throwing them in a van. She doesn't see the need to cut out preventive detention, though.
@jeffry, yes and here's the section that I understand is considered by many to be legally vague:
Preventing breach of peace
30. Every one who witnesses a breach of the peace is justified in interfering to prevent the continuance or renewal thereof and may detain any person who commits or is about to join in or to renew the breach of the peace, for the purpose of giving him into the custody of a peace officer, if he uses no more force than is reasonably necessary to prevent the continuance or renewal of the breach of the peace or than is reasonably proportioned to the danger to be apprehended from the continuance or renewal of the breach of the peace.
R.S., c. C-34, s. 30.
Arrest for breach of peace
31. (1) Every peace officer who witnesses a breach of the peace and every one who lawfully assists the peace officer is justified in arresting any person whom he finds committing the breach of the peace or who, on reasonable grounds, he believes is about to join in or renew the breach of the peace.
Giving person in charge
(2) Every peace officer is justified in receiving into custody any person who is given into his charge as having been a party to a breach of the peace by one who has, or who on reasonable grounds the peace officer believes has, witnessed the breach of the peace.
R.S., c. C-34, s. 31.
I'm a little surprised to find out that a provision like that still stands. Even so I think it was abused in this instance and judging by some of the reports, the "reasonable force" provision was violated.
people are typically arrested for a day, then released.
There are lots of reports of people being held for 48 hours or more in this case so it sounds like there is still ample grounds for a serious inquiry.
That Prism article is good, Jeff. I'm updating the post to include that link.
And the Globe and Mail has a fairly long piece on Blair's testimony that really doesn't get into this angle. The missing name tags are important and the conditions in the detention facility sound scandalous. But it seems to me the basis for a lot of the detentions is a fundamental problem that needs to be examined.
Though it applies to everyone including peace officers, Section 30 is there to outline the power of "citizen's arrest", and describes a non-officers' power of detention until the detainee(s) can be handed over to a peace officer.
Citizen's arrests did not appear to transpire that weekend, unless of course some of those in riot gear were not actually peace officers. By applying this section, it turns out they didn't need to be, so long as peace officers were readily available to take custody of the detainees and make the actual arrests.
That point aside, pay close attention to the last phrase of that section. In other words, if it's less dangerous to the public to let a breach of peace continue or begin anew than it is to detain those involved - action is *not* justified.
I think a very strong case can be made that in the majority of situations that weekend, the police used force far in excess of "reasonably proportioned to the danger apprehended". There was one occasion that might apply, but in that situation the police did nothing.
Well that's just great. Welcome to 1984, baby. Let me introduce you to the thought police.
http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/derrick/2010/06/just-watch-them-harper-and-mcguintys-g20-tag-team-against-civil-liber
Don't forget we will also soon be liable for mandatory breathalyzer tests with no sign of impairment.
SOG--you are so right--welcome to 1984
While we have you on the phone, Jeff, what does the law say about reasonable self-defence measures against a cop attempting to effect a false arrest, or simply assaulting you? Must we submit, or may we use force to resist?
To my ears it sounds like he said "preventive detention". I have a hideously long transcript of his remarks posted so you can read the context under which he made them.
Hrm. OK, maybe I'm naive here, but reading over the law hsfreethinkers posted, it seems to be entirely about situations where a breach of the peace was already happening. At most it describes situations where the breach of the peace stopped for a minute while someone took a breather or something and says you're allowed to nab them while they grab a sip of gatorade in between busting stuff up.
On the other hand, the quotation from Chief Blair talks about potential breach of the peace. The implication of this seems to me that there was not yet any breach of the peace, the police merely hypothesized that one might happen. Which also seems to have been the actual case: Mass arrests at a peaceful march in the all officially-allowed peaceful march area which had shown no particular sign of intent to breach the peace and was blocks away from and organizationally distinct from anyone who might actually be breaching the peace. Thus, they hadn't witnessed a breach of the peace, nobody could be about to participate in or renew a breach of the peace, because there was no breach of the peace to witness, participate in or renew.
Therefore, that statute would be completely irrelevant and the actions in question would be illegal as hell unless there's some other law to give them cover. I might also add that every Canadian citizen anywhere is in potential breach of the peace. We all have free will and some degree of volition and are not completely predictable by known means. A cop could spin a hypothesis about anybody whatsoever potentially breaching the peace. So if it's OK to jail people for potential breach of the peace, it's OK to jail anyone anytime; no reason is required beyond bare existence.
Yes, PLG: It's like being pre-pregnant, a state most women are in for a good part of their lives and which some people, believe it or not, wish to regulate.
Back in June Blair spoke scornfully of a number of people who were kettled at Queen and Spadina as "naive and curious," as though that is now an offence in citizens, that they should walk out on their own streets to see what is happening. He said during his TVO interview a couple of weeks ago and again today that he'd never heard the term "kettling" before -- like we're all going to believe he's not up on international police tactics and strategy. Shameful stonewalling performance, just shameful.
Therefore, that statute would be completely irrelevant and the actions in question would be illegal as hell
I agree with you and for the reasons you cite. But Blair was back in front of a different committee today and based on the accounts of his testimony I've read, he really does seem to be trying to fall back on that statute. He's like a Conservative in a debate throwing out a bunch of bafflegab and hoping it will distract his opponent into losing his train of thought.
Towards the end of Wednesday's testimony, Blair explained a bit more about how preventative detention was used - this time he did say 'preventative' - and how it does not end in charges being laid:
"There was a very significant breach of the peace that took place on Saturday. There was in my opinion a very reasonable apprehension of a continued risk of a breach of the peace that continued throughout that weekend at a number of different locations and decisions were made by the incident commanders and the operational people on the ground that it was necessary to prevent a breach of the peace, to detain those individuals under the breach of the peace legislation of the criminal code and that was done and so a significant number of the people that were apprehended were not apprehended with the intention of bringing criminal charges against them but rather under the breach of the peace legislation to prevent that breach. The circumstances were such that I think we had a very real apprehension that the peace was very much at risk by the demonstrations that were taking place over that weekend - certainly there was strong evidence from what transpired on Saturday afternoon that gave us a great deal of evidence of the intent of those individuals and so people were apprehended and detained under that legislation without intention of bringing them up on criminal charges because there is no charge under breach of the peace. It is simply a preventative detention to maintain the public peace."
Shorter Bill Blair:
They all look alike to us. And they might have been hiding pickaxes inside those bubble pipes.
Of course this is all legal even if it didn't seem to be to the great unwashed. They can bring forward laws that no one knew existed to use to prove they are innocent of any wrongdoing. Don't forget the Security Act gives them wide ranging ability to do what they want to us. If there are two people together they see that as a threat and can act on it. The Security Act was set up to contro 'terrorists' and that is what we are in the eyes of our governments and the law if they deem us so.