News and views from SA Canada Five years after Toronto G20 A license to ‘kettle’
2015 2015-09Read it in the scan (PDF at ETOL), page 9 →
The words are the paper's own, from its digital file; the division into articles was made by machine, so a box or caption can end up inside the article next to it.
Scan page 9
pressed prison protests, Joe wrote a popular pamphlet He also welcomed a long overdue shift in SWP policy When the U.S. ruling class finally had to withdraw from Vietnam—partly due to a mass antiwar movement that had begun to penetrate even active duty GIs—what had been the party’s central area of work and recruitment for a decade came to an abrupt halt. The Barnes lead ership launched a series of dizzying, mostly ill-advised “turns.” One that had an unavoidable universal impact An early division of the big Twin Cities branch in to Minneapolis and St Paul branches made sense. But soon the Minneapolis branch was further subdivided into three very small ones. One of them conducted their branch meetings at a McDonald’s. The prominent pub lic face of the SWP nearly disappeared. Joe didn’t hesi But these organizational disasters proved to be a pre cursor of a fundamental revision of the party’s theo retical and programmatic heritage by what had evolved into a national leadership clique around Jack Barnes. Those who didn’t hail the new changes were thrown out in waves of mass expulsions. Many of those came By this time Joe was headed back to his family home of Chippewa Falls to care for his elderly mother and to eke out a living running a bookstore. He maintained friendly relations with old comrades to the end. His exemplary contributions to building a revolutionary party will be missed and remembered. So will his loyal and generous friendship that touched so many of our lives. n SOCIALIST ACTION SEPTEMBER 2015 9 ronto Police Superintendant David (Mark) Fenton guilty of exercising un lawful or unnecessary authority, and discreditable conduct. Fenton was one of the senior cops who ordered hun dreds of protesters and bystanders surrounded, “kettled,” and detained during the G20 summit in Toronto in June 2010.
Very few of the over 1100 people held in the largest mass arrest in Canadian “peacetime” history were convicted of any crime. Even fewer cops were pe nalized for the bullying, beatings, and incarcerations they inflicted on the in nocent.
Cops searched and arrested without due cause, operating under a secret regulation passed by the Liberal Ontar io government just weeks earlier—and scrapped only in June 2015.
For the multitude of physical as saults on people legally demonstrat ing, only one cop, Constable Babak Andalib-Goortani, has been convicted in a criminal court, and his paltry 45day jail sentence was later reduced to probation and community service. Of the eight officers found guilty by police disciplinary tribunal hearings of com mitting serious wrongdoing, only four received penalties, ranging from a rep rimand, to five days’ loss of pay, and a two-month demotion.
And now Fenton, whose sentencing hearing is scheduled to begin on Dec. 21, could be slapped with a reprimand, or dismissal.
Lawyer Paul Cavalluzzo, who rep resents some of the kettling victims, pointed out that if Fenton, who has nearly 27 years on the force, chooses to retire before being sentenced, “it would make the situation more absurd than it already is.”
“People should be held to account. The chief of police at the time (Bill Blair) is running now for federal Parlia ment for the Liberals. The Prime Min ister [Stephen Harper, who abruptly moved the summit from rural Hunts ville to downtown Toronto – editor] is on the hustings trying to get re-elected. Why aren’t people concerned about the fact that so many Canadians peacefully We, the undersigned, applaud Fed eral NDP Leader Tom Mulcair for ad vocating a national child-care plan, a $15/hour minimum wage, and for opposing repressive Bill C-51 and the extension of the bombing of Iraq, and into Syria.
At the same time we call on Tom Mulcair to advance, as a priority, the following policies, which we call the 4 P’s, as part of the current NDP election platform:
• Pharmacare: A national drug plan will save Canadians over $7 billion, and is urgently needed to improve public health, especially of seniors and the poor.
• Pipelines: The big drop in the price of oil presents a golden opportunity to oppose pipeline construction, to retool, and to go for green energy con version (wind, hydro, solar, geother mal and biomass). To fund that gigan tic energy shift, it will be necessary to conscript the enormous accumulated wealth of the resource corporations by nationalizing Big Oil and Gas under workers’ and community democratic could not be subpoenaed to testify, be cause as police chief he was the hear ing’s officer, with Hamilton his desig nated representative, and furthermore, that his evidence would be irrelevant to the hearing. Really?
Bill Blair’s party of choice, the federal Liberals under Justin Trudeau, voted for Harper’s notorious Anti-Terrorism law C-51, which expands police powers to spy on and detain people, and to dis rupt organizations seeking social and environmental justice.
Don’t let them catch you calling Cana da “a police state.” n control, while respecting Indigenous peoples’ rights. • Progressive Taxation: It will cost much money to provide $15/day childcare and other vital social ex penditures required. The federal NDP should insist, not only on plugging tax loopholes, but on steeply taxing big business, the banks and the superrich, while phasing out the regressive HST. • Palestine: Over 2000 residents of Gaza were slaughtered by Israeli forces last summer. Benjamin Netan yahu and his racist Likhud coalition were re-elected after promising there would never be a Palestinian state.
The two-state solution is dead. The alternative is a one-person, one-vote, democratic secular Palestine. We ask Tom Mulcair to support the demand of Palestinian unions, civil societ,y and unions across Canada and around the world that call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against the Zionist state until its apartheid practices end.
To sign and/or download this petition, go to www.ndpsocialists.ca. n for the SWP, “The Prison Revolt.”
embracing what is today known as LGBT rights. was the turn to “community branches.” tate to speak out against these schemes. together to form Socialist Action.