What is the the Public Works Act?
The intent of the Public Works Protection Act is to protect critical public works like power plants and water reservoirs, where someone can do real damage to public safety and the community. However in this instance, private property - the Metro Convention Centre & Deerhurst Inn - is being declared a public work and the law is being used not to protect a public work but to control political participation.
Why was this new law needed?
The Criminal Code already covers acts of violence and destruction of property. Under this new law, police can arrest anyone not providing requested identification or who decline to be searched, even if that person has not committed a crime and is not a threat to public safety. The police have not issued a public statement detailing the need to detain people who are not breaking the law.
How was this new law passed?
At the request of Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair and without any public debate whatsoever, the government quietly passed a law classifying the private Metro Convention Centre and Deerhurst Inn as public works for the purposes of increasing police powers while decreasing civil liberties. This new law will not be officially published until 1 week after it has actually expired so the public was unaware of its existence until police started using it to arrest people.
How is this new law being applied?
If the reasoning behind the new law was to help the police manage large outbreaks of violent protest, no one yet arrested under this new law was protesting violently nor were they breaking the law and the police haven't yet declared to the public how they intend to apply arbitrary detention. As a result it appears to the public that the police arrest people simply because they can.
Why wasn't the public told?
With the largest summit security budget of all time, police public relation officers did not inform protest organizers about the new law, knowing full well that these groups were distributing 'citizen's rights' communications which were incorrect with regards to the new law. Many unnecessary confrontations with the police, where the public thinks incorrectly that their rights are protected, would have been mitigated if police outreach simply provided the correct information much earlier. However by surprising everyone right when the summit starts, the public is unable appeal this police-initiated government decision.
How can the police be trusted to protect the public's rights when they are conspiring in secret with the government to take them away?
They can't. Perhaps it's time to consider electing our police chiefs.
* Reference link:
Public Works Protection Act
http://www.e-laws.gov.on.ca/html/statutes/english/elaws_statutes_90p55_e.htm
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So can anything/anyplace now be declared a "public work" as easily (and secretly) as this? Will it be the case that anywhere where there might be protest (and "speech") in the future will be declared (temporarily or otherwise) a public work by those in power who want to avoid bad publicity? Given that they didn't have to give us notice of this, neither of the geographic boundaries of the "public work", nor of the beginning of the act, does this effectively mean that we must now always carry identification/papers just in case we might inadvertently stumble into a "public work" area?
ReplyDeleteJust askin'... anonymously!