Praxis Theatre

Section 98 makes a comeback

Approximately 100 people were penned into the intersection of Spadina and Queen from 5:30pm to 9:42pm on June 27th. A number of them were unsuspecting passersby in the wrong place at the wrong time. During most of this saga there were severe thunderstorms. No one was given access to washrooms, many complained their cellphones broke from immersion in such a heavy downpour for such an extended period of time. They were all released unconditionally without charges.

by Michael Wheeler

Well that sucked.

G20 has come and gone and left Canada and Toronto with the bitter taste of militarized rule, decreased civil rights and a communique that asks countries to make massive cuts to social spending to make up for a massive transfer of wealth from the public to private sphere.

Each day had shocking events. Some overplayed by media: How many times can they loop the same image of that police car burning at Bay and King? Some completely under-reported: Squeaky clean Steve Paikin twittered the police brutality at a peaceful protest on The Esplanade was worse than anything he had seen in war zones, yet there has been no other coverage of this event.

As hopefully even a casual observer of this website knows, Praxis Theatre has been spending the past year working on a show called Section 98 (see the icon in the top right corner?). This show began by looking at artists who responded to members of the Communist Party being jailed under Section 98 which allowed authorities to jail and harass anyone they wanted really for “unlawful associations”. In particular, we focused on The Progressive Arts Club, who created a play addressing the erosion of civil rights called Eight Men Speak. The show had a single performance for 1200 people before being shut down by order of Prime Minister Bennett. The performance took place at the Standard Theatre, which was located a few blocks north of the picture above on Spadina Ave.

In both our Fringe Show and  Harbourfront Centre HATCH workshop, we looked also at a number of different challenges to civil rights in Canada, including The FLQ crisis, The Air India bombing, the Afghan detainee situation and yes, Omar Khadr. After this weekend, it seems there is another episode in Canada’s civil rights history to add to our list: G20.

CBC reports that there have now been more arrests this weekend than at the WTO Protests in Seattle or during The FLQ Crisis in Quebec. 900 Canadians found themselves jailed by the largest mobilization of police and equipment in Canadian history.

This video documents police assaulting a journalist and taking his equipment.

Perhaps more significant than the sheer number of arrests was the deliberate and secret maneuvers by the Ontario Provincial cabinet to use an order in council to create a regulation within The Public Works Act, to have the area surrounding the $5.5 million perimeter fence a Charter-free zone. Where as in the rest of Canada you have the right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure, in the area surrounding the fence this suddenly became not the case. Notice of this law will be published in the Ontario Gazette, the official journal of provincial laws, after the summit is over.

Already this law will be subjected to a Charter challenge and both the Globe and Mail and Toronto Star penned scathing editorials condemning the secretive limiting of civil liberties by the Liberal Government without notice or debate. Just to drum in what kind of pre-hysteria consensus there was on this topic, even reactionary columnists like Marcus Gee agreed that this time the state had overstepped its bounds.

News of their decreased access to Charter rights reached Torontonians on Friday morning, one day before small cells of approximately 70 black clad activists using subterfuge and misdirection hijacked a march by more than 10,000 advocates for global justice. I attended the march on June 26th by myself, arriving late for the speeches but just in time to march with my bike and camera phone in tow. The vast majority of the experience was what I would call upbeat, peaceful and extraordinarily well attended. The hundreds of police outside the US embassy just seemed obscene, free hugs were given out at Dundas and University, somebody was smoking a joint, Tibetan activists marched with labour activists who marched with just plain old citizens with no evident affiliation. The number of police visible between Queen and Front at north-south intersections seemed comic at the time.

The first signs of trouble began at the corner of Queen and Spadina where activists were asked to turn away from the summit site and begin marching back to the provincial legislature at Queen’s Park at College and Spadina. A group of hooded activists began to set off flares near the south-west corner of the intersection. Immediately you could feel the mood of the crowd change. I heard a number of plans to vacate the area be made quickly by many, but huge amounts of curious onlookers remained: The whole thing was so crazy it was hard to turn away -hundreds of cops marching like stormtroopers (the Star Wars kind), fireworks, people who looked like ninjas – there was a lot to take in. I was jolted out of this display by a number of individuals running east with purpose down the back alleys that run behind the north side of Queen St. There was an energy to their movements that spooked me and reminded me of protests run amok from my youth. I knew I didn’t need to be there anymore. Got on my bike, started riding home.

Didn’t get there before my Mom and brother both called me and asked me the same question: “Where are you?” They were watching the news and vandalism had begun. (No not violence, vandalism.) I rode home faster to turn on the television. In front of me on the television, where I had removed my k-way pants in front of Steve’s Music not 45 minutes earlier, something terrible was happening: The message that so many of us had just marched to give a voice to was superseded by a small number of what the media are calling “anarchists”, but I think are more accurately termed “nihilists”. I write this because true anarchists have a value system that allows them to determine the effectiveness of their tactics. Orwell fought in Spain against the Fascists with anarchists – these folks are disaffected youth that are into extreme sports and clearly they don’t care if they do Stephen Harper a really big favour.

The other favour they did was to give motivation to the most militant aspects of Toronto Police leadership to mobilize their massive security resources to crack down on Canadians in a way the streets of Toronto haven’t seen since Section 98 was still on the books. Journalists were arrested and had their equipment confiscated on Yonge St., peaceful protesters sitting on the lawn of the sanctioned and designated protest site at Queen’s Park were clubbed and pepper sprayed, demonstrators whose provocation was singing the national anthem were charged and beaten on Queen St. W.

This video shows police beating and pepper spraying activists who returned to the provincial legislature, which was the designated protest zone. This area is in the opposite direction from where the summit took place.

All the places we normally hang out, grab a coffee, do some shopping, became violent zones where the state machinery could capture you, process you, and ship you to a cage. These are simply the incidents we have immediate video footage of hours after G20 has concluded. Reports from those released from the makeshift jail at the film studios on Eastern Ave. paint a grim picture of “pens” crammed with activists that had no access to a lawyer for up to twenty-four hours. Female inmates reported being forced to use the toilet in front of male guards and not having access to toilet paper.

There is virtually no silver lining to hosting G20. None of the things that Canadians consistently say matter to them made the agenda at the G20. The environment, foreign aid, our responsibilities to one another as global citizens – these things all took a backseat to the images and incidents that ripped across the city. No one talked about Why the banks were bailed out. No one talked about Why we refuse to fund life-saving drugs for HIV positive patients in Africa. No one talked about What principals underpin maternal health. No one talked about Why if  it costs the U.N. $1.9 Billion to run year-round and Why it will cost almost the same to host three days of meetings that could have happened at the U.N. anyway. No one talked about What effect climate change will have on the world’s poor.

Every newspaper and media outlet spent the weekend throwing together exposes on “The Black Bloc” and their tactics. Less than 1% of the demonstrators hijacked an entire conversation and thousands of voices. Elements of police leadership jumped at this opportunity and used tactics and laws never before deemed acceptable against law-abiding activists.

Canada has a long history of struggling to secure national and public security while attempting to balance the public’s right to the basic freedoms that are assumed in a Western democracy. This weekend is full of bad omens for those who believe that Charter freedoms should be protected for all Canadians and that those in power can be trusted to preserve them. We have seen the state become a weapon against its own citizens – and the only correct response should be outrage that our leaders don’t safeguard our freedoms with the reverence and respect they deserve. We have lost much and gained nothing.

This video shows police attacking peaceful protesters singing the national anthem.