Much noise and confusion over the discovery of a recently passed law allowing police to arrest anyone who fails to show ID within 5 metres of a “public work”. The law itself isn’t new, but the secret was the silent addition of the area of the G20 meetings as a “public work” for the definition of that law. Hijinks ensue:
Police are now able to jail anyone who refuses to furnish identification and submit to a search while within five metres of a designated security zone in downtown Toronto.
Critics reacted furiously to the new rules, which remained unpublicized until Thursday when a 32 year-old man was arrested in Toronto for refusing to show ID to police.
New Democrat MPP Peter Kormos said Friday the provincial Liberals created a “Kafka-esque” situation where people could be arrested for violating rules they didn’t know existed.
“This is very very repugnant stuff and should be troubling to everybody,” he said.
The Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA) said it was “extremely concerned” that the new measures violate constitutional safeguards.
I’m not a fan of violent protests, but I don’t believe the police need this additional tool in order to arrest people who attempt to breach the barricades or attack other people: this is granting too much arbitrary power to police officers. The way the power was granted is even more disturbing . . . it shows that the government knew there’d be an outcry if they did it in the public view, so they arranged it so that nobody would know about it in time to do anything about it. Nice work, Ontario, got any other nasty legal surprises you want to spring on us?
Update, 29 June: According to a report in the National Post, the Ontario government denies that there was any such regulatory change and that no arrests were made using the authority of this act.
