law and order

Thursday October 20, 2022

October 20, 2022Hamilton Spectator – Thursday October 20, 2022

Emergencies Act inquiry spells trouble for Trudeau, Poilievre

To say this will be a political and media circus is an understatement. The list of potential witnesses includes key members of cabinet, such as Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino and, most notably, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Convoy organizers including Tamara Lich, Pat King and Chris Barber are also expected to be called.

May 13, 2022

The most important part of this hearing may not be the testimony of politicians or convoy supporters, however, but that of the RCMP and intelligence services. How did they assess the threat to public safety? What advice did they give the government, or not? How was that advice treated once received? Was it exaggerated or misinterpreted in any way?

Canadians need clarity on the real state of the threat. If the government overreached for political purposes, then the Liberals will pay the price. Expect the Conservatives to try to find every opportunity to bring the government down before its self-imposed deadline of 2025. The Commission’s report is due by next February — in time for a spring budget and a confidence vote in the House that could plunge Canada into an election.

If the Commission finds that the government was justified in invoking the act, however, the shoe is on the other foot. Expect Liberals to start running attack ads featuring a smiling Poilievre and fellow Conservatives ferrying coffee to protesters. Trudeau could then either engineer his defeat over the budget, or simply dissolve Parliament and go to the polls. And if he doesn’t pull the plug in the spring, there’s always next September, when convoy leaders go to court on a number of criminal charges, and the whole circus starts again.

August 26, 2022

At a time when inflation is rampant, interest rates are rising, and the Liberal government looks increasingly past its best before date, Trudeau doesn’t have many cards to play. The one card he has is that the Conservatives failed to stand for law and order — one of the pillars of their party, no less — at a time of national crisis. And he knows that the convoy does not sit well with “the public” its proponents claimed to represent.

Polling done at the time of the protests found that a majority did not support the convoy protests, including in Alberta where 61 per cent disagreed with the goals of the protest and 67 per cent disagreed with the means. And a Nanos poll taken six months later found that 70 per cent of Canadians still take a negative or somewhat negative view of politicians who openly supported the protests. Another recent Nanos poll found that support for the convoy was one of the “negative” attributes voters held about Poilievre, together with being “too right wing,” divisive, and “similar to Donald Trump.”

Will “Memories of the Freedom Convoy” be the secret sauce that Trudeau uses to win a fourth term in office? Will the Tories founder over ill-advised Tim Hortons runs? Time — and testimony — will tell. (The National Post)

 

Tuesday July 28, 2020

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday July 28, 2020

Right-Wing Media Stars Amplify Trump’s ‘Law and Order’ Campaign Message

July 21, 2020

To his legions of listeners, Rush Limbaugh calls the demonstrators in Portland, Ore., “anarchists” who “hate Americans and America.” He recently made an ominous prediction: “I can see secession coming.”

On Fox News, Sean Hannity describes the scene in Portland as “a literal disaster area — and, yeah, it looks like a war zone.”

On Wednesday, Breitbart News — which features a “Riot Crackdown” page on its website — published an article declaring, “Now would be a real good time to do whatever is necessary to obtain a permit to legally carry a handgun.”

Right-wing outlets and conservative media stars have seized on the weekslong protests in Portland as a rallying cry for law and order, instructing their followers to fear for their safety and blaming Democratic leaders for failing to restore peace.

COVID-19 Cartoons

Their commentary — beamed out daily to millions — has increasingly mirrored the fear-laced messaging of President Trump and his re-election campaign, which has warned that a Joseph R. Biden Jr. presidency would usher in chaos and routine violence in the streets. With the November election looming, Mr. Trump has pledged to send forces to Chicago, Detroit, New York, Philadelphia and other major cities.

Conservative pundits, typically no fans of an overreaching government, have thrown their full support behind federal agents who have used militarized tactics like firing tear gas at protesters and have pulled some demonstrators into unmarked vans since being deployed to Portland in recent days.

In fact, the scenes broadcast by channels like Fox News and One America News send a misleading portrait of the city, where daily life has been relatively calm outside of a small area downtown. (New York Times)

Wednesday June 10, 2020

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday June 10, 2020

Outrage and calls to ‘defund police’ in Canada

Citing decades of failed reform, Canadian protesters against anti-Black racism have rallied around another mantra for change: “defund the police.”

October 13, 2012

Instead of tweaking the current system of law enforcement, activists say that a more powerful approach could be a new kind of law enforcement altogether. The start of that change is removing and reallocating massive sums of money provided to police forces in the country, they say, which could help prevent more police-involved deaths like the ones that have spurred ongoing outrage, including Minnesota man George Floyd and Toronto woman Regis Korchinski-Paquet.

More than $15 billion was spent in Canada on policing in 2017-18, according to Statistics Canada, an increase to the year prior.

The push to defund is gaining momentum in some parts of Canada. In Toronto, where almost a quarter of each person’s property taxes go just to funding the police, two city councillors on Monday put forward a motion to cut the city’s police budget by 10 per cent and shift it to “much-needed community supports.”

December 13, 2012

Thousands have signed petitions in other parts of the country, from Vancouver and Regina to Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., and Montreal for similar reallocations of police funding.

When asked recently if he would consider defunding the RCMP, which receives a large sum of the national policing budget, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau didn’t reject the notion. 

“I think there are many different paths toward making a better country. We need to explore the range of them,” he said. 

Mental health is an essential piece of the call for defunding since many police-involved deaths in Canada have involved mental health and substance abuse issues, including Korchinski-Paquet’s death, which occurred afterpolice responded to a mental wellness check on May 27. The money, activists say, could go to boosting community support for mental health and creating what Black Lives Matter Toronto co-founder Sandy Hudson called “a new emergency service.” (ctv) 

 

Saturday February 29, 2020

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday February 29, 2020

Blockades have exposed the contradictions of Justin Trudeau’s ambitious reconciliation agenda 

The on-again-off-again rail blockades in support of a handful of Indigenous hereditary chiefs have demonstrated how easy it is to bring Canada to a halt. They have also underscored the contradictions of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s ambitious reconciliation agenda.

June 3, 2015

Trudeau came to power five years ago vowing to make reconciliation with Canada’s Indigenous people his No. 1 priority. And to some degree, he delivered.

Under his Liberal government, more (but not all) First Nation reserves gained access to potable water. A commission of inquiry was set up to look into why so many Indigenous women and girls went missing or were murdered in recent years.

But the centre point of the reconciliation agenda was political. The Trudeau Liberals vowed to establish respectful nation-to-nation relationships with Indigenous peoples, one that would eventually redefine their legal relationship to the Crown.

July 13, 2017

Among other things, the Liberals promised to write the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which in its present form is an unenforceable statement of general principles, into Canadian law.

However, exactly what was meant by a nation-to-nation relationship was left unclear. Did the Liberals mean nation in a vague cultural sense, in the way that Quebec is viewed as a nation inside Canada? Or did they mean something more substantive?

More to the point, with whom would the federal government have this political relationship? Elected band councils? Hereditary chiefs? Or both?

July 23, 2019

In much of Canada, this question is moot. But in British Columbia, Southern Ontario and Quebec — where traditional clan-based governments remain strong — it is not.

In B.C., there is a second wrinkle. Unlike the rest of Canada, few treaties have been signed with First Nations in that province. To whom then, does the land not covered by treaties belong?

Many First Nation leaders, including the hereditary chiefs of the Wet’suwet’en, argue that since this land has never been ceded, it belongs to them.

If that were true, the argument goes, then the hereditary chiefs alone have the right to decide who enters this land and who, if anyone, polices it.

For the governing Liberals, committed as they are to respectful nation-to-nation relationships, this is a hard argument to counter.

But if the Wet’suwet’en have the right to keep outsiders from their traditional lands, then surely so do other First Nations — including the Mohawks of Tyendinaga near Belleville, Ont.

February 13, 2020

That, at least, was the logic behind the decision of some Mohawks and their allies to block the CN Rail main line for days on end, an action that threw much of the country into an economic tailspin.

The Liberal government tried to resolve that blockade by sending Indigenous Services Minister Marc Miller to Tyendinaga to engage in a respectful, nation-to-nation political relationship.

That took nine hours and accomplished nothing.

Eventually, with Ottawa’s implicit blessing, the Ontario Provincial Police went in and arrested protestors. That, in turn, provoked more rail blockades. (Toronto Star) 

 

Saturday, December 14, 2013

Saturday, December 14, 2013Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday, December 14, 2013

Hamilton police arrest video goes viral

A citizen’s video of Hamilton police subduing a screaming female suspect, while using minimal force, has gone lightly viral, garnering hundreds of thousands of views since being posted Wednesday.

“Honest Cops” was posted on You Tube and then linked to a popular reposting site.

It quickly sparked thousands of comments and was closing in on 400,000 views by Thursday night.

In the nearly 8-minute-long video, shot outside The Source store on Mohawk Road near Upper Gage, Hamilton constables Mark Morelli and Chantelle Wilson are shown first subduing and then arresting an out-of-control suspect in what police say was “a domestic related” incident. The arrest took place Sunday.

The woman can be heard screaming and seen thrashing about on the sidewalk in front of the store, ignoring Morelli and Wilson’s commands to stop resisting and to put her hands behind her back. Seemingly hysterical, she claims “I can’t breathe” repeatedly, and complains that her chin is cut and she’s lost a tooth.

For several minutes the officers struggle to control and cuff her and take her to the waiting patrol car. They treat her sternly, but with evident restraint, employing force only to contain her, not hurt her. Eventually Wilson and Morelli succeed in placing the 21-year-old Hamilton resident in the waiting cruiser.

During the arrest and afterwards Morelli, aware they are being videotaped, attempts to answer the complaints of the videographer and other bystanders, explaining what they are doing and what the law permits them to do.

“You can’t do that … she’s only a weak girl” the videographer admonishes the officers repeatedly as they struggle to cuff the woman.

“I’ll explain it to you in a second,” Morelli says, holding up one hand in a “wait there” gesture.

True to his word when the woman is finally securely in the rear seat of the cruiser, he catches his wind and proceeds to explain the law and the use of force choices they made during the arrest.

Hamilton media relations officer Debbie McGreal-Dinning would offer no information on the arrest, citing the service’s policies against commenting on ‘domestic incidents.’ (Source: Hamilton Spectator)

Feedback

Last Saturday’s editorial cartoon not only disrespected a fine officer but every member of the Hamilton Police Service.

Officer Mark Morelli went the extra step, trying to — and accomplishing — make the arrest a learning experience for not only the bystanders but for everyone who eventually watched the recording. His action was a credit to him, his superiors, every member of the force and the entire city of Hamilton.

The cartoon appears to accuse Morelli of grandstanding and preparing for a photo-op rather than taking a moment to recover after a rough arrest.

I know that it is much more difficult and draining, both physically and mentally, to hold back rather than going all out with full force.

I have dealt with Morelli in his official capacity and he is the type of officer you would want on the scene regardless which side of the law you are on.

If you are a victim, he will do his utmost to protect you and see to your needs. If you are a perpetrator, he will be no rougher than necessary to affect an arrest, but he will work even harder to help a person turn their life around. He deserved better than what you gave him.

If you want an idea for an editorial cartoon, how about a judge and lawyer waiting to give the young woman a mani-pedi in the back of the cruiser after the arrest.

Hans-Peter Boergers, Hamilton