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G20 Happenings Thread... (pg. 88)
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| FunkyCrew |
| quote: | Originally posted by hardcore trancer
Did anyone beg you to post on this thread?:conf: and how is the video bull exactly? |
did anyone beg you to continue posting in this thread?
your whole argument revolves around biased youtube videos. |
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| hardcore trancer |
| quote: | Originally posted by FunkyCrew
did anyone beg you to continue posting in this thread?
your whole argument revolves around biased youtube videos. |
lol would you rather have me make a new thread about it every time?;) I can also provide you with articles but we both know you wont read it since this topic isnt exactly your cup of tea to begin with. |
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| hardcore trancer |
Your money well wasted:
| quote: |
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/ottawa/sto...mmit-costs.html
G8/G20 costs include $80M for food, lodging
The Liberals are slamming the federal government over expenses incurred during the G8/G20 summits after documents reveal costs included $80 million for food and accommodation, $85,000 for snacks and $14,000 for glow sticks.
"This is totally unacceptable," said Liberal MP Dan McTeague, who tabled the expenditure reports in the House of Commons on Thursday. McTeague had requested details on all contracts for goods or services relating to the G20 meetings.
“The reams and reams of documents present a very disturbing trend and tale, I think, for Canadians. It suggests there is a very deep and serious problem. There was no accountability or oversight in terms of those expenditures. Money was no object.”
According to newly released documents, $80 million was spent on food and accommodation, more than $34 million on telecommunications and electronics and almost $17 million for vehicle rentals and transportation.
McTeague also asked how many of the contracts were sole-sourced.
He said the released material shows the government's "reckless" attitude toward spending for the events.
The expenditures include a $4.5 million for the security fence around the exclusive Deerhurst Resort in Ontario's Muskoka region, the G8 event host site, along with more than $300,000 for sun screen and insect repellant for the police guarding the fence.
Also detailed are a $3.2-million single contract for shuttle buses and a $2.2-million car rental bill — for a single day.
Items include headgear, glow sticks
An $85,000 tab is listed for snacks at the exclusive Park Hyatt hotel in downtown Toronto and $68,340 was spent on Nikon cameras, according to the documents. Another $45,000 was spent on binoculars.
In addition, the costs include $1.2 million on condominium rentals, $14,049 for glow sticks and more than $13,000 for "miscellaneous textiles, headgear and umbrellas," the documents show.
No final tally has been given yet on the price tag for Canada's hosting back-to-back summits in Ontario's Muskoka region and downtown Toronto in late June, but the overall cost has been estimated to be about $1.24 billion, including at least $930 million for security.
The Conservative government has defended the estimated cost, saying Canada was in the unique position of hosting back-to-back summits amid a medium-level security threat.
The auditor general's office says a report on the security costs of the G8/G20 summits is scheduled for spring 2011. |
I'm surprised that most people dont even care about all these costs..
I mean 1.2 billion dollars is a HELL of a lot of money FFS.:mad: |
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| Ferg |
$14,000 for glow sticks. lol
How did I miss this party? |
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| ChemEnhanced |
| quote: | Originally posted by Ferg
$14,000 for glow sticks. lol
How did I miss this party? |
I was thinking the same thing....that's a lot of glow sticks. |
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| ChemEnhanced |
| so how's that inquiry coming along???? |
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| hardcore trancer |
Slowly but surely:
| quote: |
http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/tor...ent-review?bn=1
G20 'secret law' to undergo independent review
A so-called “secret law” widely criticized for giving police excessive powers during June’s G20 summit protests and riots will be the subject of an independent review, The Star has learned.
Government sources said Tuesday that former Ontario chief justice Roy McMurtry has agreed to lead the examination of the 1939 Public Works Protection Act, passed to deal with home front security risks during the Second World War.
The move follows repeated calls for the law’s modernization in the wake of the G20, which saw thousands of protesters take to the streets and small bands of vandals torch police cars and smash store windows. Police arrested 1,105 people and charged 278. The rest were released or never booked. Most charges have been subsequently dropped.
At issue is widespread misinterpretation of a “five-metre rule,” under which authorities fuelled the belief that anyone coming within five metres of the outer security fence snaking through downtown Toronto could be required to provide identification or submit to a search.
Civil libertarians complain that impression emboldened police and had a chilling effect on the rights of citizens to free expression and association.
“We need to make sure our laws reflect the security concerns and values of our society today,” said Community Safety and Corrections Minister Jim Bradley, who will announce the review Wednesday.
“That includes maintaining both public order and freedom of expression.”
McMurtry, an attorney general and solicitor general in the 1970s and 1980s under premier Bill Davis, will look at the scope of authority given to police and requirements for public notice of regulations made under the act, how it applies to major events, and what constitutes a “public work” under the law.
It was a regulation under the act, quietly rubber-stamped by Premier Dalton McGuinty’s cabinet early last June, that designated areas within the downtown G20 security zone as a “public work.” Misunderstandings over the significance of the regulation catapulted the Ontario government and Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair into controversy.
McGuinty’s cabinet made the temporary change at Blair’s request.
The chief wanted clarification for officers if they had to apprehend anyone inside the restricted area, including the Metro Toronto Convention Centre and Royal York hotel where world leaders met June 26-27.
The Star first revealed the unusual modification June 25, three days before it was to expire and eight days before it was published in the Ontario Gazette.
In the wake of that story, the prevailing, incorrect impression was that police had been given the power to arrest people who refused to provide identification or submit to a search within five metres of the security zone’s outer perimeter.
But Blair, McGuinty and then-community safety minister Rick Bartolucci, who defended the “extraordinary” powers during the G20 summit, didn’t set the record straight until two days after the event ended.
Blair admitted there was no five-metre rule, saying, “No, but I was trying to keep the criminals out.”
Bartolucci was replaced by Bradley in a recent cabinet shuffle, taking Bradley’s former post as minister of municipal affairs and housing in a sign of McGuinty’s displeasure over the fiasco.
“There was no five-metre rule. It was constantly published in print and republished on TV and radio and there was no foundation in fact for that,” McGuinty later acknowledged. “And we should have acted on that sooner to make it clear.”
The regulation was published on the specialized provincial legislation website known as e-Laws on June 16, more than a week before the G20. But the site is not well known, meaning the regulation was not adequately publicized.
“When passing regulations under this act, we have to make sure we provide the public with proper information and notice,” a senior government official said Tuesday.
McMurtry is expected to report next spring after consulting with lawyers, police, civil liberties groups and others.
He will also consider recommendations from Ontario Ombudsman Andre Marin’s previously announced review of the act and take into account the Toronto Police Services Board investigation of the G20 command structure and policing model. The province’s Special Investigations Unit is also probing five alleged incidents of police brutality against protesters.
A number of the more than 60 complaints to the ombudsman’s office were critical of the government for confusing the public in the way the policy change was “communicated or not communicated or miscommunicated,” Marin said when he launched his probe in July.
“What our complainants are telling us is the way it was explained and sold to the public as the ‘five-metre rule’ led to contravention of their constitutional rights to freedom of expression and association…it had a chilling effect.”
“The other thing they’re telling us is it had a misguided effect on the law enforcement around the fence and that it led to liberties by law-enforcement officials and how they reacted to demonstrators within those five metres,” Marin added.
The review by McMurtry will help the government, which faces a provincial election on Oct. 6, 2011, develop a foundation for future legislation, sources said.
Both McGuinty and Prime Minister Stephen Harper have ruled out holding public inquiries into the handling of security at the summit. |
This is nowhere near a public inquiry but I believe it is a good step towards the right direction. |
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| hardcore trancer |
| quote: | Originally posted by ChemEnhanced
I was thinking the same thing....that's a lot of glow sticks. |
I'm sure it was all worth the tax payers money to protect those leaders.:o |
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| psyrel |
I'm skeptical of this review, given the very narrow scope.
| quote: |
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/toronto/st...murtry-g20.html
G20 law review too narrow: critics
Critics say the review of the controversial law that governed police powers during the G20 summit is too narrow.
"It may not prove much use to people in Ontario," prominent Toronto lawyer Clayton Ruby said Wednesday.
He made the comment shortly after it was announced that former Ontario chief justice Roy McMurtry would examine the Public Works Protection Act.
Premier Dalton McGuinty's Liberal government quietly dusted off the 70-year-old legislation to declare the summit security area in downtown Toronto a no-go zone. It was the first time that the Act had been updated, and information about the change was not widely released.
Critics called it a secret law. Ruby shares that view and believes what the government did violated the constitution.
"How did this happen?" he said. "Who was so stupid in the attorney general's department not to point this out? Why did the premier not know this? And why did the police not make it public that there was this law?"
Review results in spring
Even Jim Bradley, Ontario's minister of community safety and correctional services, admitted in a media scrum that the scope of the review is narrow, though he added that McMurtry has "a lot of breadth" in terms of what he can look at with the law.
A news release on the government website said the review will look at the historical context of the Act, how it has been used in the past, the definition of a "public work," the requirements for public notice, and the scope of authority given to police.
McMurtry, who was attorney general under former premier Bill Davis, will consult with lawyers, police and civil liberties groups, among others, before presenting his findings during the spring next year.
The law designated the downtown security fence used during the G20 summit in late June as a "public work," which allowed police to stop question, search, and arrest anyone inside of the fence.
However, the government and police allowed the public to believe it applied outside the fence until the summit was over.
More than 1,100 people were arrested during the summit, but only two were charged with violating the Act.
Nathalie Desrosiers of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association says that means the review will leave many questions unanswered. The review will not deal with how the police handled peaceful protestors, accusations of police brutality or the decision to hold the summit in downtown Toronto.
She wants a full public inquiry at the federal level.
"I don't think we'll learn much about the G20 except that it was the occasion to use the Public Works Protection Act, a statute that nobody had heard much about," she said.
The Toronto Police Services Board is holding an independent civilian review into the summit. The board is scheduled to announce Thursday who will lead that review.
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| psyrel |
G20 Police Rule Slammed by Ombudsman
Ontario's ombudsman had scathing criticism for the provincial government Tuesday for quietly passing a G20 security regulation that enabled police to exercise "phenomenal powers" that "should never have been enacted."
"For the citizens of Toronto, the days up to and including the weekend of the G8/G20 will live in infamy as a time period where martial law set in the city of Toronto, leading to the most massive compromise of civil liberties in Canadian history, and we can never let that happen again," André Marin told reporters.
Marin was speaking at a news conference where he announced the release of a report titled Caught in the Act, which determined the Liberal government's decision to enact Regulation 233/10 was unreasonable.
The regulation was passed by the Ontario cabinet on June 2 without debate.
It designated parts of the area within the G20 security fence in Toronto a public work, bringing it under the purview of the Public Works Protection Act, which was enacted in 1939 to protect infrastructure works from wartime enemies.
Marin said only "three small parts" of the security perimeter weren't already considered public works. The intent of the regulation was to close those gaps, he said.
But police frequently asked those near and outside the security perimeter to identify themselves and state their purpose for being there.
Anyone who failed to provide identification or explain why they were near the security zone could be searched and arrested. Penalties included up to two months in jail and a $500 fine.
The temporary rule expired June 28, the day after the two-day meeting of world leaders in downtown Toronto concluded.
"Responsible protesters and civil rights groups who took the trouble to educate themselves about their rights prior to the G20 had no way of knowing they were literally walking into a trap," said Marin.
"They were literally caught in the act, an act of public entrapment."
'Zero' co-operation from police
Marin's report included four recommendations to the Ontario government, which were all accepted by the Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services.
But he sharply criticized Toronto police, saying he received "zero" co-operation from the force over the course of the investigation, which he said he found "astounding."
The report said the regulation gave police "extravagant" authority. And because it gave them such powers, the government should have done more to make sure police knew exactly what powers it gave them, the report said.
In particular, critics raised objections as to why police and the province did not clarify how exactly the regulation would affect people in and around the summit.
Initially, the public was led to believe by Toronto police Chief Bill Blair that the regulation gave officers the power to demand identification and detain anyone within five metres of the fence.
"But there was no five-metre rule, and even when this was corrected, police continued to arrest and search people well beyond the security zone," Marin said.
Blair admitted on June 29 that no such five-metre rule existed, saying he had just been "trying to keep the criminals out."
It was "grossly unreasonable and unfair" for the government not to publicize the regulation, Marin said in the report.
Blair was out of town Tuesday and didn't comment on the report, but his spokesman Mark Pugash did.
Pugash said Marin is wrong when he says the so-called five-metre rule was applied right across the city.
"He [Marin] is absolutely wrong," Pugash said. "He appears for that to be relying on anecdotes. I don't know whether those anecdotes were ever corroborated — he doesn't make it clear in his report — but to use anecdotes for the basis to make such a sweeping statement, I'm not sure where he feels that's justified. But to say that it was extended all across the city is wrong."
Ontario Minister of Community Safety and Correctional Services Jim Bradley has already responded in writing to Marin with a letter saying he agrees with the ombudsman that the government "could have and should have handled the enactment of the regulation better."
Marin said in July his office would look into why and how the controversial regulation was passed after receiving around 60 G20-related complaints. Several of those complaints concerned the regulation specifically. |
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| The Potter |
| You do not get more damning than that. If this had been in the UK, heads would have rolled by now. I seem to get the impression that the police here can get away with more, as there is not the same level of accountability enshrined into the law. The rule of law applies as much to the police, as to other members of a civilised society. It is a ed up system if an independent investigation does not have the authority to have the name of the officers revealed. The imbecilic Blair has instructed his men and women to not cooperate with the ombudsman; however, they will answer questions for the police's internal investigation...that's very reassuring :rolleyes: |
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| Sentinal |
| wow. queens park should be interesting during question period today..... |
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