G20 Inquiry Needed, Report Finds

The Canadian Civil Liberties Association says police committed “serious violations of fundamental rights and freedoms” during the summit last summer.

The CCLA report, to be released Monday, comes after a series of hearings in Toronto and Montreal in which demonstrators described being arrested, searched, and shot at with rubber bullets during the G20 summit in Toronto June 26-27. More than 1,100 people were arrested that weekend, only to have nearly all the charges against them subsequently dropped. The report recommends a joint federal-provincial public inquiry to examine how security measures were drafted and implemented, and pays particular attention to police use of force, search and seizure procedures, and the so-called “five-metre” rule approved by the provincial government. Last year Ontario Ombudsman André Marin released a scathing report calling the G20 “the most massive compromise of civil liberties in Canadian history.”