The Limits of Legal Protest
Toronto Police Service solicits public input
The Toronto Police Services Board just asked for public input as they work to update their public order policy. As I live in Toronto and have been “enjoying” the disruptions and chaos of the past ten months as much as the next guy, I figured I should submit my thoughts. As those thoughts touch on the relationship between governments and citizens, perhaps they’ll be appropriate to consider here, too.
First, I acknowledged the constraints modern police forces face when responding to civil unrest:
I very much appreciate the rights of all citizens to protest and even to loudly express ideas I find offensive. And, while I don't support protests that break any criminal or civil laws, I appreciate that police services will sometimes need to tolerate limited illegal activity to avoid dangerous escalations.
Those are goals that Toronto Police Services more or less successfully achieved through the waves of pro Palestine and anti Jewish demonstrations. In fact, as noisy, destructive, and disturbing as the events were, I don’t think they ever really escalated from “demonstrations” to “riots” - and certainly not to “pogroms” (whatever that word has come to mean).1
While the police were very protective of the Jewish community, they did tolerate a great deal of disruption and intimidation. Shopping, commuting, and getting to work - especially if you happened to work in the University of Toronto or (what I will forever call) Ryerson University - was often a deeply unpleasant experience. Which brings me to my next point:
But there should nevertheless be limits. For one thing, the normal functioning of civil society should never be disrupted. That means all Toronto residents have the right to expect no more than the usual (awful) delays to their commutes and the ability to peacefully go through their daily lives. That includes the ability to travel through any public areas without needing to worry whether they'll be violently accosted, blocked, or even harmed. This is a freedom that I don't feel I've always had over most of the past year.
There should always be clearly defined limits beyond which tolerance must not stretch. And those limits should recognize the reasonable needs of the millions of residents who aren’t demonstrating. Did encampments prevent UofT students from preparing for their exams? Was access for emergency vehicles always ensured through street demonstrations? Were there people who lost access to their homes or workplaces? Those would be important considerations that I feel the new Police Services policies should address.
Finally, police restraint should never lead to confusion over what the law actually requires of all citizens:
There should be no ambiguity in Toronto Police Services communications on what the law permits. If, for example, individuals threaten violence against identifiable targets with police officers present, the Service should - at an appropriate time - clearly and publicly communicate their disapproval of those threats. That way, strategic stand-downs won't be mistaken for approval and threatened communities won't feel completely unprotected. This has, for the most part, not been the case so far.
For context, many of my ancestors left Poland and Russia in the wake of the Kishinev massacre of April, 1903 that left 49 Jews dead, 600 injured, and 1,500 homes damaged. That was a pogrom. October 7 was a pogrom on the very worst steroids imaginable.
Where else are you going to get so much policy failure goodness in one place? Do buy your copy of the book:
As a former policeman who retired a dozen years ago after forty-one years of service (in three different countries, plus two UN peacekeeping missions) I have been deeply disappointed in the response by Canada’s police forces, collectively, to the various manifestations of civil unrest across the country over the past year or so.
While I understand and entirely accept that policing must evolve to meet the wants and needs of the community, the nine principles of policing ascribed to Sir Robert Peel circa 1829 ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peelian_principles#Sir_Robert_Peel's_principles ) are as important today as ever before.
If the police are seen to be ineffective, biased or reluctant to act the result can only be chaos. Your suggestions to the Toronto Police Service are right on the mark!
Given the state investment in the goals of various protester's, the rule of law tends to be somewhat mercurial. I worked in the forest industry on the west Coast of BC during the so-called "war of the woods" during the 80s and 90s. the RCMP were on site to prevent people who were legally entitled to go to work to do so as it would have required the extrication of protesters block the roads. The companies involved had to seek their own court injunctions and serve them before any protesters could be removed. On one protest, when the RCMP were late in arriving at the blockade, the logging contractor's employees took it upon themselves to clear the road and actually went to work. This was a source of embarrassment for the more politically correct company that held the license and the RCMP but it boosted the morale of thousands of working people on the coast. The protests eventually bore fruit and the provincial government preserved the contentious areas and unemployed the workers, a trend that continues to this day.