Janesdiggo's List: Dissent

• Ms. Martinovic and those around her were being subjected to “kettling,” a controversial crowd-control tactic that has been used to neutralize mass demonstrations around the world.
• It was employed in Toronto even though encircling and containing large groups had been declared illegal

• more officers charged into the group, grabbing Ms. Martinovic, Mr. MacDonald and several others, forcing them face-down on the ground.
• Then her arresting officer paused, asked a sergeant for advice and abruptly changed the charge to breach of the peace, which is not a criminal offence, but allows police to detain a suspect up to 24 hours.

• Staff Superintendent Jeff McGuire spoke to media about the incident. He said that, as police were escorting the march from downtown, “we gained significant evidence to suggest that we had members of black bloc-type people involved in the crowd,” such as “people who, during the walk, actually donned masks.”
• Weapons were recovered along the route, he said, and the masked people were arrested within sight of others participating in the march.
• The mass detention was ordered to prevent criminal acts by the masked protesters and by others who, he said, “chose not to disassociate themselves from this group.”
• Many witnesses, including Globe and Mail reporters who followed the marchers from the sit-in at King and Bay, say they saw no protesters all in black or wearing masks.
• Since the G20, however, “it feels like Toronto police betrayed the citizens of the city.”

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• s. 3, which states that a guard appointed under the Act or a peace officer may “require any person entering or attempting to enter any public work or any approach thereto to furnish his or her name and address, to identify himself or herself and to state the purpose for which he or she desires to enter the public work.” In addition to these identification requirements, s. 3 permits a warrantless search of “any person entering or attempting to enter a public work,”
• The definition of “public work” in section 1 of the Act is very broad.

• It also includes “other building, place or work designated a public work.” Hence the designation of a large part of downtown Toronto as a “public work.”

   

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• But according to Mr. Marin, the secretive amendment to the Public Works Protection Act put in place without debate in the weeks leading up to Toronto’s G20 summit shouldn’t have been enacted, period. The 1939 law was originally meant to protect public works during the war. The regulation allowed police to detain, question and arrest without warrant people within the G20 security perimeter. Chief Blair told reporters the Friday before the summit that it gave police those privileges within five metres of the fence.
• Community Safety Minister Jim Bradley said Tuesday he is committed unequivocally to adopting the recommendations in Mr. Marin’s report, which include revising the act or replacing it entirely, examining whether the range of powers it gives police is appropriate
• developing a protocol on informing the public when police are given added authority.
• Authorities deliberately kept the public in the dark on the law, Mr. Marin told reporters, in what he called “the most massive compromise of civil liberties in Canadian history” which “amounted to martial law in Toronto.”

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• Community Safety Minister Jim Bradley.
• “We will implement (his findings) at the earliest opportunity, which would be the spring session,” he told the Star.
• At the request of Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair, the World War II-era legislation was used by the province to secretly pass Regulation 233/10 weeks before the June 26-27 meeting of world leaders here.
• “Ontario is the only province to have war measures legislation remaining on the books,” Marin wrote in his 125-page investigation, Caught in the Act, tabled last Tuesday.

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• The agency has seen a jump in the number of cases investigated and a doubling of charges against police. In 2009 and 2010, the agency charged officers in 12 and 10 incidents, respectively; in 2009, it handled a record 312 cases. While Mr. Scott is hesitant to speculate on the reason for the increase, he suggests the agency’s higher profile might be prompting more people to come forward.

• aw enforcement officers are searching for Democratic senators boycotting a Senate vote on Gov. Scott Walker's budget-repair plan Thursday in an attempt to bring the lawmakers to the floor to allow Republicans to act on the bill.
• One Democratic senator said that he believed most of the members of his caucus have gone to another state to prevent enough lawmakers from being present in the Senate to take a final vote on the controversial measure.
• Senate Minority Leader Mark Miller (D-Monona) said he was upholding the rights of workers and the democratic process.
• He said that law enforcement would be able to compel him and his members to the Senate floor if they are located in Wisconsin.
• "I can tell you this - we're not all in one place," Miller said. "This is a watershed moment unlike any that we have experienced in our political lifetimes. The people have shown that the government has gone too far . . .  We are prepared to do what is necessary to make sure that this bill gets the consideration it needs."
• Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald (R-Juneau) said that Democrats were "not showing up for work" and that police were searching for them to bring them to the floor.
• "That's not democracy. That's not what this chamber is about," Fitzgerald said of the boycott to reporters.
• Sen. Tim Cullen (D-Janesville) confirmed Thursday that Democrats are boycotting the Senate action on the bill in efforts to block a quorum and keep the measure from passing. Because 20 senators of the 33-member house are needed to be present to pass a fiscal bill, the body's 19 Republicans will not be enough to pass the budget repair bill without at least one Democrat present.
• Cullen said Democrats hope delaying the bill will give more time for union demonstrators to win over any possible wavering Republicans. He said the decision was made by other Democrats at a meeting at which he was not present.
• The changes the committee adopted would require all local governments to create civil-service systems similar to the one for the state. It would also allow limited-term employees to keep their benefits. Some limited-term employees have worked for the state for years, and the original version of the bill would have taken away all their health care coverage and retirement benefits.
• They booed loudly Wednesday day as they learned the bill still would take away their union rights as they watched the committee proceedings on televisions mounted in the Capitol Rotunda.
• In an interview with WTMJ-TV (Channel 4), President Barack Obama said public workers have to be prepared to make concessions but that he thought Walker's plan was unduly harsh on unions.

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• It’s not about balancing a budget. It’s about destroying unions as a political and economic force.
• That’s why the bill says every public sector union would have to recertify every year, and why it says that no employer could deduct union dues from paychecks. Neither of those things has anything to do with saving a dime of Wisconsin taxpayer money.
• the crowd swelled to 30,000.

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• Like many governors, he wants to cut the benefits of state workers. But he also decided a budget crisis was a good time to advance an ideological goal dear to his fellow Republicans: eliminating most collective bargaining rights for public employees.
• Not surprisingly, thousands of workers descended on the Capitol building, pounding on windows and blocking doors, yelling “shut it down.”
• Mr. Walker has decried the chaos, but it was entirely self-inflicted. His plan to undermine the unions, which would have no direct impact on the budget, would take away nearly all of their rights to negotiate.
• They would be barred from bargaining about anything except wages, and any pay increase they win would be limited by the consumer price index. Contracts would be limited to a year, and union dues could no longer be deducted from paychecks
• the governor is refusing to accept his own share of responsibility for the state’s projected $137 million shortfall. Just last month, he and the Legislature gave away $117 million in tax breaks, mostly for businesses that expand and for private health savings accounts.
• That was a choice lawmakers made, and had it not been for those decisions and a few others, according to the state’s Legislative Fiscal Bureau, the state would have had a surplus.
• the union-busting movement is picking up steam, with lawmakers in Ohio, Indiana, and several other states. On Thursday in Washington, John Boehner, the speaker of the House, weighed in on Mr. Walker’s side.

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• The number of protesters opposed to Walker's bill, however, outnumbered by far the groups representing tea party organizations and other groups backing the governor.
• • To a guy working 3 jobs to make ends meet, anyone with a union job looks like they have it easy. He doesn't realize that once all the unions go he'll need to work 4 or 5 jobs to make ends meet.

  • They are deliberately pitting workers against each other
• Fitzgerald emphasized Republicans have no plans to bargain over any aspects of the legislation, and that union officials' statements on Friday that they are willing to bargain on financial aspects don't change a thing.

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• All around the Capitol square, tens of thousands of union supporters chanted, as they have for days: “Kill the bill! Kill the bill!” In one corner, a far smaller contingent of demonstrators, many of whom described themselves as Tea Party members, chanted: “Pass the bill! Pass the bill!”
• If anything, union presence at the Capitol seemed to be larger than it had been all week. The protests have become something of a galvanizing point for Democrats — in Wisconsin and beyond — after demoralizing defeats in last year’s elections.
• Many in the union crowd said they were willing to accept the proposed cuts — and labor leaders have expressed willingness to do so as well — but would not agree to the bill’s broader provisions. Those measures would prohibit unions from bargaining over issues other than wages, stop them from having dues deducted from state paychecks and require them to hold annual elections to stay in existence.

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