Justice Vs.

Justice Vs. The G20: The Legacy that Shapes Protests Today

• Season 1 • Episode 2

Share episode

Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.

0:00 | 29:30

Protests at the G20 and G8 Summits in Toronto went onto become the largest in Toronto's recent history, scaling at over 10,000 protestors. Ten years later, we ask: what is the legacy of the G20 protests and how do they shape protest today? To find answers, we spoke with Cara Zwibel, director of the Fundamental Freedoms program at CCLA, and Luke Stewart, an activist and professor at Sciences Po Lille in France, who was arrested at the protests and supported by CCLA in his case against police. A note to listeners: this episode contains description of police violence and sexual harassment. 

Know your rights with this guide below: 

For ways to get involved and learn more about protest in Canada, please see below: 

Subscribe and share! Learn more about CCLA here: https://ccla.org/

Follow us:

Original Music by Ren Bangert
Audio Editing by Ren Bangert and Paul Berry
Host: Mario Rio

A big thanks to the Justice Vs. Volunteer Team:
Writing and Research Team: Natalie Sequeira, Kate Tutu, Jeremy Zhang, Luke Ryan, Imran Dhanani, Rachael Dyal, Rachael. Bridge, Leo Ghiran, Stella Racca, Sae Furukawa, managed by Brigitte Pawliw-Fry and Eilish Waller
Audio Team: Paul Berry, Ren Bangert, managed by Farid Pesteh
Marketing Team: Arlet Vazquez, Irene Lee, Hope Arpa Chow, managed by Soaad Qahhār Hossain

Maria Rio  0:02  

Welcome to CCLA’s podcast Justice Vs. I'm your host Maria Rio. On today's episode, we will be meeting with two incredible activists and discussing the impacts of the 2010 G20 protests in Toronto. A note to listeners: This episode contains descriptions of police violence and sexual assault.


Unknown Speaker  0:27  

The world leaders are still up in Muskoka.


Unknown Speaker  0:29

Joe Biden’s in town


Unknown Speaker  0:31  

This morning they have a short session of the G8 


Unknown Speaker  0:34

I want to express my pleasure in having an opportunity to meet once again... 


Unknown Speakers  0:39

the police car on fire... really ominous scene… we’re also hearing… surrounded by a thousand...


Unknown Speakers  0:45  

Without warning and completely…. Where do I go? Where, where, where?


Unknown Speakers  0:52  

We don't check your bag you're not coming in. I'm not letting you illegally search me… then you’re not coming in


Unknown Speaker  0:58  

Why? On whose authority?


Protestors  0:59

Let them go! Let them go! Let them go!


Maria Rio  1:02  

On the weekend of June 26 2010, while the G20 summit debated economic policy at the Metro Convention Center in downtown Toronto, protests ramped up on the streets. The G20 summit often attracts protests wherever it is held, including from those who are anti-capitalist, pro-labor or pro-climate action, opposing a system which enables global superpowers to make decisions that will affect the rest of the world behind closed doors. What would become the largest Toronto protest in recent history saw 10,000 protesters met with resistance and conflict from police forces, as they tried to make their way to the summit. By the end of the weekend, over 1,000 people had been arrested and sent to a now infamous makeshift detention center. For the first time, tear gas had been deployed in the city, and reports began to emerge of excessive police force, illegal detention of protesters, and numerous Charter Rights violations. Ten years later, the G20 protests and the police response are still the subject of scrutiny.


Maria Rio  2:23  

To understand the stories of the G20 and G8 protests, and their ongoing legacies, we hear from activist and professor Luke Stewart, who was arrested at the protest, and Cara Zwibel, who is the Director of the Fundamental Freedoms program at CCLA. 


First, we turn to Cara. Welcome Cara, thank you so much for joining us. 


Cara Zwibel  2:43

Thanks for having me. 


Maria Rio  2:44

Why did this event become so significant in Canada and why are we still talking about it ten years later?


Cara Zwibel  2:49  

It's partly because of the scale of it, how many people were arrested – it was the largest mass arrest in Canadian history – and the first time at least in modern history that people saw the police interacting with, for the most part, peaceful protesters, and in some cases, bystanders, in this way. So, I think it was shocking to people to see that police were out with riot gear, that they were using rubber bullets and tear gas, and it was a very unusual thing to see in Canada,


Unknown Speaker  3:18  

You're going to see a large number and a large variety of uniforms. I'm here to tell you today, that we may be wearing different uniforms, but we're part of one team.


Maria Rio  3:27  

In a presumption that they might be arresting a large number of people in Toronto, the policing services that weekend was an Integrated Security Unit. An ISU made up of Toronto Police, the OPP, Canadian Forces, and police from Peel and York. At its peak, there was a combined 20,000 police or security forces at the protest policing the actions of 10,000 protesters. Do you think the presence of that large security force changed the dynamics of the protest?


Cara Zwibel  3:56  

It created a situation where police forces that hadn't necessarily worked together before, were trying to work together for the first time. There were different police cultures and different ways of communicating. I think it did affect how police were working together or sometimes not together, as, as much as they would have liked. In some cases, it was hard for people to know who were the police officers and which force or service did they come from? Were these Toronto Police Service? Were they with one of the other police services that was involved? Some of them didn't have identification visible, but even if their name was visible, you'd have to pay attention to what the uniform looked like and what kind of badge and insignia they had to sort of know which jurisdiction they were coming from. And that's significant because if you want to make a complaint about a police officer, you have to make it to the body that's responsible for that particular jurisdiction. It was also challenging because there was a breakdown of communication between police forces. That's less of a challenge for protesters, but I think that affected how the weekend went.


Maria Rio  4:58  

Could you talk a little bit more about the interaction between protesters and police and what really stood out about that interaction?


Cara Zwibel  5:05  

There were days of action planned for Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and Saturday saw some Black Bloc tactics: vandalism, breaking store windows looting, police cars set on fire. And that was covered very heavily by the media. And then I think as a result of those incidents, the police focused more on public safety rather than apprehending the people that were at the root of those incidents. But then, as a result, it seemed like the police took the approach that anyone involved in a protest was a suspect. That was followed later that day by a mass arrest at Queen's Park, which is the area that the police had initially told people was the protest zone – that's where you should go to protest. People were arrested there en masse. There were arrests that evening on the Esplanade by the Novotel hotel, where people were sort of boxed in, and then everyone was, was wrapped up and arrested, and taken to the detention center. And then the following day, protesters were again blocked in, or what they called “kettled” at Queen and Spadina and mass arrests took place. And that actually happened when there was a rainstorm happening, so we had people standing in the rain for hours while police processed them and arrested them.


Unknown Speaker  6:17

Is this curious what we’re smelling?


Unknown Speakers  6:24

Tell me what a police state looks like! This is what a police state looks like! Tell me what a police state looks like! This is what a police state looks like! Tell me what...


Cara Zwibel  6:33  

There had been a detention center set up in advance so the police were anticipating that they might be making a significant number of arrests. But, I don't think anyone predicted or thought that we would see this situation where police would just decide that everyone in a given area was going to be arrested


Maria Rio  6:48  

So a lot of the allegations against the police revolved around the use of extreme tactics. Can you tell us a little bit more about the tactics that were employed by the police?


Cara Zwibel  6:58  

Yeah, so I mean, police, interestingly, before the summit, they had tried to encourage people to protest in a particular area, and that was Queen's Park, which is quite a distance from the Convention Centre – so quite a distance from where the world leaders were meeting. And for many protesters, to have them in an area where they're really invisible to their sort of target audience, was, was a problem. That became a problem, when after the events of Saturday afternoon and some of the vandalism that took place, police tried to clear Queen's Park out.


Unknown Speaker  7:29  

Right in front of provincial legislature, of course, on the front lawn, the South Lawn if you know the area. And it is a showdown – we have riot police... 


Unknown Speaker  7:36

I've been watching protests in the city for 30 years, I've been covering events in the city for 30 years – This was not a great day for democracy in Toronto.


Cara Zwibel  7:44  

There were issues with communication despite the fact that, in some cases, police did use these sonic cannons or long range acoustic devices, which are sort of these loudspeakers, to try and warn people to move.


Unknown Speaker  7:57  

This is a test of the long range acoustic device, LRAD, from American Technology Corporation. The LRAD can be used to hail and notify at great distances with locally generated tones or voice messages.


Maria Rio 8:14  

The LRAD can be used as a speaker, but also has an alert function which emits that piercing noise, which can be dangerous at certain decibels. 


Cara Zwibel  8:22  

The LRADs are actually something that CCLA challenged, in advance of the summit. We said it was a weapon that required, sort of, specific approvals and protocols. The idea is that it's so uncomfortable for people to, to be there with that loud noise, that they disperse. And so we were successful in, in challenging the use of the LRAD in, in that – for that purpose – and in that sense, but they, they did try to make use of it during the weekend to convey messages to protesters and to tell them to disperse. And police did use this tactic of kettling, where you essentially block people in so that there's no way for them to exit really, and then you, you go through and systematically arrest them. And this was a new thing for us here, not something we had seen before. There was also I mean, all sorts of things that the police did in advance of the summit in terms of, in some cases, covertly infiltrating community groups and protest groups to try to get intelligence about what would be happening during the summit,



Maria Rio  9:24  

Did they try to communicate with the public about some of these restrictions before the protests actually began?


Cara Zwibel  9:30  

There was this issue of a designated free speech zone, which as a civil liberties organization, we found problematic, because it suggests that there are public places where free speech is not permitted, and that's just not true. In addition to that, the police also said that they had the power to ask for identification and potentially search people who were within five meters of the security fence that surrounded the downtown area, where the Convention Centre is. They were relying on a regulation that had been passed to a law that's called the Public Works Protection Act. It's technical to get into, but the reality is that that power to search people within five meters of the fence simply never existed. The police misunderstood that power or decided to miscommunicate what their powers were. It was also a problem because the Ministry that was responsible for creating that regulation in the first place didn't communicate with the public about this.


Unknown Speaker  10:25  

Dalton McGuinty, having made this regulation on June 2, for almost a month now, has refused to tell the public what the law is and what the consequences of breaching it are.


Cara Zwibel  10:35  

We did training with human rights monitors around what their obligations were, if questioned by the police, and in most situations, you don't have an obligation to speak to the police. But this regulation changed that in certain circumstances, so there was a lot of confusing communications in advance. And then, during the summit itself, there were lots of things that were caught on video and shared on social media where police officers took a particularly harsh approach.


Unknown Speakers  11:03  

This ain’t Canada right now… This isn’t Canada right now? No… wow… That’s right, there’s no civil rights here, how many times do you gotta be told that?


Cara Zwibel  11:11  

There was a viral video of a protester who was blowing bubbles near a police officer.


Unknown Speaker  11:20  

That thing touches me… you’re going to be arrested for assault, do you understand me? Yes, that’s right, that’s a deliberate act on your behalf… I’m going to arrest you, do you understand me?





Cara Zwibel  11:29  

Those kinds of communications that were, obviously not official communications by the police, but that made their way out into the public, it created another negative impression of how the police were operating.


Maria Rio  11:41  

We will come back to Cara for more about the G20 and protest rights. But, we want to first turn to one of the defendants in the cases that CCLA intervened in the Stewart vs. the Toronto Police Services Board case.


Maria Rio  12:06  

Luke Stewart is a teacher, historian, and activist who was unlawfully stopped in search during the 2010 G20 protests. With CCLA support, he took the case to court, and in April 2020, won his case at the Ontario Court of Appeal after it had been dismissed nearly seven years earlier. Since the event, Luke has participated in discussions on the ongoing legacy of the G20 protests and has become a professor at France’s Sciences Po Lille. Thank you so much for joining us today, Luke.


Luke Stewart  12:35  

Thank you. Thank you very much for having me.


Maria Rio  12:38  

Your case with CCLA stems from an incident with police outside of a public park. Can you tell us about that incident?


Luke Stewart  12:46  

The protest at Allan gardens Park began at about 2:30 in the afternoon. I actually walked to the protest, and actually when I arrived at the entrance on the north side of Allan Gardens Park, I saw a line of police officers searching people before they came in. There was actually a large group of people who were being stopped by the police, and the police had formed a line and I could see they were looking in people's backpacks, and I could see they were actually taking things from people like sticks, which would hold signs, you know, protest signs. I found that highly unacceptable because you do not have to consent to a search, unless you're detained or arrested. And so I tried to avoid the police line and I tried to enter the park at a different area. As I walked to the middle of the park, that's when I was stopped by the police. 


Unknown Speaker  13:34

You pick. Are you coming in? we check your bag. If you don't check your bag, you're not coming in. 


Luke Stewart  13:39

I'm not letting you illegally search me. 



Unknown Speaker  13:43

Then you’re not coming in


Luke Stewart  13:44

Why? On whose authority?


Luke Stewart  13:45

As far as I was aware, I was going to a public park and I was going to a protest and to me police did not have a right to look at my bag unless I was detained or arrested.


Maria Rio  13:56  

So when you refused to show them your bag, did you fear arrest?


Luke Stewart  14:01  

I had no idea what was going to happen. I was flabbergasted about what was going on because I had never seen this before. I had certainly no prior knowledge that the police were going to be doing this. So I was kind of in a state of disbelief. At that point. I was thinking, “oh my, I'm alone, and now I'm surrounded by the police.” I wasn't necessarily scared I was going to be arrested – I was actually afraid I was going to be assaulted by the police. So, part of my strategy was to be very outspoken, so that other people might witness what was happening to me, and you know, I had no idea it was being recorded. There was a lot going through my mind. You know, I was just trying to make sure that I was safe. At one point I'd turn and say “can somebody else, you know, say something to the police?” But all I knew at the time was that it seemed like, given the advice we were given, I could just continue on my way, and the police no had no right to detain me, and so I walked through and the police grabbed me, and took my backpack off of me, and then they looked through my bag and somebody did intervene at that point.


Unknown Speaker  15:03  

Excuse me, is there a reason that you're keeping his goggles? 


Luke Stewart  15:08  

Are you keeping my goggles? Why are you keeping my goggles? Is it illegal to have goggles? So when you use chemical weapons I won't be able to protect myself? Is it… if you can return it to me right now because I haven't broken any laws! 


Give me my goggles back 


Unknown Speaker  15:23

You're not getting your goggles back


Luke Stewart  15:24

Why?



Unknown Speaker  15:24  

Unless you want to give us your name we'll give you a proper…


Luke Stewart  15:26  

Why do you need my name because I’m breaking the law? What law? Can you please tell me what law? 


Luke Stewart  15:31

No this is, this is really crossing the line here. It's not about the fact that they took the swimming goggles. It's about the fact that I was illegitimately detained, and in fact, they were taking something I was going to use from my own personal safety in the case of tear gas. It wasn't a knife. It wasn't a gun. It wasn't something that could be used as a weapon. It was simply for personal protection. And, indeed, reading the police notes later in preparation for the trial, they labeled these as an object which could defeat police tactics. And every time I think of that phrase “defeat police tactics,” it kind of makes me shiver, because I just had goggles as a basic measure of protection and they took them.


Maria Rio  16:09  

CCLA joined Luke in his court case against the Toronto Police Services Board to argue that his Charter Rights had been violated. But before this, Luke had filed a complaint with the Office of Independent Police Review Director, not just for this experience, but because he was one of the many detained in the makeshift detention center. I asked Luke about his experience in the center. A warning for listeners: some of his memories are graphic.


Luke Stewart  16:36  

Hundreds of people were in the makeshift detention center on Eastern Avenue, which was actually a film studio. A number of us had decided that we would go to the outside of the detention center, and we would just do a regular jail solidarity demonstration. And we were just making a lot of noise, attempting to make sure that the people inside the detention center could hear us and know that people knew what was going on.


Protestors  17:03

Let them go! Let them go! Let them go! 


Unknown Speaker  17:08  

Stop playing politics, public relations, with our friends’ lives, and let them go.


Luke Stewart  17:17  

Sunday, early morning, we were actually kettled, and I remember being out front of the detention center, and these chartered buses showed up with rows and rows of police in riot gear, and we were kettled. And in fact, a group of us were arrested. We were just, you know, sat on the curb, and the police had tied the, the zip ties – they didn't use handcuffs, they used plastic zip ties – so tight that my, my hands were turning purple and I couldn't feel my arms anymore. All of your stuff is taken from you, including your shoes. You know, I was interviewed by two police officers. We were jammed into these cages, and at that point, we still have the zip ties on. I was in there for maybe about 18 to 20 hours, and I was moved to four different areas throughout that time. There were people singing, there were people smashing on the cages, you know, in outrage about what was going on. There were people, you know, screaming, you know, out of fear. There were people screaming, you know, “I want to talk to my lawyer.” At first we were denied access to calling a lawyer. It was only about the hour 16 of my detention that I was able to call the Movement Defense Committee. Throughout this time, you know, I would ask, “I want my phone call.” Police officers would say things like, “oh, you're just pathetic, you don't know you're talking about.” When I was in the third zone, there was this man who is in there who is severely beaten up, and he said he wasn't a protester at all. He told me he just made fun of some police officers, and he was severely beaten up, and he was put in the detention center. And he was all black and blue, like his ribs were really swollen. There was a Muslim man who came into the cell, and he said that he hadn’t eaten anything, and we demanded that this man be fed. There were many complaints by women that they were sexually assaulted by the police. And at some points, I could hear the guards saying things like “there's some fresh meat,” or, I don't know if I can swear, but saying “I want to fuck that.” And you know, there were women who were yelling out for tampons, and there were people crying, you know. This was a horrible experience. So you know, there was a lot of intimidation, there was a lot of fear. I think this changed a lot of people's lives who were in that position. You know, there were about 1,100 of us in there, and certainly I will never look at the police the same I will never look at the the justice system the same because they built this detention center to fit that many people and that's how many people they put in there and it was, it was a disgusting experience.


Maria Rio  20:02  

The case with CCLA looked at the violation of your freedom of expression, freedom from unlawful search and seizure, and your right not to be arbitrarily detained. The Ontario Superior Court of Justice dismissed your case. Why did you decide to launch the appeal process?


Luke Stewart  20:17  

It was really important that we finished this as far as we needed to go, in order to seek some kind of accountability for what happened. The trial judge, Justice Dietrich, in the decision said, “this is a public interest case, and therefore we will not award any costs.” So eight years later, I had lost at Superior Court, and I didn't have to face any expensive legal fees that I would need to pay to the Toronto Police Services Board. The lawyers for the police challenged that cost award or lack of a cost award. And a few weeks later, another decision comes down in which I now have to pay the police $25,000. And that is a scary place to be. And so appealing, the decision was an absolute necessity, almost survival at that point,


Maria Rio  21:08  

The case wrapped up in April of 2020, almost 10 years after the actual protest, and the court ruled that police had no right to search you. How did you feel when that decision finally came down?



Luke Stewart  21:21  

I was so relieved. I was so happy that we had finally reached a positive decision. Basically, I was vindicated. The Appeals Court’s Justice Brown said two things: that the police don't have the statutory authority, meaning they can't use the Trespass to Property Act to make their condition of entry, and they also don't have the common law power in order to do that. You know, that was a significant precedent. This 10 year process I went through, this precedent, can hopefully be used to help others in their legal battles with the police facing similar situations, you know. But you know, it was also a bittersweet decision. The police did score a partial victory here. Justice Brown said in his ruling that because the police acted with good faith, in a professional manner, that that helps reduce the damages that I would receive, you know, I only got $500 out of this whole process. The judge also found that, you know, the police were acting in this way in order to de-escalate the situation, whereas I was escalating the situation. This is kind of a dangerous precedent here because the message is being sent to the police that as long as you are calm and acting in a professional way, if you act unlawfully, this will help later on down the line in case the situation goes to trial.


Maria Rio  22:40  

Did the police face any repercussions for their actions?


Cara Zwibel  22:43  

As far as I know, there were only two officers that faced either a disciplinary sanction or in one case a criminal sanction. One got a 45 day prison sentence, but that was later changed to a suspended sentence, and got five days of pay docked. The superintendent, who was, largely, I think, responsible for ordering some of the mass arrests, faced a disciplinary proceeding, got a formal reprimand, and lost 30 days of pay. On appeal, that number went up to 60 days. Not very significant in terms of ensuring that it was brought home to police how significant some of the rights violations had been. Outside of direct repercussions for individual officers, there were a lot of systemic reviews and CCLA actually held some public hearings to hear from individuals about their experiences. But in terms of, you know, repercussions for individual officers, that's not something that was very extensive.


Maria Rio  23:45  

So did any concrete change coming to these reviews?


Cara Zwibel  23:48  

Certainly in terms of the Public Works Protection Act, that was a concrete change. That statute was repealed and replaced with something, you know, more modern and much more, more protective of rights. So there were some commitments made by some police forces about things that they wouldn't, wouldn't do during protests in the future, including some that said that they would not engage in the practice of kettling again. It's hard to know, really, which of the recommendations will stick, although we have plenty of protests, we haven't had the kind of international event that we had with the G20, that attracted such a large group of protesters.



Maria Rio  24:43  

During the G20, we saw Canadians have some fundamental rights violated. Section 2 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms includes the freedom of peaceful assembly and the freedom of association, both which allow people to organize, to form groups, and to protest. With recent protests and demonstrations in 2020 related to the Black Lives Matter movement, we asked Cara how the G20 shaped the future protests in Canada.


Cara Zwibel  25:07  

I think that it certainly affected the way people see the police's role in terms of dealing with protests, and I think, you know, many people even who, who might have been not, not fans of protesters, saw that there was a lot of people swept up during the G20, that really were completely peaceful, did nothing unlawful, and really shouldn't have been the subject of any sort of police scrutiny, or enforcement. So I think that that, that has shaped the way people view protests today, and, you know, with, with many of the protests that we've seen, dealing with, with anti black racism, the Black Lives Matter protests, we've, we've seen that for the most part, despite the fact that, arguably, those protests are in violation of some of the public health regulations, there hasn't been enforcement of those of those regulations, because there's, I think, a recognition that these are fundamental rights – that people are out there expressing their views about a very significant issue in society, and, and police, you know, provided it's being done in a relatively safe way, police, I think, are giving people the space to do that.


Maria Rio  26:29  

Luke, what would you assess the G20s legacy on protest has been in Canada?


Luke Stewart  26:35  

I think there's really two different legacies. The first one for me is the utter failure of the institutions of the G8 and the G20 to respond to the crises in which we face in the world today. To me, it seems like these institutions have failed in order to provide the basic needs of their populations. The second legacy is about the necessity for protest. As a historian, I study social movements in order to progress in societies. It's been through the actions of ordinary people organizing and agitating for their rights. The legacy of the G8 and G20, is that no matter how much we were told beforehand, “don't go to the protests, stay at home.” This is one of the things in which we need in a democratic society to challenge the status quo, to challenge the institutions which are not solving the major problems of our day. And so the legacy is that it was entirely worth it, to do it, that it was essential to go, and it was essential that we continue to struggle for a better future.


Maria Rio  27:45  

The right to protest is a constitutional right and it is the police's duty to facilitate peaceful protests. Shortly after chatting with Cara and Luke, it was announced after 10 years of intense court proceedings and difficult negotiations, there was a settlement of a class action against the Toronto Police Services that provided financial compensation for those mass arrested and detained. The settlement totaled up to $16.5 million, and also includes other important public interest remedies in the defense of civil rights. There were many barriers to justice for those who are affected in the G20 protests. But after a decade of advocacy, there's been some justice for those people, and freedom of association and the right to protest were defended and upheld.


Maria Rio  28:49  

Before we close a note of acknowledgement: We wish to acknowledge land on which CCLA operates. Toronto and CCLA are in the Dish with One Spoon Territory. The land I'm recording on today is the traditional territory of many nations, including the Mississauga of the Credit, the Anishinaabe, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee, and the Wendat peoples. And it's also home to many diverse First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples. We’re grateful to have the opportunity to work on this land. 

A big thank you to the team of amazing volunteers to put this episode together. We could not have done this without you. If you enjoyed today's podcast, please subscribe to Justice Vs. wherever you get your podcasts and the reviews on Apple Podcasts. Thank you so much for joining us today. We hope you join us next time as we continue to learn, advocate, and educate on Canada's most crucial human rights issues. Until next time.