Ontario political
activists see Ontario as a liberal society, surrounded by neighbors who are
less so.
Regardless of party label,
liberal sentiments are usually in charge. Sure, Ontario liberal and progressive
politicians must keep an eye on taxes and deficits. But, in their hearts, they
are in it for the little guy; they embrace change and distrust bullying
traditions.
Historically, their
outstanding virtue was their skepticism toward entrenched institutional authority.
This perspective wasn’t always popular—but it was genuine. Colonial Tories and their Crown, in fact,
labeled and persecuted many of them as radical democrats and traitors.
That was then.
If liberalism in Ontario
stands for anything today, it stands for trust in public power.
Liberals such as premier Dalton
McGuinty talk about new challenges, embrace futurists, and put their faith in
established institutions. They call their opponents extremists and defend the
province’s oldest institutions.
Least discussed and least liberal
is their deference toward state power’s most faithful servant: the police.
A couple of years ago,
Toronto hosted the G-20. To help protect Canada’s reputation as a quiet
northern democracy, the Ontario Cabinet quietly gave Ontario police forces
additional powers to restrain thousands of anticipated protestors. The well-publicized
incidents of abusive policing that did ensue were blamed on a handful of overzealous officers and, conceivably, the brutish vibes given off that Alberta
Prime Minister, Stephen Harper.
Indeed, Toronto’s Chief of
Police at the time, Bill Blair, survived the G-20 scandal. Indeed, he has sufficient
stature today to publicly protect his vast police bureaucracy from budget cuts
that are being imposed across other Toronto services.
Rob Ford, Toronto's populist
conservative mayor, asks for cuts in the police budget, and Blair responds that
he wouldn’t be able to do his job. And left councilors obsequiously agree with
the Chief: the “safety” of the city was supposedly at stake.
Fifty years ago, those
councilors' bravest liberal-minded parents would have asked for Blair’s
immediate resignation. The others would have whispered to themselves: who’s
left to control the beast?
As important, this month,
Premier Dalton McGuinty threw his credibility as Ontario’s most successful
Liberal Premier into upholding the Ontario Provincial Police’s right to use their
professional judgment in deciding when they should serve a formal order from
the court.
In a province-wide broadcast,
OPP Superintendent Chris Lewis repudiated a complaint by Justice David
Brown of the Ontario Superior Court that a court order to lift a railway blockade
wasn’t being acted on. Lewis stated that his overriding responsibility was to
maintain the peace. Amazingly, McGuinty offered him his unqualified support:
“In our democracy, we do not direct the police. That would be inappropriate.”
No? In some societies, the
police are free to take care of things. But, surely, not in ours.
Premier McGuinty, of course,
can call his Deputy Minister of Energy to help nudge along new supports for
clean energy, but must not call the police to tell them how to make an arrest.
That said, policing isn’t an existential job in a liberal democracy, I think.
The situation was complicated:
it involved First Nation grievances and a blockade of a vital transportation
system. For the protestors and the wider society, many complex and conflicting
rights were in dispute. (Two legal scholars backed Lewis’s ‘cautious’ approach.) The case for
police discretion, nevertheless, boils down to two dangerous assumptions: the
police may have better political instincts than the judges, and that peace and
quiet is their overriding mission.
Liberals and tomorrow’s
insolent protestors should be wary.
Democracy doesn’t keep our
liberties robust by guaranteeing that the most politically astute are always in
charge. Furthermore, the politically astute aren’t necessarily nice. Our system
is called liberal because it gives power and assigns accountability only to the
ones that get elected.
We elect politicians to keep our
rights up-to-date and we assign to free courts the authority to oversee their
decisions and the actions of their agents. Our police forces aren’t free simply to keep
the peace. Otherwise, they’d be tempted to exile troublemakers, just like the
good ol’ days.
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