POLICE IN BIND OVER PROTESTS
Hoping for political solution
EDMONTON • As federal cabinet members held an emergency meeting in Ottawa Monday to discuss protests that have brought parts of Canada's railway to a halt, the heads of policing associations defended their hands-off approach and said they're hoping for a political solution.
“If we enforce the law ... we're criticized often for being too aggressive,” said Tom Stamatakis, president of the Canadian Police Association. “On the other hand, if we don't enforce the law ... then we're criticized for not enforcing the law.”
“We're in effectively what's a no-win situation,” Stamatakis told the Post.
Protests have erupted across the country in solidarity with Wet'suwet'en hereditary chiefs who reject Coastal Gaslink's proposed pipeline, which would run 670 kilometres from the Dawson Creek, B.C., area through to Kitimat, B.C. While many of the elected band councils along the route have signed onto the $6.6-billion project, the hereditary chiefs, who claim some 22,000 square kilometres of the British Columbia interior as their own, object.
They and their supporters set up a blockade on a service road to the construction site in the B.C. interior; Last week the RCMP moved in, spurring solidarity protests across Canada. Rail blockades were erected near New Hazelton, B.C., and Winnipeg — both have since come down — and two others remain, one in Kahnawake outside of Montreal that's hobbled commuter trains into the city and the other near Belleville, Ont., near a Canadian National Railway line.
The blockades have cancelled 470 Via Rail trains and inconvenienced 94,000 passengers.
Speaking to reporters on the steps of the building housing the Prime Minister’s Office, Trudeau said he wants a quick and peaceful solution but offered few specifics on his plans.
“I understand how worrisome this is for so many Canadians and difficult for many people and families across the country,” Trudeau said. “We’re going to continue to focus on resolving the situation quickly and peacefully, and that’s what we’re going to do.”
The prime minister, who cancelled a two-day trip to Barbados Monday after coming under criticism for being out of the country when the crisis shut down CN and Via Rail, did not take any questions before being driven away by his RCMP security detail.
Carolyn Bennett, the federal minister of Crown-indigenous relations, said later Monday that she and B.C. Indigenous Relations Minister Scott Fraser have written to the Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs to ask for a meeting “at the earliest opportunity.”
“Our primary focus is everyone’s safety and ultimately, a peaceful resolution to the situation,” she said.
Stamatakis, who’s also a Vancouver police officer, said his organization represents police across Canada, including officers in the Ontario Provincial Police, who have been monitoring the blockade near Belleville.
While officers in some parts of the country have enforced court orders and removed protesters blocking access to ports in Vancouver and Delta, police in Ontario have not cleared out the Belleville blockade in Tyendinaga Township, near Mohawk territory. That protest is along a major freight and Via Rail corridor. CN cancelled all freight traffic in its eastern Canada network last week, and Via Rail, which runs on CN tracks, cancelled most of its passenger trips.
In response, many have called for police to end the protests, including Conservative party leadership hopefuls Peter Mackay and Erin O’toole. The current leader, Andrew Scheer, demanded last week that Public Safety Minister Bill Blair use his authority under the RCMP Act to end what Scheer called the “illegal blockades.”
Trudeau, in Germany at the time, shot back that Canada is not a country “where politicians get to tell the police what to do in operational matters.”
Ontario Premier Doug Ford spoke with Trudeau late Sunday and issued a statement saying the government must “provide detail on a clear plan to ensure an end to this national issue.”
The relationship between politicians and police has been the subject of intense scrutiny in the past. In 2007, the Ipperwash Inquiry into the death of Dudley George, an Indigenous man shot and killed by the OPP in 1995 at a standoff in Ipperwash Provincial Park, concluded that there had not been inappropriate political influence but throughout the crisis, there was “a considerable lack of understanding about the appropriate relationship between police and government.”
“The OPP’S wish to pursue a go-slow approach contrasted with the (Harris) government’s desire for a quick end to the occupation,” says the report’s conclusion. “The allegation of political interference in OPP operations and decision-making was one of most significant concerns about Ipperwash.”
Among its recommendations: “There should be a buffer between the Incident Commander (the officer in charge of operations on scene) and politicians whether from the federal, provincial or local orders of government.”
Bruce Chapman, who heads the Police Association of Ontario, said police have learned and evolved in the wake of Ipperwash. The proper way to approach such issues, he said, is to “ensure everyone is heard and understood.”
While his association does not represent the OPP officers on the scene at Tyendinaga, he does represent police
THERE’S ALWAYS THE FEAR OF PEOPLE GETTING HURT.
officers monitoring protests elsewhere in Ontario. His association represents 47 local police associations and some 18,000 officers.
Broadly speaking, said Stamatakis, police take direction from politicians because they enforce the law politicians create. But politicians should not get involved in the specifics of an operation, he said.
“Once an injunction’s granted or an offence occurs, it’s really to the discretion of the police to determine when or if enforcement action is appropriate,” Stamatakis said. “The last thing you want to do is take immediate enforcement action which then could perhaps have an aggravating effect.”
Chapman also called on politicians to intervene. If police have to enforce an injunction, he said, “there’s always the fear of people getting hurt,” whether police or protesters.
“My preference would be that there be a political solution to this whole thing and we can avoid the police having to take any enforcement action, quite frankly,” said Stamatakis.