PM security fail an embarrassment
Toronto police say they’re “reviewing” what happened during a protest on Saturday night that led to cancellation of a dinner Justin Trudeau was to host for the visiting prime minister of Italy, Giorgia Meloni.
But if there’s a review to be done, it should focus on why a few hundred noisy demonstrators were allowed to derail a meeting between two G7 leaders, much to the embarrassment of Canada.
The dinner, including guests from the Italian-Canadian community, was to take place at the Art Gallery of Ontario. It should have been obvious that an event featuring two such controversial leaders would be targeted by protesters, especially since pro-Palestinian demonstrators have been taking every opportunity to go into the streets and make their views known.
And in this case it was a legitimate time and place to protest. They weren’t demonstrating outside a Jewish-owned business, a Jewish community centre, Mount Sinai Hospital or a synagogue in Thornhill, as happened on Sunday.
All those should be out of bounds for protests about Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza and the thousands of civilian deaths it’s caused. They cross the line between legitimate protest and antisemitism and must not be tolerated.
But demonstrating outside a meeting of two prime ministers? That’s to be expected and should be allowed, as long as it stays within the law. And in fact, while the roughly 400 demonstrators were noisy and disruptive, police said there no arrests or injuries on Saturday night.
You’d think security forces — police and the RCMP detail responsible for the prime minister’s security — would make sure an event like that was held at a venue that wouldn’t be so vulnerable to a completely predictable protest.
You’d think they’d make sure entrances could be controlled and there’d be a safe way to get the leaders in and out. You’d think they’d be ready for a few hundred screaming demonstrators who’ve been turning up all round the city.
Instead, it was the demonstrators who got their way by shutting down the meeting. Toronto police say it was the RCMP who made the call because it wasn’t safe to move Trudeau and Meloni into the building.
Surely we can do better. Protesters have a right to protest, but they don’t have a right to dictate who can meet and when. Security forces should be better prepared and not cave in at the first sign of trouble. Why that didn’t happen is worth “reviewing.”
On another matter entirely: I got quite a lot of pushback last week for criticizing Doug Ford’s comments about wanting more “like-minded” judges who believe in “keeping the bad guys in jail.”
Some readers pointed out that the Trudeau Liberals have a habit of appointing judges who’ve donated to their party. There’s truth in that, and it’s reprehensible. But Trudeau wasn’t out proclaiming he’d “quadruple down” on bending the courts to his will. Ford was.
But there was one criticism that should not go unchallenged — the notion that Ford’s desire for “tough” judges is no different from the Liberals’ goal of promoting diversity on the bench. One is just the conservative agenda, the other the liberal one, goes this argument, which has been extensively aired in the National Post. The comparison is ridiculous and patronizing. There’s a suggestion that judges who aren’t white men will be either less qualified or inclined to decide cases in a particular way — presumably “softer” on crime in accord with some liberal/Liberal ideology.
There’s zero evidence for either of these points. Various studies have been done on how female judges differ from male ones, but there are few firm conclusions. There’s certainly nothing to suggest that female or non-white judges are tougher or less tough. “It’s not a good predictor,” says a defence lawyer I know who’s in court almost every day.
What the Trudeau Liberals have done is change the law to, for example, make it easier to get convictions for sexual assault. But all judges — wherever they fall on the toughness scale — must apply those rules. It has nothing to do with their gender or skin colour.