By Arthur Weinreb
Tuesday, May 8, 2007
Last Friday, Ontario PC leader John Tory addressed a breakfast meeting of the Ontario Association of Police Services Boards in Owen Sound. The theme of the opposition leader's speech was that no one in Ontario should be beneath the law, above the law or beyond the law. That a political leader feels that such a speech has to be made in present day Ontario says a lot about the way our province and our country are being run.
The interesting aspect of Tory's speech was when he was discussing the fact that no one should be above the law. He mentioned the current incident in Deseronto where native protestors blocked the main CN line on the Toronto-Montreal corridor. He also spoke about the long simmering situation in Caledonia.
Tory buys into the notion that the government of Ontario has no right to give political direction to the province's police forces. While this principle is admirable; even necessary, lest the police end up simply doing the bidding of politicians, it totally ignores the reality of both the above situations. Police in Ontario have been given the absolute authority to ignore injunctions and to refuse to carry out the lawful orders of the province's courts. This is fine with Premier McGuinty and it seems to be just peachy with the opposition leader even though he says that defying court injunctions "just cannot be an option".
John Tory rejects the idea of sending in the police to solve these situations. "People with political agendas will always say this means sending in the police". So now anyone who thinks that the police should be used prevent or end an illegal occupation or blockade or enforce a court order isn't merely a citizen who thinks that the law should be obeyed – they have "a political agenda". Of course the reference to "political agendas" is code for being a racist.
The PC leader says that as long as violence in not being used, there should be no "confrontation". Lots of people manage to break the law without being violent. Prostitutes who patrol the track areas of the province's cities and shoplifters aren't violent. But they seem to get "confronted" whenever police have the proper grounds to believe that they are breaking the law. If this non-confrontational approach to selected law breakers isn't two tiered justice, it's hard to know what is.
Not to worry though; John's got an idea. Tory wants to pursue civil remedies against those favoured groups who do not resort to violence. If by civil remedies he means civil injunctions, they won't be enforced any more than currently obtained injunctions have been. Tory is probably talking about "suing the bastards". Then the illegal acts will drag on as long as the court proceedings will and the only difference in the end will be that the taxpayers will be on the hook for all the costs. And if judgments are obtained, how will they be enforced? Hey, maybe we could just give these groups all the disputed land and then grab it back to satisfy any judgment that is obtained. That will sure solve the problem.
Of course none of Tory's ideas does any good to the victims of these illegal acts; the passengers who just wanted to travel by train between Montreal and Toronto and more importantly, the families whose property abuts the Douglas Creek Estates and whose way of life have been severely altered by the occupation that began over a year ago. They are seemingly no more important to Tory than they are to Dalton McGuinty.
Drug dealers have money. If Tory is really serious about his proposal, let's seem him go up to the Jane/Finch corridor in Toronto's north end. Let him tell a bunch of black drug dealers that if they refrain from the use of violence, they will not be confronted by the police. We will however, pursue civil remedies against them; grab their cars and perhaps even their guns. This will never happen of course. Despite the nuanced differences between Dalton McGuinty's inactions and John Tory's ideas, Tory's plans will still result in Ontario being subjected to two tiered justice.
Liberals, John Tory – same old story.
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