Editorial

Criminalizing Dissent: From APEC to
Quebec City

Canadians were scandalized when the first televised pictures of police pepper-spraying protesters at the APEC Summit in Vancouver aired on November 25, 1997. They became even more angry when, confronted by journalists about police attacks, Prime Minister Chretien lamely joked: "For me, pepper, I put it on my plate."

On August 6, nearly four years after police arrested dozens of protesters, strip-searched female protesters in public, pepper-sprayed large groups and tore down signs and banners, former judge Ted Hughes released his report on police actions during the Summit. Hughes found that the RCMP "did not meet an acceptable and expected standard of competence and professionalism and proficiency". His many recommendations include calling on the leadership of the RCMP to ensure that "generous opportunity will be afforded for peaceful protesters to see and be seen in their protest activities by guests to the event" and ensuring that the RCMP "brook no intrusion or interference whatever from government officials as they meet the responsibilities of providing the agreed upon security services."

This latter recommendation is in reference to one of the conclusions Hughes draws in the report. Specifically, he says that the conduct of the RCMP in forcefully removing a group of protestors living in a camp near the Summit site at the University of British Columbia "was directly attributable to the actions of the federal government. It was Mr. Carle of the Prime Minister's Office who ... directed the RCMP to remove the protesters..."

The Chretien government has, predictably, reacted by denying any improper involvement.

The key thing about the Hughes report, though, is how completely irrelevant its conclusions and recommendations have subsequently been rendered. What was scandalous in 1997 had become common practice by the time the police operations went into effect against protesters at the Summit of the Americas in Quebec City this past April.

While the Hughes report argues that police forces simply require better training, including advice from legal counsel on balancing the need for security at international events with the rights to free speech and assembly of protesters, the Quebec and Canadian governments boasted that police in Quebec City were the best trained force ever in Canadian history to deal with mass protests. Yet the pepper spray, use of violence against peaceful protesters, mass arrests, unlawful detainments and more increased dramatically. Much more so than at the APEC Summit, Quebec City was turned into an armed camp, with a huge wall of concrete and steel to separate protesters from the leaders of the Americas.

With each anti-globalization protest since APEC - Seattle, Washington, Quebec City, Gotenburg. Genoa - the level of state violence has increased. The capitalist democracies have developed an entire language to justify cracking down on "violent" protesters and have openly begun employing agents provocateur as a prelude to their crackdowns. So far, this has culminated in the murder by Italian police forces of Carlos Giuliani during the protests against the G8 in Genoa last month.

The flaw in the Hughes report is that it attempts to perpetuate the myth of an apolitical, neutral state which has the duty "to serve and protect" all citizens at a time when that myth has been shattered by the actions of the state itself. The reality which has been exposed during the four years between APEC and Quebec City is that the Canadian state is an instrument in the hands of the ruling elite to "serve and protect" it from the Canadian people. Therefore, regardless of the Hughes report or any similar report which may be issued in the future, as the movement against neo-liberal globalization grows, that movement must be prepared to meet the ever increasing violence of the Canadian state.