Dark Days for Toronto, and for Canada

The G20 summit was touted by its supporters as an opportunity for Canada, and specifically Toronto, to be spotlit on the world stage - as if that in and of itself should be considered a virtue. However, what has indeed been held under the bright lights are the excesses of privilege, and the sad reality that Canada is more plutocracy than democracy. Much has been written questioning the unimaginable amount of money that has been spent on these few days. I'm waiting for the exposés that reveal which contractors-linked-to-Harper-Conservatives have newly lined pockets as a result of these wasteful expenditures, but that's for another day. My immediate concern is the glibness with which the Constitution and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms has so casually been thrown under the police van, and truncheoned into submission under the heavy hand of pre-fascist tendencies.

Some may accuse me of hyperbole and over-reaction. However, consider this completely disrespectful - dare I say shameful - riposte proffered by our provincial premier, Dalton-the-Glib:

“I just think it’s in keeping with the values and standards of Ontarians,” McGuinty told the Toronto Star on Friday amid a battery of complaints from opposition parties, city councillors, civil libertarians and regular Torontonians that the new rules were kept secret and, some say, may go too far.

 Secret regulations that reverse the rights of citizens? No notice, signs, or warnings of new rules of arrest and search and seizure without cause? These are supposedly "in keeping with the values and standards" of the citizenry? In whose wet dreams would those be, Dalton-the-Self-Exalted? It almost goes without saying that no-notice-change-of-law are not in keeping with the values of ANY citizen with whom I am an acquaintance!

Quite a while ago, I posted two references to the creeping infiltration of a police-state mentality into what are otherwise democratic societies governed by rule-of-law. These are well worth reviewing now. One is Dr. Lawrence Britt's Fascism Anyone? The other is a reflection on How Police States Begin. It is important to say that I do not believe that we are YET living in a police state. However - and this is a HUGE however - what Police Chief Bill Blair, OPP Commissioner Julian Fantino, Premier Dalton McGuinty, and Prime Minister Harper all have in common is a sometimes not-so-tacit desire to eliminate that pesky inconvenience, the supreme law of the land, the Constitution and Charter of Rights and Freedoms. With their demonstrated attitude that so profoundly violates the fundamental, espoused values and standards of Canadians none of these men deserve the offices, nor the trust and responsibility, that have been vested in them.

[Technorati tags: g8 | g20 | public works act | charter of rights and freedoms | dalton mcguinty | bill blair | julian fantino | stephen harper]