But mainly Justin.
The party of Peter Lougheed in third place: never thought I’d live to see that. Although some of us were rash enough to predict it.
(Oh, and all my Calgary high school teachers who called me a socialist? Suck it.)
Somewhere, Alison Redford and Danielle Smith are laughing.
…not that anyone ever listens to me about these things.
It was Summer, around 4 a.m.: Dr. John Booth, a veterinarian, awoke from his sleep with a start. A man dressed in black was standing over him, pointing a gun at his head.
“What’s your name?” the man in black yelled. “Who else is in the house?”
Booth’s wife, Hannah, had been sleeping in another room with their six-month-old son, Finn. Three other men in black were inside the West-end house, also waving around guns. Hannah was jarred awake, terrified, and Finn started to cry. The men in black wouldn’t identify themselves, and they weren’t wearing badges, but it was apparent that they might be police. As he was handcuffed – to be hauled outside his home in his pajamas, and forced to sit on the curb – John Booth demanded to see a warrant.
The men in black said they had an arrest warrant, and a search warrant, but that was a lie. They didn’t have a warrant. In fact, they had the wrong house. They were looking for a G20 protestor named “Peter,” not John Booth.
The Toronto Police Service’s “contact card” requires an officer to report on a person’s colour before even taking note of things like their address, telephone number or driver’s licence. Toronto’s black population is just over eight per cent – but blacks are carded by the city’s police force just under 30 per cent of the time.
In a Toronto Life magazine piece Cole later did, he writes evocatively about that night in 2008. As they detained Cole and his friends, the police ran the siren on their cruiser. They then demanded to know what Cole was doing. “Walking,” he said. The ordered the trio to produce identification, and then got on their radio to request backup. A police superintendant quickly arrived and required the trio to empty their pockets. He body searched Cole first.
Cole recalls the senior officer saying: “I want you to tell me if I’m going to find anything you shouldn’t have,” he said gravely. “I don’t have anything,” I replied, my legs trembling so violently I thought they’d give out from under me. The officer patted down my pockets, my pant legs, my jacket, my underarms.”
After about an hour, the police finally addressed Cole and his friends. “You can go,” one said.
Notwithstanding the fact that I know both of them, I felt it was important to relate to you what happened to them at the hands of Toronto Police. I felt it was important because those of you who don’t live in Toronto perhaps don’t know what it was like here during the G20 – when the police force essentially went mad, and when they seemed intent on turning this city into Guantanamo by the Lake. Those of you who don’t live in Toronto perhaps don’t know what it is like to be a black man here, either, when you are much more likely to be stopped by Toronto police. On suspicion of being, you know, black.
I don’t know the names of the cops who illegally broke into the Booth home and pointed guns at them. I don’t know the names of the cops who have stopped Desmond Cole at least a dozen times in Toronto and illegally demanded information.
I do know, however, who their boss was, at all relevant times: it was Bill Blair.
Yes, that Bill Blair. The same one who announced his intention to run for the Liberal Party of Canada in a Toronto-area riding, mere days after he left his post as Chief of Police. The same Bill Blair who appeared at event with Liberal leader Justin Trudeau in Ottawa. With a straight face, Trudeau said that Blair would have to fight for the Liberal nomination in Scarborough-Southwest – and, almost simultaneously, admitted that his advisers had approached Blair to run.
Asked about the mass arrests at the G20, and the widespread abuse of civil rights that happened there, Trudeau shrugged. “I’m not going to Monday morning quarterback decisions made five years ago by the chief of police,” he said, as Blair beamed at his side. It’s unclear if anyone asked Trudeau about Blair’s enthusiasm for carding blacks, a practice he repeatedly and aggressively defended when he was Chief of Police.
Instead, Trudeau merely said: “One of the things you’ve all seen from me over the past two years is that I have dedicated myself to trying to draw great people into politics.”
Really? Seriously?
If Justin Trudeau really wanted to draw “great people into politics,” he’d be recruiting people like John and Hannah Booth, or Desmond Cole.
Not the thug who victimized them.
This is much needed, and particularly in Toronto’s east end. A group of neo-Nazis and white supremacist have apparently become very active there, and are even making use of the Postal Service to disseminate material that promotes everything from Adolf Hitler to the Heritage Front.
More to come on this very important issue.
Everyone got it wrong in Alberta’s 2012 election – well, almost everyone – so they’re all hedging their bets this time.
CBC numbers guy:
Caution is for the weak, I say. I reckon my pal Brian Topp has overseen a campaign miracle. NDs for a win, je pense. Who’s with me?
1. He never loses.
2. He loves beating guys who (a) don’t tell the truth (b) don’t know when to shut up.
I don’t believe in heroes, per the song. But if I had one from my Carleton J-school days, it would have been Joe Scanlon. With his blunt assessments, with his dry humour, he drove many of my classmates crazy. But to me – just arrived from Calgary, wearing homemade punk T-shirts and ripped skinny jeans – I thought he was awesome. He clearly shared my approach.
“You like pissing people off, don’t you?” he said to me one day, from under that toque.
“I’m not the only one,” I said. He grinned.
He was my HRP advisor – I did it on third party election advertising, which every other prof but Joe thought would never become an issue – and he would often quietly warn me when he felt I was picking too many fights. “Irishman,” he’d say. He got me.
We lost track of each other when I went back home for law school. But when we got back in touch, he revealed himself to possess that same sense of humour. Said I was an “interesting student,” which was high praise indeed.
Joe died suddenly yesterday. I will miss him a lot.
From one of our exchanges, a few weeks back:
RIP, Joe. You will be missed by this Irish troublemaker.
Seems like just yesterday – the Daisy Group opened its doors on May 1, 2006, on Yorkville. Our very first visitor, on the very next day? The best Liberal Party leader since Jean Chretien: Stephane Dion.
Lots of changes since that day, on which I was simultaneously scared and excited. And there are a lot of things I would have done differently, knowing what I know now.
But that’s all stuff in the rearview mirror. Looking forward to the year that is ahead, and our tenth anniversary!
Oh, and here is how we got our name. My daughter liked it, and that was good enough for me.
