Police make their presence know on the streets of Toronto, Ont. June 22/2010. Fences are strewn throughout the downtown core as part of the G20.Kevin Van Paassen
"It was not a secret," Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair said today of the rather shocking temporary powers provided to police by a provincial cabinet order nobody had previously heard about.
Funny. When I was researching this piece, I asked two different spokespeople for the integrated G20 police unit - at least one of whom was from the Toronto force - about the legal justification for the measures being taken around the perimeter. Neither breathed a word about anything about the Public Works Protection Act, let alone any recent cabinet decisions that affected it.
I don't blame Blair if the police's powers have been rashly or unreasonably expanded; that's Dalton McGuinty's responsibility. But either the chief's own officers were weirdly ignorant of their own powers, or he's having us on now.
Adam Radwanski