TORONTO - Civilian boards tasked with monitoring police services are ill-equipped to hold law enforcement accountable, speakers argued at a public hearing into policing at last June's G20 summit.
There needs to be a mechanism guaranteeing regular audits of police decisions and behaviour by an independent body, said Graeme Norton of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, one of about two dozen speakers at the event.
Police boards are "seen as reluctant to challenge police," which erodes public confidence in the justice system, Norton told the Wednesday night session at Toronto's Metro Hall.
The hearing organized by the Toronto Police Services Board was billed as an opportunity for the public to offer insight into the role civilian oversight should play in policing major events.
Ideas gleaned from Wednesday's hearing and two others will form part of a review launched by the board last fall to examine the board's role in directing the policing of last summer's meeting of world leaders.
Many who spoke Wednesday alluded to systemic problems within the police service and deliberate efforts to shield officers accused of civil rights abuses.
More than 1,100 people were arrested and detained during the G20 weekend in what Ontario Ombudsman Andre Marin called a mass violation of civil rights.
"The notion of a blue wall of silence is not only theoretical, it has entirely played itself out in the post-G20 investigation," said lawyer Julian Falconer, who represents several people arrested and detained during the summit.
Falconer called the Toronto force's inability to identify officers accused of assaulting protesters "a disturbing and unseemly police coverup."
Others suggested police should involve community groups and activists in planning security for major events such as the summit.
Speakers overwhelmingly demanded a public inquiry into abuses of civil rights during the summit, though Premier Dalton McGuinty had again quashed the idea earlier in the day.
McGuinty has said that it's up to the federal government to call for an inquiry into the mass arrests.
McGuinty also refused to apologize for the secret law the Liberal government passed governing police powers to detain and arrest people during the international event.
McGuinty admitted only that his government should have better communicated the provisions of the G20 law.
He said the hearings that began Wednesday will help officials understand what to do in future situations.
Two more hearings are scheduled for June 6 and June 13 at the Etobicoke Civic Centre and Scarborough Civic Centre, respectively.
John Morden, a former associate chief justice of Ontario, is conducting the review and is to issue a report and recommendations.
