I’ve been thinking a lot about the protest at Nicholas and Laurier and the way it was taken down. The city has some serious ‘splaining to do and significant harm to address

It’s taking me back to 2001 when, following the events of 9/11 a G20 summit was hastily relocated to Ottawa. At the time whenever these summits occurred, there were mobilizations by activists raising the alarm about the harmful impacts of globalization

A diverse coalition assembled to plan events and they included a range of actions and events of the course of a few days. One of these was a planned March, explicitly non-violent and family friendly. Negotiations with police took place and we worked out a route and a plan

The morning of the March, as families, faith groups and others gathered at Lebreton Flats we were greeted not by the bike cop escort we had been promised, but a gauntlet of armed riot police blocking our route

I called my contact in the OPS. “They won’t block you” he said. “So what are we supposed to do, just march through them?” I asked. “They won’t block you” was the reply.

So we started the March, passing the word down the line through our Marshalls to walk right through the police and remain calm. It was a heavy-handed tactic designed to intimidate and terrorize. And it got worse.

The events are well summarized in the report of the Citizens Panel that was convened to examine the events and make recommendations to repair the damage done.

The trauma that is caused by police suppression of protest is real. I have felt it. After the March, during which reporters were beaten and protesters attacked by K-9 units, I took on the role of police observation and make efforts to witness what was going down.

That’s when I was targeted and shot at, as I was trying to witness an arrest. The stories submitted to the Citizens Panel provide a glimpse at the trauma that many experienced that day.

The recommendations might be helpful to review. Some effort was made to repair the damage following these events. But any gains have now been lost because of the actions of the OPS this weekend

Someone needs to answer for this, and I hope that council will demand answers and accountability. But mostly right now I am concerned about the folks who have been harmed. For those who were arrested and those who witnessed. The trauma is real

Let’s make sure they are getting the support they need, and that concrete steps are taken to restore dialogue and establish a process to see meaningful change on all the issues they raised.

Here’s a link to that Citizens Panel BTW http://www.web.ca/~bthomson/geocities/CitizensPanel/overview_report_text.html