A Bit More Detail

CBC journalist Dave Seglins’ summary of the Office of the Independent Police Review Director’s report on the role of police in the 2010 G20 protests merits extended reading. A sampler:

Poor planning by the RCMP, OPP and Toronto police for the G20 summit, along with orders by a Toronto deputy police chief to “take back the streets," are to blame for the more than 1,100 arrests during the 2010 weekend summit, says the province's top civilian police watchdog.

“What occurred over the course of the weekend resulted in the largest mass arrests in Canadian history. These disturbances had a profound impact not only on the citizens of Toronto and Canada generally, but on public confidence in the police as well,” writes Gerry McNeilly, head of the Office of the Independent Police Review Director (OIPRD), a citizen agency that today tabled the 300- page systemic review report.

Overall, McNeilly says, the G20 was an unprecedented event in the city’s history — one police forces were unprepared for.

“It is fortunate that, in all the confusion, there were no deaths,” McNeilly writes.

McNeilly concludes that police had legitimate concerns and faced challenges tracking “black bloc” vandals intent on violence and criminal activity as they hid within crowds of peaceful demonstrators.

But the OIPRD reports that police also had a responsibility to balance law enforcement with citizens' rights to demonstrate.

He concluded some officers used “excessive force” to clamp down on any and all protesters, with Toronto police commanders acting on orders for mass arrests.

Deputy Chief Tony Warr issued such a directive late on June 26 following a day in which police lost control and saw windows smashed and a police car set ablaze.

Gerry McNeilly, head of the Office of the Independent Police Review Director, speaks to reporters about G20 protests in June 2010. (Dave Seglins/CBC)“The night shift incident commander said Deputy police Chief Warr told him that he wanted him to take back the streets,” writes McNeilly in the report. McNeilly said the commander told him, “'I understood his [Warr's] instructions to mean that he wanted me to make the streets of Toronto safe again. He wanted the streets that had been made unsafe by the terrorists that were attacking our city to be made safe again by restoring order.'"

Referring to protesters in such a way left the impression that they were criminals, the report says, and that attitude resulted in the decision to contain and arrest approximately 1,100 people during the weekend summit.

It’s rather impressive that Rob Ford’s political career is fast approaching a point where a possible deposition from his position for violating provincial conflict of interest legislation this September coming will be a relatively dignified ending to the career. The news of his encounter with Toronto Star reporter Daniel Dale outside of Ford’s home, where Dale–investigating reports that Ford was interested in buying city-owned property–was confronted by an angry, yelling, running Rob Ford and forced to leave, leaving his phone and camera behind.

I understand that Ford may have felt he was being spied on, and that he’s fully entitled to his privacy. That being said, if you want someone to get off your land, there are better ways to go about it instead of charging gung-ho at a guy whose only weapon is a cell phone. What, are you afraid he’s going to slowly radiate your brain to death?

This isn’t about Ford’s ideology, or his point of view, or anything other than the fact that this kind of conduct is not becoming of a representative of Toronto. I don’t think highly of Ford as a mayor, and it has less to do with his politics, and more to do with his willingness to put himself in these kinds of situations. If a city elects you to office as a representative of the city, it’s your responsibility to be level-headed and not get into, as Latrice Royale would call it, “Rumpus Room Shenanigans”.

Like it or not, Mayor Ford, your position of power comes with responsibility. YOU are a representation of Toronto. And shit like this is a terrible way to represent the people who gave you your position. You’re supposed to be better than this. Even if the guy was infringing on your territory, charging angrily into a situation without thinking of the consequences instead of following the proper procedures (calmly questioning his actions, asking him to leave, calling for help) is only making the city you claim to speak for look bad.

Toronto’s reputation is increasingly undermined by the antics of its bombastic mayor, some political observers and insiders warned a day after Rob Ford’s latest clash with the media.

[. . .]

Counc. Shelley Carroll, who has frequently butted heads with the mayor, said his chronic “overreactions” are drawing jokes and eye rolls in political circles outside the city.

“It’s the conversation opener” when meeting officials across Canada and even parts of the U.S., she said Thursday.

Wednesday’s incident “takes us into the realm of _ one could almost say _ international embarrassment,” she added.

Graham White, a political science professor at the University of Toronto, said Ford’s blunders have given the city “a really bad image” beyond simple ridicule.

Unlike former mayor Mel Lastman, whose many gaffes both irritated and charmed the public, Ford “is coming across as a thug,” a far more alarming reputation, he said.

The mayor’s threatened media blackout is “absolutely appalling,” White said. That it came on World Press Freedom Day adds a note of irony to an otherwise troubling development, he added.

[. . .]

This isn’t the first time Ford has been involved in a dust-up with a member of the media.

In October, Ford called 911 after Mary Walsh of the CBC’s comedy series “22 Minutes” confronted him in his driveway dressed as her Marg Delahunty, Princess Warrior character.

Ford, who has had death threats, said he didn’t know who Walsh was and feared for his safety.

Dale, if you’ve never met him, is a mild-mannered, quiet, gentle guy. He is an award-winning journalist. And he has handled the media attention this situation has garnered with a great deal of composure.

None of that matters for the purpose of this point. The point would hold even if Dale was a talentless loudmouth who bungled at every turn.

What matters is that Dale had a 300-pound angry man with a football player’s build coming at him. He got the hell out of there. And for this he has been widely mocked.

We can continue to discuss those other questions about media relations at City Hall, but there should be no debate about whether running from a guy who is twice your size and has his fist raised, when nobody else is in danger and nothing but your phone is at stake, makes you less of a man.

It makes you a sensible human being with survival instincts. It means you are capable of keeping your head under pressure. It is, most of all, a sign that you have a sense of proportion—that you prize safety over some ego-driven display of bravado that can make a precarious situation worse. And if you did run when there was something more vital at stake—someone else’s safety, for instance—that wouldn’t make you less of a man, either, though it might make you less of a person.

[. . .]

Maybe the Star does have a vendetta against the mayor. Or maybe this is just the kind of scrunity they bring to every mayor: they sent a photographer to David Miller’s house to see if he kept his lights on during Earth Hour back when he was in office, after all. But whether he should have been working on this story or not, at that hour or not, nobody should fault a male reporter—one working on a real estate story in Toronto rather than, say, a street battle in Syria—for running from a raised fist.

Remember how I asked last night what Conrad Black’s fate would be, bereft of Canadian citizenship but wanting entry?

Right.

It was never that up in the air, and to be sure there is a valid humanitarian case to be made for allowing his entry. I just find it more than a bit ironic that he wants to be Canadian again after condemning Canadian citizenship as a prize that might be attractive to desperate Haitians and Romanians but was otherwise lacking.

Former media mogul Conrad Black has been given permission to return to Canada after his release from a Florida jail, which could happen as early as Friday.

The federal government has cleared the way for Black’s return by granting him a one-year temporary resident permit which is valid from May 2012 to May 2013, according to a source.

[. . .]

The authorization of a temporary permit is the first step in Black’s quest to return to Canada long-term — but he will have to pass through a series of immigration hurdles to become a Canadian citizen again.

In 2001, the Montreal-born Black gave up his Canadian citizenship to accept a peerage in Britain’s House of Lords. He did this because then-prime minister Jean Chretien would not allow him to accept the title as a Canadian citizen.

[. . .]

Black has made it clear he wants to return to Canada, but his criminal conviction and lack of Canadian citizenship pose problems.

Black’s ultimate goal is to once again become a citizen. But he can only be considered for citizenship after he has successfully attained permanent residency status and has lived in the country for at least one year. Experts have questioned how easy it will be for Black to get permanent residency status, given his criminal conviction.

[. . .]

On Parliament Hill Tuesday, Immigration Minister Jason Kenney would not say whether Black had been granted the permit. But he did answer questions about the case in general.

He said that foreign nationals are eligible to apply for temporary resident permits to come to Canada. He said he couldn’t comment on Black’s case in the absence of Black’s explicit permission without violating the Citizenship Act.

“It’s the only legal answer I can give,” Kenney told reporters. “If anyone of you can obtain a waiver from the privacy act from Mr. Black, we’d be happy to release all the details of any application, how it was considered and according to what criteria.”

[. . .]

Every year, officials from the Citizenship and Immigration department approve more than 10,000 temporary resident permits for foreign nationals, he said, and “a very large number” of those permits help to overcome inadmissibility for foreign nationals with criminal records if federal officials determine it’s a non-violent offence, the individual poses a low risk to reoffend and does not pose a risk to Canadian society.

Federal officials also will consider such other criteria as whether the person has long-standing ties to the country, family connections, and humanitarian and compassionate considerations, Kenney added.

Conrad Black, former Canadian citizen and conservative pundit and press baron, currently a British citizen who is still a pundit but who is also serving hard time in an American prison, is going to be released from prison soon.

Fallen Canadian-born media tycoon Conrad Black is scheduled to be released from a U.S. prison by next weekend, according to corrections officials.

The Federal Bureau of Prisons online inmate locator lists Black’s release date from Miami’s Federal Correction Institution as next Saturday.

Bureau spokeswoman Tracy Billingsley told CBC News the date is only a “projected estimate” of a release date but is “generally accurate.’” But she added Black could be free as early as Friday.

“When a release date falls on a weekend, we can release them on the Friday prior to that weekend,” Billingsley said Sunday.

Black, 67, was resentenced last June to 42 months in prison on fraud and obstruction of justice charges.

Black had already served 29 months in the Coleman federal prison in Florida before the U.S. Supreme Court struck down some of his initial convictions, citing a misuse of the “honest services” provision of the U.S. fraud statute. His original sentence was for 78 months in prison after multiple convictions on fraud and obstruction of justice charges.

Conrad Black is Canadian-born, and was a Canadian citizen from birth. Black famously renounced his citizenship for Britain’s in 2001, following the outcome of the case Black v. Chrétien wherein the Canadian courts confirmed that the Canadian prime minister did have the right to ask the British queen not to confer titles of nobility on a Canadian citizen. Black’s renunciation was made quite happily, accompanied by a denunciation of Canada generally. When he was hit with fraud charges, Black tried to regain his Canadan citizenship, but by the time he was sentenced to prison–amid a fair degree of happiness by Canadians unfond of Black–he was far from getting it.

The question now being asked, in the National Post he founded and in the Globe and Mail and in the Canadian Press, is how can Black come back to Canada? Black’s unusual citizenship status was long noted as having strongly negative implications for his desire to live in Canada after his release, as I noted in a July 2010 [FORUM] post. As a convicted felon, the Canadian Press’ Michelle McQuigge confirms, his options are few.

Joel Sandaluk, partner with immigration firm Mamann, Sandaluk and Kingwell Llp, said Black’s pending citizenship will be as complex, unusual and uncertain as his previous clashes with the North American justice system.

[. . .]

Black was born in Toronto, but gave up his citizenship in 2001 after being offered a peerage in Britain’s House of Lords. Then-prime minister Jean Chrétien forbade him from accepting the role while he held a Canadian passport.

Sandaluk said that decision — made before his legal woes began in the U.S. — means Black must be treated as any other foreign national when applying to move back to Canada full time. Black can only be considered as a potential citizen after attaining permanent residency status and living in the country for at least a year.

Permanent residency, however, seems unlikely due to Black’s criminal record, Sandaluk said.

[. . .]

Although he will complete his sentence and be released on Friday, Sandaluk said his two convictions make him criminally inadmissible for residency in Canada.

Black’s only recourse, he said, is to apply for a temporary resident permit — a document that essentially stands as permission from the federal minister of citizenship and immigration.

“What (the permits) basically are meant to be is a cure-all for any form of inadmissibility,” Sandaluk said, adding the document would allow Black to come to Canada for anything from an overnight visit to a prolonged stay.

Will the Conservative government, long associated with Black and his late media empire, give him this temporary resident permit? Harper had promised back in the day not to, but that day was the day of his minority government. What might a majority government do? And what sort of reaction would it get if it gave Black this temporary residency? (What reaction would it get if it didn’t?)

Toronto city councillor Giorgio Mammoliti’s desire to make the Toronto Islands a red-light district after last month’s Ontario Supreme Court ruling legalizing brothels and the hiring of staff is going to have to wait, for reasons apart from, well, everything. The federal government is appealing the ruling, as Kirk Makin noted in The Globe and Mail.

The federal government has asked the Supreme Court of Canada to put the brakes on the decriminalization of a key prostitution law.

A 30-day stay on imposed by the Ontario Court of Appeal last month when it rewrote the pimping provision is due to be lifted later this week.

[. . .]

The expiration of the 30-day delay imparted a sense of urgency to the government’s request for leave to appeal the entire Ontario Court of Appeal ruling.

It stated that an imminent “regulatory void” will permit prostitutes, bodyguards, drivers and booking agents to openly go about their business.

“If the stay is not extended, the public interest, communities and neighbourhoods and the proper administration of justice will suffer irreparable harm,” the Department of Justice application said.

[. . .]

The court imposed a one-year delay before its brothel ruling comes into effect in order for governments and municipalities to prepare for legal brothels.

[. . .]

In application seeking leave to appeal, Mr. Morris said the decision represents “a fundamental shift in criminal law and social policy,” necessitating the Supreme Court making a final decision.

It said that the litigation goes to the heart of Parliament’s ability to create and enforce laws dealing with complex social problems.

It said that the prostitution laws will be applied inconsistently from one province to another – a situation that cannot be allowed to develop.

“It also has a direct impact on both police investigations and prosecutions in Ontario, and an indirect impact upon these outside Ontario, since the judgment may create uncertainty in the validity of these provisions outside Ontario,” the federal brief said.

• Daniel Drezner outlines what’s known to have happened and what’s likely to have happened with Bo Xilai. Brief version? Bo Xilai’s Maoism nearly disrupted the decade’s-end transition in power in China.
• The Global Sociology Blog answers the question of where sociologists’ commentary on the global economic crisis is by pointing out that a lot of the groundwork on economic inequity has already been done. That, and institutional biases militating against in-depth examination in the context of tenure exists.
• This Lawyers, Guns and Money post arguing that there’s no radical Latin American left because Chavez et al aren’t engaged in complete revolutionary transformations of their societies is silly.
• Naked Anthropologist Laura Agustín defines the different segments of the sex industry in Spain.
• Patrick Cain maps the location of marijuana grow-ops in Toronto.
• At The Power and the Money, Douglas Muir makes the depressing case that Assad is likely to stay in power in Syria for the next while.
• Steve Munro considers the question of what is to be down with the eastern waterfront of Toronto.
• Understanding Society’s Daniel Little categorizes the different ways in which historians have analyzed the history of China.

Wow. Glen McGregor and Stephen Maher of the Ottawa Citizen detail the latest developments in the robocalling scandal in last year’s federal election. Is anyone very surprised that whatever happened was centrally directed?

Elections Canada investigators on the trail of the “Pierre Poutine” suspect in the robocalls case have been asking questions about the actions of staff at Conservative party headquarters in Ottawa.

Nearly a year after the investigation began, the agency is trying to determine why database records provided by the party appear to be missing entries that could help identify who downloaded the phone numbers used to make fraudulent robocalls, according to a source familiar with the probe.

Investigators also are inquiring about a phone call from Conservative headquarters, made the day before the election, to RackNine, the Edmonton voice-broadcasting company whose servers were used to send out the robocalls.

On May 2, 2011, thousands of opposition supporters in Guelph, Ont., received a pre-recorded message directing them to vote at the wrong polling station. The electronic trail behind the calls eventually discovered led to a disposable cellphone registered in the fake name of Pierre Poutine.

The party has repeatedly and firmly denied that anybody in its Ottawa offices had anything to do with the Poutine drama, and until recently, the investigation has focused on the team of workers on the unsuccessful campaign of Guelph Conservative candidate Marty Burke.

“As you know, we have proactively reached out to Elections Canada and offered to assist them in any way we can,” party spokesman Fred DeLorey said Monday night. “That includes handing over any documents or records that may assist them.”

But investigators are now combing over access logs for the Conservatives’ Constituent Information Management System (CIMS) to determine who downloaded a list of phone numbers for non-Conservative supporters in Guelph.

They are now certain the list of numbers in Guelph that received the robocalls came directly from CIMS, according to the source. The CIMS data were compared to listings of the outgoing robocalls provided under court order by RackNine and matched perfectly, the source said.

• Andrew Barton at Acts of Minor Treason writes about how the CBC’s innovative programming let him learn and enjoy things he’d otherwise not have. The cutbacks will not do good things for the national broadcaster.
• Jeff Jedras at A BCer in Toronto pins the blame for the massive cost overruns in Canada’s share of the vastly overexpensive F-35 fighter program squarely on the Conservative Party and its ministers.
• Centauri Dreams’ Paul Gilster shares the good news that the United States will resume producing the radioactive isotope plutonium-238 so as to provide the necessary fuel for outer-system space probes.
• Crasstalk’s Mean Ol’ Liberal reflects on the meaning of the bulls of Wall Street, not only the statue but the speculators.
• Daniel Drezner thinks that if China’s leadership really does see global geopolitics as a zero-sum phenomenon, China’s relationship with the United States may face substantially more risks than previously thought.
• At Geocurrents, Martin Lewis notes that the northern half of Mali claimed by Tuareg rebels for their national homeland actually has very large non-Tuareg populations.
• The Global Sociology Blog notes the incentives to sociopathy in the global economy.
• Noel Maurer, at The Power and the Money, notes that the Mexican city of Monterrey has a rather high population density by American standards, and a high density of police, too. Thus, its crime rate has little if anything to do with the city’s sprawl.
• Registan notes the ongoing solidification and intensification of ethnic divisions between Kyrgyz and Uzbek in southern Kyrgyzstan in the years after the deadly Osh riots.
• Torontoist’s Todd Aalgard notes that plans to immediately rebuild a platground in Toronto’s High Park are stymied by the need to meet city safety and building codes.

• Andrew Barton at Acts of Minor Treason despairs on the occasion of Earth Hour. Broader recognition of the critical problems facing the environment of Earth is so badly needed.
• Bruce Sterling quotes at length from Michel de Montaigne, pioneering essayist and critical futurist.
• At Crasstalk, LaZiguezon describes, in pictures and words, five haunting abandoned places: a mine in California’s Death Valley, Cyprus’ abandoned international airport, and more.
• The Everyday Sociology Blog’s Janis Prince Inniss comments on the way that the Trayvon Martin shooting case in Florida is polarizing people into two audiences, once seeing his shooter as an inveterate racist and the other blaming the victim. Intermediate situations are possible: class might be more of a factor than race, for instance.
• Eastern approaches notes that after having been stripped of his doctorate for plagiarism, Hungarian president Pál Schmitt has resigned.
• Geocurrents notes South Korea’s significant presence in post-Communist Central Asia.
• The Language Log’s Victor Mair calls for the use of more pinyin in Chinese classes to help boost education.
• At the Naked Anthropology, Laura Agustín comments on the recent ruling on prostitution in Ontario, noting that the ban on public solicitation hits relatively disadvantaged prostitutes worse than their more advantaged peers who can better take advantage of the new liberalization.
• Registan is unimpressed by Mitt Romney’s identification of Russia as the United States’ main enemy.
• Yorkshire ranter Alex Harrowell notes that great efforts are being made to keep new Chinese soldiers depoliticized.

On Monday, I linked to Morocco-born Abdellah Taïa‘s biographical essay in the New York Times describing how he, an “effeminate little boy” was also a “boy to be sacrificed”, how his non-conformity with the gender norms of his conservative Moroccan origins left him open to abuse by everyone. Not a woman to be sequestered, certainly not a proper man, young Taïa’s effeminacy marked him as an acceptable sexual object. It all culminated for him one night in a scene out of Biblical Sodom, when one night Taïa’s home was surrounded by men clamouring to have sex with him.

It all came to a head one summer night in 1985. It was too hot. Everyone was trying in vain to fall asleep. I, too, lay awake, on the floor beside my sisters, my mother close by. Suddenly, the familiar voices of drunken men reached us. We all heard them. The whole family. The whole neighborhood. The whole world. These men, whom we all knew quite well, cried out: “Abdellah, little girl, come down. Come down. Wake up and come down. We all want you. Come down, Abdellah. Don’t be afraid. We won’t hurt you. We just want to have sex with you.”

They kept yelling for a long time. My nickname. Their desire. Their crime. They said everything that went unsaid in the too-silent, too-respectful world where I lived. But I was far, then, from any such analysis, from understanding that the problem wasn’t me. I was simply afraid. Very afraid.

I’m willing to bet that this sort of blatant, almost socially acceptable if not socially expected, sexual abuse of gay children was exotic to most of Taïa’s readers, at least in North America and Europe. I fear that the lurid explicitness of Taïa’s description blinded many of these readers–including me–to the fact that very similar things go on in their countries.

The general consensus is that, while, non-heterosexual men and women are no more likely to molest children than their heterosexual counterparts, non-heterosexual children suffer substantially higher rates of harassment and assault–including sexual assault–than their heterosexual peers. The problem is very serious.

Martin and Hetrick (1988) in their study of gay and lesbian teens reported that the third most frequently reported problem for gay teens was violence. Over 40% of their sample had suffered violence because of their sexual orientation, and 49% of the violence occurred within the family. Others have obtained similar findings (Harry, 1989). They also reported that 22% of gay teens in their sample had been sexually abused. Consistent with sexual abuse of female children, most were abused or raped by male relatives. Most blamed themselves or were blamed by others because of their sexual orientation.

In a 2005 post at the Box Turtle Bulletin, Jim Burroway notes the existence of two categories of sexual molesters of children, fixated and regressed. Fixated molesters haven’t progressed beyond beyond childhood, basically. Regressed molesters?

[T]he regressed molester is very different. His attraction to children is usually more temporary. Unlike the fixated molester, the regressed molester’s primary sexual attraction is toward other adults. But stressful conditions that go along with adult responsibly or difficulties in his adult relationships may overwhelm him, causing his sexual focus to “regress” towards children. This regression sometimes serves as a substitute for adult relationship, and his attraction to children may vary according to the varying stresses he encounters in his adult life demands.

In some cases, he may temporarily relate to the child as a peer, much as a fixated offender relates to children. But more often, he is simply lashing out against the stresses in his life, and the child becomes a convenient target. The offender may find a sense of power in his sexual relationship with a child that he doesn’t get with an adult. When that happens this relationship with the child is often violent. But regardless of the nature of the relationship, the gender of the child is often irrelevant — it’s the easy access and vulnerability that makes the child a target.

Regressed offenders are typically heterosexual in their adult relationships. Unlike our three percent sample, they date women and marry them. They often are parents, stepparents or extended family members of their victims. By all appearances — and by their own self-identification — they are straight.

Regressed molesters describe their attraction to young boys as lying in their non-masculine physical appearance: “the young boys did not have any body hair and that their bodies were soft and smooth.”

I’m willing to bet that non-gender-conforming behaviour is also a risk factor for children–in fact, one recent study indicates just this.

Some of the childhood abuse victims in the study were gay, but most of them were straight—nearly 60 percent of them identified as heterosexual, and another 25 percent of them identified as “mostly” hetero, compared to about 10 percent who identified as gay or lesbian. (Unfortunately, the study didn’t also ask them if they identified as transgender).

Previous studies on gender identity and abuse focused squarely on “small samples of gay, lesbian, and bisexual adults recruited through gay and lesbian community venues.” They hadn’t looked into how homophobia affects kids who aren’t gay, but are perceived—or feared—to be so. Homophobia is so pervasive that even the perception that a kid might be gay can inspire homophobic parents to “become more physically or psychologically abusive in an attempt to discourage their child’s gender nonconformity or same-sex orientation,”the study posits. Outside influence hurts, too. Some parents may abuse their children because they “think others will assume their child will be gay or lesbian.”

Is Abdellah Taïa’s experience of attempted sexual abuse on the grounds of his childhood gender non-conformity really so foreign? Or does it represent a phenomenon that only now, as the bullying and abuse of non-conforming children is confronted really for the first time, people are starting to pick up on everywhere? I say that having this phenomenon hidden from any kind of public discussion is just another way of tacitly accepting it.