The authors identify a gap in Canadian policing law. Police have neither common law nor statutory authority to undertake the sorts of public order policing measures that are thought to be essential to securing large public events, such as Vancouver's 2010 Olympics. The paper argues for the adoption of a Public Order Policing Act designed to confer the necessary powers and ensure their operation in a manner that respects constitutional law and fundamental civil liberties.Revised and published as W. Wesley Pue amp; Robert Diab ldquo;The Gap in Canadian Police Powers: Canada Needs 'Public Order Policing' Legislationrdquo; (2010) 28 Windsor Rev. Legal Soc. Issues 87-107 Posted at http://toby.library.ubc.ca/facultypubs/article.cfm?id=2254.
The television spectacles of Oka and the Rodney King affair served to focus public disaffection with the police, a disaffection that has been growing for several years. In Canada, confidence in the police is at an all-time low. At the same time crime rates continue to rise. Canada now has the dubious distinction of having the second highest crime rate in the Western world. How did this state of affairs come about? What do we want from our police? How do we achieve policing that is consistent with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms? The essays in this volume set out to explore these questions. In their introduction, the editors point out that constitutional order is tied to the exercise of power by law enforcement agencies, and that if relations between the police and civil society continue to erode, the exercise of force will rise - a dangerous prospect for democratic societies.
Police Foundations courses in Canadian Government and Administration This publication, the third installment in the Police Powers series, offers students a better understanding of Canadian government and administration as it relates to police powers in Canada. This text provides a useful and reliable foundation for those working to enhance their knowledge of Canadian policing.
Since 9/11, the wars on terror, economic crises, climate change, and humanitarian emergencies have forced decision makers to institute new measures to maintain security. Foreign policy analysts tend to view these decisions as being divorced from ethics, but Unsettled Balance shows that arguments about rights, obligations, norms, and values have played a profound role in Canadian foreign policy and international relations since the 1990s. The contributors to this volume examine a range of topics – from funding for climate change adaptation to the militarization of humanitarian aid – to collectively explore three key questions. What is the meaning of “ethics” and “security,” and how are they linked? To what extent have considerations of ethics and security changed in the twenty-first century? And what are the implications of a shifting historical context for Canada’s international relations? Their conclusions are essential reading for anyone who wants to understand not only how Canada responds to global challenges but also why it responds the way it does.
From late January to mid February 2022, the eyes of Canada—and indeed, the world—were on Ottawa, Ontario as the Trucker Freedom Convoy converged from all parts of the nation. They were there to tell Prime Minister Trudeau that enough was enough, and they were not going to give in to his politicized mandate that required all cross-border truckers to receive the COVID 19 vaccine. Their journey caught the imagination of a nation tired of lockdowns, mandates, and government overreach. Hailed by many as heroes, and by the government and government sponsored media as “terrorists” and a “fringe minority with unacceptable views,” the truckers took an historic stand for freedom on Canadian soil. In 210° Celsius: 16 Ways the Truckers Ignited Canada for the Long Haul, lawyer Barry W. Bussey chronicles the events of the protest, including the invocation of the Emergencies Act, and he highlights the impact the convoy had on Canadians’ perception of government, the judiciary, and personal freedom. Replete with eyewitness testimony from the streets of the capital and the sworn testimony given at the Public Order Emergency Commission (POEC), this thoughtful, well-researched presentation calls on Canadians to reflect on this peaceful protest and the government’s response to COVID-19. The peaceful protest stands as a beacon of how Canadians can stand up to government excess and force changes to government policy. Wherever readers stand on these issues, 210° Celsius: 16 Ways the Truckers Ignited Canada for the Long Haul will stimulate conversation and inspire us all to consider what it means to be a Canadian and what role government should play in our lives.
In The Disappearance of Criminal Law, Richard Jochelson and Kirsten Kramar examine the rationales underpinning Supreme Court of Canada cases that address the power of the police. These cases involve police power in relation to search, seizure and detention; an individual's right to silence, counsel and privacy; and the exclusion of evidence. Together these decisions can be understood as the rules by which good governments should act, and they serve to legitimate the actions of the police. Because there is no singular definition of "police powers," some argue that they do not exist, nor is there a specific theory about such powers, even though the term appears thousands of times in legal databases. Jochelson and Kramar illustrate the ways in which the Supreme Court, by allowing for increased surveillance and control by the state, is using the Charter to impose limitations on the rights of Canadians.
Canada is often lauded as a model democracy that values the constitutional rights of its citizens. So when over a thousand people – most of whom were peaceful protesters or hapless bystanders – were violently arrested and then detained without charge during the G20 Summit in Toronto in 2010, many Canadians felt shock and outrage. Putting the State on Trial: The Policing of Protest during the G20 Summit examines the political, social, and economic conditions that “allowed” the policing of the summit to culminate in human and civil rights violations. Written by a multi-disciplinary group of scholars and legal practitioners, this book contextualizes events before, during, and after the summit from a range of perspectives. Although the G20 protests serve as a point of departure in every chapter, the contributing authors engage with larger questions about the control of dissent, the impact of the securitization and internationalization of Canadian politics, the implications of legal uncertainty, and the accountability vacuum.
