We can look to Seattle for a way forward:

We can always learn something from the accidents of history.

At the WTO protests in Seattle in 1999 there was a wave of unjust arrests and police brutality. Yet while the scale of these arrests was much less than that of those in Toronto (just over 600 in Seattle to the 1000 plus in Toronto), we can still learn from the response after the fact:

• The city of Seattle avoided a costly civil suit by agreeing to pay the 157 protesters arrested outside of the "no protest zone" a combined total of $250,000 in damages.
• A federal jury ruled that the police violated the protesters 4th Amendment constitutional rights.
• The chief of police during the riots, Norman Stamper, accepted full responsibility and resigned from his post.
• The Mayor of Seattle, Paul Schell, was defeated in the next election, in part, because of his part in the handling of the protests. Interestingly, in part, because of his Blair-like blunder. In Dan Savage's words: "In an absolutely amazing display of political ineptitude, Schell's handling of the WTO protests managed to piss off both the city's law-and-order crowd (by not clamping down right away) and the city's lefties and civil libertarians (by coming down too hard when they did clamp down)."

While similar consequences would be welcomed in Toronto (with McGuinty taking Stamper's place), the lesson wasn't taken to heart and not enough was done to ensure that people's rights would be protected at future world economic meetings. In calling for a public inquiry into the planning and policing of the G20 in Toronto we hope to ensure that charter rights of Canadians will be protected and that future meetings of the G20 will not endanger the rights and safety of protesters and bystanders alike.


Post Script: A Federal Judge in the U.S. just approved a settlement for the victims of mass arrest in 2000 for $13.7 million.