Putting the State on Trial

What can be done to ensure the rights of Canadians are never again trampled by police the way they were during the G20 Summit in Toronto?

Not only were peaceful protestors and innocent bystanders assaulted by police during the G20 Summit in Toronto in June 2010, but the constitutional rights of Canadians were as well. This book contextualizes the events and examines what should be done to safeguard the rights of Canadians to freedom of speech, peaceful assembly, and freedom from arbitrary arrest and detention in the future.

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.