By Scott Neigh
Northern Ontario Correspondent

On July 7 and 8, 2010, striking members of United Steel Workers Local 6500 in Sudbury, Ontario, voted 75% in favour of a contract that ended a bitter strike against transnational mining giant Vale Inco. The 3300 strikers had been on the picket lines for almost one year (along with members of Local 6200 in Port Colborne, Ontario, who voted in favour by a similar margin).

Despite the immense effort and sacrifices made by workers over the course of the year-long ordeal, the settlement marks a defeat for a local with a reputation for strength in a town with a reputation for solidarity. It is a hard moment for those who are returning to work -- who endured so much and still lost significant ground -- but as the world faces the renewed neo-liberal assault promised by leaders at the recent G20 summit in Toronto, it is important to ask critical questions that might strengthen all of our struggles in the difficult times ahead.

by Lesley Wood
Toronto Media Co-op

During last week’s G20 summit, police arrested or detained over a thousand people. With guns drawn, they kicked people awake, they threatened, pepper sprayed, TASERed, tear gassed and beat those in the streets. Although the politicians declared the policing at the summit a success, popular anger at the police is at an all time high. At such moments, it is important to look closely at the tactics and strategy that were used to police dissent, not least because the models that are considered successful, tend to spread.

How was the summit in Toronto policed? The website for the Integrated Security Unit argues that “The approach to the Summit would be best described as an expanded version of our approach to previous events based on best practices and the lessons learned.” This seems obvious. However the ‘expansion’ included some new and worrying elements.

by Jeff Shantz
State repression columnist

In events like the G20 protests and clampdown there emerge real opportunities for recognition and understanding that are not always so readily available behind the screen of “business as usual.” The learning curve shifts and some things become much more clear.

by Direct Support Committees of G20 detainees

While G20 leaders met behind a steel cage and a 1-billion dollar Fortress Toronto operation, we witnessed an unprecedented coordinated police operation in the city of Toronto. Police brutality against protest participants, journalists, legal observers, medics, and random passersby came in the form of indiscriminate arrests, beatings, pepper spray, rubber bullets, police horse charges, illegal searches and seizures, and extended arbitrary detentions.  While in custody, people were forced into steel cage cells with up to 40 people per cell; made to sleep on concrete floors with open bathrooms; denied food, water, toilet paper, and sanitary products; subjected to sexual harassment, threats, humiliation, and intimidation; and refused access to medical attention, phone calls, and legal counsel.

Riot Police protect the banks at King and Bay, June 26, 2010, PHOTO: Ali Mustafa (cc)

by Jeff Shantz
State Repression Columnist

In the days following the mass police assaults on organizers, demonstrators, and bystanders during the G8/G20 events, even as comrades linger in squalid detention centres and jails, a troubling notion is taking shape, seemingly gaining traction, among activist circles as well as some sectors of the general public more broadly. This notion suggests that the police in Toronto acted in a way that was somehow atypical or out of the ordinary. Even more there is a sense that the police could have “kept order.” Some public discussion suggests that policing during the G8/G20 reflects a breakdown, a failure to carry out their duties “properly.” Incredibly, during a rally in support of people in detention, Naomi Klein suggested that the police “Do your god-damned job!” In response many in the crowd chanted “Do your job! Do your job!” Elsewhere, and even more incredibly, Judy Rebick has suggested that the were police failed to do their jobs properly in not arresting perceived black block participants: “What they could have done is arrest the Black Bloc at the beginning before they had a chance to be part of the bigger crowd and that's what they didn't do.” Some seem to believe that the police were supposed to be there to protect them or that the police provide the means for “protest” to take place.

July 1, 2010

From June 25-27, elites from the world’s most powerful economies met in Huntsville and Toronto to draft policies to further exploit the environment and people, bolstering the systems that sustain colonialism, wars and displacement.

With global attention on Toronto, tens of thousands of people mobilized in a historic week-long convergence in opposition to these policies. Daily demonstrations highlighted struggles for Indigenous sovereignty; environmental justice; migrant justice; an end to war and occupation; community control over resources; gender justice; and queer and disAbility rights.

Also unprecedented was the over $1.2 billion spent on security, the most in G20 summit history, which paid for a dizzying array of weaponry and nearly 20,000 police—plus a security fence that turned Toronto into a fortress to host a select few and a police state to terrorize the rest of us.

Everyone out against police brutality and in solidarity with the Toronto 900! A protest outside police headquarters in every city!

Saturday July 17, 2010 Protest in Quebec City, Montreal and in many Canadian cities

The events of the past week in Toronto have been unprecedented in Canadian history. Over 900 people were arrested, the biggest mass arrests ever in Canada, for daring to protest against the destructive policies of the G20.

Protesters and local residents were subjected to violent baton attacks, snatch squads, tear gas and rubber bullets. Sleeping people have been pulled from their homes at gunpoint in the middle of the night. Many have been beaten. People who have been arrested have been strip-searched and held in cages, facing long delays in obtaining legal support. We have heard numerous accounts of sexual abuse by police from women who were arrested. Journalists have been punched, arrested and had their equipment broken.