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.

Margaret E. Beare is a professor of sociology and law at York University and Osgoode Hall Law School. Nathalie Des Rosiers is the dean of the Faculty of Law, Common Law Section, at the University of Ottawa. Abigail C. Deshman is the director of the Public Safety Program with the Canadian Civil Liberties Association.

Contributors: Ronald G. Atkey, Paul Burstein, Andrew Clement, Meaghan Daniel, Bernard Duhaime, Julian Falconer, Veronica Kitchen, Nicholas Lamb, Colleen Matthews, Kate Milberry, Howard F. Morton, Leo Panitch, Jacinthe Poisson, George S. Rigakos, Kent Roach, Kimberly Rygiel, Liora Salter, James Stribopoulos, Ian Urquhart, and Lesley Wood.

W. Wesley Pue, Professor of Law, University of British Columbia, and editor of Pepper in Our Eyes: The APEC Affair:
Federal government arrangements for major international conferences invariably fail to ensure either protection of ordinary freedoms or security for members of the public: Vancouver’s APEC conference; Quebec City’s Summit of the Americas; and, most spectacularly, Toronto’s disastrous G20 summit. This important volume brings much-needed attention to issues that should be ignored no longer.

Clifford Shearing, professor in the Global Risk Governance Programme, University of Cape Town, and co-author of The Shifting Boundaries of Policing: Globalisation and Its Possibilities:
We live in a world of global risks, where global governance is often shaped locally. Filled with empirically grounded insights, Putting the State on Trial brings sharply into focus critical features of this contemporary reality, wrought through a tinder box of protection and protest during the G20 summit.

Hon. R. Roy McMurtry, OC, O.Ont, QC:

The essays in this volume make an excellent contribution to a subject of vital public interest. The authors are well qualified to speak on topics that will be of increasing importance in an age that requires a proper balance between democracy and security.

Reg Whitaker, Distinguished Research Professor Emeritus, York University, and co-author of Secret Service: Political Policing in Canada from the Fenians to Fortress America:
State violence against peaceful protest at the 2010 G20 summit in Toronto is finally brought to account in this compelling collection. Contributors expertly dissect policing excesses and point to the failure of official channels of accountability. They also provide an important warning to Canadians about the looming threat to the rule of law and liberal democracy posed by the securitization of dissent in the era of globalization.