>health information to find �dirt� to smear their critics.
>
>On CBC�s Fifth Estate in January, P.A. President Craig Bromell said, �I
>think if you found somebody who is an enemy of the police, we don�t want
>him around. So you try and get him kicked out of office. Pretty simple...
>All the other loudmouths, they�re going to keep their mouths shut...
>(We�re) going to target our enemies.�
>
>�You can call me a bully,� Bromell said in the interview. Asked if the
>smear campaign is intimidation, he replied, �You can call it that.�
>
>Asked at a media scrum if the P.A.�s defiance of Chief Boothby�s order to
>stop the campaign isn�t illegal, Bromell said, �He doesn�t have any power
>over us.�
>
>Even many police boosters and rank and file officers are appalled and
>frightened by the Association�s plans. Police Board vice chair and
>well-known Tory Jeff Lyons, for example, has had his legal firm swept for
>bugging devices.
>
>In another Fifth Estate program, aired Feb. 2, Deputy Police Chief Bob Kerr
>said he was �afraid� of the P.A.�s campaign. Kerr said he had been told by
>an officer that the Association was planning to release damaging
>information about him, unless he tendered his resignation or retirement by
>the end of March.
>
>Boothby, who announced his own early retirement last fall, is said to have
>been pushed out by the P.A. and the Harris Tories. Responding to Kerr�s
>televised statements, Boothby said that everyone was vulnerable to that
>kind of digging and dirt. He announced that an internal investigation into
>the matter would start immediately.
>
>Radio talk shows and the letters pages in Toronto�s four daily newspapers
>show mass public opposition, growing anger, and not least, fear. If City
>Council has no control over the cops, who does?
>
>With Julian Fantino ready to take over as the new Police Chief on March 1,
>the answer is not an easy one for many. In the most diverse city in the
>world, where a majority of citizens are not white, anglo-saxon, or
>Protestant, even the question is frightening.
>
>Fantino and Bromell: darlings of the far right
>
>Fantino is the darling of right-wing law-and-order advocates across the
>country, and the Harris Tories in the first place. His ascension to Toronto
>Police Chief is shrouded in secrecy. Backroom deals, including a meeting
>and an endorsement from Craig Bromell, propelled Fantino from non-candidate
>to Chief in a matter of days.
>
>Fantino is a former Toronto officer who left to head the police force in
>London, Ontario, and then York Region. While in London, Fantino was sharply
>criticized for his dealings with the gay and lesbian community, and in York
>Region for receiving a secret corporate donation of $750,000 to purchase
>police helicopters. (His predecessor, Bryan Cousineau, was forced into
>retirement after receiving similar secret donations from Magna International.)
>
>Shortly after Fantino�s appointment, the Toronto Police asked for three new
>helicopters.
>
>Bromell and the P.A. think they can wait out the current furore. It�s a
>matter of days before Boothby is out and Fantino is in. Meantime, the
>Premier says it�s a �local matter,� and Solicitor General David Tsubouchi
>is busy arranging more secret meetings between the Police Association and
>Norm Gardner, the gun-toting Chair of the Police Services Board, without
>the knowledge or approval of the Board.
>
>The current confrontation is rooted in the changes to the provincial Police
>Services Act passed in 1998. Prior to the changes, police in Ontario were
>forbidden to involve themselves in politics or political action of any
>kind. Now they can even run for office.
>
>This is what Bromell and the P.A. are hanging their hats on, claiming the
>changed legislation makes their action legal. And they may be right.
>
> Keep the cops out of politics�
>
>Communist Party Labour Secretary Liz Rowley said the legislation should be
>immediately repealed, and that police forces should be forbidden from all
>involvement in politics and political action.
>
>�The police are a para-military organization. They are armed, and have
>extraordinary powers to arrest, detain, search, and to use force. In Canada
>at least, they exist to enforce laws enacted by elected civilian - not
>military - governments. The Police are not `participants� in the political
>process. They take orders. Their job is to enforce the law. The involvement
>in politics of armed, special purpose bodies - the police - is a threat to
>democracy, and objectively opens the door to a police state,� said Rowley.
>�Civilian control is being sharply challenged by the Police Association,
>and this is the guts of the matter in Toronto.
>
>�The Police Association is being covertly cheered on by the Harris
>government who want a law and order agenda in Ontario. The Association has
>also been encouraged by several Toronto Councils which have, over the last
>decade, actively contributed to the weakening of the Police Services Board.
>The dumping of Arnold Minors, Susan Eng, and others, predisposed the
>election of police booster Norm Gardner as Board Chair, and created the
>climate which actively encouraged the challenges from the Association that
>go back to the 1995 wildcat strike at 51 Division, led by Bromell and his
>associates, that propelled them to leadership of the Police Association in
>1997,� she said.
>
>The wildcat was Bromell�s reaction to discipline meted out to him and eight
>other officers at 51 Division, for the brutal �take-down� of a City TV
>photo-journalist whose �crime� was to be young and black.
>
>Bromell also organized an illegal job action in 1996 after he and eight
>others from 51 Division were disciplined. The officers were alleged to have
>kidnapped a man from the Regent Street police station and beaten him at
>Cherry Beach. The P.A. challenged the discipline and the nine were
>eventually cleared. The Association is demanding that the Board pay their
>$112,687 legal bill.
>
>�This is dangerous stuff,� Rowley said, noting that what happens in Toronto
>may set the standard for civilian control over police across Canada.
>
>The Calgary Police Association has already stated it will send
>representatives to meet with the Toronto P.A. this spring, to discuss its
>own political action plans and fund-raising. Others are developing their
>own plans.
>
>City Councillor and Police Board member Olivia Chow has been outspoken in
>her opposition. �They are breaking the law,� she said.
>
>Chow and Lyons have tried to put some spine into the Board, described as
>�in tatters� from its series of capitulations to the Police Association.
>The two sought an injunction against the True Blue campaign, when others on
>the Board had bowed to pressure from the Mayor to let him �talk� to Bromell
>for a week.
>
>But many on Council and on the Board are quiet, afraid of the Police
>Association, as shown by their vote to authorize spending for a sweep of
>all their offices, homes and cars for bugs. Their unanimous vote to create
>a special by-law outlawing the True Blue campaign was also too little, too
>late.
>
>On Feb. 3, the P.A. backed off the Operation True Blue campaign, but not
>its other plans. �We can get involved in politics if we want,� said Bromell
>at a news conference that day.
>
>His statement ensures a major confrontation over civilian control of the
>police. It also means rough water ahead for the labour and democratic
>movements who will no doubt spearhead the fight, since they will be the
>first targets of a police force out of civilian control.
>
>The Urban Alliance on Race Relations and the Chinese Canadian National
>Council are in the forefront of those demanding immediate action to restore
>civilian control. The Toronto Labour Council has also adopted a sharp
>statement.
>
>The battle lines are already forming.
>
>
>***************************************
>Communist Party of Canada
>290A Danforth Ave.,
>Toronto, Ont. M4K 1N6
>416-469-2446 (voice)
>416-469-4063 (fax)
><[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>http://www.communist-party.ca
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