“Where are you going, Frank, in such a big hurry?” my wife, Ileen, asked me recently.
“Dear, I just got a call from the Toronto Police Services Board asking me if I would come down and help them out in an emergency situation.”
“I never knew you to be that crazy about the police.” Ileen said.
“Oh I am, dear,” I said.
“Yeah, right. Watch what you say, Frank. Remember these guys are armed.”
“I’ll be very careful, dear,” I promised before I headed downtown.
I arrived at the Toronto Police Services Board shortly afterwards and asked to speak to Detective Sergeant Waldo Summers. I ended up in a big corner office with an equally big desk and Sgt. Summers stood behind it and announced he was the spokesman and introduced me to the executive of the TPSB as an expert at providing confidential advice on difficult problem areas in the international sphere. He said “Mr. Kennedy comes highly regarded by sources close to President Obama.”
“I was?” I complained, knowing this story had taken on a life of its own.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Kennedy, I didn’t mean to reveal anything of a confidential nature.”
“That’s okay. What can I do for you?”
“One week ago Toronto City council voted unanimously to praise the Toronto Police for their outstanding work during the G20 summit,” said Waldo, “and a week later they wouldn’t name a pet skunk after any of us.”
“Well you got in trouble with the public when you boxed in over 1000 protesters and bystanders on Sunday, after the summit had closed, in downtown Toronto and held them for hours in the pouring rain. Nobody likes like standing in the rain for four hours.”
“Mr. Kennedy, you’re not going to try to blame us for the rain?” the sergeant inquired.
“Waldo, you’re not going to try to convince me that you didn’t hold them in the rain in order to inconvenience them for inconveniencing you?”
“It takes a long time to process 1000 people you’ve arrested,” said Waldo.
“Maybe you were too gung-ho when you arrested 1000 people and according to civil rights people you only charged 263. It does look like a bit like overkill,” I explained.
“It’s like fishing,” said Waldo, “you don’t know what you’ve got in the net ‘til you look.”
“I see you had over 700 ‘fish’ in the net for 24 hours charged with breach of the peace and you let them out with no charges. I can see a lot of unhappy ‘fish’.”
“We’re well aware of specific incidents involving the police and have acknowledged our concerns,” said Waldo. “Mr. Kennedy, how do you see the future?”
“I see a flood of complaints inundating you, the OPP, the RCMP summit security unit and a horde of others.”
“Yes,” Mr. Kennedy that’s possible. What can we do about it?”
“You must come up with a reason why a perfectly honest person coming home from work would be arrested by the police without any legitimate reason? To many, it smells like police state tactics.”
“Yes, Mr. Kennedy, that’s a tough one. What should we do?”
“Apologize to everyone unreservedly whose been wronged or even think they’ve been wronged.”
“Everyone?” cried Waldo.
“Yes! Then the next thing to do is to get into the blame game yourself. Don’t waste a second on the lower ranks. Go right to the top. Who was the originator of this rat’s breakfast?” I asked.
“The G20? The federal government of Canada.” said Waldo.
“Right,” I said. “It goes all the way up the ladder to the very top. Why should we dump on a few cops doing what they’re told who may have acted a little too enthusiastically?”
“I certainly agree,” said Waldo, unsurprisingly.
“Who were the idiots in Ottawa who came up with this outrageous idea of blowing a billion dollars having a clump of swelled heads representing 20 of the biggest countries in the world come to Toronto for a couple of weeks of needless posturing?”
“I think I know who you’re talking about,” said Waldo. The executives all laughed.
I said: “Tell those guys in Ottawa to get out their cheque books once again and pay every one of these poor innocent individual ‘fish’ who were caught in the net a handsome sum of money. They won’t miss it. They’ll just print more.”
