August 6, 2002
Kamloops Daily News



Prime Minister Chretien's preoccupation with security ranges
from the absurd to the oppressive.  As a result, police err
on the side of  caution to the point of silliness. The PM's
recent visit to Vancouver was an example of such a circus. 

Chretien was in Vancouver's Chinatown to open the new
Millennium Gate.  The Liberals had stacked the crowd with
supporters but there were the inevitable protesters.    It
seems that the police were looking for dangerous weapons - -
pies.  They were eager, perhaps overzealous, to ensure that
the PM was not pied as he was in Charlottetown during his
visit in 2000.

 A scuffle broke out in the back of the crowd and a CBC TV
camera caught some of the action.  A man was being  hustled
away by police.   Police spokesperson Const. Sarah Bloor
later said that he was being held because of an outstanding
warrant.  A second protestor was arrested for possible
assault, although she did not provide details.

No wonder that she omitted the embarrassing details.  The
first suspect, the one caught on camera, was Vancouver
lawyer Cameron Ward who represented APEC protesters charged
after the PM's visit in 1997. 

Ward was held in a tiny concrete cell for five hours and
later released without being charged.   His car was seized
and searched to see if Ward was carrying a pie.    Police
said that it was a case mistaken identity.  They say that
Ward matched the identity of a man who might throw a pie a
the PM.   The identity of the original suspect was not
given.

What a coincidence.   Cameron's identity was well known by 
anyone who followed the APEC investigation by former judge
Ted Hughes in 2001.  But to the guardians of the PM, he
looked  just like someone who might throw a pie at Chretien.

The police were certainly pied by the Hughes inquiry. 
Hughes found that police actions during demonstrations at
the 1997 APEC summit in Vancouver "did not meet an
acceptable and expected standard of competence and
professionalism and proficiency."

The second suspect in Chinatown, kind of a latter-day Simple
Simon, was also hustled away in handcuffs.  "I was just
standing there, eating a piece of pie," said William Christiansen. 

Now, this is cause for arrest.   Whereas Ward looked like
someone who might throw a pie, Christiansen had a dangerous
pie in the vicinity of the PM.  And he was eating the
evidence.

The police have been over-zealous about protecting the PM
ever since they were stung by an incident in 1995.  That's
when a prowler slipped by the supposed high security
surveillance system and past highly trained police into the
PM's residence. 

He was about to enter the Chretien bedroom when Chrétien's 
wife, Aline, slammed the door in the prowler's face.  The PM
grabbed an nearby Inuit carving, ready to defend himself. 
Then the cream of the police took seven to ten minutes to
respond to Aline's calls for help.  Chretien was not amused.

Chretien does not suffer protestors gladly.  So when a
protestor got in his way during Flag Day celebrations in
1996, the PM demonstrated some wrestling skills.  He grabbed
the scrawny Bill Clennet  in headlock and gave him a shake. 

When asked what happened, Chretien explained "Excuse me? I
done know? What happen? My ... you know because if he don't
know what happen. It happen something to somebody who should
not have been there."

It's like something snapped.  Since then, the PM's tolerance
for protestors has been low.   He was certainly is willing
to put the rights of world thugs like ex-General Suharto of
the Philippines before peaceful protestors who sat in the
road at the APEC meeting.  

The short fuse of the police, led by the since promoted
"Sergeant Pepper," was reminiscent of Chretien's charge
though the protestors at Flag Day.

Chretien denied that he had directed the strong-arm tactics
of the police but his modus operandi was all over it.

The Vancouver police may have averted pie on the face of
Chretien but they have egg all over theirs.

                         *  *  *

In my last column, I reported that that "three
died of complications of cryptosporidiosis" in North
Battleford.  Saskatchewan's chief Medical Officer 
investigated the three suspicious deaths and found that they
were due to other causes.  Also, tourism and the economy
have rebounded since the infection, says  Jim Toye,
commissioner for the city of North Battleford.

go back to my Columns in the