Advancing Gender Equality in Canada Through an Intersectional Approach

OTTAWA – The Civilian Review and Complaints Commission for the RCMP says police officers acted unreasonably when they arrested a man who was hiking in British Columbia’s Fairy Creek area in 2021 around the same time as old-growth logging protests.

In a summary of its review of a public complaint, the commission says Mounties demanded to search the hiker at a checkpoint on a public road in September 2021, and arrested him after he refused to leave the area or to be searched.

The commission says the arrest was “groundless,” and the demand to search his backpack was “unfounded.”

The summary says the man had been lawfully using the forest service road where he encountered police who were trying to keep people out of “exclusion zones” set up by the RCMP’s Community-Industry Response Group.

It says he was also not obligated to identify himself or submit to a police search after coming upon Mounties who refused to identify themselves by name, only reading out their badge numbers “quickly” and refused to repeat them.

The commission says the police acted unreasonably enforcing the exclusion zones in Fairy Creek, removing their name tags, while one office wore a “thin blue line” patch against RCMP uniform policy.

Police actions in Fairy Creek have been sharply criticized by a B.C. Supreme Court judge for overstepping the terms of a court injunction granted to Teal Jones in 2021 after logging activity in the ecologically sensitive area set off protests, leading to hundreds of arrests.

The Civilian Review and Complaints Commission for the RCMP says it continues to review the actions of the Mounties’ community industry response group in a “systemic investigation,” after the B.C. judge threw out numerous cases against logging protesters for police failures in properly enforcing the court injunction.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

PHILADELPHIA – Political experts say Kamala Harris was able to dominate Donald Trump by prodding the former Republican president over the crowd sizes at his rallies and the 2020 loss during a debate in Philadelphia Tuesday evening.

“Harris going in had the most to gain and also the most to lose,” said Allison Prasch, an expert on U.S. presidential rhetoric at the University of Wisconsin.

“I think she came in and really delivered an effective debate performance.”

Tuesday’s matchup saw Harris push the former president on his record and bait him into tirades far from Trump’s intended goals of focusing on immigration and the economy.

The former president’s strategy is always to dominate the discussion and the stage, said former Republican strategist Chip Felkel. Harris was able to rattle Trump, Felkel added, and put her courtroom experience on display.

“I think for the first time in his political life since 2015 somebody figured out how to push back,” Felkel said. “Not only to push back, but to dominate.”

Trump criticized Harris’s record, and her changing stance on issues like fracking and immigration.

Prasch said Trump’s most effective criticism came during his closing argument, when he criticized Harris for not being able to achieve her current election promises in the more than three years she’s been vice-president with the Biden administration. At that point, Prasch said, it was likely too little, too late.

Harris stayed focused and gave clear answers throughout the more than 90-minute debate. She also used her face and body to demonstrate when she thought statements from Trump were absurd or wrong, including the former president’s unsubstantiated claims that immigrants in Ohio are eating their neighbours’ dogs and cats.

“I think she gave a killer performance,” said Saleena Temple, who attended a Democrat-organized watch party.

“I appreciate how she addressed him and put him in his place but in a tactful manner, a professional manner, a political manner. She looked presidential.”

While Trump said he thought it was his best debate performance, Harris was rewarded at the end of the night with an endorsement from pop juggernaut Taylor Swift.

At a watch party a few blocks from where the debate was taking place, Matthew Lamorgese, chairman of the Philadelphia Young Republicans, said he believes voters know they can count on Trump’s record.

“Under Donald Trump, we had a strong economy, low inflation, and a secure border,” Lamorgese said. “We had world peace …. That’s what you are going to see.”

Experts say Harris has proven a problematic opponent for Trump so far on the campaign trail. Lamorgese said he wasn’t worried about the vice-president’s performance against the Republican former president.

“Kamala has a different set of issues but issues nonetheless,” Lamorgese said.

Tuesday’s debate was a stark contrast to the first presidential debate in June, where Trump easily dominated an unclear and uneasy performance by Joe Biden, which ultimately led to the president dropping from the race.

The race for the White House remains razor thin after a tumultuous summer that has included an assassination attempt of the former president and a wholly reimagined Democratic ticket.

Experts say many would-be voters are just starting to tune in to the campaigns.

Pennsylvania, where the debate took place, has become the forefront battleground state where both parties are trying to gain favour. Trump took it in 2016 before it swung back to Biden in 2020 — both by narrow margins.

Matthew Lebo, a specialist in U.S. politics at Western University in London, Ont., said Harris may see a bump in approval after the debate but she still has a lot of work to do ensuring voters know her policies and personality ahead of November.

The debate was light on policy particulars. Trump continued his threats to not defend NATO members that don’t meet the alliance’s defence spending targets, of which Canada is one.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised in July to meet the spending target, which is the equivalent of two per cent of gross domestic product, by 2032.

Harris talked about America’s ongoing support for the defence alliance and criticized Trump’s relationship with Vladimir Putin and close ties to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.

Whoever wins the election will be in power during the review of the Canada-United States-Mexico trade pact in 2026.

Harris was one of 10 U.S. senators to vote against the trilateral agreement under Trump, saying it didn’t do enough to protect American workers or the environment.

Trump repeated his plans to increase tariffs on imports and Harris spoke about ensuring American jobs remain in the U.S.

“Tariffs would certainly hurt trade with Canada if he ever went through with that,” Lebo said.

Canadians should be most concerned about Trump’s continued denials of responsibility for any role in the Jan. 6 attack on Capitol Hill and what that means for democracy, Lebo said.

“That’s just dangerous and Canadians, on the border of the United States, need a stable democracy there,” Lebo said.

“And he’s just undermining that.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.

— With files from The Associated Press

MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. (AP) — Miami Dolphins wide receiver Tyreek Hill acknowledged Wednesday that he could have handled himself better in the initial moments of a weekend traffic stop that left him handcuffed and pulled out of his car by police officers near the team’s stadium.

Hill also said he wants one of the officers involved in the incident dismissed from the police force.

Hill said he wishes he did some things “a bit differently” on Sunday morning, including leaving the window of his car down when officers instructed him to do so. He rolled up the window instead. The incident escalated quickly from there.

“I will say I could have been better,” Hill said. “I could have let down my window in that instant. But the thing about me is, I don’t want attention. I don’t want to be cameras-out, phones-on-you in that moment. But at the end of the day, I’m human. I’ve got to follow rules. I’ve got to do what everyone else would do.

“Now, does that give them the right to literally beat the dog out of me? Absolutely not,” Hill continued. “But at the end of the day, I wish I could go back and do things a bit differently.”

Miami-Dade Police Director Stephanie Daniels launched an internal affairs investigation on Sunday afternoon and one officer was transferred to administrative duties. That officer, Danny Torres, wants to be immediately reinstated, his attorney said this week. Meanwhile, the Dolphins have said they want “swift and strong action” against all the officers involved.

Hill did not mince words when detailing what action he thinks should be taken against the officer.

“Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. He’s gotta go, man,” Hill said. “In that instant right there, not only did he treat me bad, but he also treated my teammates with disrespect. He had some crazy words towards them and they didn’t even do nothing. Like, what did they do to you? They’re just walking on the sidewalk. He’s got to go, man.”

Hill was pulled from his car near the team’s stadium less than three hours before kickoff of Miami’s Week 1 game. He was placed on the ground and handcuffed, and teammate Calais Campbell — who drove by the scene and stopped in an effort to play peacemaker — also was handcuffed by police during the incident.

Hill was cited for careless driving and failing to wear a seatbelt.

The Dolphins play the Buffalo Bills on Thursday night, and Hill said he would use the game as therapy, an escape from thinking about the incident. He said he would not take a knee — a move many players have used in recent years to protest police brutality — or call for the defunding of police. Hill has said several times in recent days that he has respect for police officers, and he intends to pursue work in law enforcement when his playing days end.

“Right now, what I’m focused on is my job and that’s to play football,” Hill said. “That’s all I can be, the best football player I can be.”

Body camera footage of the incident, released by the Miami-Dade Police Department on Monday evening, showed that the traffic stop escalated quickly after Hill put up the window of his car.

Hill rolled down the driver’s side window and handed his license to an officer who had been knocking on the window. Hill — one of the game’s best and most dynamic players, an eight-time Pro Bowl selection who led the NFL with 1,799 receiving yards last season — then told the officer repeatedly to stop knocking before rolling the darkly tinted window back up.

After a back and forth about the window, the bodycam video shows an officer pull Hill out of his car by his arm and head and then force him face-first onto the ground. Officers handcuffed Hill and one put a knee in the middle of his back.

Hill can be heard in the footage yelling repeatedly that he’d just had surgery on his knee as officers forced him to the ground. The receiver said Wednesday he had a minor stem cell procedure on his knee this offseason in Antigua. Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel called it a procedure that Hill “makes sure that he takes care of.”

Hill said he was inside a movie theater Monday night when he received word that the footage was released. He left the theater to watch it and said he hopes people seeing the video — both civilians and law enforcement — use it as a means to learn and get better, even drawing the parallel to the way that football players improve when they watch game film.

“It’s shell-shocking, man,” Hill said. “It’s really crazy to know that you have officers in this world that would literally do that with bodycams on. It’s sad. It’s really sad. Which brings up another conversation and leads into ‘What would they do if they didn’t have bodycams?’ which is even crazier.”

The altercation, and what was seen on the six officers’ bodycam videos, has again brought to the forefront conversations surrounding the experience of Black people with police — something that has been a national talking point for some time.

Hill has been involved in off-field incidents before, though teammates spoke out this week to condemn those who used Hill’s past allegations of violence to justify any excessive use of force. McDaniel said Wednesday that Hill continues to grow as a person, and that he has spoken to him on multiple occasions about why that matters. He also acknowledged that Hill could have handled the incident differently, without revealing specifics.

“A conversation about what provoked unnecessary,” McDaniel said, “is trivial to the unnecessary.”

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