The head of an Ottawa-based manufacturer of police riot gear says the federal government's failure to embrace an innovative proposal to quell conflict at the upcoming G8 protests in Calgary and Ottawa is likely to result in violence that could have been avoided.
Richard L'Abbé, president of protective-equipment maker Med-Eng Systems Inc., was the key corporate backer of a conflict-resolution strategy developed at St. Paul University in Ottawa. The idea aims to reduce tension and clashes between police and protesters at international summit meetings.
But plans to bring activists and security officers together for a series of pre-summit training sessions in Alberta were scuttled after the federal government, despite giving initial signs of encouragement, backed away from funding the initiative. The proposal could have cost less than $500,000.
"It's unfortunate that no one in the federal government picked up the ball on this one, because it wasn't a large investment, it was really good for the community and it could have been exported all around the world," says Mr. L'Abbé, noting that tens of millions are being spent on G8 security. "I'm really sad that it didn't work out because you're going to see things next week that probably wouldn't have happened that way."
Mr. L'Abbé's company has built a diverse international clientèle for its personal protective gear, which includes bomb-disposal suits, as well as riot helmets and body armour for police assigned to public protests.
In 2000, Med-Eng donated $20,000 to kickstart St. Paul's development of a new, "neutral party" approach to crowd management.
Aimed at breaking down stereotypes and suspicions among various stakeholders in international summits -- protesters, police, government agencies and "bystanders," such as media workers -- the approach is built around pre-summit seminars run by neutral, conflict-resolution professionals and is designed to minimize the chance of violent clashes in host cities.
Preliminary research and a pilot project in advance of last November's G20 meeting in Ottawa produced promising results and prompted police and government officials to request a comprehensive conflict resolution proposal leading up to the G8 summit scheduled for June 2002.
"What we had proposed for the G8 was an ambitious plan," says Vern Redekopp, a St. Paul University professor and expert in conflict resolution.
"We would have done two seminars per week, 21/2 days each, consistently from January through April, training 600 people -- roughly 50 per cent police and a high percentage of activists and then some journalists and government people. We could have had everyone brainstorm every possible thing that might have gone wrong and what creatively could have been done about it."
But the plan, submitted to the Department of Foreign Affairs and other federal agencies, was turned down. The project co-ordinators from St. Paul's say they still don't have a clear sense of why it was refused.
"We didn't want to be the people that would fund everything forever, because we don't want to be perceived as being for one side or the other. We're basically in the middle, notwithstanding the fact that we supply equipment to the law-enforcement community around the world," says Mr. L'Abbé.
The RCMP and city police forces in both Calgary and Ottawa are holding pre-summit meetings with activists this month in a bid to prevent violence. But activists preparing a Take the Capital demonstration in Ottawa to protest the G8 meetings in Alberta loudly denounced the police-sponsored Open Lines public session on Tuesday at Lansdowne Park as a bid to co-opt protesters and blunt their political message.
If activists believe pre-summit meetings are "just a police front," says Mr. L'Abbé, "then it makes the sessions totally worthless. But if it's a neutral party funded by a neutral party, and it's for the betterment of the protesters getting more limelight, and no violence occurring, then everybody comes out a winner."
Sgt. Mark Richer, the RCMP's point man on community relations for the G8 protests in Ottawa, said he had no information on the St. Paul proposal for this year's summit.
But he has attended a workshop at St. Paul's, and said many of the same conflict-resolution principles are guiding police in their preparations for the protests this year.
The St. Paul conciliators, he said, "have a certain expertise and ability for bringing people together."
The police approach is "more aggressive" in terms of seeking out stakeholders -- including activists, shop owners and area residents.
Mr. L'Abbé says Med-Eng, whose products have helped create what activists derisively call the "Darth Vader" look of summit security officers, makes no apologies for marketing such protective equipment.
"When the police are well-equipped, well-protected and well-trained, they're much less apt to be violent or to get excited about what's going on," he says. He argues that the "Peppergate" incident at the 1997 APEC summit occurred partly because the RCMP officers involved were badly outnumbered, ill-equipped, poorly trained in crowd management and "just downright scared."
But Mr. L'Abbé says the percentage of demonstrators determined to provoke clashes is very small and that neutral-ground, pre-summit sessions involving police and peaceful protesters are crucial to cut the risk of violence.
"I have found that in many cases, violence erupts, then there's an escalation of violence for the wrong reasons because people don't understand each other's point of view."
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