Activists Meet Police in Canada

On Wednesday, January 19th, in Ottawa, Canada, the Ottawa Nonviolence
Discussion Group facilitated a meeting of local activists and two police
officers, with the aim of improving on the current process of police-activist
relations in Ottawa.

This was the first discussion of this kind in the Ottawa area, as there has
been little organized communication between activists and police here.
Although there is a sizable group of nonviolent activists, there are also a
number of activist groups who do not believe that nonviolence is effective,
and who work with the mentality that police are 'the enemy'.  While a number
of people have taken a course in Nonviolent Civil Disobedience which is
offered by a local activist, and which contains a section focussed on seeing
police as people, there are many who have little interest in understanding
nonviolence, without which the possibility of improving police-activist
relations remains remote.  One of our posters for this workshop was in fact
torn down by a member of another group, who believed it was 'police
propaganda'.

The original inspiration for this workshop was the above-mentioned course on
NvCD, out of which grew the Ottawa Nonviolence Discussion Group.  Already
interested in the idea of a discussion with the police, one of our members
established contact with the Melbourne RAG through Nonviolence Today. Robert
Burrowes mailed us a wealth of material, and it was this which set for us a
precedent to which we could aspire. In October, therefore, we contacted the
chief of the Ottawa Police Force by letter, with which we enclosed a number
of articles from Nonviolence Today about the Melbourne RAG and its work with
police-activist relations.  The letter was passed on to Inspector Moyle, who
then contacted us, and over the next two months the workshop came together.

In the end, nineteen people from various groups came out to the discussion,
which ran from 7:00 to 9:30 pm. Early on, the issue of improved communication
emerged as important to both parties.  Skate, a member of the Ottawa Police
with five years experience in Crowd Control, brought up the idea of
identifying all participants of an action, possibly with armbands, so that
police could readily distinguish them from other members of the public. 
Inspector Patrick Moyle (Officer in charge of Special Events, including demos
and CD) stressed that it was also important for the police to be able to
identify leaders of the group.  While there were differences in definitions
of leadership there was agreement that peacekeepers could serve this function
for the purposes of police.

Several activists initiated a discussion about communication prior to the
action, out of which the group created a list of options for activists
considering civil disobedience.  Inspector Moyle stated clearly that if
activists have discussions with police in advance, they will be informed of
the probable police response.  He listed the methods and objectives of the
action, along with the number of participants expected, as the most important
aspects of the action for the police to know in advance.

There was also a discussion of the reasons for committing civil disobedience,
which ranged from the pragmatic to the philosophical.  In evaluation, this
was described by the police as highly informative and interesting.

All in all, the meeting provided an informal atmosphere in which both
activists and police felt comfortable enough to speak freely on these
potentially volatile issues.  In addition to the knowledge we all took away
from this, there is a possibility that Skate may work with the Ottawa
Nonviolence Discussion Group to create a workshop on peacekeeping in March,
which would be an important advance in police-activist relations - which is
what it's all about!
Carol Grant