Ontario to Kill Law Used in G20 Arrests

Public Works Protection Act to be scuttled a year after more than 1,000 people were arrested during the G20 summit in Toronto.

The Ontario government intends to do away with the little-known, even-less-understood law that was used as justification for hundreds of arrests during last year's G20 summit in Toronto. A report on the law, to be released by the government today, finds the 1939 Public Works Protection Act creates a “potential for abuse (that is) beyond troubling.” In addition, the five-metre rule passed in secret days before the summit was condemned for being misinterpreted by police, who used it as a means to arrest anyone coming near the fences that cordoned off the summit zone. More than 1,000 people were arrested during the summit, but only 278 faced charges, prompting claims of civil rights abuse at the hands of police and provincial authorities.