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You are here: Home / Commentary / Policing won’t solve the pandemic

Policing won’t solve the pandemic

The court injunction against public gatherings was aimed at anti-maskers, but it steps on everyone's Charter right to free assembly.

May 17, 2021 By Martha Paynter 12 Comments

Photo: Halifax Examiner

As of yesterday, 58 Palestinian children have been killed by the Israel Defense Forces in pointed attacks on civilians. The Medicins Sans Frontiers clinic was bombed. The Associated Press/Al-Jazeera offices destroyed. Yet, justifying ticketing participants in Saturday’s Free Palestine car rally, Halifax Regional Police Chief Dan Kinsella called the rally an “illegal gathering, and the time for demonstrations and protests “isn’t now.” If not when children are being massacred, medical relief is under fire, and the press has been silenced, then, when?

Last Saturday, the Halifax Regional Police responded to the Free Palestine protest at the same time as the anti-mask “Freedom Nova Scotia” rally on Citadel Hill. Not only do anti-maskers promote misunderstanding about the value of personal protective equipment in disease prevention, the anti-mask movement is associated with racism and white supremacy. 

The day before the rallies, Premier Iain Rankin sought — and received — a court injunction against such public gatherings. Supreme Court of Nova Scotia Justice Scott Norton issued the injunction, prohibiting any rally that contravenes the province’s public health orders, and organizers from promoting rallies on social media. The injunction authorizes police to enforce compliance with public health orders. 

Rankin sought the injunction in response to public demand. Until the injunction was issued, social media was ablaze with condemnation of rule-breakers and of the provincial government for failing to crack down. 

As a nurse, I share in the wide disappointment that our effective inter-provincial isolation rules were not failproof. I wish we really were all in this together. But the solution cannot be to abandon our Charter right to peaceful public assembly. Limits can only be justified where harm is proven. 

Rankin sought the injunction not because banning protests is a proven epidemiological strategy to contain disease transmission, but because he believed it to be politically expedient. He is precariously situated as a new leader in a crisis time, facing election within the next few months, and is trying to do whatever he can to continue in his role. 

But the virus is airborne: outdoor activity is the safest thing to do right now. Enormous, consistent protests around the world all last spring and summer against racist police brutality did not result in reported transmissions of COVID-19. 

The Halifax Regional Police charged with enforcing the injunction are the same police we protested, the same police we petitioned to defund. The same police who were proven to be harmful: the Wortley report of 2019 demonstrated they are racist, and target Black people for street checks six times more often than white people. The MacDonald-Taylor report found their actions to be illegal. These are the same police who punched young mother Santina Rao in the face in front of her children on suspicion of shoplifting produce. The same police who left Corey Rogers to asphyxiate to death in a spit hood in their holding cells. The same police who botch and ignore investigations into sexual assault, such as that experienced by Carrie Low. Rather than see decreases in their funding after so many protests, these police received an increase in funding in 2021 to cover the cost of new staff to manage complaints against them. 

Policing has not solved the pandemic. Nova Scotia police have issued approximately $1 million in tickets while the province is experiencing one of the greatest economic threats in memory. 

Individual participants in the Free Palestine rally face $2,000 fines. Noncompliance with the injunction risks receiving a criminal record. 

People — many of whom would describe themselves as progressive — who called for policing of anti-maskers must accept that policing will not just target those who are so privileged that masks are the hill they choose to die on. Policing is not nuanced. Police will come for those who are protesting the killing of children, the destruction of medical facilities, the suppression of the free press. It will come for those who protest police brutality. 

The injunction, like many things this pandemic, was hastily conceived, and can and should be reversed. It is OK to be wrong and change course. Last year our parks and playgrounds were closed — Chief Medical Officer Dr. Robert Strang recognized this caused ill-health, and they were reopened. We do not need to ban political protests because there were 50 people who wanted to stand up for the “cause” of masklessness. 

The vast majority of Nova Scotians are caring for each other, are trying our best, are wearing masks, and are stepping up. We have the highest testing rate in the country, if not the world, because volunteers step up to fill their days at the pop up service. We are struggling through a third wave, yes, but we will get through. 

And we can do it without sacrificing our right to demonstrate for social justice. 

Martha Paynter is a Registered Nurse, a Trudeau Scholar, and Doctoral Candidate at Dalhousie University. She is the Founder and Chair of Women’s Wellness Within. 

Filed Under: Commentary, Featured

Comments

  1. Archie says

    May 17, 2021 at 10:24 am

    Although Halifax Examiner is “an advocacy” news source- it seems it would have been better to offer Martha Paynter’s screed as ‘an opinion’ piece. First of all, it could stand some editing and is not up to the usual standard of Examiner reporting. Secondly, there is a faint breathe of conflict of interest with El Jones sitting on the board of Paynter’s “Women’s Wellness Within” organization.

    I agree it was wrong for Halifax Police to arrest and fine protestors in the ‘car drive’ in support of Palestine. As to the anti-mask protest on Citadel Hill, as we are now entering a phase of the pandemic where there are new highly contagious variants holding an even more dangerous development of the virus – I have no patience with such anti-mask idiocy especially when it affects my sister and niece, both of whom are ICU nurses, and have been working to keep these idiots alive, at a risk to their own health and well-being. I believe the point needs to be made, those protestors are part of our society and they should respect their small part of sharing society with the rest of us.

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    • Tim Bousquet says

      May 17, 2021 at 10:42 am

      https://www.halifaxexaminer.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Screen-Shot-2021-05-17-at-10.40.40-AM.png

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  2. Archie says

    May 17, 2021 at 10:59 am

    Yes… well, on your front page ‘mast head’ it is an article which falls under, this and looks like part of the new cycle. Just sayin’….

    Morning File, Monday May 17, 2021

    News

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    • Bill Gray says

      May 17, 2021 at 4:50 pm

      I agree with Archie, I did not take this as commentary but as a Halifax Examiner article, I am glad I read the comments too see this, as I was disappointed in the bias of this piece.

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    • Shel says

      May 17, 2021 at 7:25 pm

      I cringed when I saw the Halifax Examiner (with excellent local reporting) had published something that touched on Israel/Palestine, commentary/opinion piece or not.

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      • D Smith says

        May 18, 2021 at 7:53 am

        Why?

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  3. philipslayton says

    May 17, 2021 at 11:00 am

    Completely right, Martha Paynter. Among the victims of Covid are our Charter rights. They don’t trump everything – proportionality matters – but they should count for something. We’ll all regret trashing them.

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    • Colin May says

      May 17, 2021 at 3:55 pm

      And the Premier should not be calling HRP Chief Kinsella at any time. Political interference in policing is not to be tolerated in a democracy.

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  4. Judy Haiven says

    May 17, 2021 at 11:33 am

    Good for Martha Paynter… as she points out all our civil liberties are at risk. For years, the police’s actions against African Nova Scotians and other minorities are well documented. The police have overstepped the lines on the injunction– that much is clear.

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    • ccleslie says

      May 18, 2021 at 8:54 pm

      Interesting that (trying not to use euphemisms) struggled with Martha Paynter’s stellar commentary on, yet again, overreach for less than admirable reasons…

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  5. Margo Grant says

    May 17, 2021 at 1:17 pm

    Right on, Martha. This needed to be said.

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  6. ccleslie says

    May 18, 2021 at 8:39 pm

    Sadly, our efforts to “stay safe” continually bump up against “freedom of expression”. Regrettably, our institutional organizations don’t understand the nuances involved in these activities. Hopefully, an unexpected consequence of this horrific plague, will be an actual sincere effort to close this gap…Hope springs Eternal…

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