Cancelled Trudeau/Meloni AGO event marks a new low point for Law & Order in Toronto

Think of the intestinal fortitude that Giorgia Meloni must enjoy to have become Italy’s first female Prime Minister. To achieve the top job in a country that made light of former PM Silvio Berlusconi’s “bunga bunga” parties, I have to assume there aren’t many G-20 Leaders with a stiffer spine than Ms. Meloni.

As the Italian PM’s aircraft leaves Canadian airspace following her first official State visit, her impression of our largest city won’t be positive. Name a country in the world that would cancel a quasi-State Dinner in her honour because of a few hundred protesters? Yet that’s exactly what happened last evening at the Art Gallery of Ontario.

It’s inexplicable that none of the RCMP, OPP nor 5,400 Metro Toronto Police were able to anticipate and prepare for the cauldron of Antifa, NDP and “Pro-Palestinian” protestors might find common cause when a “Right wing” foreign leader is in town. While the Toronto Police Mounted Unit was deployed on Dundas Street, it appears to have failed its most fundamental task: basic crowd control. I doubt the officers lack the necessary training, and their mighty horses were appropriately calm. That just leaves a lack of resolve within the leadership of various key agencies (TPS, RCMP, Global Affairs and the PMO).

The event collapsed because someone decided that news coverage of PMO guests navigating the AGO’s steps as protesters were being held back by uniformed police was worse than the diplomatic embarrassment of pulling the plug. After all, it’s not as though the two leaders seem close in the wake of last year’s G-7 sit-down.

If only our honoured visitor had shared some of her abundant resolve with her local minders before being unceremoniously dispatched to her hotel suite for an unscheduled room service meal.

Cynics may think this uncontrolled AGO mob is subtle payback for the time Prime Minister Justin Trudeau rolled into town to meet with Toronto Police Chief Myron Demkiw, in the wake of what seemed to be an endless series of anti-Semitic protests across Toronto. Between the blockade of a key road artery leading into a Jewish neighbourhood, and the appearance that a TPS officer served coffee to anti-Israel lawbreakers, it was appropriate that someone from the elected branch stepped up to the plate. Perhaps our police leadership didn’t appreciate the appearance that they were being “tuned-in” by the country’s Prime Minister.

That’s not my take.

The RCMP were the senior force here, and coordinating with local police agencies is part of their daily professional life. As unfortunate as the Avenue Road Coffee Klatch was, that might not have hit the newspapers of Europe. Cancelling a State event over a public melee warrants global news coverage, even if our local newspaper budgets are so tight that they can’t afford to staff the evening with their own journalists.

PMO Officials would have been briefed by the RCMP on every option available, and if the PM of the day wants an event to go ahead, despite what the protection officers might recommend, the show will go on. Pierre Trudeau proved that during the 1968 St. Jean Baptiste parade in Montreal, as beer bottles were thrown his way.

Every time these “Pro-Palestinian” protesters notch a win, they push the envelope in the days that follow. That’s why last night’s event marks a new low for Law & Order in “Toronto The Good.”

MRM

(this post, like all blogs, is an Opinion Piece)

(photo credit: Canadian Press)