Toronto Police should discard sound cannons as gesture of good faith

Toronto Police Services Board should deny Chief Bill Blair’s request tomorrow

By Dylan Penner –

The Toronto Police Services Board should deny Chief Bill Blair’s request tomorrow to buy the controversial sound cannons that the federal government lent them for the G20 meeting last June, says the Council of Canadians. Blair has asked for funding to buy four of the Long Range Acoustic Devices (LRADs) from the Harper government instead of returning them.

“The sound cannons have an alert function that is loud enough to cause permanent hearing loss and excruciating pain” said Mark Calzavara, regional organizer for the Council of Canadians. “Regrettably, the Toronto Police force showed us during the G20 that they are neither responsible nor accountable enough to be allowed to have sound cannons as a part of their arsenal of weapons.”

In the lead-up to the G20 last summer Justice David Brown of the Ontario Superior Court granted a limited temporary injunction on the use of these Long Range Acoustic Devices (LRADs) at the request of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association and the Canadian Labour Congress.

The Council of Canadians distributed over 5000 free sets of earplugs to protect the hearing of demonstrators in case the sound cannons were deployed.

“Over a thousand people were arrested and jailed during the G20 and over ninety percent of the charges have been dropped since then” said Council of Canadians chairperson, Maude Barlow. “This abuse of power is still fresh in people’s memory and asking to keep these sound cannons is salt in the wound.”