On Nov. 25, 1997, RCMP Staff Sergeant Hugh Stewart warned a group of protesters to clear a road at the University of B.C. so APEC dignitaries could get through.

In a now-famous video clip captured by a CBC cameraman, and repeated relentlessly on newscasts, Stewart warned the protesters his officers would use whatever force was necessary to clear the road and then -- just nine seconds later -- began dousing them with pepper spray.

More than three-and-a-half years later, on April 21, 2001, the RCMP found itself in a similar situation in Quebec City during the Summit of the Americas trade talks.

It was called on to disperse a gathering of protesters at one of the fences surrounding the conference.

This time, the incident was captured on video by the RCMP's own cameramen.

Using a bullhorn, the RCMP repeatedly ordered protesters to leave the area. Two minutes after the first warning was given, RCMP officers rushed the crowd, using tear gas, rubber bullets and a Taser gun to force the crowd to leave.

Two protests. Two cities.

But, after lengthy investigations by the RCMP Public Complaints Commission, the conclusion was the same: the RCMP failed to give protesters enough time to clear the area before using force.

In his report on the 1997 APEC protests, Commissioner Ted Hughes concluded poor planning by the RCMP had left Stewart with only four minutes to clear the road at UBC, resulting in the "unnecessary pepper spraying" of protesters.

In his recommendations to the force, Hughes wrote that the Mounties had an obligation not only to warn protesters before using force, but to give them "a reasonable opportunity to comply" with orders to move before using it.

In the Commission's interim report into the Quebec City protests, obtained by The Vancouver Sun on Wednesday, chairwoman Shirley Heafey concludes the RCMP failed to follow its own crowd-control measures and -- once again -- put protesters in a situation where they could not reasonably have been expected to comply.

"Although the law allows the police to use as much force as necessary, crowds must be given not only clear warnings but also sufficient time to act on them," Heafey writes in the report.

"The [RCMP] members did not issue a proper warning, and clearly failed, given the size of the crowd and the confined space in which they were gathered, to allow the crowd sufficient time to disperse."

Craig Jones, a law student during APEC who was arrested by the RCMP after displaying protest signs, said the Quebec City report suggests the Mounties haven't learned much from its handling of the 1997 protests.

"It's a pattern," said Jones, who now practises law in Vancouver. "What these cases speak to is a consistent misbehaviour by police in a way that clearly values security over the speech rights of protesters."

In February 2001 -- more than two months before the Quebec City meeting -- the RCMP announced that it had drafted a new strategy for dealing with public protests, including holding discussions with protesters before events.

"We're approaching the problem with a more modern and up-to-date philosophy," RCMP spokesman Staff Sergeant Andre Guertin said at the time.

But Jones said the similarities in the force's behaviour at APEC and Quebec City suggests the force has not changed its approach to handling protests.

"What it speaks to, at least in these individual instances, is an attitude that somehow the protesters should be punished and it's the role of police to punish the protesters for protesting," Jones said. "The role of the police is just as much to protect the protester's right of protest as to protect the security of the conference."

Given the unprecedented length of his inquiry, Hughes' report was released in August 2001 -- several months after the Quebec City protests.

But Murray Mollard, executive director of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, said the issues around the RCMP's handling of APEC protesters were aired well before the Quebec summit.

"There were lots of lessons in APEC that you didn't need to wait for Ted Hughes' report to act on," Mollard said.

And the issue of RCMP officers not giving protesters enough time to comply with orders was highlighted by the complaints commission as early as March 2000 -- in a review of the force's handling of protests in New Brunswick in 1997.

In that case, RCMP officers fired several tear gas canisters into a crowd protesting school closures while several of the demonstrators were attempting to leave the area -- resulting in four children being grazed by tear gas canisters.

In its report on the New Brunswick protests, the public complaints commission recommended that police "must ensure that persons have enough time to leave the demonstration site" before the use of force.

Mollard said the force's repeated haste in using force against protesters is troubling.

"When the alternative is to engage in the use of weapons that are going to cause harm ... the police should be making all efforts to give protesters time to move on," Mollard said. "The question is: Why weren't the police doing it?"

cskelton@png.canwest.com

The Summit Report