Should APEC be revisited? Annette Martin Ted Hughes, the newly appointed chairman of the RCMP Public Complaints Commission, announced last Friday that prelimi- nary sessions of the sus- pended APEC inquiry will resume January 27. Formal hearings are expected to open in Van- couver on March 1. The inquiry, which was shut down last month after the three-member panel resigned, will be assessing the manner in which RCMP security forces treated the (mostly) student protestors during clashes at the 1997 Asia- Pacific Economic Summit meeting. Hughes, who will conduct the hearings alone, plans to start from the beginning. This means that the two witnesses who have already testified will be re-questioned. Says Hughes; “I know little about the background (of the hearings) and that is the way it should be.” The first order of business will be to discuss funding of legal expenses for the student protestors. Lawyers Cameron Ward and Joseph Arvay, who repre- sent some of the complain- ants, plan to ask the federal government to cover their clients’ legal expenses. The question of whether Prime Minister Jean Chrétien can be summoned to testify will be discussed February 2. Ward wants the inquiry to have the power to sub- poena the Prime Minister and others from the PM’s office who may have been involved in security meas- ures. Pearson Closed Jennifer Swanston Toronto—The line for the Air Canada gates snake all over terminal two in Lester B. Pearson International airport in Toronto. Many of the people were supposed to fly out the night before, but one of the biggest storms to come along in years hit Toronto. For most of January 3rd the airport was closed due to high winds and frequent zero visibility conditions. The storm could not have hit at a worse time of year as it was one of the busiest travel times. The airport was filled with returning college and university students and people who had turned the New Year's weekend into a long weekend vacation. Thousands of people's planes were delayed or canceled outright as the storm moved on to pum- mel the East Coast. LaGuardia, O'Hare, Newark and numerous other airports shut down on the APEC defence fund Carla Tonelli, Varsity TORONTO (CUP)—Univer- sity faculty across Canada are boosting.a nation-wide movement of support for student protesters at last year’s APEC summit in Vancouver by sending cash to help fund legal costs for the inquiry, which is set to resume in the next few weeks. By prompting the Canadian Association of University Teachers to send the latest donation of $500 to the APEC Protest- ers Legal Defence Fund, faculty associations from coast-to-coast have con- tributed $7,000 to the fund collected by the British Columbia Federa- tion of Labour. So far, about $115,000 has been raised from individuals and labour unions. Jim Turk, executive director of the association, says it’s a disgrace the federal government has refused to take responsibil- ity for the students’ ex- penses, which have been climbing upward of $240,000 since October when their defence lawyers stopped working for free. “It’s unbalanced for the government to say the students aren't entitled to legal defence when all the other parties involved are,” Turk said, pointing to Ottawa's decision to pay most of the legal costs for the RCMP and the federal departments involved in the hearings. “The student protest- ers are every bit as much a central part of the hearing as all the other partici- pants,” Turk added. The Canadian Associa- tion of University Teach- ers, which represents 56 faculty associations and 28,000 professors and librarians across the coun- try, says it’s deeply trou- bled by the treatment of the student protesters at the Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation summit last year, as well as at the RCMP Public Complaints Commission hearings. “It’s not surprising at all that faculty would support students,” said Miriam Sobrino, director of communications for the BC Federation of Labour. “They're at universities and post-secondary insti- tutions, which are sup- posed to be places to expand knowledge and not be afraid to try out new ideas.” What is surprising, Sobrino says, is that so many individuals have lent financial support to the students’ legal defence fund even with the risk of landing their names on government surveillance lists. “If you're on the record as supporting this, that means you're on the record as opposing the federal government,” Sobrino said. While the students may not be accused of 4 January 13 1999 the Other Press crimes per se, the aggres- sive manner in which they've been interrogated by Ottawa’s lawyers justify the public funding of their defence, she added. But the federal government maintains that because the students are not accused of anything, regardless of interrogation tactics, they’re on their own to fund legal costs. “They are the ones making the accusations,” said Athana Mentzelopoulos, spokes- woman for the federal government's lawyers. Government regula- tions require that Ottawa cover the costs of legal defence whenever a gov- ernment employee is accused of anything, she added. “The question has remained, why do [stu- dents] require legal assist- ance?” she said. The three Canada Justice employees working as federal government lawyers cost around $2,000 a day, Mentzelopoulos said. Anyone wishing to contrib- ute to the students’ legal defence fund can send cheques to the BC Federation of Labour, APEC Protesters Legal Support Fund, c/o Ste. 200, 5118 Joyce St., Vancouver, BC V5R 4H1 fourth, along with the airports in Montreal and Ottawa. Due to stranded flights and flight crews in other cities, many flights leaving Pearson to regions that had not been hit by the storm were also canceled or delayed. No matter how long their delays were, many people felt lucky just to make it off the ground. Some passengers were stuck in their airplane on the tarmac for over ten hours before they were told to disembark and were put on standby. Hotels filled up quickly, leaving people who couldn't get a hotel room to fight over the meager supplies of blan- kets and pillows. “They'd bring out thirty pillows and blankets for a hundred people to fight over. We were lucky to get a space to lie down on the floor to sleep last night,” said Jen Quesnel, the news editor at the University of Regina's student newspaper. Quesnel's flight was sup- posed to leave at 7:05pm on Saturday, by 9:00pm on Sunday her flight still hadn't been called. Interference can Douglas Quan, Ubyssey VANCOUVER (CUP)—The APEC inquiry can investi- gate alleged political interference in the actions of RCMP officers at last year’s summit despite contradicting media re- ports, says the president of British Columbia’s Civil Liberties Association. Andrew Irvine says statements made by in- quiry chairwoman Shirley Heafey regarding the scope of the investigation have been misinterpreted. Even though the ' RCMP Public Complaints Commission is mandated to examine the actions of officers, it is not barred from considering the roles of other bodies—including the prime minister's office—if the evidence leads there, he said. “[The inquiry] does have the power to investi- gate policy directives and the sources of those directives on the RCMP,” Irvine said. At a press conference in Ottawa last month, Heafey said: “[The prime minister] is not my man- date. I’m not going to pretend anything else. My mandate is RCMP con- duct.” But Irvine cautioned people not to draw the conclusion that the in- quiry was somehow barred be investigated from investigating Prime Minister Jean Chretien. He said Heafey con- firmed to him (that Chretien could be investi- gated) in a letter last year and added the commission still has the power to subpoena Chretien if it’s proven that his testimony is relevant to the proceed- ings. The BC Civil Liberties Association is listed as one of the complainants in the inquiry. Unlike most other complainants, who are alleging the RCMP used excessive force by pepper- spraying student protest- ers, the association's concerns focus on whether the students’ right to free speech was violated. Heafey’s comments followed her announce- ment that retired judge Ted Hughes has been named as chairman of the inquiry, which is probing allegations of police wrongdoing at last year’s Asia Pacific Economic Co- operation summit. The original three panel members resigned late last year over allega- tions that its chairman, Gerald Morin, was biased against the RCMP.