Dissent Denied: Public Order Policing and the Criminalization of Protest at the 2010 Toronto G20

In June 2010, the Group of Twenty (G20) met in Toronto, Ontario. The summit drew large-scale protests that culminated in mass arrests and extensive civil rights violations. Given these outcomes, this thesis examines the security spectacle of the summit to assess the evolving state of public order policing and social movement protest in Canadian law and politics. Connecting the securitization of the summit to the politics of neoliberalism, I argue these overlapping forces helped foment the criminalization of political dissent during the 2010 Toronto G20.

Author Keywords: mega-events, neoliberalism, public order policing, securitization, security, social movements