OTTAWA––The Harper government Monday blocked attempts to probe police conduct at the G20 summit in Toronto that was marred by riots and the largest mass arrests in Canadian history — most of whom were never charged.

Conservative members of the Commons public safety and national security committee talked out the clock preventing a motion to review controversial security matters, arguing it would only lend a voice to the thugs, hooligans and anarchists who traumatized Toronto last month during the gathering of world leaders.

Tory MP Dave MacKenzie, former police chief in Woodstock, Ont., urged the committee to “reject calls to promote the agenda of the violent mob . . . who set fire to police cars and damaged property during the G20 in Toronto.”

Opposition MPs said the federal government’s real reason was far more cynical, arguing it desperately wants to avoid explaining why security cost well over $1 billion for the G8 and G20 summits and yet black-clad protesters still did millions of dollars damage in downtown Toronto while at police stood by and watched.

Some opposition MPs vowed later to call the committee back next week to try once again to have the matter heard, despite the fact the Conservative members complained about having to interrupt their constituency work during the summer break to return to Ottawa.

“The issue is that this was turned into a security nightmare all of which was predicable … the issue is the government spent $2 billion . . . for security and other goodies related to this and it became an absolute farce. The issue is that the government is now trying to use officers and the word security as a shield as a way to avoid the word accountability,” said Liberal MP Mark Holland (Ajax Pickering).

Throughout the two hours the Conservative MPs accused the opposition MPs of being driven by partisan political motives while defending “thugs, hooligans and anarchists” intent on violence.

They instead suggested the public safety committee consider the matter when the House of Common resumes in the fall, which they argued would allow other probes being conducted by Toronto Police Services Board and others to be completed.

“I urge . . . the opposition to put aside political motivations and instead stand with our police, stand with the appropriate bodies already examining this issue, condemn violence by these thugs and hooligans and agree to hold these meetings when all of the facts can be properly presented,” said Conservative MP Dean Del Mastro (Peterborough).

Having the public safety committee probe security costs and police conduct still falls well short of the public inquiries being sought by individuals and activists, including Amnesty International Canada and Canadian Civil Liberties Association.

The common complaint was that security at both the Huntsville G8 and the G20 in Toronto was far too expensive and that people’s civil rights were disregarded by overzealous police officers, especially in Toronto.

In Toronto, almost 1,000 people were rounded up and arrested over a 36-hour period in a manner the Canadian Civil Liberties Association has described as unprecedented, disproportionate, arbitrary and excessive.

An impassioned Bloc Québécois MP Maria Mourani emphasized that if and when the probe happens it must be a thorough airing, given the unsubstantiated reports she is hearing about the conduct of police, including threatening women with rape, to involuntary vaccination of some protesters and others who were rounded up.

“I have received calls from people from Quebec — they are not hooligans, they are not murderers, terrorists or anarchists. They are parents and young people, they are students from Quebec who say that they were victims of various abuses,” Mourani said.

NDP MP Paul Dewar (Ottawa Centre) took sharp exception to the government suggesting groups calling for a summit security probe were thugs and so on.

“Associating that with people who stand up for civil liberties, associating that with Amnesty International and people who went out to demonstrate peacefully and want to know what happened,” Dewar told the committee.

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“A thousand were arrested and they don’t know why. A gentleman with a (prosthesis) had his leg taken away. Something went desperately wrong and we have to find out what went wrong,” he said.

“But they (the Conservatives) don’t want to be held accountable.”