What haunts me about the G20 is not that grotesque summer weekend of mass arrests and shivering shoppers penned in for hours in the rain at Queen St. and Spadina Ave. It’s not even John Pruyn, the Christmas tree farmer who lost his leg in a gruesome accident 19 years ago. He had come to Toronto to protest with his daughter. They were sitting in the so-called “free-speech zone” at Queen’s Park that Saturday afternoon when riot police — many of whom had peeled off their nametags — attacked the crowd. Pruyn was treated like a wild dog: jumped, handcuffed, his prosthetic leg ripped off and then instructed, as if for sport, to hop to the police van.

That memory pricks my eyes with shame.

What haunts me about the G20, though, is my city’s atmosphere the week leading up to international meeting.

Do you remember? The towering metal fence had been erected. Police were pouring into the city, bringing their rubber bullets, water cannons and ear-splitting sound guns normally reserved for Somali pirates. Downtown businesses were telling their employees to avoid cotton underwear (it absorbs tear gas) and stay underground if possible.

The city felt like we were going to war, and according to our government we were — against the protesters-cum-terrorists.

When it was revealed that week that the province’s Liberal cabinet had passed a secret law permitting police to search anyone near the security zone, the only ones screaming bloody murder were members of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA), notably its general counsel, Nathalie Des Rosiers.

The rest of us were just fine to forfeit our rights. We were frightened. We believed the always sage federal Conservative cabinet minister Stockwell Day who pronounced “anarchists and violent groups” were on their way and “they’re going to cause trouble.”

We didn’t mind that free speech, one of our most beloved charter rights, was penned in and relegated to a scrap of lawn.

Time and time again that week, I heard a variation of this phrase from otherwise thoughtful friends: “Whoever goes near that fence deserves to be arrested. There is no reason to be there. Everyone should stay home.”

There were protests every day that week — gay-rights activists and folks against the oilsands. Their marches were boisterous and playful. But still, they were treated with suspicion — not just by the rows of riot cops who penned them in, but by the general public.

“I wasn’t even a protester,” I heard a few people say during the CCLA’s post-G20 hearings.

Protesters, they seemed to be saying, deserved to be jumped, maimed, made to hop . . . Then, on Saturday, a team of anarchists in black somehow evaded the 5,400 police officers swarming the city and smashed some windows on Yonge St. Instead of criticizing the incompetence of a police state, most people’s reaction was: “See, we were right to give up our rights.”

I wasn’t on the street that afternoon. I had planned to take my then-4-year-old daughter, Lyla, to her first protest, but discovered the subway was no longer stopping at downtown stations. We returned home and watched the CP24 tape-loop of a burning police car and Starbucks window being kicked in. As we watched, my inbox brimmed with vitriol.

That morning, I had published a column about the police state that typically arrives before the G20, called the “Miami Model.” It begins with fear, I’d written, then secret laws, then mass arrests resulting in few, if any, charges and, finally, the police congratulating themselves on a job well done.

Readers were enraged. Many told me they hoped the anarchists would arrive with their bats at my home.

I can’t remember one single positive email that day.

Later that night, I watched our then mayor, David Miller, congratulate the police.

I am not gloating. (Okay, I am a bit.) I’m recounting this for a larger reason: to point out how easily cowed we all were.

The age-old tricks of fear and scapegoating worked their magic that week, as they always do.

For me, the legacy of the G20 is not Bill Blair’s resignation (which should happen), nor charges against police officers (which also should happen). The G20’s legacy is a reminder to Canadian citizens of our need to vigilantly patrol our rights, particularly in the face of fear and propaganda.

Charter rights are like marriages. Their true worth is measured during sickness, not health.

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What haunts me is not that the police and politicians trampled our rights during the G20. It’s that we let them do it so passively.

Oh and one more thing: Nathalie des Rosiersdeserves the Order of Canada.

Catherine Porter’s column usually appears on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. She can be reached at cporter@thestar.ca.