Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair said Wednesday that in hindsight, he failed to properly inform the public about a controversial regulation the provincial government passed to help protect the G20 Summit.

"I regret that. It was something we could have and should have taken the time to do," Blair told a news conference held in Victoria, B.C. held in the wake of a scathing report from Ontario's ombudsman about the law.

Blair said he did address the so-called "five-metre" law on Friday, June 25 in a morning news conference.

That regulation, quietly passed by the provincial government, was interpreted as allowing people to stop, question and search people inside the G20 summit site's security fence -- and those within five metres of the perimeter's outside. That fence ringed an area surrounding the Metro Toronto Convention Centre.

About five hours after the news conference, Blair said he received a different interpretation from his legal team. According to this interpretation, the regulation only applied inside the security perimeter, he said.

However, Blair only told his front-line officers so they would "not stop, detain and search anybody without lawful authority to do so."

He noted there were officers from 22 other services working during the summit weekend.

Blair did not hold a second news conference to clarify the earlier misinformation. He said a protest held by thousands of demonstrators and the repatriation of a Canadian soldier's remains from Afghanistan took priority.

The chief said only two people were arrested and charged under the act. However, Marin said in his report he received 170 complaints from people detained under the law.

Marin had accused Blair of not fully co-operating with his investigation. "Our co-operation was limited to those things the ombudsman is responsible for," which is how the regulation was passed and communicated by the provincial government, the chief said.

The province, feds

Earlier Wednesday, Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty said his government acted in good faith but with too much haste when it quietly expanded police powers for the G20 summit.

"The police were given additional authority. We moved too quickly to provide that authority," McGuinty said about the report by provincial Ombudsman Andre Marin.

"We did not take the appropriate time to fully reflect on the consequences of this new regulation, and we moved too quickly in terms of communicating and it was not done on a broad enough scale."

Marin's report came out Tuesday, and it scolded the McGuinty government for giving police wartime-like powers for policing the summit, which was held at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre in a zone sealed by a security fence.

The regulation, quietly passed under the authority of the 1939 Public Works Protection Act.

On June 29, after the summit had ended, Blair admitted there had been no five-metre rule.

Marin has said the police interpreted the regulation as the five-kilometre rule, as they were stopping people downtown far from the G20 summit zone.

McGuinty argued that even Marin didn't take issue with the government's motives.

"He said that we acted with good intentions, that the police came to us and said: 'We need your help. We're going to be hosting the G20 and there are possibly the top 20 terrorist targets on the face of this planet coming together in one city," the premier said.

The G20 summit in Toronto, held on June 26 and 27, and the preceding G8 summit in the cottage country town of Huntsville, were organized by the federal government in co-operation with the province and local authorities.

In Ottawa, Public Safety Minister Vic Toews said he knew nothing about the Ontario government's decision to expand police powers.

The RCMP oversaw security in Huntsville and inside the inner security zone in Toronto.

"In respect of this specific matter relating to the regulation, the federal government has no involvement in that, that's a matter falling within provincial jurisdiction and one that I understand from news reports was something requested by the chief of police in Toronto," Toews said.

The minister said he didn't know if RCMP were involved in using the law's authority to conduct searches in Toronto that weekend.

Blair told the news conference the regulation was requested by the G8/G20 Integrated Security Unit's planning team.

Ontario has appointed former chief justice Roy McMurtry to review the Public Works Protection Act, which predates the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. He is expected to report sometime in 2011.

The Toronto Police Services Board has retired judge John W. Morden currently conducting a review of the G20 policing effort, including the command structure used.

With files from The Canadian Press