An independent review of the “secret law” police used to detain hundreds of people during last summer's G20 summit is no substitute for a public inquiry, critics charge.

While Nathalie Des Rosiers, general counsel for the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, welcomed the province's appointment of former Ontario chief justice Roy McMurtry to probe the controversial 1939 Public Works Protection Act, she said “it does not change the need for a public inquiry.”

“We will continue to push the federal government for a full public inquiry,” Des Rosiers said in an interview from Ottawa Wednesday.

“They threw the party, they should pay for the broken glasses,” she said, urging Queen's Park to “exert some pressure on the federal government to stop this wall of silence” about the security at the June 26-27 summit of world leaders.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservative government has repeatedly said it has no plans to further probe the G20 fiasco.

As first disclosed by the Star, Premier Dalton McGuinty's administration has asked McMurtry to conduct a narrowly focused review of the 1939 law passed to deal with internal threats.

“We've got a law that's been on the books since 1939 and that law was put into effect during wartime—probably they were worried about Nazi saboteurs at that time,” said Community Safety Minister Jim Bradley.

“It may have made sense in 1939 — it might still make sense, who knows — in 2010, but I want Mr. McMurtry to look at that from various aspects so he will look at it very carefully.”

But Bradley emphasized the ball is in Ottawa's court if there is to be a judicial inquiry.

“It was a federal event,” he said.

NDP Leader Andrea Horwath, however, said that's a cop-out because McGuinty's cabinet secretly rushed through the regulation that Toronto Police later misused to erroneously claim anyone coming within 5 metres of the summit fence would be required to provide identification or submit to a search.

“From day one, we have been calling for a full and complete inquiry into this debacle,” said Horwath, who has been critical of the fact police arrested 1,105 people and charged just 278 of them.

“The McMurtry investigation will not do what needs to be done in terms of looking at all the decision-making processes, how they occurred, who talked to who and when, and who connected all of those dots,” she said.

“That's what needs to happen for people to get a really good understanding of what went wrong.”

Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak said Bradley's predecessor, Rick Bartolucci, who was sent to the ministry of municipal affairs after the G20 uproar, should have been fired from cabinet.

“Why is the minister still in cabinet? I would like Dalton McGuinty to get out there and tell us exactly whose idea was this secret law? Who decided to lie to the public and keep it buried?” said Hudak.

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Hudak said it may well have been that officers needed the additional authority to police the Metro Toronto Convention Centre site, but the government should have had “the courage to be clear about it.”

The review by McMurtry, who will report back with his findings next spring, complements a similar probe by Ontario Ombudsman André Marin and a Toronto Police Services Board investigation of the G20 command structure and policing model.

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