8 January 1997
Prime Minister Jean Chrétien announces that the APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting (AELM) will be held in Vancouver on 24 and 25 November 1997: "I am confident it will be the highlight of 1997 - Canada's Year of Asia Pacific - which will celebrate and strengthen our longstanding social, cultural and business ties within the Pacific community." A press release from the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) explains: "The leaders' meeting will be held in the Great Hall of Arthur Erickson's award-winning Museum of Anthropology, located on the campus of the University of British Columbia."

Summer and autumn 1997
Indonesia's President Suharto repeatedly expresses concern about the possibility of encountering "embarrassing" demonstrations while in Canada. He indicates that he will boycott the meetings unless assured that there will be no affront to his dignity.

Suharto or his officials are reassured on numerous occasions by Canadian officials at all levels, including officials from the APEC Canada Coordinating Office (ACCO), RCMP officers, External Affairs Minister Lloyd Axworthy, and the Prime Minister. Promises are made to protect Suharto's "comfort" or "dignity," or to attend to his "security and other arrangements." Assurances are given that demonstrators "will not be permitted in close proximity to the President."

The RCMP enlarge the perimeter of a fenced area that they had deemed necessary for security purposes at UBC in order to accommodate PM's "specific wish that this is a retreat and leaders should not be distracted by demos, etc." (notes of RCMP Supt. Wayne May, 27 August 1997).

September to November 1997
Disquiet is expressed (sotto voce) in certain quarters concerning the propriety and/or legality of restricting demonstrations for reasons unrelated to security: "The PMO had expressed concerns about the security perimeter at UBC, not so much from a security point of view but to avoid embarrassments to APEC leaders. ACCO and the RCMP are looking at that issue. The response (as suggested in fact by Donolo) is that we have to find a balance that meets both concerns (we do not wish student demonstrations and efforts by the govt to suppress the freedom of expression to become a major media story)" (memo from Robert Vanderloo, 12 September 1997).

17 November 1997
Research by the UBC Legal Office reveals that neither the RCMP nor UBC has legal authority to control excessive noise on campus.

22 November 1997
Karen Pearlston, a graduate law student residing at Green College (a graduate student residence and the building closest to the APEC motorcade route at UBC), is told by police that they have orders from the PMO that there should be "no signs and no people" on the Green College side of the motorcade route. She is threatened with arrest when she asserts her constitutional rights. Asked on what charge, the police respond, "We'll make something up."

In the evening, student protesters camped near the Museum of Anthropology are arrested. Police documents had stated that the PMO was "very concerned" about their presence (e-mail from Insp. Dingwall to Supt. May and others, 20 November 1997) even though the campers apparently did not pose a security threat.

"APEC command centre logs show that on one occasion, Jean Carle, the Director of Operations for the Prime Minister's office, phoned Wayne May. May is the RCMP Superintendent who headed up security at the summit. The call came just days before the meeting at UBC, and it centred on the student protesters camped near the summit site" (Newsworld Online, 23 August 1999).

22-23 November 1997
Individuals arrested on these dates are required to sign "Conditions for Undertakings Before an Officer in Charge" containing the following clause as a condition of release: "I will not participate or be found in attendance at any public demonstration or rally that has gathered together for the sole purpose of demonstrating against the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation or any nation participating in the so named conference." Individuals who either refuse to sign or who breach these terms are held in custody, sometimes without charge, until the APEC conference is over. The RCMP would later admit that this was improper and that the conditions were unlawful.

24 November 1997
Anti-APEC organizer Jaggi Singh is arrested on the charge of assaulting a UBC security guard (who also served as a volunteer auxiliary RCMP constable) by speaking loudly into a megaphone on 7 November, more than two weeks earlier. Released after signing an undertaking, Singh is rearrested later the same day for breaching its conditions. (Two weeks before his trial date, in February 1999, the charges are dropped, prompting him to ask, "Why did I spend four days in jail and why was I nabbed?")

The APEC Threat Assessment Joint Intelligence Group (TAG) Daily Bulletin reports that "two members of the media attending UBC last night as invited observers were noted to be overly sympathetic to the APEC Alert protesters. Both subjects have had their accreditation seized."

Law student Craig Jones places paper signs reading "Free Speech," "Democracy," and "Human Rights" on fences surrounding Green College "in a manner that did not present any security or line-of-sight concerns for the police. Each page of the signs was printed with a notice warning that the signs had been properly and lawfully erected by a Canadian citizen exercising his right of free expression under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and that removal of the signs would violate the laws of Canada" (from court documents filed by Jones). At midnight, police remove the signs.

25 November 1997
The APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting takes place at the UBC Museum of Anthropology.

At approximately 7:50 a.m., Craig Jones, aided by a pro-APEC organizer, displays signs reading simply "Free Speech," "Democracy," and "Human Rights" on Green College property. The signs, on 8½ x 11" sheets of paper, are visible from the planned APEC motorcade route but are behind police security fences. The "Human Rights" sign is laid out on the sidewalk near the roadway. The others are displayed from portable coat racks. An RCMP inspector orders the signs removed. Jones would later assert that "at no time was it ever suggested ... that the means by which his sign was mounted posed any security risk." He is arrested, held for fourteen hours, and eventually released without charge.

At approximately 8:30 a.m., Mike Thoms, a doctoral student in history, briefly displays a "textile banner." He is told by RCMP officers that he cannot do this and that he will be arrested for "an obstruction of justice" if he persists. Police seize the banner.

Other individuals wishing to display signs on the Green College side of security fences are told by police that signs are not allowed. RCMP Inspector Dingwall "had ordered student protesters to get off the sidewalk along the APEC leaders' route. At the time Dingwall said they were obstructing pedestrian traffic. And he repeated the claim in a subsequent memo. But when asked about the memo during Public Complaints Commission testimony, Dingwall admitted he lied to the students to get them to move because he was uncomfortable with them being on the sidewalk that the leaders' motorcade would be passing" (CBC Newsworld, 11 September 1999).

Police remove a Tibetan flag flying at a considerable distance from the APEC leaders' meeting site.

"PMO aide, Jean Carle ... told the [APEC] inquiry he 'expressed opinions' about the placement of student protesters, so their flag waving and yelling wouldn't embarrass the APEC leaders. But he said he never directly told police to move the protesters" (Newsworld Online, 26 August 1999).

Insp. Bill Dingwall "told the [APEC] inquiry the Mounties never tried to hide or restrict demonstrators to limit any political embarrassment ... The positioning of protest banners was not a security issue, yet in one of his many e-mails, Dingwall discussed options for removing them from a university building" (Newsworld Online, 7 September 1999). Dingwall and other RCMP officers also denied taking orders from the Prime Minister's staff.

The Prime Minister's staff cancel a scheduled speech to APEC leaders by Chief Gail Sparrow of the Musqueam Nation. She had intended to allude briefly to human rights issues.

Students are pepper-sprayed by police on several occasions. A Canadian Broadcasting Corporation cameraman is also doused with pepper spray. It has been alleged that individuals carrying cellular telephones or amplifying equipment were arrested and that women, but not men, were strip-searched by RCMP officers.

"According to an RCMP source, audio tapes of police radio transmissions at APEC were punctuated with 'Jean Carle wants this' and 'Jean Carle wants that.' The tapes have gone missing, and on Monday Mr. Carle admitted shredding most of his APEC memos, too" (National Post, 28 August 1999).

5 December 1997
The Vancouver Sun reports that a ten-page RCMP internal memorandum titled "Most Frequency [sic] Asked Questions about APEC Security Measures" told members of the Force that "the Prime Minister's Office was not involved in RCMP security arrangements."

8 December 1997
Craig Jones files suit against the RCMP, the government of Canada, and individual RCMP officers.

Kay Stockholder, President of the BC Civil Liberties Association, files a complaint with the RCMP Public Complaints Commission and becomes the first to call for public hearings into events at APEC 1997.

10 December 1997
At a UBC Senate meeting, senior university officials confirm the direct involvement of senior officials from the PMO in establishing "security perimeters" around the AELM meeting site.

14 December 1997
Officials with Elections Canada (a non-partisan independent agency) interrogate two anti-APEC organizers (Jonathan Oppenheim and Victoria Scott) with a view to charging them for the destruction of their own ballots during the 1997 federal election, held almost seven months earlier.

20 February 1998
Shirley Heafey, chair of the RCMP Public Complaints Commission (PCC), appoints a panel to investigate matters arising from the 1997 APEC summit. The panel consisted of Gerald Morin (chair), Vina Starr, and John Wright.

20 July 1998
Justice Barbara Reed of the Federal Court of Canada rules that the PCC panel can properly make "a recommendation to the federal government that the [APEC complainants] be provided with funding. The other side is already fully funded by the federal government ... the issue at stake is of fundamental public importance addressing as it does the boundary between freedom of expression and police security ... The complainant ... acts as a representative of the public interest - the public interest in ensuring that the police do not overstep the bounds of what is proper conduct."

August 1998
Federal Solicitor General Andy Scott refuses to provide funding to pay the legal expenses of the APEC complainants.

Autumn 1998
The fall sitting of the House of Commons is dominated by questions concerning the APEC Inquiry.

25 September 1998
The Toronto Star reports that New Democratic Party leader Alexa McDonough, speaking in the House of Commons, asserted: "We learned that former operations director, Jean Carle, has admitted to destroying documents pertaining to spray-PEC." However, PCC counsel Chris Considine is quoted as saying that "we have no evidence to suggest at this time that there has been a deliberate destruction of documents."

5 October 1998
NDP Member of Parliament Dick Proctor reports in Parliament that he overheard Solicitor General Scott say that he was acting as Prime Minister Chrétien's "cover" in the APEC affair and that "it will all come out in the inquiry that four or five Mounties overreacted for five minutes. No one knows this. I think it was excessive."

6 October 1998
The Vancouver Sun reports: "Chrétien has said he will not testify even if the RCMP public complaints commission calls him." Liberal MP and constitutional expert "Ted McWhinney (Vancouver Quadra) was kicked off the House foreign affairs committee after saying last week that students involved in the protest at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum should have their legal bills paid. The committee was to vote on the request for funding this week."

16 October 1998
Solicitor General Scott writes to Gerald Morin, chair of the PCC APEC panel, reiterating the government's refusal to provide funding to assist with the complainants' legal fees despite the panel's earlier representations that "public confidence in our findings and recommendations may require separate funded legal representatives for the complainants."

Peter Donolo, the Prime Minister's communications director, writes to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation alleging that award-winning CBC journalist Terry Milewski is biased against the Prime Minister. No specific inaccuracies or violations of professional journalistic standards are alleged. Milewski is taken off the story.

18 October 1998
The Province reports that delegates to the convention of the federal Liberal Party's BC wing passed a resolution calling on the government to provide funding for complainants before the APEC Inquiry.

19 October 1998
Prime Minister Chrétien defends police use of pepper spray at the APEC summit: "Rather than taking a baseball bat or something, they're trying to use civilized measures."

The RCMP PCC panel, chaired by Gerald Morin, resumes hearings but refuses to "read into the record" a statement regarding funding for complainants as instructed by Shirley Heafey, administrative head of the RCMP PCC.

23 October 1998
The Vancouver Sun reports that "the federal government raised an allegation of bias against Morin," founded on reports allegedly overheard in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, some months earlier by RCMP Constable Russell Black.

5 November 1998
The federal government, "which first raised the issue of bias against chairman Gerald Morin, decided it will not make a formal application against the panel." However, lawyers for RCMP officers announce that they will seek a court ruling that the panel is biased and an interim order prohibiting "the panel from reconvening before the application for disqualification is heard" (Vancouver Sun and National Post, 5 November 1998).

6 November 1998
An internal CBC investigation into the Prime Minister's Office's complaints clears Terry Milewski of wrongdoing. He is not reassigned to cover the story.

23 November 1998
Andy Scott resigns as Solicitor General and is replaced by Lawrence MacAulay of Prince Edward Island.

4 December 1998
Gerald Morin resigns from the APEC Inquiry panel. Peter Mansbridge reports on CBC's The National: "Gerald Morin blamed interference from his boss, a political appointee, and even raised the possibility of break-ins and bugging of his car and office." According to CBC reporter Ian Hanomansing, "Gerald Morin says the person in charge of the commission, Shirley Heafey, a political appointee, interfered three times."

10 December 1998
Morin's fellow commissioners, Vina Starr and John Wright, resign. PCC chair Shirley Heafey (the administrative head of the commission but not the head of individual panels) "kept the resignations secret for reasons she did not disclose" (Vancouver Sun, 18 December 1998).

17 December 1998
The resignations of commissioners Starr and Wright are made public, after Parliament has recessed for the Christmas holidays. Alexa McDonough says: "People are properly shocked that the Public Complaints Commission chose to hide the resignations from the public for a whole week. It hardly inspires confidence" (Globe and Mail, 18 December 1998).

21 December 1998
E.N. (Ted) Hughes is appointed as sole commissioner to investigate the matters before the PCC relating to the 1997 APEC summit: "Investigating allegations of political interference in the security measures at the summit is not part of Hughes' mandate, his boss, commission chairwoman Shirley Heafey, confirmed at an Ottawa press conference" (Vancouver Sun, 22 December 1998).

5 February 1999
Commissioner Hughes writes to Solicitor General MacAulay urging the federal government to pay for lawyers representing the APEC complainants. He also indicates that he is looking into whether he has "authority to order that it [state-funded counsel] be provided."

Commissioner Hughes rules that, in proper circumstances, the PCC has jurisdiction to investigate and to make recommendations concerning questions relating to the role of the Prime Minister or of his officials in giving improper orders, if any, to the RCMP.

15 February 1999
Solicitor General MacAulay agrees to provide funding for modest legal representation for APEC complainants before the PCC with the following restrictions: (1) it will not cover expenses incurred before 21 December 1998 (when Hughes was appointed); (2) only three lawyers will be paid for; and (3) the lawyers' fees will be restricted to Department of Justice scale. Reform MP Jim Abbott comments: "It makes me think of a rowboat up against a battleship." He estimates that there are "20-odd" lawyers on the other side.

5 March 1999
Commissioner Hughes rules that no person is exempt from being summoned as a witness before the commission if the evidence points in their direction (that is, the Prime Minister could be subject to a summons).

19 March 1999
CBC Ombudsman Marcel Pépin issues a report fully exonerating Terry Milewski: "For six months, the Watergate break-in was regarded as a second-rate break-in, until the two reporters from the Washington Post presented the other version we know now ... in the practice of journalism, skepticism and tenacity are not necessarily shortcomings and even less evidence that questioning the official versions confirms an unacceptable bias ... The content of the reports by Mr. Milewski and their presentation by the CBC are consistent with the rules of good journalism and the CBC's Journalistic Standards and Practices."

6 May 1999
Elections Canada drops charges of destroying their own ballots against anti-APEC organizers Jonathan Oppenheim and Victoria Scott.

25 June 1999
Mr. Justice William McKeown of the Federal Court of Canada upholds the federal cabinet's right to withhold documents germane to the APEC Inquiry even though those documents might prove helpful to the complainants' case.

24 August 1999
Jean Carle testifies before the PCC panel: "While Mr. Carle admitted his duties brought him into frequent contact with the RCMP officers organizing summit security, he said the only thing he did was make a few suggestions. He denied that those suggestions were orders or that they were designed to spare Suharto from seeing demonstrations criticizing his regime" (National Post, 24 August 1999).

27 September 1999
New evidence is disclosed by the RCMP reporting the following comments by Supt. Wayne May during a conversation between police officers in the days immediately before the APEC summit at UBC: "You know, we know how we normally treat these things, and the normal course of action that we follow, but ah - then the ah - Prime Minister is not directly involved. When we're, you know, in dealing with tree huggers and that sort of thing. But right now, the Prime Minister of our Country is directly involved and he's going to start giving orders, and it might be something that we can't live with, or it's going to create a lot of backlash in final analysis."

8 November 1999
Vancouver lawyer Marvin Storrow resigns as lead counsel to the PCC investigating the APEC affair following suggestions that his attendance at a $400-a-plate fundraising dinner for Prime Minister Jean Chrétien was improper.

20 January 2000
Lawyers for the government of Canada and commission counsel argue that the PCC has no jurisdiction with respect to anyone who is not a member of the RCMP and that accordingly the Prime Minister cannot be called as a witness.

25 February 2000
Commissioner Hughes rules that he has no jurisdiction under the terms of the RCMP Act or under his terms of reference to compel the attendance of the Prime Minister as a witness. Nonetheless, expressing concern that his report might be under a "cloud" if the Prime Minister does not testify, he extended an invitation to the Prime Minister to appear of his own volition.

28 February 2000
Ivan Whitehall, counsel for the government of Canada and the RCMP, indicates formally that the Prime Minister will not testify at the APEC Inquiry, reiterating only that the Prime Minister did not give "improper orders or directions to RCMP members."

29 February 2000
Jonathan Oppenheim, Jaggi Singh, and Rob West, three of the APEC complainants, withdraw their complaints from the the inquiry into RCMP conduct at the November 1997 APEC meetings. "Without the prospect of Mr. Chrétien's testimony, many protesters say the hearing has lost its authority and crucial political context" (Jane Armstrong, "Protesters withdraw complaints from APEC summit inquiry," Globe and Mail, 1 March 2000, A7).