Here’s a video from Miguel Barbosa of YEAH! Films who graciously contacted me through Twitter to see if I’d be interested in posting his footage here. Hells yeah I would!
Just a shame it couldn’t be of something happier…
Yes, the G20 protests are in full swing and there are photos and stories. However, I have another full day tomorrow and I somehow got myself involved with a Tweet20 meeting (you may be able to guess what’s that’s about).
So, until I get a chance to sit down and do it up properly, here’s the OCAP-led (Ontario Coalition Against Poverty), protest in hastily slapped-together videos.
My favourite was when the riot police came out in formation. :D
Everyone gathered at Allan Gardens…
And then there are the protesters.
Obviously I believe that they have something to protest. Even the groups that I think are mostly out to lunch deserve to have their voices heard. And both the government and the security forces have repeatedly stated that people have the right to peaceably demonstrate. I mean, putting the “official” demonstration area twelve blocks north of where the summit is happening is laughable, but at the same time, the few recent protests that have taken place moved around the city pretty much unimpeded. Accompanied by Toronto police, of course, but with the cops actually “keeping the peace” — as advertised!
As I’ve been careful to point out, most of the police I’ve encountered so far have successfully walked that thin line between enforcement and accommodation. Good people, and I get the impression that they got into policing for all the right reasons. Basically the kind of cops you’d want policing your streets. And I’ve already spent enough time berating those officers that seem to be ready to cross over the aforementioned line in a non-accommodating way (though the opposite is just as bad).
At the same time, the extra security around town isn’t entirely unwarranted. The tactics being used or espoused by some of the protest groups run the gamut from just plain dumb right up to outright violent. That protest on Monday, for example, the one that I ended up missing while I was having my chat with the riot police, that one ended up at an Esso gas station not too far away. It was a mostly peaceful march and the gas station was occupied for only about 10 minutes — but what the hell was the point?
Presumably the protesters were intending to hurt the Esso Corporation, but none of them seemed to be able to pull their heads out of their asses long enough to realize that a single gas station isn’t the corporation. Most of these stations are operated as franchises by individuals. These people invest in the business, as with any other franchise, and then pay the head company for products, deliveries, etc. Admittedly some locations do better than others, but attacking them is basically the same as attacking individual business owners. And their families. And the customers. Taking over a single location really doesn’t do a whole heck of a lot of damage to the corporation, just to the very people that these protests are supposed to be supporting.
Here again the police exercised restraint and wisdom and let the protesters stick around for a little while before moving them off. Frankly, I believe in property laws (I don’t want random people barging into my place!), so I thought the cops were being quite generous. Plus, as someone who’s had to sit in traffic while placard-waving idiots walked by my car and banged on the hood, blocking off traffic is not something I necessarily approve of. Okay, yeah, a peaceful march and a few minutes of inconvenience is fine. But again, we’re all roughly in the same boat so who are these protests really affecting?
So obviously some of these protesters are missing the point. Wonder if they ever had it to begin with. But they had their fifteen minutes, wasted it, see ya next time.
When they mix violence into it, however, that takes stupidity to a whole new level. And if the Toronto Community Mobilization Network (responsible for putting up, feeding, and organizing most of the visiting protesters), bothered to give it any thought, they’d denounce violence in a heartbeat.
My ex-wife used to call me a critical [replace with colourful afjective]. I’m starting to think she may be right.
I mean, the G20 meeting is easy to criticize. The cost, the purpose (or lack thereof), the way the rights of the citizens of Toronto are seemingly being shoved aside without regard; yeah, that all needs to be questioned.
Now more than ever, it seems.
Folks who follow my tweets will no doubt have read about my concerns about the seeming lack of any legal basis for any of the security restrictions. And that’s not just me saying that. Plus, I’ve been asking police what laws I’d be breaking should I breach the security barriers or if I fail to comply with their demands. Not that I necessarily plan to do so, but I’m deeply troubled by the fact that the police themselves don’t know what, specifically, they’re enforcing. If there’s a law (or laws), so be it — if I don’t like it then there’s a system through which it can be changed. But if there is no law…
In other words, if I was put into handcuffs, what would I be charged with? Keeping the peace, protecting private property, these things I understand and respect, but I want to be assured that I can’t be detained for no other reason than “heightened security”. That’s not a law, that’s an excuse, and a very dangerous one at that.
And that’s no longer just my pontification on the subject.
In the middle of the afternoon yesterday I heard about an impromptu protest being staged by the Toronto Community Mobilization Network, a group playing host to many of the protesters coming to the city. They started their march in Allan Gardens, moved down adjacent Sherbourne Street, and were routed west along Dundas by police until they decided to “take over” an Esso gas station at Jarvis. This route wasn’t planned in any way and by the time I got to Sherbourne the group was gone. I though they might’ve moved farther south so I continued along Sherbourne to Queen Street East. There I spotted a number of unmarked vehicles carrying riot police – must be the spot the protesters are heading towards, I thought.
After researching what the G-20 does, I have to say, I really don’t think that they’re this evil body of leaders bent on taking over the world that some people suggest. I mean, I suppose it’s possible, and I guess you need to have some megalomaniacal qualities in order to get to that level in global politics, but it just seems like they spend most of their time sitting around eating munchies and making nice-to-do lists. I can’t begrudge them that, it’s what I aspire to myself.
But does it deserve the amount of money that our government is throwing at it? Will the, at present, C$1.2 billion be the sound investment that they’re saying it is?
Yes, that’s billion. I know, seems pretty high to me too, but to be honest I’ve never held an international summit so I wouldn’t know how much to ask for at the door. And, yeah, if we’re going to have global leaders here, we should probably buy them the good munchies, not the dollar-store crap. Presumably this second option is what was chosen in Pittsburgh, the location of the last summit, where they spent US$12.2 million (roughly C$13 million).
The costs over the past few summits (these are estimates because, apparently, these figures didn’t warrant detailed tracking or further study), are:
It’s estimated that about half of this, or C$500 million, is being spent on security. That’s gonna be some security!
With just a little over two weeks to go until Toronto goes under severe lockdown for the G-20 summit, I figured it was high time to start taking a deeper look into this thing. After all, I’d like to know where the last of my tax money (that I was, quite literally, going to use to buy a load of bread), will be going. Maybe I’m getting it all wrong, maybe I’m not giving this organization a fair shake; maybe they do serve an indispensable function that benefits the whole world.
First, I wanted to start by looking at what the point of the G-20 actually is; who are they and what are they planning to do here. In the second part of this series I’ll be examining specifics to the Toronto summit; security, costs, and some of the things that would make me laugh out loud if they didn’t make me want to cry. The included photos are of the security perimeter fencing currently being erected through a large section of downtown Toronto (we’ll go on a tour in part 2).
Naturally there’s been a lot of talk about the G20 coming to town and how, overall, it doesn’t seem like there’s going to be any benefit for the city from this crazy assembly. Costs have gone up almost ten-fold to about a billion bucks (how does the government manage to get everything so wrong all the time?), all of which is going toward making the G20 leaders’ visits nice and comfortable. Chunks of downtown are being completely shut down, much to residents’ chagrin, and not a penny of that exorbitant sum is being spent to help locals or businesses with lost profits, protest damage, etc. Organizers aren’t even hiring local security for the job.
Basically, unless someone can come up with one tangible benefit, the summit will end up being a huge middle finger to Toronto as well as the taxpayers of Canada. Nebulous statements of “benefits to the city” made by officials are not very convincing. Like, what benefits, exactly?
Well, there is one that I can think of, and it applies to only a very small group of Torontonians. Like myself. :)
I’m talking about the global media coverage that the G20 will invariably get. It’ll do nothing for local businesses, and I’m fairly certain most Canadian tax payers don’t give a flying fuck if the summit makes headlines in Brazil. But for anyone in the media, stories like this are akin to a sundae with whipped cream and a cherry on top, especially if shit really does go down and the protests start to get violent. For insignificant bloggers who happen to live near the turmoil, that’s especially true.
As crass as that may sound, it’s the truth. Tragedies, disasters, protest movements – they’re all headline fodder extraordinaire.
Take the recent seizing of Palestinian aid ships by the Israeli army, for example. Israel, Palestine, and the ships may all be half a world away, but thanks to Toronto’s Palestinian population the story came right to my front door. And thanks to an unfortunate series of events that resulted in the pro-Palestine demonstration yesterday, the topic can happily fly under the Toronto City Life flag.
Unfortunately I missed this gentleman’s name and some of his earlier comments, but this is ultimately what it boils down to, in a nutshell, the crux and the nexus, as it were:
The police are always giving the same message, if you break the law, be prepared to be prosecuted for it. There’s no excuse for something like this [recent G20-related vandalism]. People can… the legal right to protest is there in Canada, the freedom of speech is there, you can say what you want, you can march, you can do those things, but as soon as you cross that line, police are going to have to deal with you.
There you have it, terse and policey. At this point the details of the police plan, and that line being alluded to, are probably already out there although no one really has much info otherwise. Hopefully this doesn’t come as a big surprise to anyone.
By the way, did I wish you a happy Friday yet?
…and as Zach noted, this year it’s going to considerably more exciting than previous summers. The government is still very much mum on security details for the G20 summit, but the groups that will be coming into town for the event have already started to pop their heads out of the ground.
Here’s one I heard about today, the FFFC, an aboriginal anarchist group (at least everyone’s calling them anarchists), who are blaming the Royal Bank of Canada, and by extension the entire monetary system, for increased poverty in Vancouver and for environmental destruction through the support of Alberta’s tar sands projects. Plus all the other usual bullshit complaints like stolen land, blah blah blah.
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