Toronto City Life

Posts Tagged ‘ summit ’

Rock, blog, and a hard place (part 1)

Posted on June 22nd, 2010 – Comments Off

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.

Filed under: B Sides, Pictures

The G-20, everything you probably didn’t want to know (part 2)

Posted on June 12th, 2010 – 3 Comments

…continued from part 1.

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:

2009 (U.K) – US$30 million (C$30,000,000)
2009 (U.S.) – US$18 million (C$18,000,000)
2010 (Canada) – C$1.2 billion+ — projected

It’s estimated that about half of this, or C$500 million, is being spent on security. That’s gonna be some security!

Filed under: B Sides, Pictures

The G-20, everything you probably didn’t want to know (part 1)

Posted on June 10th, 2010 – 2 Comments

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).

Filed under: B Sides, Pictures

Toronto Police on the G20

Posted on May 28th, 2010 – Comments Off

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?

Filed under: B Sides, Videos

Summer’s coming…

Posted on May 19th, 2010 – 8 Comments

…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.

Filed under: B Sides, Videos