TDS – can someone hurray up with a cure or at least a vaccine?
No one in Toronto from the Mayor to the Chief of Police to the ordinary people who lived here wanted the G Summit held here – and certainly not in the downtown core. Toronto has no shortage of more appropriate venues for the G-Summit such as Exhibition Grounds or even the Downsview military base. If it had to be held in a large urban centre; I would have proposed the site of the Vancouver Olympics.
Look, its no real secret that there would be rioting in Toronto if the G-Summit was held here…well, it unless you are a CUPE member. Rioting has happened every time a G-Summit has been held in any large urban area. I suggest that the Prime Minister knew it too and this explained why the smaller more intimate G8 was held outside of Toronto. There have even been Canadian security papers written explicitly against holding it in a large urban setting and I quote the Times Colonist:
It is not surprising to me that security for the international summits in Muskoka and Toronto June 25 to 27 will cost $1 billion. I was part of a team of experts hired to study the costs of the 2002 G8 Summit in Kananaskis, Alta.
What is shocking to me is the fact that the current government has decided to proceed with the locales in spite of the exorbitant cost and unnecessary risks posed by these locations. The cost factor and the security risks were clearly spelled out in the report we produced, a report that was no doubt provided to the Harper government before the location of the G20 summit was decided.
I am not surprised or shocked at either the outrageous cost (the current incarnation of the conservative party certainly spends like drunken dippers* on a bender) but I was rather taken back on why the federal government insisted Toronto had to host the G20…over the objections of just about everyone.
Now I venture forth, now and then, from the Centre of the Universe and have traveled across the country from time to time. I recognize and acknowledge most of the country really, really hates Toronto. I get that. I really do. Sometimes, I even hate Toronto. It is understandable in a way. Toronto is the centre of so many things in such diverse fields from finance to the arts to scientific research. Toronto often takes the limelight when it comes to showcasing Canadian cities – perhaps unfairly even.
Toronto is often at odds politically with everyone but those citizens in Quebec, and often, to the horror of the rest of Canada. Add in the fact that Toronto is a largest number of citizens. This makes our political clout often appear unfair to those Canadians residing outside Toronto who do not have the numbers on their side. This breeds resentment and bitterness in non-Torontonians. Often, it makes them downright hateful. I suspect I am now challenging Saskatchewan….
Let’s just call it the Toronto Derangement Syndrome or TDS for short. There is certainly no shortage of suffers of TDS in this country. I suspect our current Prime Minister has a serious case; which outside of stupidity and rank incompetence is the only rationale explanation to justify his insistence the G20 Summit be held in Toronto – over the sane, rational objections of just about everyone else. It is no secret the citizens of Toronto have rejected the current Conservative party and have thwarted the current Prime Minister’s search for a majority government in election after election.
I suspect the Prime Minister decided to get a little of his own back. He wanted to see the city punished and the violent images of rioting broadcast all over the world. Nothing like a riot and outright criminality run amuck to help destroy tourism and tarnish the reputation of one of the few large urban and eminently livable cities in the North America. Too bad his TDS got the better of him as he has just killed any hope of the CPC carrying the vote in Toronto for at least the next 3 generations.
*dippers – Canadian nickname for New Democrat Party members (The Canadian version of socialists)
Sigh.
This is an insipid argument.
The G20 Summit put Toronto on the global stage, with 20 world leaders helping to chart the world’s future there while continuing to establish the city as a world-class centre.
If that’s hatred of Toronto, I wouldn’t be looking for a vaccine — I’d start handing out some TDS-infected lollipops, stat.
Patrick, please. How on earth can the city be a world class centre when it had most of its downtown merchant core had to go into lockdown and the charter rights of Torontonians are suspended without just cause? Rioting is part and parcel of every G-Summit when its been held in an urban core. That’s what the Canadian security specialists told the government and that’s exactly what happened…its hardly a stellar moment of showcasing Toronto. And if that’s the Harperite ideal of ‘world class’, who the frack needs it? Certainly not I or the rest of the city’s citizens. Let me guess, I bet you don’t live here do you Patrick?
@Kateland
If I were the person who had just suggested that choosing Toronto as the site of one of the more prestigious international summits was a symptom of hatred of Toronto, I wouldn’t be the one saying “please” as if I were actually the voice of reason.
So that would be your second mistake here.
Your third mistake would be overlooking the nebulousness of some of the issues at play. For example, you may correct me if I’m mistaken, but I get the sense you’re referring to the five-meter security cordon around the infamous “security fence” wherein police could demand identification or arrest them.
There are two issues at play within this that make this a more complex issue than simply the suspension of charter rights.
First off, there are mechanisms within the Charter of Rights and Freedoms that allow for the suspension of said Charter rights at governmental discretion.
What this means is that our Charter rights are not absolute. If you don’t like that, I don’t blame you, because I don’t like it either. Maybe we can borrow William Lyon Mackenzie King’s ouija board so we can personally thank Pierre Trudeau for that.
Beyond that, five metres isn’t much of a distance. Considering the purpose of that fence, I’m actually rather comfortable with increased police authority around it. If it were fifty metres or more I’d be more concerned.
Patrick, I guarantee, if you actually lived in Toronto and walked around the city streets you would be hard-pressed to find 100 people who felt it was an honour to host the G20. Public opinion prior to the Summit was firmly against holding it here – if I recall correctly local polls had 70% were against hosting it. Neither the mayor or city council or any of the business councils or associations lobbied for the summit. It was imposed on us by the federal government once it realized no matter how many millions were poured into Huntsville – there still wouldn’t be enough hotel rooms.
But I get that from the chair you are sitting in, safe and snug, and not inconvenienced in the slightest from over a 1000+ miles away; it looks like a small ‘thing’. So let me explain a little of what life was like. The actually ’security zone’ area directly effected the lives of 40,000 people. That’s 40,000 people who lived and/or worked in the zone. That’s people who had to face long delays getting through the zone just to go home or leave home. Parents lost their daycares, schools closed, people lost wages, merchants lost business. And that’s just the security zone. That’s nearly double the size of the entire population of Lloydminister, Saskatchewan whose lives were unduly interrupted and harassed owing to ’security considerations’ of foreigners.
But it didn’t end there – as there is a huge area immediately surrounding the zone which was effected. Now we are probably talking about another 100,000 additional people. Banks, restaurants, bars, movie theatres, grocery stores, retailers all directly effected… the company I work for is in the Yonge/Bloor area and has three towers…we were down to a skeleton staff. The majority of protests weren’t even happening immediately outside 5 meter area outside the zone but spread out all over the downtown core. It took me 20 minutes just to cross the street 5 minutes from my home on Friday and we are talking miles outside of the immediate zone but still in the downtown. Queen’s Park isn’t located beside the zone, but it is located immediately around some of the largest hospitals in the city and the museum. I was petrified my daughter would have another relapse and I wouldn’t be able to get her to the neuro-team at Mt. Sinai in a timely matter. By Friday, the downtown core was a mostly a bordered up ghost-town. There was simply nothing to showcase in the downtown but a fake lake which most of citizenry couldn’t even see – let alone get down get to harbourfront where half the downtown normally goes to play during a hot summer weekend. There was nothing to showcase but protests, more protests, and for what? So a bunch of foreign stiffs in suits could have photo-ops showing them watching the world cup together.
Over a 1,000 people were arrested – all outside the so-called zone and well outside the 5 meters directly surrounding the zone – 700 of them arbitrarily detained then released without charges. Let that sink in – 700 were released without charges laid. Arrested, detained and then released without charges. Read a profile of the kinds of people who were arbitrarily arrested – a medical student leaving a coffee shop, one poor smuck who went to grab a hot dog from a vendor down the street from his home on Sunday because he ran out of food – the stories go on and one. I guarantee you neither the mayor’s office, city council, the police department or the Premier’s office feel particularly honoured today and are mostly likely wishing they have never heard of the a G-Summit in Toronto.
You tell me its an honour to host it – trying telling that to the people who live and work here who make minimum wage and need every penny to make their $700 rent on their shitty little basement apartments who are 4-5 days out of pay because they worked in retail or the restaurant businesses in the downtown core.
Another fact of life. Last weekend should have been Pride Weekend. Most everyone in the city enjoys Pride week and the parade. People visit in the hundreds of thousands just for Pride week here. The merchants love it, the restaurants love it, the entertainment district love it, the hotels love it. It’s like Christmas in June and its one big long party. People are happy and no one is put out. Nearly a million people lined Yonge street last year and buy 8am Monday morning the street is clean and you would never know a million people just partied down.
There was no honour in hosting the summit here. Better yet, find me a blogger who lives in downtown Toronto who lived through the summit and still thinks its an ‘honour’.
I can’t say that you’ve made any kind of real case here to support your argument — just a bunch of emotional arguments en lieu of logic.
That being said, you do raise an interesting point when you note that no one in Toronto City Hall or the business community lobbied to host the G20. Personally, I think it would be a good idea to revamp the G8/G20 summits to increase the level of public participation, so as to make it a more attractive event. It should then be opened up to bidding by cities interested in hosting.
Right now, there is no actual bid process. While local politicians or business leaders could bend the ears of federal leaders in promoting themselves as an option, there’s no real lobby mechanism for hosting these events.
While security will always be costly for such events, I think they should be reformed so that they become one part closed-door discussion, one part open-door discussion, and one part TED talk.
Each leader could be compelled to speak at a ticketed event, to engage local citizens in the issues under discussion at each summit, so as to involve the public more fully.
Last but certainly not least, I would argue that the opportunities to stage alternative and parallel summits — as Rabble.ca and Charles McVety did — should be expanded upon.
These G8 and G20 Summits could become yearly opportunities for the world to come together more fully, and discuss a variety of issues far more openly.
I think the G8 and G20 Summits could certainly use the increased relevance.
I rarely say this to anyone but you have earned it. You are full of shit. I can’t decide if you are deliberately obtuse or its just something you play on the internet. Either way, drift – now.