punditman says...
For Harper and Canadian government officials, it was a foregone conclusion that bringing the G20 to Toronto would mean confrontation and mayhem. It has happened at every such gathering for the last dozen years. It is bad for tourism, for the local economy, etc. But the creation of a crisis in order to come up with the solution is an old political trick.
The predictable property damage that occurred in Toronto over the weekend by a small minority is now being used as proof that this billion-dollar-plus debacle was worth it. Meanwhile, the law and order types then applaud the government for something that never should have happened in the city in the first place. And due to the violence, all the issues that should be discussed are conveniently overshadowed.
By John CruickshankThe G20 security strategy has been spectacularly successful at cocooning the world’s leading politicians and staggeringly ineffective at protecting the property and peace of mind of Torontonians. And the one, inevitably, led to the other.
By bringing in thousands of heavily armed strangers and throwing up barricades everywhere to regular traffic, frightening off good and decent citizens, Canadian authorities created a ghost town in the heart of our city.
Perfect for the political leaders. Protesters were kept blocks away from where the deliberations were going on.
And most protesters conducted themselves faultlessly as the global good and great met behind rings of gulag-like fencing and battalions of police beating Plexiglas shields with batons in a primitive show of might.
It was, however, less than perfect for the city, its businesses and its inhabitants. The only force that can prevent vandalism and mayhem in a city is the presence of its population. Surely that was the lesson every urban planner learned from looking south to the hollowed-out urban war zones of the United States in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.
