They should have known. Hell, it was advertised in NOW, the city 's alternative paper, right there on page six:
"Get Off the Fence: Confrontational anti-colonial, anti-capitalist contingent marches with People First demo and then moves toward the barrier. 1 pm. Queen's Park, College and University. g20.torontomobilize.org/getoffthefence.
Were these people that stupid not to think that the cops wouldn't read that?
The G8/20 summit here in Toronto cost one billion dollars, $900 million of which was to pay for the cops. Something was going to happen, it's traditional. The leadership of the world takes a one-day retreat, and the moron brigade marches in protest. It's not a real protest as much as it is a toy revolution. The mostly neo-communist activist community pretends to try to overthrow the government, and the cops try to stop them.
I usually don't go to these things. In fact, I haven't been to a major protest since the Republican Convention back in '04, when I got to watch the march from the window of my apartment. The reason I went this time was that I managed to snag a really cheap ticket, only $300 round trip, taxes included. It was only ten dollars more than flying to Buffalo on JetBlue. A couple of hostels had beds, so why not?
It was all supposed to be fun and games. After all, Prime Minister Steven Harper had set up the G-8 summit to be held mostly in far-off Huntsville, Ontario, somewhere between Lake Huron and Hudson's Bay. The protesters would have a hell of a time getting there, and the G-20 summit wasn't supposed to start until the following day, so the protesters would have the city to themselves (most businesses had the good sense to take the weekend off). Having gotten checked in, I was thrilled to discover that the first main event was literally right outside my front door. The Feminist Picnic and March was at a place called Allan Park, and they were serving free food.
Coooool.
After eating some dead chicken with curry and rice, I noticed some women holding signs about something called a "special diet," which turns out is something akin to food stamps. The Ontario Provincial government had eliminated it last April for budget reasons, and it was clear that it was the G-20's fault. Then there were the Vegans (handing out literature and stickers stating that meat is in fact dead animals-DUHHH!), and various paleo-communist groups such as the Sparticists, selling their magazines for far too much money. Then the march started.
For the most part it was peaceful. There were a few confrontations here and there, and a student journalist named Jacob got punched in the face by a cop when he foolishly tried to take a picture of a cop confronting someone from the Black Bloc, which comes to all these things to cause mayhem. More on them later. That stopped the march for a few minutes, but not to be deterred we moved on, moving south on University, a large four lane highway, on our way, or so we thought, to the fenced in area downtown were the summit was to be held. Little did we know...
The cops, in either full or partial riot regalia, were on either side of the march, but nobody expected that upwards of a thousand cops in battle gear would dance their way and block us. We were herded further westward, and then back north and east. It was rather scary for a moment.
The next day, I went to get my credentials. The people at the press center were very polite (they're Canadian after all), but they only gave me an "alternative media" pass, which meant I couldn't get into the "forbidden zone" or even the international press center to see the famous "Fake Lake" that had so many of the protesters fuming. Better than nothing, I guess. I did get a free transit pass and a Danish!
The rain was coming down in droves. I had expected fewer people at Queen's Park, the so-called "free speech zone," because of the weather, but there was a healthy crowd, mostly the same groups of people from before: neocommunists, paleocommunists, exiles who are pissed off that their evil prime ministers were invited to come, antisemite...er...antizionists antiwariors, various crazies, and more mainstream groups like Oxfam and Amnesty International. The march started out much like the day before, mostly peaceful, but with more cops and a bunch of people screaming at the cops, who mostly did nothing but look mean.
They tried to block the way at the same place they did the day before, but someone screamed "Go Around Go AROUND" so we did, and went far further south than we expected, and in fact got all the way to Queen street, one of downtown's main drags. We could see the "forbidden zone" from there, and thousands of cops in at least thee rows. Someone walked towards them and mooned the bunch, not getting arrested, and thousands gave him thunderous applause. Most of us followed along, but not all, and that was going to be the problem.
Getting back to Queen's park, there was a bit of a party atmosphere, there was a fashion photo shoot claiming to represent the Group of 77 (every country not in the G20) and I don't think anyone would be able to oppose the theory of Supermodels for Peace. There was music and free ganja, and people started going back home in a fine mood. Then we tried to get on the subway.
Now I'm not sure whether or not the trouble happened before the Mayor ordered the transit system shut down or after. But at this point it was totally shut down south of Bloor Street, which was a mile and a half north of Queen's park. If you were downtown, you had to walk. When I asked why, I was told about the riot. I said there was no riot, just a peaceful march with a few minor incidents. I was wrong.
When I got back to Yonge Street, I discovered the truth. There were burning cars and shattered windows. The Black Block had used the march as a cover, even though the thing was advertised, to sneak east on Queen and wreak terrible revenge on corporate Canada. They would go after all the chain stores and break their windows, throw rocks at people in the way, and set cop cars on fire.
It wasn't much of a riot, but it certainly qualified. I went back to the hostel and they had the TV on. A number of us decided that we actually had to see this, and when we got there the situation was still very tense. There were several lines of cops blocking the area to the forbidden zone (or just intersections) and a large number of people watching and heckling while others just wanted go get home from work. Then for some reason, most of police went home, and access to the fence was open to all.
One could go right up to it! Why were the police gone and why were they prior to this standing in strange angles guarding nothing? I pondered this question when I saw a plume of smoke wafting it's way to the sky. Another car had been bombed.
The Black Bloc had done it again. They had totally screwed up the entire mass transit system for a major city. André Rieu cancelled his concert less than an hour before it was supposed to begin, and thousands of his fans were fuming on Queen Street with nowhere to go.
Clearly, the Canadian Government had screwed up. Having the G20 summit in the middle of downtown was a mistake. There were other venues, which would have done just as well, and were more difficult for the Black Blocs and other crazies to get to. It's the crazies who are at blame here. The meetings are to some extent necessary. Face-to-face negotiations are much better than on the telephone or over the Internet. But the costs are becoming too high, and the Black Blocs are having too much fun to be stopped entirely.
Next year, the G-8 takes place in Cannes. I might take that in, too.