The Day After

There is always a gamble that you will have problems when you risk. The G8/G20 was not a risk, but a calculated move knowing what would happen. These meetings are always a focus for groups to air their feelings. This was the perfect venue for dozens of peaceful marchers to demonstrate. There were crowds of hundreds and sometimes thousands who marched, sang, shouted but never broke the law. Their voice was ignored by the media who gave all the attention to the few hundred criminals.

The massive show of force by police was unable to control this element and the innocent law abiding demonstrators were sometimes brutalized by police. At one point over thirty people who were on a corner waiting for a bus were detained and taken into custody. Some of this crowd were tourists, teenagers and workers trying to get to work. What nonsense. Another group of 400 were surrounded and detained in a street surrounded by police for from 3 to 5 hours. It was raining and lightening was in the area. This caused problems for many as there were no bathrooms or drinking water and they were never told why they were detained until their release.

The police had a difficult job but there were bound to be mistakes made. Our police showed restraint and courage but there were problems with their plan. We trust they will learn from this. The biggest surprise came when without notice our provincial government gave police the unusual right to detain anyone without cause or charges being made if they so wished. Most of the 600 or so were released after detainment without charges being made. Our civil rights were breached. The announcement of this cabinet decision will be made today or tomorrow, several days after the conference. Authorities will make excuses for their unusual behaviour but for every Canadian this conduct goes totally against our civil liberties. We did what we as Canadians riled against when others countries used similar behaviour in quelling disorder.

The conference made a good point in advising countries to get control of their budgets. It is voluntary of course and we'll wait for this to happen with elections coming and the political leaders have to be accountable to their voters. The G8 had an opportunity to tax our financial institutions but of course the G8 protects big business. This tax would have been insurance against bank fail ours and situations like we had in the USA, Greece and Spain. The wealthy financial institutions again are protected by we the people. Other than that not much was said about world poverty, global warming and the environment. As a matter of fact not much of anything was done that is binding. The leader of France will host the next meetings and he announced that it will cost one tenth of the money used in Canada for the same purpose.

In spite of what took place in the last while I am proud to be a Canadian and I am sure there will be time to analyze this mess and maybe it was worth it, only time will tell.