Needs a *Canada tag, because that's the Empire Sandy at the Spadina Dock, and the Toronto Islands. =)

>> ^Sarzy:

Pretty sure that's Toronto. canada


Sure is - along Bloor between Spadina & Bathurst

*nod*

No justice is going to come from it, Dalton McGuinty isn't saying anything about it, yet, and he's not going to run again in the election. Probably because he's going to lose badly. Your point about being angry at the government was my first spot of anger. I'm all for debate, I love it, I love to do it, and when you leave it out of the process, I get angry. I've already sent my written letter to the Premier, I doubt I'll get a response until the winter time =P

The other areas of concern are the Steve Paikin incident, which connects to the Detention center and the Queen & Spadina incident, the rights abuse lump them all together. This also needs an independent investigation. I'm trying to find the video, but apparently the weapons on display also had some LARP'ing foam weapons seized from a LARP'er and put on display *hand/forehead*

Here is another angle of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkwazCJG0vc

On another note, as a citizen of Toronto, I tried to really give the police the benefit of the doubt on this. Even though I disagreed with the amount spent on the G20 security, and the general turmoil that occurred to the businesses in the G20 fenced area. I know in most cases police are there for the good of the people (though I'm sure some will disagree).

While I can understand the crack down they did on the second day (Sunday June 27th), due to what happened on Saturday, unfortunately that came at the expense of our civil liberties. They completely squashed on many liberties that we have in exchange for security. On a very fundamental level, that is just WRONG.

Here is a good overview of what I mean. Here is a video of someone getting arrested for "Public Works Protection Act" a few days before the G20: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TD3lF0ZSgb8

The chief of police declared that "If you go 5 meters away from the fence, you are required to submit to police questioning under this act". As you can see in the above video, police are enacting this order. While this is a vague law, it actually holds true in courts, and many thought they made an exception for the G20. It turns out, this wasn't the case.

After the G20, and when pushed about this, the chief actually says this rule was never actually in place. Yet it is obvious in the video above, that officers were ordered to follow this rule. Here is an article about it: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/toronto/police-admit-no-five-metre-rule-existed-on-security-fence-law/article1622864/

This of course goes way above and beyond what happened on Sunday at Queen and Spadina, where hundreds were detained for no reason at all, and I'd even say illegally.

Here is a copy of the Charter of rights in Canada: http://laws.justice.gc.ca/en/charter/1.html

Basically legal rights from 7) right down to even 12) were stomped all over this weekend. While there were some people that were in the wrong, the methods the police used were also wrong. Detaining and arresting 1000 in order to capture a 100 is not right.

There's a lot more going on there than what you see on the video. The thing people should be concerned about is what happened less than a hundred feet from that line.

The cops were looking for Anarchists with weapons and incendiary devices. They know this, because they have footage of people in black hoods and face wraps, who dropped their weapons (pick axes, hammers etc.) and their things to set more cars on fire, and then changed clothes to blend in with the crowd. That's what we know.

We also know that this tactic is used to disperse the crowd, or make a run forward and snatch someone they want, who is within reach.

Also, there were massive protests that happened all weekend, which were peaceful, and when the jack ass anarchists showed up, they separated from them. The outter perimeter fence was not breached once during the weekend, and no major injuries to the people or the cops.

Things to ask questions about are: Why was that group of a hundred folks or so held at Queen and Spadina in a thunderstorm for three hours, and then just let go? That's the biggie. People just out walking their dog or going to dinner, all of a sudden confined into a tight space and held there.

I'm a big metro supporter, and they did an amazing job this weekend. That incident needs to be investigated though. The one thing you can be sure of, it was an OPP decision, and those cops are bad. Bill Blair has to take the heat for it, because it's a United Security force. That's also speculation and conjecture from my stand point, but I'm paranoid enough to think Fantino had a hand in that somehow.

tl&dr

Metro Cops did a great job, one bad incident needs to get looked at, no one seriously hurt.

edit: I also forgot the incident which Steve Paikin saw, which was not cool at all, with a journalist from the Guardian being assaulted by cops. That needs to be investigated as well. As for the other incidents, re. The Real News journalist who got punched, they did tell him to move back. You may be a journalist that doesn't give you the right to disobey the orders given. And check out the police footage when it goes live, and you can see them pick out the anarchists in the crowd. They lady hit by the horse was told to get out of the area again and again. If you want to stand in front of a charging horse line, you have to accept your consequences. It wasn't a surprise, they were very clear in what they intended to do. The surprise came at QUeen & Spadina.

Yeah, it's too bad that the Spadina Bus doesn't exist anymore but 'Spadina Streetcar' just isn't the same

Tags for this video have been changed from 'shuffle, demons, spadina, bus, music, toronto' to 'shuffle, demons, spadina, bus, 77b, music, toronto, 90s' - edited by calvados

AWESOME!
As a regular of Grossman's Tavern on Spadina in the early 90's seeing Jeff Healey on weekends was always cool..he would bring by young blind musicians to jam with him and back then it was ok to be smoking a huge gagger as you ordered a pitcher of whatever was cheap. More than once I saw him put on a killer set...then went home to see that Roadhouse was playing on CityTV.
Thanks for bringing back some pleasant old memories with this sift!

LOL, that's the hostel at King and Spadina. Nice. I used the Petro Canada gas station there (seen in some shots in the distance) earlier this evening.