World Cup Hysteria Returns Soon...

...but until then:

 I went to the G20 and got a soggy cheese sandwich 

National Post  July 1, 2010 – 8:00 am

Peter J. Thompson/National Post

One of the cells used to hold detainees from G20 demonstrations

In addition to thousands of protesters and several hundred anarchists, Toronto’s streets were crowded on the weekend by hundreds of curious onlookers, who turned up despite repeated police requests to stay away. Many subsequently got caught in the mayhem and ended up in custody, and now are complaining of police heavy-handedness. Should we sympathize with them?
Today’s panelists, are Barbara Kay in Montreal, Scott Stinson in Toronto and Kevin Libin in Calgary.

Scott Stinson: Reading about the issue of police conduct in Toronto last weekend feels like watching a tennis match. Opinion swings back and forth from day to day like so many serves and volleys. First, on Saturday, it was thought the police acted like heroes. Then, the next day, it looked like they overreacted. That was still the tenor of much of the coverage on Monday. By Tuesday morning, Chief Bill Blair had trotted out an array of weapons sezied from those who had been detained by way of showing that officers had not simply rounded up a bunch of innocent folks out walking their dogs. I’m generally sympathetic to a police force that was given a difficult job and managed to preserve public safety above all else, but I’m a bit surprised that neither the Chief nor the Mayor has sounded a note of caution or regret that seemingly dozens of people were detained for many hours for no reason other than that they were standing in a group that either would not, or could not, leave.

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