All Eyes on Toronto for G8 and G20 Summit: Typical Canadian Overkill?

When I first found out that Toronto would hold the G20 summit in June, I was ecstatic. I thought, "this will be a great way to put the city back in the public eye." Now, with the summit already under way, I'm beginning to revoke what I had said weeks and months before hand.

G8 and G20 summits always tend to be very chaotic events, particularly on the outside, with protestors hurling insults, stones, garbage and pretty much anything else that can inflict damage at police and those in authority. Having seen the pandemonium that ensues with protestors from past news coverage of summits in years gone by, I can understand some of the fears that Toronto has over security issues.

A relatively "peaceful" city, Toronto is  looking to protect it's citizens as well as these world leaders that will be here to draft up future decisions that ultimately decide the fate of the world. But this has become just too much for me. Although I'm based out of New York, I keep updated on Canadian news at all times- particularly now through Twitter. "National Post" and CBC have their own Twitter accounts and they have perfectly captured the ridiculousness of this G20 overkill that is taking place.

Upon reading on CBC's website about the removal small trees from the downtown core so that protestors could not use the branches as weapons, I had to laugh. Canadians, always portraying themselves as ardent "environmentalists" and preaching all things "green", now removing trees? I'm not downplaying what could escalate into serious violence, but that seemed a bit outlandish and contradictory.

Canadians, particularly Torontonians, have also found their civil rights imposed upon, thanks to the G20 summit. According to the New York Times, anyone who went within 16 feet of the security fences set up all throughout downtown Toronto would be forced to provide identification and if they could not, they could would be issued a $500 fine or two months in jail. What lovely choices.

This "law" which Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair says is not "secret", is apparently just new regulations added to a 1939 law that was created in the infancy of World War II. These regulations should expire by Monday, however.

I, for one, am grateful to be away from the contrived calamity that has beset itself upon the city for the last month. Even my Toronto based employment, as far back as in May, was issuing statements to its' employees to avoid coming into the city at all costs for that weekend. People were even being encouraged to not come into work, if they could help it.

So far, according to CBC, tent cities have already been erected downtown by protestors and on Friday, more than 2,000 protestors took to the streets of Toronto. Some how that amount seems to pale in comparison to what I'm sure was a larger number in London in April 2009. Could all these fears be typical Canadian over-excitement?

I wonder if past G20 summit cities such as London and Pittsburgh went through such strenuous and impractical efforts to protect their citizens' security as Toronto is doing this time around. Knowing how nothing is fool-proof if it's Canadian, it won't be a surprise if something does go off at the summit. Then the event planners and security would have a real event on their hands.