Saw this guy on Dundas yesterday as we were waiting for a streetcar. It was me and Natalie's little brother struggling to keep content two children overly tired and overly hot after a visit to the Royal Ontario Museum. Although the sign was headed for the civil liberties demonstration at police headquarters, we certainly appreciated the sentiment.
Oh, and hey, about that demonstration—I think it's interesting the way people have delineated themselves depending on whether they actually witnessed riot police downtown. If you didn't see the cops, chances are you side with them and believe their actions warranted. But that's clearly not the case. I remain troubled by what clearly were infringements on civil liberties. Sunday night my sister's fiance took his bike down to Queen and Spadina because he was curious to see the demonstration. And like everyone else there, he was corralled into the police cordon splashed on the front page of today's Globe and Mail. He called me about an hour into things, just as CityTV was telling viewers the sound cannon had arrived at the intersection, just as the police were donning gas masks in the expectation of tear gas deployment. "Hey Chris," he said when he called. "I don't think I'll be able to get home for awhile. Can you pick up Julie from the airport?" The poor guy spent another three hours there, zip-tied in a monsoon downpour along with the other two hundred detainees. He hadn't been chanting. All he was doing was ogling the cops. But what if he had been demonstrating? In this country we don't round up people for peaceful protesting, regardless of what they're protesting against, regardless of when they're protesting. Police clearly overcompensated for their failure to prevent Saturday afternoon's civil disobedience. There should be an inquiry, and two people I usually support, Mayor David Miller and Police Chief Bill Blair, should acknowledge the deployment of excessive force and violations of civil liberties. (Check out Toronto Star publisher John Cruickshank's comments.)
In other news, last night at midnight Natalie went off call and is now on a month's holiday for the month of July. It's been an intense ten days as I tried to amuse the kids solo. We had some great times and some not so great times, and now things will get easier. We are celebrating today by taking the kids and her little brother to Canada's Wonderland, and then I'm looking forward to concentrating on work.
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