When was that…at 3 in the morning?
At a hundred and fifty kilometers per hour with all other traffic barred from entering the roads . . . nah, still couldn’t make it in 20 minutes.
Screw Pearson – Fly Porter 
I just looked it up on Google Maps Directions, and it said 21 minutes. Who’d a thunk it! I lived there (including just off the 427), and I never made it in that time even in the middle of the night. http://maps.google.ca/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=Metro+Toronto+Convention+Centre,+Toronto,+Ontario&daddr=Pearson+Internatl+Airport-+Term+1,+Mississauga,+Ontario&hl=en&geocode=FaDzmQIdFKlE-yFXDSPjcp-F1A%3BFdyGmgIdHDRB-yl_pswQczkriDH7gB9MnMmTpA&mra=ls&sll=43.6815,-79.6129&sspn=0.009745,0.024719&g=Pearson+Internatl+Airport-+Term+1,+Mississauga,+Ontario&ie=UTF8&z=11
No, it’s 20 minutes from Pearson to the Conference Centre by presidential helicopter.
I’d suggest that not even the most suicidal cabbie in Toronto can make it from Pearson to the Conference Centre in 20 minutes. I should know, I’ve been driven on that route by them before. Even late at night.
Not bloody likely. Video-conferencing is hard enough to pull off when all parties know each other and are speaking the same language. Pulling it off in a multilingual context with people speaking through multiple interpretation languages renders that impossible - never mind half the value of such events is the side conversations one can have. Technology geeks merely betray their lack of social skills when they make such silly assertions.
I tried making it from Spadina downtown to Pearson by TTC surface non-express once. It took a day. A few years later, an Irish anarchist with whom I sort of had a fight needed a ride to the airport. A month or so earlier, he had challenged me to a fight, but I not being a fighter, he had to settle for hitting me every time I said “hit me” – after a few minutes of this, he found that punching me was not nearly as satisfying as he had expected. Anyway, I cheerily drove him to Pearson rather than leaving him to the vicissitudes of the TTC. That really confused him, for he had a festering grudge against me and couldn’t understand why I would drive him to the airport. There’s nothing quite so fun as messing with the mind of an anarchist.
I wasn’t, but several of my friends were (they are probably some of the “dangerous anarchists from Montreal” who participated in the peaceful protests). Mercifully I’m not aware of any of them having been arrested or assaulted, and I’m looking forward to seeing them when they’re back in town.
Still, when you weigh the cost of security ($1.5 billion) and the cost of the damages (pick your number) for the G-20, videoconferencing starts looking tempting. Even my professional organization is reluctantly starting to look into it, after the recession cut into travel budgets. We’re realizing that the alternative to “not networking” or “no side conversations” might be “no conference, period.”
I don’t know… From what I’ve been reading, Harper’s gotten just about everything he wanted at the G20. If he’s ham-fisted, what do you call Barack Obama, who got nothing he was looking for, despite being the supposed leader of the free world?
G20 declaration shows Harper got his way on tax, economy.
Armed with Charts and a Little Luck, Stephen Harper Crafts a Deal
Harper Gets His Way on Maternal and Infant Aid
This initiative, which will send 5 billion in aid to Africa, was opposed by the Obama administration because there was no funding allocated for abortion. :rolleyes: The Obama administration lost.
Harper also used the G20 to broker a trade agreement with China for Canadian Beef and Tallow, opening a market expected to be worth $110 million per year. Recently, Canada also signed a free trade agreement with Columbia.
And the earlier criticism of Harper for his billion dollars in security is starting to look a little hollow, given the violence we’ve seen this week.
I think Harper comes out of this all looking pretty good. And the steps Canada is urging for world recovery (fiscal stability and free trade) are right on the money.
Other losers this week: The G20 protesters, who came off looking like your typical radical clueless lunatics, and who managed to nullify the growing criticism of Harper’s expensive security tab by proving him right. Stupid G20 protesters.
While not exactly pearson, dixon and carlingview to roy t hall, I did it in 25 minutes.
Declan
Just to be pedantic, $1 billion was the approximate cost of holding the summit, not just of security. I don’t know precisely what percentage of the billion was spent on security but it ain’t cheap to house huge delegations from 20 countries and feed them gourmet food and provide them with hookers and smack for a whole weekend.
I agree that in terms of the summit goals Harper got more or less what he wanted. Like him or hate him, Harper plays very well on the international stage and used home field advantage to get what he wanted, most importantly the deficit reduction agreement (though we’ll see how well that’s enforced.) One of the weirdest criticisms levelled at Harper - though, in fairness, it’s levelled at every Prime Minister by his political opponents - is the old saw that he’s causing Canada to somehow lose its international influence. Harper’s the first PM we’ve had in a long time who is in fact exerting any international influence at all.
However, whether that helps Harper in the eyes of the only people who matter - the Canadian electorate - is doubtful. The truth is that most Canadians don’t give a shit about the results of the G8/G20, and the media spent all its effort going bananas over some street violence that was in fact the least damaging and consequential violence in the history of these things. That’s what got the headlines.
I thought some of you would be amused by this footage of a failed looter…
Toronto should think itself lucky… they should try dealing with Glasgow Rangers football fans.
CBC News: G20 reporters complain to police watchdog
The last paragraph squares with this kid’s account of being segregated because he is gay.
And just to prove that it’s not impossible that LEO’s might be creating work for themselves, here’s a youtube vid from a protest in Quebec where only a police apologist could deny clear signs of infiltration and intent to bring a group’s actions into disrepute.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=St1-WTc1kow&feature=player_embedded#!
Does anyone think that the police might have got a bit wiser since 2007, and may have modified their tactics a little?
That’s already been posted.
If you have evidence they did the same in 2010, present it.
I could just as easily ask you to provide evidence that it wasn’t done. Oh look, I’ve just done it.
Do you deny that the linked video is grounds for suspicion of police activities at these events? Or do you have a perfectly plausible alternative explanation? Why do you think police cars were left unmanned in an area where protesters were heading towards? Do you think all 3 cars had ran out of fuel, or their drivers were beset by hostile activists?
If we’re going to go down that road, what is to prevent the Black Bloc from planting evidence that the police caused the disturbances? That would certainly be in line with the quality of evidence for the assertion that the police used ‘agents provocateurs’ on this occasion.
For example, in the earlier link that I posted, ‘undercoverbrothers 1’, there was a promise to post two more videos. I’m still waiting to see those - all I can say from the first video is ‘is that all there is?’.
Certainly, it makes more sense to me that the police were briefly overwhelmed with disastrous results on Saturday, and then were heavy handed for the rest of the weekend to try and a) catch the perpetrators and b) not let it happen again…
We have estimates of 25,000 protesters, the vast majority of whom were peaceful, but there were hundreds amongst them who are clearly and bitterly violent.
We have reports of the police doing nothing at first except try to contain the violence.
We have reports of approximately $500,000 damage to stores and private property.
We have allegations (allegations only) from a handful of journalists who said they were treated unfairly.
Finally we have approximately 900 people arrested in order to put an end to the violence and destruction.
There are security cameras, cell phone cameras, personal video cameras, journalists’ cameras all over the place. Where is the evidence that the police acted inappropriately. Overall I’d say they showed remarkable restraint. It’s possible there was a smattering of one-sidedness, but given the overall numbers and property damage, I think we all know who the good guys were, and who the bad guys were.