Earthquake, Tornados, Riots, Vandalism - In my city????

It's been an exciting week in Toronto!

This post is about as far from my peaceful, happy, dollhouse world as one can get. I am home, safe in my quiet lakeside neighbourhood, but, yesterday, five miles west of me all hell broke loose.

Wednesday we had an earthquake, then two tornadoes north of the city. This weekend Toronto is hosting the G20 Summit.

It's like we are living in a different city, a different country, a different world. This is not my city.  Check out this link for pictures from yesterday.


The world leaders are discussing the global economic situation in hopes of finding solutions to prevent another recession and bankruptcies of countries as we saw recently with Greece. Barrack and Michelle are here along with our Prime Minister and his wife the leaders of 18 other countries.

Activist groups saw the G20 as an opportunity to make their voices heard. City parks and other areas of Toronto's downtown were set aside for their peaceful demonstrations and marches.  Many of these groups had valid causes to present.

Thousands of Police officers came into the city from all over Canada to help out. They are using the old Toronto Film Studio on Eastern Avenue (two kilometres from my house) as a staging area for the police and as a temporary jail for those arrested.

Yesterday - Saturday June 26, 2010  - a group who call themselves the Black Bloc infiltrated the peaceful demonstration, donned black hoodies and balaclavas and went on a violent, destructive spree of vandalism. These are not activist with a cause, nor are they our regular tourists. They are a bunch of thugs who need to get a real life IMHO.


Police used tear gas for the first time in the city's history. Mounted police did cavalry charges on the crowds to disperse them. Police in riot gear were everywhere. Take downs on the streets were everywhere.

The hospitals on University Avenue went into lockdown. The Eatons Centre went into lockdown. Stores on Yonge Street were vandalized, windows were smashed, there was a report that feces were thrown into the stores (are these people gorillas?)

 I am watching the news right now (10:30 am Sunday) and the police are doing a raid on the University of Toronto campus and have arrested more than 70 people (these are not the students. They are visitors with bad attitudes).

Since the vandalism yesterday afternoon the police have arrested about 500 people. I hope these vandals will learn that they can't treat our beautiful city that way without consequences.

As I write this the crowds have marched on the old film studios to protest the arrests but the police in full riot gear have driven the crowd up towards Queen Street. It's like a war zone here.

More news stories can be found at these links:
http://thestar.blogs.com/photoblog/2010/06/peaceful-beginings-violent-ending-as-g20-protests-grip-toronto.html
http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/torontog20summit/article/829194--behind-the-black-bloc-mob?bn=1
http://thestar.blogs.com/g20/

Life sure is exciting here in Toronto. No wonder I enjoy my dollhouse world so much.

Hugs,
Susan