Toronto on alert as summits disappoint protesters

By Chris Cermak and Andreas Landwehr Jun 26, 2010, 10:36 GMT

Toronto - It has been dubbed Fortress Toronto, as the city prepares for the worst when world leaders and protesters, alike, gather this weekend in Canada's financial hub.

If you ask aid organizations, there is good reason to be angry. Social issues, including climate change, are low on the agenda. Strapped for cash amid their sluggish economies, the rich world has been reluctant to boost commitments to poorer nations.

Toronto is hosting the leaders of the Group of 20 (G20) industrial and emerging economies on Saturday and Sunday. The smaller Group of Eight (G8) bloc of wealthy powers gathered out of protest reach Friday in the secluded resort of Huntsville, about 220 kilometres north of Toronto.

Already, the leaders have disappointed. The world's wealthiest countries fell well short of expectations with a pledge of 7.3 billion dollars on Friday to tackle maternal and child health.

'This is lower than our lowest expectations,' fumed Robert Fox of the aid organization Oxfam.

The weak offer was the latest in a long line of missed commitments by wealthy countries, aid groups argue.

Some 19,000 police have been mobilized, with a 3-metre-high fence ringing much of downtown Toronto. Police have been given the order to arrest anyone who comes within 5 metres of the fence.

'The citizens of Toronto are completely not used to this,' said Gerry Barr, head of a Canadian coalition of non-governmental organizations known as the Canadian Council for International Cooperation. He called the security measures 'excessive and unnecessary.'

Taxpayers are having to foot an ever-growing bill. An estimated 1.2 billion dollars has already been spent, nearly 1 billion dollars on security alone. This is also the first time that the G8 and G20 have held back-to-back summits.

In fact, there are three summits this time: the G8, the G20, and 'the street,' Farborz Ghadar, an analyst with the Washington-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies.

Unforgotten are the violent mass protests of previous G8 summits - Germany's Heiligendamm in 2007, Scotland's Gleneagles in 2005 or Italy's Genoa in 2001, with one dead and hundreds injured. London suffered violent demonstrations during a G20 summit in April 2009.

'The G20, according to 'the street,' has failed,' said Ghadar, speaking a day before the latest G20 summit was even due to begin.

Canada is worried: 'A nightmare,' says one police officer.

Downtown businesses in Canada's financial capital gave their staff the day off as leaders arrived and protesters streamed in by the busload. A taxi driver described the city centre as deserted on Friday.

The protesters were a 'very robust and educated crowd,' said Soren Ambrose of the aid group ActionAid, pushing for world leaders to take concerns of global poverty more seriously.

Protests on the eve of the G20 summit were relatively small, and there was no expectation of weekend mass demonstrations along the lines of some previous G8 summits.

Ambrose acknowledged there was always an 'ebb and flow' in the numbers of people who come out to demonstrate, yet: 'the movement is alive and well, as you will see on the streets of Toronto.'