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G20 Summit Causing A Stir

Back after a one week hiatus is your favourite blog – the Synergy Merchants Services Blog! Hey, we all need a vacation right? And with today being the first day of summer, you would figure that a lot of people likely have a lot to get excited about. Well, not so much so in Toronto.

This week, Ontario’s capital is preparing for the G20 Summit. And while this event has made news headlines for weeks, things are truly coming to a head this week as the summit is set to get underway this upcoming weekend. The protests are starting as angry citizens are making their displeasures heard loudly.

G20.org explains that “The Group of Twenty (G-20) Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors was established in 1999 to bring together systemically important industrialized and developing economies to discuss key issues in the global economy. The inaugural meeting of the G-20 took place in Berlin, on December 15-16, 1999, hosted by German and Canadian finance ministers.”

In today’s edition of The Toronto Sun, Ian Robertson explains that the first major disruptions surrounding this year’s summit are beginning to mount in the city of Toronto. Apparently, such issues as animal liberation to the overwhelming cost of the summit are drawing the ire of Toronto residents.

One protester, Kitchener student Chris Barton insisted that he was present in Toronto for a “peaceful” protest. A member of Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP), Barton simply wished to express the “rights and freedoms” of his group, which has been made to feel ignored by powerful governing bodies.

Said Barton: “If I’m going to be corralled, I’m going to try and break out by any means as long as it’s not violent against a human being.” Robertson reports that no arrests were made today, but the outlook for the rest of the week does not appear as promising.

Venay Menon of The Toronto Star went so far as to suggest that Prime Minister Stephen Harper must hate Toronto for having the G20 Summit take place there. Insisting that the summit has effectively “shackled” the city, Menon outlines that because of the event, Torontonians will be subject to “squadrons of heavily armed officers”, street cameras and military-style checkpoints.

Writes Menon: “Toronto the Good has morphed into Toronto the Caged. We are animals in Mr. Harper’s riled kingdom and he’s the one growling.” The Synergy Merchant Services Blog will keep its eye on this situation throughout the week.

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