Miller: Federal Gov't doesn't understand Toronto
As quoted from an interview today with Mayor Miller at the Alternative Media Centre on The Torontoist:My position was—and I was very public about it at the time—that the G20 should've been here, Exhibition Place. There's a permanent fence with barbed wire here, and we're building another fence right now for the Indy, and I felt quite strongly—there were negotiations with the federal government, we came very close to an agreement and I think there might even have been an agreement in principle, that this be the host site. Think about what would happen in Toronto if this was the host site and the media was at the Convention Centre. It'd have an entirely different impact. I'm not blaming the Prime Minister, although he's accountable for this, because the institution of the federal government doesn't understand Toronto. Mr. Chaudhary was on the radio a couple of days ago on the Current saying, "Well, it's on the weekend, and nobody goes downtown on the weekend in Toronto." Like...hello? You're laughing! Right? There's thirty or forty thousand people who live walking distance from the Convention Centre, there were the Jays—and so that decision resulted in a lot of what we're seeing. It was the wrong decision, and it resulted in a lot of the costs being what they are, but it's been taken and from the city's perspective we have to live with it and do our best.Which raises the question: if the motivation of the federal government is neither efficiency, nor economy, nor common sense, what is this hyperbolic demonstration of state police power and war measures legislation meant to show?
12:48 PM