By Don Martin June 25, 2010
From the 346-metre-high observation deck of the CN Tower, which replicates the only view of this city helicoptering G20 leaders will see when they land in downtown Toronto, the summit host has the look of a metropolis hit by a killer plague.
The weekday fixture of jammed streets have been reduced to a scintilla of pre-dawn traffic volumes, eerie stretches of open pavement broken only by the flashing lights of motorcycle cops ushering black SUVs in dress rehearsals for the handover of the Huntsville G8 to the Toronto G20 tomorrow.
The railyards have been cleared except for occasional GO Trains snaking into the core carrying a fraction of regular passenger volumes.
And Lake Ontario, curiously devoid of boats, beckons as a real backdrop for reporters who are already weary of the notorious Fake Lake which is so shallow my plan to launch an inflatable lounge chair had to be scuttled. Unless you weigh less than 100 lbs, which I clearly don’t, you’ll be instantly grounded on the bottom.
This is what a billion-dollar security net buys you. Canada’s largest city as a post-apocalyptic movie set. Massive worker inconvenience. Horrific productivity losses. Legions of bored cops on overtime. And a tourist scare-off that makes SARS look like a Halloween prank.
Everywhere in a city core swept clean of garbage collection bins and newspaper boxes, a fence runs through it.
The notorious barricade has gaps too small even for a child’s fingers to grasp and that makes it impossible to scale although, protesters take note, at three metres high it’s only half the world pole vault record so there’s at least one way to leap over it into the waiting hands of riot police.
Speaking of police, they already gather in jawdropping numbers as omnipresent clusters at every intersection or wander aimlessly as enforcement groups around buildings and down streets, wearing bulletproof vests with helmets dangling from their belts and earpieces connected to voices of undetermined origin.
It’s not hard to see tens of millions of security dollars being squandered, er, spent to ensure world leaders’ safety. This would be the worst place on the planet to rob a bank, if any of them were actually open in the core.
Speaking of iffy investments, and this will be my last reference to the idiotic Fake Lake, I wish every taxpayer could see their dollars at work on this mindless tourism promotion venture.
Complete with 30 Muskoka chairs, 42 dangling canoes and an actual artist on the deck, it’s just the most visible display of public money being put to questionable use. There’s the 4D Ontario experience theatre, a video game centre and a stack of bargain-bin books piled into the shape of a nuclear reactor funnel which, at a distance, allegedly forms the image of a tree.
But, in a perverted way, Toronto is currently a visitor’s delight and a pinch-me moment for commuters as they free flow through what are usually three-light intersections.
In the far corner of a deserted wing of the Union Station, which usually handles about 200,000 GO Train and Via Rail passengers per day, Alan Rhodes was shuffling brochures to pass time while staffing an underutilized Travellers’ Aid booth.
”It’s Guantanamo Bay out there,” the mild-mannered senior fumed. “It’s like somebody asked Mr. Harper ‘what is the worst place and the worst time to place a summit?’ This is it. It makes no sense.”
A tour bus operator could only shrug when asked about the potential for business today. With the waterfront and major tourist attraction off limits starting today “I guess we’ll go north, although I’m not sure tourists want to see a shopping centre,” she said.
But visitors braving the summit-shutdown core, a once-in-a lifetime view of Toronto beckons from from the CN Tower today. Glance straight down through the glass bottom deck and you’ll see a city asphixiated by a security blanket.
Ironically, given this summit was supposed to generate tourism, that viewing experience became off-limits last night at midnight. The CN Tower is closed until Monday as a potential G20 security threat. By the time it reopens, Toronto should be back to its chaotic normal self.
National Post
dmartin@nationalpost.com
"Cruel fate'? If the allegations are proven true as opposed to Clifts dismissal of them, well then who was cruel to begin with - Gore and whatever fate befalls him so be it. 
By Don Martin June 25, 2010 
From the 346-metre-high observation deck of the CN Tower, which replicates the only view of this city helicoptering G20 leaders will see when they land in downtown Toronto, the summit host has the look of a metropolis hit by a killer plague.
Dear Friends,
