Fortress Toronto awaits G-20 leaders

TORONTO - In the biggest security operation ever mounted in Canada, the venue of the G-20 summit here has been sealed to ward off threats and protests against top world leaders who are assembling here this week.

Dubbed Fortress Toronto, the venue - Metro Convention Centre - has been fortified with a six-km wire-fence stretching three metres high and encircling eight downtown roads leading to the venue in the heart of Canada’s biggest city of 5.5 million people.

SNC-Lavalin, the engineering company which has been charged with bribery in Kerala, has raised the fence under direct instructions of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and other security agencies.

Rooted in what are called ‘jersey barriers’ - each weighing about 1,800 kilogrammes - the fence has turned the venue into a virtual fortress.

So strict have been security agencies that only ‘ghost’ crews carrying no company logo on their clothes have been allowed in the construction of the fence. These ‘ghost’ workers drive unmarked vans.

About 10,000 personnel from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), the spy agency Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), the Toronto Police, the Ontario Provincial Police, military, and other government agencies will protect the world leaders during their 72 hours in Canada.

Mooted in 1999 by then Canadian finance minister Paul Martin - who went on to become the country’s prime minister in 2004 - after a series of economic crises in Mexico, southeast Asia and Russia in the 1990s, G-20 nations today account for 70 per cent of the world’s population and 90 per cent of the global GDP.

Initially, only finance ministers from the grouping used to meet annually, but after the 2008 economic crisis, President George Bush called the first summit of G20 prime ministers and presidents to prevent the global economy from slipping into another depression.

Since 2008, the G20 summit has been become an annual feature as has the People’s Summit by worldwide groups opposed to G8/G20 policies.

With activists from Amnesty International, Greenpeace, the Canadian Labour Congress, Oxfam, Make Poverty History, trade unions, student bodies and other anti-globalisation groups descending on the city, Toronto is set to witness one of the most chaotic weeks in its history.

(Gurmukh Singh can be contacted at gurmukh.s@ians.in)