Posts Tagged 'toronto'

Sadly I never even finished my 3 post text-heavy coverage of the Detroit Autoshow from January, but at least I can do up some brief coverage of the Toronto Autoshow. Tom and I did our yearly pilgrimage last weekend. As always, the show was packed, in fact its a much ‘larger’ show than Detroit, all be it less important to the industry. Detroit also lacks the hooligans posing on the hoods of cars throwing up gang signs, go figure on that one.

ANYWAY… here we go.

We started off with the boys at Mercedes. The C/A4-A5/3-series segment has, as always, been one of the most important to the industry. Mercedes face-listed C63AMG is really looking fantastic, and is the real ‘heavy hitter’ in the segment:

I'd still buy the M3...

Onward to Volkswagen, who is intent on making more and more crap in our market to become the next Toyota. Aside from joining into an argument with a *very* rude Volkswagen rep who was intent on explaining that the Routan was not really a Chrysler (well not so intent after being argued with he said he ‘Didn’t care what we thought’), Volkswagen was debuting (well Canadian debut) the 2012 Big-Jetta, er Passat.

The 2012 Big-Jetta

Having sat in one in Detroit, the interior quality is worse than the previous gen Jetta, as are the engine choices and suspension. The only ‘decent’ engine is the TDI. Onward to the real Toyota, who is too boring to really discuss. One of their most boring displays was the Lexus LS, who’s interior seems to wow people who like “80s luxury” (how could you even compare it to an S-class, 7-series or A8) and who’s engine bay is as sterile as can be:

Wheres the 'no user serviceable parts' sticker?

Tom had snapped the one side back down, someone had obviously pried it up. They had some (tons of) other cars too, but I’m totally not interested in discussing them. Next up was Audi. Audi had two big unveils, the A7 and the TT-RS. The front of the TT-RS was pretty mean looking, and the current (2nd gen) TT isn’t as terrible a Golf derivative as it’s first version was (a fancy leather wrapped Beetle)

Don't call me a fast Golf!

The A7 was a nice looking car, but kinda boring drivetrain options considering its market position. Not totally sure where it slots between the A6 and A8, a sportier (but still 4 door A8?). It’s not even one of the now-trendy 4-door coupes. Onto BMW, who I won’t spend too much time on. They had a lounge for customers which featured rather nice drinks and snacks. The 1-series M was of course the big draw, as was a matte finished M3. I hope to take a 1-series M out in May and review it, so we’ll discuss it then. The big reveal was the X1, an SUV for people who dislike station wagons, like this new pig-nose look, and don’t mind a lot of cheap looking plastic.

Because you don't like station wagons?

Buy a Volkswagen Golf Wagon (not the hatch, the wagon), it’ll be an equivalent drive, more space inside and frankly isn’t hideous. Spend the rest of the money on coke. Onward to Nissan who had some silly concepts (as they always do) as well as the unveil of the NISMO 370Z. Amongst the actually upgraded engine (software/induction/exhaust), brakes and suspension, you net yourself a ridiculous spoiler and a pair of coffee-can exhaust tips. I’m sure this was a big deal to the sort of people who drive around with sunglasses, a baseball cap and use way too much hair gel.

Rice rice baby

Next up is Hyundai, who I didn’t take any photos of. They were showing off the Genesis Sedan and Coupe they are so proud of. We were rather amused with all the electrical tape under the hood of a Genesis Coupe. Hyundai, who lacks an innovative bone in their corporate body, had their Genesis Coupe 3.8 painted in Interlagos Yellow. Onto their buddies over at KIA, who were showing off a bunch of dreadfully boring cars, including a “Toronto FC” edition of some SUV thing. I guess you might want a painted valve cover…. My big amusement was that their kiosks did not feature activated (cough pirated) versions of Windows…

KIA powered by warez Windows?

GM had all the Corvettes out. I have to say the Z06 is one awesome looking car now, and the ZR1 is an insane performer. I never thought I’d see the day where Corvettes were really appealing packages. They also had the coolest display of the entire show, a guy tearing down and rebuilding the LS7 (7L V8) from the Z06. He could do it in about 4 hours. Pretty awesome.

The 7L V8 of the Z06 is an awesome beast

Ford’s big thing was the new Focus, which I covered pretty well in Detroit. I really like the car. They had a video stream of Ken Block drifting the rally version on loop. The one cool display they did have was a cutaway of one of the hybrid+CVT four bangers they’re shipping. Was one of the best cutaways I’ve seen.

Fantastic cutaway

All and all was a good show. I will leave you with some car porn:

Not sure that'll take a speed bump...

What a beast!

The 250GT was a stunning car

The Giulietta is a seriously cute car

Abarth!

Proper GT500

So my security related opposition to the G20 was proved very valid. Things got much worse down here in the financial and shopping districts of Toronto that I even imagined though…

Early in the afternoon on Saturday June 26th, all of the peaceful protests were in full swing in downtown Toronto. Despite having what I was told as 10,000+ police officers in the downtown core, a small group of several hundred protesters managed to break away from the marches and began rioting on Yonge St. They destroyed businesses in the name of hurting multi-nationals, Starbucks were a preferred target. Never the less they destroyed and looted many locally-owned stores like the iconic Zanzibar strip club an independent jewler on Yonge. Destruction was wreaked up Yonge from King to College for over an hour before police showed up. Where were the police? The only police I saw were cop cars on fire… Store after store was vandalized, peoples livelihoods destroyed, all afternoon and into the evening.

To put things in perspective for people: they literally hit every store I frequent on a daily / weekly basis (aside from our grocery store which is a bit east of the riots), and I’d been to every Starbucks destroyed, and there were many… Thankfully the Eaton Center was quickly put on lock down to prevent rioting, and for that I am grateful. Apparently anarchists are opposed to people like themselves being employed in the retail and hospitalities industries, because they surely will cause a lot of closures while places pick up the pieces this week… (Yea, guess what, destroying a Starbucks hurts more than just Starbucks Inc. in Seattle)

It hurts me that people would be chanting ‘Our Streets!’ while trashing my city. That riot was a few blocks from my home, on my street, and along my walk to work. There is absolutely no chance these people are downtown Toronto residents, financial district, south of Lakeshore or otherwise. These are not their streets, they have destroyed my neighbourhood. Many people suggests they were bussed in from long distances, specifically Montreal. (Google and Twitter searches on pro-anarchist hash tags have lead me to believe a lot of this anti-G20/anti-capitalism support comes from there as well, not to single them out though…)

There were more such incidents, specifically one on Queen near Spadina in the evening that involving more torched police cars going unchecked for large periods of time from law enforcement. The area near the fence was completely secure, even over night, but rioting went near unchecked across our downtown core. I am very disappointed in our poor security effort, though it was a near unfathomable task by hosting it in Toronto. See my other article on this subject…

The protesters look mostly like white trash. Lots of these so-called “anarchists” look predictably like angry older teens and 20-somethings. If they have an agenda to push, they are stupid beyond words; but I strongly believe they are just angry kids wreaking havoc by trashing property. What it says about our society I don’t know, but it sure is sad. Thankfully many of these protesters and even the so called Black Bloc protesters were photoed, often changing out of their black masks, thanks to journalists doing their part. Publish all the photos, black list these sociopaths.

Aside from the actual protesters, there were huge amounts of onlookers, who I am also disgusted with. Crowds of people supporting the rioters but not causing damage themselves, crowds of people with cameras (the small DRebel-esque SLRs seemed very popular) and cell phone cameras standing around photoing destruction in the city disgust me. Nobody aside from an elderly security guard seemed to try and stop the rioting. Are we that apathetic as a society? I even saw a lot of people smiling at the chaos, even if they were only there taking photos. That too is sociopathic behaviour, and is disgusting. These people should be prosecuted as well.

Violence went on over night, though nothing as organized. Trains, subways and even most surface transit is closed still. Hopefully today will be better than yesterday, but I’m not that hopeful. I am saddened by the state of society that caused this havoc, and the people too apathetic to do anything but snap photos for Twitter. Now we have massive damage from King to Bloor, pretty much everywhere between Spadina and Jarvis.

Harper government who put the G20 in *downtown Toronto*: Terrible.  Toronto police who focused too much on protecting the fence and not the rioting: Unacceptable. The human beings who would destroy other peoples property in the name of a political agenda? The worst of all. You people do not deserve the civil and human rights you obviously take for granted in this country.

So again I’ve been slacking on blog posting, but things have been busy. We’d been working on getting a very large and rather-out-of-our-comfort-zone (tech-wise) campaign for the last few weeks. It’s definitely been fun and thankfully the craziness had subsided this week. Onto the matter at hand!

So the G20 summit has descended into Toronto. It does not make me happy for several reasons. The city spent the last several weeks erecting giant fences around Front Street West, around York, Bay and Yonge, around the Westin Harbour Castle, and preparing to close all of the Gardiner off ramps in the area, as well as lanes on Lakeshore. Unfortunately we are smack dab in the middle of it.

So the first issue as far as I’m concerned is the disruption of it all.  Anyone working in that zone, was pretty much let off work unless they were essential. Certainly for many workers especially those working the Front St hospitalities this meant lost wages for 1-3 days. Anyone working in the downtown core, or even commuting through via the TTC or GO was suggested to take the days off, work from home, etc, due to delays, protests, etc. More lost wages surely, and more importantly, massive loss of productivity. So the near $2 billion (I believe) they spent on the summit doesn’t even scratch the surface of nixing Toronto’s productivity and tourism for 3 days. Bad enough.

Anyone brave enough to drive into the city may have been met with random full 427 and Gardiner closures as dignitaries came through. I’m told this was going on even earlier in the week as well since many arrived early. More disruption to massive numbers of people’s lives, many whom live and work very far from the summit. Mind you, if you already were downtown, the roads were empty as nobody had any way to even get off the highway around here :) I’d have done some rallying around the once-in-a-lifetime empty downtown core if the police wouldn’t have shot me. Toronto G20 Supecial Rally Stage-o, fighto!

Why put it *downtown* Toronto? Why not put it out by the airport? Easier to get to *from the airport* Why not leave it in Huntsville (where the G8 was)? Sorry to the Huntsville and airport’ians but the disruptions to productivity, wages and lives would have been minimized.

So my second issue with the G20 here was security. I’m not really sure who the security effort was tailored to stop. Today is the day of the biggest protests, and its estimated to be under 10,000 (unlike Montreal’s 50,000, I’m not sure what that says about Montreal), which is almost half the number of police downtown for the G20. Certainly the protestors stand no chance of… disrupting anything. They are just masochists who dream of getting 15 minutes of fame from a news program. The only risk is that commuters and tourists may get caught in the scuffle, hospitals were ramping up just incase…

I assume the other thing that the massive security budget was for was to stop potential terrorist attacks. Of course having Obama here (and others) you are immediately running the risk of having a terrorist attack, domestic or international. This bothers me because you’ve immediately put the people and businesses at risk in the most dense area in Canada! Anyone commuting through Union Station, or even living here where we are, is at risk of some sort of attack. Frankly, if someone had wanted to do something, they could have snuck something or themselves into any of the buildings next to the Convention Center earlier in the week. 151 Front Street W included. Unless I’m mistaken, police did not sweep datacenters, filled with the property and equipment of tens of thousands of unknown individuals (many of whom are from overseas). Not that I’m trying to give ideas to the terroristas, but these are people willing to die for what they believe in, they are pretty dedicated and don’t need tips from a tech blogger. Just as someone who has worked in the area for years, I’m saying it would be trivial even with the big scary fences and police presence.

So my other problem with security is that our government rather silently took away some of our civil liberties during the summit anywhere near the fence to. Too bad on my walk for *coffee* I pass the fence as does anyone who uses Union Station. Better be ready to submit to search and seizure if they don’t like how you look. Thankfully they did not attempt to take my camera when I visited it, but I was certainly escorted off by 5 officers for taking photos. Scariest bit: The regulation also says that if someone has a dispute with an officer and it goes to court “the police officer’s statement under oath is considered conclusive evidence under the act.” Thank god this is only 3 days… but seriously Canada, you are regressing! Again, the government is certainly not acting with the will of the people in mind.

So as far as I can tell, security would have been cheaper and easier *anywhere* other than downtown Toronto. Lot’s of nearby tall buildings, tall buildings that have lots of places to hide a person or tool of evil. The risk to the population of downtown is the highest anywhere in Canada because we are the most dense, and the risk to businesses is highest because this is where all the commerce (and telecommunications!) are. What the hell was going through the heads of the Harper government when they chose downtown Toronto?

The choice of downtown Toronto does not benefit anybody. If Canada really had to host the G20 (and that’s a geopolitical question for people other than myself), why the hell would you host it downtown?  By the aiport, in Huntsville (like the G8 from earlier in the week), ANYWHERE would have been better than here. By putting it here you ensure that you disrupt the most peoples lives, most people’s livelihoods, and put the most people at risk, by increasing the cost of security dramatically, while lowering the effectiveness of you security.

It’s early in the morning, I’ll likely revise the grammar of this post when I’m more awake, but fuck the Harper Government anyway.