Breaking the Diet (Celebrations and A Little Cheating) July 31, 2010
Posted by maggieknight in Une diète pour La Belle Province.add a comment
We figure we’d better come clean: we cheated a little. Well, perhaps we didn’t really cheat, we just gave into our “social life clause” loophole. As I reflected in our “Top Ten Tips for Local Eating in Montréal”, balancing local eating with any kind of normal social life can become difficult (particularly in a city where cafés, restaurants, and bars are such a huge part of the culture). We had hoped to stick to our local diet throughout the month, but left ourselves an escape clause about crossing the social life bridge when it came to it.
Warm veggie salad and aloo gobi from our finale potluck
So, we used the social life clause three times. Firstly, at a friend’s potluck where, in addition to the local cidre, strawberries, and whipped cream we bought and the local sausages she provided, we indulged in some pretzels, stir fry, and a delicious green Thai curry (this spurred into acceptability by the fact we’d originally gone to her old apartment, not realizing that she’d moved, and consequently had walked around in heavy summer rain for quite a while, getting hungrier and hungrier); still, we contributed good local food and all the other food we ate was cooked from scratch, most of it as we sat around the kitchen table. Secondly, we decided that two visiting friends from Victoria needed to experience the True Montréal Experience of a tasty microbrew at Dieu du Ciel followed by a jaunt for fresh, warm bagels from Fairmount Bagels (open 24 hours a day) a few blocks away; still, while some of the ingredients weren’t from Québec, we were enjoying the results of two vibrant local businesses, both of whom produce their goods on site (and we also took both guests on a shopping trip to Marché Jean Talon). Thirdly, after taking one of these guests on a tour of McGill (made longer by running into almost everyone I know who’s in Montréal for the summer), I caved and took her for one of my favourite desserts (brownie and ice cream at Lola Rosa); I don’t have a good excuse for this, except that catching up on three years of girl-talk with an old friend is significantly enhanced by chocolate. And fourthly, some friends-of-friends were in town briefly and we took them to Café Santropol (another True Montréal Experience), another local business which does source many of its ingredients locally; it was a delightful conversation and they ended up coming to our local eating finale potluck the next day.
So there you have it. We cheated, a little. But not too excitingly–sorry, folks, this isn’t a confession of secret midnight runs to Dairy Queen or McDonalds (by midnight we were usually too full of delicious localness to contemplate running anywhere).
Spicy veggie soup (near the end of the night at our local eating potluck)
More excitingly, when our month was up, we had a grand local feast with many of our friends. We made massive amounts of local pizza (some of it vegan), spicy veggie soup (containing all the slightly sad veg left in our fridge) and two strawberry-rhubarb pies. Our guests brought us cheese, bread, a warm veggie salad, aloo gobi, berries, honey wine, and a huge zucchini lasagna. One friend, at our invitation, brought (organic, fair trade) chocolate which we greatly enjoyed when we broke our local diet at midnight. It was all delicious–as one friend remarked as she finished a bite of pie topped with blueberries and whipped cream, “Darn, it’s just such a hard life eating local, isn’t it?”
Yet another delicious local pizza
Strawberry-rhubarb pie topped with berries and whipped cream
Toronto Star: The science of climate change is alive and well July 25, 2010
Posted by maggieknight in Media Work.1 comment so far
This op-ed by scientists Barry Smit and Tristan Pearce was published in today’s Toronto Star here. I’m posting it here not just because I did the media work that got it published, but because I think the message is incredibly important (and it’s great to have scientists communicating directly with the public).
The science of climate change is alive and well
Barry Smit & Tristan Pearce
An inquiry into the “climategate” controversy reported recently what the scientific community and most Canadians have known for some time: the climate is changing and human activities are a major influence.
The salient facts of climate change (including human-induced global warming) are accepted by the science academies of all G8 countries. These facts are persistently challenged by climate change deniers and skeptics.
In climategate, scientists’ emails were stolen and misrepresented to suggest manipulation of research findings. The independent inquiry, like two previous investigations, concluded that the scientists acted with integrity and did not manipulate data. The inquiry was strongly critical of the unfounded and selective attacks by climate skeptics.
Unfortunately, the reputation of climate science has been damaged. The climategate accusations made front-page news, yet the debunking is hardly reported. For those not wanting to see policies or changes in consumer behaviour to address climate change, the skeptics’ attacks were successful.
The strategies of the skeptics are not new. The effects of smoking on human health were well established in the scientific community for decades, yet interests in the smoking industry continued to deny the link. While thousands of medical scientists and professionals supported the overwhelming evidence, a few so-called experts would appear from time to time to challenge the science.
The influence of skeptics was amplified by the media seeking either a controversy or “balance.” The effect of skeptics in the link between smoking and health was that public acceptance of the science was delayed, policies were postponed, changes in personal choice were delayed, and hundreds of thousands of lives were lost as a result.
Another target of climate skeptics is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The IPCC was established after early attempts to reach an international agreement on how to deal with climate change got bogged down in disputes over the science. It involves the world’s top scientists (over 3,000) summarizing the current state of knowledge and presenting the science in a form intelligible to policy-makers.
The IPCC does not do science, it summarizes it. IPCC reports are among the most thoroughly and comprehensively reviewed scientific assessments ever. Each statement is checked by chapter authors, two review editors, several outside experts, and reviewers nominated by each country. It is no wonder that IPCC reports are so conservative.
Our Last Day: Top Ten Tips for Local Eating in Montréal July 24, 2010
Posted by maggieknight in Resources, Une diète pour La Belle Province.3 comments
Today is the last day of our local diet, so it seems a good time to condense our somewhat expanded “wisdom” on eating locally in Montréal.
1. Think about why you want to eat locally. Is it for the sake of eating fresher, tastier food? To support the local economy? For the environment? This will influence the kind of food you are interested in buying and eating, and, if your convictions are strong, they can help you through patches of candy or caffeine cravings. For a discussion of some of the many reasons for eating local (and a counter-argument to the typical arguments against local eating which rely on efficiency and comparative advantage), please check out my friend Tim’s blog.
2. Decide if you want to have rules, or if you just want to try to eat locally as possible. If you do want rules, make sure that they are feasible for you. For instance, if you’ve never made anything from scratch before, you might want to spend some time getting comfortable in your kitchen before you begin. If you’re vegan, you probably want to spend extra time making sure you can source appropriate protein before you start. If you have a severe caffeine addiction and a high-stress job, going cold turkey into a local-drinks-only diet could make life take a significant turn for the worse. Keep in mind that the more specific you are about where your food can come from, the more time you will have to spend asking questions (and sometimes nobody will know the answers). Make sure you know how much you can afford and that you keep track of your budget (most farmers’ markets don’t give you receipts, so take along a pen and paper). Depending on how much packaged food you usually buy and how much you usually eat out, you could either save money or spend significantly more. There are lots of local luxuries that will come at a higher cost (berries, wines, cheese) – know how feasible it is for you to splurge and plan accordingly.
We added some luxury to our homely (but delicious!) meal of sautéed onions, rainbow chard, celery, garlic, and leftover green beans with some delicious local honey wine.
3. Expand your horizons in the kitchen. This is mostly about making it fun, instead of a more laborious copy of what you usually cook. During our month I’ve learned dozens of new recipes, particularly featuring rhubarb, asparagus, eggplant, and zucchini. There are some great cookbooks on local and seasonal eating, but you can also find great recipes for pretty much every type of food on the web (if you’re willing to sift through all the ones that won’t fit your local aspirations).
A delicious variation on eggplant parmesan which included yellow zucchinis as well as eggplant and substituted mozzarella for parmesan.
4. Talk to other folks who eat locally and get their advice on where to source food. Highlights for us included local sunflower oil from Le Frigo Vert, local flour from Première Moisson, and fresh produce from Marché Jean Talon and Marché Fermier. You can find out more about neighbourhood farmers’markets here and check out a “Local Food for McGill Students” map I started as part of a GIS course and have now handed over to the McGill Food Systems Project.
5. Try to find substitutes early for the things you think you’ll most miss. For us, that was tea (we substituted mint tea made from fresh and then dried mint leaves) and beer (apple cider has a similar degree of fizz and alcohol). This means you won’t be as likely to cave.
Where This All Started… And Where It Could Start For You July 19, 2010
Posted by maggieknight in Resources, Une diète pour La Belle Province.1 comment so far
Recently people have been asking me where I got my love of food and cooking in general and my interest in sustainable food systems in particular. They also ask what the best ways to learn more are. So here you go, a short summary of where this all started (for me) and where you could look to get into this sustainable food feast yourself.
I have to attribute much of my love of food and cooking to my mum. An accomplished cook who, as a single parent, consistently produced delicious and nutritious dishes, my mum loves to create tasty meals and to enjoy them with friends and neighbours. While I didn’t cook much in her kitchen before I left home, I learned from her that cooking doesn’t have to be done by the recipe, that the kitchen should be a space of creativity and experimentation, and that community is best enjoyed over a good meal. When I left home, my mum’s going-away present to me was a handwritten cookbook of many of my favourite recipes, complete with humorous cartoons, witticisms, and inside jokes. While I already knew the essentials of cooking, this book guided me through my first months of university cooking (happily explored in collaboration with my floormates in our MORE House) and remains the source of many of my favourite staples.
I wasn’t much of a gardener in my teens (to the chagrin of both my mother and my stepmom, I believe), but I appreciated the fresh produce that came out of the gardens and spent time with West Coast foodies who dedicated their time to community gardens and local feasts. During my first year at McGill, I bought Nat The 100-Mile Diet for Christmas (I confess to having read several chapters before wrapping it up–with the book opened to the least extent possible to avoid cracking the spine, of course ). I borrowed it back from Nat a while later once he’d read it. While the book didn’t teach me too much that I didn’t already know about food in terms of facts and figures, its lyrical style made me fall in love with falling in love with my food–and it spoke of the landscapes I’d grown up in and was isolated from across the continent in the full glory of the true Canadian winter.
While Nat had his own apartment, he spent more and more time at my rez, cooking with us and baking us bread (and making us cookies when we had midterms!). When we (and a roommate) officially moved in together in my second year, cooking became an even bigger part of what we did together and part of the way we cared for one another. Our basement apartment didn’t provide enough sunlight to grow plants, but we shopped at the McGill Farmers’ Market and at Organic Campus, and tried to get to Marché Jean Talon now and then. Through Greening McGill, I learned more about sustainable farming and local initiatives (and hosted a screening of “The World According to Monsanto” in our apartment), watched fellow students attempt a McGill 100-Mile Diet in November, and helped as Environment Commissioner of the Students’ Society of McGill University with the founding of the McGill Food Systems Project.
Last Fall, while in McGill’s Environmental Management 1 class, I read The Omnivore’s Dilemma (which had been given to me as a farewell gift by my colleague at the Habitat Acquisition Trust at the end of the summer, and which I had been meaning to properly read for ages). Our Environmental Management group project worked with the McGill Food Systems Project to look at the challenges and opportunities of institutionalizing sustainable purchasing practices into McGill’s food system. In our final report (which you can read here), we recommended the hiring of an additional staff person to manage the amount of information necessary to make sustainable choices in institution purchasing. Thanks to funding through McGill’s new Sustainability Projects Fund and the dedication of several McGill students and staff, this position is now in the hiring phase (if you’re interested, check out the job description here–applications are due July 21st).
Since then, I’ve also read Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, which again made the case for local eating in an engaging and personal fashion. She charmingly discusses the joys of hunting for morels (mushrooms) in the forest, the epic endeavour of never-ending tomato canning, and even turkey sex (her heirloom breeds of turkey could actually reproduce by themselves, unlike the species that makes up most of the turkey meat market). While I haven’t read it yet, I’ll soon be diving into Sarah Elton’s Locavore: From Farmers’ Fields To Rooftop Gardens, How Canadians Are Changing the Way We Eat (you can see her opinions on locavorism without giving up on trade goods like spices here).
For folks looking for more resources on local food and the importance of genetic diversity in our food crops, I’d recommend the various writings of Vandana Shiva and the publications of the Leopold Centre for Sustainable Agriculture. For shock value there’s also Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation and Morgan Spurlock’s documentary “Supersize Me” (which you can view for free here). While I haven’t gotten around to seeing it yet, “Food Inc” is also changing people’s minds about how they eat. Slow Food International (and Slow Food Canada) lay out the case for an aesthetic appreciation of our daily nourishment. Food Secure Canada works on food security issues across the country.
Baking Bread, Making Mayonnaise, and What To Do When Things Go Bad July 17, 2010
Posted by maggieknight in Une diète pour La Belle Province.add a comment
Normally I would feel a little guilty about not posting for a while, but in this case I actually like the story it tells: local eating is becoming normal for us. This week we’ve put less effort into our food but have still been eating well.
It’s been a good week for baking, however. Nat made another batch of tasty local bread, so we’re back to bread-based tastiness for breakfast and often lunch. We even had club sandwiches for dinner last night, sitting on our balcony in the warm summer breeze. The sandwich experience was enhanced by the fact that Nat, having bemoaned the absence of “the White Queen of Condiments” from our diet, made his own mayonnaise (egg yolks, oil, mustard, pepper, apple cider vinegar, and a few drops of lime juice from the bottle in our fridge). It’s tasty and seems to be keeping well in a jar in the fridge.
Nat's two loaves of bread from this week's batch (which also included a tray's worth of buns)
Many things do not keep that well, however. Or at least not as long as conventional store-bought produce, likely because the food we have been buying from the markets is not primarily grown for its ability to survive long-distance transport and have a long shelf life. As many local food writers discuss, selecting species for their resilience to transport means sacrificing other attributes, including what are, for me, the most important: flavour and nutrition. (Isn’t the point of eating primarily to nourish our bodies and secondarily to enjoy the experience?) Then there’s the fact that many of the farmers (particularly at the smaller markets) don’t use pesticides that kill every other living thing, so there is probably a little more residual microbial activity left on the produce. (While many of the smaller farmers use “organic practices”, many choose not to go through the expensive organic certification process. If organic is important to you, just talk to the vendor and they can tell you how the food is grown.)
On a day when we'd run out of a lot of things, this was dinner. Veggie scrambled eggs (mainly onions and asparagus) with steamed green beans in lots of butter.
The upshot of this is that now and then things start to go bad in our fridge. There are two main solutions: boil or bake (cut the bad bits out first, of course). It’s surprising how many people just throw food out when it starts to go off, when most of it is still fine and you just need to remove the bad parts (an old roommate and I used to talk about veg that could be “salvaged”, which often led to Salvage Soup).
Step 1 of many veggie-salvaging endeavours: put in sink, wash thoroughly.
New Isolation, New Community July 11, 2010
Posted by maggieknight in Une diète pour La Belle Province.add a comment
We set out to see if local eating was possible for your standard 20-something, apartment-dwelling student couple. We don’t have the farm that helped sustain Barbara Kingsolver and her family, or the budget of two working professionals like James MacKinnon and Alisa Smith, or access to a car (which makes trips directly to the farm to buy bulk amounts of tasty things more feasible). We don’t have a good ability to store a large amount of food–we have a small fridge and a tiny freezer. What we do have are the decent amounts of time and flexibility that come from having no dependents (well, unless you count the family of cats we are fostering from the SPCA) and doing research work from home, and the bonus of being fairly healthy, strong young people with no mobility problems (allowing us to haul back silly amounts of produce). We’re lucky to live in a large city well-supplied with permanent farmers’ markets and in a neighbourhood that is home to two pocket markets a week.
Foster kitten Beatrice lying in the (now empty) strawberry pannier
Eating locally has brought about significant changes in what we emphasize in the way we’re living. We’re spending more time in the kitchen, cooking together. We’re more creative about what we cook and put more thought into combinations of flavours. Sometimes I think that narrowing your choices actually helps expand your diet–instead of feeling overwhelmed at the literally hundreds of possible answers to “What should we have for dinner?” (which Michael Pollan discusses in The Omnivore’s Dilemma), there is a smaller set of ingredients from which to choose, but all are tasty, fresh, and at their best in their own particular season. I find that rather than concocting local substitutes for old hat dishes I’m perusing my recipe books and the internet for recipes featuring the ingredients I have.
We’ve found our dependence on bread diminishing. For breakfast on a normal day we might have yogurt and stewed rhubarb or rhubarb muffins or on the weekend a feast of hashbrowns, sautéed onions, and scrambled eggs (with oregano). For lunch we’re likely to have salad, or whatever suitable leftovers are taking up space in our fridge. For dinner, we often experiment, although tonight we’re making pizza for the fourth time during our diet –it’s just so darn good. Dessert, which we’re eating more often because berries don’t keep for too long and we keep succumbing to their seduction at the market, is often some combination of berries and whipped cream. (Nat has astonished various friends by happily whipping cream the old fashioned way with a whisk and a bowl. Adding in maple syrup is a delicious variation.)
Fresh greens topped with a mix of cucumber, yogurt, chives, and garlic
Of course it’s not all strawberries and whipped cream. In fact, limiting yourself to a local diet can be very isolating when we’re outside of our apartment. Walking down a main street in Montréal, there used to be dozens of cafés, restaurants, and bars where we could grab a drink or a bite to eat. Now most of these venues are no longer an option, and the ones that are are difficult to find (while awareness of local food issues is increasing, your average waitress is still unlikely to know where all the ingredients in a meal come from). It makes for a strange sense of isolation walking through streets teeming with people celebrating summer.
One meal we didn't need to adapt: baker potatoes with their insides mixed with garlic, chives and sour cream.
New Discoveries and Crafty Substitutes July 4, 2010
Posted by maggieknight in Une diète pour La Belle Province.3 comments
When I first moved away from home, I couldn’t afford to eat out or buy a lot of premade or packaged food, so I quickly gained confidence at cooking from scratch (alongside the housemates I cooked with). Mostly, however, I stuck to recipes from the book of favourites my mother made for me as a leaving home present. A few years later, I still rely heavily on those favourites, although I’ve picked up some others along the way. Part of my hope for this experiment was that it would challenge me to try new recipes and new tastes, partly by needing to find substitutes for things that are no longer options, and partly by spending more time and energy on exploring the local foodscape. A week and a half in, I figure it’s time to talk about the things we miss most, the substitutes we’ve found for ingredients we’re used to using, and the new tastes we’re trying out.
WHAT WE MISS MOST
Tea (with my British upbringing, this is my standard way of starting my day)
Beer (most missed on hot days or when wanting to celebrate with friends)
Coffee (mostly for its social place in meeting up with friends in coffee shops)
Peanut butter (delicious, and a staple of our spicy peanut butter stirfry)
Rice (also a staple of stirfry…)
Pasta (easy, tasty bed for whatever delicious veg or sauce we prepare)
Chocolate (not too bad so far, given the availability of sweet treats such as strawberries)
CRAFTY SUBSTITUTES
Unlike some people, we still got to feast during the G20 July 1, 2010
Posted by maggieknight in Une diète pour La Belle Province.add a comment
With all the G20 craziness that’s been going on, I haven’t taken the time to write about how la diète pour La Belle Province is going. The answer, simply put, is “well”. (Fortunately our fridge was crammed to bursting following Saturday’s trip to the market, so grocery shopping hasn’t been needed while I’ve been media tracking…)
If a picture is worth a thousand words then tasty samples must be worth a million, but since this medium doesn’t allow for that, here are some photos of what we’ve been eating.
Sunday's Dinner
Sunday dinner: Pizza
Nat made the dough (with a new recipe he says was very easy), and I made a delicious (if I do say so myself) sauce out of onions, garlic, and stewed tomatoes (leftover in our freezer from our former roommate Anna’s time – I can’t promise that they were all from Quebec, but they were likely dumpstered, possibly without actually experiencing the dumpster stage). We topped our pizzas with red and yellow bell peppers (which were looking peaky in our fridge’s crisper), fresh spinach from the market, fresh tomatoes, and cheddar. Since we only have one pizza pan, we also made use of a frying pan and Nat’s “pi” plate (you can’t see the bottom with the letter pi here, but the numbers around the rim should give you a hint). It was delicious, probably the best pizza I’ve had in ages. (But then, I’ve always preferred my pizzas on the less greasy side.) We polished off the big one for dinner on Sunday and were able to eat the other two for lunch and dinner the next day.
Monday breakfast: Strawberry-rhubarb crumble
Strawberry rhubarb crumble and apple juice for breakfast (I can't recall the rationale for the wine glass)
Suspending G20 Media Tracking July 1, 2010
Posted by maggieknight in G20.add a comment
Just wanted to let you know that I will not be attempting to continue systematic media monitoring for G20 articles and videos. I hope that the post below will remain helpful, and that it served a useful role during the craziness of everything when reports were flowing in from all sides.
This is not to say that continued following of the issues raised at the G20 (inside and outside the fence, and particularly relating to the behaviour of police) is not worthwhile. Indeed, I think it is crucial. But I hope that now most people have the time to follow the media themselves (as well as to write with their thoughts to their elected representatives and join in rallies across the country), and I personally need to get back to my normal hours of full-time work and to have some time to digest all the things I have read and footage I have watched. I will be writing to various politicians and officials, and may share some of those letters here. I will also continue to add my voice to those of others calling for a public inquiry.
Have a happy and critical-thinking-filled Canada Day.
The World Is Watching: G20 Media Summary to Date June 28, 2010
Posted by maggieknight in G20.1 comment so far
Many people are still trying to make sense of the reports coming out of the G20, particularly concerning treatment of protesters and detainees. I am not in Toronto, so I am not the best news source, but I have been doing a bunch of media tracking. I can’t promise that this is an unbiased collection of stories – it is simply a collection of images and videos and articles I have found important and evocative and worthy of further thought or inquiry. I hope that this is helpful as many people try to understand what is going on.
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TREATMENT OF PROTESTERS AND DETAINEES
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There are very disturbing reports of conditions in the detention centre (temporary, formerly a film studio).
Two indy journalists report on the conditions: http://lexgill.com/2010/06/28/urgent-conditions-at-629-eastern-ave-illegal-immoral-dangerous/
Craig Kielburger (with CP24 news) interviews a woman just released: http://snardfarker.ning.com/video/g20-detention-center
Amnesty International has called for an inquiry into this weekend’s events: http://www.straight.com/article-331246/vancouver/amnesty-international-calls-review-security-measures-g8-and-g20-summits-ontario
The Canadian Civil Liberties Association “denounces the sweeping arrests at the G20”: http://ccla.org/2010/06/27/ccla-denounces-the-sweeping-arrests-at-g20/ and on Tuesday released an interim report: http://ccla.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/CCLA-G-20-INTERIM-REPORT-A-Breach-of-the-Peace-June-29-2010.pdf
This generally matches up with what friends engaging in peaceful protest as part of the youth climate movement have been telling me. Some of them speak of their experience here: http://torontoist.com/2010/06/g20_eastern_avenue_detention_centre.php
Rabble.ca has a number of videos of interviews with detainees after their release:
Twenty people, ranging from students to mayoral candidates and activists to bystanders, talk about their experience in detention: http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/torontog20summit/article/829921–i-will-not-forget-what-they-have-done-to-me?bn=1
Here McGill student Dana Holtby tells of her experiences in detention: http://toronto.mediacoop.ca/blog/dana-holtby/3948
Here is an anonymous account from two twin sisters who tell of sexual misconduct by police: http://toronto.mediacoop.ca/story/readers-stories-4-detention-conditions/3958
Here is a video from the rally outside Toronto Police HQ on Monday evening, in which people who were detained speak of their experiences:
(If you have trouble understanding the audio, the basics are covered in this article: http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/293976)
There are now photos from an official press tour of the Eastern Ave detention centre here: http://www.blogto.com/city/2010/06/inside_the_g20_eastern_avenue_detention_centre/
The report includes the statement “Contrary to published reports we were told that all female prisoners were strip searched by female officers.” It also states that 700 of the 900 arrested were let go without charge. Here are two of the photos:
I have yet to see any statement by any politicians on this – many on Twitter are saying that the silence is deafening.
There are several videos of police being violent with apparently peaceful protesters. In one of the most poignant, the crowd sings “O Canada”, the police wait until they finish and then charge them:
Here’s the view from inside the crowd:
Here a small group of people are surrounded by cops and people are occasionally violently pulled from the crowd. Police tell them to go home, they say “how? you have us boxed in?”. The cameraman appears to be bleeding from a police officer’s shield hitting his face. http://mynews.ctv.ca/mediadetails/2886697?collection=742
Others can be seen here: http://toronto.mediacoop.ca/video/compilation-videos-about-police-violence/3897
Here is a video of police vastly outnumbering protesters and using “kettling” to move and condense the crowd:
Report of peaceful protesters being arrested outside the Novotel Hotel (where they were staging a peaceful street sit-in), including an audio file report from a friend of mine: http://toronto.mediacoop.ca/audio/police-have-arrested-estimated-100-peaceful-protesters/3854 His photos of the weekend, including this event, are here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/powless/sets/72157624260182359/
Here are two chaotic videos. The end of the second video includes text about police brutality at the detention centre:
Police fire “muzzle blast” at protesters rallying outside detention centre (“jail solidarity”) http://www.thestar.com/videozone/829371–police-fire-muzzle-blast-at-protestors
Longer video of jail solidarity rally, including people being grabbed out of the crowd:
CP24 News covered some of the arrests from outside the detention centre:
There are a lot of people reporting “snatch squad” detainments of people, often just off the side of the road and into unmarked cars. This appears to be one such incident:
Eyewitness accounts from union leaders, filmmakers, and a member of the Sierra Youth Coalition: http://rabble.ca/news/2010/06/eyewitness-accounts-police-brutality-and-indiscriminate-arrests
Here is footage of a group being followed down a street by police beating their batons against their shields and occasionally breaking into a run: http://www.opensourcecinema.org/media/g20-1-malchevic-mov
In this video, a woman says mounted police nearly trampled her in her wheelchair and that she was protected by several male protesters:
Here is an account of violence against a No One Is Illegal march: http://openfile.ca/blog/g20-reflections-when-blood-started-flow
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MISTREATMENT OF THE MEDIA
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Criticisms of police have come from media who were eye witnesses and, sometimes, bore the brunt of things or were arrested, often despite showing their g20-accredited media passes. Several of the accounts below are summarized here.
TVO’s Steve Paikin saw a fellow journalist punched in the stomach and elbowed in the back as about 100 peaceful protesters were arrested: http://www.tvo.org/cfmx/tvoorg/theagenda/index.cfm?page_id=3&action=blog&subaction=viewpost&blog_id=43&post_id=12960
Here Steve Paikin talks about those events on Real News:
This journalist, Jesse Rosenfeld, is interviewed here, as is Naomi Klein: http://www.democracynow.org/2010/6/28/journalist_describes_being_beaten_arrested_by
Footage of a Real News journalist’s confrontation with police:
Two National Post reporters spent the night in detention: http://news.nationalpost.com/2010/06/27/12572/
A CTV producer was also arrested and held for 6 hours: http://toronto.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20100627/g20-arrested-accounts-100627/20100627/?hub=TorontoNewHome
Short clip of riot police yelling at media: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYppd2OsXoE
From Toronto Community Mobilization Network press conference Monday morning with Jesse Rosenfeld, Amy Miller, Adam MacIsaac, and Sharmeen Khan, talking about police use of force against media:
http://www.g20breakdown.com/2010/06/g20-police-repression-press-conference-video/
Adam MacIsaac says a stun device was used on him even though he was screaming that he has a pacemaker, was handcuffed to hospital bed while receiving medical assistance: http://vimeo.com/12924829
Amy Miller says she was told she would be repeatedly raped so she would never want to be a “journalist” again:
Maggie Knight 