The organisers of the Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal have decided to scrap the free access day for the fans on Thursday, because of the threats that have been made against the event. While some student bodies are trying to play down the threats, others are apparently planning action.
“Considering the various disruption threats made public recently, the free admission and the naturally openness character of the open house day, revealed some risks that we could not neglect,” said Francois Dumontier. “Under these circumstances, cancelling the ‘Open House’ day was the only action we could take. Unfortunately, for the fans and our spectators, it was impossible to escape from such responsibility.”
I apologize for my fellow Canadians now. I fear this is not the last we’re going to hear from these spoiled children in the next week.
Do you also apologize for the intransigent, spoiled, petulant, bullying government?
No? (Adjectives belie personal politics.;)
In truth, this isn’t about petulance on either side. This is a fight over political beliefs. On one side is a conservative government that is using the economic crisis to try and move the Canadian system close to that in the U.S.
On the other side are the protesters – students and non-students who strongly oppose a diminishing the social system in order to pay for lower taxes for the wealthy.
The monetary stakes in this particular fight are so low that it makes absolutely no sense for the government to risk the economy on it, yet the government presses on, bringing nothing to table, refusing to negotiate in good faith. Why?
Because it isn’t about money (well, not the small amount in this particular fight) it’s about a dogmatic line in the sand.
Fair or not, only the government can now avert this slow motion car wreck. A mass movement is far more unwieldy than a government. A mass movement is unlikely to be swayed by anything other than actual, real, concrete concessions. Calling the students names isn’t going to solve this. The only probably path to an uneventful Grand Prix is real concessions by the Charest government.
Not much time left though. Any day now?
A protest that stays within the bounds of the law will have very little effect on the race event. That is not what is expected from the “protestors”. If it were, the free day would not have been cancelled.
Neither of those points you’ve made are necessarily true.
A peaceful, legal event could certainly have an effect on race-day attendees, both political and by way of inconvenience. Legal protests are not free of inconvenience or delay, real democracy can be messy.
As for the free day, there is no evidence that it was cancelled for safety reasons. Not nearly as many attend the free day as the race days, it wasn’t a crowd control issue.
The free day was most likely cancelled because the organizers and politicians didn’t want the spectacle of PEACEFUL protests at the venue.
Even a protest that didn’t block any access or “ruin” anything for anyone would give most event organizers conniptions. The mere existence of protesters at the venue would have been reported by worldwide media. If the protest were large enough, it could completely overshadow the event.
The most likely fear of the organizers wasn’t one of safety, but that protests would suck up all of their press coverage. If you want to blame someone for cancelling the free day, look no further than the timid event organizers and local politicians.
What is the reason for these threats?
Sorry, have readed older post now. ‘ http://joesaward.wordpress.com/2012/06/01/virtual-freedom-fighters/ “. Quite of the world with exams atm
That’s unfortunate because if you have a general admission ticket, that pretty much eliminates any good view of the car you could ever have. I know in the past you had to download a ticket for Thursday and it was so worth it. Unfortunately this will be the second Montreal GP in the last 12 years that I have missed. I already cancelled 1 trip to Montreal because of the demomstrations.
I am sorry I am going to miss Joe this year. The other 2 have just been great. The evening with Joe is easily the best thing that has ever been with the GP as a ticket paying spectator. I only wish he would have done it years ago!
Hi Joe, do you see the irony in the fact that in a relatively free democracy, the fans are being hurt more trying to watch a GP, than in Bahrain, where there was a very real chance of death for the protestors, that the fans had almost no disruption of their weekend. I apologize for the anger, I’m drunk and pissed off now more than ever with le belle provence. Jimbo in T.O.
Yes, the irony has not missed me
To you also see the irony that a supposed democratic government passes a law about your right to protest straight out of the fascist book that makes the non democratic Bahrain look good in comparison?
What I heard today was the following reason for the cancellation of free Thursday: The City and the promoter feared that these protesters would come across to the island on the free event Thursday and hide out over night (easy to do if you’ve explored this park before) and end up inside the facility (without tickets) and launch a surprise protest from within during Friday.
The parc is officially closed as of yesterday yet it is very easy to exit the casino and disappear into the interior of the island – one only has to take a City bus to come across the bridge to the casino to bypass the Island’s Metro stop which would be guarded. Free Thursday was a very real threat that the protesters would come over and then not leave after.
There is still a threat that some of them have already been camping out since before this weekend – espy north of the old rowing sheds in the area where the City store park equipment and clean fill. The City have been sending their workers around keeping an eye out for people doing this since last weekend.
Years ago when we could camp on the island (with proper officials passes) the City and private security groups would do a big ‘sweep’ of the island from one end to the other on the Thursday night but without fail we would see scores of F1 fans who had hidden down near the inside of corner 4 & 5 scamper out to watch the cars on the Friday morning and then we assume go back into their sleeping bags the following nights to hide out again. And these are just F1 fans who want a free ticket – not people bent on trouble. God help us if one or more of these fools climb a barrier and want to block the track as we have seen in a couple of F1 events in Europe! This track isn’t Silverstone – it’s narrow and has little warning for the drivers – and a yellow flag won’t cut it either depending on the section of the track. It would be a disaster. I don’t blame officials one bit for cancelling the free Thursday in light of the situation. Perhaps next year when things settle down we can get back to normal. Let’s hope so.
Assuming what you say about access via the casino is true – and I have no reason to doubt that it is – then I really do despair at the lack of joined-up thought it suggests on the part of various officials. Given the limited access points to the island, and the long lead time to the event, I would have thought they could coordinate and come up with a suitable response (examples: divert the bus to the casino or cordon off routes inland; randomised patrols; heat cameras) to stop people hiding out on the island or sneaking in as you suggest, all of which would be lawful and proportionate under various powers (not the one in dispute, I add). Simply cancelling one aspect of the weekend because of something that MIGHT happen strikes me as something of a knee-jerk reaction, and is unlikely to endear the promoter to the paying public it relies upon.
Here’s an idea that obviously won’t happen: overfly the area with a IR camera in the morning, direct officers on the ground with hardcore F1 trivia questionnaires. That’ll weed out the troublemakers! Actually, closing the open day does seem to be the fair thing, because all too easy for legit F1 nuts who are hiding / camping out to get caught up in something else.
I am guessing that with ticket sales already down (having nothing to do with protesters) the promoters simply found a great way to reduce costs. They get no revenue from a free “open house” day and still have to pay for services and security. This cancellation probably has additional benefits as it pressures provincial support for lower costs on increased security for the rest of the weekend.
Just my opinion of course.
Maybe the Protesters will buy tickets to gain entrance, perhaps they could use their student loans – what would those odds be? We are really a hard done by bunch here in Canada the world has no idea how rough we have it.
As Joe would say: you get what you deserve. Those Canadians who say they are embarrassed over these kids should realize that these rotten, spoiled imbeciles are a product of lazy, irresponsible parenting and morally corrupt society. Don’t say you’re shocked, the blame is to be placed solely on you.
No its not, because these kids come from a completely seperate society. If you had ever been to Canada, and then Quebec, you would realize they are seperate society, something that is written within our constitution. Why do you think most posts from Canadians show absolute frustration. We have a constant threat of seperation from them, they get nothing but appeasement from all level of governments, and they shit on us for it.
You appease them with entitlements they don’t deserve. They’re never going to “seperate” anyway even if you continue to throw entitlements at them or not. It’s a relationship your side created so you deserve whatever comes of it.
If the race ends up ruined, you asked for it.
Actually, Quebec came within a hair’s breadth of separating in 1995. If 4/10th of 1 percent had voted the other way it could have happened.
Don’t buy all this poppycock about Quebecois being a spoiled lot. The Formula One fans posting here are not of a typical Canadian demographic. North American F1 fans in general are wealthier and thus more conservative than average. (I’m not spit balling here, the TV demo numbers prove this out)
What this means is that on average, North American F1 fans are a lot less inclined to be sympathetic with protestors desiring a continuation of expensive social programs and high taxes on the wealthy. I suspect this is largely why there is so much contempt for the protesters here.
How will things be different next year? Will the perpetual revolution have replaced the sexist polluting oppressors? Will Le Parti Quebecois defeat the Liberals and fulfil the dream of free tuition, unlimited assembly and table-serving jobs for all? Leading up to 2014, when equalization payments (“spreading the wealth around a little”) are renegotiated, can you imagine the righteous outrage if their pretend paradise isn’t paid for by the unspeakable Albertans? No, more than a few have found their calling and whether they are ignored or appeased, “back to normal” will be temporary and brief.