I just got back from

I just got back from the Parade Square. There are 500 riot cops in downtown Halifax. I’m still coughing from the residue of tear gas and I’m trying not to rub my eyes. There are helicopters flying over the North End as I type this.

The G7 protest was on the move when I left. For a while everyone was at the barricades on Argyle Street in front of the Grand Parade. So many people I know from different social circles were there. Lots of chanting, percussion, talking, noise. Everyone wore bandannas over their faces, with the Black Bloc kids setting the fashion standard. They’re all so young and so cuddly and cute… you’d hardly think them capable of torching a bank.

I saw cops dragging people and throwing them into paddy wagons. Snipers on the surrounding rooftops kept an eye on it all.

There was a little Food Not Bombs cart set up right beside the eye-wash station and people seemed to be in good spirits. Things got a little intense, with shouting and shaking of the barricades and so on. Apparently, someone threw a water balloon at the cops at one point and they responded with more tear gas. From my position I didn’t see when they fired it off, but I sure as hell felt it.

I saw Sara Spike and her brother coming down the Parade steps. “I just got a nose full of tear gas.”

“Yeah, so did I.”

“They shot it straight at the front row of people. All the people who were sitting and singing.”