Vancouver

Like most Canadians the events in Vancouver horrified me. The riots seemed so...well...so un-Canadian for a lack of better description. It's just not our way to participate in civil disobedience. I remember a comment that the late Peter Jennings made about the respect that Canadians had for institutions. He was telling the story of when he and his young son were in Toronto to watch the World Series. The Blue Jays had just won the series for the first time and everyone was pouring out into the street after the game in a jubilant mood. I'm guessing that many of them probably had a few beers under their belt besides being pumped up from the win. He said there was a lone police officer directing traffic and when he blew his whistle, and put his hand up to stop the crowd from crossing the street, they stopped and waited—hundreds of people. One lone police officer had that power because they respected it.

I think it's more telling of a city’s personality not by the initial action but by the people's reaction. From what I've read, these hoodlums were going to riot whether the Canucks won or lost. They had an agenda and it had nothing to do with hockey. People are not even sure if they were Vancouverites or why they felt they needed to riot.

What I do know is that ordinary people reacted properly and got up early the next morning with brooms and shovels and showed up en masse to clean up downtown. These are the true Vancouverites. Those who couldn't help brought donuts to the workers repairing broken windows. One thing you can say about Canadians, we love our donuts! And in the true Canadian fashion, many wrote words of apology on the boarded up storefront windows. (I think apologizing is our second favourite sport.)

And they're fighting back to save their city's reputation. Through Twitter and Facebook, people are posting pictures of the riots so the police can identify the perpetrators. Excuse me, but what idiot gets himself photographed while rioting? And some of them are posting their own photo and bragging about their escapades on Facebook. Now they just deserve to be arrested for being stupid!

With a the negative publicity that has come out of this, I hope that the people's reaction will show how wonderful the true "Vancouverites" are and what a beautiful city it is, not just for the scenery but because of the people that live there.