Police say despite the efforts of a few black-clad protesters, the G8/G20 demonstration in Vancouver on Saturday was relatively calm and peaceful.
Const. Lindsey Houghton said of the 70 participants who rallied in East Vancouver on the corner of Hastings Street and Commercial Drive, only a few tried to taunt and bait police officers. The individuals, all dressed head-to-toe in black with their faces masked, did minor damage to police cars and prodded officers with signs, Houghton said.
The confrontations did not escalate, however. No injuries were reported to either police or protesters, and no arrests were made.
The rest of participants said they were out to show solidarity with demonstrators in Toronto, and to denounce the G8/G20 summit as a waste of time and resources.
"Our message is that the system doesn't need to be fixed, that the system is broken and it can't be fixed," Marla Renn of the Vancouver Community Mobilization Network said.
"We don't need the elites, who have brought us to a brink of crisis environmentally, economically, and socially, to be the same people who are sitting down supposedly finding solutions."
The crowd marched down Hastings Street and Commercial Drive, disrupting traffic for several hours.
The scene was a far cry from the violence and mayhem seen in Toronto on Saturday, where more than 100 people were arrested and black-clad protesters smashed at least four police cars and several store windows.
Large swaths of the city core were paralyzed, with officials forced to shut down subway stations and main streets.
Unconfirmed reports have suggested Toronto police responded with rubber bullets and tear gas, and that a pair of protesters were arrested with Molotov cocktails.
