Happy Canada Day?

We attempted to do Canada Day on the Hill (not the whole day, just the early part, there was a concert by Carly Rae Jepsen (who the kids love) and an appearance by Commander Hadfield (who I love!). It was awful (not Carly Rae, or Cmdr Hadfield, they were awesome, what little of them we saw). The hill was crowded beyond even my wildest dreams, and security was ridiculous, a queue over a kilometre long to get to a security checkpoint manned by 3 police officers searching bags, etc, then 150 or so cops all along the perimeter of the hill who's sole job it appears was barking at little kids who wanted to climb up on the walls that hold the fencing so that they could see what was going on.

I understand the 'need' for security (I don't, but I'm trying to be magnanimous) but my tax dollars, and the tax dollars of the thousands of other people who simply didn't want to queue up for 2 hours in the heat to see a 15 minute show, pay for every aspect of this, the building, the 'security', the entertainment. And we're denied enjoyment of what we've funded. The bad guys have won.

(here's a cute picture, so that the entire post isn't a complete downer)