Talk is cheap.
A city sealed behind concrete walls and a chainlink fence, a waiting prison and scarcely an elected politician in sight. A democratic expression starkly in opposition to the orderly, sedate parliamentary deliberations of national mythology. Likely not since the 1919 Winnipeg general strike and the Great Depression marches of the unemployed has an event so galvanized the energies and imaginations of Canadians on the left side of the political spectrum. Or, if not the left, what political scientists call the postmodern, postmaterialist end of the spectrum. The Quebec summit is taking shape as an event, a rite of political expression, a statement on the state of the country and the world.