They marched in the thousands at the G-20 summit in Toronto. They marched angrily, but after walking with them, I’m not really sure what they were marching for.

Some of the demonstrators promoted socialism.  Some promoted anarchy and I guess everything else falls somewhere between those two causes.  Palestinian sympathizers danced and chanted with women’s rights activists as they passed a poster shaming Canada for the seal harvest.  Hooded young men hid behind goggles, face masks and a banner that said borders were prisons.  They gave the finger and shouted something at my producer that you could never repeat to a priest.  One woman held up a sign promoting rights for sex workers.

One young woman asked me if I wanted to buy her socialist newsletter. I responded, “But if I buy it, isn’t that capitalism?” She wasn’t amused and said her organization needed to cover their printing costs in this capitalist society.

The demonstrators put the officers with the Integrated Security Services through their paces. They refused to pre-plan a route before the march. So the officers with bicycles and on foot were put in the unenviable position of scrambling along side the evolving parade route, controlling traffic and keeping the demonstrators from having friction with the private businesses on either side.

It seemed the officers were operating with an abundance of caution, lest the event boil down into a physical confrontation and the Canadian police end up splashed all over the internet depicted as baton wielding thugs.  There was one confrontation along the march, when a black man was arrested.  That set off a segment of the marchers and they turned on the cops who quickly formed a half circle with their own ranks to separate the angry crowd from the arresting officers.  The police quickly made the transition from polite to forceful. The emotion over that incident never went viral through the crowd and it dissipated within about 20 minutes.

In the end, a staggering amount of money is spent on the manpower that maintains order while these demonstrators want to challenge it and I still don’t get the point. Most of the interviews I’ve done arrive at the goal of “Raising Awareness.” But in the attempt to raise awareness of everything, you communicate nothing.

Prime Minister Steven Harper’s spokesman, Dimitri Soudas, told me, “The leaders are meeting while the protests are taking place and I can assure you, it doesn’t have an impact.”

In the end it seems like a bunch of young people with a lot of anger, a desire for mischief and no solutions.