TORONTO - It was a Front St. spectacle.

On the north side, hundreds of protesters chanted "Shame!" to all who filed out of the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, while beyond the metal barriers a line of police officers and photographers captured the moment.

On the south side, dozens of suits stood glued to the second-floor window of the convention centre, snapping BlackBerry pictures of the flag-wavers across the street as hundreds of other well-to-do Torontonians filled the sidewalk below following the much-anticipated George W. Bush and Bill Clinton sit-down.

This was the moment the protesters had been waiting for: If they couldn't get to Bush, they'd get to whoever paid hundreds of dollars to hear him and Clinton speak -- or at least their words would.

It was a peaceful protest in the hours leading up to that moment -- unless, that is, you were a giant poster of Bush.

The poster was erected mid-afternoon, featuring the former president clad in an orange jumpsuit, holding an inmate sign 03202003, signifying the date of the invasion of Iraq.

And then came the shoes -- footwear flung by copycats of an Iraqi journalist who threw a shoe at the real Bush.

The first shoe to drop in front of the Bush poster was a man's black dress shoe. Dozens more of different shapes and sizes followed, as did several old insoles propelled from stage right.

"I just brought them to get rid of them," Abraham Blank, 60, said with a shrug.

Songs and chants demanding the arrest of Bush filled the crowd. The names of Clinton and Stephen Harper were thrown in here and there.

Citizen photojournalists documented the day with one hand and pumped their fists with the other as tourists in a passing "Ride the Hippo" bus gleefully snapped pictures.

"Bush & Clinton: War criminals not welcome in Toronto," read the sign rolled out for those filing out of the convention centre at day's end.

John Boncore, 57, made the trip from British Columbia. He earned his protester fame after attempting a citizen arrest of Bush while the former president visited Calgary in March.

"I broke the police line, I got halfway to the door and attempted to arrest George Bush," he recalled. "I'm a dedicated moral protester for truth, justice and the un-American way."

Boncore's court date for obstructing a peace officer is set for next year.

Bush's talk in Toronto yesterday "makes a mockery of the criminal justice system in Toronto," said University of Lethbridge professor Anthony Hall, who called for the arrest of Bush for war crimes. "Do we have a rule of law or do we not?"