Toronto: Protesting is Now Illegal
On Saturday, January 16th, the Toronto Police Service tweeted the above image.
So, it’s official. The government has declared that protesting is now illegal in Toronto, and, probably in all of Ontario. Read More …
Tag: Toronto
Toronto: Organized Tenants Stop Eviction
From Parkdale Organize Today organized tenants successfully stopped an eviction from being carried out in Little Portugal. Timbercreek/Hazelview took ownership of the building less than two months ago and while this eviction was started before they bought the building, they now have a clear decision to make: will they try to drag a single mom and her children out into the cold during a pandemic? Tenants in the building, the Read More …
Toronto Rallies for Six Nations Land Defenders
On Saturday, September 12th, hundreds of people gathered at the Ministry of Indigenous Affairs Ontario to oppose the police violence against, and criminalization of, Six Nations Land Defenders at 1492 Land Back Lane. The group has been re-occupying their traditional land in Caledonia for 57 days to protect it from a proposed housing development. Read More …
Colonial statues defaced in downtown Toronto
Last night, for the second time in a week, the statues of John A MacDonald and Eggerton Ryerson were doused with paint.
In case you missed it, last week, activists with Black Lives Matter – Toronto dumped paint and spray painted messages around 3 statues in downtown Toronto; an attack against the symbols of Canada’s violent and ongoing, racist, colonial legacy. That day also resulted in one of the fiery-est, most love and rage-filled anti-cop rallies we’ve experienced in a long time and one of the greatest displays of jail support we’ve seen in this city. Read More …
Ford Escalates Threat of Mass Evictions
On July 2, the Ontario government voted to amend Bill 184, the Eviction Bill, in a step towards ensuring mass evictions for Ontario tenants who have been unable to pay rent in full during the COVID-19 crisis. All tenants who have been unable to pay full rent, whether they have signed repayment plans or not, will be affected by this predatory bill. Now heading into its third reading, the amended Bill could be passed into law as early as next week. Read More …
10 years ago ~ reflections on the state’s utilization of shame: #MyG20Story
10 years ago today I was just waking up in Toronto, after a day of the largest mobilization I have ever been a part of to this day. What power it felt to be out in those streets. There were SO MANY COPS and also SO MANY OF US. And now on this morning, 10 years ago, so many of us were in jail. Yet the streets continued to be alive with resistance, and we had another demo that afternoon. Somehow until that moment I had evaded arrest. That later demo, (which was going to be a prison demo) did not end up happening, the area was streaming with cops. Me and some pals were stopped, searched, and arrested, like so many. Read More …
Where do you stand? Pride action in the class war of Toronto gay village
This pride week, residents of Toronto’s Queer Village woke up to a question they can no longer avoid answering: WHERE DO YOU STAND?
On June 26 2020, an ad hoc affinity group of queer and trans Village dwellers peppered the historically queer Church and Wellesley neighbourhood and the blocks surrounding — our turf — with circular floor decals, a now familiar feature of the pandemic urban landscape. Read More …
The time we spent talking about violence: #MyG20Story
Back in the leadup to the 2010 G20 summit, the debate around violence-nonviolence felt so important – both externally to other group or the public, and within ourselves as individuals. You couldn’t open your mouth in 2010 without talking about violence, but now that debate doesn’t feel at all relevant to my life. It doesn’t at all feel like a sticking point. The issue still comes up, but the illusory divide around it doesn’t seem real now. Maybe watching the endless series of bodies killed by police, watching all the victims as capitalism has conquered the world has made the debate seem trivial. Read More …
Ambitious Times: On Decentralized regional organizing for the 2010 G20 summit
I’m based in Hamilton was involved in Southern Ontario Anarchist Resistance, SOAR, in the leadup to the 2010 G20 summit. In the years since, a lot of our conversations about that organizing experience since focus on repression – the undercovers, the mass arrests, the prison time – but lately what stands out to me most about it is how ambitious the whole mobilization was. Read More …
#MyG20Story: Sharing reflections ten years after the summit
Ten years ago, Toronto was facing off the G20 Summit. I can imagine that in the next few days, many of us will reflect on what happened. Mainstream media and some organizations might share their own version of what’s true. But history is rarely singular – each of us holds a piece. Read More …