Respectfully, it’s time protesters fold up tents
Under an enervating noonday sun at Nathan Phillips Square, the media spokesperson complains that it’s just too damn hot to talk.
Indeed, an older woman has just been removed on a stretcher by paramedics. Mayor John Tory watched that episode unfold from his office window at city hall.
Tory has not been down to speak directly with the protesters who’ve occupied the plaza with a tent encampment since June 19, following a peaceful demonstration outside police headquarters.
“I’ve made the offer, if that helped,” Tory tells the Star. “But sometimes when a politician shows up, it can inflame the situation. I’m a very peaceable person, I would not go out there ranting and raving. And I don’t feel that way about this.”
Tory uses the word “respectful” multiple times in reference to this display of social protest.
“We have been respectful of both the groups themselves and their right to protest. People have the right to protest for a period of time, albeit this protest is a little more unconventional in the context of things that normally take place in the square, specifically as provided for under the law.”
Truthfully, this may the most mutually respectful protest ever, anywhere. Apart from one incident where a Rebel media reporter was escorted from the area, purportedly for being too “provocative,” as city spokesperson Brad Ross put it.
Toronto is not Seattle, where a three-week occupation of six downtown blocks — including a police precinct abandoned in the takeover — was forcibly and swiftly dispersed Wednesday. Cops finally conducted a sweep, deploying flash-bangs, pepper spray and heavy machinery to chase off squatters after what had been celebrated as a “Summer of Love” antipolice resistance descended into crime and violence — two teenagers killed by gunfire, sexual assaults, intimidation of local merchants, blocking off police and fire response when area residents pleaded for help.
Contrary to some media dispatches from the Toronto encampment front line, civilians haven’t been prevented from walking across the nylon bivouac or otherwise harassed. There must be considerable public support for the protesters because the core organizing group, Afro Indigenous Rising collective (AIR), has already surpassed its $40,000 GoFundMe objective.
Thursday, there were 43 tents huddled in the square between the arched pool (and the vandalized Toronto sign, culprits unknown) and city hall’s front doors. The broad expanse of pavement is covered in chalk declarations commemorating Black, Indigenous and individuals in mental crisis who’ve lost their lives in encounters with law enforcement. There’s a chalked outline of a body and many signs addressing a spectrum of grievances against police.
While the media adjutant wasn’t in the mood to discuss the occupation, according to AIR’s Instagram post, the donations have been put towards buying tents, food, water, sanitary supplies and other necessities to continue the endeavour, with any overflow earmarked for bail funds, rent relief, cultural education for youth, family supports, etc.
The pith of the thing is that the occupants are protesting police brutality. But nobody seems to know, or was willing to specify, where this is going, when it might conclude and how success would be measured. It had been roundly assumed the occupation was aimed at Monday’s (remote) city council meeting where a motion to defund police by 10 per cent was handily defeated. The meeting came and went and the tents are still there.
“We had thought the same thing,” says Tory. “I’m very respectful of the groups. I’m very respectful of the issues they’re protesting. I’m respectful of the right to protest. But there are laws that speak specifically to having tents in Nathan Phillips Square, and other things going on there.”
The fires, for instance. Except the occupiers insist they’re sacred Indigenous fires. So the city has let that slide.
The occupants have no protest permit either, but the city has let that slide.
Everybody is taking great pains to be … respectful … and avoid a kinetic clash. The city has its own security personnel patrol the square but police have kept their distance.
“Police always have the authority to do what they feel they have to do, at their discretion, to enforce the law,” Tory says. “I don’t tell them when to come or not come and they don’t call and ask for our permission.”
A potential conflict of space lies straight ahead, however.
“We do have a farmer’s market that is scheduled for next week,” Ross says. They have a permit. “The square does need to be empty for that.”
Part of the problem is that there are so many groups — and homeless individuals — that have coalesced around the occupation that the city isn’t sure who it should be dealing with. One man approached by the Star explained he wasn’t allied with any organization but was there to protest against police (in Vancouver) who allegedly broke his legs decades ago. Then the fellow went off on a tangent about being abducted as a child, like “that shoeshine boy.” (Emanuel Jaques, aged 12, tortured and murdered by sexual predators in 1977.)
On Tuesday, the city delivered a letter to AIR that contained a pre-notice, with all sorts of qualifiers, including its willingness to consider “special permissions” to accommodate the protesters, provided they comply with bylaws and health protocols: no tents, no fires, no generators, no obstruction of public access, no cooking, no defacing of city property. And physical distancing for COVID-19 must be observed.
“Look, we’ve been respectful,” says Tory. “But there are various legal provision related to activities in the square. We certainly would want to engage in discussions with (them) because this can’t go on indefinitely. At some point we could move on to the next stage, to serve a notice under the Trespass Act. Then that triggers a series of legal proceedings.”
In Seattle, one of the most strongly progressive mayors in the U.S. stalled and stalled, even as she came under attack by President Donald Trump. In a city that has tolerated multiple urban encampments over recent years as a populist democratic right, Mayor Jenny Durkan was loath to interfere with force, particularly amidst the convulsion of mass protests over the killing of George Floyd by four Minneapolis cops. Which is what led to the creation of the Capitol Hill Organized Protest — demanding a 50 per cent defunding of the Seattle police department budget and directing those funds to investment in community groups.
But the good vibes in the “autonomous zone” — with a “Decolonization Conversation Café” and a library tent — ended badly, following at least four shootings in 10 days, with many of the original occupiers departing as the homeless moved in. Durkan issued her executive order to clear the area. Forty-four people were charged in the evacuation, even though there was little opposition when cops descended. On Thursday morning, some protesters attempted to reclaim the zone, resulting in more clashes with police and dozens more charged.
“We needed to bring some semblance of normalcy to the neighbourhood after multiple incidents of violence and crime,” the Black female police chief told reporters. “Our job is to support peaceful demonstrations. What has happened here on these streets over the last two weeks is lawless and it’s brutal and, bottom line, it is simply unacceptable.”
No way will that happen here. Would it? The occupants have kept their cool in the sweltering heat. Civic leaders have been exceedingly patient.
What really is the point, though, now? And when does the encampment fold up its tents?
Tory: “This can’t go on forever.”
But: “There is no deadline.”