Canadians are walking the talk in bid to gain Ottawa's attention
By putting one foot in front of the other, sometimes slowly and sometimes with quicker strides, Bilal Malik says he desperately hopes the government will listen to what he has to say.
The 36-year-old is nearing the end of a roughly 15-day, 380-kilometre “Freedom March” from Toronto to the steps of Parliament Hill in Ottawa.
He wants to persuade Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government to pronounce the systemic abuse and human rights violations against ethnic Muslim Uyghurs in
China a genocide.
Malik is one of several Canadians who are currently walking hundreds of kilometres uphill and down, through cities, and past towns and farms to send a message.
“I hope the walk will have even a little bit, even one per cent difference ... They have to do something,” said Malik, who hasn't been able to reach his family for three years since he moved to Canada from China's northwest province of Xinjiang.
China has faced international criticism and sanctions since reports surfaced of mass detention of more than one million people and forced sterilization.
In February, Parliament voted to declare China's treatment of its Uyghur minority a genocide.
The motion was supported by all Opposition parties, but Trudeau and most cabinet members abstained.
Peaceful dissent through walking has been happening for decades, said Ronald Stagg, a history professor at Ryerson University in Toronto.
“It's somebody saying, `I have to do my part. I feel that I have to say something. I feel I have to protest against this or in favour of this, so I'm just gonna do it,”' said Stagg. “Even if it doesn't do anything.”
Malik said conversations he has had with Canadians along the way have made every second of his walk worth it.
“It's not a big sacrifice. It's a symbol. We have to do something for our community.”
Stagg said sometimes the walks people make focus on a specific issue. At other times they highlight general grievances from marginalized groups who have been subjected to oppression throughout their history.
Lorraine Netro and Jacqueline Shorty Whitehorse are also walking. Their 2,000-kilometre trek from Whitehorse, Yukon, to Kamloops, B.C., is to honour what are believed to be the remains of hundreds of Indigenous children at former residential school sites.
A residential school survivor from Prince Albert, Sask., is more than halfway through her journey to Parliament Hill. In June, Patricia Ballantyne began her “Walk of Sorrow.” She plans to reach Ottawa this month.