TTC delay resulted in arriving late (also fixing something that broke at home).
Toronto is NOT BEIJING, nor is it located in china. Such a bylaw has absolutely NO PLACE here.
Toronto is NOT BEIJING, nor is it located in china. Such a bylaw has absolutely NO PLACE here.
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LearningTranscript
00:00Oh, um, are you guys able to hear me better now?
00:25Wonderful. So, I just need to hold the mic a little bit closer to me, eh? So, we held the demonstration as Tantec because Tantec was the entity that we were trying to target because they were contracted to build, sorry, to contract it to help remove the bike lanes on Young University and Bloor. I think it was specifically Bloor that they were contracted for.
00:53And for this protest, it was Tantec, but for the next protest, it might be a different institution that was trying to harm us, trying to do something that our society, in particular the youth, and it could be an educational institution.
01:12It could be Queen's Park. It could be the provincial government. And we need to have the ability to go up to these people and have our voices heard.
01:22We need to be able to go there, demonstrate, show them that the community does not support what they're doing. That's the essence of peaceful protest. It's a constitutionally enshrined right in our charter of rights and freedoms.
01:37And it is especially important to us as youth. In Fridays for Future Toronto, so many of us are under 18, don't have the right to vote. I'm not under 18, but a lot of the other folks are.
01:51So, we actually need, even more so than other people, to rely on demonstrations and protests to have our voices heard, similar to how a lot of us can vote.
02:05There is youth participation in politics as an issue, or specifically the lack of youth participation. And I don't blame our youth. Participating in politics is complicated, and it takes time to learn how to participate in informal processes.
02:30And being able to participate in politics. And being able to participate in protest, and being able to participate in protest, to a demonstration, being able to organize something that is obviously there's a lot that goes into organizing, but at the same time it's not something that's gate-kept.
02:47You don't have to rely on anyone's approval, or at least for now you don't have to. And hopefully we will manage to protect our charter, right?
02:58And hopefully we will not let this proposed by-law pass.
03:08So, there's still a couple other points I wanted to raise. A lot of our members march alongside protestors, who are protesting the genocide against Palestinians.
03:22And we know that a major part is why this proposed violence being pushed against what we want is to silence it, is to silence Palestinian voices and the voices of other marginalized groups.
03:38And we're not going to stand up for that. We think that our voices are hard to be heard.
03:45I would like to talk about some student protesters who protested in front of educational institutions, in front of schools, who I'm really proud of.
03:58About a year ago from today, Alberta passed a draconian anti-trans law that targeted youth, that targeted children in schools.
04:11And what did students in Edmonton do? They walked out of their schools, they decided to protest in front of schools, because it was schools who were harming those children.
04:25And so, in our name, in the name of you, and in the name of children, they're saying that it's to protect us, it's to keep us safe by banning protests around educational institutions.
04:39What happens when educational institutions fail their students?
04:44We need to have the ability to protest against them.
04:54Thank you, Sarah. Thank you for such inspiring words, truly.
05:02That's my place. There we go. All this paper.
05:04Our next speaker is going to speak on how restricting rights, particularly the right to protest, affects our most marginalized populations.
05:17And why protesters in protest need to be defended.
05:21Jessica Gerea is a lawyer with the legal clinic at the Lincoln Alexander School of Law at Toronto Metropolitan University.
05:28I'm speaking to Tina. Welcome Jessica.
05:42All right, let me know if anybody can't hear.
05:44Keep it closer to your mouth, Jess.
05:46That's better? Yeah.
05:48Okay. So I'm here.
05:52Seema couldn't be here today and asked me to speak.
05:56And I'm going to be speaking from my experiences as a community lawyer who focuses on social justice in this city.
06:03I really appreciate the opening remarks when the Charter was spoken about as a tool of the Canadian state.
06:12It's part of the constitution and the constitution together with a lot of other legislation has tried to control and suppress indigenous peoples and rights for a very long time.
06:25But we know that the first peoples of this land have an inherent right to exist and to resist anywhere across Turtle Island.
06:33And will continue to do so and overcome attempts of suppression.
06:40Because I want to be very clear that legislation like this, bylaws like this that limit protest, they are anti-indigenous.
06:49They are anti-black.
06:51They are anti-queer.
06:53They are anti-houseless folks.
06:56And this particular bylaw proposal is anti-Palestinian.
07:05Before this rally, I spoke to a couple of legal observers who are people that are out on the front lines of demonstrations every week.
07:14And they told me a few interesting things that I want to share.
07:19They told me that they have documented over 30 concussions and several fractured bones and broken bones.
07:28All caused by Toronto police at protests.
07:32In the last year and half alone.
07:34Shame!
07:35Shame!
07:36Shame!
07:37Despite there being over 100 arrests of protestors at Palestinian demonstrations,
07:42which is, you know, the arrests are used to justify that violence.
07:47There have been zero criminal convictions that have come out of those protests.
07:52Woo!
07:53Woo!
07:54Yeah.
07:55That's good.
07:56And it's also another tactic that's used together with bubble legislation like this to suppress our voices and to try to scare us.
08:06The proposed bylaws unjustifiably limit our civil rights.
08:09And will work to silence our voices, squash our social movements, and increase state power to regulate dissent,
08:16and to use violence to control and punish both of us fighting for the freedom and liberation of all peoples.
08:23Shame!
08:24Shame!
08:25Shame!
08:26Since the inception of the Canadian and American states on Turtle Island,
08:31suppression of indigenous and black communities' rights to free expression and association has been used to marginalize struggles for freedom and equity.
08:41Today, we see similar tactics, suppressing the activism of Palestinians and their allies who demand that Canada stop its complicity in genocide.
08:51The real-life impact of laws like this that limit protests become part of a web of intersecting systems of oppression.
08:58We only have to look to the U.S. to see these impacts of suppressing activism when that activism challenges authorities and the state.
09:07Demonstrations, actions, sit-ins, rallies, and other forms of protest are key tools for social change and for keeping each other safe,
09:16especially those of us most harmed by state and corporate powers.
09:23When our community members are shot by Toronto police on a mental health call, we go to the streets and we protest.
09:31This happened last summer, just a few blocks from here, and it happens over and over again.
09:40When the city comes to displace our houseless neighbors, offering dangerous or non-existent shelter spaces, year after year, we mobilize.
09:50When the province closes our safe consumption sites, leaving our friends to die, we hit the streets.
09:58And when governments are complicit in genocide, here or abroad, in Palestine, Sudan, and Congo, we resist.
10:05Protest is a way to hold our institutions accountable, and not something that institutions should be shielded from.
10:16Protest is a way to develop community around these integral issues and pressure our institutions to center people over profits.
10:24The real-life impact of laws like this criminalize and brutalize us for our resistance to oppression.
10:33The Supreme Court of Canada has affirmed our right to peaceful assembly multiple times,
10:38to protect our right to gather and come together for collective expression on important issues that impact all of us.
10:45Yet, our efforts are met with state suppression, and this legislation will only heighten police brutality and increase the over-criminalization of protesters.
10:58We see police come in droves, especially at rallies for Palestine, where they unnecessarily bring out the emergency task force, the PSRT, and the mounted units.
11:12This, together with bubble legislation, misleads the public.
11:16It creates a false image of danger and of a public safety issue.
11:21And this is a historically used tactic of suppression against marginalized groups.
11:27The legal observers I spoke to, they reminded me that what happens in this city also affects our people globally.
11:34Toronto is home to many industry corporations, like mining companies that extract and exploit worldwide.
11:41We are home to bank headquarters that invest in war and exploitation.
11:46Institutions that illegally sell stolen Palestinian land are in Toronto.
11:56And there are several other places where people in this city do and should protest.
12:02The impact of bubble bylaws that limit protest is to keep indigenous, black, and brown struggles out of white and wealthy neighborhoods.
12:11That is the impact, and that's what this bubble legislation is going to do.
12:16These so-called vulnerable institutions that the city keeps talking about, that the proposed bylaws are aiming to protect, are places of power and of wealth.
12:26And when these institutions oppress communities and abuse their power, people have a right to express themselves, assemble together, and protest outside their doors, on the streets, and any public space in the city.
12:41And I want to thank, that was our final speaker, I want to thank all of our speakers for coming out today.
12:54Can we give a round of applause for all of our speakers?
12:56And of course, I know we want to thank the counselors that have signed our birthday card.
13:03Councilor Moyes, Councilor Bravo, Councilor Perks, Councilor Fletcher, and we're going to make sure that that card gets out there.
13:09And hopefully, we can get all 25 counselors and the mayor signing that to say that they will protect our charter freedoms to protest.
13:16And of course, the last thank you I want to give is to all of you.
13:25I want to thank all of you for coming out in the middle of the day on Thursday to celebrate the charter, to recognize our charter rights and freedoms, and continue to recognize the importance to protest.
13:36So, thank you. I'll give a round of applause for all of yourselves.
13:40Awesome. Well, thank you all for being here. We got cupcakes, and I think, uh-oh, uh-oh, is that music happening?
13:47I think we're about to have a little song going on. Uh-oh, what song are you going to have?
13:52Everybody, the 22nd, come out. Protest, it'll be a great time. Get some cupcakes.
13:56Uh, for me now, if you want to speak to any of the speakers, we're glad to do interview speakers.
14:00Thank you all for coming out. Happy Charter Day!
14:07Great.