Occupy Toronto campers waking up after their first overnight stay say Sunday’s events will include more marches and planning for a big splash when Bay Street opens Monday. Toronto’s St. James park is now tent city central for the Occupy Toronto movement. Some protesters were woken awake by the loud church bells at 8 a.m. as the camp stirred to activity to a nippy fall morning. In one corner, a guitarist sang as he strummed a tune, while other volunteers walked around with boxes laden with breakfast snacks.
“We need more toilet paper,” yelled out one of the overnight campers to the organizers prioritizing supplies.
Much of the noon-time general assembly will focus on logistics, said spokesperson Eric Wilson, a 26-year-old farmer from Peterborough, Ont.
“We are going to plan our marches for the day (and) organize clean-up,” Mr. Wilson said, pointing to the few cigarette butts littering the park’s green turf. “And we need to figure out what we are going to do tomorrow (Monday) when Bay street is open. I think we should occupy some of the banks, and when we get kicked out, come back here.”
The Occupy movement participants have expressed their disenchantment with a corporate system that they say favours a small but vastly wealthy elite one per cent and disregards the 99 per cent of the masses.
Although there was some concern among protesters that the camp would be raided by Toronto police overnight or early Sunday morning, the police – most of them on bicycles – only circled the block’s perimeter and occasionally rode through the park.
“I’ve been hearing that they (the police) might kick us out tonight, but so far the actual message we are getting is that we’re doing a good enough job patrolling on our own and keeping things safe and clean,” said one of the security crew who did not want her name used.
Two arrests were made Saturday night in Toronto.
Police confirmed the two men arrested Saturday evening near Commerce Court building, at King and Bay streets, were headed to the Occupy Toronto protests.
The men, one of whom was carrying a hammer, were detained by the building's security for trespassing and later turned over to the police, said Const. Victor Kwong.
Joel Bokhaut, 32, was charged with carrying a concealed weapon, and Franz Steinweg, 24, was charged with failure to comply.
The movement, which began in cities across Canada Saturday, was inspired by the month-long Occupy Wall Street protest south of the border.
Yesterday’s protests were peaceful, a marked contrast to the riots that stemmed from last year’s G20 demonstrations in Toronto and the aftermath in Vancouver when the NHL’s Canucks lost the Stanley Cup final last June.
The demonstrators themselves were just as varied as the demands they voiced. Occupations in Halifax, Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver featured a mixed bag of youth, seniors, activists, families with young children, union representatives and even some pets.
Ian Lee, a Carleton University business professor who has been following the Occupy movement ever since it began in New York in mid-September, said in an interview Saturday that he doubts the Canadian protests will develop into a long-term movement.
“I think there’s a greater chance, a higher probability of some type of political mobilization coming out of these movements in southern Europe or the U.S.,” he said, adding that the financial situation in those countries was far more dire.
“I just don’t sense the same sense of deep-rooted anger and frustration and fear that I see in the United States and for that matter in Southern Europe.”
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Source: Globe&Mail
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