This morning Occupy Toronto is being evicted from its camp at St. James Park.
A legal fight was put up last week, with Occupy’s lawyers seeking a court order to quash the eviction notice issued by the City of Toronto, but were unsuccessful. Toronto is the latest in a string of evictions by Canadian cities seeking to crush the Occupy protests. Earlier last week, injunctions were granted against the occupations in Vancouver and Victoria (the provincial capital of British Columbia). Two weeks ago, police forcibly evicted occupiers in London, Ontario, and in Halifax, Nova Scotia protesters agreed to move the location of their occupation, and once they had moved they were all arrested.
Clearly Toronto is only the last in a string of cities that have disregarded the rights to free expression and peaceful assembly. The primary explanation being advanced for why this is necessary in Toronto is the ludicrous claim that Occupy is making it impossible for other people to use the park. Having been down there, I really doubt that that is the case. Even with all the tents set up, it is perfectly possible to take a stroll through the park or walk a dog through the park or do any of the other things people generally do in parks. But even if that was true, it isn’t like there is a paucity of parks in the area.
To really see this argument, I recommend going to Google Maps and looking up St. James Park, Toronto and zoom in one step. You’ll see that St. James is a park on the east side of Toronto’s downtown. If you look, you’ll see that very close to St. James Park are three other parks: Berczy Park, David Crombie Park and Moss Park. Also right near by are the grounds of the Metropolitan United Church, which from the satellite photo and from personal experience I can tell you are basically a park.
These parks are diverse enough to meet any need that the neighbourhood people might have from St. James. Berczy Park is a nice lunch spot with benches and shade. David Crombie Park has a large open area for dogs and/or sports. Moss Park has a baseball diamond, hockey arena and soccer pitch. The Metropolitan Church grounds are lovely for a stroll. Clearly, any purpose that St. James Park was being used for, the other green spaces in the area can fill in for.
The story might be different if Occupy had set up in all of the green spaces in the south-east of downtown Toronto, but that isn’t the case. The sum total of the inconvenience to neighborhood residents is having to walk a little farther. To me, that slight inconvenience should not outweigh the right to free expression and peaceful assembly of the Occupy Toronto protesters. I think it is an absolute shame that the city is evicting Occupy Toronto, and it is a blot on the reputation of Canada that peaceful protest is being met with repression.
Image via Flickr.
