Brutality Canada Police Brutality O Canada

When writing about politics, it is easy to be accused of propaganda. When writing about religion, one is often indicted for preaching. So be it. I will let my readers be the judge of that.

My recent trip to Toronto was not a holiday but an important expedition, an information gathering and networking opportunity.

I attended the OCAP rally at Christie Pits on Friday, June 15, the anniversary of the Queens Park riot last year. Once again there was an absurdly huge police presence and mainstream media galore. But I must backtrack here.

After I met my cousin in the Second Cup on Bloor at Lippincott, we walked over to the Native Friendship Centre on Spadina Rd. to join the prayer vigil for Kimy Pernia Domico a disappeared Colombian activist who was in Quebec City in April. As we stood around the fire with a few people and offered tobacco with our prayers, a helicopter hung menacingly overhead. Could they really be there to watch us?

We then went over to Central Tech where the OCAP rally was to have taken place. We knew it had been canceled by the school board but OCAP had put out a message that they would be there anyhow. So there were police protecting the school and OCAP people redirecting everyone to Christie Pits. The helicopter was actually monitoring the school grounds but I think they were also keeping an eye on the Friendship Centre.

About 90 Kimy supporters had marched to the Colombian embassy the day before. The powers that be know that we know what they are up to and this is what they don't want to get known widely. About Canadian business complicity in the war in Colombia. Believe me, reader, it is not about drugs but rather about the huge wealth of oil and other resources being pillaged there with the support of the military backed by US and Canadian money.

There were police all along the way to Christie Pits. It really did not take an overly active imagination to suggest this is now a police state. A crowd was gathering, the banners were waving in the breeze, a nice breeze which had come up to blow away some of the smog and humidity. As the police surrounded the park with motorcycles, vans, cruisers and horsemen, they numbered close to 100 at $45/hr overtime each. The crowd was growing and soon the Guerrilla Rhythm Squad was drumming away. People drew closer, swaying with the music. At last the speakers started and the event was actually rather subdued but intense. The undercover police offered a bit of comic relief as they attempted to blend into the crowd. In spite of tshirts, shorts and sneakers, there is just something about the way they stand that always reveals who they are.

The speakers were all brief and to the point. Representatives from unions and spokespeople from OCAP including Sue Collis and Gaetan Heroux who both spoke with the usual passion and clarity. As the rally came to its end, I went up to Sue to find out the location for the council the following day. She wrote it on a piece of paper and I asked her is this confidential and she said yes, very! Many other people were not able to get this information, the fear of infiltrators being so great.

The atmosphere was tense when we finally dispersed and the cops continued to stand around looking aggressive about absolutely nothing as no one was doing anything other than exercising our right of assembly. Suddenly there was a flurry of activity as one older, heavy set fellow decided to exercise his right to wear a scarf on his face. A group of about ten uniformed officers surrounded him in a deriding and menacing posture. He persisted in defying them and pulled a pair of goggles out of his pocket. As he put them on, he announced that these were the goggles he wore in Quebec when the police tear gassed him there.

Just as the officers were about to pounce on him, the commanding officer rushed over and said, "we're going to let them go, just don't bother." He had been speaking on his cell phone obviously with his higher up officer.

Shortly thereafter, we heard some shouting over by the subway station and as we went that way we could hear the crowd yelling, "Call police harassment! Call police harassment" Sue Collis had been arrested for breach of her bail conditions. Bail conditions set when she was arrested after last year's rally forbidding her ( as well as others arrested) from associating with any OCAP members. This mother of a toddler was then held for the weekend until a Monday morning hearing.

We had been warned to leave in groups and not get picked off alone, especially any others who might have those bail conditions. My cousin was continuing to try to reason with the police and I was becoming nervous as most people had left except for the police.

The following day we arrived late at the delegates council and since I had not officially pre registered we had difficulty getting in.

The details of the sessions are not for publication but there are a few things that are noteworthy. I met a lot of committed and intelligent people of all ages, people who are working really hard to achieve real democracy and justice for us all . These are people with a vision for humanity. Many are working people and students who do have something at stake but yet are willing to take some risks. Many also are the very street people and underclass who have been radicalized by their own experiences with the system.

The mainstream media likes to focus on violence when reporting about dissent, thus clouding the real issues at hand. Many people in the movement are torn by arguments about this very topic but it is necessary to understand the spiritual and emotional aspects of this struggle. The struggle for the very minds of people that is waged in the media. The propagation of the big lie requires the lie to be ever bigger and constantly repeated. The big lie requires the truth to be co opted and sullied so as to be unrecognizable. If you don't put some good effort into it, you will end up confused and resentful not only towards the government itself but against many other groups in society that you suspect may be making your life difficult.

In our efforts that day to devise strategies of "economic disruption" that will bring down this Harris regime, we considered many ideas. One of the things that stands out is the general commitment not to harm anyone and a strong awareness that the actions we eventually take will be judged by everyone. It is not our intent to alienate and frustrate our fellow citizens but on the contrary to bring more people into the struggle which is their struggle, your struggle.

One of my greatest hopes is to be able to show people how these things are connected, how we are all connected, how globalization is being played out in the province of Ontario and how it is crushing more and more people. Our efforts are needed close to home and there are many fronts on which to conduct this revolution.

Two ideas that I carried home to share with people in this community are these:

A women's strike or a day of women withdrawing our services all across the province, surely this would cause some serious economic disruption as women work at so many tasks and jobs, often underpaid and overworked.

A traveling soup kitchen in Lanark county to be set up in front of our mpp's office among other locations. This will bring attention to the poverty that really exists here and will be an opportunity for outreach and leafletting. Efforts to start a soup kitchen in Perth involving local churches have not met with much support in the past. This community likes to keep its problems hidden, even pretending that they don't exist. So we don't need the churches or any other agencies in our efforts to help other people. Anyone with the heart and a little time can make up a pot of soup and go out on the streets to feed the people who need it. But then you have to have eyes to see those people in the first place.

So if it is fiction you are looking to read, just check your daily newspaper. I'll be here writing the truth.

Send your comments and stories of police brutality to: ruitsdawtah@Hotmail.com

This page created June 20, 2001