By: David Bushuev
Tension among protesters at St. James Park is noticeable as judgement day nears, when Justice David Brown is set to deliver his verdict as to whether or not occupiers have a legal right to continue their sleep-in protest.
The Toronto Metro writes that both the park along with local businesses have suffered since protesters set up camp on October 15th, some businesses claiming to have lost as much as 30 per cent in sales.
Similar initiatives to evict Occupy protesters have occurred, with varying success, in cities all over the country including: Vancouver, Calgary and Regina. The Vancouver Sun informs us that protestors in Victoria are also anticipating a pivotal decision from the courts and that police in Regina have already begun a process escalating enforcement in order to remove occupiers. CBC reports have shown that Occupy protesters in Calgary have been given until this Wednesday to pack up their belongings and leave.
Sakura Saunders, facilitator for the Occupy Toronto movement and prominent media activist, claims that moving to Queen’s Park — while still on the table — has received little attention. Their first priority is defending their right to stay in St. James Park.
Occupy Toronto protesters plan on holding a rally at 2:00 p.m. on Saturday, November 19th, in retaliation to Rob Ford’s move to have protesters evicted. Sakura Saunders says, “Rob ford is not only trying to evict us, from what I hear, he is going to try to evict many city workers come January […] last night at the general assembly, we unanimously agreed to extend a formal invitation [to the rally] to municipal workers, unionized, un-unionized and unemployed.”
Dennis M. Pilon, associate professor of the Department of Political Science at York University and 2005/6 Canada Research Chair Postdoctoral Fellow in Canadian Studies at Trent University, questions the political agenda behind the recent wave of crack-downs on Occupy protesters: “It’s interesting where they [the city] decide to use force. You can go anywhere in the city and find businessmen that are unhappy with something, but the city doesn’t necessarily run down there and crack heads.” What makes the Occupy movement attract so much political attention, Dr. Pilon says, is the fact that they effectively utilize the media to raise questions that conventional politicians avoid.
Sakura Saunders offered some insight as to the more general goals of the movement: “We are trying to create a space where we can discuss not only the problems of society, but the solutions […]. The beauty of this movement, in part, is the banner of the 99% and that’s just enormous inclusivity. What I have appreciated here is that I’ve been able to have amazing political discussions with people who are living in the street and with people who are stock traders by day.” In regards to the highly-publicized slogan, “People’s needs not corporate greed,” Sakura Saunders states that “I think it’s really encouraging that one of the main messages is that corporate greed has become completely out of control, the solutions are very varied but what we’re doing is part of the solution […] we work with open committee structures and have taught thousands of people consensus process, which really allows masses of people to participate in decision making like we’ve never seen.”
