Small turnout in Toronto
Photos: about 200 march in solidarity with Quebec students
At least 1,000 (some say 2,000) turned out to bang pots and pans in solidarity with Quebec’s anti-tuition demonstrators one week ago in Toronto. At the time, we were told to expect much bigger crowds on June 5. It didn’t happen. When the march finally left George Brown College at the corner of King St. and George St. on Tuesday around 8:30 p.m., only about 200 people had joined it.
It was mainly the usual suspects: executives of local student unions, the Canadian Federation of Students, the Canadian Union of Public Employees and the socialists. It’s hard to explain the low turnout, but one thing is clear: they can’t blame the weather. The skies were sunny. In fact, 5,000 people were at the University of Toronto two hours earlier to watch Venus cross the Sun’s path.
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- The route was partly unplanned (like the nightly marches in Montreal)
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- A red and white flag was lowered; security removed it
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- Around 200 people were gathered at 8:30 p.m.
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- One flag displayed the face of communist revolutionary Che Guevera
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- Police on bicycles kept protesters from taking the entire street
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- Pink Canadian Union of Public Employees flags waved
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- The crowd was ethnically diverse and skewed very young
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- These two drew attention to Canada’s mounting student debt
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- This guy came prepared for a fight (and tear gas?)
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- Canadian Federation of Students placards were present
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- The atmosphere was more convivial than confrontational
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- Like his comrades in Quebec, he wore a Guy Fawkes mask
These protests are ridiculous. Always highjacked by paid union demonstrators who do nothing but spread hate and fear. It amazes me how uninformed students are about how their yearly student fees are being hijacked to pay these clowns to crap out socialist newspapers. Wake up students, the unions and reps could care less about us. Lets take our student fees back and put it to something useful, like lowering tuition.
I do feel bad for the real issue of student debt and the people who genuinely show up as they cannot make ends meet. GET RID OF UNIONS!
That was actually a pretty big turnout – it’s even impressive that a protest was organzied at all. School is out for the vast majority of Ontario university/college students; you can’t expect people to return from their summer activities to protest. I wasn’t at the protest myself.
Good for the students. I love it when young people become engaged in what is happening in the world, especially about issues directly impacting them.