Canadian Youth: No Justice No Peace!

After the tensions with the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis and the protests and riots began, there was an incident in Toronto where a woman by the name of Regis Korchinski-Paquet was allegedly thrown off the balcony of her building. Although the family took their allegations, the police throwing her off the balcony, back, it is still a question how the incident happened because the family was actually not allowed inside, when she was asking for her mother’s help and there were about eight officers inside her unit.

A lot of people are questioning the training of the police and their intentions. So because of the tension in the US and a lot of other incidents in the past with the Toronto police and black people, the protest was organized but in Regis’ memory. The March that took place was about 2 kilometres and it took about two to three hours because there was a really big crowd made up of all races and genders, however mostly young people. The march actually ended very close to the Toronto police headquarters so at that point the organizers of the march said “this is the time to go home and the the march is over”, but a lot of people stuck around and because people were not leaving the organizers announced that  from that point on whatever happens it’s not on us it’s not the intentions of the family of Regis who had asked for the protest to be peaceful and the organizers actually left. At that point it became “are you here for this one incident or are you here to support the movement of black lives matter?” At the headquarters, at the beginning there were police officers on the rooftop who seem to be taking photos and writing things down and counting people. There was also a line of officers at the front of the headquarters behind barrier fences. There was a crowd at the front and people dispersed behind them since the street was still closed to cars.

Every few minutes the crowd would chant slogans like “No Justice, No Peace, No Racist Police” and “Black lives matter”. Some would shout “murderers”. After this however, the crowd got smaller and smaller. Some at the front were trying to “talk” to the police and after an hour they asked the crowd to be quiet for one officer to speak who had essentially nothing to say other than “we cannot speak of the case, it is under investigation, and I believe black lives matter”. Although people dispersed after a while the rage continues and questioning of the system gets deeper.