Shownotes
Topic 1: Dismantled and Dispersed
The City of Toronto, aided by Police, evicted an encampment community in the Kensington Market area of the city from a tiny parkette outside a church that welcomed them. The excuses used by the City and local Councilor Diane Saxe don't fly with our hosts or housing advocates.
Topic 2: Prisoner Exchanges but no Peace
We give updates on the release of hostages and prisoners, and a short term truce that is anything but. Those updates, plus a look at just how many children are imprisoned by Israel, what their conditions are and what generally puts them there.
All of our content is free - made possible by the generous sponsorships of our Patrons. If you would like to support us: Patreon
Resources:
- Save the Children Report
- Al Jazeera: Who Were the Palestinian Prisoners?
- Israel-Hamas war live: Third group of captives released as Hamas seeks to extend truce | The Independent
- Diana Chan McNally in Toronto Star: The federal government must adhere to its human rights obligations
- Santiago Helou Quintero's Op-Ed in Humber News: Encampment Evictions are Violent Colonial Displacement
- The Grind TO: Kensington Encampment Eviction
Transcripts
There is so much out there to get mad about. Social injustices, class warfare, continued
Speaker:colonization, the act of destruction of our planet by those focused on prophets and not
Speaker:people. We can find it overwhelming at times. The good news is there are equally as many,
Speaker:if not more, stories of people coming together and rising up against the forces at play. So
Speaker:the creators of Blueprints of Disruption have added a new weekly segment, Ravel Rants, where
Speaker:we will unpack the stories that have us most riled up, share calls to action, and most importantly,
Speaker:celebrate resistance. All right, we got a lot to talk about on today's episode. Later on,
Speaker:we're going to be talking about the prisoner swap in Israel-Palestine and everything surrounding
Speaker:that. But before we get to that, we're going to talk about something a little bit closer
Speaker:to home. And for me in particular, this was right in my backyard essentially. Many of you
Speaker:probably already have heard what has been happening, but as the cold weather starts to really come
Speaker:in and we're trying to get the first few snowfalls of the season, the city of Toronto decided
Speaker:that it was the perfect time to violently displace and evict another encampment. This time it
Speaker:was the encampment outside of the St. Stephen in the Fields Church in Kensington Market,
Speaker:on the north end of Kensington Market. And everything surrounding it, everything surrounding this
Speaker:has been deeply, deeply disturbing. Very like, I mean... Just right off the bat, I'll say
Speaker:that I didn't believe that when Olivia Chow first won the election a few months ago, I
Speaker:thought that the days of these kind of evictions were behind us, but all that I saw was somebody
Speaker:being a hell of a lot more sneaky about it and a lot more concerned about PR. But in terms
Speaker:of the end result, nothing at all was different. and we're gonna unpack that. There's a lot
Speaker:to unpack here. And you're kind of easy on Olivia Chow there. I feel like this is part of her
Speaker:housing policy. It's, but I think a harder target needs to be placed on the city councilor from
Speaker:this ward, Diane Sachs. She's been abhorrent towards poor folks just in her rhetoric and
Speaker:policies. Yeah, yeah, like she's a known worst offender and. The evictions that have happened
Speaker:under Chow have mostly, for my understanding, happened in this ward. Yes. So it seems as
Speaker:though this councillor is actively pushing for evictions, and this area in particular, there's
Speaker:two kind of reasons the city was looking to remove these folks outwardly. Two front-facing
Speaker:reasons. One was to build a pollinator garden. something you can't do in this weather. And
Speaker:the other was framing it as a fire hazard. Right, so that's what the city will tell you. The
Speaker:reason is that they removed, what about 22 people that had been living in tents next to a church
Speaker:who welcomed them fully and had been living there for about a year and a half. Right? More,
Speaker:more. I spoke to a resident who said he'd been there for two years. And yeah, Diane Sachs
Speaker:is the definition of a green capitalist. She is everything that's wrong with the Green Party.
Speaker:As she was the deputy leader of the Ontario Green Party before being elected by less than
Speaker:a hundred points, less than a hundred votes over Norm B. Pasquale, who's currently leading
Speaker:the fight against Ontario Place. Shout out to Norm for that, because I support the heck out
Speaker:of what he's doing right now. But yeah, no. They've been after this encampment for a while.
Speaker:Earlier in the summer there was an attempt, and they did displace a lot of them, to cut
Speaker:down a tree branch. And then what ended up happening was a lot of those residents got displaced
Speaker:to Bellevue Park, which is more central in Kensington, and Sonia's Parkette, which is a bit more hidden
Speaker:in Kensington. And then the city went and evicted the residents of Sonia Parkette. they were
Speaker:threatening to evict the Bellevue Park. I don't think they actually went through with it. That
Speaker:one would have been really difficult for them to do just because of the community there.
Speaker:So this story, firstly, and there was, you know, you mentioned the pollinator garden. Before
Speaker:the pollinator garden, there was something even more despicable where Diane Sacks proposed
Speaker:building a memorial for dead homeless. Was that this park or is that a Bellevue? No, no, that
Speaker:was at the church at St. Stephen and the Fields Church. She proposed... This woman has some
Speaker:hard on for this area, this particular parkette. They are willing to throw anything and everything.
Speaker:That's unreal to remove 22 people who this is all they have in a system where we know there
Speaker:aren't enough shelter beds. Like, that is a vendetta. This woman is on some mission. That's
Speaker:unreal. Yeah, no, I mean... Rightfully the condonation. What a villain. I'm sorry. Yeah, like it's
Speaker:the idea of displacing people to build a memorial to dead homeless people. It's. And like hunting
Speaker:them down. And hunting them. Right? Yeah. Like as they find another space to create for themselves,
Speaker:to save for themselves. Nope, nope, nope. And we're gonna trash your stuff while we're at
Speaker:it. It needs to be understood just like right off the bat. You like, cause they. You know,
Speaker:they say, oh, we have some shelter space for them. Okay, we know shelters in the summer
Speaker:have been turning away over 300 people a day. Right? So what happens if you get rid of people
Speaker:in the shelters to make room to clear the encampment? Well, then that's an equal amount of people
Speaker:that you have now kicked back onto the street, where and they're gonna have to find set up
Speaker:an encampment somewhere else, right? So what this is what somebody I spoke to another community
Speaker:leader from another local church. And the way she described this was as a cruel game of whack-a-mole.
Speaker:And yeah, that was incredibly fucking accurate because that's exactly what the city does.
Speaker:It chases people from park to park to park, regardless of whether or not people actually
Speaker:want them there, right? And what's particularly fucking... What gets me about St. Stephen in
Speaker:the fields is that the people do want them there. They want to support them, right? Maggie Helwig,
Speaker:who is the reverend of the church, has been supporting them publicly for a year and a half.
Speaker:feeding them. She describes herself not just as, she describes herself as a friend to them,
Speaker:right? They have a community here. Damn straight, you live anywhere for two years surrounded
Speaker:by folks. You have a community. Even anybody who's gone camping for the weekend can understand
Speaker:the camaraderie or anything where you're trapped in a situation with people for X amount of
Speaker:time. It becomes community. But this like actually is like we're talking about this is where they
Speaker:live. And this is Right? Like in Kensington Market, right beside Chinatown. I'll tell you
Speaker:this, like friends of Kensington Market has been publicly supporting them. The Kensington
Speaker:Community Land Trust has been publicly supporting them. I know the people of Kensington have
Speaker:been publicly supporting them. They're not asking for them to be kicked out. They're not. Who
Speaker:is? And this is important. There's a fucking Montessori school down the street. Let me just
Speaker:pull up the name because I forget. Westside Montessori School. Now, before I, there was
Speaker:an organization that was created called Friends of Bellevue Parkette. Now, just to be clear,
Speaker:there is no such thing as Bellevue Parkette. There's Bellevue Park. Bellevue Parkette is
Speaker:what is a name that they created to describe the front yard of the church, which is technically
Speaker:not the church's land. It's city land somehow. I still don't understand how that worked out.
Speaker:Same at St. James Park, at St. James Cathedral there, whatever. the encampment is, was, right?
Speaker:Now they're calling it Bellevue Parkette. Now this group, Friends of Bellevue Parkette, was
Speaker:created by Elizabeth Gurvin, yeah, Gurvin, who is the director of Westside Montessori School
Speaker:in Kensington Market, which if I'm not mistaken was, like there was a home for women, I think.
Speaker:or something, there was some sort of public home that was there before that was in shutdown
Speaker:and then they built this private school, which I can tell you most people cannot, like most
Speaker:people who live there, like, the people who live in Kensington Market cannot afford that
Speaker:shit first of all. It's a private school, right? And they've been making, they're the ones who
Speaker:proposed building a pollinated garden. in front of the church to replace the encampment. And
Speaker:from what I hear, what people are saying, the word in the street is with connections to Diane
Speaker:Sacks. And it sounds exactly like what Diane Sacks, it sounds like green colonialism, which
Speaker:we've been talking about. The level of fucking privilege it must take to look at a space where
Speaker:the most marginalized people are living. And I'm gonna put some cone flowers there. I'm
Speaker:all for saving the bees, but there's so much green space in the city. Okay, we're lucky.
Speaker:I know we're trying to preserve it, but Toronto has a lot of green space, especially when you
Speaker:visit other urban centers. There's lots of places to build pollinator gardens. There's lots of
Speaker:people who own homes in the surrounding area that can make pollinator gardens. Yeah.
Speaker:a space about 20 times the size of the encampment, all of just lawn that can be turned into a
Speaker:pollinator. The amount of home and honestly, Toronto does a decent job at this of having
Speaker:front lawns be native biodiversity as opposed to, you know, lawns, which by the way, for
Speaker:those who don't know, lawns have a really fucked up history, like the idea of just having a
Speaker:flat green non-native grass lawn has a lot of fucked up history. It essentially comes out
Speaker:of, it's an English history and it was essentially a status symbol to have a lawn because what
Speaker:you're saying is I have so much land I do not need to use this to grow food. Instead I can
Speaker:have this land be nothing. That's how rich I am, right? I just, when trying to unpack their
Speaker:like how a human being can look at that space and then be like, well, what are we going to
Speaker:do with them? Like in their thought process, as they create this petition or this organization,
Speaker:all these moms get together or whatever it is. I'm a mom, I'm allowed to say that. And you
Speaker:know, does nobody in the group or nobody amongst them look at one another and be like, what
Speaker:about those human beings? Like they're in the way of our possible garden? like our just our
Speaker:community initiative that's going to displace 22 people in our community for flowers. What
Speaker:happens to that human that they can get there? It's it's completely like and this is completely
Speaker:disconnected from the local community there. Right. And this goes to show like a small group
Speaker:of nimbus, I'll call them, I guess, right, because that's kind of what a small group, their voice
Speaker:seems to be holding a lot more weight with people like Diane Sachs and the people in power, than
Speaker:the massive public support from the rest of Kensington Market. Who gets this struggle?
Speaker:Kensington Market being a neighborhood that has constantly fought against this, right?
Speaker:Constantly fights for its people, fights against gentrification, right? The Kensington Market
Speaker:Community Land Trust, Friends of Kensington, right? Like, this is a radical fucking neighborhood,
Speaker:I spent a lot of time there. I spent a lot of time in Bellevue Park, you know. Other places
Speaker:that, you know, you hear, you know, people complaining, but not here. Not here. Here, they're a welcome
Speaker:part of the community. Right. So. It goes to show like it's. Who has the levers of power,
Speaker:right? And this is a fucking it's a fucking private school, and it's not. And the pollinator
Speaker:garden. This was broken. Like this story was broken, I think, in October, late October,
Speaker:so like about a month ago. And St. Stephen in the Fields filed an injunction to prevent that
Speaker:from happening, which got rejected a few days ago. And immediately afterwards, the city then
Speaker:moved to clear the encampment. And the reasoning that they gave for that because... So I found
Speaker:out through... Cathy Crowe, because another journalist in my program was talking to her
Speaker:about the armories, and the story behind that was a whole other thing. It wasn't really like
Speaker:being publicized. And then we sent them, we emailed the city asking for more information,
Speaker:right? They came back with pages all about like fire hazards and fire risks, right? And this
Speaker:is a very common narrative, right? That the encampments must be cleared for fire risks.
Speaker:There's some validity to the fire risk being an issue. Just last night. Just last, yeah,
Speaker:just the day of, the day of, so not last night, Friday night, Bellevue Park encampment burnt
Speaker:to the ground. Now, I'm not gonna put on my tinfoil hat here and speculate. Just to be
Speaker:clear, an encampment at Bellevue Park. So not like the park itself, but a community like
Speaker:the one we're describing in a different park. Just on the street. Yeah, and like I said,
Speaker:I'm not going to put on my tinfoil hat and speculate over the coincidence of it being the same night.
Speaker:Life is funny and who's to know? Like, I have no reason to know. Like, definitely it sounded
Speaker:strange to me. but. There is, like, especially as the winter gets colder, you know, people
Speaker:are freezing to death, right? There needs to be heat. Now, there was a perfect response
Speaker:to this, which Lorraine Lamb of the Shelter and Housing Justice Network and Diane Chan
Speaker:McNally, who we had on the show not that long ago, or I don't know, time doesn't make sense
Speaker:to me anymore. They had the perfect response to this. So I just wanted to credit them. In
Speaker:2018, there was a coroner's inquest that looked into this issue and they recommended that the
Speaker:city of Toronto distribute fire safe camping equipment to help prevent encampment fires.
Speaker:So this came from the coroner's inquest, right? This was pretty official. The city has not
Speaker:done that. They instead are weaponizing fire codes to justify the continued displacement.
Speaker:Because for everything, everything for them is a cost benefit analysis, right? Replacing
Speaker:fireproof tents and safer cooking equipment or whatever, you know, they could do. For them
Speaker:it's absolutely not like there cannot be a visible reminder in the city for them of their failures
Speaker:of poverty. but also they just see poor people as a blight. And you can tell this by the behaviors
Speaker:of this counselor. So why would they try to make it more safe for them? Because clearly,
Speaker:from the removal of benches and union station and all the anti-homelessness initiatives that
Speaker:aren't at housing people, but just removing them from public space, from the public eye,
Speaker:from the public mind. Right? Because all of it is a reminder that capitalism is failing
Speaker:us miserably. And that's why people want to do that disconnect. They don't want to see
Speaker:those people as members of their community. Right? They're outsiders who came down to the
Speaker:city and, you know, like they don't genuinely see them as part of their community simply
Speaker:because they don't have brick and mortar around them to sleep. And that's a huge human disconnect.
Speaker:And we can see, like, they constantly have some sort of explanation. Right? Like whether or
Speaker:not it's, oh, public. space it like parks are for the public not for encampments you know
Speaker:okay well this one was in front of a church not in a park a church that wanted them there
Speaker:their reasoning is invalid oh fire risk well you're not actually taking any action to mitigate
Speaker:the fire risk it seems like the city wants there to be a fire risk so they continue to justify
Speaker:this because they didn't get rid of the fire risk they've moved it right so the city will
Speaker:tell folks that their housing They found shelter space for them, but we know that there are
Speaker:no actual enough beds. So they're either displacing other people from shelter beds that, or they
Speaker:found them where they don't exist, or what's really likely to happen is they will have emergency
Speaker:accommodations that will last for X amount of time, and then they will simply be back to
Speaker:their own means, which means another encampment. Let's talk about the shelter space, because
Speaker:where is the shelter space, right? Now, Let's be clear, the residents of the Bellevue, of
Speaker:the St. Stephen and the Fields Church encampment, some of them ended up in Rexdale, from what
Speaker:I'm hearing. What? Yeah. Okay, there's people listening that won't understand the geography
Speaker:there. Yeah. And we'll unpack in a second, but I spoke, another one, they were saying, they
Speaker:were telling him that they were going to send him to Scarborough. Right. So these are the
Speaker:far west and east ends of the city. And nowhere near. The park we're talking about is in the
Speaker:core in the south end of the city. Now, right in front of St. Stephen in the fields, there's
Speaker:the Fort York food bank. I think it's a Fort York food bank. There is a food bank, right?
Speaker:They also get food from the church. They have their community there. I spoke to a resident
Speaker:Alex Garcia aka the pirate. He's someone I've seen around in Kensington market a lot. And
Speaker:he's been living at St. Stephen in the fields for two years. And he was, they were threatened
Speaker:to send him to Scarborough, right? And he was saying about how he has his community here.
Speaker:This is where he has his services. This is where he knows. And he also, part of how he makes
Speaker:an income is selling why they call him the pirate. He looks like a pirate. He goes by the pirate.
Speaker:He sells costume gear. That's what he said and in the market. So he has a life. connected
Speaker:to Kensington Market, connected to that community. And they're saying, we're gonna send you out
Speaker:to Scarborough and you'll have to figure it all out. I know that there was a couple, a
Speaker:husband and wife who lived there and oftentimes what happens is you're not allowed to stay
Speaker:with your partner, your spouse. They separate you when they sent you to shelters. They have
Speaker:really early curfews, drug use is prohibited, which like... You can't just prohibit drug
Speaker:use if someone is addicted. The cold turkey is not how you do this. There is a process,
Speaker:right? And a lot of people will say, a lot of people are choosing to live there. And that's
Speaker:correct. But it is correct in a way, right? Even if there was a shelter bed available,
Speaker:right? The city tries to scoop folks up once in a while and shuffle them off to shelter
Speaker:space, not. Those shelter spaces are not even for everybody. They were never intended to
Speaker:suit everybody and they are not safe for everybody. Not even close the amount of deaths that occur
Speaker:in homeless shelters in the city. I wish I had the figures. It was in our episode with Diana
Speaker:Chan McNally. These are not safe places for the most part, even when we have the space.
Speaker:I'm going to give the mic over and I'm going to read out the words of Maggie Helwig, the
Speaker:reverend of St. Stephen the Fields Church, because she puts this quite well. So I'm just going
Speaker:to go over this. The city makes things sound very simple and there are so many complexities
Speaker:around encampments and shelter, which most people don't understand. To say that everyone in the
Speaker:encampment was offered shelter, hotel space is not simple. First, the only shelter hotel
Speaker:left downtown is for women only. Men and couples can only be accommodated a great distance from
Speaker:their established supports, relationships and sometimes employment. People don't always have
Speaker:TTC fare and commutes can be long. Second, shelter hotels have nightly bed checks at a time which
Speaker:is very early for adult human beings, especially if they need to commute a long distance to
Speaker:and from the hotel for supports, jobs and friendships. Hotels vary in their policy but most are very
Speaker:quick to evict from minor issues, especially missing bed check. At least one of the people
Speaker:at our encampment described as Bed check. That sounds like fucking prison. I'm sorry to interrupt,
Speaker:but like one can't help but hear that and cringe. Yeah. At least one of the people in our encampment
Speaker:described as quote unquote declining service has already accepted two referrals to hotels
Speaker:and both times was rapidly evicted for missing bed checks. At this point, they're understandably
Speaker:not willing to take another referral. And then there's a person who was trying to get a hotel
Speaker:room or any kind of emergency shelter for months, but was refused because the city database listed
Speaker:him as quote-unquote housed, and workers believed he just quote-unquote didn't want to go back.
Speaker:In fact, he was evicted from city-funded housing run by a well-known housing provider last summer.
Speaker:He wasn't even told by workers that they thought he was housed. They just didn't offer him anything.
Speaker:I have no official position. I'm just a friend. But I believe what he tells me. Eventually,
Speaker:I was able to sort out what was going on and run around between different agencies to get
Speaker:papers for him so he could quote unquote prove that he was homeless. I'm glad he got a shelter
Speaker:hotel room yesterday, but how many people are caught up in situations like this, without
Speaker:friends who happen to be good at navigating bureaucracies? So many individual people, so
Speaker:many individual stories, so much complexity which news stories hardly ever manage to cover.
Speaker:Those are the words of Maggie Helwig, who has been supporting the encampment for a year and
Speaker:a half, who knows incredibly intimately the inner workings of this system, how it happens
Speaker:and has seen its failures over and over again. Now I want to be clear about something. We're
Speaker:not saying encampments are the ideal fucking solution here. Like we need housing. Everyone
Speaker:needs housing. And in the winter, encampments are particularly brutal. Like I remember early
Speaker:summer in May, I went camping once. And it was a time when temperatures still drop quite a
Speaker:bit at night. And it was brutal, I could barely sleep. And I had a sleeping bag and it was
Speaker:not winter. Trying to survive in the winter, spending all of your times outdoors is incredibly
Speaker:fucking difficult. It's a level of cold that we cannot imagine. And, you know, when it comes
Speaker:to, you know, like, I mean, drug use is so incredibly stigmatized and everything. Um, yeah, like,
Speaker:I think it's the most fucking normal thing in the world to turn to drugs in those situations.
Speaker:Because how the fuck are you supposed to survive that? um otherwise right like you need some
Speaker:sort of escape i completely understand it so for all of those people who are blaming home
Speaker:i mean a lot of times it's the homelessness that comes first and then drug addiction very
Speaker:often because there should be no contingencies on shelter like at all right we house the most
Speaker:evil fucking people okay we put them in prison or they have massive houses on the bridle path.
Speaker:Either way, like, there's no contingencies, none. None.
Speaker:Your humanness, right? That is absolutely it. That's the whole basis of human rights, right?
Speaker:That they are indivisible and inalienable, right? You deserve them no matter what, even when
Speaker:it hurts, you know, even when, you know, the bad guys, quote unquote, you know? I mean,
Speaker:This is clearly written in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and I'm going to quote from
Speaker:it real quick. Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being
Speaker:of himself and his family, including food, clothing, housing, and medical care and necessary social
Speaker:services, and that right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability,
Speaker:widowhood, old age, or lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond their control. clearly
Speaker:laid out. And we are failing so much. Our so-called housing first strategy, which is just, you
Speaker:know, stolen term from Finland's housing first strategy is not really, like our housing first
Speaker:strategy is shelters, not actual housing. Meanwhile, in Finland, while the entirety of the European
Speaker:Union has seen an increase in homelessness, Finland hasn't. Finland has seen numbers go
Speaker:down because they decided to actually house people. And I'm not saying that Finland has
Speaker:a perfect system figured out because I don't know. But I do know that Finland is the only
Speaker:country in the European Union that is seeing a decrease. And they're committed to actually
Speaker:providing housing for people. And there are multiple studies on this that show that it
Speaker:actually costs more. It actually costs more to not end homelessness. So this is a policy
Speaker:choice. Homelessness is a fucking policy choice. This is a decision that our government makes
Speaker:to allow this. We could house everybody. We have more than enough land. This is the second
Speaker:biggest country in the world by landmass. Toronto is a fucking joke. It's so not dense. And even
Speaker:on a small scale, you have Mayor Olivia Chow making these choices, making these policy choices
Speaker:that will kill people. And I don't know how many housing, we talked about her a couple
Speaker:of weeks ago, where how many Palestinian activists or folks that are pro-Palestinian have been
Speaker:felt betrayed by her in the last month. And now I can only imagine every housing advocate
Speaker:or homelessness advocate is just sitting there, scratching their heads, wondering like, what
Speaker:you have to do in terms of municipal politics to end encampment evictions if it's not electing.
Speaker:a figure like Olivia Chow. And I know folks will be like, oh, there was other options on
Speaker:the table. You know, Kevin Clark comes to mind, certainly someone who would have more principles
Speaker:in terms, and Chloe Brown, in terms of evicting folks from these parquettes, I would like to
Speaker:think. But that is maddening, especially you just briefly touched on the armories. And I
Speaker:know, again, there's a million reasons why folks are loving to defend Olivia Chow and her reasons
Speaker:for turning down. the feds offer for the armories, even if it was for a limited time and just
Speaker:a fraction of what the feds had promised her, there are people that are going to die in the
Speaker:cold. The first cold snap, you bet your bottom dollar, there's gonna be additions to the memorial.
Speaker:And... Yeah. Somebody was already overdosing when I was there. The morning that they were
Speaker:clearing the encampment. Yeah. Right, which, once again. I don't believe that was a coincidence.
Speaker:Can you imagine if you were Mayor Santiago? Like this is another human being. This is someone
Speaker:who's worked on very similar campaigns that we've worked on, supported by really good people
Speaker:that we know. And can you imagine you finally got to like this spot? Like you're not sitting
Speaker:behind a mic raging about what coulda, shoulda. You're there, you're in the seat, you have
Speaker:super mayor powers, and still the clock comes out in the dead of night. to destroy what little
Speaker:homeless unhoused folks have. And let's talk about the claw for a second, right? Because,
Speaker:so like I said, Humber, we got that email late on the night of Thursday. It was reported then
Speaker:at that time, the city has informed us that they would be carrying out the eviction at
Speaker:eight in the morning. I heard from CTV, I think it was, or CP24, someone reported seven to
Speaker:nine. So on Friday, which is the day that the Humber paper comes out, and I need to be there
Speaker:to make sure the paper comes out, I instead chose to head down. At 6.30 in the morning,
Speaker:I was down at St. Stephen in the Fields. Shortly after, pretty much the entirety of Canadian
Speaker:media showed up. CBC, Global News, Toronto Star, CP24, City TV, everyone. There was. four big
Speaker:cameras, four or five, there was tons of journalists. And of course, the Hoser was also there. The
Speaker:Hoser, by the way, I need to point people. And we're going to put this in the show notes.
Speaker:The Grind, which connected the Hoser, their latest edition just came out. Megan Kinch wrote
Speaker:a fantastic article about Kensington's encampments. And we're going to link that. This came out
Speaker:right before. And it has tons of information on the history of. at St. Stephens, at Bellevue
Speaker:Park, Sonia's Park at, and it's a must read for learning more about this. Anyways, so journalists
Speaker:are plenty, plenty of journalists. You had your anarchists were there, you had a lot of local
Speaker:community members were there. I saw a call go out late that night from friends of Kensington
Speaker:to show up. So there was a lot of people, arguably almost. It was decided, Maggie Helwig said
Speaker:that there would be no land defense, which, and that's what we do, you know, we follow
Speaker:the lead of the residents, you know, they say whether or not they want us to defend the land
Speaker:or not. It's worked in the past, it's failed in the past, you know. I think of Landport
Speaker:Stadium as a particularly visible failure. But before that, it worked at Landport Stadium.
Speaker:And there's another, there's a square. Just south of King Street in Toronto that was defended
Speaker:for a very long time successfully. I'm not going to let you call it a failure because I want
Speaker:to just check you there because very recently we've learned of like how people are politicized
Speaker:on the line. So even when lines break and bodies are smashed quite often it you can still look
Speaker:at that as some sort of gain. Yes, but that one that one was difficult. Because that changed
Speaker:you. Yeah. But I'm not gonna lie though, that one hurt. And you know, I've talked to a lot
Speaker:of people who were there since, and that one still... Like yeah, it was a radicalizing moment,
Speaker:but it fucking hurt, that one. The good news is, you know, 25... There were 25 trespass
Speaker:tickets that were given and 6 of the protesters were facing heavier charges. Those 25 tickets
Speaker:were withdrawn and the 6 protesters who were facing charges got absolute discharges. This
Speaker:was earlier this year. So, I mean, in that sense, you know, that was very good news there. But
Speaker:yeah, so like I said, Maggie told everyone that there would be no land offence, right? And
Speaker:at that point it was a little crowded, you know, it got a bit intense, but people needed to
Speaker:be there to witness. People needed to be there to witness. At that point in time, then very
Speaker:late on, like nine, city arrives. and they start, you know, quote unquote negotiating, which
Speaker:I would use the word coercing, if you're asking me. We are. To get people to accept shelter
Speaker:spaces, you know, get them to clear out peacefully, right? Now, sometime around 10 a.m., I had
Speaker:to go, I had to go. I had no choice. The paper, I needed to get back and I needed to write
Speaker:my op-ed, which was okay. I mean, I got the points across, but I feel like I wasn't as
Speaker:coherent as usual because I was having to write really quickly. And we got a new story about
Speaker:it too. You know, I had a couple other Humber journalists. But anyways, my point being is
Speaker:that I had to leave, as journalists often do. And this is something that, in the world of
Speaker:so many layoffs in journalism, it's true for everyone. So the vast majority of journalists
Speaker:there, pretty much all, like all of the major media... They had to leave at some point because
Speaker:you're not allowed to stay all day on one story because there's not enough journalists hired
Speaker:So that they could commit that kind of personnel to one story, right? And the city knows this
Speaker:because the city put out a media request They put out they announced it to everybody that
Speaker:this was happening and I spoke to multiple Majority everyone was fucking confused about that. Everyone
Speaker:was like, what do you mean? The city is telling us this they don't tell us this This is not
Speaker:something they do Because they wanted the cameras to capture the coercion, the negotiations.
Speaker:They wanted us there for the peaceful part. Right. They wanted us there for the peaceful
Speaker:part, right? They wanted to make it look... They wanted the PR to be as good as possible.
Speaker:And then... 17 hours later, I think it was, I forget what number. It was late, it was late
Speaker:that I saw it, eight, nine o'clock at night. Eight, nine o'clock at night. That's over time.
Speaker:Yeah, that's when they brought out the claw, that's when they brought out the police, and
Speaker:that's when they brought out their private militias. Sorry, private security, some would say. At
Speaker:that point, barely anyone was still there. There was people still there, they got footage, but
Speaker:there was not a lot, not nearly as much, and definitely not. major journalists. And that
Speaker:was a calculated fucking move. They wanted it to be in the dead of night. They wanted the
Speaker:eyes of the world to be looking elsewhere while they crushed the encampment. And there was
Speaker:still someone there. And now there's 24-7 surveillance by private security. So nobody sets up camp
Speaker:again. So nobody said something happened again. They haven't let them know that they will be
Speaker:given trespass. They will be trespassed if they attempt to return. Right. Rumor has it there's
Speaker:a few other parks that are slated for renovations. But the first step is going to be to clear
Speaker:out folks, then fence it off and do the same thing. Monitor it so that nobody sets up shop
Speaker:there, so to speak. But one thing I also want to mention is. When people accept shelter spaces,
Speaker:oftentimes you're not allowed to bring many belongings with you, very little belongings
Speaker:with you, right? You're not allowed to bring your tents, you're not allowed to bring the
Speaker:things you need for an encampment, right? That is part of the conditions. So the city does
Speaker:that because they wanna destroy it. They keep destroying tents. There was one of the residents...
Speaker:who mentioned that they had that tent destroyed eight times. They've gone through eight tents
Speaker:destroyed by the city. Right? They're doing that on purpose to prevent more encampments.
Speaker:But they're not providing an alternative. They're failing to provide an alternative. Something
Speaker:which was it London or Guelph or Waterloo, someone had or the Superior Court had said something
Speaker:about it. Yeah, it had said something about this being a violation of some, like they said
Speaker:this is unacceptable. What was it? I forget the word. Yeah, it was definitely a violation
Speaker:of, I think, their charter rights, because it was very specific to the region of Waterloo
Speaker:that their capacity for on-house folks within the shelter system was so small. And so to
Speaker:remove the only means of shelter that there was, would be to then remove their right to
Speaker:shelter and knowingly deny them any alternative, right? Yeah. So that's definitely the case
Speaker:in Toronto. That's definitely the case in Toronto. There's not nearly enough shelter space, not
Speaker:the shelters or anything even fucking remotely. And like we've already outlined all the issues
Speaker:with the shelters, right? So. Yeah, this when I when we kicked off the episode and I mentioned
Speaker:how Olivia Chau is more concerned it seems about the PR That's what I mean. The way that they
Speaker:did this shouts to me that they were concerned about public image they didn't want the images
Speaker:of Landport Stadium or Alexandra Park or Trinity Bellwood's That's part of Tori's legacy, right?
Speaker:This is going to be the new glossier version of eviction important to mention a lot of these
Speaker:residents came from Alexandra Park, right? Alexandra Park, which was famously evicted in the summer
Speaker:of 21, which was a fucking horrible summer, horrible summer, horrible summer. God, like,
Speaker:yeah, there was a much bigger and they had the tiny houses there too, which the city had outlawed,
Speaker:you know, like I remember seeing the tiny houses in Alexandra Park. It was a much It was a much
Speaker:better, like I'll tell you this, it was a hell of a lot cleaner, safer of an encampment. Like
Speaker:there was less like, like when I say that, I mean like St. Stephen and Fields is such a
Speaker:small space that it was like overflowing. And Alexander Park, it was like a more, it was
Speaker:a better space for this, you know, it was a better space for this. And they, they kicked
Speaker:them out. And for, for months after, if not a year after or more, they had, they fenced
Speaker:off the whole park. to prevent encampments from being set up again, right? And again, the church
Speaker:right on the corner of Dundas and Bathurst there also gives a lot of support. They have much
Speaker:later hours than other libraries because they offer a lot of support to the residents there.
Speaker:So shout out to that church, to that library, I forget which library that is. But yeah, you
Speaker:can see like, this is... They're not trying to solve this issue. This is them trying to
Speaker:hide it. You know, they don't want us to see this. And yeah, I'm so angry. I'm so disgusted
Speaker:at Olivia Chow. Like is this is who you are. You, you who once stood with the encampments.
Speaker:Like, and, and this is a lesson, not that we need this lesson again, but in trusting elected
Speaker:politicians. They constantly show us that they don't deserve our trust. And yeah, that's what
Speaker:I got for this. Oh, you know what? I have one more thing. A quote. The true measure of any
Speaker:society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members. So how does our society
Speaker:measure up? That's what I got. Well, as we move to our second topic, I'm, you know, as you
Speaker:mentioned, repeated, repeated displacement when I can't also. not think of Gaza and some communities
Speaker:that have been bombed in every single war, yet they managed to rebuild. So let our gaze turn
Speaker:that way as we talk to what is most pressing in terms of the siege on Gaza was a exchange
Speaker:of prisoners and hostages. So as you hear this, there may have been more exchanges. But 24
Speaker:Israeli hostages were released into Egypt to go home to their families. And among them was
Speaker:someone as young as two years old. As a mom, that was tough to imagine, to be honest. They
Speaker:reported to be in excellent condition by a pediatrician who has looked at them. They have been reunited
Speaker:with their families. And the entire deal looks to return 50 women and children hostages, taken
Speaker:by Hamas. And 39 Palestinian prisoners were released into the West Bank. And hopefully
Speaker:some of you have seen the celebrations that happened with those homecomings brought home
Speaker:as heroes, a lot of them. Of course, obviously the Israeli forces fired tear gas into some
Speaker:of the celebrations. They wanted this to not be the images shown across the planet. And
Speaker:I think watching that obviously brings up a lot of my first feeling was to those assholes
Speaker:whose only response to everything we see and everything we say is, yeah, we'll free the
Speaker:hostages. What about the hostages? And yeah, like this isn't to minimize the fact that there
Speaker:were toddlers as hostages and people, innocent civilians, some of them. taken into Gaza and
Speaker:should be home with their families, no doubt. But it was just so dismissive. And I want to
Speaker:know. I wanted to know from those people when they see these images, what the fuck they think,
Speaker:seeing women and children released by Israel. They have not been held since October 7th.
Speaker:Some of them have been in jail for years. Young people. 22, 23-year-old women that have been
Speaker:in jail for eight, nine years. The entire deal, if it goes through, will see aid go into Gaza,
Speaker:which was kind of a sticking point for a little bit there, and 150 Palestinian women and children,
Speaker:which are among the thousands that are being held in Israeli jails right now. And so, for
Speaker:me, that's— I wanted to unpack that a little bit, especially because I was on a Twitter
Speaker:space, I think it was yesterday, and there was somebody on the space, they wanted to have
Speaker:as few personal details released as possible. And they were talking about their experience
Speaker:in the Israeli prisons being released. And I think some of us can kind of imagine the conditions
Speaker:that they would have been describing, but it was the psychological impact. that he really
Speaker:focused on and that was very difficult to hear considering how young a lot of these folks
Speaker:are and that we know Israel makes it is a regular pattern for them to detain between 500 and
Speaker:1000 children every single year. You know, they take that position of taking hostages, civilians
Speaker:as hostages, and then they will sometimes look at the situation and look to the crimes that
Speaker:they've been accused of. And again, it's like we're back at October 7th again, where folks
Speaker:are looking at every individual case, completely absent from the larger context. And there was
Speaker:a tweet from CPCpitchbot that really kind of brought it home for me. And it wasn't as successful
Speaker:as I thought it should have been because it really, like I laughed out loud, even though
Speaker:it's not anything really funny. It's talking about how a lot of these folks are accused
Speaker:of stabbing or attempting to stab soldiers, settlers in the West Bank. But nobody's asking
Speaker:why the fuck there are Israeli soldiers in the West Bank. Why are there Israeli settlers in
Speaker:the West Bank? They're not supposed to be, right? Like that land isn't for them. The UN has deemed
Speaker:that an illegal occupation that people can resist. And I don't understand why they don't understand
Speaker:why people are resisting it violently. Like how long you can expect, if you've listened
Speaker:to our episode with Danny Morrison talking about the conditions in Belfast, like how long you
Speaker:can expect conditions to exist that are illegal under international law, a siege, an occupation.
Speaker:before your children start looking at that and wanting to fight back. Right? Rightly so. And
Speaker:I don't know. It was just, I want to, I do really want to know what these folks think of their
Speaker:Israeli state at the moment. Now that it's, it's more obvious than ever how many women
Speaker:and children they're holding. Right? Like I feel like they tried to hide that for a really
Speaker:long time. We knew, because we talked to the Palestinian diaspora and activists all the
Speaker:time. We've had Gata Sasa on our show. Most of what she talked about were political Same
Speaker:with the Palestinian youth movement when they were on, right? They really did want to focus
Speaker:on how many they were, how many are held without charge, how many children are amongst them.
Speaker:And for people to just scream at us this entire time, what about the hostages? And yeah, what
Speaker:about them? What about all those political prisoners that are still in those jails? Like it really
Speaker:got, this is such an indictment to like the communications that have been had. And the
Speaker:way that... There's a lot you can deduce from what they're hiding. The fact that they're
Speaker:preventing prisoners who were released by Hamas from talking to the media, I think, is, it
Speaker:says a lot. Because remember the first ones that we spoke to talked, they shook hands with
Speaker:their captors and thanked them. Yeah. This is not, this is not how they speak of their Israeli
Speaker:jailers. No, and one thing, because a lot of people know, there's a lot of Islamophobia
Speaker:going around, you know, and one thing that I've heard from a lot of people who, a lot of Israelis
Speaker:who have been interacting, who have either who were released or who interacted with Hamas
Speaker:on October 7th, was things along the lines of, do not worry, I will not hurt you, my Muslim
Speaker:faith does not allow it, which I think is a very different image, and this is not, you
Speaker:know, these are the words of Israelis. there, that information is coming directly from them.
Speaker:That is not the image that you hear when people talk about so-called Islamic extremism here.
Speaker:And I'm not gonna deny that there is not extremism. I'm of the belief that every religion can be
Speaker:used for extremism, no matter how pure and spiritual you think your religion is, I think it can
Speaker:be twisted for those usage. But what I am saying here is that the extent of that, it's very
Speaker:clear that is being played up in order to kind of bring about the same kind of memories of
Speaker:ISIS and Al-Qaeda, 9-11, you know, like these are the images that they want to conjure up
Speaker:in the West because Islamophobia has been used for the last 20 years, more than 20 years,
Speaker:for these purposes, right? So the other thing, the Israeli government had been, you know,
Speaker:painting the picture of like, oh, we're going to release, like, oh, we're going to have to
Speaker:release these terrorists, right? These violent terrorists, these, like, they made it seem
Speaker:like they're prisoners were all incredibly, you know, violent and justifiable, right? But
Speaker:we're seeing, you know, with the amount of young, young children. That's not the case. And hearing
Speaker:of solitary confinement, again, solitary confinement has been described as cruel and unusual forms
Speaker:of torture, which are outlawed by human rights in United Nations. Not that matters, I guess.
Speaker:And also, the use of tear gas, firing tear gas into the welcome home celebrations. Well, the
Speaker:use of tear gas in interstate conflict is also a war crime. Not that matters. I want to get
Speaker:into the charges a little bit because a lot of folks, like you say, they are labeling these
Speaker:people as terrorists. And although, you know, every individual story has its own backstory
Speaker:and folks can see for themselves. In general, there's a Save the Children report that was
Speaker:particularly damning in terms of talking about Palestinian children in Israeli jails, and
Speaker:they reported that the majority of charges for youth in Israeli jails is for throwing stones
Speaker:at illegal occupiers. And how long do you think the sentence is? You better not have checked
Speaker:my notes, Santiago. How long do you think a sentence is for a Palestinian child throwing
Speaker:a stone? 15 years. 20. See, I see you understood the cruelty that would be woven into it, but
Speaker:not quite as much. 20 years can be the sentence for kids. And so... It's more... Just to show
Speaker:you, and I need to draw this comparison. What's the average age of Gaza? 18. So that's... That
Speaker:sentence is higher than the median age of Gaza. That speaks volumes. And they have thousands
Speaker:of children and not just children. So they hold political prisoners we know, right? Folks that
Speaker:are in there with, under administrative detention, we've explained this in many episodes, that's
Speaker:without charge. So they're suspected of being terrorists. We let the United States, and even
Speaker:there's parts in Canadian law that allow folks to be held under suspicion. But like, this
Speaker:is ridiculous. They are held for years and years and years without charge. Like, we're talking
Speaker:5,200 prisoners. Plus, something that nobody seems to be willing to talk about, especially
Speaker:since they center everything on the Israeli hostages, is that 3,000 Palestinian, mostly
Speaker:men, have been abducted by Israeli forces since October 7th. So that's another 3,000 prisoners.
Speaker:So they're almost that we know of. So they're close to 10,000 political prisoners in Israeli
Speaker:jails, yet still we will justify them bombardment of Gaza because of a few hundred. Now, according
Speaker:to international law, not once again, you know, but occupied people have the right to resist
Speaker:occupation. to fight back against occupation, right? The West Bank is occupied territories
Speaker:throwing a stone. They have the goddamn fucking right to throw a fucking stone, right? I start
Speaker:with that because according to like the definition of genocide, forcibly transferring children
Speaker:out of a group is part of the one of the five acts of genocide, right? Now Israel will attempt
Speaker:to justify that by saying that they committed crimes. But as I said, they have the fucking
Speaker:right to throw those rocks. I'm going to jump in here because, you know, I gave you a number
Speaker:and they don't jive because I want folks to understand that. So every year Israel detains
Speaker:up to a thousand, five hundred to a thousand children a year. Now they don't charge all
Speaker:of them. They don't jail all of them. But I tell you that they brutalize all of them. OK,
Speaker:and psychologically damage them. And that's another big part of this siege on Gaza is—and
Speaker:absolutely, this is part of Gaza—to emotionally, mentally damage an entire population. And you
Speaker:absolutely do this by bombing their mosques, bombing their hospitals, hunting down their
Speaker:journalists who dare tell their story, and taking their children and moving them through a Zionist
Speaker:prison system, even if you do end up releasing them back to their families. They end up terrified,
Speaker:angry, emotionally damaged. Like the person that was on the Twitter space talking about
Speaker:their experience talked about not being able to go to the bathroom even still until someone
Speaker:tells them that they can and that they've wet themselves many times because they have just
Speaker:been so conditioned in all these ways and that how they wake up at six o'clock every morning
Speaker:screaming because they think they've missed roll call or bed check. And another thing that
Speaker:people aren't talking about is the conditions in these prisons has gotten so much worse since
Speaker:October 7th. So the Israeli government has been collectively punishing the prisoners that they've
Speaker:already been punishing as political prisoners, even more so. So many of them, including a
Speaker:lot of the released folks that you, the 39 prisoners that I referenced earlier, 17 of which are
Speaker:minors still. They were mostly in solitary confinement. since October 7th, those that weren't have
Speaker:had their cells completely stripped of any personal belongings. They are routinely grouped in together
Speaker:for lockdowns and just the conditions have deteriorated. We're talking about medical negligence. What
Speaker:are some of the numbers here? Like 69% of those children that go through the system, they're
Speaker:strip searched. 42% are injured even upon arrest and four out of five are beaten. in custody.
Speaker:Yeah. And talking about the mental harm, just to bring it back there for a second, and this
Speaker:is a report from the Euromed Human Rights Monitor. And this is from 2021, so you can imagine how
Speaker:much worse it is now. 91% of Gaza's children suffer from PTSD. And that's likely before
Speaker:this, yeah? I mean, those studies- 2021. Thank you. Yeah. So once again, you have to imagine
Speaker:that's 100. You cannot. I feel like I have PTSD. I'm going to I don't know if this is something
Speaker:you want to leave in or not. It sounds so silly. I was playing with my kid. Pillow pits, pillow
Speaker:pits are like the thing in my house right now, and we have these big gray pillows on a couch,
Speaker:and the game is to pile them and then crawl through them. And at one point, I'm like lying
Speaker:between these big gray pillows with my daughter. And I have images of them being concrete floors
Speaker:that have fallen on us.
Speaker:I had to stop playing. I had to just, Mommy doesn't like this. I have to get up. Like I
Speaker:had a moment. I had a real reaction there. Like I tried to stay as calm as possible and I felt
Speaker:really silly. But how do folks live through this? Like. Sorry. I mean, I can talk personally
Speaker:about that for a second, in a way. And when I say personally, I don't mean my own experience,
Speaker:but my dad's experience as a child in Lebanon during the war. And
Speaker:it's really, really difficult. It's something that, I mean, in the moment, the weird thing
Speaker:about PTSD is that in the moment, it doesn't feel maybe as traumatizing as it is. Because
Speaker:it's not post? Yeah, they, there's a certain almost, especially with children, like I remember
Speaker:my dad talked about how one of the games that the children would kind of play. would be they'd
Speaker:leave out tape recorders during times of bombing and conflict and they would record the sounds
Speaker:of war when they would be hiding in bunkers and stuff. And then later they would go and
Speaker:they would listen to it. And they didn't kind of process at the time the severity of that.
Speaker:You know. a lot of things became very normal like you know, oh am I going to be able to
Speaker:go to school today or is there going to be bombings? I've heard all kinds of stories of you know
Speaker:various close calls. My grandmother accidentally turned the light on when she was doing the
Speaker:laundry and she had to jump to the floor because immediately a burst of machine gun fire burst
Speaker:through their apartment. And in the moment, all of these things feel like life, a part
Speaker:of life. But my, like, you know, my dad ever since, I remember every time there was a birthday
Speaker:of mine or any celebration, he hated the fucking balloons. He couldn't be anywhere near the
Speaker:balloons. In case they popped? In case they popped because it would freak him out. And
Speaker:I remember he talked about listening back to those recordings and just like, what that did
Speaker:and f***. He didn't go back to Lebanon until 2019 when I went with him for such a long time.
Speaker:And it was, I mean, getting to see that it was incredibly powerful experience for him. Um,
Speaker:and it's, it's done. I saw what it did to things of my grandfather, things to my dad, like it.
Speaker:It's incredibly difficult and they don't have it. They didn't have it. anywhere near as bad
Speaker:as those in Gaza, because the war wasn't a constant in Babdah. It would come and they would flee,
Speaker:because they had somewhere to flee. They would go up to the cottage, a cottage in the mountains
Speaker:that was owned by a family member, or they would go to Jurnie, a bit north of Beirut, which
Speaker:was always isolated from the conflict. They were able to get away from it. But those in
Speaker:Gaza... You have to stay and hope. I can tell you that anytime things got anywhere near as
Speaker:risky as they are every single moment in Gaza, they would not be there. They would not be
Speaker:waiting for their building to fall on top of them. Folks in Gaza, yeah, they don't have
Speaker:a choice, right? We've talked about that before, how they've been moved from the north to the
Speaker:south and there was no cessation of bombing in the south either. So... Part of the prisoner
Speaker:exchange was a truce, is what they're calling it, and it's just days, a lot of skepticism
Speaker:on this truce happening over the American Thanksgiving weekend, which includes Black Friday and Cyber
Speaker:Monday. I can understand people's reaction to that. But what we're seeing is folks in Gaza
Speaker:attempting to return north. Now, whether that is to repopulate the north or to go find loved
Speaker:ones trapped under the rubble or maybe to gather whatever belongings they can from what remains
Speaker:of their neighborhoods, I don't know. But there's plenty of evidence to show that. Despite the
Speaker:truce, Israel was firing upon folks trying to return to the north, making it clear that wasn't
Speaker:anywhere to return to, that they have essentially colonized it by the looks of it, with the flags
Speaker:that they've planted and the destruction that they've done. And so, you know, my first thought
Speaker:was when the prisoners—or one of my thoughts, I guess, is— please don't release them into
Speaker:Gaza. Because... I just imagine the IDF hunting these folks down afterwards to make sure they
Speaker:don't talk about their experiences, to either terrorize them into doing so, or as we know
Speaker:now, just simply bombing the home in which they live. Even folks in the West Bank are completely
Speaker:immune to state violence at this moment or ever have been. But yeah, I just, unfortunately,
Speaker:that's my first thought. And so what happens after this truce? You know, these people go
Speaker:home to their families, that is like an individual story to be told. But where is this going?
Speaker:Like, Israel has said to the people of Gaza, the war is not over. Until when? Until when?
Speaker:I don't know. That is a wrap on another episode of Blueprints of Disruption. Thank you for
Speaker:joining us. Also, a very big thank you to the producer of our show, Santiago Helu-Quintero.
Speaker:Blueprints of Disruption is an independent production operated cooperatively. You can follow us on
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Speaker:Please share our content and if you have the means, consider becoming a patron. Not only
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