After the Square Victoria encampment on Friday morning, the Parc des Faubourgs encampment was dismantled in the afternoon. The action opposed the dismantling of encampments for homeless people in Montreal.
City of Montreal employees came to dismantle the camp in the middle of the afternoon, with the support of officers from the Montreal Police Department (SPVM). Tensions rose between the police and the protesters, who tried to prevent the intervention by forming a human barrier around the camp.
No arrests were made, and no intervention was necessary, according to the SPVM, which specified that one person was taken into care by community resources.
There was not a single tent left on the lawn of the Parc des Faubourgs around 4 p.m. when The PressProtesters still stood in clusters across the park, around which about a dozen police vehicles were parked.
Guillaume Groleau had been living in the camp since the 1er July, when the first tents were pitched on the site. A good-natured atmosphere reigned since the beginning of the action, according to the speaker who works in a shelter for homeless men. “We had created something very beautiful,” he emphasizes.
Responders and recently evicted people coexisted peacefully within the encampment, according to Eric, a Verdun resident who occasionally came to lend a hand to the protesters. “There was no violence, no graffiti, no vandalism here,” he said.
Not in public space
The Parc des Faubourgs camp was dismantled “for the same reason as for Square Victoria,” explained Simon Charron, spokesperson for the City of Montreal. “We cannot tolerate a demonstration occupying public property permanently,” the spokesperson stressed.
When the police arrived, the campers asked to have a dialogue “rather than being forced to systematically dismantle them,” explains Guillaume Groleau, who deplores the fact that the City of Montreal did not warn the campers before taking action.
According to Simon Charron, 25 protesters were at the camp Friday afternoon, and none of them were homeless, which explains why the city did not give any warning. In the case of camps for homeless people, “we give a few days’ notice to help them find a place to go,” the spokesperson added.