Calm has returned to the streets of Toronto after a weekend of protests against health measures that brought a major downtown intersection to a standstill and led to two arrests. On Monday, traffic was smooth at the corner of Bloor and Avenue streets and Torontonians were shopping in the neighborhood’s opulent boutiques.
Tractors parked near the intersection over the weekend gave way Monday to contractors busy working in the city’s sewers. At the intersection, the Church of the Redeemer continued to serve hot meals to passers-by. Contingency plans had been prepared in case the demonstration continued during the week: more employees, the donation of meals to a safer place, and traffic jams for everyone, says Angie Hoking, coordinator at the place. of worship.
No employee was at church on the weekend. The masses are done virtually, COVID obliges, and the musicians, who used to come nevertheless, stayed at home. During the weekend, the church was at times surrounded by demonstrators.
East of the intersection, stores in the area nicknamed “Mink Mile” (Avenue of fur) for its luxury addresses such as Gucci, Louis Vuitton and Burberry, did not have to remove plywood this morning. The businesses, which had boarded up their stores in anticipation of anti-racism protests in the summer of 2020, saw no need to do so over the weekend, despite incidents of vandalism unfolding in Ottawa.
“We did not expect a violent situation, but rather that traffic would be disrupted. That’s what the Toronto police told us,” said Briar de Lange, director of the Bloor-Yorkville neighborhood merchants association. If stores boarded up their window displays in the summer of 2020, she says, it was of their own accord. “The City of Toronto has never offered to store merchants to board up their shops,” wrote Mike Layton, who represents the neighborhood on city council, by email.
Sheltered healthcare community
South of the protest site and Queen’s Park — the Ontario parliament — the many hospitals on University Avenue also emerged unscathed. The four hospitals near the parliament had worked with Toronto police to ensure patients were protected. Police services finally blocked access to part of the avenue on Friday.
“Our patients, staff and physicians were able to access the hospital without issue over the weekend,” wrote Tracy Chisholm, a spokesperson for Women’s College Hospital, whose CEO had suggested to staff to wear street clothes to get to work. No employee of the hospital for sick children (SickKids) has been the target of harassment by demonstrators, specifies the hospital center. “We are extremely grateful for our collaboration with other hospitals and the Toronto police,” said Sinai Health System spokesperson Jennifer Specht.
Return of the demonstrators?
Difficult to predict, for the moment, if the police will again have to erect a roadblock near the hospitals. On the Facebook page of the Convoy for Freedom Toronto 2022 group, some members are suggesting a return to downtown next Saturday and Sunday, others later this week. But several also propose to turn to Ottawa to support the demonstrators already present.
“If possible, the more people in Ottawa, the better to respond to the actions of the authorities there,” one user noted in a comment that got 20 likes. “We need to be in Ottawa to help truckers who have their gas stolen,” said another member of the group.
“Toronto Police continue to monitor safety issues in Toronto and across the country,” said a spokeswoman for the city’s police service. The streets blocked at the weekend are now free to access, but the police department has deployed “a larger number of uniformed police officers downtown,” said the spokesperson.
This story is supported by the Local Journalism Initiative, funded by the Government of Canada.