People gathered in downtown Toronto on Sunday morning to reclaim and celebrate “radical stories, to reject all forms of police and solitary confinement and corporate violence, and for a future that can be lived without police and prisons.”
Host of “No Pride in the Police Coalition” and sponsored by “No More Silence”, the “Remove the Police and Imprison” Pride March took place from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. in Nathan Phillips Square.
Indigenous Elder Wanda Whitebird presided over the opening ceremony, while Robin Maynard, Brianna Olson Pitavanaqua of Toronto, Harmful Indigenous Harm, Beverly Bain, Tom Hooper, Desmond Cole, Gary Kinsman, Channel Gallers A, Ronaldo W. Butterfly of Asian and Migrant Sex Workers Support Network and Joy Wong from Friends of China Town were speakers for the day.
The participants then left Nathan Phillips Square and headed north on University Avenue, stopping at key points along the way to “recognize 2SLGBTQ + Black and racial, and strange and trance protests and resistance.”
The theme of this year’s event was “Abolitionist Pride: Bringing Back Our Radical Stories and Creating a Living Future Without Police and Prisons.”
The event was organized in response to the recent publication by Toronto police of a report on race-based data, which found that blacks, indigenous people and racials were overrepresented in the use of violent incidents and nudity searches.
Organizers say these communities “continue to experience increasing police violence on the streets, in their homes and in camps around the city of Toronto.”
They said the march was also intended to serve as a “waiver of the continued corporatization of Pride Toronto and their investment in relations with the police, Mayor John Tori and Prime Minister Doug Ford”.
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