DYLAN LEEDER

So, I’ve been kind of mad at myself for my lack of coverage of the local OccupyTO movement. With working 40+ hrs a week and leaving after dark my motivation to head down to the park has decreased. Although I may not have taken photos of the park in a while I’m still following it religiously and still find it equally captivating.

I took the following photos about two weeks ago.

The March

There was a march on October 23…

The march passes men at work…

The march ended at City Hall for speakers to make their points…

A man speaks out agains the budget cuts recently made my Toronto mayor, Rob Ford…

Elderly women speaks out – “We have occupied the front page, now we’ll finish the job”…

A boy writes on a wall…

The Camp

The next day I visited the camp to see what has changed. Its crazy to witness the speed that the camp develops at.

One of the most impressive things at the camp is their kitchen. The kitchen not only feeds the people occupying the park but also feeds the homeless of Toronto. The neighbouring church has also allowed them to use their kitchen a few times a week. It’s inspiring to see a movement help the needy while still trying to sustain their own living conditions…

The kitchen is directly against the churches walls. The church has openly supported the movement…

Solar panels were donated to power the media tent…

A bus…

Thanks!
- Dylan

Day 3
Dundas Square

After getting home from work I got word through OccupyTO’s twitter that their march had taken and occupied Dundas Square – being two blocks away I grabbed my camera and headed down to beginning of Day 3 of my coverage.

When I arrived the group had seated in the middle of the intersection of Dundas and Yonge.

By doing this they were intending on protesting the way the local transit system, the TTC, had discontinued stopping at St. James park due to the movement occupying it. It also drew a lot of criticism from the citizens of Toronto as most were frustrated that they were interrupting the busiest intersection in the city during rush hour.

While there they formed “99%” in the intersection. They did this to attract the attention of the media helicopters flying above. It worked, shortly after you could see the live broadcast being aired on the screen on the CityTV building nearby. Again, one of the movements biggest goals is to attract attention of the media to spread their message.

St. James Park At Night

Arriving back at the park I instantly noticed the amount of new tents that had been constructed. It really made me realize how quickly the community was building.

Pictured here is the library at night. Notice how many more books had been added since the day before…

All day the ‘kitchen’ is offering free food donated from different places. Local restaurants continuesly donate food and offer anything they could not sell, market vendors provide essentials such as fruits, vegetables, and bread and water is purchased through the donations given.

Although the vibe of St. James park is generally positive, productive, and uplifting there is still the looming feeling knowing that you’re at an illegal camp. This sign reads “DO NOT WORRY – if the police tell us to move we will receive WARNING! – The City of Toronto will make this decision!! Tell your counsellors to let us stay”

More photos from the night…

DAY 4

To continue my coverage of OccupyTO I decided to head down to St. James park to catch the evenings General Assembly.

As mentioned before, the General Assembly is a public meeting to discuss issues, decisions, updates, and general suggestions towards the movement. This GA was the smallest I had been to (100-200 people) so it was a lot more personal and therefore more passionate. People were continuously raising concerns (forming an x with your arms shows you completely disagree and forming a triangle with your hands shows you have a suggestion) so the meeting ran more than three hours.

Some things discussed were…

- Actions towards unionizing with the TTC strike on Saturday in hopes to increase the movements support. This was particularly inspiring as the union going on strike are striking for the exact things the Occupy Movement stands for.
- Creating a committee in charge of reaching out to local known people for support. This led into asking for rides for people to head to a speech Naomi Klein was speaking at in order to ask her to speak on Saturdays march.
- Cleanliness in the park – specifically addressed towards two beer cans found.
- Discussion on how to best address the media to give a response better supported by the movement as a whole. Also, that there will be a seminar discussing public relations.
- Etc.

The GA ended with a long debate on when to leave for their planned march to Dundas Square.

The March To Dundas Square

The march started off powerfully with someone yelling “Let’s take the streets” and the crowd of 60-100 people began marching towards Dundas Square. Although it started powerfully it quickly became confused and I couldn’t help but feel embarrassed for the marchers.

The group had to stop on numerous occasions in order for the back half of the group to catch up and everyone had to be reminded to slow down and take their time. Although there was a lack of leadership in the march people were still passionate about it and chanted the usual slogans such as “we are the 99%” and “the people united will never be defeated”

When the group arrived at Dundas Square they were indecisive on what they wanted to do. A few people wanted to stand in the square and a few wanted to occupy the intersection of Yonge & Dundas. The group ended up standing where they were and doing a sort of native pow-wow like dance.

Thanks again for reading! I didn’t get out shooting tonight (with working 40+ hours a week I needed to take time and catch up on personal things) but I plan on shooting the park in the rain tomorrow night. Also, Saturday is a huge march so expect photos of that – Expect another post on Sunday, probably.

Also, thanks SO much for the amount of responses I’ve already received!

- Dylan

Inspired by New York cities Occupy Wall Street, the occupy movement has spread around the world and I’ve put myself as close to the action as I can. On Saturday, October 15th the people of Toronto took to the streets to voice their concerns and I was, and continue, to be there with them and my camera.

I find the topic of Occupy Toronto to be a sensitive one. Depending on who you talk to you’ll either hear a rant of sincere support or a rant of complaints that ‘those hippies need to get jobs’. Personally I’m more interested in the movement itself – the way one message can grow from a small group in New York City to a movement that has spread around the world and is taking serious action. I also believe in most their overall message, I just believe they still need to make it more clear with a solid and simple message.

What is the Occupy Movement? In simple: It’s a movement to send a message to the financial institutions and remind them that they are there to serve us – that their attention needs to be drawn to the people (the 99%) and not the elite (the 1%) who are making the majority of the income.

In full, I’ll take it straight from OccupyTO’s website:

“Occupy Toronto is a movement that intends to show our solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street movements and stand in unity with the rest of the world to seek and work towards drastic changes to economic systems that are destroying our economy, social liberties, and environment. We are, through entirely non-violent means, sending a message to the financial sector worldwide that banks exist to serve us, not the other way around, that the practices of speculation and fractional reserve lending have created a massive inequality and are no longer valid systems.

Current monetary policies, whether they are enacted under the idea of globalization and privatization, or some other guise, are unacceptably hurting the people that have propped them up, the very people they were created to help. Our target is to change these systems to help the 99% of the population, instead of just the elite 1% that they currently benefit. Everyone is encouraged to join the movement, this movement affects us all.”

Basically, the rich need to stop getting more rich and the poor need to stop getting more poor.

Please visit OccupyTO’s website for more information: http://occupyto.org/

From here on in I’ll attempt to stick to a photo-essay style of post. This post will be updated every few days as I continue to cover the movement in Toronto. Enjoy.

Day 1 & Day 2

Part of OccupyTO was to take over St. James Park as their home and a place for all of the activist to come together, share ideas, organize, and do whatever it takes to make the movement stronger.

Make-shift buildings act as different places for organizing…

People have set up a ‘tent city’ to maintain occupancy over the park…

A library has been set up to provide educational readings on legal rights and information on protests and other movements…

In the park they provide many services to provide a healthy living for the people staying. Through donations they have been able to provide a medic tent, free food vendors, meditation seminars, women only sleeping areas, 24/7 security patrol, etc…

Social media has an extremely important role in the movements process. In order to grow the word needs to be spread. Pictured here is the ‘media centre’ where people are providing live feed and updates 24/7.

During one of the many marches through the city the protesters stood in front of the CityTV building and yelled to be aired. The station did…

It’s not a protest without signs…

And people…

Drum circles are very popular at these kind of events…

Every day they hold general assemblies where large groups of people gather in the park to discuss the day, make decisions, and decide what their next actions are going to be. The assemblies are very powerful as they use the ‘people’s mic’ system to get the audio across – to do this one person will yell something and the crowd will echo it back yelling it out in sections.

The police have been extremely kind, respectful, and so far have gained the respect of the protestors. I believe this is strongly based on all the mistakes they made during the G20 summit last year. Although there is fear of a raid at the park any moment, so far they have not been a problem. Saying that, there was obviously still a police presence…

Although the vibe is mostly positive the sound of helicopters circling reminds you of where you are and why you are there…

I will be updating this as days progress. So far I have managed to be there every day and am still getting plenty of interesting photos. Until then I encourage you to educate yourself on the movement. And, to those people thinking “screw those hippies” I say this…

What if people didn’t stand up for what they believe?