Toronto’s police chief reiterated Friday that he will ‘not tolerate’ encampments or vehicles being used to block roadways during a possible convoy demonstration downtown this weekend but will “facilitate peaceful protest” as much as possible.
Interim Police Chief James Ramer made the comment to reporters during a briefing at police headquarters as he discussed the operational plans in place to manage what could be a second straight weekend of protests involving a large number of vehicles downtown.
“We are here to preserve public safety and facilitate peaceful protests and peaceful protest does not include vehicles jamming up the roadways,” he said. “So we will facilitate any type of protest tomorrow, as we do week in and week out throughout the year, but we will not have the roadways and seats of government jammed up occupied. So that’s what we’re attempting to stop and will not be tolerated.”
Ramer said that police do have specific intelligence ‘not based merely on social media posts’ which points to the possibility of another round of “Convoy for Freedom Protests” taking place in the city this weekend.
However, he also acknowledged that those involved with the movement are deliberately spreading about possible demonstrations in an attempt to “tax the resources” of some police services.
Police first closed Queen’s Park Circle to vehicular traffic, as well as College Street between Bay and Yonge streets. On Friday evening, police announced additional road closures around Hospital Row — Queen’s Park Circle to the north, Dundas Street to the south, Bay Street to the east and University Avenue to the west.
But Ramer said there is a further perimeter that police will shut down “if need be.” He said that perimeter roughly encompasses Toronto City Hall, Queen’s Park and the areas surrounding those sites.
“We are redeploying plainclothes assets that are now in uniform, we of course have people on overtime and callbacks and xjmtzywwe have a lot of city assets that are assisting us. You’ll also notice several of our Toronto Police Service tow trucks are out there as well, so we can move very quickly if need be. It really is an all hands on deck operation,” Ramer said of the service’s plans for this weekend. “We are preparing for every eventuality and we have a very robust plan that is very nimble and allows us to scale up or scale down, whatever is required.”
Premier Doug Ford announced on Friday that the province would enact a state of emergency in response to a prolonged occupation of downtown Ottawa streets that he said has devolved into a “siege.”
So far Toronto has avoided a similar occupation of its streets but it is taking significant precautions, given the situation unfolding in other parts of the province.
“We all want to do everything we absolutely can to try and avoid the situations that we’re seeing in Ottawa and in Windsor,” Mayor John Tory said during Friday’s briefing. “If you’re trying to come here for a protest that is not peaceful and that is not respectful I would urge you on behalf of all Toronto residents and businesses most sincerely to ‘please just stay away from our city.’”
On Friday afternoon, in anticipation of the new protests, three city councillors who represent the downtown area released a letter advising residents to follow the social channels for the city and Toronto police for updates.
The councillors noted that more people in Toronto get vaccinated each day than participate in protests against vaccine mandates and that as of Friday, 88 per cent of city residents have received two doses of COVID-19 vaccine.
They also said that the city will not tolerate some of the hateful symbols which have shown up at other convoy protests.
“We continue to reiterate that people have a fundamental right to protest, but it is our strong and shared view that hate speech and symbols are unacceptable,” Councillors Joe Cressy, Mike Layton and Kristyn Wong-Tam wrote.
“As soon as this protest crosses a line when there are hate speech or symbols, harassment, or interferes with hospital and health care operations, or access to health care it cannot be tolerated. Our city has a duty to protect those who live and work here.”
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A police vehicle blocks off a road near Queen’s Park in downtown Toronto. (Joshua Freeman /CP24)
