BY BECKY ELLIS
TORONTO — Twelve hundred people demanded entry to the Ontario parliament building here on June 15, saying they should be allowed to address the provincial legislature about poverty and homelessness in the city.
The protesters were calling for the introduction of affordable housing schemes, the abolition of the Safe Streets Act which criminalises pan-handlers and windscreen washers, and a reversal of a 21% cut to welfare.
Demonstrators were particularly incensed by the 20 homeless people who have died due to exposure in the past year and the two homeless people murdered while they slept in the past month on the streets of Toronto.
The demonstration was sponsored by the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP), a Toronto-based group of activists including homeless people, people on welfare, students, trade unionists and other anti-poverty activists. A wide range of groups participated in the demonstration including trade unions, student groups, and tenant rights organisations. Hundreds of the protesters were homeless people and windscreen washers.
At the beginning of the demonstration John Clarke, a leader of OCAP, told the crowd of authorities' refusal to allow entry. "The victims of poverty and homelessness will not be allowed in the chamber where laws against them have been enacted", he said.
Protesters then began to push at the police barricades chanting "Our house, our house" and "Stop the war on the poor, make the rich pay". Three hundred riot police on horses retaliated by charging repeatedly at the crowd and beating and pepper-spraying protesters.
The demonstration then turned into one of the most violent confrontations between police and protesters in Ontario's history. Police and protesters battled for over an hour, ending in a total of 18 arrests, 15 injured police, and dozens of injured protesters. Ambulances refused to enter the site to treat protesters. Pictures and videotapes of the protest show police beating protesters lying on the ground with batons.
June 15 was not only the first day of the legislature's new session, but also the day the Safe Streets Act comes into effect. The act makes windscreen washing and "aggressive" panhandling a criminal offence and gives police the right to jail homeless people at their own discretion.
The province's poor have been subjected to concerted attacks since the Conservatives were first elected in 1995. Upon election, welfare was immediately cut by 21% (and has been frozen ever since), and social programs have been slashed. Rent control has been overturned, women's shelters closed, and all funding to public housing stopped.
Toronto now has the highest per capita rate of homelessness in North America. The largest growing segment of the homeless population are women and their children, many of whom are escaping abusive male partners.
OCAP hopes that this demonstration will help to rebuild the movement against Premier Mike Harris and the Conservatives. The movement reached a peak on October 25, 1996 when Toronto was shut down for a one-day general strike, followed by a demonstration of 125,000 people.