Who Keeps Us Safe? with Desmond Cole
Desmond Cole, journalist, organizer, activist and author of The Skin We're In, provides a thoughtful analysis on where the Defund the Police movement is right now. It is hard to hear at times, but incredibly constructive. It is more of a discussion of where we need to go than lamenting on past political choices.
Although, we do start off by asking Desmond how he feels about Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow's decision to aware the Toronto Police Services every penny they asked for. Considering the article he wrote for Ricochet right after the election, we weren't all that surprised by his answer.
Find out if he thinks enough was done between Chow's victory and the first budget, and what needs to be done next.
We also discuss the harm police do, both with their violence and the suppression of tactics used to keep power in check. It specifically includes just some the stories of the many young men in Canada harmed at the hand of Police, like Devon Fowlin and Sammy Yatim.
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Transcript
Greetings friends. My name is Jess McLean and I'm here to provide you with some blueprints
Speaker:of disruption. This weekly podcast is dedicated to amplifying the work of activists, examining
Speaker:power structures and sharing the success stories from the grassroots. Through these discussions,
Speaker:we hope to provide folks with the tools and the inspiration they need to start to dismantle
Speaker:capitalism, decolonize our spaces and bring about the political revolution that we know
Speaker:we need. Who keeps us safe? Is it the police? No. We know that's not true. We know the harm
Speaker:that the police constantly cause to our communities and we're used to seeing lines of cops at our
Speaker:demonstrations, evicting encampments, supporting illegal evictions and generally opposing our
Speaker:every effort to bring change and support to the most vulnerable members of our communities.
Speaker:Those same communities are often the most victimized by police. We keep us safe. However, there's
Speaker:a lot of work to do before we see any genuine defunding of the police in our municipalities
Speaker:or better yet, abolishment. Look no further than Toronto City Hall who recently caved against
Speaker:Toronto Police lobbying efforts to increase their budget even further than what was already
Speaker:being increased. In this episode, Jess and I talked to Desmond Cole and learned so much
Speaker:about exactly what work needs to be done. Desmond has so much knowledge to share and he challenges
Speaker:us in exactly the way we need to be challenged in order to bring effective change. I cannot
Speaker:emphasize enough how much I took away from this episode and I'm sure you will agree. Let's
Speaker:listen in. Hello there, Desmond. Can you introduce yourself to the audience, please? Thank you.
Speaker:My name is Desmond Nicole. I'm a journalist, author, and activist based here in Toronto.
Speaker:We're really excited to have you on the show for a bunch of reasons. We often lean on your
Speaker:work to do some of the stuff that we do, but we know that you are very versed in Toronto
Speaker:politics, in particular the efforts to defund the police and hold politicians accountable.
Speaker:We especially kind of went over your article that you wrote immediately following Olivia
Speaker:Chow's Merrill victory last year. And we can safely say you went in eyes wide open. I think
Speaker:there's a lot of people that have seen developments happen and they are heartbroken and shocked.
Speaker:But rereading that article again today, you know, you mentioned police 15 times. I did
Speaker:a search of crime just to see. You were pretty critical of where she might land in terms of
Speaker:police. And I think I had forgotten about that because I was surprised when Olivia Chow capitulated.
Speaker:the complete funding request for Toronto Police, even though I think I've spent the last few
Speaker:months complaining about everything she does. I'm often pretty biased there. How do you look
Speaker:back at that article now? Do you feel vindicated, or do you feel like perhaps she even fell short
Speaker:of your expectations? Well, first of all, Jessa and Santiago, thank you so much for having
Speaker:me. That's a pleasure to be with both of you. No, I don't feel vindicated. I think vindication
Speaker:comes maybe with like a sense of relief that something turned out the way that you hoped
Speaker:or thought that it would. And there isn't really any of that here. It's always really important
Speaker:to set our expectations in a fair way. And I did talk in that piece a lot about Olivia Chow's
Speaker:record coming into, you know, becoming the mayor of Toronto earlier this year. And I think her
Speaker:record... Let me say first of all that there probably isn't a politician that I can think
Speaker:of off the top of my head. There isn't a person that I can think of who would have a chance
Speaker:of leading the city of Toronto, who wouldn't do most of the things that Olivia Chow is doing
Speaker:right now. I expected her to do these things not only because of her record and her past,
Speaker:but because of the climate of the city of Toronto and because of the kind of horizon. for what
Speaker:I think is possible for somebody leading our city right now. And so in that regard, maybe
Speaker:I would attribute less of this to Olivia Chow individually, and more of it to the trajectory
Speaker:of the city, and more importantly, our council. So there are 26 people, including Olivia Chow
Speaker:on city council. And from what I saw, 21 of them, I believe, voted in favor of a $20 million
Speaker:increase for the police, rather than I think the $7.5 million that was put on the table
Speaker:by Chow at the beginning of February. So if she had voted against the increase, the full
Speaker:$20 million versus $7.5, it would have still passed easily. And what would have happened
Speaker:is you have a mayor who looks on her first budget— like on a major issue, she's out of sync with
Speaker:the rest of the city. Now, that is not to excuse Olivia Chow, one inch. That's not what I'm
Speaker:saying. What I'm saying is that asking her to sweep in and turn on its head the city that
Speaker:we've existed in for a very long time now was never realistic. So I didn't expect Olivia
Speaker:Chow to come in and immediately challenge the police. I did think that her offering 7.5 million
Speaker:versus 20. was better. A smaller increase to the police is better than a larger one. I would
Speaker:prefer a reduction of police budgets, of course. I wonder if she proposed the 7.5 million to
Speaker:appease some of her critics, knowing that she was always going to vote for the full amount,
Speaker:or if really the complete full court press by the police association in Toronto changed her
Speaker:mind and made her feel like it wouldn't be a politically safe move. to give them less than
Speaker:they asked for. I don't really know. It doesn't matter though, because the Council of Toronto
Speaker:wanted that increase. The increase was moved by Amber Morley, who a lot of people were telling
Speaker:me anyway was going to be a progressive breath of fresh air. And I mean, I- We maybe you guys
Speaker:caught Amber Morley earlier this year inviting people to come skating with her and the cops
Speaker:This is the city that we live in like progressives Are nevertheless terrified of any real challenge
Speaker:To police power or I say terrified as if I know what's in their hearts I don't know if they're
Speaker:terrified or if they just believe in it Maybe they believe that the police are going to solve
Speaker:all of our issues Maybe they believe that there's no alternative in toronto policing Olivia Chow,
Speaker:and it would have been unrealistic for people to think that she could somehow strong arm
Speaker:what would she have needed. Nine more votes or so that she didn't get of people who just
Speaker:because the mayor told them so would automatically change their vote on. the most contentious
Speaker:issue in Toronto politics, that was never going to happen. So this is a loss for everybody.
Speaker:It's a loss for people who believed in Olivia Chow. It's a loss for those of us who didn't
Speaker:believe she was gonna do anything, but still want dramatic changes in policing. It's a loss
Speaker:for the city of Toronto that has capitulated another huge chunk of its budget to the cops.
Speaker:It's a loss for black and indigenous and racialized and poor people, because this gives the cops
Speaker:more resources and an emboldened kind of spirit to harm us. No one has won here except the
Speaker:police lobby and the police mob itself. And they've been lining up wins, haven't they Desmond?
Speaker:I mean, not just a budget, but it feels like they have become the go-to solution for everything
Speaker:in the city. And now that you mention it, it did enter my mind that this was always the
Speaker:planned because we go back to it often, but that first tweet that she sent out following
Speaker:October 7th was... direct call to Toronto police and she's kind of continued that need for policing
Speaker:in response to protest, right? There was the other motion that Toronto council passed recently
Speaker:that they're going to earmark money to surveil and monitor protests as though it's a criminal
Speaker:element. And your article is full of, yeah, like you say, her history of using police as
Speaker:a community solution. And to be honest, we've never really heard her talk about defunding
Speaker:the police, but... No, and so sorry to cut you, but why anybody would have thought that when
Speaker:it's never been part of her past or any mainstream politicians past? That's what I'm kind of wondering.
Speaker:I think it was the last capitulation that really pissed me off because it meant like all of
Speaker:that shit. Like they spent some of their budget trying to get more money and going in the face
Speaker:of a lot of the efforts of the people that we call on the show and... that we believe in.
Speaker:And so it was really frustrating to give them that extra W. And I don't know what that $12.5
Speaker:million actually does for police. It almost seemed like a matter of principle that they
Speaker:had to win that. And then she gave it to them, just like she gave Ford Ontario Place. And
Speaker:I know like we're not opening that because we could go on about that forever. But I feel
Speaker:like there's no fight. there. So I want to ask you in your article, you make it clear that,
Speaker:you know, it should be business as usual for organizers. There should be no relenting. There
Speaker:should be no softball playing, because obviously we can't rely on single politicians to change
Speaker:what I'd like to get into later in that, that Toronto mentality that seems impervious to
Speaker:the defund the police movement. It's, I think it's still a little bit surprising. Do you
Speaker:think enough pressure was put on her in the few months between her victory and the first
Speaker:big budget? Do you feel like people took your advice? Or were some folks maybe sitting back
Speaker:and giving her the space and she didn't feel enough pressure? It's a good question. I mean,
Speaker:how do we answer, right? Toronto is a very big place with a lot of different interests. I
Speaker:think... that there was a lot of pressure brought to bear on Olivia Chow by a lot of people who
Speaker:have been saying for years that policing is not going to solve our problems, policing is
Speaker:going to exacerbate our problems, policing is itself a harm. Those, I think, voices have
Speaker:become more educated, more numerous, more vocal in the last several years, and I think that's
Speaker:good. The police union put up a very serious counter-campaign to scare everyone. Yeah, they
Speaker:tried really hard to scare people. And, you know, just imagine your worst nightmare if
Speaker:you don't give us any every penny that we asked for. And let's remember what we would have
Speaker:been, I don't know, grateful for if Olivia Chow had stuck to what she said in the beginning
Speaker:and if Consul had somehow gone along with her, which I don't think was ever going to happen,
Speaker:is still an increase to the police budget. we were always looking at an increase in 2024. Let's start there. I think you're right, Jess,
Speaker:that it bring up what's been happening with the massive organizing and mobilizing for Palestine. And that happened very early on into Olivia Chastainer.
Speaker:And so for those who were still holding on to hope that she was somehow gonna be different on many of these issues,
Speaker:I think she dispelled that right away by kind of doing the, you know, je téléphone à la police meme and... literally
Speaker:being like, you all are in the streets, we're gonna have to see what the police think about
Speaker:this. And she's kind of stuck to that. She tried to backtrack a little bit when she got the
Speaker:biggest backlash probably of her political career for doing that. But this is how institutional
Speaker:forces work. My question is this, I live downtown in Toronto. Were people in neighborhoods outside
Speaker:of downtown, were they calling? for the defunding of the police as loudly as some of the people
Speaker:around the neighborhoods that I'm in. Were they doing that? If not, why not? Were we a united
Speaker:city making this call? Or was this coming from a lot of the pockets that actually were a big
Speaker:part of Olivia Chow's base of support? Whereas she thought, yeah, maybe some of you loud downtown
Speaker:people are angry about a police increase, but generally people aren't going to be too fussed
Speaker:about this. A lot of people voted for her in other parts of the city. Maybe she thought
Speaker:they're just not going to they're not going to push back on me too much if I don't do this.
Speaker:I think where organizing continues to fail in the city is having that citywide response,
Speaker:mobilization, coordination, talking to one another. acting together. If you have the ability to
Speaker:go downtown on a Wednesday morning and afternoon to disrupt what's happening on budget day and
Speaker:make yourself visible, that's good. I'm not dissing that. I've been that person. I am that
Speaker:person many times over the years. Not everybody can do that. Not everybody who, say, lives
Speaker:in Malvern can come downtown for nine in the morning on a weekday. and make their presence
Speaker:felt. And I think that sometimes because a lot of the people who do that see and know and
Speaker:work together, they forget about the entire rest of the city that isn't going to voice
Speaker:its displeasure in the ways that we are, or is not. part of this conversation in the same
Speaker:way. I saw people putting out petitions, I shared even some of them, to do things like freeze
Speaker:the police budget. I think the police budget should be massively slashed, but I still supported
Speaker:people who called for a freeze. I don't agree with a freeze ideologically, but because I'm
Speaker:like, a freeze to what end? We have to say what the purpose of freezing the police budget is,
Speaker:and if we believe that the police are causing as much harm as they are, a freeze is nowhere
Speaker:near the correct response, right? but I still support those things when they're out there
Speaker:because I want to see us moving in the right direction. But like how many of the thousands
Speaker:of people who signed that petition live outside of the downtown core and are not on social
Speaker:media every 10 minutes? Again, I'm not critiquing that. Who would I be to critique that? I'm
Speaker:on social media a lot myself. I live downtown, but. Is there a mass mobilization of people?
Speaker:Or is there a really loud, visible cadre of people? And we think that should be enough
Speaker:and we're surprised when it isn't. I guess that's kind of what I would ask. I think Olivia Chow
Speaker:was always gonna go this way. Council was definitely always gonna go this way. And certainly the
Speaker:police repression since October 7th made it probably more likely that Olivia Chow was too
Speaker:afraid and others too afraid to stand up to the police. What you're talking about there
Speaker:reminds me a lot of... a conversation we had during the election with Chloe Brown, right,
Speaker:about the importance of connecting outside of the downtown core, outside of, you know, what
Speaker:we typically see on social media. And I admit that I haven't been thinking about that as
Speaker:much as of late. And so I don't really... I guess the question is, how do we begin that
Speaker:process of connecting our movements more with the different areas of Toronto? I think of...
Speaker:because there's a lot to be done, especially in places like Scarborough, for example, right?
Speaker:There's a lot that needs to be done and Scarborough issues are just not anyone's priority right
Speaker:now when they really should be. And I guess, how do we go about... that change? Well, we
Speaker:certainly don't do it by waking up a month before the budget happens and being like, oh my God,
Speaker:we've got to stop this increase from happening. We could be working on that for the next many
Speaker:years before we saw any more fruit. But it is, the word connecting Santiago is I think correct
Speaker:because there are already people out there who are doing this work in Scarborough, in North
Speaker:York, in North Etobicoke, right? There are already people who are doing this. And I just think
Speaker:that there's like a deep disconnect and a lack of coordination. So I don't know, like. Where's
Speaker:the canvassing? Where are the door knocking campaigns where we actually go into communities,
Speaker:not during an election to support a candidate, and knock on people's doors and say, we're
Speaker:really concerned about the cops? Where are the events at councilors public events where we
Speaker:go not just to disrupt, but to... challenge their own supporters to be like, why do you
Speaker:support a police increase? Why don't you care? Or why aren't you more concerned? Why aren't
Speaker:you doing something about all the harm that the police are causing? The critique that I
Speaker:think I'm making here is that a lot of what I see happening, which ends up being visible,
Speaker:is initiated online and it stays there. And I think we're not gonna get to level two until...
Speaker:We are more out publicly in those ways, challenging, having conversations, building trust with people,
Speaker:and asking people to join us. Because again, you can make visibility online. You can gather.
Speaker:a few thousand people who are quite active in this city, again, many of whom are active in
Speaker:a very particular way downtown. And when there's something going on, like a budget, you can
Speaker:get them to make a lot of noise and they can even get some media attention. Because the
Speaker:media also loves to stay downtown and doesn't actually want to go and ask people in North
Speaker:Etobicoke how they feel about the police budget, if it doesn't have to. That's what I want to
Speaker:see. I want to see canvassing. I want to see relationship building and signing people up
Speaker:in different membership organizations. so that they are actually working on these things.
Speaker:The way that Jane Finch actually against poverty has been doing for like 20 years. The way that
Speaker:groups in Scarborough who were fighting against a closed circuit television cameras have been
Speaker:doing. Like I want us to be able to expand and connect and... Think about this less as a one-off,
Speaker:we need to stop this thing from happening, and a long, slow grind of building up public capacity.
Speaker:Yeah, I remember that was something, a lot of memories are coming back now of things from
Speaker:the election cycle. We were talking about how this perhaps could be the opportunity to stop
Speaker:being reactive and start actually... planning moves, like instead of having to constantly
Speaker:be responding to all the horrible things that are happening around us, we can actually try
Speaker:and, you know, change something as opposed to stop something. And I feel like that feeling
Speaker:has dissipated quite a bit. Well, it's so frustrating to hear, you're right, but it's frustrating
Speaker:to hear slow grind when it feels like an emergency. I totally get what you're talking about, making
Speaker:those connections. Some movements have been around longer and have built networks. The
Speaker:climate change movement seems particularly well at going local, deep canvassing, the Workers
Speaker:Action Center and whatnot. But I guess when it's an issue that's just so pressing, I mean,
Speaker:you shared that CBC article not that long ago. And what does it say? spectacularly unrelenting
Speaker:rise in fatal police shootings. I mean, I think Alberta was the most shocking there. It was
Speaker:the increases were abominable. I mean, not every province experienced it, but it was right across
Speaker:the country. And that was just the fatal shootings. The records there were awful. The article,
Speaker:I'll link it in the show notes, it tries to downplay it a lot. I wish perhaps Desmond,
Speaker:they had called you for this one. because, you know, they're, oh, but 70% of them were armed,
Speaker:but that means 30% of those folks were unarmed, 30%. And there's no records on the race of
Speaker:most of the people shot by police because they just don't make the news. And, you know, people
Speaker:are dying after wellness checks and calls for just, you know, unwanted people on properties
Speaker:and whatnot. And it just seems like so much as... There's so much evidence out there, so
Speaker:much bad press for police. Even the article mentions like it's a disdain for police. And
Speaker:that's why these, there's confrontations between civilians and police is because we have no
Speaker:more respect for them. Um, that's a bit of circular logic, but you know, everybody seems to be.
Speaker:Aware of the defund the police movement, but they're also aware of the harms police cause.
Speaker:I know there's a lot of people out there that still have the law and order. goggles on, but
Speaker:I feel like there's been a lot of movement there. And I'm just wondering how, other than the
Speaker:deep canvassing, like what, what do you think is stopping most people from looking at defunding
Speaker:the police as a serious issue? Or some people, or as a possibility even, like that's a hurdle
Speaker:we have to cross with a lot of people. Like they just cannot fathom a world without. police
Speaker:like it's just not in their realm of imagination. And they laugh it up, but you present these
Speaker:numbers like that article or the amount of funds. Like, I don't think people realize, we did
Speaker:an episode on it a while ago, but like some municipalities are spending like 50% of their
Speaker:money on cops. And what are they resistant to? Why is there no appetite for this yet? despite
Speaker:all of the evidence before people. Right, so first of all, there is a huge appetite for
Speaker:it and it isn't organized. That's what I'm trying to say. There's a huge, huge appetite for this.
Speaker:So for example, don't you think it's weird that even though spaces like Toronto Community Housing
Speaker:are among the most policed spaces in the city of Toronto, that there aren't all of these
Speaker:housing organized groups or tenants groups who are speaking up about policing? Like, isn't
Speaker:that odd? Wouldn't they be the most likely people to speak out since they're experiencing some
Speaker:of the harshest outcomes? It is out there. These sentiments are, but they're not organized.
Speaker:And I think even among people who are experiencing things like this, there might sometimes be
Speaker:a sentiment that what we wish we could have out of change for policing is not really possible
Speaker:and achievable. Let me go back. This issue of... the kind of expanding fatal police activity
Speaker:in Canada in the last couple of years, right? So I brought up that CBC article as well so
Speaker:I could look at it again while we were talking. And it's 85 people, at the time that the article
Speaker:was written, 85 people in Canada last year shot by the police, 41 of them fatally shot. It's
Speaker:really hard to get complete numbers. And remember, shot does not mean beaten to death, does not
Speaker:mean died in custody of unknown causes. I didn't even think of that. Well, the kind of breadth
Speaker:of police violence is so expansive that sometimes it's actually hard to conceive of it. So I
Speaker:wanna say first off that these numbers give us an indication of how bad things are, but
Speaker:the vast, vast majority of people who are harmed by the police are not shot and are not killed.
Speaker:And I think part of why we're not where we would like to be is because we live in a country
Speaker:whose biggest reaction ever against the police came after a police killing of a black person
Speaker:in a different country. The George Floyd era is over, y'all. It's over. But we thought when
Speaker:it was happening... that something was changing in this country. Something was changing. Our
Speaker:awareness was changing. A certain level of outrage and urgency was definitely growing and has
Speaker:been growing in this country. I am happy that has happened and I don't want to discredit
Speaker:it. I think Robin Maynard said it really well when she said we went from Black Lives Matter
Speaker:as a slogan, as a rallying cry, to defund the police, a specific policy demand. And that's
Speaker:when the police were like, ah, shit, we gotta do something about this because Black Lives
Speaker:Matter is bad enough, but now they're actually calling for something that we absolutely cannot
Speaker:afford to see. And you see how across Canada, the police have been actually lying and saying
Speaker:that they have been defunded, which none of them have. And they say, well, we need more
Speaker:money because you see they defunded us and then now there's all these bad things happening.
Speaker:Now, it's not true, but they've used that rhetoric. But let me go back to George Floyd. People
Speaker:in Canada know George Floyd's name, they know George Floyd's story. Many of them watched
Speaker:the last 10 minutes of George Floyd's life. I can't watch that video, I will never watch
Speaker:that video. I don't need to watch it. But how many people in Canada who know what happened
Speaker:to George Floyd can name anyone in their own country who's been killed by the police in
Speaker:recent years? A lot of them can't name a single person. Yet we were led to believe that the
Speaker:outrage over what happened to George Floyd was somehow gonna translate into us completely
Speaker:overhauling our local policing systems. That is not realistic. The amount of, so there was
Speaker:like an awakening and it was a big step forward and maybe. we have taken for granted that was
Speaker:going to get us a lot further ahead than it has. And maybe we also didn't calculate the
Speaker:extreme backlash, which I'm describing now. which the police have engaged in since all
Speaker:of this Black Lives Matter, defund the police, abolish the police stuff has been going on.
Speaker:Maybe we didn't calculate that the police were not going to sit there and allow us to dismantle
Speaker:them. They worked very hard to build their fucking paramilitary empire, and they're not just going
Speaker:to give it up because some civilians are angry with them. So I think that's part of it, Jessa,
Speaker:is that the sensationalism of watching George Floyd be murdered. The grotesqueness of thinking
Speaker:that watching a person die is like an educational awakening experience when what it actually
Speaker:is, is it's just titillation. It doesn't actually inform the mind. It doesn't honor all of the
Speaker:people around you who have had things happen to them who you're ignoring because you watched
Speaker:George Floyd die and think it's horrible. And so that was only going to get us so far. And
Speaker:it's gotten us as far now as I think that it can. And we have to be at a place in our country
Speaker:when we know the names of people who have been killed here, but also that we can appreciate
Speaker:the broader scope of policing that isn't just about murdering somebody. I mean, if you go
Speaker:to the Special Investigation Unit website for Ontario, it's almost daily that there's a report.
Speaker:an update, a decision about police harming someone in the province of Ontario. Sometimes there
Speaker:are multiple reports and releases in a day about police brutality. Almost none of those ever
Speaker:even make it to court, let alone the news. let alone the news, but let me go a level deeper
Speaker:now, because I said, you don't have to get shot, right? And you're like, ah, I'm not thinking
Speaker:about that. Okay, so you don't have to get shot to have an SIU report. You do have to get shot,
Speaker:killed, severely injured by the SIU's definition, which is like very narrow definition. So like
Speaker:the police have to break a bone in your body, or you have to lose a limb. The definition
Speaker:of serious injury under the SIU is very narrow. And there's been a lot of cases of people who
Speaker:have been hurt real bad by the police, and it never even warranted an SIU investigation.
Speaker:So not only do the vast majority of people not get killed by the police to be hurt by them,
Speaker:the vast majority of people who get hurt by the police, the vast, vast majority, don't
Speaker:even have their situation investigated because it's not deemed to be serious enough. Let me
Speaker:give you an example. I know I'm talking a lot here. You just put a lot on the table for me,
Speaker:Jessa. The story of a 15-year-old boy, okay, in Jane and Finch recently, who was punched
Speaker:repeatedly in the face by a Toronto police officer. This one did go to the Special Investigations
Speaker:Unit. And after reviewing it, the SIU decided that they were going to clear the police officer
Speaker:who punched a 15-year-old boy six times in his face and head. Offhand, do you know what the
Speaker:clear rate is? Oh, in my book, which came out in 2020, I did a tabulation over several years.
Speaker:I think the number was 94. percent, but I would have to look. It is well above 90 percent.
Speaker:It's well above 90 percent. The police will tell you, well, just looking at the percentage
Speaker:of police who are cleared doesn't tell you anything. Like, there isn't an expected number of cops
Speaker:who should be getting charged. I would argue that any civilian who punches someone six times
Speaker:in the face is going to be charged. It doesn't mean that they're going to be convicted of
Speaker:a crime. It just means that it's going to be tried in court. going down to this 15 year
Speaker:old boy, if you read... The SIU report on this, or you read a news article about it, I've got
Speaker:one up right here. Let me describe how the SIU justifies not charging a police officer who
Speaker:punched a 15-year-old six times in his face. SIU Director Joseph Martino looked into whether
Speaker:the six punches the officer landed on the boy during the arrest were legally justified. He
Speaker:found the officer was within his rights when he punched the boy the first three times. As
Speaker:for the three additional punches, Martino said, strictly speaking, I do not think it was objectively
Speaker:necessary to strike those additional blows. Unquote. However, he noted that while he accepts
Speaker:that one or more of the punches were the cause to the serious injuries the boy suffered, quote,
Speaker:I am unable to conclude with any confidence that the officer comported himself other than
Speaker:within the limits of the criminal law throughout their engagement. As such, there is no basis
Speaker:for proceeding with charges in this case. What a farce. That reminds me of when Sammy Ateem
Speaker:got shot, I think, nine times by James Forsillo, and a court said, the first few shots that
Speaker:you shot at this boy alone on a streetcar were fine. It's the second volley of shots that
Speaker:we had a problem with. And they ended up convicting James Forsillo of attempted murder, even though
Speaker:he actually killed Sammy Ateem by shooting him. There is always an out for the police. We have
Speaker:to figure out a way to engage people in conversations that say this kind of violence is never going
Speaker:to stop. It's not going to stop as long as there are police existing the way that they do today,
Speaker:and that we have the right to say no more of this. We have the right to ask for and demand
Speaker:something else. And I think we need to leave behind the sensationalism. And the energy,
Speaker:not the energy, the energy of the George Floyd time was good. But we need to leave behind
Speaker:that kind of like, oh my God, something's about to happen right now. Like, this is the change.
Speaker:Like we are seeing it right now because the whole world's talking about this. That's where
Speaker:the slow grind stuff we have to get back to. That was an awakening and it set us a lot further
Speaker:forward than we've been. for many years as a country in general. But until we are naming
Speaker:the people in our own communities who this is happening to, until we're getting as angry
Speaker:about it happening locally as we did for one person safely far away in another country,
Speaker:until we're willing. Do you know that when we ask people to just do a basic thing, like call
Speaker:their counselor. You know how afraid people are, guys, to sometimes pick up the phone and
Speaker:have to have a conversation just like with a staff member in a counselor that they represent
Speaker:because challenging authority in general is so hard. And that's what I wanted to say ultimately,
Speaker:Jessa, is that the reason we're not there yet is because challenging authority is like, for
Speaker:a reason, one of the most difficult things you can ask people to do, even if it's making a
Speaker:phone call. And a phone call ain't gonna get us defunding of the police. And that's why
Speaker:there's so much more work to be done. Yeah, no, even with a script, some folks, it's a
Speaker:hard barrier to get past. I wanna go back to something you said, though, and explore a possibility.
Speaker:We spoke of the physical harms that police do and that a lot of people are aware of. But
Speaker:I think perhaps one of the keys to Connecting the movements towards this end lies in the,
Speaker:maybe not so much now, but less obvious harms that police do, that are slowly becoming more
Speaker:obvious, I think, to organizers. In particular, the examples that we can provide for the pro-Palestinian
Speaker:movement and the use of police at York University, showing up for lectures. And you know, we posted
Speaker:video from Anna Lippmann. showing just walls of police being used to direct marches to block
Speaker:people. Just what most, the Avenue Road example, those folks described like 50 cop cars showing
Speaker:up to push them off of an overpass. And people can go back and listen to the details of just
Speaker:how many police resources were used for. Although people were physically harmed there, it's—
Speaker:that infringement on our democratic rights, right, and our ability to organize these other
Speaker:movements. So perhaps if we emphasize those harms as well, so it goes beyond the violence
Speaker:that we've already been exposed to, that we've already kind of reacted to and somewhat mobilized
Speaker:around, but that it doesn't become like that kind of niche issue, that it becomes intrinsically
Speaker:tied with the needs of all of the movements, because surely... Like overall, that we talk
Speaker:about the political revolution that we need, and the police will not let that happen either.
Speaker:Right? So they're there to protect not just capital, but power. The same power structures
Speaker:were desperate to dismantle themselves. So I think having movements understand that better,
Speaker:even if it's a selfish reason, you know, because my movement can't succeed with overfunded police,
Speaker:right, with a military police force here. We're never going to. be able to disrupt the way
Speaker:that we need to and can understand the urgency there that it becomes part of that really important
Speaker:need before we can really do a lot of other things that we need to do. I think that coming
Speaker:at this from any angle that relates to people's daily lives is valuable. I've been interested,
Speaker:for example, to see people who cycle through High Park start to get really mobilized against
Speaker:police in the last couple of years because the police started going into High Park and ignoring
Speaker:the cars speeding through the park and stopping cyclists to try and ticket them. And then kind
Speaker:of upping their presence in that neighborhood when the cyclists started organizing and being
Speaker:like, hey, you see how these guys are wasting our resources? The police got spiteful and
Speaker:just did it twice as hard, right? And this has actually like awakened a lot of people who
Speaker:I don't think were really paying attention when a lot of us have been talking about this for
Speaker:years. Now again. They are downtown, there's a specific demographic. I still want them to
Speaker:organize and mobilize and agitate, but that's one entry point. I'll give you another one.
Speaker:I was in Mississauga today, different city, same shit. On here Ontario street, there's
Speaker:a lot of construction going on. And as this construction's happening, I'm there early this
Speaker:morning, there's an area that's really torn up and a lot of machinery driving through.
Speaker:I counted six police cruisers in the stretch of three or four blocks. Police cruisers sitting
Speaker:in the middle of the median area with their lights on and flashing. Not an officer to be
Speaker:seen because they're just chilling in the car on their phones. They're not outside. They're
Speaker:not engaging with anyone. They're probably filming TikToks. Who knows what they're doing, man.
Speaker:This also is part of like... the mob, just giving people work because you control an entity that
Speaker:people in power cannot say no to. And I'm not saying the revolution's gonna happen when people
Speaker:get mad at cops in construction sites. I'm just saying that there's a thousand different avenues
Speaker:through which I think we can start to have these conversations. I will say though, the most
Speaker:important avenue and the one that I think takes the longest amount of time to start working
Speaker:on people on, even if they have some reservations about the police, is that these issues are
Speaker:always personalized. So what about you when you have a problem? How are you going to feel
Speaker:if the police don't come to your house and deal with your issue? And as trite as that is, it
Speaker:works. People might see 50 cops coming to Avenue Road to go after some pro-Palestinian demonstrators
Speaker:and say, what a waste of resources, that's so wrong. But they're not gonna get all the way
Speaker:to therefore take away their budgets without something more personal, something more internalized
Speaker:and reflective and thoughtful. That's not again, reaction to something so sensational. And I
Speaker:think where we have to start to go with all of these conversations is, why are the people
Speaker:sitting in those cars on Here Ontario? with their lights flashing, why are they armed?
Speaker:Why do they have a license to kill someone? What does that have to do with their presence
Speaker:in a construction area? Because do you know what? If they're there for visibility, I support
Speaker:that. And I would like someone who is not armed with a license to kill to provide visibility
Speaker:for traffic in a construction site. I want someone to do that work, just not them. Why are they
Speaker:in our schools? with our children as they are all over the greater Toronto area and all across
Speaker:this country. Why are they in our schools? If there is an issue with dangerous behaviour
Speaker:in our schools, I want someone to deal with it. But you know who it should be? A teacher,
Speaker:a principal, somebody who is there to work with and build relationships with kids. We successfully
Speaker:made that argument in Toronto. And of all of the big campaigns in Canada against police
Speaker:in recent years. I'd say that the campaign to get cops out of schools has been one of the
Speaker:more successful ones. We've seen it in Hamilton, we've seen it in Waterloo region, we've seen
Speaker:it in a lot of places where now the police are trying to get back in, but the fact is that
Speaker:we've gotten them out in many places and that's not because There was some sensational single
Speaker:event that the whole country started talking about. It's because people went into individual
Speaker:schools and talked to people who have had negative experiences with the police. They talked to
Speaker:undocumented people who are like, I actually can't go to school if that cop's there. And
Speaker:they formed alliances and relationships and campaigns that were local to a specific place.
Speaker:Right? And this is why I bring up George Floyd, because something that happens in Minneapolis
Speaker:isn't going to create local organizing in Ottawa or Hamilton or anywhere else. So challenging
Speaker:why people in our society need to have lethal force, why they need to have the weapons that
Speaker:allow them to use that lethal force. and why they should be in our midst in all of these
Speaker:places where someone else should be doing the job that they're doing. That's where I feel
Speaker:like that's maybe like the level that we need to move towards now. And for me, there's a
Speaker:level of frustration there in how much more difficult it is when... There's so many examples,
Speaker:right, that we can pull of police, whether it's... the Avenue Road, whether it's all of these
Speaker:recent protests, we can pull a million examples of police working against the movement. And
Speaker:then I think back to last year when there was the sensationalization around the quote unquote
Speaker:violence on the TTC, right? When there was several high profile incidents and then the police,
Speaker:there was an increased police presence as a result of that and... A lot of people were
Speaker:justifying that, right? A lot of people... That was not a moment where we were succeeding in
Speaker:making the arguments, even though it wasn't making it... It never made anybody safer. And
Speaker:there was... The whole thing, the whole supposed wave of violence was really just media spotlighting
Speaker:high profile incidents and failing to show that transit still remains pretty much the safest
Speaker:way to get around the city. Right. So I think, yeah, when it comes to those narratives, we
Speaker:often don't do a really good job there. And I guess I guess my concern is, like, how do
Speaker:we respond in those moments when there is something like, you know, the whole wave of the TTC thing?
Speaker:Like, how do we prepare people to be able to talk about this better? I think, though, it's
Speaker:hard in those sensational moments, though, I think. going back to what Desmond's talking
Speaker:about, that slow grind, is doing the work when people aren't being whipped up into a frenzy
Speaker:about crime. Because it is really hard to provide an alternative in those circumstances. Other
Speaker:ones are a little bit easier to make that transition. You know, the traffic in schools, lots of examples
Speaker:where police are definitely used when they shouldn't be. And I think providing those alternatives
Speaker:constantly, like Anna Jessup was on and she paired, you know, It's not just defund the
Speaker:police, it's also reinvesting in the community. And I think back to the 12.5 million extra
Speaker:that the police ended up getting from a reserve fund and wondering where that money would have
Speaker:gone anyway. Do people even have faith that the alternative will be done? That if we draw
Speaker:money from the police budget, we won't just give it to landlords as a tax rebate or that
Speaker:it will be invested in the necessary community supports to replace? policing services. And
Speaker:I don't see a lot of that because that's like the refuting that Desmond was talking about
Speaker:where what are you gonna do when a man tries to rob your house, right? Like that's the scenario
Speaker:they put you in and everyone's going, uh, I don't even know. I do wanna add then one maybe
Speaker:more difficult scenario. That was for Desmond. This is one that I feel that set us back quite
Speaker:a bit, which was, you know, the freedom convoy. And, you know, uh. We were very critical at
Speaker:the time of people who were on our side who were in support of the use of the police then.
Speaker:That was a moment, you know. People still kind of haven't let that one go. I guess, yeah,
Speaker:I don't want to not frame my question there, but... No, I mean, you're laying a lot of stuff
Speaker:out here. I think what you're both pointing to, first of all, is the idea that... The sensationalism
Speaker:works both ways. The sensationalism can capture people's attention in a moment and draw sympathy
Speaker:and concern and demands for change. But as with the spate of violent incidents reported on
Speaker:the TTC, it can also make people so afraid that they say, well, we need more police right now.
Speaker:How do you combat that? Well, I mean, you don't in the moment because if the entire media apparatus...
Speaker:You know, there was a story, okay, when those whole spate of incidents were being reported
Speaker:on, there was a story that a group of boys, young men, had swarmed, that was the word that
Speaker:was used in the media, swarmed a TTC driver. And I heard that story and I was really interested
Speaker:in it. And there was some follow-up reporting and some videos that came out because what
Speaker:these boys said happened. was that a TTC driver actually got out of the little booth that the
Speaker:driver has at the front of the bus, and he grabbed one of them. And it was when he grabbed one
Speaker:of them that the rest of them responded and went after him. So this idea of a bunch of
Speaker:boys just because they were having a ball, just swarming a driver, it sounds so scary to people,
Speaker:but it's not even what happened. But I would add that the level of education that it takes
Speaker:to get people to a point and the level of resolve, because it's not just a matter of information,
Speaker:the level of resolve and compassion and conviction to doing things in a different way that it
Speaker:takes to have people hear a story like that if it were true. Let's just say for no reason
Speaker:that they felt like, other than that they felt like it, a bunch of boys just swarm a TTC officer.
Speaker:It takes a lot of conviction of your principles to be able to say, I still don't want more
Speaker:police after hearing such an awful story. because I know that the police won't do anything in
Speaker:that situation to keep that driver safe. I do want that driver to be safe, but police aren't
Speaker:going to do it. That's a level of nuance and thoughtfulness that you don't just get by seeing
Speaker:a news story on television that makes you upset. So I think the urge to respond when things
Speaker:like these things, like this reporting happens, I understand it and I'm not saying we shouldn't
Speaker:respond. But we should maybe expect that that's gonna be a really hard time to have a conversation.
Speaker:And that's why doing this on the everyday is more important than just trying to ride a media
Speaker:cycle. But, oh gosh, I also wanted to say, well, you brought up the whole Emergencies Act, Ottawa
Speaker:stuff, which we... Let me just add a personal antidote before we go there, because it's that
Speaker:knee-jerk reaction to policing. for violence, for theft, for every crime that is committed.
Speaker:And I don't know where it starts because this is an anti-police household. Like my kids know
Speaker:I will not play police officer. I don't want to play. I will try to redirect all the time.
Speaker:They know, you know, but still, if my son does anything wrong, my daughter's first reaction
Speaker:is to go put him in prison. She does not hear this from me. I do not know where they get
Speaker:this from, but it's taught from obviously a very early age, like that there's a response
Speaker:to like isolate and the police will come in and take away bad people, strangers. This is
Speaker:not coming from me. She's not even in school yet. So it's coming from like some really basic
Speaker:television, kids' television. And it's just how we're taught from such a young age that
Speaker:this is the proper response to... conflicts is to use a police force, use an army response,
Speaker:use this violent authoritative response that usually requires someone building a jail somewhere.
Speaker:And that's really frustrating for me because I'm trying to undo that before she's even gone
Speaker:out into the world. And I'm falling behind already. So I can only imagine how then, you know, once
Speaker:you're at voting age, how long this has been. repeated and reinforced in your mind as the
Speaker:only way forward. So, sorry. Back to the emergency, Zach, but... Just a quick anecdote too. I can
Speaker:make it worse because I, you know, I have a brother who's six years younger than me, who
Speaker:I have... like, he knows how I think. He's listened to me all of this. And his fascination with
Speaker:guns makes him... like the police and like the military and now he's doing cadet stuff and
Speaker:he knows all the arguments. He's heard every argument of it. I know some socialist gun clubs.
Speaker:And I know I'm convincing, but like, it's like he will not hear it. Anyway, sorry. No, no,
Speaker:don't be sorry. Yeah, I find myself thinking about a woman whose son was actually killed
Speaker:in a subway stabbing. in March of last year. I was thinking of her too. And the boy who
Speaker:was killed in that attack was Gabriel Magalhaes, I hope I'm saying that correctly. And it was
Speaker:his mother who came out after he was stabbed fatally on the TTC and did this unbelievable
Speaker:interview on CBC, Andrea Magalhaes, where she said, you know, that it's so horrible to have
Speaker:to live with the loss of my child. And at the same time, I don't wanna see this being used
Speaker:to cause more harm in our communities. And I wanna read part of what she said. I am partly
Speaker:doing this for Gabriel. But really I'm doing it for change, for the one word change. What
Speaker:is it that you need from a conversation? We need to start talking about violence, the root
Speaker:causes of violence. I know it comes down to the social determinants of health. It's not
Speaker:an easy solution. We're not talking about adding more police force. I'm not talking about locking
Speaker:people up. We're talking about what are the root causes? Why is this happening? Why is
Speaker:a person homeless? Why is a person not being able to access care, access supports? This
Speaker:is a first world country. I came from a third world country, a very violent country, Brazil.
Speaker:Why did I move away? I wanted a better life. I'm a nurse. I had a clinical placement in
Speaker:mental health hospitals. Like as a society, I find we love to blame one person. We blame
Speaker:the individual. Sometimes we even say you blame the victim. And we like to put all the responsibility
Speaker:on one person and say it is your fault. You picked up the knife. Could this have been prevented
Speaker:somehow from the beginning? How was this person? Were they going to school? Did they have supports?
Speaker:Did they have a home? I don't know. I don't know anything. I cannot speak for this person.
Speaker:I can't even imagine. And as you say that, I think about the politicians who offer their
Speaker:support. That, okay, that is the time that I get angry. I'm going through phases, but that
Speaker:makes me angry, so angry because when they want votes, they promise everything. How about action?
Speaker:How about what really needs to be done? So empty words make me mad. Don't live with fear. I
Speaker:don't want to hide in my house. I don't want my kids to hide at home. But can't we please
Speaker:get people to listen? Can we make effective change so we can all be? We can all go outside
Speaker:and be able to breathe and be and feel safe. I feel like this is still an amazing city.
Speaker:We can do better. I wanna stay here where my baby was born. I wanna stay here for Lucas,
Speaker:but I would love to feel safer. That broke me. I cannot imagine how someone in that scenario,
Speaker:days after losing her child. found the ability to say these things publicly. That was very
Speaker:powerful for me. And I hold it in my heart, and I want to honor that she did that. And
Speaker:yet, even that kind of an appeal from a woman who went through it, who lived the thing that
Speaker:other people are afraid of, it is not enough. It is not enough. We have... People in our
Speaker:own families, as you say, Santiago, who know what the harm is, who have experienced it themselves,
Speaker:but who for their own reasons just might wanna see that harm visited on somebody else. This
Speaker:is a long struggle. It's a lifelong struggle, and no amount of one-off attention grabbing
Speaker:can, you know... It can't change the daily pace of life where we all have our own things that
Speaker:we're dealing with. We all have other things to attend to. We get taken out of the moment
Speaker:and when these things happen and we go, oh my God, but they themselves don't make lasting
Speaker:change. When it comes to what happened in Ottawa, we need to keep talking about what happened
Speaker:in Ottawa. for a very long time and studying it and thinking about it. And you know, some
Speaker:people will say like, okay, the left failed. I'm all for like, you know, having conversations
Speaker:about how shitty we all are. I think it's a little more complicated than sometimes just
Speaker:being like the left failed. I think we had bad analysis though. And I think if we want to
Speaker:start asking ourselves why it's so hard to defund and abolish the police, we need look no further
Speaker:than Ottawa. during the convoy when so many people who in other circumstances would say
Speaker:that they understand the need to get rid of the police. Like I said, what about when the
Speaker:bad people come to your neighborhood? This is a perfect example of that and seeing people
Speaker:who were like, yeah, get the police and get these people out of here. And I'll say too,
Speaker:some people said a lot of people said that the problem with the Emergencies Act, which the
Speaker:courts was used illegitimately by the Trudeau government. The problem with using those powers
Speaker:against the convoy, which was like a right-wing populist movement, is that that'll open the
Speaker:door for it to be used against all of us progressives in our organizing. I heard that over and over
Speaker:again. I take a perhaps slightly different view of it. I think that that's possible. It's possible
Speaker:that in the future the police could use, or sorry, the federal government could use the
Speaker:Emergencies Act against left-wing movements and demonstrators. But they don't seem to need
Speaker:it when they want to go into what's so-called territory. They don't seem to need it when
Speaker:black people demonstrating police brutality on the streets of Ottawa go and camp on the
Speaker:street as they did and were. uh, just mobbed and arrested en masse by the police in 2021.
Speaker:They haven't needed any emergency powers to clear the encampments in Toronto and Vancouver
Speaker:and Edmonton and Halifax. So I think we need a little bit deeper of an analysis there, because
Speaker:just the simple idea that they're coming for X now, so then they'll come for us one day,
Speaker:that is another example of a kind of sensationalist analysis that I don't think lends itself to
Speaker:kind of broader and deeper thinking about what's really wrong. What's really wrong is that When
Speaker:people come into your city and are demonstrating and setting off firecrackers and being incredibly
Speaker:disruptive, shitting in public parks and things like that, the impetus that maybe the cops
Speaker:are on our side now so we should use them to get rid of these people is really strong. So
Speaker:I keep going back to that. Was. lethal force required to deal with the convoy demonstrators
Speaker:in Ottawa, as annoying as some people felt that they were, was lethal force the correct response?
Speaker:Look, there were reports that people in that convoy demonstration had weapons. I don't doubt
Speaker:that that's likely. There were reports of people who kept their children in really deplorable
Speaker:conditions inside like trailers for days on end, because they just wanted to stay in Ottawa
Speaker:and see this thing out. They had tanks of propane, which they would not normally allow angry people
Speaker:to accumulate. But, so what, send in the Marines? Like this is my really difficult question for
Speaker:everybody. Does that mean that you can use any force necessary? to get rid of them. And when
Speaker:you justify that, good luck. Because what you have now done is, I don't think it's like,
Speaker:oh, you know, the Emergencies Act paves the way. It's more of a thing where you have to
Speaker:kind of ask the other, like the average person, what's a reasonable response to this? What's
Speaker:a reasonable non-lethal response to social disorder? to people disrupting and even maybe sometimes
Speaker:threatening other people. A lot of people were really quick to say, this isn't a demonstration.
Speaker:These aren't demonstrators. They shouldn't be called protesters. Well, are they? What are
Speaker:they, terrorists? What are they? Well, we hear that now, don't we? Like, I don't think it's
Speaker:so much sensationalist, though, to remind people that one day we will hopefully be in a position
Speaker:that we have mass movements in the street that are disruptive, that are working towards a
Speaker:certain end. And we absolutely can't feed into the narrative that police should just be able,
Speaker:or the army should just be able to remove us. Well, let me say something though, because
Speaker:Jessa, when that day comes, the law's not going to matter. That is... But you're still feeding
Speaker:into that narrative. I agree with you. I totally, totally agree with you. But when that day does
Speaker:come, no one's going to say, well, we can't crush them guys, because the last time we used
Speaker:those laws, people got really mad at us. You know what I mean? It's kind of a constant.
Speaker:I guess what I think about is when the police did come in full force, what did they
Speaker:saved a lot of the video from that day, from different, you know, far right live streamers
Speaker:who were making a big buck. live streaming every day, getting thousands of people around the
Speaker:world, some of them tens of thousands of people around the world to watch what was going on
Speaker:in Ottawa, and then they were there to witness the whole thing kind of get busted up when
Speaker:the huge mobilization of police came. So what did the police do? How did the police keep
Speaker:us all safe from these folks? Did they go in surgically and say, we heard that there are
Speaker:weapons here, we're confiscating them, we heard that there were people who committed violence,
Speaker:were arresting and charging them. No, they didn't do that. They did what the police, they did
Speaker:what police always do. They lined up and like the bullies that they are, they started using
Speaker:batons and hitting people in the legs, hitting people in the chest, hitting people in the
Speaker:face, pushing people to the ground, using their horses to brush into people and knock them
Speaker:to the ground. What did that do? Do you know what it did? It moved. people a few blocks
Speaker:away from the thing that they were worried about, the parliament building and the other government
Speaker:buildings in the area. And the night that they did that huge police surge, a big show of force
Speaker:to the public to say, see, we're getting rid of them. there were people in the streets a
Speaker:few blocks away from that same area doing the exact same thing that everybody had been complaining
Speaker:about. Setting off fireworks in the middle of the night and the fireworks falling on their
Speaker:sides and like shooting out and almost hitting people. You know, like pissing all over the
Speaker:streets, keeping people up way into the night. They did those things anyway, even after the
Speaker:huge police mobilization. Now, did that demoralize a bunch of people and make them go home? It
Speaker:did. Absolutely. But I think that they were validated too, by the way that the police responded,
Speaker:just to push them a few blocks down the road. And I'm not going to sit here and say that
Speaker:I know what the better response was, but that wasn't it. And a creative set of solutions
Speaker:needs to be proposed. And I think that those solutions have to come from the communities
Speaker:of people who were really being harmed by all of this disruptive activity. I think of what
Speaker:happened at Billings Bridge, I think it was called, right? The Battle of Billings Bridge,
Speaker:yes. There you go. Because, you know, they were trying to, the convoy folks were trying to
Speaker:establish another little kind of outpost. And think what, couple thousand people in the neighborhood,
Speaker:they kind of created a blockade. And they were like, y'all are not coming to set up in this
Speaker:neighborhood, get lost. And. This brings us to another fundamental problem of why things
Speaker:move so slowly, to your point, Jessa. And that is that people had to do that shit themselves.
Speaker:There's no one to call upon. This whole client customer service model of public safety where
Speaker:someone else is going to make your neighborhood safe so that you can turn your back on your
Speaker:community and not worry, that's not working. And so only when people showed up of their
Speaker:own accord were they actually able to stop this from happening. And I'll always remember...
Speaker:When I was watching the news one evening, an older woman was trying to give an interview
Speaker:to I think the CBC about all of the noise and the horns blaring in her neighborhood in Ottawa
Speaker:and how disruptive this was. And a guy from the convoy demonstration saw her talking to
Speaker:the camera and he came up behind her and he started disrupting her talking and being like,
Speaker:ah, the Trudeau government and the CBC, they're all screwing us. And she turned to the guy
Speaker:and she was like, The only people who are disrupting me are you. And she was probably like in her
Speaker:60s at least I would say. And you know, this man was younger than her. And I just thought
Speaker:it was such an interesting moment because he didn't know what to say to her. It's all cool
Speaker:to talk tough against the politicians, to shout at the media cameras and tell them that they're
Speaker:all fascists and all these things. But when a woman who lives in the community and has
Speaker:nothing to do with it except wanting to be left alone tells you you're ruining her day, this
Speaker:guy had nothing for her. And I thought, what if there were 10 of those women? What if there
Speaker:were 100 of them? Like, how would people respond differently if it was people in their own?
Speaker:kind of social circle coming up to them and being like, you know, you're really fucking
Speaker:this up by doing what you're doing, and you're really harming a lot of people around you by
Speaker:doing your demonstration in this way. And by the way, we all have to deal with that. A friend
Speaker:of mine told a story online recently, which I shared, where she talked about one of the
Speaker:pro-Palestine solidarity demonstrations being in the way of a vehicle where somebody was
Speaker:having a medical emergency. And luckily, that vehicle was near the front of where the demonstrators
Speaker:were. And The person was really agitated and one of the marshals went over them to them
Speaker:and was like, what's up? And they were like, look, somebody in this car is having a medical
Speaker:emergency. I need to get through here right now. And they were like, boom, into action,
Speaker:cleared everybody out of the way, got that person through. Let's not waste time talking about
Speaker:how lots of people think that they have an emergency and won't be let through. I get that public
Speaker:demonstration is what it is. It's always going to be what it is. And I don't take the argument
Speaker:that can always happen, so we shouldn't ever demonstrate or whatever. But the flexibility
Speaker:of people responding and being like, we don't want you having this emergency to have to sit
Speaker:here. We can do our demonstration and accommodate you. These kinds of things matter. And we should
Speaker:be thinking about them. And we should be looking at them from the other side as well. I almost
Speaker:don't even know what to say other than who keeps us safe, we keep us safe. We know we do. We
Speaker:do. And to Desmond's point there, because he, I know like some people will cringe when you
Speaker:said it, called it a populist movement. And I agree with you, but there's some contention
Speaker:there. Either way, it sells itself as a populist movement, right? There's no disputing that.
Speaker:And so that's really hard to maintain when you are then faced with the rest of your community
Speaker:telling like... like the lady being interviewed, this is not cool. We do not like it. And then
Speaker:it doesn't necessarily have to be a show of force, but this mobilization that disproves
Speaker:your populism. And for the same reason, and because they're decent people, you let through
Speaker:a car with a medical emergency because you need to bring everybody along with you in the end,
Speaker:right? And creating an atmosphere where you're turning on one another and setting the cops
Speaker:on one another in the end is not productive, but... Yeah, it's impossible for you to build
Speaker:or claim to be a populist movement when you spend your time harming the community. And
Speaker:I'll say too, populist in the sense that the messaging is populist. Obviously there was
Speaker:like huge American money coming into Canada and making sure that those people had every
Speaker:resource they needed to stay in the street for as long as they wanted. And so I'm not maybe
Speaker:saying popular, right? They claimed to represent a trucking community, 90% of which was vaccinated.
Speaker:Like these people had no frigging clue what they were talking about. They didn't represent
Speaker:anywhere near the majority of people that they claimed to be. But populist in the messaging,
Speaker:populist in in saying there's a problem and it can be very easily solved if we could only
Speaker:get this annoying one thing or one pesky element out of the way, creating very simplistic solutions,
Speaker:right, for actually what's a complex problem. And I'll go in another direction with this
Speaker:as well, okay? I was just invited to a presentation today for Black History Month, and I talked
Speaker:about policing measures during the pandemic, which... disproportionately harmed Black people.
Speaker:There's an amazing study out there by Canadian Civil Liberties Association called Stay Off
Speaker:the Grass, which I highly recommend that people look at. And, you know, governments were not
Speaker:keeping a lot of records about who was getting ticketed under these COVID emergency orders,
Speaker:these public health orders. So CCLA did... some data gathering on their own. And not surprisingly,
Speaker:what they found was that, you know, two SLGBTQ folks, Black folks, Indigenous folks, unhoused
Speaker:folks, were all reporting like, yeah, I'm getting targeted by these COVID enforcement measures.
Speaker:Who the hell could be surprised by that? Of course they were, because that is the general
Speaker:trend in surveillance and policing. And those are the groups that are the easiest to target
Speaker:society will turn the other way or blame them and say it's their own fault. But this is where
Speaker:I think we had a common cause with people who were. actually in the streets of Ottawa. Because
Speaker:I also, in 2020, when it was announced that you would not be able to go to a public park,
Speaker:you could be stopped walking in the streets if you were outside of your house and questioned
Speaker:by the police about why you were outdoors. I freaked the fuck out when this happened and
Speaker:so did a lot of black people and black organizations because we're like, this is way too familiar
Speaker:to what we've been fighting for so many years. And so people who were making the argument
Speaker:there was overreach in COVID enforcement had many valid points. I don't agree with them
Speaker:when they just want to do anything that they want to when they say that, for example, a
Speaker:gym where people can't social distance needing to be closed for a while is a human rights
Speaker:violation. I don't agree with that, okay? But there were absolutely... dangerous and harmful
Speaker:overreaches of policing and enforcement, and we were not able to split that difference.
Speaker:effectively push back against the measures that were unnecessary. Because you know, for example,
Speaker:people do need to go out into the public even when there's a pandemic and in many cases being
Speaker:outdoors in a park, for example, is way safer than being inside. And for your own mental
Speaker:health and physical well-being, it's also still important to go outside. We ceded a lot of
Speaker:that ground and this is again like this theme of crisis. So how did we do when the government
Speaker:scared everybody and said, now you will all stay indoors? Most people were like, yes, sir.
Speaker:Yes, master. But then what happened? A year later in 2021, after CCLA had reported that
Speaker:all these marginalized groups were being targeted and harmed. There was another wave of COVID
Speaker:and the police said, we're doing it again, but now you can't go to the park. The parks are
Speaker:actually closed. We're gonna go and put emergency yellow tape around the park and you won't be
Speaker:able to go to the park with little Johnny and you'll be stopped in your car. And middle-class
Speaker:white people were like, what the fuck? Like, what? You can't do that to me. And they were
Speaker:outraged. They didn't say anything. I was mad about that caution tape on my playground though.
Speaker:Sure, sure. But you see, my point is that it's not good enough for us to wait for these sensational
Speaker:moments. When they said it the first time, that's when the pushback should have happened. But
Speaker:I didn't see anyone other than Black... organizations, indigenous organizations, homeless serving
Speaker:organizations and individuals. Those were the people who spoke up and our struggle has something
Speaker:to do with being consistent about these issues when the stakes aren't like middle-class white
Speaker:people are going to get hurt. Right? We have to be able to be consistent about these things,
Speaker:even when it's our political enemies who might benefit from our consistency. I'm dying to
Speaker:bring up the example of the journalists. Oh, sorry, sorry. Don't forget what you're going
Speaker:to say. I don't want anybody to interpret from what I just said that middle-class white people
Speaker:are our political enemies. That's not, I didn't mean that. I was referring back to the convoy
Speaker:folks. So I just want to be, just want to be clear about that. I'm sure that a lot of people
Speaker:think that I think that, but whatever. Well, I appreciate the clarification, Desmond. But,
Speaker:yeah, no, as Desmond's saying this, I'm thinking of the case of the rebel news journalist. You
Speaker:know, we can argue whether he is or isn't a journalist, but. I was so disappointed. I was
Speaker:like looking around going, what are you guys doing? Why are you fucking celebrating this?
Speaker:Right. Like Desmond, tell me you were also. I never say his name. Did you didn't you see
Speaker:my tweets? I was free. I'm sure I did. I was also tweeting myself. Oh, my God. I was so
Speaker:mad. So, yeah, for people who didn't see it, David Menzies, like a ghoul, certified ghoul
Speaker:from Rebel News and a man who has harassed me a lot. And he's just awful. But he saw Christa
Speaker:Freeland outside of an event that she was going to or somewhere that she was going. He was
Speaker:waiting for her. He obviously knew she was gonna be there. And what did he do? He did what journalists
Speaker:do all the time. He saw her coming. He came and walked up beside her with his microphone.
Speaker:He had a camera person in tow and he walked alongside Christa Freeland and tried to ask
Speaker:her a question. He asks questions that are so dumb that I can bear. I actually do remember
Speaker:he was asking whether the Iranian Revolutionary Guard should be classified as a terrorist organization.
Speaker:And, yeah, he did that. And so Christa Freeland wasn't answering him. I don't think she spoke
Speaker:the entire interaction actually. She just ignored him and kept walking forward a staff member
Speaker:beside her. A police officer who was not dressed as a police officer saw this happening and
Speaker:he set a pick, as we say in basketball. He went and stood in the path of where he knew David
Speaker:Menzies was going to be walking and David Menzies couldn't see him because he was too busy looking
Speaker:at Chris Jeffreeland while he was trying to speak to her. And so he ran flush into this
Speaker:police officer's chest, whereupon the cop said, you're under arrest for assault. And boy was
Speaker:so-called left-wing internet-sharing. It's a celebration that David Menzies has finally
Speaker:gotten his comeuppance. He's not a real journalist, they say. He's not even a real journalist.
Speaker:Cops can do that to us, then. Well, let's talk about that part first, because I'm fucking
Speaker:so tired of this elitist professionalism of journalism garbage. Anyone should be able...
Speaker:Listen, have you guys seen people going up to Trudeau? in a restaurant and being like, why
Speaker:are you supporting genocide? Yeah, we had them on our show. OK, guess what? They're not journalists.
Speaker:So what? There should be a circle of cops around them because they are not journalists. And
Speaker:what about all of us freelance journalists? What about all of us journalists who aren't
Speaker:accredited with one of the three major mega corps that do media in Canada? I worked at
Speaker:City Hall for Torontoist for a lot of years. And the rule at Toronto City Hall was, if you
Speaker:didn't have physical space in the building, if you were not leasing physical space inside
Speaker:the press gallery at City Hall, you were not part of the accredited City Hall media, and
Speaker:therefore you could not get a pass. And if you can't get a pass, that means that when the
Speaker:mayor, for example, does oppressor in his office... they have the right to deny you because you're
Speaker:not technically part of the press gallery. That is what happens when we professionalize media
Speaker:to the nth degree and say that only the state-sanctioned questioners are allowed to talk to our politicians.
Speaker:It's such trash. I am so tired of it. Anyone who wants to ask a politician a question in
Speaker:public should have the right to do so. She wasn't being threatened by David Menzies. He was not
Speaker:touching her. And whether you consider him a journalist or not, he doesn't really do the
Speaker:things that I would say a lot of journalists do. That's not the point. I will say that a
Speaker:journalist would be trained, not... to stand in front of somebody who is walking and block
Speaker:their path, but to do exactly what David Menzies did, which is to walk alongside the person,
Speaker:allow them a path to continue if they don't wanna talk to you. and let them go on their
Speaker:way if they don't answer. He did all of those things. And this annoys me so badly because
Speaker:I saw people in the Queens Park Press Gallery only a few months ago physically block the
Speaker:path of Sarah Jama who uses a motorized chair, physically stand in front of her so that she
Speaker:could not leave in a narrow hallway. And Colin DeMello, the head of the press gallery, was
Speaker:leading the charge, standing right in front of Sarah and screaming at a bunch of people
Speaker:around her, which I was one of them, that we were somehow impeding his freedom of expression
Speaker:because we were like, can you move please? She wants to leave. You can walk beside somebody
Speaker:and ask them questions and if they don't want to respond to you, then they can just keep
Speaker:going. You can't block their path though. David Menzies didn't do that and he still got arrested.
Speaker:And we're friggin' celebrating. And again, it's not that I'm like, oh, you shouldn't celebrate
Speaker:when it happens to him, because then one day it's gonna happen to us. Guys, I've been arrested
Speaker:so many fucking times while trying to cover something. I've been harassed and intimidated
Speaker:by police so many times, called names, just like said the most disgusting things to me.
Speaker:It's already happening to so many of us, but then what happened? I think 24 hours after
Speaker:everyone was celebrating David Menzies getting arrested. Brandy Morin covering the encampment,
Speaker:police dismantling of the encampment in Ottawa. Brandy Morin gets arrested and charged, I think,
Speaker:with obstruction. And boy, were people singing a different tune. But... I'm gonna say it again.
Speaker:So many people responded for Brandy, which they should do, but they did it for the wrong reason,
Speaker:because she's a professional, because she was doing her job. Well, she was just in there
Speaker:doing her job. I wanna ask people something. When you say that the press have freedom of
Speaker:expression and freedom to do whatever you think they're allowed to do in Canada, does that
Speaker:translate into the press? having the right to be on city property in an encampment area,
Speaker:and they have the right to be there, to watch people whose home that is, whose living space
Speaker:that is, to be evicted. When they went into what's Siloatan territory and they got Bracken
Speaker:and Toledano who were in there as journalists and pulled them out, people were angry. But
Speaker:I am like, so what are you saying though? Are you saying that when there's an injunction
Speaker:on Indigenous territory, that the journalists should be allowed to stand there and watch
Speaker:while the cops remove the people who are like, this is my land? And they should be allowed
Speaker:to film, unmolested by the police, while other people get dispossessed and arrested and beaten
Speaker:down? No, that's not right. So everybody who was standing up for Brandi, cool. But what
Speaker:about all of the people who lost their home that day? Who lost the community that they
Speaker:had created together that day? Where they were keeping each other safe. What about them? We
Speaker:can't give in to this professionalization of journalism because then we forget all the other
Speaker:people who are being targeted by the same practices. I feel like that is what kind of came out of
Speaker:that particular. I think it was Edmonton encampment that the focus then was almost entirely on
Speaker:Brandi's situation and still is rather than the eviction itself. Like it would definitely
Speaker:became the greater evil that day, even though it's arguably not. And might be separate issues
Speaker:that peak at separate times, people's interests. But yeah, that was a hard time because Sante,
Speaker:you know, now that I think about it, we even mentioned your tweet, I believe in that episode
Speaker:where you made the point that civilians should also, because it's blueprints of disruption.
Speaker:We're constantly encouraging people to go and challenge folks to be more disruptive, not
Speaker:as journalists, not in any kind of official capacity, but because it's part of democracy.
Speaker:I think it's about public space, because when the cops come to an encampment in Toronto and
Speaker:they build a fence in a public park, what they are telling you, even though I don't think
Speaker:that this is lawful, is that this public space is now made private by our building a fence
Speaker:around it, a makeshift fence. And so now everybody who is inside the makeshift fence is technically
Speaker:on private property and can be forced out. Journalists should be speaking out against that thing.
Speaker:They shouldn't only be speaking out when one of their people inside the fence gets dragged
Speaker:out and arrested or beaten down or whatever the case may be. But you're not going to see
Speaker:the Canadian Association of Journalists taking up the broader issue of the capture of public
Speaker:space through injunctions and through these kinds of police actions. I wish that they would,
Speaker:but I think that this idea of the professionalism of journalism means that they won't do that.
Speaker:But you see how up in arms that they get and how like rights-based and everything that they
Speaker:get when it happens to a journalist who's seen as a professional, then it's wrong, then it's
Speaker:terrible. Then we can be advocates because if we lose our ability journalists to have access
Speaker:will then, I guess the world's going to end. But if other people lose the place that they
Speaker:were living, well, we're just going to go report on that and go home. Right. And it's not enough.
Speaker:It's not enough. There is a line there, though, where because journalists are usually excellent
Speaker:at being in solidarity with other journalists, except for apparently journalists covering
Speaker:things in Palestine. And then maybe that solidarity doesn't get extended quite as much. Oh, boy.
Speaker:You said it now. You said it. I was really enthused. I'm gonna have to end shortly. But I do thank
Speaker:you for saying that, Santiago, because it was a bright spot for me when I'd say somewhere
Speaker:between 150 and 200 journalists got together a couple weeks ago. And we did honor all the
Speaker:journalists who've been killed. in Gaza, in Lebanon, and in Israel. We said their names,
Speaker:we told stories, people shared wonderful, wonderful testimonies. I am so grateful to Fatima Saeed
Speaker:and Pasent Matar and the organizers of that event for giving a space for those of us who...
Speaker:are concerned as journalists about what's been going on. To mourn. and to be together. And
Speaker:it was like, there was a little after gathering that happened. And just being in the same place
Speaker:with a whole bunch of other people who were sharing that together, it was actually one
Speaker:of the more uplifting things that I've experienced in the last few months since the carnage in
Speaker:Gaza has been ongoing. And so I was actually really
Speaker:and warmongering. There are still many of us who know what time it is and who are trying
Speaker:to strike a different message and I was like really, really grateful to see that. Desmond,
Speaker:we've kept you longer than... We said we would, but we also did warn you that we could keep
Speaker:you here forever if you let us. But I could stay if I didn't have to make dinner. No, we
Speaker:saw you stress eating jello. So we will let you. Don't tell people. All right, fine. We'll
Speaker:edit that one out. No, it's fine. Leave it. Leave it. Leave it. The people need to know
Speaker:the truth. We appreciate your time and your advocacy so much, but is there anything we
Speaker:didn't let you spout on that you would like to? talk about before? Yeah, just one thing.
Speaker:Because we were talking about policing and the harms that are done every day to people that
Speaker:don't rise to the level of death, which we might not be paying attention to. I have been very
Speaker:fortunate to make friends with a man by the name of Devon Fowlin, who was... almost exactly
Speaker:a year ago now, shot by a Toronto police officer in a park. Devon was alone at the time. He
Speaker:was homeless at the time. He was living out of his car and somebody reported him for having
Speaker:a knife. He did have a knife. He was alone in a park. He kept that knife on his waist because
Speaker:he used to use it for like cutting food and things like that. It was a kitchen knife that
Speaker:had a sheath. Somebody called the police on him and several officers responded. And we
Speaker:know now that when they responded, they immediately drew handguns and tasers on Devon. And one
Speaker:of the officers shot him multiple times. Devon survived and I'm so glad that he did. The reality
Speaker:though is that in surviving, life continues to be really, really difficult for him. And
Speaker:I would love for you guys to share with your audience in the notes to this show, a GoFundMe.
Speaker:It's called help Devon Fallon continue his recovery. If you just type in his name into a Google
Speaker:search or an anything search.
Speaker:uh, D-E- you will find his, uh, GoFundMe. It has been really hard to raise funds for Devon.
Speaker:He should be on disability because he still has bullet fragments in his body and he's lost
Speaker:the use of fingers on his right arm. They think he will never recover the use of those fingers
Speaker:on his right hand. He cannot work. and he really needs support right now. And it's these kinds
Speaker:of things that I'm talking about, where are we for people in our own communities? in the
Speaker:aftermath of George Floyd and awareness raising, where are we when this happens in our own communities
Speaker:for people who really, really need us? So I would ask anyone who's listening, who's able
Speaker:to do so, I know things are tough for a lot of people right now. If you can throw five
Speaker:or 10 bucks even to Devon, I know he would really, really appreciate that. And for those who are
Speaker:curious, the officer, who shot Devon has actually been charged. And that very, very rarely happens
Speaker:in the province of Ontario or in Canada for that matter. I don't count on the idea that
Speaker:the officer who was charged is going to be convicted. And I don't really care. And when I talk to
Speaker:Devon, he also tells me he doesn't really care. Um, he just wants to be able to carry on his
Speaker:life and be compensated for what has happened to him. But I want people to know that the
Speaker:officer's name is Constable Andrew Davis. And I believe in the practice of naming those people
Speaker:who harm us and in holding them accountable. And, um, Whether or not this officer is convicted
Speaker:of a crime, it's not going to change what happened to Devon. And we need to stop this from happening
Speaker:again. I'm sure that when he does go to court, Constable Davis's lawyers... are going to frame
Speaker:this in some kind of mental health capacity. It's false. DeVon wasn't in crisis until the
Speaker:police came and drew their weapons on him. But even if it was a mental health crisis, are
Speaker:these the people we want responding? Was lethal force necessary to engage a person who was
Speaker:alone in a park, walking his dog in the early morning hours in Toronto, who was talking to
Speaker:and bothering no one? Was lethal force necessary? And how many more times for so-called mental
Speaker:health calls are we going to justify the use of lethal force when if an intervention is
Speaker:needed, if it's needed, any number of non-lethal interventions are also possible? That's what
Speaker:I wanna leave you with. And please support De'Vonne Fallon because he would appreciate it. We will
Speaker:be sure to link that in the show notes. And we very much appreciate you adding that onto
Speaker:the end, Your time here, I've learned a lot. You've challenged me on some of the lines of
Speaker:thought that I had, and I do very much appreciate that. And... I appreciate both of you for what
Speaker:you're doing. I hope you keep it up, and maybe we can do this again sometime. We're going
Speaker:to hold you to that. Yeah. Let's do it. Literally whenever you want to come on us now. Take it
Speaker:over your show. Yeah, no problem. It's mine now. Be careful what you wish for. I'll change
Speaker:the banner head now. That is a wrap on another episode of Blueprints of Disruption. Thank
Speaker:you for joining us. Also, a very big thank you to the producer of our show, Santiago Helu-Quintero.
Speaker:Blueprints of Disruption is an independent production operated cooperatively. You can follow us on
Speaker:Twitter at BPofDisruption. If you'd like to help us continue disrupting the status quo,
Speaker:please share our content and if you have the means, consider becoming a patron. Not only
Speaker:does our support come from the progressive community, so does our content. So reach out to us and
Speaker:let us know what or who we should be amplifying. So until next time, keep disrupting.
