Toronto Police says they arrested 10 people in the Christie Pits park, where a great demonstration and a demonstration of counteracting on Saturday afternoon took place.
Police said a man was arrested by assault in a continuous demonstration in the Bloor Street West and Christie Street area around 12:40 pm in a social media post. Later, the Police confirmed to CBC Toronto by email that a total of 10 people were arrested in relation to the two demonstrations.
The attendees gathered in Toronto Park on Saturday afternoon for a rally called the First Patriot Rally in Canada. In an Instagram publication, the organizers said they were asking for a stop to “mass immigration.”
“This is the time for the true Canadian patriots to join. Our country is changing quickly and not for better. If we do not fight for what we have, we will lose it,” says the description of the publication.
The organizer of the first Rally of Canada, Joe Anidjar, said that the demonstration was about “putting the Canadian people first, putting our country first.”
“At the end of the day, when you allow millions of people from other countries around the world, to put tension in our resources,” he told Radio-Canada in the rally on Saturday.
Hundreds of other people also arrived in the park on Saturday for a counter counter, with the aim of showing support to migrant communities.
“The park has a rich history of anti -fascist organization. To this day, it is an important meeting space for migrants, indigenous people, queer and trans people, survivors of sexual violence, people not had, artists, students and families,” says a statement by the organizers published on the Facebook page of the Ontario Work Federation.
The executive director of the Workers’ Action Center, of the Ladd, who was at the counter on the counter on Saturday, said that the organizers of the First Rally of Canada unfairly blamed the newcomers for social problems.
“I really want them to know that immigrants should not blame the economic problems they are presenting,” Ladd told CBC Toronto.
“They are blaming our communities because we cannot find affordable homes, blaming our communities because there is not enough food in food banks and that people cannot obtain the health services they want. That is not the fault of immigrants.”
Lawyer Dianne Saxe (University-Rossale) said in a statement dated August 26 that she was horrified that people would choose to celebrate an anti-immigrant demonstration in a park like Christie Pits and said that the rally “does not represent what we defend as a city or as Canadians.”
“Rather, it reflects an effort on the part of its organizers to seek and gain undeserved notoriety through intimidation, swelling and the division of theft in the belief that immigrants somehow fight less, work less or contribute less to our country,” he said in the statement published in X.
Police said Bloor Street West was closed around Christie Street for a few hours on Saturday and drivers must expect delays near Bay Street and Yonge Street and Wellesley Street. Since then, the police have said that all roads have reopened as the protesters arrived at Sankofa Square.
TPS said he will publish more information about arrests at a later time in a press release.
