Concerned residents and community members gathered at a vigil on Christmas eve for Jermaine Carby, a Brampton man who was shot and killed by Peel Regional Police three months earlier.  The gathering rallied about 50 members at the location of Carby’s murder, near Queen and Kennedy, where members of the Justice for Jermaine Carby Campaign along with friends, family, activists, and community members participated in an hour long blockade of the busy Brampton intersection.

Carby’s cousin La Tanya Grant, a lead member of the Justice for Jermaine campaign, stated that the vigil was held, “to bring awareness, to let [police] know that we are not going to stop, that we are going to keep coming in the media eye to demand answers for Jermaine.”

Carby was shot on September 24, shortly after being stopped by police for undisclosed reasons. Witnesses have stated that he had his hands up or was slowly approaching the officer who shot him, claims consistent with the gunshot wound to his inner left forearm which his autopsy indicated.

Grant spoke about his death as a personal tragedy, but also emphasised that it was only one moment in the red record of the Peel Police.

“A young man died and nothing is happening,” said Brampton resident Amuna, who went to highschool with Michael Wade Lawson, the 17-year-old who was also shot and killed by Peel Region Police officers in 1988 in the back of the head by an illegal 38-calibre slug known as a “hot bullet” which expands on contact, banned in Ontario by the Ontario Police Act.  Lawson’s murder, and the mass protests it set off, contributed to the creation of the S.I.U. a couple years later.

But nearly a quarter century later, organizers with the Justice for Jermaine campaign see little use for the S.I.U. except to “cover up” police actions, and put families on ice while community anger dissipates. Among the demands of the campaign included, disbanding the S.I.U., which organizers brought up “clears officers of wrongdoing at a rate of 98%.” The campaign is also demanding:

• That the name of the officer who shot Carby be released.
• That the name of the person in whose vehicle Carby was a passenger be released.
• Immediate public disclosure of whether a knife was recovered at the scene.

Police cruisers quickly showed up. They attempted to isolate the vigil by blocking off the roads around the intersection, but met with limited success for some time. While two or three drivers expressed anger at the vigil participants, uttering death threats to organizers right in front of Peel police, many others joined in, and some passersby shouted encouragement.

An inconvenienced driver threatens to the cops that he “run ’em over” if protestors are not removed by the police, while flailing his arms in the cops’ faces. How many people of colour could get away with uttering death threats and aggressively approaching the police? As one protestor mockingly hollered at this perturbed little man, “Hang on buddy, you’ll get to have that eggnog soon enough!” #white privilege #white terror 

One protester, who saw Jermaine like a big brother told BASICS, “I was homeless and he gave me a home. This was the kind of person he was… He helped me find a place… Why did they take him from me? He was my older brother and I love him so much, and I will not forget him.”

“Sabey” – being interviewd by BASICS correspondent Steve da Silva.

After almost an hour, the intersection was clear in all four directions but for the police roadblocks. The campaign organizers, buoyed by the strong impression they had made and the solidarity the participants had shown, thanked everyone in attendance. Shortly before the end of the vigil, a CityTV team showed up, but did not speak to any of the participants, and quickly left when it became clear that things were winding down. No other major media outlet was present.

For a video essay of the rally, see the following video

Durlabh explains why and how he joined the Maoist movement, his experiences in combating caste and class oppression, and the necessity of communism in today’s world.

Chitaure explains some of the basic inequalities along caste and class lines in Nepal that motivated him to join the Maoist movement. He talks about the role that he played as a member of the Maoist party and how that led to his founding this bookstore.

Chitaure also provides a brief overview of the differences and splits that have emerged in the Maoist movement now after the ending of the insurgency.

The word “Oshkimaadzig” refers to the “New People” of the Seven Fires Anishinaabek Prophecy, the people who were prophesied to be the ones who would pick up the remnants of their traditional ways of life and values long repressed by colonialism, and by reclaiming these values they will begin to unite all peoples for the survival of humanity and Mother Earth.

Oshkimaadzig Unity Camp is located in traditional Wendat (“Huron”) land, and since the genocidal dispersal of the Wendat by the French and the wars that forced them to flee the area in the mid 17th century, the Anishinaabe have been the keepers of the eastern door, recognized by the Three Fires Confederacy (Odawa, Potawatamie, and Ojibwe). This land also falls within a number of treaties amongst indigenous people and between indigenous nations and European settlers, including the Two Row Wampum, the ‘One Dish, One Spoon’ Treaty, the Beaver Belt, the Haudenosaunee-Anishinaabek Friendship Belt, the 1764 Fort Niagara Silver Chain Covenant, and the 24 Nations Belt.

Oshkimaadzig Unity Camp is located in ‘Awenda Provincial Park’ two hours north of Toronto in the Penetanguishene Peninsula and is by the Anishinabek Confederacy to Invoke Our Nationhood (ACTION), Oshkimaadzig.org, a member organization of the chapter of the International League of People’s Struggles in Canada.

Video produced by BASICS Community News Service (BASICSnews..ca).

Tutela Heights is part of the Haldimand Tract and contains Tutelo burial grounds. The site was unlawfully taken by the Crown in 1835. It was reclaimed by the Mohawk workers on September 19th, 2012.

Four years to the day after Jane Finch Action Against Poverty’s (JFAAP) founding on October 17, 2008 – the International Day for the Elimination of Poverty – one of Jane-Finch’s leading people’s organizations took to the streets once again with its allies to protest the worsening of poverty and police brutality in the community.

Designed for the quick flow-through of cars, the protest circled through the intersection that is the community’s name-sake and that corporate media and local university media loves to vilify: Jane-Finch.

The protest was very much of the corner as well, as people waiting for the bus listened to speeches and watched street theatre from their bus stops and at their red lights. The rally of some 150 people circled through the intersection, for nearly 90 minutes.

Demands from the crowd ranged from calling upon York University’s Excalibur newspaper to end its stigmatization of the area for problems on campus and in the university’s Village Community; calling for community control of policing and an end to police brutality; raising the welfare and disability rates; as well as more support for elders; and an end to horizontal violence within the community.

Despite the ‘good-cop’ act of the so-called ‘community policing’ strategy, with some of 31 Division’s foot cops chatting it up with people in crowd that has many problems with policing in the neighbourhood, the local division’s real attitude towards community residents was demonstrated when two cop cruisers barrelled through the Jane-Finch intersection, nearly hitting protestors and forcing marchers to leap out of the way.  Civilian cars weren’t irritated by the few-seconds delay caused by the tail end of the 150+ person rally that circled through the intersection on the green lights – but not for the cops.

The cop assigned to ‘engage’ with the protest quickly distanced themselves from the incident, saying that they had “nothing to do with the protest” and were simply “responding to another call” – even though the cars had no sirens on.

The protest concluded with performances from local popular theatre group, Nomanzland, as well as performances from other local artists.  The short street acts included, a mock oath to the queen, a desperate community member meeting the red tape of the social service bureaucracy, and a Jane-Finch rendition of the good’ old “Oh Canada… our home on stolen land.”

JFAAP is one of the few community-based organizations in the city that is moving the people in its community for social justice and political mobilization.