Parade permit issue has racial overtones, Saultites told

Three weeks after local peace activists were cautioned by City Police that they needed a permit to demonstrate in the streets, a senior official of the Ontario Federation of Labour (OFL) is warning that such measures may have serious racial consequences.

Speaking to a gathering of Saultites organized by Local 2251 of the United Steelworkers of America, OFL Secretary-Treasurer Ethel Birkett-LaValley warned that such measures to control lawful protests have historically been used to repress racial minorities and unpopular causes.

"They take away the right of people to exercise their democratic right to have a say," Birkett-LaValley said.

As SooToday News reported on March 8, City Police advised a group of peace marchers gathered at the federal building that they were on 'private' property and that they required a parade permit if they intended to take their demonstration to the streets.

About 100 participants (including Sault MPP Tony Martin) disregarded the warning and marched to the International Bridge plaza anyway.

Shortly before the march began, police disappeared from view and no charges were laid. Background

OFL has grave reservations

Speaking on Sunday to a local commemoration of the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, Birkett-LaValley was unaware of the recent actions of Sault Ste. Marie police.

She told the meeting, however, that the OFL has grave reservations about recent suggestions from Toronto Police Chief Julian Fantino asking Toronto City Council to pass a bylaw regulating demonstrations.

"Permits should be conditional on approval by the local police service," Fantino said.

"Any history of violence, damage or abuse of a prior permit should automatically disqualify any individual or group from obtaining a permit or participating in a demonstration for a period of at least two years," the Toronto chief said.

Comparison to South Africa's infamous pass laws

Birkett-LaValley compared Fantino's proposal to the actions of South African police that led to the proclamation by the United Nations in 1966 of the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.

The day was established by the UN to commemorate the victims of a massacre six years earlier in Sharpeville, South Africa in which 69 peaceful black demonstrators were killed and 180 wounded by armed police.

"Almost all of these demonstrators were shot in the back while protesting racist pass laws," the OFL says in a written statement released last week.

"These laws required black South Africans to have permission to pass from one area to another," the OFL said.

Criminal Code changes

"Almost four decades later, Toronto's police chief, Julian Fantino, is recommending changes to the Criminal Code to control demonstrations and protesters that include deterrent sentences against demonstrators who are arrested by police, demanding permits for demonstrations and the posting of bonds of citizens seeking to hold a demonstration," the OFL statement said.

OFL president Wayne Samuelson told a Toronto news conference last Friday that Chief Fantino's recommendations constitute a "huge overreaction" to a small number of violent demonstrations in that city, including a bloody riot at Queen's Park three years ago in which 26 officers and nine horses were injured.

In that encounter, police were attacked with rocks, wooden clubs, paving stones, paint bombs, chunks of cement, taped cans full of rocks, smoke bombs and tear gas.

"There is no intent here to suppress peaceful demonstration," the chair of the Toronto Police Services Board, Norm Gardiner, told the Toronto Star last Friday. "It's only to make sure the demonstrations are peaceful and conducted in a responsible manner."

Talked about Vanbiesbrouck

One speaker at Sunday's commemoration also referred briefly to the racial slurs uttered recently by Soo Greyhounds coach John Vanbiesbrouck, who was used to illustrate the continued prevalence of racism in Canada.

The photograph at the top of this page shows a student-designed poster displayed at the Sault Ste. Marie commemoration of International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. To see 25 other images taken by SooToday.com at that event, please click here.

***************************************************************** A NOTE TO OUR READERS: In 1991, the Bicentennial Year of the U.S. Bill of Rights, SooToday.com news director David Helwig was one of six North American journalists recognized by the U.S. Free Press Association with H. L. Mencken Award (finalist) citations for outstanding defence of the Bill's First Amendment, which guarantees the fundamental freedoms of religion, speech, the press, and the right of people to peaceably assemble and petition government for a redress of grievances. The citation recognized Helwig's activism in defence of Section 2 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, protecting freedom of conscience, religion, thought, belief, opinion, expression (including freedom of the press), peaceful assembly and association.