The Meeting OFL Tried to Hide
Planning to thwart Sept 20 Parent Protests
Updated with complete non truncated transcript: Hello readers, here’s a special edition containing the transcript to a video obtained by independent investigators and uploaded by Odessa Orlewicz, you can find the video here on Twitter. I am including the video here and also a PDF copy of the transcript, for the sake of historical accuracy and record keeping and for your ease of following along. Below the line is a transcript I created from the video using Trint ai.
Patty Jarvis Coates: [00:00:07] There's more in the waiting room, Rob. [00:00:08][1.2]
Rob Halpin: [00:00:09] Okay. That's. Just bear with us as we let folks onboard. Excellent day to have allies together for a very important conversation. So thank you, everyone, for joining us this morning. My name is Rob Halpin. I'm the executive director at the Ontario Federation of Labour. We're going to get started here momentarily. We've got a pretty full agenda as well to discuss today, of course, about our organising around a counterprotest for these events that are occurring on September 20th and a few days thereafter, quite frankly, as well as you may have seen in the. In the communication that we we sent out.
I'm going to ask folks if you're okay and we won't be sharing this publicly. This is just for our benefit internally in case we need to take minutes of some of the details that are discussed today. I'd like to record this again. We will not be sharing that recording externally, and as soon as we're done with the minutes, we'll be addressing that. So if everyone's okay with that, I'm going to go ahead and press record again for the benefit of our support staff and taking notes. [00:01:51][101.7]
AI Voice: [00:01:53] Recording in progress. [00:01:54][0.8]
Rob Halpin: [00:01:55] So. Okay. I was in here to see if they get more folks in this room. Great turnout. Okay, so let's get started. We have that circled in agenda around. I'm going to ask one of our my colleagues from the NFL here to put that agenda into the chat so that folks can see it upfront. But to kick us off, I'm going to turn it over to AFL president Patty Coates for a welcome and a land acknowledgement Patty. [00:02:30][34.3]
Patty Jarvis Coates: [00:02:32] Thanks, Rob. I want to thank everyone for being here on such short notice. As you saw from our memo that we sent out, there's a number of protest events that are taking place all across Canada. We can't just let this be idle. We need to be able to organise. We need to connect with our communities in Ontario. From what I know, there's approximately 22 different events that are taking place and there could be more now. But as as allies and those that protect workers rights, protect our kids rights and the rights of trans and our to us LGBTQ community, we felt it very important that we do come together to fight against the rise of hate. And we're seeing it in province, across province, across province. We're seeing it now in our education system with our Premier and Education Minister as put forward with regards to the obligations of teachers and school boards, educators and school boards. And so that's why we're here. We're trying to connect with all of you to talk about what's happening in our communities and what we can do as allies and supporters to fight against the hate within our communities.
So with that, I'm going to go to to the land acknowledgement and then I will pass it back so we can start our conversations today, because we are joined this morning from places across an Indigenous territory. I'd like to begin this acknowledgement by honouring the lands each of us are on, which has been the site of human activity since time immemorial. It is the traditional territory of First Nations and Inuit peoples from across Turtle Island. I'm attending this meeting from Innisfil in the community of Alcona, which is the traditional land of the Anishinaabe big people. The Anishinaabe include the Ojibwe, Ottawa and Potawatomi nations collectively known as the Council of Three Fires. Please share in the chat the Indigenous territories that you are joining this meeting from.
But as we gather here today, these nations continue to experience ongoing colonialisation and displacement where land acknowledgements are offered in place of land itself. This territory is part of the dish with one spoon wampum, a treaty made between the Amish snobby mississauga's and holding the Shoni four nations entered into an agreement to protect the land and responsibly care for its resources in harmony together. And I think, you know, that's all very fitting because we all need to be working in harmony as we move forward. And as we know, you know, our indigenous, the indigenous peoples are have been have been oppressed for years and years, a millennium in time. And we're seeing that oppression again with two spirited people, with our two US LGBTQ communities. So coming together at a meeting like this I think is is very important and, and we're very appreciative of the treaties that are on our lands, the treaties that we should all be following and that we all become stewards of our land. So with that, I'm going to pass it over back over to Rob and I will start working on our agenda. So thank you. [00:06:28][236.9]
Rob Halpin: [00:06:29] Thank you, Patty. Yeah. So the agenda, as has been identified in the chat, we're going to have a bit of an overview here, a bit of a two part overview. First, I'd like to get an update and I'm going to call on Director of Women's Rights, Chandra Lee Paul from the Ontario Federation of Labour to speak to item number two of The Wire. And why are these anti to LGBTQ A-plus protests happening? And then we're also going to get an update from Vickie Smallman, who is joining us as well regarding some of the work that's been happening at the CLC Emergency Task Force on Anti to see LGBTQ plus hate so shiny. Can I kick it over to you for a bit of an update of why this is happening and where this is happening? [00:07:12][42.3]
Chandra-Li Paul: [00:07:14] Hi, folks. As Rob said, my name is primarily Chandra Paul, Chani. I am the one, my friend in particular. And this is scary. I'll be honest with you as a as a member who is a proud queer individual and activist who's been doing this work for. James over 30 years now. It is, in my experience, my personal experience, the first of this kind that I've seen here in Canada of this super broadly and coordinated hate right across the country of this country. We are seeing a set of protests that are all being done simultaneously. They're all being set for 9 a.m. in each of their time zones in every single province of this country, in multiple states of these provinces. And it is really scary. It is extremely similar as to what has been happening in the U.S. And we are very, very worried about what would be coming next. I am zooming in from Capitol Hill, otherwise known as Toronto, the place in the warmest refuser standing. And I'm extremely worried about what's coming.
And so what we're seeing is a far right, extreme response to inclusive education teachings that have anything to do with these two LGBTQ community with a heavy response in particular to trans education. Anything to do with that in the schools and, you know, indoctrinating children, you know, progressivism with, you know, queer information there, rainbows, community all various ways, you know, reference anything other than what the the far right sees as appropriate. And so we are wanting to show a very strong response countering these protests to show that they even think that there's a possibility of breaking what's happening in other places here. We're going there to counter it every single step of the way. We want to show a very heavy love is what we have here. There is no space for hate in Canada in particular, you know, in Ontario as to what this group is here to discuss.
And so what we see is that they have coordinated around these as legislatures for nine time zones across the country. And so and then following up with 11 a.m. marches after those rallies. And so what we understand will be sort of see with the coordinators, that is that they plan to capture the media cycle throughout the entire day right across the country. So they start in the Far East at 9:00 in the morning. And as you know, 9:00 it's spread across the country. They'll be capturing those media cycles, those news cycles right across to the other side, which is extremely worrisome. We want to make sure that our messaging of no space for hate, of love, inclusion, diversity is what that messaging should be. Don't want them to get into those spaces, the the negative aspects of those things. We want to be countering those as much as possible. And so we we certainly want to make sure that we are safe in what we're doing. And that's what this discussion is here today. We want to hear from you will be, you know, how we can help. Nobody is going to be left alone. We want to make sure that we're all being safe in this response, that we understand that there are many people on this call that have a lot of experience in dealing with this type of thing. They can help us keep each other safe and be strong in the response that it's doing to these encounters, really.
And so what I'd like to do is we will share the back and forth with each other where we know protests are happening. As Patty said, we see approximately 22 different cities in Ontario alone that have protests that are already set. That list keeps growing and growing from what we can see. A little later on, we can share that. You know, this is the list of cities that we see so far and then missing. And you can help us know where those are. But it's a it's important. And I'm really happy to see that everybody that's here on this call is here. And we're we're looking to work with each other, too.
So I'm going to actually bring Vicki Smallman on to speak now. Vicki Smallman is the director of Human Rights, I think. Canadian Labour Congress, and she is one of the leads on these deals. His emergency task force on financing to LGBTQ rights, less hate. And I think she's going to give us a bit of an update. What's happening in Canada? What the. Oh, yeah, yeah, the national perspective. Vicky, thank you so much for being with us here today. And I'll throw it over to you now.
Vicky Smallman: Thanks. So just to give folks a bit of a background introduction, I'm Vicki Smallman and I'm the director of Human Rights of the Canadian Labour Congress. And we sort of are responsible for policy and campaigning, coalition building on the full sort of spectrum of human rights. And we are sort of actioning the Kelsey resolution that was passed at our convention. There was an emergency resolution passed on the floor thanks to the efforts of the to US LGBTI workers, caucus and allies. And it's basically and I will just quickly read it so folks have the context that the CLC will encourage and support affiliates to condemn attacks against workers, families and communities that support and defend trans drag and twist LGBTQ rights. Plus events create flying squads to that be so we will encourage and support affiliates to create flying squads to provide meaningful support to workers, organisations and communities facing attacks, and to call for an emergency task force to develop a guide outlining health and safety tools for affiliates to ensure the safety of workers where events occur.
So we've established the task force in June that there's been three meetings so far. The focus has primarily been on kind of getting the lay of the land and information sharing to find out sort of where things are taking place, who might be sort of forming the in the process of formally forming flying squads or joining established local networks who have been doing this work for some time to sort of bolster and provide capacity and support and resources to ongoing and countering activities. And and we've been focussed on creating this health and safety guide. It's not ready. I wish it were. The timing of this is terrible because it would be really nice to have this guide out now, but it it won't be ready for a few more weeks. It's there's a draft that's been out to the task force members for comment and we hope to have it to you soon. In the meantime, the CAC has been and the guide is really focussed on addressing the way that to us LGBTI hate shows up at work.
So not so much responding to a specific moment in time like right now, which is much more of a fluid situation. I mean really organising against this particular effort is like organising against Jell-O because the the anti hate crap or the anti US LGBTI crowd, the very, there's various camps and groups that are sort of uniting and collaborating under one banner. Many of them are, We don't know for sure if a protest is happening or not happening, who's behind it and so on. A lot of that intelligence, a lot of that work really needs to happen at the grassroots local level. Right. Which many of you already know. So we're trying to find ways to bolster support, give additional capacity and encouraging our affiliates and our labour councils to connect with local activists to just that may already be doing the work to see how they can help create their own infrastructures. And what it's going to look like is really different depending on each affiliate, each labour council, each community. So that is kind of happening.
In the meantime, we've also launched a digital campaign called Workers United Against Hate and have been sort of putting stuff out through the summer, through the sort of tail end of pride season. And all of our affiliates and local labour councils received package of graphics, talking points and that type of thing for these events that are happening because they really are like the whole issue is sort of evolved from drag story time to really target these, these inclusive education policies and, and the parental rights rhetoric has sort of come to the fore.
And, and that and the disturbing thing I have to say about all of this is while it's really easy to sort of say, well, these are fringe voices, these are, you know, the the convoy, you know, writ large, etc., all of it is being validated and platform that echoed by provincial governments and by the federal Conservative Party. Right. Which offers a bit of a legitimacy. And they have decided that it is politically expedient to essentially throw trans kids, families, queer families, queer people, queer, workers, kids under the bus in order to win votes. I mean, we see in Manitoba right now actual bus ads from conservative candidates because they're in a provincial election using parents rights rhetoric as the hook. It's really crappy, right? So so now we are really trying to find effective ways to counter it. We will be sending out some more talking points and so on. But so that's where we're at. You know, it's we're trying to respond on a day to day basis to this very rapidly changing landscape.
A memo will be going out from the DLC to affiliates and labour councils about next weeks, demos hopefully today, encouraging folks to connect with local organisers to try and ensure that there is a visible sort of presence in the communities where these events are taking place. And really I think that Chani’s point about trying to flip the script on the rhetoric is really, really important and not let them set the agenda. We need to let folks know that, you know, that LGBTI rights are important and central to the work that the labour movement does. This is about solidarity in action.
We need to express sort of love, care and support for trans and queer kids and workers and communities and and send a really strong message that there's that hate has no place in our communities or our workplaces or our unions, period. And hopefully we will see sort of a wave of love and support and care on that day. Happy to answer any questions. But I'm sure stuff will happen during the discussion. Thanks, everybody. [00:19:56][535.3]
Rob Halpin: [00:19:57] Okay. Thank you, Vicki. And so I just want to acknowledge, folks, I am attempting to get this captions turned on as the host here is showing me that they are, in fact enabled, but obviously I'm seeing none of them. So I may actually try and move out of this meeting myself as the hosts come back in. I've got other co-hosts here as well and hoping, hoping that might re-engage that feature. And my apologies for that technical problem.
At this point. We're going to turn it over to item three. While I attempt to do that and I'm going to welcome into the conversation, you'll end of the day, see yourselves. Director of Human Rights. Yolanda, if you're able to come on screen and start talking about item three of our agenda getting organised, why we are mobilising for this fight some local tool toolkits that we put together for a local counter-protests. And then we're going to get into a more fulsome discussion about where we can organise these counter-protests and what information we know. So I'll turn it over to Yolanda and Chani may be jumping in here as well. [00:20:58][61.0]
Yolanda B’Dacy: [00:20:58] Thank you, Rob. And the captions are now on. I'm not sure what happened, but they're on. [00:21:02][4.1]
Rob Halpin: [00:21:03] Excellent. [00:21:03][0.0]
Yolanda B’Dacy: [00:21:04] Thank you. Good morning. Water treatment. As Rob said, my name is Yolanda. Good. My pronouns are she her endo. And as you heard, I'm the director of human rights here at the AFL. As Ricky and Shani and Rob and Patty have said, it is more important now than ever to organise around these issues in getting a rapid response team in your area. What we are saying is that in many people have in this effort attempted to contact members of the two LGBTQ eight plus community. And one thing that we have noted is that this is not a fight for that community. This is definitely a fight for our lives. And when we say allyship, this is not a situation where we're all going to be retreating.
This is a situation where, as my colleague Felicia said, we need to be as low as we need to be co-conspirators. We need to be in the effort in such a way that when the rocks are hitting these communities, that they're hitting us. And if as allies, we are in such a distance that we are standing by and watching them, we are not really there.
And we need to be in a situation where when something like this happens, we as communities, as allies and supporters are able to organise and mobilise quickly in a way that we know at any time when anything is called that we have these systems, not just for the U.S., LGBTQ are a plus community for any Islamic or anti-Islamic or anti-Muslim sentiment for anti black antisemitism, anti women. We need to be there. We need to have these in our communities, in our workplaces, at our locals, so that we are able to move quickly. And as labour, this is what we do.
We organise, we know where our members are, we know who is able to come out there. But this is a situation where we have an opportunity to talk to our members, have those one on one conversations, know who is where and well, please know what's happening in our communities that isn't labour. Know what other organisations are already doing this, know that having members from the community there to to speak about what their needs are. We have created a PowerPoint and I'm not sure who's going to be sharing this to go through some steps because as people have said, we need to be able to do this, we need to do this counterprotest at our own protests in a way that is systematic, that is organised, that is ready to go on a moment's notice and that is safe.
So somebody can share the PowerPoint, please. It's definitely not going to be me. And we will walk through some of the steps. Our main questions are though, do you know what is happening in your area? Do you know that this is happening? Do you have that information? Are you able to join a protest that's already happening or are you able to? And for some of us, this is what's going to have to happen to organise to anchor an event to get people out there to mobilise, to amplify the message so that we have as many people there as possible.
Those of you who unlike unfortunately, have gone to the website of seeing how much hatred there is, but it's not as organised as they might think. We can see that it's a very much a cut and paste email type of organisation. We need to be able to respond to that in a much better way. So thank you. That's a first. So we're saying enough is enough to hate for second slide please. As you heard, this is a massive nationwide coordinated protests. We see who they're targeting and what they're doing, which is the insidious ways that they're saying that they are protecting children. And we know that far from protecting children, this is actually an attack on children and on communities.
Next slide, please. So as we were saying, as allies, we need to come together and say enough is enough. You're not going to tolerate the hate, the intolerance or the indoctrination, any form in any camp. We're going to organise and we're going to have rapid response tools ready to combat this hate. And we all need to be co-conspirators in the community to stand up for this group, especially this time on the 20th by all oppressed groups.
Next, please. We need to make sure that in these attempts that we're confronting the hate groups, we're organising and mobilising. So we're trying quickly. What is someone said we're used to the type of hate and rhetoric that we see coming from the United States.
What, what, what is unique about this is that it's, it's now being under the guise of being led by parents. It's being met in the guise of being led by religious faith and some sort of ethnic communities. And we need to be very sure that we make sure that our response is based on the hate and not on the people. And it's a very easy way to do to divide many diverse communities by pitting us against each other.
But within Labour, within progressive movements, we need to know we know about intersectionality and we know that hate can come in many forms. It's a lot of ignorance. And so we need to make sure that our message is targeted towards the message as opposed to the people who are saying it, because in that way we're not going to fall prey to their usual ways of bigotry.
Next slide, please. So what we're asking you to do is to make sure that you are able to plan this protest. It's very easy steps. We're sharing information with our network. We're confirming attendance. One thing that we do really well in in labour is that we when we mobilise really well, but we don't organise. So we need to make sure that we know who is coming, who will be there, who is leading it before the event makes signs and posters. Whether you do it together, come together and do it, or have people do it with slogans that again are targeted at the message of anti-hate and not at the group of people who are promoting it, that we communicate these details with our groups.
Very importantly is that we arrive 30 minutes before at least their planned protests so that we are occupying the space that it becomes our message and that we are then establishing ourselves. We are not going into their protests, that we are already there and we have established ourselves.
Make sure that you have a megaphone. Make music, flags, posters, banners, chanting. We know, we know how to do that. And that you that opportunity to speak with people to spread the real message have a petition ready. There have clipboards, have pens that you can speak with people get their information so that your rapid response team is going to be a team that you can call in any time and it's going to be growing.
Next slide, please. I'm not sure if it's going to be me who's speaking about this. I might pass it off to Chani. But we have resources that the NFL is prepared for in general about protests, but specifically for this one, just some very basic things. And we're going to put some links in the chat to some for some resources to make sure that when you're there, you're staying safe and staying positive.
We don't want this to devolve into something that is messy. We know that there's going to be media there, and we need the message to be about a group of progressive workers who have come out in support of this community as opposed to a brawl that ensues with a negative issue. So stay with a buddy, don't engage in the conflict, keep a safe distance, focus on your positive message. We're going to respect all the laws. We're going to try to de-escalate wherever possible. And as I said, what's very important is to take up the space, take it up physically with the amount of people you have taken up with, the noise you're using. Take it up with the flags and the signs that you have with these messages of love and positivity.
Next slide, please. Here we have a we're going to put these links to the site in the chat. But we have five really great resources here in terms of how you can plan a safe and effective protest or counter-protest. And lastly, please. Every night is the last night are the next steps that you got to do after this kind of debrief meeting with your group.
Very important for so many reasons, and especially one that is as going to be as charged as this one. Give people a chance to know who may have been triggered, who may have been physically hurt, emotionally hurt, to talk about what happened, what did we see? What did we learn? What can we do better next time? Be sure that you can maintain this communication with your contact list.
Continue to talk to and recruit members to be part of your rapid response team. And I call it a rapid response team because for many communities the idea of a flying squad is in itself a triggering term. So rapid response. So that's what we want to do, respond rapidly and get in there and help people to be vigilant for other hate events that can that you can disrupt with your groups and make sure that we are also joining other counter-protests that are planned by other organisations so that we are doing support and we're all getting together and being being disrupting and causing some good trouble. Thank you very much. [00:29:41][517.2]
Rob Halpin: [00:29:44] Excellent. Thank you. Thank you, Chani. Thank you, Yolanda. And thank you again for your your attention to this request. I mean, listen, we knew we had to act quickly. This is I want to acknowledge, too, this is not something that's sprung up on it.
So I've we've been monitoring the rise of of of hate and this vitriol for quite some time. I want to give credit, of course, to the Labour Council's president said are on the phone with us here today who have been again reporting back to through the AFL and is the Canadian Labour Congress on the ongoings of these groups in their own communities. I want to open it up now for the next item on the agenda, which is again a bit of a discussion about where we can organise counter protests. I do see that folks have been putting furiously into the chat where there are counter-protests that are taking up or are occurring. That's great news.
We're going to we hit we did send along as well a dynamic, I would say a Google spreadsheet that we can constantly and continually update as more information becomes available to us. On where counter-protests are being organised. Then we'll be filtering this information in and we've also setting up at the AFL a general RSVP event page so that when we capture members that are coming across this through our outreach efforts, that we'll be able to segregate that data as well. To say that if you're in, for example, London, here's the event that's happening here in Ottawa, so on and so forth. So I see some hands are starting to get raised. We'll do a bit of a go around right now to speak to some of the events that we know are happening. And our team will be taking note of this, as I said, and updating that that spreadsheet as we go.
So I'm going to turn it over to Martin Reilly. Martin. And just folks, if you are able to, as Martin has done, please raise your hand in the feature and we will add you to the speaker's list. So I'll try my best to keep that as fluid as possible. Go ahead, Martin.
Martin Reilly: Hey. Thank you. Um, so I wanted to bring attention to a protest happening in Scarborough on the 22nd. I think it's of particular importance because it's directly going after kids and going after my fellow education workers up there. It's being put on. All right. First, I'll give you the details. It's happening at 10:30 a.m. on the 22nd at Wallingford Road and Cassandra Boulevard. It's. This location is chosen because both sides of that intersection there are schools, a Catholic school. And I think Victoria Park.
This group has organised protests before in Ottawa, where I believe they got about 100 people and it was countered by about double that many by Save Canada and Billboard Chris. This has been in the books for. I guess, a couple of months now. It was billed as planning to be bigger than that over. And I will note that Ottawa once did end up with some violence. Yeah. So I highly recommend we organise in the Toronto area of the GTA, particularly around that and also see if Toronto, York Regional Labour Council could organise Cube 4400 and the various teachers locals to go to those schools and get them shut down by the workers there to ensure that there is no possibility of our people and our kids getting attacked. Drop a link to that in the chat here.
Rob Halpin: Thank you, Martin. Great. We're going to have that that that Excel sheet, that dynamic sorry, Google sheet that I was referring to, where we're capturing all of this data with a link to that will be put into the into the chat here by my colleague Yolanda. So thank you for that information, Emily. [00:33:51][247.0]
Emily Quaile: [00:33:54] Hi, everyone. Thank you so much. So my name is Emily. I am a V.P. at 4600 here in Ottawa at Carleton University, and I'm also a steering committee member of Community Solidarity Ottawa, which has been organising an Ottawa convoy. I would just like to address a couple of points that I heard.
First, I'll go with the previous speaker. I was the parent who led the organising efforts of June 9th on Broadview Avenue in Ottawa with Safety Canada, Josh Alexander and Skateboard. Chris Kane and I have a lot of great information to share and spread about what they did, how they organised and how we count. Our numbers were a lot bigger than just a couple hundred. I think we had probably closer to three or 400, whereas fascists were indeed violent.
And I really would like to start sharing that information. I will also drop in a chat about an article the Canadian Anti-Hate Network published that details are our stories. In terms of Ottawa, we have just planned a counter-protest being starting at 9 a.m. on the Supreme Court of Canada lawn. We chose this location because it's just adjacent to where they were building and we are not in the business of defending the state from fascists. We are in the business of protecting communities and each other to ensure that it does not go outpost in the streets. [00:35:10][0.7]
Emily Quaile: [00:35:12] I encourage you to share that all again, drop out in the in the in the chat for everyone. And I also just wanted to speak to something that Vickie brought up just about how we're opposing this and what we're up against.
And I think as much as it's important to understand the fact that we are dealing with a very fractured and difficult to do track movement, that they've actually gotten quite a lot better organising themselves despite all of these internal infighting. One of the reasons why we're having difficulty finding lots of accurate information on birch roots on who's exactly organising is not because they're disorganised, it's because they've gotten better at operational security, they're doing a lot more things and it's tighter and harder to infiltrate and harder to track. So I just think it's important to kind of keep that in context that they were able to at this moment rise above their internal discord to build a very, very big movement.
I also think that I would like to bring attention to the fact that, like this is absolutely crucial, that we oppose this in the streets. And this is just to kind of build off of other points that other wonderful Labour leaders here have talked about, is that we all know that our workplace issues don't stop with the finished work for the day. And we know that society doesn't stop when we walk into work in the morning. And we have to approach this in that we have to keep that in our minds.
What we are out there, the fascists are organising in the streets. I'm a researcher at Carleton and my focus is fascism in Canada. And the signs that I've seen that we're rising, that this is far more than just a far right transphobic protest.
They are fundamentally racist, they're fundamentally anti-union, they are fundamentally queer and transphobic, and it's just a matter of time before they come to us. And the only way, the best way the fascists have been stopped in the last hundred years has been when we unite in massive numbers in the streets. So this requires us to pivot and and start to think about how we can use our inherent strengths in a way that we're not used to using. Where we have to remember that our strength isn't just at the bargaining table. It isn't just one on the picket line. It isn't just when we're trying to get better benefits for our workers. It's about flexing that with communities. As a member of Community Solidarity Ottawa, I do just want to like, sorry, I'm talking super rapid fast. I just don't want to take up everyone's time here.
But I do want to mention that as Canadian as Community Solidarity Ottawa, we were formed in the convoy with lots of affiliates of labour, and since then we've seen a massive demobilisation coast convoy. This is due to the natural siloing that happens amongst us. Get busy with bargaining, we get busy with other issues. It's a volunteer organisation, but in that time of demobilisation they got better. The fascists got way better at organising.
So what we need to do is really encourage everyone to reach out to their local organisations with not just statements of solidarity but like actual tangible material things of people coming out, administrative help to help launch websites and help people build all those internal structures that we can build a movement rather than just putting out fires because that's what they're doing. So we need to start catching up a little bit and we know that we're better than saying we also don't have to worry too much about putting our members and our comrades in unsafe situations, because when we get numbers, we're going to keep each other safe and we're really good at listening. And that's something that the other side didn't have.
And we saw that on the streets on Broadview in June that they had difficulty kind of mobilising. It's been looted. And so we need to remember that we can we have the natural solidarity in our hearts that we can trust and listen to each other and move quickly. So building that trust and testing that trust in the streets is going to be really great and very excellent skill building.
So I really strongly encourage everyone to kind of think about how we can really kind of think specifically get to work. I know we are we always end up in these meetings all the time, but now we've got to just like hit the ground running, start flooding resources.
Can we loan staff in kind to existing organisations in Toronto or Ottawa or other cities where they exist? Can we loan office resources? Can we do printing? All of this stuff is going to be huge. Could be 4600 as well. Just pass the CLC motion with a $2,000 yearly budget to it and I strongly encourage everyone to consider doing something like that because that encourages that things actually just get spent, money gets out the door and we have a more a stronger province of of support beyond the statement and beyond, just like the handful of the same activists all the time just showing up to these things.
Okay. I'm going to drop all my links as well as my contact information into the chat. So I strongly encourage everyone and their dog to reach out to me. We can work together on this. We've got a lot of knowledge in this room and I'm so stoked to see this many people on this call. So solidarity, everyone. [00:40:16][304.4]
Rob Halpin: [00:40:18] Here here. Thank you very much, Emily. Before I go to Peter, which I'll go to next, I just want to advise on what we are going to be releasing here any second now. So I've asked our communications director, I alluded that we'll have a central page where folks can RSVP to take action on September 20th, and the days that follow that link should be momentarily available, and I will share it in the chat. But it's going to be critical that when I do that, that I ask everyone on this call to go immediately to that page and to fill in your information. Why?
Because we have folks on this call that are on the executive council that wouldn't have received this call through our normal channels. They've been brought in by their leadership. It's critical that we have your contact information so that we can share resources back with you as well as as more of those updates, Locations and times for counter protests are established that you're in the know about where that's happening. So once that link is ready, which will be very soon, I'm going to ask that everybody on this call, regardless if you've got this, if you're a part of the executive council or not, that you sign in so that we can keep track of who's on the call and share resources with you. Thanks for your patience, Peter.
Peter Votsch: Thank you. Sisters and brothers and comrades Peter Veitch from Peterborough Retirees Network and Peterborough District Labour Council. And thank you for organising this meeting. And Emily, your comments were brilliant and heartfelt. A follow up on that, but we've taken your lead in many ways in Peterborough by building a network here. I went to Peterborough on the fourth, was United Against Hate.
We are an anti-hate network that's done eight defences of Drag Queen Storytime. We've been under attack by Save Canada by Kevin Boudreau. Bye bye. Organised Nazis with Confederate flags. So we have some experience and some knowledge in this also like you do in Ottawa and in many ways your inspiration. So again, another thank you for that. We are meeting at 9 a.m. across from City Hall on September 20th to oppose the bigots. We have a poster. It's already in the chat. We're going to be organised a couple of of of Leslie's and I just. Yeah, everything's been set already or will be set. I imagine Labour Council is crucial. I happen to be on the Labour Council here in Peterborough as a retiree. Labour councils in Peterborough and Lindsay have taken the lead in this and that's an important lesson that goes back to the convoy.
We started in Lindsay counter picketing the convoy in 2022. We brought out Brother James. James Mulhern, a big shout out to Lindsay Labour Council and also Dave Warda from Peterborough. We brought people out and we started that tradition, that tradition of resistance, and we said to ourselves, Drag Queen Storytime taking place at our public library, staffed by our community members, is not going to get shut down. It will not and it has not. In fact, they've increased the bookings. That's been their goal to shut it down. We've said no way is that going to happen. And and and we have been prepared for every single one.
No, I just want to make one big ask here of everybody. And Emily, you've you've helped hinted at it and so is Rob. We need a network. We need first a province wide network and a national network. I think we can start and you make it yourself and initiate this, but a lot of us are already ready. We're organising on the ground, we're organising labour in the LGBTQ plus communities. We're organising, I'm going to a climate protest, I'll be making an announcement, I'll be talking about public health care, because if you look at the program with the Imperial Party and the New Blue Party, they want credit card health care, they want it, they want charter schools or what they call it choice in education. We all know what that means, right?
We can see the other attacks. It's all of us under attack. And I live in a rural area, so I get this stuff and I can see it. So let's work on more frequent coming together like this and forming a network. [00:44:46][268.8]
Emily Quaile: [00:44:47] And exchanging the information. [00:44:48][1.6]
Rob Halpin: [00:44:49] I have a lot to learn from Emily. I'm going to go right to the chat now because you guys are fantastic and we want to build it here in Peterborough because this is not going to stop and we need to build an antifascist movement in this in this in this province, in this country. And I'm just going to use our slogan in Peter. We say there will be resistance and on Wednesday there will be. Thank you. And thank you, Peter. Great, great stuff. I'm going to go to Carolyn Egan next. Hi, Carolyn. [00:45:19][30.1]
Carolyn Egan: [00:45:20] Hi, how are you? Thanks very much. And great meeting, great turnout. I'm president of the Steelworkers Toronto Area Council, also a founding member of Steel Pride in our Union and Community Solidarity Toronto. And what I want to say and this is just dynamite that we're coming together like this and echo what Emily, Peter and others have said, the Toronto, New York Region Labour Council, we established a rapid response network quite a few years ago after the the the murders at the mosque and in Quebec.
And at that time the far right was organising at Nathan Phillips Square, which is City Hall Square here, and they wanted to take over the public space, which is one of their tactics, and give a sense that somehow their views represent the majority, which is not the case. We organise that and not only ourselves. Unions like OPS, you and Steel IBEW, CUPE and others came out regularly, but with community allies from the east end of Toronto group called Team, which included the Muslim community there, black community to us, LGBTQ, all different groupings.
And we were able after a period of time to demoralise them because we continue to grow, grow, grow, they can. You need to get smaller. They lost their confidence. They stopped. Now, this was pre-COVID. But that network, that rapid response network, was incredibly, incredibly important. And Labour Council, along with the Urban Alliance on Race Relations and a whole range of other community and labour groups, founded a Community Solidarity Toronto. And obviously we took the name from Ottawa. That was Tom Convoy. Time had a number of actions here in in, in the city and I think being on the ready, not being taken by surprise, having organised beforehand, know who your allies are, know who you're connecting with and be able to pull people out and to show that they are the minority.
And honestly, we have shown I think here and what we had done a few years ago, they can easily be demoralised, their confidence can be just ripped out from under them. And that's what we have to do by building large mass in other fronts in all our cities, towns with a broader a grouping of people as possible. And the rapid response network. I mean, the last action we did was at the Hyde Park Library on Rogers Vale here in Toronto a few months ago in the summer.
And previously there was something at at Fort York and numbers of I think the Steelworkers and others went up and joined. Peter Birrell. Peter talked about what they were doing and honestly he did so much just to bring that all together. And we went out because they were just beginning and weren't sure how many they would get out and they got hundreds out and the fact that Labour was out there but community as well, students from transit etc., really, really important.
So we as I said are, are calling for a rally at, at, at, at Queen's Park on the 20th. And and I think it's hugely important that as many people it's a work day for for many of us in the unions we know but at least if we can have representation from all the unions possible and community organisations. 519 I know I've work certainly with 519 and others in the past on on such questions. This is critical, so let's go, let's do it. And Yolanda giving us all the concrete steps. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, whatever. They're there for us. So let's just move. Thank you very much. [00:48:37][196.5]
Rob Halpin: [00:48:40] Thank you, Carolyn. Excellent. You got some great points being raised in the chat here as well. And I'm going to get to Anthony Marco here shortly. But to let's. There's a great point that that Chase just put in the the the notes here that we really do need to centre trans and non-binary voices with respect to planning on the day. Let's encourage ah the entire community to get to get active and we will make the space available for that to occur. Anthony Marco And then I'm going to share the link again that I'm asking everybody take the opportunity to just simply RSVP. So we've tracked your eat your details and we'll be able to share more information as they become available. Anthony.
Anthony Marco: You can hear me. Okay. I'm on an unfamiliar laptop at work here, so trying. Trying to make sure I can make this work. So as soon as we heard about the the protest happening in Hamilton, we got together a group of people we didn't really have necessarily a rapid response network. We had a bunch of groups that were certainly interested in working with each other. And over the past decade or so in Hamilton, what we've been mostly focusing on is community outreach and building relationships with communities. So bringing the people together happened relatively quickly.
We started up a Facebook chat group, which was quickly escalated over about 24 to 48 hours to 150 local activists and leaders, many of whom were coming on representing entire organisations. And so we got that built really quickly. We created a private Facebook group to try and get people on their it was the easiest way to reach out to people and we started to bring people in from external to Facebook as well. We've organised a planning meeting for the counter-protest on Monday evening at the Labour Council office so that we can get everybody's ideas in there.
We do want to make sure that the key is that we are reducing risk as much as possible, that we are consolidating our message as much as possible, and that we are making sure that we are occupying the space not only where they are, but where they intend to be. So we have basically been told that they are going to be meeting in a parking lot of a local mall. I don't know if they're going to be doing a tailgate for an hour, whatever the heck they're doing, but then they're going to be marching over to the school boards.
Our plan is to be at the school board first, and we are going to occupy in front of the school board as much as we can. But we are also being very clear that we are not. They're defending the school board. The school board has its own issues with regards to systemic issues regarding regarding trans trans students and trans families.
To be honest with you, I know I've got three kids myself who are currently in the K-12 system who identify as trans, and I know as an employee of the school board that there are a lot of gaps there. And so we're making sure that we are saying we're going to occupy their space. There is no possible way that we could stop them from walking around us to get to the school board building. But that's not our responsibility.
Our responsibility is to basically diffuse and to take control of the messaging and to make sure that if there is going to be the press there that day, it is going to be about positive messaging, about people who are allies and making sure that there is an understanding that it's not just all negative. And our hope is that we are going to we're actually going to steal a couple of their tactics in that when they are gathering for their or their tailgate party in the mall parking lot. We've got a couple of seasoned activists who are who have already said that they're willing to go over and, you know, take some pictures of license plates.
And these are people who are willing to do this. There are people who are seizing and and making sure that they know that they're being watched, that they're not doing this in secret, that people are noticing what they're what they're up to. But we're going to have a sign making event also on Monday evening.
We're inviting people to Labour Council. And we have said from from step one when this group was created. The Labour Council does not need nor not necessarily does not want to be the voice of this. But if that's what people want, we will be there no matter what. So if there are other groups that wish to take on being the primary voice of this and no one has stepped up yet to tell us no. Most of the groups who have come on, even groups that are like, we've got groups like No Hate in the Hammer involved and we've got a lot of anti hate groups and anti oppression groups that have come on. They are, I think because of the possibility of some of the inherent risk of it could be here. They're quite happy that the that the Labour Council is kind of taking the lead on this.
We did take the lead a few years ago when Hamilton had some incidents of pride and you know, a lot of our members were the face of what essentially became a pride defence team when some people were marching on the park at that time. So we are trying to be as inclusive as possible, bringing as many voices together as possible. We are not sharing all of the details until at least the day before, because our biggest fear now is if we share the details of the counterprotest that they're going to try and pivot and move it somewhere else. We want to make sure that we have everyone lined up to where they can be there. I will say we've got like 150 in this one group. We've got about 75 of them that migrated over to this private page, and many of them represent larger groups.
We know that on a workday it is going to be tough getting people to show up. There's a lot of people who are supportive, trying to get people to show up. I'm hoping and from what I've seen of some of these organisations in the past, even though they've got these cross-Canada events going on, that really dilutes their numbers in many cases, you know, oftentimes when they have an event, they'll draw in from like four or five different cities just to get 100 people at some places. So we're hoping that we are going to overwhelm their numbers and we are hoping that even if they march 25 people to the front doors of the school or the school board and interact. And so ultimately, if the cameras are going to be there, we want them to be spending their time on the positive messaging. We want them to be spending their time on.
Basically, this isn't a counterprotest. This will be our rally. We want it to be our rally, not their rally. We want it to be our event, not their event. And if we have enough people there, that's what we're going to make it. So we're bringing together as many groups in Hamilton as possible, and we've been doing that for a long, long time now. And thankfully, our allies are making it our allies for Labour and the Labour councils are making it really easy on us because these are the same people who show up the straight line, even though they're not New Years.
You know, the same people who show up whenever we call them out to help with anything, they'll show up because we show up for them. I always say that that's part one of the currency of activism is showing up, and that's what we do. That's what we do for them and that's what they're planning on doing for us, and that's what we're all planning on doing to stop hate in our city and to stop hate across the country. So anybody who's on here from Hamilton, if you're not part of the if you're not part of the chat or there or know where the group is, feel free to a private message me in the chat here and I can send you some of the details and the information for the meeting on Monday night. Thanks. Oh, the last thing I wanted to ask, is it possible that the off hours she'll see it?
Have a list of some legal support numbers from across Ontario, even if they're not happy for Hamilton. But like, if somebody for some reason gets picked up, it would be good that if they could have a one 800 number that they could write on their arm or something like that so that they know they've always got a lawyer that they can call that would be useful. I'm not saying it will happen reference number for happening, but we have some sees IT activists who have been used to that in the past and they wanted to make sure that we had that option if we had. Right now.
Rob Halpin: Anthony, great suggestion. Thank you. Before we go, too many. I just want to highlight a few pieces again in the chat. We have created a event page and I appreciate it. Somebody acknowledged we still have a few kinks to work out on that page. Okay. The main purpose of this page right now is to track your information so that we can communicate back with you when we have a formalised list of those resources all in one place as well as the, you know, the locations of where these counter-protests will occur.
So again, I'm going to put it right in the chat right now. I'm going to ask if you haven't done so already, that you immediately just go and click on that link, get your contact information down there. We'll have it on the backend and that way we're able to communicate back with you where and when we know events will be occurring. Thank you, Anthony. Munib?
Munib Sjjad: Good morning, everyone. Really appreciate the leadership team and staff committee all putting this meeting together, I think. Who knows. And thank you. This is fantastic. Really loving the resources to. The only suggestion that I would probably have is an update if there's anything that could be added is maybe reminding and giving some tips about the potential impacts of what could happen. It's doxing. We've seen that with a lot of fascist white supremacist organisations and groups that have been doxing a lot of, you know, progressive folks that have been organising in the regions in combating hate in many ways.
If there's a way that the the information you have could be updated to how to deal with doxing, how to protect yourself from being dox, especially what could happen as ramifications long term because we know it's not just what's going to happen on the 20th going into the 22nd and various others is going to be continuous.
Another thing, one thing from all this stuff, we are not just taking attention to where it's happening. Everywhere we've seen significant, you know, actions being organised at city halls and at school boards, but we're taking active attention to is how do we have safety plans ready for those protests that are occurring directly at schools. And I'm seeing from the chart the super helpful see folks update on Huntsville and Bracebridge. We know that Maxime Bernier is going to be showing up to Victoria Park Collegiate in Scarborough, North York area and something that we're taking a lot of attention to and thank you for sharing resources on that. But if you can reach out to us to let know, let us know if you do see locations and protest being planned at schools, that'll be helpful for us and to coordinate with our education comrades and of course, our local communities to.
Rob Halpin: Thank you, Munib. Again, I'm going to remind folks, go to the link and fill in your information. I'm going to put it in the chat one more time, I'm sure. Give me a little hand way that you've already gone ahead and signed up for the for the page. That's great. Here it is. Here again. Great. Excellent. Thank you. The CIA says it. Thank you for that. Okay. We're going to get to Susan next Don and then Susan. Go ahead, Don. Sorry. There we go.
Don Fry: Yeah. I'm actually representing a group called Affirming Worship Durham. And this protest sort of got my attention more than ordinary because it's advertised as a religion. It's a religious thing, though. The way that they sort of preface the whole concept of this protest.
And we're going to be trying to have a religious opposition to the far right and doing it as best we can, but we're having to do it with love and inclusion and positivity and what have you. It's nice to have the organisational structure that you folks are providing because you need to have allies that know what they're doing and what they're, you know, what how to handle themselves in these these cases.
We've had two cases in the past where we've we've had to almost back away from a protest because there were people that were more interested in having a confrontation and engaging and name calling and things of this nature. So it's I'm very much interested in seeing how things are coming together here. So definitely like to have the support structure. I'm not sure all of our decisions don't happen from the top. I'm not the president, just I just happen to be somebody that's usually the communicator as far as this is concerned. All these decisions take place at the individual place that worships throughout the area, and it's not something that I can direct.
So I'm going to be trying to give them as much information as possible and ensure that we can have some sort of an impact. I was looking at the spreadsheet and I think we've got about five or six events that are planned for Durham Region and we've got 22 places of worship. So it's going to be hard to have a sustained impact as far as that's concerned. But we'll do our best.
Rob Halpin: Thank you, Don. Susan.
Susan Gapka: I am. I'm bewildered, but I'm actually Susan Gapka. I'm here with the CUPE Ontario, I'm the human rights chair and I've been directed to by our president CUPE Ontario to throw off my Sunshine Susie Cape and put on my Super Susan cape. But I use her pronouns that I use Elle en français, and I've got a heck of a lot of emotion surrounding this. I'm an out trans woman. I'm transgender.
And, you know, 20 years ago we could get five people to protest at Queen's Park to get our health care restored. And now I'm you know, and I got to say, I don't want to go to log on or whoever is facilitating, but a lot of memories of the fights we've had where we struggled. There were just a handful of us meeting in a room, going out, trying to get allies and supporters in about a week.
And then we built this Canada where trans and non-binary people and gender diverse people were included, and that took a good 13 to 15 years. And here we are, they're coming back. We have a backlash. But, you know, folks, we've been to this rodeo before. We have struggled. We've survived. We struggled and some of us have actually overcome. And that makes us really, really strong.
So about ten days ago or feels like a lifetime ago in our world, when Stephen lying Leece said put out the trial about parental consent in the schools, my life seems to have changed. And then after a conservative convention and these are really minor and so many of us know how politics works, the inner wheel of big politics, and they're simply resolutions. But the fuel behind these resolutions that the Conservative Party adopted. And so I was feeling a little lost after that feeling wondered what's going to happen?
And now you all bring me so much joy, so much comfort to know that there's more than five of us looking at each other in a small room, that. We are. Here united in this struggle, in solidarity together. I just want to touch on Carolyn's comments, my comrade over there, smiling in the corner box. I'm in agreement and most people I'm talking to in my little bubble here, which is ever expanding, as I said, as we speak. People that I talked to want to stop this dead in its tracks. And that's the wrong word to use. That's a figure of speech. But I'm going to. We want to show the strength. And what we have in labour is numbers. And if we can put up a good show on the 20th but not make this a one time event.
We need to be doing counter protest, educational forums, Trans Day of Remembrance is coming up and we need to add that political message. We want our political people, the people who have seen the word I'm thinking, I'm thinking of misinformation, that there there's this myth and misinformation of what's happening in our schools, what dry cleaners are doing. We need to be giving them the key message. We need to have opportunities to. There's so many of them, it's hard to counter all of the hate messages, but we have time to do that. But this is about. Carolyn, back to you. If we stand up to the bullies, the bully will decide what to do. They will fight for or our our. Flight fight or fright.
So let's give them some fright on September 20th so that on September 21st. Tell whatever that they're working on the flight cockpit. I think they're going to stop there. But I just want to I just really appreciating all of you here today to know that I'm not struggling alone, that we are in this together. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Rob Halpin: Thank you. Thank you, Susan.
Okay, folks, I don't see any other folks in the queue at this point. So here's what I'm going to suggest as next steps in other eye.
The next item I had on the agenda here was sharing of these resources. Now that I've captured all of your data, as far as we know, your email addresses, for all of those that have been on the call, we had a ton of resources here today that we've discussed. Great links put into the chat. We're going to take some time to synthesise some of that information that's been brought forward to us. Make some edits to some of those documents as noted, and then reshare that information with everybody back in an email, likely later today. If not, it will be first thing on Monday morning where we'll know where all these resources are.
But it's critical that we maintain, you know, build the solidarity. Again, I think, as Susan points out, not just on the 20th and the subsequent days, that will happen thereafter because there are events scheduled for other days as well, but that we building this rapid response network to combat hate everywhere we see it. So I want to thank everybody for the opportunity to speak to you today about this from a next steps perspective.
I'm going to ask my colleague, just so I'm going to throw this out to my colleague, Yolanda. And I appreciate everybody understands how rapid this has been evolving and how quick we are to take action here. So we will get things buttoned down as we go forward. Yolanda, our folks being asked at this point to input data directly into that spreadsheet, where are you advising to send information to to us and we can update that internally. Can I get an answer to that question? [01:07:52][185.3]
Yolanda B’Dacy: [01:07:53] Either is fine with me. Somebody, or more than one person pointed out that we have to be careful of that spreadsheet so that it doesn't get damaged. I've created another one or something happens to that when I have a backup. But yes, if you know of things, please, I have them there. And not just the actual. I started to do it, but not just the counterprotest. But if you're having, as we heard their poster making situations, if there are meetings, please at all of that. I will put my email in the chat as well in case anybody want to contact me directly.
But yes, please. The more we know, the more we can share. And and also people then can look back at this because you will have the link now and you can see if there's something in your area. And if you don't see something in your area, that is your cue. That is your sign from the universe that you need to be starting one unit to anchor it. So don't wait for it to be as if you don't see one in your area. That means it's you. You've been tapped, tiger it. [01:08:42][48.9]
Rob Halpin: [01:08:44] Great. Thank you very much. I see Laurie's on. Laurie's got the hand up look bad, Laurie. [01:08:48][4.1]
Laura: [01:08:51] All right, thanks. This is Laurie with Community Solidarity Ottawa and with KEEP. We're not an affiliate, but we collaborate on a few things. And I'm also on this. The anti-hate committee with the CRC.
I'm actually just wanted to put our hand out. CSO is a group of volunteers who run out of pocket in Ottawa. Sorry, Community Solidarity Ottawa, and anybody that has any loose funds that they could send our way for logistics, we would we would much appreciate and we put it out individual calls. But I wanted to put out the call here. If anybody can spare a few bucks, then please contact me. I'll put my email in the chat. Thanks. [01:09:40][48.8]
Rob Halpin: [01:09:42] Great. Thank you. Okay, So we have a bit of work to do ahead of us here and we're looking forward to doing it. I put the link in the chat one more time. For those of you who have yet to do it, please RSVP. So we tracked your data. Any other business before we wrap up and get into next steps? And you're trying to go ahead. Yep. [01:10:02][20.1]
Chandra: [01:10:02] I just want to add in. I mean, this, of course, is not a fulsome list, but I just want to make note that there are a few crisis lines, health lines that are specific to the trans community, community and indigenous communities that I'm going to share in the track to ensure that anybody on this call needs some assistance or if they know people and maybe keep up with you to make ready.
And if there are more where they don't like to share with us. We send them to me and then we do make sure to be sure that it's friends as well. I'm going to put them in the chat and then I'll put my email address in the chat in there as well. Just I want to make sure that everybody is keeping themselves safe, both physically safe, mentally, emotionally, spiritually safe as well. Thanks. [01:10:50][47.6]
Rob Halpin : [01:10:51] Thank you, Chandra-Li. Really. Okay. We're going to. This has been a very useful meeting. I hope you've all found it to be so. It's 1115 ish now. We've got a lot of work to get done in the short run here.
We are going to be on the streets. We are going to be allied. We are going to make sure that the people of Ontario specifically understand there's no place for hate in our communities. I want to thank you all for being with us today. There'll be more information forthcoming via your emails and we will see you on the 20th, in the subsequent days thereafter. Thank you so much, everyone. [01:11:22][31.5]
Patty Jarvis Coates: [01:11:28] Thank you, everyone. [01:11:28][0.4]
Rob Halpin [01:11:30] Thank you. [01:11:30][0.0]
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Thank you for posting this.
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