That Time Toronto Occupied... Something?
Sean B. Pasternak
Lifelong Storyteller. Reputation Manager. PR Professional. Brand Builder. Expert Communicator. Former Journalist.
Saturday, October 15, 2011: I distinctly remember arriving at the corner of King and Bay Streets in downtown Toronto about half an hour early, curious as to what the day might bring. I remember a light rain covering the area and maybe only a half-dozen people wandering around the intersection. No story was apparent yet, but I still wanted to be on the scene from the moment everything went down.
If this particular date doesn't ring a bell, you're probably not alone. To give some historical context, this was roughly a month after thousands had descended on New York City's Zuccotti Park to protest corporate greed, pay inequality and other topics under the auspices of Occupy Wall Street.
Shortly after OWS made itself known, a spinoff known as Occupy Toronto was launched. I was one of the reporters assigned to cover this movement, and while no one in corporate Canada seemed to be nervous about the Dollar General (Dollarama?) equivalent of Occupy Wall Street, it was still an important item to cover. After all, Canada had been home to the world's soundest banks throughout the Global Financial Crisis, and didn't have the same institutional failings as other banks around the world. Would this group perhaps have a different strategy than its Wall Street equivalent?
As it turned out... no.
Not only did the group have far less impact than OWS, they also appeared to lack any significant direction, which -- I don't know -- if I were organizing some sort of protest, I'd want everyone to know what, exactly, we were protesting. (Obscure Reference Alert coming up:) Calling Occupy Toronto the "Tears Are Not Enough" to Occupy Wall Street's "We Are The World" would probably be an insult to Anne Murray, Corey Hart, Paul Shaffer and the rest of the Northern Lights group.
In preparation for covering the event, I'd emailed the group's Facebook page days earlier to ask for contact names and an agenda for the day, and never heard back from anyone (this ended up being a recurring theme). It doesn't take a PR expert to figure out that if you want to drum up publicity for you cause, it may behoove you to return a phone call from a member of the media interested in your story. And the outlet I worked for happened to be one of the largest global media outlets in the world, and focused on business at that.
Back to the protest: it took about an hour for the first few hundred people to assemble, and the proceedings were fairly relaxed and friendly. Few people seemed to have genuine "fire in their belly" over the issues at hand and were instead happily shooting the breeze with other protesters; some even brought their children and pets with. Given I was dodging rocks and fire-wielding protesters one year earlier (see an earlier newsletter for that story), this assignment was going to be a walk in the park. Literally, as it turned out.
Once the masses were assembled, the organizers did about 45 minutes of "mic checks" (this is where, in place of using a bullhorn, a designate for the protest would shout out a few words, and the rest of the crowd would repeat the words until everyone can hear them). Probably a fun thing to do at summer camp, but 45 minutes seemed liked overkill.
The group, probably a thousand strong by this point (it was impossible to do a head count), began marching to Yonge and Dundas square, chanting phrases such as "We are the 99 percent!" with some people banging drums and blaring trumpets. Because this was being done on a Saturday morning in October, and assisted by the police, it only caused a minor traffic disruption to Toronto's downtown core. I don't think many people's lives were changed by this 20-minute fun run through the city.
After spending a short time at Yonge-Dundas Square, the group then moved to nearby St. James Park, where some protestors set up camp for the night, some used the opportunity to smoke, and others hung around to continue their chanting. It was here I began asking some of the people for their thoughts on the day's events and this was, to me, where the true value of such a movement wafted into the sky, not unlike the pot smoke in the park that was pretty much everywhere.
No two people were arguing for the same outcome. They couldn't articulate how Canada's financial system was responsible for the distribution for wealth, nor could anyone provide a logical solution to their issue. And while I no longer have my notepad from that day, I seem to recall that many even had contradictory views from their colleagues.
I visited the park again the next day, and every few couple after that, but the group really didn't make much impact. Occupy Toronto lasted about a month until the Supreme Court ordered protestors out of St. James Park, and the headlines they made after that first weekend were few and far between.
To illustrate why Occupy Toronto never quite took off, I have two pieces of video. The first is a fictitious interview from HBO's The Newsroom, in which Will McAvoy (Jeff Daniels) interviews an OWS member on his news program. Granted, it's not about Occupy Toronto, but the points are quite similar (note there is some minor foul language at the end of this clip).
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Second is an actual news clip about Occupy Toronto, where interviewer Steve Paikin tries to understand what the group hopes to accomplish, while speaking with lawyer Omar Ha-Redeye:
The similarities are incredible. Both movements may have experienced more success if they had an organized plan of attack, designated leaders and most of all, achievable goals. It's not altogether newsworthy when a group of people gather together and shed tears about how things might work in a perfect world. Or, put another way (and again, I know this reference is obscure):
We can bridge the distance
Only we can make the difference
Don't ya know that tears are not enough
If we can pull together
We could change the world forever
Heaven knows that tears are not enough.