The countdown is on, but time still hasn’t run out for Occupy Toronto.
The eviction of protesters from St. James Park appears a near certainty, but as the sun came up on Tuesday morning their camp was still intact despite an edict from the mayor and the courts ordering them to leave immediately.
The campsite was on high alert Monday night after a judge ruled earlier in the day that the city had the right to remove protesters from the park, defeating Occupy’s attempts to win an injunction. Mayor Rob Ford held a press conference advising them to pack up and leave the park right away, and soon after officials at St. James Cathedral announced they would not offer protesters sanctuary on the part of the park owned by the church.
Roughly 1,000 Occupy supporters streamed into St. James Park Monday night, with many fearing that police would attempt to clear the park as early as 12:01 am in accordance with city bylaws prohibiting use of the property between midnight and 5:30 am. But while police patrol cars remained in sight of the park at all times, the authorities never entered the park even after most Occupy supporters had gone home and left fewer than 100 people to hold the fort.
There was one false report of police blocking off the area surrounding the park, but otherwise it was a very quiet night.
As the temperature dropped, protesters played soccer outside the park’s gazebo and stood around small wood fires. Others slept in their tents or congregated in one of the camp’s large yurts.
“I was expecting something to happen, and nothing happened,” said Ed Carmichael, a Markham resident who’s been visiting the protest site and off since it was set up five weeks ago. He said the initial influx of people Monday night probably deterred police from moving in on the park.
Kevin Konnyu, one of the protest’s organizers, speculated that the lack of action so far is a police tactic to fake out Occupy Toronto’s supporters by deliberately allowing deadlines to pass without incident.
“The police will wait a few days, hoping that with a ‘cry wolf’ phenomenon, people will stop coming out to support us,” Konnyu predicted. “I would imagine the camp will last a couple more days at this point.”
So far, the mayor and the police have given no timeline for taking action against protesters who refuse to leave.
But the eviction threat has already had a damaging effect on the Occupy Toronto camp. Several protesters packed up their tents on Monday, fearing they would be trampled if the police entered the park.
The kitchen tent, a vital hub that had been serving meals to hundreds of people every day since the occupation began, has been dismantled, leaving food out in the open air. A local businessman named John Quarterly had loaned the tent to occupiers, but said he had to take it down because at a value of $10,000, he couldn’t afford to have it damaged in a scuffle with the police. Konnyu admitted it will be difficult for the protest to sustain itself without a kitchen, although they are still receiving food donations.
Already, some in the movement are looking ahead to the post-camp-out phase of the Occupy movement.
“I think that we’re coming to the understanding collectively that this movement is, and ought to be, much more than this park,” said Jenny Isaacs, a 23-year-old part-time U of T student and one of Occupy’s more vocal facilitators. “We’ve grown so much being here together and I think we want to keep having the park as a physical hub, but I think we have enough of a basis to move forward without it if we have to.”
