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#OccupyRobFord

One week into the Occupy Toronto movement, activists are taking their fight to city hall this weekend. Saturday afternoon, protesters will march from St. James Park to Nathan Philips Square in what they hope will be the biggest action since the local version of the occupation movement hit Toronto.

While the city has seen several organized actions against Mayor Rob Ford’s agenda this year, OccupyTO has so far avoided merging with any anti-Ford groups, modeling itself on the loose-knit Occupy Wall Street protests instead.

But Octavian Cadabeschi, who sits on OccupyTO’s action committee, says it was only a matter of time before they targeted the mayor, who’s in the midst of a campaign to slash the city budget and trim the workforce by an untold number of jobs.

“Anti-austerity is one of the messages of this movement,” Cadabeschi said. “It makes sense that one of the first big actions that we have should deal with the local face of austerity, which ultimately means marching on city hall.”

According to the group’s website, on Saturday OccupyTO will be joined by “grassroots community groups, tenants’ rights activists, and labour unions.” Those on the speakers list include representatives from the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty and the library workers’ union.

OccupyTO already has support from some city councillors. Next week council will debate a motion put forth by Councillors Gord Perks and Shelley Carroll asking that the city endorse the protests. It’s not expected to pass.

From city hall, activists will march back to the camp at St. James Park Saturday where an “open house” is planned to encourage others to join the movement and showcase the makeshift tent city that’s been set up, complete with medical tent, library, and food station.

For many observers, Saturday’s march will be a key indicator of whether OccupyTO still has momentum a week after it launched, of if it’s beginning to peter out.

Cadabeschi isn’t concerned. He predicts there will easily be a thousand people at Saturday’s protest because he believes there are many people who can’t attend daily meetings but that support OccupyTO’s agenda.

“What we’re really hoping for here is a broad march with people who can’t be here day in and day out but who will show their support for what we’re doing,” he said. “Even if we don’t get thousands of people out on Saturday, we’re still in a position where the camp is strong enough that we can build from there. Everyone who’s here at this point is here to stay.”

Cadabeschi estimates that attendance in the park dipped below 100 mid-week when Toronto was buffeted with a torrential rainstorm, but has since returned to roughly 200 people. He feels the movement is in a good position to last into the winter, with new recruits arriving on a regular basis to shoulder the load of an indefinite occupation.

L.G. Tigger is one of the new volunteers. She didn’t march at the launch event last Saturday but said she stopped by the camp earlier this week and realized organizers could use some of her cooking and writing skills. Now she’s one of the group’s facilitators.

“I saw they did need a lot of help,” explained Tigger, who said she was going by the name other occupy campers had given her. She says the camp is busy getting ready for winter, and is calling for donations of sleeping bags, warm clothes, and more tents. She’s confident the occupation will last for a long time.

“We’re getting more organized every single day,” she said. “No one’s talking about an end.”

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