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Panhandling Toronto's Business District
The idea was to bring the message to the very people responsible for the pathetic treatment of the poor in Toronto and Ontario. The Toronto Tribune arrived early and toured many of the underground shopping malls. OCAP hadn't released a map of their planned route through Toronto's PATH. Over and over again The Toronto Tribune encountered a massive police presence coupled with increased mall security personnel. OCAP didn't need to enter the underground PATH for an impact to be felt in the wallets of those who use the mall and those who contribute to the Toronto Police Services budget. Earlier The Toronto Tribune contacted several of the impacted businesses. We wanted to know if the poor were welcome. Now only a really foolish PR team would say no. HBC's, Hillary Marshall responded to our query outlining some of the issues being raised by the protest, "Thanks for bringing to my attention. As the country's oldest company and one that attempts to represent the values of our customers, we feel a great amount of compassion for those who are faced with ongoing or perhaps temporary setbacks in their lives. The Bay Queen Street provides public access to the PATH system through the lower level of our store and we respectfully invite this protest to move through the store, but ask participants to return the respect as they do."
The protest began with food for the homeless and messages from OCAP to the gathered media. Then members of OCAP split into several groups and entered the PATH in different ways. It has been reported that there weren't any arrests. That's incorrect. Gaeten Heroux was arrested and removed from one of the underground buildings. The police officer who arrested him let him go without charging him within minutes of his arrest. Heroux returned to the protest.
The protest was like a contemporary dance with three different partners all with diverse agendas: Police&Mall Security; The Media, The Protesters. Several groups of protesters merged as they entered BCE Place, which is owned by Brookfield Properties. They took seats in the hallway in front of BCE's Food Court and remained for several minutes. The Toronto Police presence grew in numbers and they headed towards the protesters with Mall Security in tow. Cameras flashed like crazy as the media entered the dance. The Police and Security retreated and OCAP continued their peaceful protest. Perhaps five minutes later, as The Toronto Tribune was upstairs at BCE Place standing next to the deserted BCE Plaza, word came of a Toronto Police Press Conference at King and Bay. Why not hold the press conference in BCE Plaza? Seemed a strange reason to move the media so far away thus The Toronto Tribune stayed put at BCE Place. The Mainstream Media made a mad dash for the Police Conference and sure enough the Toronto Police returned to the BCE Food Court along with BCE Security headed straight for the OCAP protesters. A few flashes from the few remaining media cameras and Toronto Police made their second retreat of the day. The OCAP protest moved to First Canadian Place, a property managed by Olympia & York Properties. The third part of the dance occurred. What had become obvious was one man was involved in all of these operations. He refused to identify himself and when pressed provided the business card for the Manager of Corporate Communications for Cadillac Fairview, Heath Applebaum. Hold on. This Cadillac Fairview employee was center stage in the machinations at Olympia & York managed First Canadian Place and Brookfield Properties' BCE Place neither of which belong to Cadillac Fairview. Perhaps tenants of these two malls ought to request a refund if their security staff wasn't up to snuff. Maybe they had to pay a premium to Cadillac Fairview for their expertise at BCE Place and First Canadian Place. Christmas shoppers had their raison d'etre challenged: the man whose birth they celebrate was poor. Like those who panhandled asking for a bit of money and more importantly a whole lot of understanding from the business people exploiting the season and the shoppers spending a fortune to get the right gift,
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