Political Activism in Toronto

It’s only been about two weeks since I arrived in Toronto, and its passion for politics is something I’ve definitely picked up upon. For instance, one Saturday morning after a few students and I were heading home after brunch, we spotted a marching animal rights group protesting the consumption of meat and other animal products. This was interesting, because in Cincinnati I’ve never actually seen animal rights activism, apart from chatting with my vegetarian friends. Literally the only time I’ve read about animal rights activism is reading the occasional PETA scandal in the news.

Later in the week as I was coming home from work, I found outside the college residence a group gathered to protest the TPP. As I was about to head up to my room and do my post-work ritual of downing a jar of peanut butter, a raspy, high-pitched voice caught my attention. Making my way over, I quickly saw that leading the whole protest was actually a group of elderly women. This is no-doubt strange, since one would assume that if anybody were to lead a protest against the TPP, it would be younger folks, not only because most people’s knowledge/opinions of the act come from the Internet and social media, but also because young people (theoretically) have to live longer with its consequences. Nonetheless, these women really riled up the crowd, especially with a song about Trudeau’s bedroom sung to the melody of “Someone’s in the Kitchen with Dinah.”

What was especially interesting about these protests is that they really did have a diverse attendance. In both of them, there was representation from people of all ages and ethnicities. This is different from the US, because many protests appeal to people of similar demographics. For example, from what I’ve seen about animal rights groups in the US, a lot of their protests seem to be made up of young, white middle class Americans, but that wasn’t really the case here.

And although it wasn’t a protest, this week I encountered another instance political activism, this time in the form of kid lit. At a bookstore near my workplace I found “The Family Alphabet Book,” that teaches kids the letters with pictures of families where the parents are a same-sex couple.

 To have such a book in the bookstore’s window implies not only that LGBT issues are non-controversial here, but also that there’s a collaborative social effort to make LGBT individuals visible and their lifestyles no less “mainstream” than straight couples, emphasizing Toronto’s values of inclusion and belonging.