Statement on the Events of June 9, 2023
On behalf of a network of Ottawa activists, community leaders, and organizers, we strongly oppose calls to create “safe zone” legislation that prohibits political protests near schools.
On Friday, June 9th 2023, Ottawa residents witnessed far-right transphobic violence on our streets. Two notorious anti-trans protesters allied with white supremacists planned a protest in front of three schools along Broadview Ave. In response, the community organized to defend ourselves from this attack, as is our right and imperative in the face of rising fascism. We learned the far-right is more organized and violent than at prior protests.
This network of violent and hateful individuals and groups indicates that this is no longer a single-issue protest about trans kids: this is a widespread movement that is unified by hateful and genocidal ideals, motivated by economic unrest and alienation, and rooted in ahistorical and irrational interpretations of our world. They are angry, violent protesters who aim to dominate our public spaces. They will not stop at the erasure of whatever they believe “gender ideology” to be. Removing the word “transgender” from schools will not end their crusade.
In response, we rallied community members, many of whom have never been to a protest, to resist this urgent threat. We built signs and banners, we mobilized our neighbours and friends, and we used the power of community to defend us all from violent fascists and bigots. Despite their best efforts, we outnumbered and outlasted them, ensuring students at all schools felt safe and shielded from transphobic hate.
The amount of violence we endured that day in the name of love for trans youth is shocking. Community members and organizers, including a sitting Member of Provincial Parliament, were the target of physical assaults. We watched as fascists held their hands up while kicking defenders below the belt so that their grifters could film them being ‘peaceful’ from the waist up.
Despite community members and organizers being the target of physical assaults, the attention of the Ottawa Police Service was trained on us, and not our attackers. The chair of the OCDSB Board of Trustees was physically dragged by the police for standing with community defenders. A local resident allied with the far-right protestors threatened to use her two large dogs as weapons against us, yet when police were told, they said this was justified. The police arrested a community defender who had been punched and hit over the head with bibles – not the violent bigot who attacked them. Of the five arrests on Friday, four were defenders. The fifth was a racialized teen aligned with the bigots. That the police targeted marginalized people and their allies is both upsetting and unsurprising. None of the white, bigoted adults committing violence against us ended up in handcuffs on Friday.
As a community, we learned a lesson on Friday that marginalized communities know all too well: we cannot rely on law enforcement to keep us safe. We must remember that on Friday, police officers did not have our community’s back – we did.
With all of this in mind, we are concerned to see calls by well-meaning politicians and representatives to create “safe zones'' through legislation that would prevent protests near schools. We appreciate their concerns, but we reject the idea that the law will ever protect us in this context. We remember the feeling of being tackled and crushed to the ground by officers with hands on their guns, of being bruised and bloodied and denied our rights. We already have laws in place that are supposed to protect us from the violent attacks we endured, but these were not used to protect us. The problem is not a lack of legislation. It is that enforcement of that legislation is handled by the police, who have just shown us in the clearest of terms, that they do not support local communities defending themselves from fascist protests.
We have seen this type of legislation in practice around hospitals. Since that law came into effect, community members and healthcare workers protesting the privatization of our healthcare system have been compared to Convoy supporters and anti-vaxxers by our Progressive Conservative provincial government. We also remember an incident in May 2022, when high school students protesting a misogynistic dress code at their Orléans high school were arrested by OPS.
We must not infringe on the right of education workers to fight for better conditions at their place of work and for our right to have access to free, safe, public schools. We must protect the rights of students to stand up for their autonomy and to push their schools to adopt more progressive stances.
We must be clear - the problem is not protests as a whole; it is specifically fascist protests. These can only be effectively countered through direct, community action. The problem of fascism cannot be solved by 'safe zone' bubbles around schools or other institutions. The risk of harm to the rights of students, workers, and neighbours is too great. It is crucial to keep in mind that a 'safe zone' bubble law implies that there are public spaces appropriate for fascism when history is clear that we must never provide space to legitimize fascism. We showed up on Friday to defend our schools and streets against fascism, despite the threat of police violence. We did not show up on Friday for our victory against fascism to be shifted into a call for increased police intervention. We must not, however innocently, provide the police with more tools to suppress our necessary community work.
We call on community members and political representatives at all levels to protect trans youth and all marginalized communities by:
Working with local unions to create “flying squads,” per the Canadian Labour Congress motion, to train and prepare their members to oppose fascism;
Connecting with faith groups (churches, mosques, gurdwaras, synagogues, etc.) to discuss how they are protecting queer and trans people, and encourage them to show up in the streets to denounce and deny violent homophobia and transphobia;
Working with teachers and parents in local schools to create self-defense plans, education about fascist social movements, and pressure their school boards to take active stances against fascism through supporting community efforts;
Demanding 2SLGBTQIA+ allied organizations to denounce these fascist protests and take concrete action to support community self-defense plans.
The rise of fascism is at our doorstep, and the key lesson we learned on Friday is that community organization works. We must rally together, strengthen our solidarity and courage to empower us all so we can stop fascism wherever it appears. Let us not be distracted by laws that will be used against us and our fight for a better world.
In solidarity,
Emily Quail
broadviewlove [at] gmail [dot] com
Parent and organizer of the June 9th counter-protest defending Nepean High School, Broadview Avenue Public School, and Notre Dame High School