Thousands of protesters gather at Queen’s Park
Posted Jun 26, 2010 03:00:15 PM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
TORONTO, Ont. – After a week of relatively small protests, Toronto will face its largest demonstration yet on Saturday.
A sea of umbrellas, flags and banners filled the park as speakers stood on a stage set up on the lawn of Queen’s Park to organize the march.
The demonstrators gathered Saturday morning at Queen’s Park, where they took in music, speeches, dancing and chanted slogans before the march began.
Organizers of the “People’s First!” rally said they expect as many as 10,000 people to take part in the peaceful march.
The march, which began shortly before 1:30 p.m., is to protest the every day working people not benefiting from the economic recovery taking place in the G20 nations.
As the thousands marched downtown they chanted, “a waste of a billion dollars” and “protesting is not a crime.”
A wall of police lined Queen Street to prevent the march from moving any further south into the security zone toward the fence, which is south of Front Street.
Although it will be a peaceful march, any confrontation between police and protesters will happen if they veer from the designated march route.
The march will begin at Queen’s Park and head south down to Queen. They will then move along Queen to Spadina Avenue where they will then go north on Spadina to College Street and then make their way back to Queen’s Park.
