2022 Year-End Wrap-Up
Image description: A poster that says, Do you say no to Tory's Toronto? Get connected to others working towards a more just and equitable city for everyone. Protest signs include Disability Justice Now, Defund Police Refund Society, End Encampment Evictions, Trans Rights Are Human Rights.
Some highlights of 2022, with thanks to all of our supporters!
Webinars + Moving Money
SURJ Toronto has been putting on powerful webinars all year. We see political education as a key part of our role in the movement ecosystem: these events allow us to platform organizers who are leading the fight for abolition, decolonization, and racial, migrant, and economic justice in this city, while also inviting our communities to deepen their analysis commit to action and build our base.
In February, the Defund campaign team hosted a webinar moderated by El Jones in conversation with Desmond Cole, and Butterfly Sabrina GoPaul, Salem Aaron, and Sam Tecle from Jane and Finch Action Against Poverty (JFAAP). Through the webinar, SURJ was able to raise $7,130 for JFAAP and created a shared analysis of how to fight for defunding.
Most recently we did a 3-part anti-racism webinar series with SK Hussan of Migrant Rights Network, anti-oppression and liberation educator Rania El Mugammar, and Audrey Huntley and Terri Monture of No More Silence. Throughout all the webinars we had raised approximately $13,000, with funds going to Migrant Workers Alliance for Change, No More Silence, Black Deaf Canada, and Toronto Indigenous Harm Reduction.
SURJ is committed to moving money to support grassroots organizing. In the spring SURJ members joined an event with Adam Beach and the Grassy Narrows Solidarity Network during which they were able to secure $30,000 in pledged donations. SURJ also answered the call for solidarity with Wet’suwet’en land defenders by printing and selling posters with art by Christi Belcourt. All told the poster sales were able to move over $12,000 from people across the country. A SURJ member also went to Wet’suwet’en for two weeks to support the work directly, and SURJ was able to support their trip, as well as others.
Image description: Poster, black, white, and red, displayed beside a houseplant. Raised fist, tatooed wrist, feather in hand. Wet'suwet'en Solidarity!
Whose Freedom Does the Convoy Fight For?
In early 2022, many of us were watching the so-called “trucker convoy” occupy downtown Ottawa and march on Toronto. Concerned by the hateful and anti-public-health messaging being advanced, and by responses to the convoy which either trivialized far-right organizing or defended the Liberal status quo, SURJ Toronto put out a statement. This intervention, which decried both the white-supremacists and the police who colluded with them, while also holding the government to account for the ways that it had been failing working-class, disabled, and racialized communities throughout the pandemic, was widely read and circulated. As we said then, “this convoy has only highlighted the urgent need for anti-racist white folks to get organized. If we do not engage our families, friends, co-workers, and communities, the right will.”
Rallies and Demonstrations
We also took to the streets! In February we showed up in support of No More Silence’s annual Strawberry Ceremony. Strawberry Ceremony is an annual event where people come together in love and grief to honour missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls and Two Spirit people. From there we were out at the Scholar Strike Canada, May Day, Abolition Pride, Grassy Narrows River Run Rally and many more! Your donation allowed us to financially support these demonstrations by providing food or by covering sound, transportation, and other costs.
We recently joined a rally held by Butterfly: Asian and Migrant Sex Worker Support Network in support of the sex worker lead fight to repeal Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act (PCEPA) that harms and criminalize sex workers. Many sex workers were inside the superior court to challenge the PCEPA law. Earlier in the year SURJ members supported Butterfly’s related movement work in Newmarket regarding the Town’s racist bylaws that target Asian sex workers. SURJ members co-hosted a zap on this issue and made a deposition to city council.
SURJ has also been able to support groups organizing around the shelter and housing crisis, recently giving aid to actions around the Novotel evictions.
Image description: Four folks at the back of a crowd wearing My Pride Is Abolitionist t-shirts; black, with pink type and upside down triangle.
Image description: Two folks, one with a red umbrella, hold signs reading Decriminalize Sex Work Now.
Campaign Organizing
SURJ continued to organize within wards across the city to push councillors to defund the police. We kicked off January with deputations on the budget, and to the police committee that requested a budget increase this year. We also organized phone zaps, postering sessions, attended farmer’s markets and pop-up guerilla projection actions.
In June, SURJ members collaborated with Parents of Black Children and Policing-Free Schools on a phone and email zap that targeted both Catholic and public school trustees in York Region, to demand the removal of all police-in-schools programs in those school boards.
In the fall, we organized a public meeting with Robyn Maynard to discuss the importance of organizing in this municipal election and a number of SURJ members volunteered with Chemi Lhamo’s campaign, which just barely lost!
And in December, SURJ Toronto partnered with Policing-Free Schools to create an email tool to help people tell Toronto District School Board (TDSB) trustees that schools need more support, not more police. Two of our members subsequently delegated at a TDSB meeting to share that message as well.
Image description: Neon pink projection outside Councillor Gord Perks's community office: Stop throwing our money away and do the right thing
Justice for Workers
SURJ began working more closely with the amazing organizers at Justice for Workers on their campaign to win permanent sick days and increase the minimum wage. We showed up to do door to door canvassing in the provincial election, and street canvassing since then.
We have also been mobilizing around CUPE’s recent fight for decent work, public education, and the right to strike.
Image description: Four folks on a street corner display flyers and petitions for paid sick days.
Defund Coastal Gas Link
A number of SURJ members also organized an affinity group organized by Decolonial Solidarity and “adopted” an RBC branch in Toronto to regularly canvass at and engage staff and customers on the ways in which RBC is funding genocide by drilling without consent in Wet'suwet'en. On November 5 they joined with other Toronto Adopt a Branch groups to put on an amazing projection event outside RBC headquarters as part of the national action: Kill the Drill Allied Mobilization.
Image description: The CGL pipeline is being built on the unceded territory of the Wet'suwet'en Nation in BC, without the free, prior, and informed consent of the heriditary chiefs. Consultation is not consent. Red, black, white, fist holding feathers.
Status for All
The last campaign that SURJ has been supporting this year is Migrant Rights Network Status for All campaign. In March we supported their Unite Against Racism! Status for All! (March 20) where we participated in a 1.6 km march to support the call for full and permanent immigration status for all 1. 6 million mostly racialized working class migrants.
Again on September 18 for their Day of Action across Canada, where one of our members, Michael, made it to CTV news!
Image description: Four folks hold Status for All messages outside the office of Dr. Helena Jaczek, MP
Book Clubs
Ruth Wilson Gilmore said recently on a panel - “If you are not in a study group, get in a study group. You should be in study groups always.” Heeding Ruth’s advice, SURJ Toronto members organized a public book club to discuss Disarm, Defund, Dismantle: Police Abolition in Canada.
Participants engaged in rich conversations on issues such as the unique history of policing in Canada, the connections between decolonization and abolition, the importance of taking leadership from sex workers in abolition initiatives and more! Their learnings will inform our upcoming Alternatives to 911 project.
Image description: Book cover: Disarm, Defund, Dismantle: Police Abolition in Canada. Out-of-use police car has vibrant flowers growing out of and around it.
Another Toronto Is Possible
During the recent municipal election, we collaborated with a dozen other grassroots organizations to intervene in the status quo and present a powerful, abolitionist alternative vision. Together, we put out a statement and held a press conference outside of the mayoral election debate, calling for a safe and livable city that leaves no one behind. “Another Toronto is possible – one that prioritizes people over profits and supports communities rather than surveilling them.”
Image description: A banner raised in a field reads “Another Toronto is Possible”
Internal Work
Internally we’ve been hosting regular Disability Justice & Access and Class Learning & Doing drop-ins for SURJ members. These spaces have offered opportunities to
explore individual relationships to disability and class and how these impact organizing,
strategize around barriers and challenges that disabled, poor and working class SURJ members are facing, and
work towards co-creating a culture of accountability, care, mutual aid and access, internally at SURJ and with our movement partners.
These conversations have highlighted the work ahead to embed class and disability justice and disabled/poor/working class leadership at every level of our organizing. Stay tuned for continuing developments around this in the new year and beyond!
Thank you again for your support, whether it’s following our feeds for actions and ideas, moving money, or spreading the word in your networks. Our annual “birthday campaign” fundraiser is now on - donations are welcome to support our ongoing work and community partners’ requests. Please reach out anytime with your questions, and we hope to keep shaking things up together in 2023.