Posted on 11/15/2011 9:06:59 AM PST by Squawk 8888
TORONTO - Occupy Toronto has been told to get out — and this time it’s official.
Just hours after police in New York ejected protesters from the Occupy Wall Street protest in Manhattan, the City of Toronto started issuing a notice to Occupiers at St. James Park to leave immediately.
Sources say they will be given a chance to leave the park peacefully.
“We are hoping a majority will comply,” a city source told the Sun Tuesday.
On Monday, Mayor Rob Ford warned the protesters would be asked to leave very soon.
“We’re going to be asking them to leave the park and we’ll take it from there,” Ford told reporters at City Hall. “It’s going to happen soon.”
At the time, the mayor and city officials refused to say when precisely the notices would be handed out.
Ford was optimistic the protesters would leave when asked.
“We’re just going to hand out the notices and ask these people to leave, it has been a peaceful protest and I’m sure they will leave peacefully,” Ford said.
Councillor Norm Kelly, chairman of the city’s parks committee, said he couldn’t confirm if notices were being handed out Tuesday.
“The mayor’s office has been eager to move,” he said.
Kelly said a threat posted online Saturday from someone claiming to be Anonymous — a group of hacker activists — and threatening a cyber attack on the city and Ford changed the tenure of the city’s relationship with Occupy.
“In threatening to attack the city what they are really doing is threatening residents,” Kelly said. “The real threat was to the services that City Hall provides to residents.”
Not every one at City Hall is in favour of eviction.
Councillor Gord Perks — who has visited the park several times including over the weekend — said the protesters should be allowed to stay as long as fire and other life safety requirements are being met and there is no violent activity.
“We’re at a critical time in our economic history where the right to protest is very important and I think that the freedom of assembly and the freedom of speech decisions of the supreme court definitely trump bylaw notices for being in a park overnight,” he said.
(((.)))
“We are hoping a majority will comply,”
...faggity ass Canadians “hoping” the same morons that they’ve conditioned to be fat and lazy and take from the government will now “comply”?! BWAHAHAHA! I love it!
Thanks for the ping, Squawk 8888.
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