Canadians might have been surprised to see recent reruns of media news footage from the summer of 2021 that showed heavy police force in a series of Toronto encampment evictions, or ‘clearings’ as the city calls them.
The scenes show violence.
The images coincided with the release of a public post-mortem into Toronto’s violent encampment evictions in the form of a report by Toronto Ombudsman Kwame Addo. Titled “Investigation into the City’s Clearing of Encampments in 2021”, the 68 page report examined how the city planned three encampment clearings, engaged stakeholders and communicated with the public.
I described one of these evictions in a previous column “Eviction at Trinity Bellwoods Repeats History”. The title referenced the brutal Tent City eviction on Toronto’s waterfront in 2002 which made international news. At the time Tent City was the largest act of civil disobedience by unhoused people in Canadian history.
Themes in the Ombudsman report show alarming incompetencies from the largest municipal government in Canada: secrecy around clearings, inadequate communication, infringements on encampment residents’ privacy, and the choice to clear encampments prioritizing speed rather than a human rights approach.
Elizabeth McIsaac, a respected public policy expert, summarizes the findings in the Maytree newsletter:
“The Ombudsman found that the City utterly failed in its duty to uphold the human rights of the people who were living in the encampments that it “cleared” (a polite euphemism for evicting people from their homes and destroying their property). If Council chooses to act on its recommendations, the report will have played an important part in holding the City accountable for this failure.”
The grassroots Encampment Support Network (Parkdale) in a public statement noted:
“(the report) confirms how the Office of Emergency Management (OEM) was ordered to evict encampments at ‘war-time speed,’ and that it used the reduction of encampment ‘footprints’ as a metric of success. This focus on invisibilizing homelessness sabotaged the work of other groups within the City.”
The growth and visibility of homelessness and encampments during the pandemic necessitated a humanitarian response which did not materialize. This is widely detailed in an anthology I worked on, Displacement City. Fighting for Health and Homes in a Pandemic.
Instead, from day one, the city cited public health and safety reasons for their denial of services. They provided no attention to improving public health and safety by providing washrooms, running water, fire safety equipment, garbage pick-up, let alone community engagement (which the Ombudsman notes the city had no clear definition for).
Instead, we saw intentional rejection of both homeless people and expert frontline workers’ recommendations to enact a human rights response.
Essentially, the city treated homeless people in encampments like an infestation, attempting to control and stomp them out so they would never come back.
That is violence.
While City Council and its committees have repeatedly refused to declare homelessness an emergency, it’s ironic that the encampment eviction process was moved from the city’s shelter and interdepartmental teams to the Office of Emergency Management, an entity usually used for major emergencies such as an ice storm that cuts out power.
Occasionally an inquest, inquiry or a court challenge can shift policy.
At best the Ombudsman Report has shone a spotlight on practices and attitudes towards the unhoused that led to harm and further homelessness. Many frontline workers would add death to that list as they know people relocated from a familiar community in an encampment who faced dislocation and died.
It doesn’t appear that accountability will result in city staff reprimands or terminations, nor will city staff be directed to enact a moratorium to prevent a repeat.
Where are we today?
City council did accept the Ombudsman’s Report and its recommendations but stopped there.
Toronto City Councillor and speaker Frances Nunziata ruled (presumably with city legal advice) that city councillor Josh Matlow’s motion calling for a moratorium on encampment evictions was out of order because camping in parks is illegal in a city by-law.
This ruling despite the Toronto group Right to Housing’s report Encampment Rights Review that cites this legal opinion:
“The City’s Municipal Code prohibits encroachments, camping, dwelling, lodging, and tenting on streets, sidewalks, and in parks. Court decisions with regards to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms have established that such provisions violate the human rights to life, liberty, and the security of the person.”
They also note that a temporary moratorium on encampment evictions in Toronto was in place early in the pandemic and Councillor Gord Perks reminded council there was also a moratorium in place during the large Occupy encampment in 2011 in Saint James Park.
A moratorium is possible.
During the debate, city council watchers witnessed a testy exchange that took place between city councillor Josh Matlow and city manager Tracey Cook. Cook, a senior manager with responsibility for the encampment file, challenged the councillor’s use of the word ‘violence’ to describe the encampment clearings.
A film by Zach Russell Someone Lives Here, which launches at the Hot Docs film festival this May, tells the story of carpenter Khaleel Seivwright’s work to build and provide tiny shelters for encampment residents. Not only did the City of Toronto take Khaleel to court to prohibit him from providing shelter, but they also spent $1.9 million to enact the encampment evictions. Russell notes that as he edited the film, he chose to leave out many of the images because the violence was so graphic.
I’ve only seen the trailer, but the proof is there.
The evictions were violent.
Perhaps the temperature of city council is best understood by Deputy Mayor McKelvie’s motion that included this phrasing: “City Council endorse the goal of no encampments in the City of Toronto.” This motion passed 19-4.
Contrast that to Matlow’s motion that council: “endorse the goal of providing affordable housing and safe indoor space so that no one is forced to live in an encampment as a last resort.” This motion failed 9-14.
My prediction: more violence, encampment evictions and deaths, across Canada.
I didn’t have to wait long. Within days Vancouver police moved to evict the encampment on East Hastings.
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