When nearly 5,000 students, peace activists and Toronto citizens tramp through three hours of subzero weather to protest war, you know they mean business, says U of T student Karen Botji.
“We can see that Canadians aren’t wimps for not wanting to go to war because we’re standing out here in this,” Botji said on Saturday, addressing a crowd ankle-deep in snow at Nathan Phillips Square.
The protest—organized by the Toronto Disarmament Network and various Troops Out Of The Gulf groups—was part of an international day of action against the Gulf crisis.
Starting at the United States consulate on University Avenue, it moved down to the Progressive Conservative headquarters on Richmond Street. It finally wound up at City Hall, where Botji and others in a series of speeches attacked Canada’s support of military action in the Gulf.
“It’s so disillusioning to witness Canada’s reputation as a peacekeeper being shattered,” Botji said.
Hindsight is twenty-twenty. We now know that getting troops out of the Gulf was a really good idea. Were it not for American troops being based in Saudi Arabia, current international bad-boy Osama bin Laden might have settled down quietly with his family and never declared war on America. Oops!
—Rob Thomas
