Sigrid Kneve of OCAP on Occupy Toronto Livestream…
George Street is one of the most depressed parts of Toronto. Situated to the east of downtown, it’s the home to a number of shelters and rows of abandoned houses. Drug addicts roam the streets, with dealers waiting on the sidewalk to fulfil their addictions. It’s a lot like the worst parts of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.
Besides the dealers, there are a couple other groups who benefit from the squalor. First there are the unionised employees who get well-paid jobs in the shelters that are conveniently close to the city centre. George Street has also been home to a number of squats that have housed some of the most dangerous and militant anarchists in Toronto. So, when the city announced they were planning to gentrify the neighbourhood, it was inevitable this would be followed with some serious conflict.
Last week Swamp Line 9 arrestee, and Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP) member, Sigrid Kneve showed a sign the anarchists have been handing out to protest the changes. The sign says “defend George Street” and features a machine gun. Scary stuff, and incredibly irresponsible of her to be sharing it…
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When are people going to realize these common cause fake activists/anarchists are really working for the New World Order?
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They’re definitely doing their damnedest to justify a police state…
Thanks to people like you guys more and more are realizing who these clowns really are.
Imagine how dangerous these “The Mouse That Roared” wannabe revolutionaries would be if they had a modicum of intelligence and discipline. I’d also wager that Police and CSIS informers have to be careful not to trip over themselves whilst chilin with the comrades…..
Greg, yes, these people ( OCAP and these activist-o-rats ) are the creators of their own demise , and sadly, they use innocent people as pawns for their own personal gains. The people on George street deserve far better than what these violent criminals have in store, at the expense of the people who only wanting a better life for themselves and trying hard to get by. thank you for pointing this out again.
I lived on that block of George street for nine years. I was in the Toronto Housing building at 291, right in between Filmore’s strip club and Seaton House.
There is nothing OCAP could do there that would not make the situation worse. The real problem is not Seaton house, as the gentrifier idiots in the local resident associations think. It is some of the buildings in the area of Seaton house which are a problem for Seaton house and its clientele.
Chief among them is the “housing” building at 291 George, run by “social engineers” of the “we must house everyone” type. That means they think they have to provide a unit to every drug dealer who is sprung from jail, and the place to put every problem is at 291 because there are no other buildings around there to make a fuss about it. The people in the Jenny Green coop across the street are neutralized by the coop housing bureaucracy and have their own problem with being forced to take street involved people.
That George street is the worst possible place to put street involved people seems to be of no interest. I have talked with some of these social housing flakes who insisted that drug dealing is not a real problem. They were even hostile to the idea of putting a security guard in the building.
They even resisted the idea of putting a fence around the back yard because “fences make bad neighborhoods”. They finally did after some drug goombahs kicked out the walls in their apartment and started a drive by cocaine dispensery in the adjacent alley.
They also kept bringing people with addiction problems into the building, which meant that the drugsters out on the street immediately had another “spot” in the building. Want your drugs free, give us the key to your pad. Or, get your face kicked in every time you step out the door because we own your ass on George street.
The assholes of 52 division were not exactly helpful either. I tried organizing a tenant association in the building and suffered years of harassment to isolate me and drive me out of the building. This culminated in me being arrested on bogus charges.
Fortunately, this backfired on them and they had to give me my choice of buildings to move to. So I went down to the good end of George street, in the St.Lawrence area, and I have been here for ten years. What keeps this building livable is not so much the lack of a Seaton house in the area, as a strong neighborhood association, one that supports social housing, is not trying to “get everything social the fuck out of here”, but will not let the housing bureaucrats get away with renting to drug dealers.
Ah, yes! I can tell you many stories about my years on George street, but I do not have the time now. But I run into some of my old friends from there occasionally, and I hear things have changed little. I think they turned it over to a private management company which has not improved anything.
I think the solution for George street is the Pruitt Igoe one; if the places cannot be run properly, tear them down. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pruitt–Igoe This includes the rooming houses in the area, although I thing they are pretty much gone by now. Without a base on the block for drugsters to operate from, Seaton house will be a much safer place for those who have no choice but to live there.
The problems of George street are the usual ones of people in positions of authority who do not belong there, especially over those who have no voice.
Tim, aren’t you one of the people who helped fraudster Kevin Annett organize a meeting in Toronto a few years ago. Are you going to apologize to Kevin’s victims for that?
Dear Susan F. What is there to apologize about? I liked the documentary “Unrepentant” and still do. I heard Annett was in Toronto so I invited him to do a talk at the “community space” I and some people were trying to get together at the time. We showed the documentary. The space collapsed when one of the principles in it proved to be a real fraudster and wrecked it. She not actually get any money out of it. But that is another story. I started to not like the creepy super left types Annett was hanging around with and severed connections with him. Later I heard about all this fraudulent behavior. Too bad; it was a pretty good documentary. The issue is real. It is very hard to know just who you are dealing with in the Toronto activist scene. Whoever has never been taken in by a sleaze bag, let him or her throw the first stone at me. tr
Tim,
Why did you trash my son Dan Murton he never did anything to you
Oh, Gregg…? Here is why the blog format is not much good unless it is closely monitored. tr
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I don’t see the problem with that last comment, it was just a simple question.
Well, that attitude renders your blog site of limited value because you never, ever, respond directly to those kinds of scum. Maybe you don’t have enough experience with them yet. tr