March 30, 2010 - "We are the many, you are the few"

Media Advisory
For Immediate Release
March 30, 2010
 
‘We are the many, you are the few’ say Toronto community groups organizing protests in June
 Toronto—As the G8 Foreign Ministers are met with protests and direct actions in the Ottawa and Hull region, community organizations, labour unions, NGOs and others are ramping up plans for a week of creative actions and protests in Toronto, June 21-27, 2010.
 “The leaders gathering at the G8/G20 summits are a group of illegitimate, self-selected people whose narrow vision for the world is both unsustainable and disastrous for communities everywhere”, says Sharmeen Khan, a spokesperson for the Toronto Community Mobilization Network. “We are here to tell them that we are the many and they are the few – our struggles and our voices will overcome their exclusionary agenda”.
 
“Harper wants to hide Canada’s poverty and homelessness, persistent attacks on Indigenous peoples and migrants, and the Alberta Tar Sands, Canada’s largest environmental disaster, behind fences and road blocks”, says Syed Hussan, spokesperson for the Toronto Community Mobilization Network, “but community organizations in Toronto will make sure that the world sees what Harper is concealing”.
 
“Indigenous activists, migrant justice organizers, environmentalists, anti-poverty groups, labour unions, queer, feminist and disAbility rights communities are all gathering under the Toronto Community Mobilization Network umbrella”, explains Khan. “People are speaking to each other, connecting struggles, building alliances and developing solutions. These actions and protests will be the building blocks towards grassroots social justice in this city”.
 
“As Toronto’s residents with experience creating real solutions in our communities, schools, shelters, workplaces and on our streets, it is our responsibility to ensure that the marginalized voices of the billions shut out of these meetings are heard loud and clear”, Hussan adds. “We anticipate an empowered people’s movement from around the globe uniting in struggles for real justice at the community level, joining us in Toronto to build a real alternative”.
 
The Toronto Community Mobilization Network is a group of community-based organizers and allies, facilitating teach-ins, creative actions, rallies and demonstrations leading up to and during the G8/G20 Summits. The website of the Network, endorsed by over 50 organizations, is http://g20.torontomobilize.org
 
For more information
Syed Hussan – 416.994.2946 – hussan@gmail.com
Sharmeen Khan – 647.881.0440 – sharmeen@tao.ca
 
Preceding the actions on June 21-27, a People’s Summit will take place at Ryerson University in Toronto (18-20 June) to educate, empower and ignite positive change, through a wide array of workshops, presentations, skills training and cultural events. For more information, visit www.peoplessummit2010.ca