Watch this page for live coverage of Mayday events as they happen from the Toronto Media Co-op. Also watch our main twitter feed @TOmediacoop as well as our contributers twitter feeds @q_e_d , @hackj0b, , @meganysta, @alexhundert as well as @krystalline_k from rabble.ca
See May Day takes Toronto for a summary of the day's events, and a brief report of mayday actions in other cities.
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2:00 AM Live coverage of Mayday is ending, we will be posting up our finished stories and videos tommorow and over the next few days.
1:30 AM people milling around in the park, some tensions but generally pretty relaxed. People are tired, occupy library is set up, people trying to stay warm sitting quietly and talking.
12:00 midnight Three chaplains set up a chapel and are arrested. One female protester is pushed hard by a cop. Chaplains are released with tickets.
10:20PM The new site: Simcoe Park, across from the Convention Centre. Protesters intend to remain there for the next twenty-four hours. Police are not letting anyone set up "structures", including a bookshelf for the library.
9:20PM Police have stopped the performances in the park, and the march is now beginning, about 250 strong, heading south on Bathurst to "occupy the heart of the beast." There are mounted police around the perimeter.
8:30PM Protesters are planning to march at 9 to the new, as yet undisclosed 24-hour occupation site. A number of court trucks have arrived, presumably as a contingency for mass arrests.
8:00PM Tension rising as police presence increases. Some officers are walking amongst the crowd. The man in the wizard hat, it is reported, was arrested for smoking cannabis. Reports of one or two more arrests since then.
7:30PM March has arrived at Alexandra Park. One man in a wizard hat was arrested earlier, but has been released. Crowd is now estimated between 3000 and 3500.
7:00PM After a long stop blocking the intersection at Dundas and Spadina, with speeches on refugee rights, the crowd is heading west on Dundas, now taking the entire street.
6:30PM Intersection cleared by police, march continues. The march is more than half a kilometre long.
6:20PM Protesters have taken over the intersection at Queen and Spadina.
6:10PM Some tension in the air. Mounted police have been sighted and the police is keeping close around a group of protesters in black masks. Estimates of the crowd range from fifteen hundred to two thousand.
5:50PM The march is stopped just past University Ave on Queen St. There is a large police presence in a line, three deep in some places, alongside the crowd.
5:25PM A banner has been dropped in Nathan Phillips Square and the march has begun, heading west along Queen Street toward Alexandra Park. People are chanting, "No borders! No Nations! Stop deportations!" Crowd is now estimated at about 1400.
4:50PM The rally is steadily growing, and getting ready to march in about twenty minutes. A representative from No One Is Illegal is speaking about the growing resistance across Canada.
4:35PM Crowd is up to about a thousand. Reports are also coming in of youth involvement: about 150 high school students had a protest at 3pm. At Parkdale High the doors have been blocked to prevent students participating in the May Day march, as reported by one student who escaped. A man at the city hall protest has been threatened with a mischief charge for writing in chalk on a wall.
4:00PM No One Is Illegal, M1M and Occupy have all arrived at Nathan Phillips Square. Crowd is estimated at several hundred.
3:00 PM (aprox) 150 high school students protested in Queen's park. Students from Parkdale high school were going to attend but staff locked or blocked doors so they couldn't get out. One student escaped to tell the tale and attended the protest.
3:00 PM The picnic was a ploy to fool the cops, people are planting a garden right now! Our friends at Media Wrench have photos.
2:50 PM The Occupy Gardens people, now numbering about 80, are moving to the North end of Queens Park for a picnic.
2 PM a 'peaseful' Occupy Gardens direct action is being held now (3 PM) in Queens park, people are moving to the north end of Queens Park for a picnic. “We envision a city where all people have access to food without depending on a corrupt, unjust system that concentrates power and wealth. The current food system exploits workers, farmers and consumers, while poisoning the soil, water and air upon which we rely for our very existence,” said organizer Jacob Kearey Moreland in a press release. As of 2:17 here are about 60 people (including children) on scene of the Occupy Gardens action with a few occupods. Everyone waiting for the action to start making signs. They have onions and bulbs and planters and the like. TMC reporter Darryl Richardson is on the scene.
11 AM: We are recieving reports that Greg Renuof has been harrasing people at Mayday events this morning, a reminder that Greg has has been ejected by Occupy Toronto, Occupy Vancouver, Occupy London Ontario among many other organiztations and is known to contact police and people's employers and has made threats of physical violence despite claiming to be a pacifist, so watch out on the streets.
11 AM: Activists held a live chessboard street theatre piece in Nathan Phillips Square at 11 AM today which showed how the pawns can take power through collecive action and defeat the Queen. David Coombs took photos for rabble.ca.
This morning as organizers began preperations, Mandy Hiscocks has released a Mayday solidarity blog from jail where she is incarcerated for G20 organizing and thoughtcrimes.
