Last night the Toronto Zionist Centre and JDL Canada hosted Paul Weston, leader of PEGIDA UK and Lars Hedegaard, a Danish Islamophobic author. The title of the evenings talks was "The Threat of Radical Islamic Immigration and the Erosion of our Freedoms". 

JDL Security (their term not mine) was out in force early on, one man was seen carrying a large flashlight as if it were a baton. One JDL member struck this reporter's camera early on in the evening during a brief scuffle with counter demonstrators. The JDL was allowed to rough up the counter demonstrators for a few minutes before police intervened. 

There were quite a few characters among the JDL members in attendance, some were attempting to be threatening, one wielded a weapon but most of them were just bombastic and ignorant such as the man who kept screaming "Islam is not a race!" or the woman who repeatedly asserted there was Sharia law in Pakistan. There were some familiar faces in attendance such as Ron Banerjee and a certain masked Islamophic protestor. 

The police of course assisted the fascists in any way they could. Repeatedly asking the counter demonstrators to move away from the main entrance insisting they were blocking access to the driveway. They weren't, there was at least one other entrance to the property. The antifascists stood their ground as the police kept insisting they needed to move off of the public sidewalk and away from the fascists. A JDL member left the demonstration and returned with his vehicle attempting to drive through the counter demonstrators. 

The police brought out horses and walked them directly into the middle of the protesters. One man was headbutted by one of the police horses and when asked he said he felt it was intentional on the part of the officer. After being faced with the horses the demonstration began to rotate from one entrance to the other. 

The police, JDL goon squad and the anti-fascists clearly out numbered those who actually went inside to hear the speeches. The event was scheduled to begin at 7:30 but cars began leaving at 8:00. People likely stayed away due to the demonstration and the simple fact that these ideologies don't hold much sway in Toronto.