People will be gathering across Canada on Saturday to join a nationwide day of action called for by the Coalition for BIPOC Liberation.
A Coalition release says the protests are part of a “movement to defund the police and reinvest in our communities.”
Their ultimate goal is the end of systemic racism in all sectors of Canadian governments, from federal to municipal.
Local group Grassroots NB is coordinating the rally in Moncton to join protests in Toronto, London, Montreal, Fredericton and Halifax.
Organizer Hafsah Ayub says that one of the focusses for Grassroots NB is the SCAN Act — the Safer Communities and Neighbourhoods Act, which they say creates homelessness and harms marginalized people.
“So we’re trying to understand how policing is exacerbating our poverty, as well as hurting racialized communities. So that’s where we’re a little bit different with the BIPOC Coalition, because theirs is very much focused on the experiences of policing on racialized people. But what we know about how economic justice is the father of racism, it’s all connected. So if the majority of people here are white, they are going to be the ones who are most harmed by economic injustice.”
Ayub says the walk will not be heavily structured, and the idea is to give a platform to voices that need to be heard. They likened it to the healing walk for Chantal Moore which took place in June.
“We’re going to open up remembering Chantel because that’s where we gathered last time, and we’re going to walk again, on that same path to remember Chantel again, and how the structures that are very colonial exist still, and that we will continue to kindly, peacefully defend and ask for some space… We are going to be rallying at the skate park. And a big essence of it is bringing our BIPOC community together because we don’t have the same networks as other communities.”
People are invited to gather at the skatepark on Assomption Boulevard in Moncton at 1pm.
