Foreword by Marina: Several Russian Canadian organizations coordinated events celebrating the 71st anniversary of the victory in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945 on May 8th in Toronto. However, we would like to bring to the attention of people around the world the fact of apparent sabotage by the local city officials of our peaceful and non-political event. What a shame!
Despite their destructive efforts, the Immortal Regiment and following celebrations took place and became an overwhelming success! Our Immortal Regiment gathered over 3000 participants and became the biggest march in the world held abroad. This event has a crucial importance in consolidating and uniting our community.
By sharing our struggles during the preparations for the celebrations, we would like to encourage other immigrant communities around the world to stay brave and resolved in the face of such obstacles, stay engaged with your local officials, and know your rights.
We are encouraging all immigrant organizations from the former Soviet Union around the world who wish to share their experiences and struggles in organizing events, to please get in touch with us. Let’s share our experiences and help each other to make positive impact and contributions to our host countries and have our voices heard!
http://russiancongresscanada.
Email: info@russiancongresscanada.org
“Immortal Regiment”, Toronto, Canada
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Toronto Parks Officials try to thwart Victory Day Celebration
by Konstantin Goulich, activist and community organizer
Seventy-one years ago the most violent military conflict of the 20th century, the Second World War ended in victory over Nazi Germany. Unprecedented levels of destruction, barbarism, industrial scale ethnic cleansing, and a myriad of other atrocities took millions of innocent lives. The Soviet Union paid the most terrible price with over 20 million civilian and military personnel dead. The genocidal plans of the Nazi leaders and their collaborators scarred the lives of millions more. Literary, every family in what is now the former Soviet Union lost loved ones or had been impacted by the war. That is the reason why the Victory Day celebration is one of the most important days in the calendar for nearly all immigrant communities from the former Soviet Union. Victory Day is a very personal day for tens of thousands of residents of Toronto, war veterans, their families. It is a celebration and remembrance of sacrifice and heroism.
Last year’s Victory Day event organized by grassroots volunteer veterans organization took place at Earl Bales park in the north end of Toronto. Several thousand people, many holding portraits of their parents and grandparents, marched through the park to underscore the unity of all people from different generations, waves of immigration, countries of origin, religions and political backgrounds in their respect and gratitude for the sacrifice of the veterans.
This year the Victory Day celebration might not have happened at all – if bureaucrats in the City of Toronto had their way. Officials at the City of Toronto Parks, Forestry and Recreation did everything in their power to exclude organizers from Earl Bales Park, to prevent the community from honouring the sacrifice of their loved ones.
A dizzying array of unreasonable, ever-changing restrictions and obstacles had been placed in order to discourage the organizers and the community. Firstly, the bureaucrats denied the request to have a small parade of veterans and family members in one of the park’s roadways. Next, they’ve tried to shuffle the event as far away from people’s eyes into a remote parking lot that looks more like a construction site than a place where veterans should be honoured. They placed restrictions on the use of washrooms and other park facilities, tried to deny space for an art exhibition, and demanded that a garbage collection company be contracted one day before the deadline.
City of Toronto officials forced the organizers to rent, at their expense, the amphitheatre in the park regardless that organizers had no use for it. The amphitheatre is not wheelchair accessible and could not possibly be used by veterans, many of whom are wheelchair bound and are approaching their centenary.
Next was the demand to erect a stage, also not needed. Building permits, crowd control plans, etc. Park officials did everything in their power to drown organizers in paperwork in order to satisfy constantly changing demands. Catering, signs, banners, all of the literature to be distributed or sold at the event had to be pre-approved by Parks officials. Even though the event is not political in nature, City bureaucrats had effectively barred political organizations sympathetic to the cause from participating in the event.
Organizers worked ceaselessly to satisfy the ever-changing whims of the bureaucrats. It took a month of negotiations, scores of meetings and the involvement of City Councillor James Pasternak for the City bureaucrats to finally allow veterans, but not members of the general public, to march through the Park. Yet as soon as one set of obstacles would be overcome, the bureaucrats would slap another set of restrictions turning the process into a never-ending nightmare with an ever-more uncertain outcome.
On the day of signing the permit, a little more than a day before the event, Lindsay Peterson, a manager for Parks North York District, had demanded from organizers to provide porta-potties, contrary to a previous agreement negotiated with the help of Ward 20 city councillor James Pasternak. Surely, she was aware that such a requirement would be impossible to satisfy in a few remaining hours before her office closes for the weekend. When that had failed she had questioned the authority of a representative to sign for the permit. Mrs. Peterson demanded that the president of the organization, a 88-year-old veteran who doesn’t speak English, be summoned into her office to sign for the permit.
It’s a miracle and testament to perseverance of volunteers at veterans group were finally issued a permit for the event.
The treatment the organizers received underscores the level of hostility of Toronto City Hall and other levels of Canadian Government towards Russian and other communities from the former Soviet Union. The ideologically-based harassment, bordering on ethnic discrimination is something the community had to deal with for years. Yet the treatment organizers, who wished nothing more but to provide the community with an opportunity to honour the sacrifices of their relatives, veterans, and loved ones, got from City officials this year is definitely a new low by any standards. Not only does this macabre show exposes the strength of City’s own Human Rights and Anti-Harassment/Discrimination Policy but also showcases true value of Mayor John Tory’s commitment to running an inclusive city administration, open to all the communities and their concerns.
The Fascist Ukrainian elements in Canada really can have a nasty bite.
Typically, these cowards are waging their own “hybrid war” in Toronto by using gullible bureaucrats to do their slimey work. Totally reflective of the “Empire”
This time they had no teeth – and the Empire is also having the same problems – more and more barking and less and less biting.
Notice how Zionism and Neo-Hitlerism jointly work together:
http://m.strategic-culture.org/news/2015/04/10/canada-represents-reservoir-support-ukrainian-neo-nazis.html
Canada Represents a Reservoir of Support for Ukrainian Neo-Nazis
Wayne MADSEN 10.04.2015 00:00
“””””Canada is the leading state sponsor of neo-Nazi armed terrorist units fighting in eastern Ukraine. Canadian support for the most right-wing elements, including neo-Nazis, in Ukraine would never have been possible had it not been for the concrete support provided by the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS) and its Central Intelligence Agency masters since the Cold War era to neo-fascist organizations within the Ukrainian-Canadian diaspora community. It is a community that numbers 1.2 million and which has tremendous political clout in the Canadian Parliament and various provincial legislatures.
Included in the ranks of famous Ukrainian-Canadians are two former Governors-General, Ray Hnatyshyn of the Conservatives and Ed Schreyer of the New Democrats; Saskatchewan Liberal Party Premier Roy Romanow; Alberta Tory Premier Ed Stelmach; hockey star Wayne Gretzky; and Manitoba Lieutenant Governor Peter Liba, a journalist who once worked for Canadian Zionist media mogul Israel Asper.
The connections between the Canadian government and neo-Nazis in Ukraine should come as no surprise. The Ukrainian diaspora community in Canada was fertile ground to recruit far right anti-Communist activists and operatives during the Cold War. During the Cold War, right-wing Ukrainian groups denounced as supporters of the Soviet Ukrainian state any Ukrainian-Canadians who criticized the rightist leanings of Ukrainian-Canadian organizations.
In the early 1990s, it was discovered that the top leadership of such neo-Nazi organizations as the Heritage Front of Canada included covert agents of the CSIS. Moreover, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) and the Toronto Star reported on neo-Nazi elements within the Canadian armed forces, including the elite Canadian Airborne Regiment. Just as was the case in the United States, Canadian neo-Nazi groups benefited from the right-wing and anti-Russian passions of the eastern European diaspora community that was permitted unfettered entry into Canada after World War II. America’s secret Operation Paperclip saw a number of Nazis given safe passage into the United States from Germany and countries in Eastern Europe. Many Nazis also entered Canada where they became active in emigré groups, including the Ukrainians, White Russians, Poles, Hungarians, Romanians, Bulgarians, Czechoslovaks, and others. Many of these groups supported the Reform Party of Preston Manning, which served as the inspiration for the Conservatives of current Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
True to its neo-Nazi and far-right antecedent, the Reform Party, Harper’s government permits a number of Ukrainian-Canadian groups to provide material support to neo-Nazi militias, including the infamous Azov Battalion controlled by Ukrainian-Israeli oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky, which have been responsible for carrying out attacks on civilians in the predominantly Russian-speaking Donbass region of Ukraine. The Ukrainian-Canadian groups rely on the support of many in the 1.2 million-strong Ukrainian community in Canada. The chief Ukrainian-Canadian organizations supporting neo-Nazi militias have links to the Stepan Bandera-led Ukrainian Insurgent Army that teamed up with Adolf Hitler’s SS troops in fighting the Allies in World War II. Bandera’s forces carried out mass executions of Jews and Poles in Nazi-held Ukraine and Galicia during the war.
Canada’s military support for neo-Nazi units in Ukraine preceded by almost a year the recent announcement that U.S. Army troops would be training the Azov Battalion, led by Nazi Andriy Biletsky, which marches under German Nazi SS flags. Canada has also provided support for the Aidar Battalion, which is believed to have recruited Islamic State Chechen irregulars to its ranks. Aidar Battalion forces have, according to Amnesty International, beheaded Russian-speaking Ukrainian citizens captured in eastern Ukraine.
The Harper government granted tax-free charity status to the Ukrainian aid group Army SOS, which works with the Ukrainian Canadian Congress (UCC) to deliver military supplies, including drones and artillery targeting systems, to the Azov, Aidar, and other neo-Nazi battalions in Ukraine. Ukrainian neo-Nazi leader Andriy Parubiy, a leader, along with Oleg Tyahnybok, of the far-right wing Social National Party of Ukraine (Svoboda) that uses the neo-Nazi «Wolfsangel» symbol, was warmly received in Canada where he proclaimed that Canada was the Kiev regime’s most trustworthy ally. The Ukrainian neo-Nazi leader was received at the Foreign Ministry, the Defense Ministry, and in the House of Commons.
The UCC has lined up a number of Canadian and provincial MPs and MPPs, and not just Tories, to support the delivery of «defensive» weapons to Ukraine. As with the «private» aid from Canada, it is believed that much of Canada’s military equipment will end up in the hands of the neo-Nazi battalions. Canadian International Trade Minister Ed Fast and Conservative MPs Ted Opitz and Bernard Trottier, a friend of disgraced former Toronto mayor Rob Ford, attended a Ukrainian-Canadian fundraiser in Toronto that featured a large banner of Bandera, the Ukrainian Nazi commander. Opitz has been banned from traveling to Russia because of his support for Ukrainian terrorism.
Much of the CDN$52,000 netted at the Toronto event was destined for the Ukrainian private militias. One of the Ontario parliament’s Liberal MPPs at the forefront of calls to provide Ukraine with Canadian weapons is Yvan Baker, a former consultant for Mitt Romney’s and Binyamin Netanyahu’s former firm, the Boston Consulting Group. Although a Liberal, Baker has championed U.S. Senator John McCain’s and U.S. House Speaker John Boehner’s calls for providing the Ukrainian government with lethal force weapons.
Baker’s blatant pro-Ukrainian propaganda was on full display when he recently said, «Today, Ukraine is at war and the situation is dire. Russian-backed forces have occupied part of Eastern Ukraine and continue to advance. The soldiers I met are fighting against state-of-the-art equipment with outdated weapons, some from World War II».
The «antiquated weapons» argument is an old Central Intelligence Agency propaganda trick that was used to justify arming the Afghan mujaheddin against the Soviets in the 1980s because of the false allegation that the mujaheddin were armed with only «World War I-designed British bolt-action Enfield rifles» against the better-armed Soviet army. The allegations are as false today with regard to Ukrainian forces as they were when this old canard was proffered by the CIA-influenced Western media during the Soviet-Afghan war. The CIA has relied on support from Ukrainian-Canadian organizations like the UCC to support Ukrainian uprisings, including the 2004 Orange Revolution and the «Euromaidan» protests that resulted in the overthrow of the democratically-elected government of President Viktor Yanukovych early last year.
Denials of their neo-Nazi underpinnings aside, it is common to see the Canadian Maple Leaf flag flying alongside Nazi and neo-Nazi banners in Ukrainian mercenary battalion-held battle zones. Russia has accused Canada of harboring a number of Ukrainian Nazi war criminals over the years. The strong Ukrainian-Canadian lobby has prevented most of them from being extradited to stand trial for their war crimes. In November 2014, the Harper government was one of only three nations that voted against a United Nations General Assembly against the «glorification of Nazism». The other two «no» votes were those of Ukraine and the United States.
Ukrainian-Canadian groups have also resorted to xenophobic attacks on Canada’s Russian-Canadian population. Last year, Ukrainian disrupted a World War II Victory Day ceremony, attended by many Russian-Canadians, in Winnipeg. Major Ukrainian-Canadian organizations have ties to the neo-Nazi Right Sector, Svoboda, Spilna Sprava, Bandera Trident [Tryzub imeni Bandery], Prosvita, and other fascist groups in Ukraine. Those Ukrainians who stand up to complain about the neo-Nazi ties of Ukrainian-Canadian organizations are often met with threats and insults from right-wing Ukrainian nationalist hooligans. The Ukrainian National Federation of Canada, an outgrowth of the Bandera-supporting Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), was actually incorporated by an act of the Canadian Parliament in 1950.
Canada, once a nation known for its support of United Nations peacekeeping operations around the world and a relative enlightened foreign policy that put a great emphasis on international development aid and human rights is now known as the greatest ally for Ukrainian neo-Nazis. That contemptible distinction has been brought about by the neo-fascist bent of the Harper government.”””””
google: ukrainian nazis canada
https://www.google.de/search?q=ukrainian+nazis+canada&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&gws_rd=cr&ei=uNwzV7vfBYP_aZTqg-gF
All I can say is that I am ashamed of my government almost everytime they are mentioned in the news.
God bless Russia and the immortal regiment.
Bravo to the people who organised and made sure their remembrance of their sacrifice is not dismissed by bureaucrats
Canada can only do this because of the ignorance of the post war generations who no longer remember the war and the sacrifice of these very people.
Thats why they end up supporting ukrainian nazi.
Canada (Toronto) behaves in this manner because this event is not being undertaken by a certain group of persons, who reign over Canada.
Canada treats most Canadians like garbage. Look at how the G20 protestors were treated?
Recall how Canada let’s the mass murdering Bush and Cheney into Canada despite large protests?
Then think about who is kept out of Canada ( my home nation) and who really has the ear of the politicians-
http://pennyforyourthoughts2.blogspot.ca/2016/05/dieudonne-barred-by-free-speech-loving.html#comment-form
Dieudonne was not the first or the only one. Back in 2011 the Canadian government barred Dr. Srdja Trifkovic from entering Canada to speak at the University of British Columbia after being invited by the Serbian Students Association.
Srdjas words: “I’ve visited Canada some two dozen times since the Bosnian war ended; ironically, one of those visits, in February 2000, was to provide expert testimony before the Canadian House of Commons in Ottawa. Why should the Canadian authorities suddenly decide to keep me out of the country now, and for transparently spurious reasons?”
http://vladtepesblog.com/2011/02/25/serbian-prof-denied-entry-to-canada/
“Dieudonne was not the first or the only one”
Sadly, he was just the latest in a long line
The event went ahead in spite of the disgusting attitude of the city authorities.
Clearly there is something rotten in the heart of Toronto.
I wish I knew about the Immortal Regiment event. Next year I will surely go.
As for Canadian government, nothing new in that department. They think they got away with genocide over the First Nation, and still have guts to go around and preach democracy? Must be Royal blood! Shame on you Canada!
Yes, the Ukrainians in Canada hate Russians and are politically influential.
According to investigative historian, Eric Zuesse, the majority of Ukranian Canadians are not pro-neo nazism, Right Sector, etc.,etc. and do not support any of this.
Unfortunately, these Ukranian Canadians are not the politically-active and organized ones.Great.
From what I can tell, it depends on when the Ukrainians emigrated to Canada. We know some Ukrainians who moved to Canada in the 1990s, from near Odessa, because they were being pushed out by the increasing nationalism in Ukraine, which was affecting their academic & teaching work (Russian is the language of science). I think you can guess that their political sympathies are not with the Maidan. Though they actually went back on a visit to Ukraine last year to see relatives, and said it’s not quite as bad as you’d think from the official statistics (yet?).
I read an insightful article by Eric Zuesse (which I can’t find now) right after the election of PM Trudeau and the Liberals. In it, Zuesse pointed out that Canadians should expect a change in Canada’s policy towards Ukraine, and towards neo-nazism in general, with Stephane Dion as the new Minister of Foreign Affairs. Zuesse pointed out that unlike the previous Minister, Dion has a PhD in Political Science and can surely tell the difference between a “nationalist” and a “neo-nazi fascist”.
His point was that maybe all of us Canadians should make it clear to the new Minister of Foreign Affairs that we expect to see a new direction in this regard? Since he can’t claim to be clueless or incompetent, as his predecessor could possibly have with respect to these political situations?
Yet Dion says “we” should suport Turkey over the shooting down of a Russian SU-24 in Syria. I am not sure anyone can expect much from the likes of him, plus the new PM, Trudeau, says that Crimea must be returned to the neo-fascist junta that Canada supported. What do you make of that?
It is regrettable that lapdog Canada, handmaiden to the Hegemon, has fallen so far.
Hi SanctuaryOne,
Yes, it is so frustrating and disappointing to hear these words spoken by Dion and Trudeau. (This is partly why I think Zuesse’s advice to let Dion know our expectations for him is useful.)
I keep holding on to President Putin’s reply on April 14th, when he was asked about relations with the new Canadian PM: “We have known each other personally since we met in Antalya, by the way, at the G20 meeting. He has expressed his views about how he is going to build relations with Russia. We are quite satisfied.”
Putin goes on to say: “As I understand it, the new Prime Minister of Canada wants to build relations with Russia on a positive basis, as we did in previous years. We are fine with that. We are neighbours across the Arctic Circle, across the North Pole. We have a lot of mutual interests, oddly enough, even being as far apart geographically as we are. We look forward to working together.”
This is a total, 180 degree, opposite response from a lapdog-for-the-Hegemon response. I don’t believe Putin is lying, or naively deceived, so I do believe Trudeau is working cooperatively with Putin and with Russia right now.
So I must conclude that much more is going on with this new Canadian govt. I hate being unable to get a clear, direct answer from the government on what they are up to, but it seems that is the situation right now. That’s my (hopeful) take on that.
I don’t doubt Putin for a moment but he always replies in a direct, respectful and diplomatic way -he is a statesman and one of very few nowadays.
His counterparts, if you can even describe these amateurs as such, I am not so sure about.
There is some hope that now Canada is rid of the despicable Harper that things might improve and not be a repeat of the Bush part II/Killary dupe. Time will tell.
The only reason that the US administration has not ‘exported its democracy’ to Canada is that it is unnecessary as it already virtually controls everthing it needs. Such US economic corporate controls as the TPP will solidify that iron grip.
If the F-35 Lemonjet sale goes ahead that will be a good lapdog index barometer.
Agreed, SanctuaryOne. Time will tell.
Another thought. Given the truly horrific anti-Russian comments and actions that have come out of Canada in the recent past, Putin would never give such a kind and generous statement about Trudeau (and Canada) unless he had Trudeau firmly in his back pocket, so to speak.
I think Putin was letting the international community know that “Trudeau is my boy, and Canada is in my camp now”. Spoken as a true statesman, of course.
Also Putin reminded us that Canada and Russia “are neighbours, across the Arctic Circle, across the North Pole.” Obama is giving some attention to the Arctic Circle these days too! It’s a glamorous state visit and dinner tonight for the leaders of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. Wow! Such attention to the Nordic leaders!
https://www.rt.com/usa/342907-us-nordic-summit-washington/
A shame! Marina, so sorry to hear.
I wonder if the so many Canadians in this community could not join in expressing their repulse of this attitude of the officials in Toronto.
I also believe that the Russian Embassy should raise a formal complaint.
In any case, this year there have been Immortal Parades for the first time in many cities where the last year this did not happen and every year there will be more cities celebrating this event and more people attending these parades, because most of us, the people, we are against Fascism, and this is the celebration of the people´s struggle, despite those scoundrels in Toronto or wherever.
Next year every one of us will pick all the Russians we were able to find in our cities and we all together with the antifascist local people, will meet in the same place of this year to parade.
They can not stop us.
I was there as well with my mother, with two photographs of relatives who’d fought in WW2. The event was advertised a few weeks in advance with English/Russian-language flyers stuck under parked cars’ windshield wipers – I guess that’s how a lot of people heard about it. We attended for the first time this year, I guess inspired by the news footage of similar events in Russia.
I had no idea that it was so difficult to get around the bureaucracy here… as for the Russian embassy in Canada, I think they are COWARDS. I saw no sign of their presence. They didn’t even send a letter of support (you know, those letters that are typically read as the event starts). There were no journalists and no politicians in attendance, either. The only one who actually sent a letter of support (which was read by the organizers at the start) was Toronto mayor John Tory. It was a vague and unspecific letter, but it was at least something.
There was a problem with the weather – it started pouring rain just as the concert started (it was on an outdoor stage – a tiny stage, not the nearby huge one that they were apparently forced to rent), and they took 30 minutes to move all the equipment indoors into the community centre. As soon as everyone was indoors, it became sunny outside again, and after a little while the local bureaucrats kicked them back outside because “the fire code doesn’t allow that many people indoors”. The organizers protested that all this moving was very difficult for the veterans, but the local bureaucrats wouldn’t budge, so they started moving the equipment outside again. As soon as they were all set up, it started pouring buckets of rain AGAIN, so they moved everything back indoors and continued the concert (I guess the bureaucrats were finally convinced to let them stay).
Other notes:
-There were many really good Russian-community artists performing (along with a few really cringe-worthy ones). The sound guys were pretty bad though. Often some microphones were not working, so you could hear one singer but not the other, or the balance was really off, or the speakers were pointed at the wrong direction, and very often you’d get that “screeching” sound that amps make. I really hope they do a better job next year.
-Somebody mentioned that there was a separate event for Ukrainians at Dundas street on that same day. Self-segregation, I guess. In any case, I didn’t see any Ukrainian flags at the North York event (or any Russian flags, for that matter. Hm).
-there were about half a dozen large communist & Soviet flags flying around, mostly from people who’d taken them with them to Canada as keepsakes (one particularly fancy one, which had the emblems of all the Soviet republics, had been obtained from the “Krasny ugolok” in Tashkent, Tajikistan, when everything was collapsing. Another one was from some French communist organization and proclaimed “the Fourth International”). People seemed to like the novelty of the flags, but otherwise didn’t make an issue of them.
-the whole event was entirely in the Russian language. It seemed to be kept well-away from the non-Russian locals, although since this was a public park, there were some parents/kids on a nearby playground and some random walkers.
-there was a photo exhibit of portraits of local veterans, from both the Canadian and Soviet armies. The photographs were good, but the accompanying text wasn’t very good (the photographer asked each veteran to finish the sentences “War is” and “Victory is”, with a few words. Most of the answers were the same, and it wasn’t very illuminating)
-there were some really amazing miniature sculptures of scenes from Eastern Front battles by a local artist.
-on the whole, it was fun to have a gathering of the Russian community, and to see some of the talented people around here. The event started as being about history, but I think it ended up being about the present and future. I think it’s good to have Russian cultural events like this. The Russian community is so politically timid here, I think it helps to have such gatherings. (we know very well that, though we’re about as numerous as the Ukrainians, the Ukrainians have far more political power)
You have a really keen eye for details, E!. I am surprised that you haven’t noticed any Russian flags, though. There were several of them as well as a Belarusian flag. Anyway, thank you for offering your observations. We would really appreciate it if you write to us to discuss further steps to improve our celebrations.
Marina
Immortal Regiment (Бессмертный Полк) marches are organized by people, not governments, and certainly not Russian government. The embassy represents the government and I think that they should not be involved.
I remmeber now what said long time ago a Bulgarian prophetess Vanga :”Russia will rise again when the dead will march together with the living.”
I am a resident of Toronto for more than 41 years and originally an immigrant from India and a practicing Catholic. Russia and India have a long record of friendship, and Russia has done more than any other country to help the Christians of Syria and the middle east. Toronto City council has a long record of corruption and pandering to special interest groups. For them to throw obstacles in the way of a victory celebration over Fascism and Nazism by the Russian community is really the pits but it does not surprise me in any way.
By the way, as far as I know, there were actually 3 separate “Immortal Regiment” marches in Toronto this year, two on May 8 (the one in North York described in this article, from Steeles to Earl Bales park, and one with non-Russian East & South Slavs near Dundas), and one in downtown Toronto on May 9. I am not sure that the Ruptly video above is from the one described in the article (then again, we didn’t join it from the very beginning, as my mother has a bad foot and couldn’t walk so far).