Protesting a Protest : Tamils in Toronto

Canada is so nice. In most parts of the world protests are tolerated and then broken up quickly. In England the police backhand woman. A recent protest by Armenians in Greece due to the Turkish refusal to accept their 1915 murders as genocide was halted by riot police. This is a stance that most Greeks support and they were shut down. In Toronto we let them tie up a major street for three days. Tamil protesters are demonstarting in front of the US Consulate. The consulate is located on University Ave, a major street in downtown Toronto which is also the location of hospitals, the opera house and City Hall.

The protests are in support for the Tamil Tigers, an organization that supports a Tamil state in Sril Lanka. They are also a terrorist organization in the eyes of Canada and the US. The demonstrators are hoping that their voice is heard and, well who the hell cares, those bastards are tieing up traffic. The police are just sitting around, watching and collecting overtime. This is the same police force that will give you a ticket for parking on this street, but wave a banner with a scary tiger and you're free to do as you choose. Would I be free to park on University if I had a Tony the Tiger flag?

Toronto is home to the largest Tamil population outside of Sri Lanka. Protesting is useless mostr of the time, but protesting in Toronto is beyond useless. No one in the world cares what happens in Toronto and certainly not what happens in front of a consulate. Canada is like the USAs stupid little brother. So protesting in front of a consulate is like asking Donald Trump's slow brother for cash. Actually it's more like asking his nurse for cash. It's a consulate,not even the embassy or Parliament. Is their aim to hold up people getting their passports renewed? I'm really surprised the Conservatives are not getting behind the Tamils. This seems to be a perfect time to pander and try to steal an ethinc group from the Liberals.

The Tamils have also broken another social contract in their use of car flags. That tiger logo flying on a car is in violations of the three reasons established in car flag etiquette.

1. Fly a flag to support your favourite sports team.
2. Fly a flag to support your ethnic background in a soccer tournament
3. Fly the Canadian flag to show you hate soccer

Supporting a liberation army is not an established legal ground in the landmark case of Racist Canadian Vs Italian Soccer Fans 1982. The case established global soccer tournaments, Stanley Cup playoff victories or any Leaf win as a cause for car flags.

Image from Torontoist.