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- What do we want? - Protestors: Justice!
- Woman: When do we want it? - Protestors: Now!
♪ ♪
Rodney Diverlus: What has yet to be seen is the mass change and
the mass transformation of our systems that we have asked for.
Protestors: No justice, no peace!
Adora Nwofor: Politicians are hearing it, the police are
hearing it--
Man: Take a knee!
Adora:--but they are not doing anything about it.
Our team also talked about what concrete steps this government
must take to fight racism and build a more inclusive Canada.
Protestors: Black Lives Matter!
♪ ♪
Marlihan Lopez: I have not seen concrete action that addresses
anti-Blackness and systemic racism.
Robyn Maynard: Which shows a disregard for this massive
public shift that has happened in support
of Black peoples' lives.
Rodney: The politicians that made promises to act,
now is the time for us to hold them accountable to that.
Now is the time for us to be asking: Where are those changes?
♪ ♪
My name is Rodney Diverlus.
I am a founder of Black Lives Matter Canada.
Robyn Maynard.
I am the author of Policing Black Lives:
State Violence in Canada from Slavery to the Present.
Adora Nwofor.
I am BLM YYC president.
My name is Marlihan Lopez, Black Lives Matter Montreal,
and a co-founding member of the coalition to defund the police.
Protestors: Black Lives Matter!
♪ ♪
2021 is going to see a massive increase in Black-led projects,
Black-led initiatives, Black-led groups, Black-led ideas.
Although perhaps the media attention has gone away,
organizers are always at work.
Adora: Our tactics might be slightly different.
Rodney: This is a time, rather than dialling down pressure,
this is actually:
--on those very institutions and those very governments
that have made promises.
This summer was very--was a very emotional summer.
♪ ♪
The killing of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor brought
a lot of grief to our communities.
♪ ♪
Robyn: Over just a three-week period, we saw over 70 protests.
Protestors: No justice, no peace!
Black Lives Matter!
Adora: Oh, it was electric.
It was for sure something that I've never experienced
in Calgary.
- Let this be the last march! - [crowd cheering]
Rodney: It was parents, it was aunts, it was grandparents,
it was allies.
I'm just sick and tired of Black people getting killed.
I have to do something about it.
Rodney: We were protesting to never protest again.
Protestors: Black Lives Matter!
Adora: We're basically in the same place,
except slightly further back because now people know
and they're not doing anything that is actually quantifiable.
♪ ♪
Robyn: We saw corporations, we saw businesses,
we saw government leaders saying the words "Black Lives Matter,"
but in many ways, we did not see a commitment to actually making
those systemic changes.
- Justin Trudeau, where are you? - Woman: Yes.
Cabinet has put together a work plan for the summer months.
Our goal is to come up with strong policies that will help
eliminate barriers facing Indigenous peoples,
racialized people, and persons with disabilities.
We are never going to eradicate anti-Black racism
with a statement.
Now the protest is over, now is really an opportunity
to keep putting pressure on our politicians.
Those who signed Black Lives Matter statements,
those who made tweets and said, "Yes, we are with you,"
now is the time to follow up to those tweets.
Woman: Merci.
Robyn: I think some of:
--when it comes to elected officials to actually implement
the kind of changes that the Canadian population
has been demanding.
Adora: If politicians en masse are not creating space
for anti-racism to be at the forefront every day,
at every opportunity, they are failing us.
I think that there is some discrimination in Québec,
but there's no systemic discrimination.
Protestors: Enough is enough!
Marlihan: We can't just limit ourselves to conversations
with government because if we spend our time just convincing
politicians that there is systemic racism,
we're not going to have time to invest in, you know,
other projects of liberation.
When police attacks us, it's not enough.
You have to do concrete changes.
♪ ♪
Rodney: The defunding the police campaign really is an entryway
to talk about: How can we divert our sort of reliance
on a partial police system?
We want money from the police, specifically,
because the police budget is huge.
Marlihan: They don't understand that:
There's actually been a demand to make sure that also,
you know, the disproportionately Black and Indigenous homeless
populations in our cities are actually housed, you know,
in manners that are sustainable.
It's about ending the kind of violence that actually is
abandoning so many people living in Canada to poverty,
people living with mental health issues, and it's about actually
reinvesting public wealth in supporting people.
♪ ♪
I think we've seen some absolutely incredible wins.
For example, either tabling or ending of police contracts of
police in schools in Vancouver, in the Peel region, in Hamilton.
We've seen in Halifax, for example, half a million dollars
that was slated to be used for an armoured police tank being
partially reinvested in community.
Rodney:--not only to now go beyond introducing these terms,
but actually lay out a foundation for what
that looks like.
What does defunding the police look like?
Where could those funds be allocated to specifically?
♪ ♪
Rodney: When I think about 2021, now:
--to lay down the bricks and mortar of a BLM movement
that we can leave for generations.
Adora: It is the same work we are doing.
It's the same work of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King
and Harriet Tubman.
Our tactics might be slightly different,
so we might be on Zoom calls now.
We might flood emails.
It might look like a cookout where Black people
are just enjoying themselves.
Marlihan: We start by, you know, popular education, investing in
education, because, you know, it starts in our schools.
It's in the boardrooms, it's in the legislative chambers,
it's in meetings, it's in community spaces.
Adora: We are specifically working on mentorship programs,
getting some funding, trying to promote some Black joy.
♪ ♪
Rodney: Yeah, I'm really excited for the time that we can gather
in many ways.
Black communities have done all of this while being isolated
as well, remembering that.
♪ ♪
Adora: I am going to ask everybody who has privilege
to interrupt anti-Black racism, racism, oppression,
marginalization at every level, every moment that you can.
It will be uncomfortable.
Rodney: We have to commit ourselves beyond
the strategic plan.
We have to commit ourselves beyond the one-year process.
We have to commit ourselves beyond hiring the one
to two people.
We have to commit ourselves beyond reading one book
about anti-Black racism.
We actually have to commit ourselves for life.
This is a lifelong journey.
Protestors: No justice, no peace!
Rodney: For us to achieve the sort of utopia
that we're asking for--
- Man: No justice-- - Protestors: No peace!
♪ ♪