A rally is set to take place in Toronto today in protest of what organizers describe as anti-black and anti-Indigenous racism around the world.
The protest, organized by a group dubbed Not Another Black Life, comes on the heels of high-profile, police-involved deaths in both Canada and the United States.
A Minnesota police officer is now facing a murder charge in the death of George Floyd, a black man caught on film pleading for air as an officer knelt on his neck.
And Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit is looking into the death of Regis Korchinski-Paquet, who fell from the balcony of a 24th-floor Toronto apartment while police were in the home on Wednesday.
A lawyer representing Korchinski-Paquet’s family says her relatives do not want to see violence, only answers as to how and why she died.
In a statement released Saturday, lawyer Knia Singh says the family did not organize or plan the protest. The family says it thanks organizers for bringing attention to a “very serious matter.”
Toronto Mayor John Tory called the community’s anger over her death understandable, describing anti-black racism as “a fact in our society” and encouraging protesters gathering this afternoon to practice physical distancing in light of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
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