Drop the Charges! Restore the Special Diet, Raise the Rates NOW!

What: COURT APPEARANCE FOR OCAP MEMBERS AND SUPPORTERS ACCUSED OF 'FORCIBLE ENTRY' OF LIBERAL PARTY HQ
When: Monday, August 30, 9.00 AM
Where: Outside College Park Court (College and Yonge)

Nine of the eleven people arrested and charged last month over a brief occupation of the Liberal Party headquarters are set to appear in court on Monday. They are accused of mischief and forcible entry. OCAP and allies will gather in front of the courthouse to condemn these charges and demand they be dropped, along with trespass summonses that were issued to two others at the Liberal offices.

This is a 'set date' appearance when it is normal to provide another court date and (sometimes) provide the accused with 'disclosure', i.e. the evidence the Crown intends to introduce at trial. We are demanding of the Liberal Attorney General (Chris Bentley), however, that this date be used to drop these inflated and politically motivated charges, just as we demand he drop all remaining G20 charges.

On July 21st, eleven people went into an office, delivered an 'invoice of money owing to poor people in Ontario' to the Liberal Party, opened a window, hung a banner and made a speech to the crowd outside. In the wake of the G20, cops and prosecutors are continuing to try and silence anyone who speaks out against government cutbacks and social injustice, and instead are working to criminalize resistance to government austerity. It has become clear that this era of austerity will be enforced and backed with lines of
cops.

If we are going to talk about crimes, let us instead look at the reason OCAP went to the Liberal offices. The McGuinty Government is eliminating the Special Diet that hundreds of thousands of poor people have used for food and to preserve their health when forced to live on despicably inadequate OW and ODSP rates. We disrupted the office of the Liberal Party that took this measure for a brief period. The Liberal Government, however, has outright robbed poor people of the ability to put food on the table and keep a roof
over their heads. We may have somewhat inconvenienced a few Liberal functionaries while McGuinty's Government took a measure that will wreck peoples' health and shorten their lives. It will inevitably increase poverty, hunger, and homelessness.

We demand decent income for people on social assistance and the right to a life with dignity. We challenge those who seek to criminalize our social movements. More than anything, we want to make clear that we are not intimidated and that the struggle against poverty and those to blame for it will not be prevented. It will continue and it will grow.

JOIN the Raise the Rates Campaign
Contact: Ontario Coalition Against Poverty
www.ocap.ca / 416-925-6939

DONATE to the Raise the Rates Legal Fund:
Cheques can be made out to the 'Ontario Coalition Against Poverty' (with
'legal fund' in the memo) and mailed to:

7 Labatt Avenue, #209H,
Toronto, Ontario
M5A 1Z1