What started out as one organization marching against Canada's anti-Islamaphobia motion, quickly turned into two groups locked in heated arguments about globalization in front of City Hall Saturday afternoon.
More than a dozen people were involved in the freedom and liberty march. They were part of a nation-wide protest organized by the Canadian coalition of concerned citizens, with the intention of standing against Sharia Law and the Federal Government's motion against islamophobia: motion M-103.
“I believe as a woman and a Canadian, that we need to stand up for our country,” said Laurie Donovan. “And the thought of bringing Sharia Law into Canada is terrifying.”
“I think it's important for all Canadians to have free speech. If they allow this bill to pass, it's going to restrict freedom of speech across the border,” said Robert Johnsen.
The march was met by an anti-racist counter-protest with a different message.
“There's anti-Muslim sentiment in the city that's feeling emboldened by the current political climate and testing that by having a first rally,” said Simon Granovsky-Larsen. “So we found it really important to come out in large numbers to give a counter message.”
The counter-protest outnumbered the original march by several dozen, causing passions to run high. But in the end, the nonviolent march remained just that.
"We are peaceful people. We do not want sharia law. We want to have the systemic racism against our community investigated, because it's at record high and the violence against muslims is at record highs, and we need to talk about this,” said Zarqu Nawaz.
