Protest Parks & Productivity： A New Idea for Canada？
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Summary
Protest parks have been around for a long time in Canada. They ve been around in Hong Kong, Singapore, the UK, and the Netherlands, and in the Netherlands they ve even made it to the Supreme Court of Canada. But what are they really about? What are their purpose? How do they work? And why are they important?
Transcript
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Okay, well you'll find them in Victoria Park in Hong Kong. You'll find them in Singapore. You'll
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find one in the UK and in the Netherlands. What we're talking about today might get the bristles
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up on the back of your neck or you might be cheering, but there's rarely a mid-ground on
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this one. We're talking about protest parks today on TPL Media. All right, let's get into this.
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joining me to talk about protest parks paul micucci thanks so much for taking the time on
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this one paul yeah protest parks mike and i'm gonna add one another one yeah marathon miles
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okay or kilometers as we say in canada but i really wanted to add that because i do want to
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talk about that too because it really does fall in the same category in my mind now might not be
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to others okay but i want to talk about it yeah before we start the show and to kick off the show
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i really want to remind people something because i'm going to bring it up a number of times
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The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which is the it's the intergovernmental body that takes a look at all developed countries in the world.
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Right. So they've issued a warning that Canada is going to fall out of the productivity ranking.
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So basically it's going to be out of the 38. It's going to be number 39 in productivity in the world over the next three decades.
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wow so that's what it's saying it's issued the warning i say it on a number of shows
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so startling fact actually that we got there i mean it is a fact if you think about how
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how we ended up there even at 38 from where we were even just a few years ago uh and now here
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we are uh continuing to fall no that productivity i think dovetails nicely with what we're talking
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about it does you and i had a discussion one day now i have to tell you uh listen buddy i've taken
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credit for this a few times but as you reminded me this morning and it's true yes we get talking
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about traffic and the congestion in major cities uh that is associated and frankly the inconvenience
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in some case violence and uh the continued ongoing protests that go on in toronto congesting our
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lives and uh i don't know how it came up but at one point you said why don't we just have a place
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where we could do this where the protests can take like we'll create and we started to talk
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about creating protest park i like to call it democracy park okay democracy park okay we'll
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call it democracy park we can call it whatever you want but you know we went through months uh
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throughout the winter where people were uh down at city hall they were on all the roads in the
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downtown core of toronto they were out west they were protesting everything that was going on in
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the world from other countries that have nothing to do with well very little to do with canada
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quite frankly other than the people who are from that country live here and we we at some point
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and we still do think it's fine to block off major roads arteries highways for an issue that is
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It's non-related to Canadian challenge, let's talk.
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We live in a country where everybody from around the world is welcome.
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The reason that we are this way is that we have this view of the world.
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Canada is rarely involved in anything that is, you know, strike intensive or offensive to another nation.
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This is really not the place we necessarily need to be shouting at the top of our lungs on behalf of somebody else's problem.
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Right. No, no. And a lot of people would say, quite frankly, it's my right.
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Which, you know, and then I went to, I said the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
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So I went to it, and there's several cases on this.
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So this has actually been something that we've looked at in Canada
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The Supreme Court basically ruled that you could park your car
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but then they overturned that in the the years later and for remember when they actually it was
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in toronto there was a group living in the park and it was downtown and it was in james square
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and they called it the eviction of occupancy toronto i don't know if you remember this
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remember that yeah they went in and evicted them saying yeah you can protest but you can't take
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possession of private property in order to protest so that's the fine line here that we're talking
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about so yes you can protest and it's everyone's right to impede public space in which to do it
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well that's a yeah that's a fine line so in this case they went and set up shelters homes you know
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they they were homeless they went and actually set up places to live and they said that this is
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a protest it's not a it's not any i recall that was the that's right that was and i think the
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ruling said okay then you have to leave at the end of every day right protest cannot you know
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extend itself that lengthy period of time right so back up to parking your car on the road so now
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you go out and you actually park your car in the road or you start to walk down the road you stop
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traffic everything else have you taken possession of that road it's a good question so that's the
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this is the fine line that's sitting out there to be unruled upon right now yeah that is a blurry
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area it is a very blurry area and we haven't challenged it quite frankly and i think we need
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to do now going forward um the there have been several times through g20s g7s when uh politicians
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and national world leaders have come to canada and we've created protest parks right now to to
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make sure that security was in place for those nationals visiting right so the the crazy
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part about this is when we did actually set them up and we did actually search people's bags and
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things to make sure they could get into protest park the courts came back and said it was an
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unlawful search okay so there's still issues that we have to we from our charter of rights and
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freedom still have many outstanding issues that we need to address here so you know starting the
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show i wanted to make sure that i addressed that because i didn't want people yelling at their
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you know uh device saying you know this guy doesn't know what he's talking i get it like i
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get that um this still has to be resolved and we're not talking about taking away people's
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freedoms so i want to make sure we're we're totally crystal clear on that mike we're talking about
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setting up areas for people to go safely to uh clearly outline their opinion to protest
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whatever they want to say uh similar to i think you brought up at the aunt said hyde park yeah
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have your you know what you can you you you can come to that park you can uh say what you want
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to say you can bring as many people as you want to bring has been an influencer in uk politics
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since they started it right now no it also has clout right it has clout it has restrooms it has
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policing it has security it has surveillance it's it's a safe zone to basically protest and to state
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your opinion i mean if you're a protester you want to be in a safe environment anyway i would assume
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we all do sure of course you're not a protester you don't want to be impeded by the protest i
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think this is i mean this stems from some very basic human uh consideration right yes okay i'm
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i'm happy to hear about your concerns yes or i'm i prefer not to hear about your concerns i have my
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own right but a protest just launches it onto you yes while you're trying to get to work or trying
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to pick the kids up or you know trying to get a doctor's appointment in the day uh in a city
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that's already very congested protests tend to exacerbate that horribly right well listen if we
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were if we were a top top performing productive nation i may be thinking about this a little
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different i guess and we had protests every day going down the middle of the city but still we
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were logistically moving goods shipping producing and we were at the top of our game i'd say have on
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it right you can protest the way where my opinion on this and a business owner i'm i'm starting to
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sympathize on a number of levels with the people in the downtown core with with us actually who
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are on the outskirts of toronto who are now spending two and three hours trying to get
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somewhere because someone's decided to hold a game hold a marathon hold a protest and now we
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is totally impeded from getting anywhere in the city and that business owner who's mortgaged their
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life secured every asset they have to get in business is now out of business for a weekend
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a week or a month and to me that's it's intolerable and quite frankly it's unacceptable at this point
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right now we have the world cup here in toronto uh vancouver has it i just came from there just
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the construction and setup in Vancouver for the World Cup has created such a congestion
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in Vancouver and such a detour scenario. In Toronto, there's a whole core area closed
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that is mainly a thoroughfare for a lot of traffic in Toronto, and it's plunked right
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there in the middle. This morning, a drive that would normally take me about 40, 43 minutes,
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yeah an hour and 43 minutes that's insane so now i walk in the door i sent you a text from the road
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saying i will arrive enraged and sure enough you know you there is uh you know all joking aside
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there is that feeling when you get out of the car and you're like now i'm i gotta be at my
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meeting in two minutes i'm not ready yeah so it impedes that in the workplace people are showing
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up late and and the people that are going to these jobs are second guessing going 45 kilometers to a
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job because it's going to take them two hours each way yeah add in protest to that seems a little
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inconsiderate yeah yeah it reminds me you know i mentioned on another show late 80s early 90s
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in order to get downtown i had an office in the downtown core of toronto we used to have to start
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out at five in the morning so the only way to get downtown because i needed my vehicle was to start
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out at five in the morning to get there by six so you get in by six and then you would work till
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seven so you would miss the traffic going home to keep your efficiency up so to keep your
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productivity you had to extend your work hours 12 hours yeah 12 or 13 hours a day yeah yeah which
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by the time you got home quite being an hour an hour on each side you're 14 to 15 hours
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it's a tight day we wondered why there was such cocaine problems in the 80s
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And if you don't mind, Paul, I'll give you a couple of the places.
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But right away, the first thing our research team does is go,
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When they leave and have protests, the police in London say that when it's outside of Hyde Park, the possibility for somebody being injured, the safety factor drops immensely.
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The possibility of somebody being trampled, the congestion of traffic, it all is way too much for the city to handle when it happens in Hyde Park.
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Usually there's a microphone in which somebody can hear what's going on.
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There's the ability for people to put a whole day in there comfortably making their point.
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They created this designated protest and demonstration area known as Speaker's Corner in Hong Kong
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so that citizens can hold peaceful demonstrations.
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And it was based on having a predictable location.
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We know that that's where we're going to do this.
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we can plan this properly far in advance if need be or we can react quickly and know what the
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facility is uh easier policing people wanted that you don't want to have a protest and the
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anti-protesters showing up causing a problem uh and of course number one on their list was traffic
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was such an issue for this sort of thing um that the cost to the city to manage it and cost to
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businesses was too much and one last one i'll give you in hong kong victoria park now um they've had
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issues uh at this park yeah however uh they've also had very few issues at this park uh the ones
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that they had were a little bit um you know the one of the freedom park movements was an issue
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there but aside from that they say by and large it's also worked out very well for them in the
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netherlands we see them and in different parts of the world people are really considering this and
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it really has to do with congestion more than anything more than safety more than you know
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trying to curb the first thing people say paul what's the first thing i heard this morning at
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breakfast when i brought this up oh you're curbing people's freedom of speech well that's not the
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intention yeah so it's interesting um you know the the strong angles on this that you get that
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it's a really good point the first one when i when i went and found out different opinion on it now
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call it the captive audience um doctrine is a trojan horse for censorship okay explain so
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basically you know i'm going to put you in a pen so they call it a pen people who are against it
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call a pen protest park they call it a pen so you're going to pin me in and you're going to
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censor me because you're going to know who i am right so you're going to identify me you're going
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to create a bubble zone you're going to restrict my rights i find this bizarre that's really weird
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so we we live in a free country where people get to say what they want we have freedom freedom of
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speech freedom of rights if if you need to protest on a street and conceal your face and conceal
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your identity and conceal what you say i don't want to hear it so i don't want to hear what you
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have to say and i don't want you to block my street at that point you know paul you raise
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a really good point so if that's your if if you're kind of if you're arguing with me saying i don't
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want to be put in a park because that you know you're going to censor me i i just can't understand
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that quite frankly because then you don't want to then you don't want to publicly view your uh
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you don't want your opinion publicly heard yeah no i agree with you that that feels like a shady
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way to take your message to the world right if you don't want to get to a microphone and say
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what you want to say then don't protest and also if you need to do it every day it's obviously not
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effective no so do something more effective plan something make it effective make get your message
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out once effectively yeah well that and that's great quite frankly here's the great thing too
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media will be set up there yeah there's so there will be there will be places for media to plug in
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to film to record there will be places there'll be restrooms there'll be uh concessions there'll be
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emergency services if anyone has a heart attack or gets sick there'll be all kinds of things set
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up there you know hopefully quite frankly here's here's the next thing mike i do not want my tax
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dollars going to your protest or your marathon or your bike-a-thon or your run i i just don't want
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it now most i think most people i mean there's there's a small group of participation that goes
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on in most of these things that the mass pays the price for now if you were going to do a marathon
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and we had a marathon location and a marathon route that wasn't going to and we consistently
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use that and we built it for that i think you'd get more marathons i think if you had a protest
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park you'd have more meaningful messages here's the great thing mike right go 40 minutes go to
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highway six or go outside of any majors go to calgary right go 40 minutes outside cal i don't
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know if any of you been to calgary lately or go to go to st john's quite frankly go a half hour
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outside the major city yeah you have fields and fields of free space that you can have beautiful
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marathons runs bikeathons you know guess who's there paul the entire population exactly they're
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not in the core yeah get well and the nice part is you get out of the city you have a nice time
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we bring economic impacts positive economic impacts to smaller cities quite frankly you get
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to see uh outside of the urban sprawl that you live in so they're all good things about this
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and you don't congest the city you don't cause that poor small business owner from losing if you
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run a business for those of you who don't and if you work with the government or you you know you
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work for someone you got to sympathize with small business owners who only have 52 weeks a year to
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make it often only 12 hours in a day there's 250 000 some odd new startups of small businesses a
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year in canada there's 200 000 dissolutions or bankruptcy of small businesses in canada they
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happen right it goes it's almost equal the number of businesses coming in and out of canada every
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year it's a large number quite frankly and you know sorry if i got the numbers slightly wrong
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but you know i'm doing it straight from remember but you know these people are living on an edge
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these people have are trying to create an economy that creates jobs creates economic stimulus
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financing it is what keeps our nation alive and the productivity of those businesses needs to be
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heralded and pushed forward not blocked so if you want to do any of these things so if you want to
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hold that protest you can go to protest bar quite frankly pay your fee you know pull your permit
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you can get a 30-day permit fee right a permit you go down you pay your permit you get your group
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together you all pay your fees you go in you use the park you're recorded you know quite frankly
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we should have a something where they can actually get their own video we should have a company
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hired to actually film their own protest video if for them so you know they can do some editing so
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they don't look so brutal because all the most of the time they're shooting it off their phone
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is they're running you know a bunch of them have their phones up and they're chasing each other
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around the streets if you want to legitimize your your cause to have it at protest park sorry
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democracy park democracy park at democracy park paul micucci democracy park we're going to call
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it because trump i don't want him getting his name on that he puts it everywhere uh definitely not
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here if uh if we had that scenario and like i do want to paint the picture on something right
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people want to protest in the streets because it's a disruption correct right without a disruption
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you can't get now we've also done something man i started thinking about this last night as i was
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thinking about this topic disruption needs to be the catalyst for change no it used to be activism
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activism was the the the catalyst for change now we encourage and we we uh all hail the disruptor
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have you heard that phrase oh he's a disruptor that's a disruptor we don't need disruption we
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Well, the interesting thing, Mike, so that was my second angle on this one,
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which came up, was protest pens, as they call them.
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It actually radicalizes dissent rather than manages it.
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So if I can't radicalize my protest, it's not worth doing.
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Yeah, I mean, if you have a message and you want to get everybody together,
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and present yourself like a logical protest with logical ideas and real statements you're not going
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to do it as effectively through a megaphone on a street while some person's trying to cross a road
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no you're going to get it with the media in front of you with a microphone and the ability for
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people to actually surround you safely now think about this for a minute so and this is a very
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bizarre psychology if you think about it i have to i have to inconvenience a population of people
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to get my point across yeah so i have to take people i have for the most part i probably can say
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uh i'm trying to think of all the protests in that i've seen in toronto this year but i'm
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pretty sure 98 of them quite frankly have nothing to do with me in any way shape or form
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right yeah the clowns need Cadillacs protests but I get that one I can tell you this last weekend
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I'm one of my businesses I'm having an event right it's it's in a suburb and quite frankly
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it was significantly impacted by in this case of what's going on on the soccer downtown yeah
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quite frankly and we didn't have great turnout no because people don't want to risk well
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going out here's the crazy thing mike so now the government's decided to use my tax dollars
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to hold the event to impede my business that's what you voted for so that's what i voted for
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no i didn't vote for that i didn't vote for that and i didn't vote quite frankly for you to use
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the money that was voted for in council unlawfully and exceed the budget by 10 times to impede my
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business i didn't vote for that so you did it you didn't you did that on your own accord you did
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that out of your own volition so the thing that upsets me about this so much is that as business
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owners we're a side swipe of this but no be quiet you know we're gonna meanwhile increase your
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property tax we're gonna increase your all your other taxes quite frankly but you should just
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suck it up buttercup run your business even though no one can get to it no one can park by it
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and no one wants to leave their home and quite frankly for the poor people that don't have a
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business who bought cottages and other events they can't even get out of the city to go visit
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their cottages on a a terrible weather so far this summer yeah when they've had even good days
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they can't even make it out to 400 highways or whatever highways and whatever city you're in
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to make it outside the outskirts of the city so like these are the things that i think we're not
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we're definitely not thinking about like i to be honest with you paul i think that you don't care
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and i don't care i don't care what your protest it not that i don't care right i i don't oppose
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any protest of any kind if you've got something to say yeah let us know but please don't don't
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impede other people's lives to do it if you need to market find more effective ways to get your
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message out well the interesting thing is the next hooker the next angle that people bring up is
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it's a hypocrisy that free speech zone in a free society to have a free speech shown in a free
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society people say well that's that's bizarre how free is a society locked down by protests
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exactly well that's the thing so so the the opposite of that is just what you said mike so
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you're gonna block me to get your way so think of how childish that like my you know uh nephew
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who's five years old that's a that's a tantrum yeah disrupting that's defined as a tantrum so
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when he doesn't get what he wants he lays on the floor and he stamps his feet and he doesn't leave
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it let us leave the house or eat dinner because he wants what he wants right right so what you're
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you're an adult you're throwing an adult tantrum to block me in a protest manner you're going to
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have a positive effect with your message on me in an and for the most part in another part of
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the world that i can never have any impact on so that's what makes me bizarre so when i'm sitting
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in traffic for an hour you know uh i'm sitting in traffic last weekend get from you know uh
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mississauga to etobicoke which for those of you don't know it is roughly less than a half an hour
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away from 20 minutes i'm an hour and a half to get one intersection i have to turn around
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in order to get to my 90 year old father to help him out with something it was a four-hour trip
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right so i have to go through now i have to absorb that for you because you've decided to ride that
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bike protest that street run that mile in the middle of my city that i can't get around in
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anymore and you think that that's rational so that's a rational way of thinking that's
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think about it you know it's not rational and it's not rational that our politicians
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can see to it well i was going to say this okay so the politicians let's let's talk about that
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for one second and this is just off my cuff politicians are going to give in to the protesters
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every time because they want the vote but imagine that we took that away from the vote right imagine
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that we said okay you're not going to get the protester vote nobody's getting them because
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we've made a ruling that we're going to put them in this beautiful park in a part of toronto that
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is uh designated and zoned for this let's set up for it okay so now you don't have as a politician
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the ability to say this protest group this uh disruptor group they've got i've got their vote
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because i'm encouraging them to be in the street doing this to our city if you take that off the
00:26:55.400
table yeah i think that it becomes a tougher battle to get a seat on council yeah because
00:27:02.240
you actually have to go and find other ways to get votes out there you have to go and express
00:27:07.460
fresh change. You have to get out there and be fiscally responsible and all of these things
00:27:12.560
rather than just appeasing a shouting group of tantrum throwers. Exactly. But I'm going to stay
00:27:18.920
away from it. Here's the thing. I'm going to stay away from it. I'm going to kick it up to the
00:27:22.760
Supreme Court or to the federal government or freedom of rights, right? I'm going to kick it
00:27:26.700
up there and hope that it takes forever to get resolved because politically I don't want to
00:27:30.640
address it exactly therefore our productivity slips away slips away and here we are slipping
00:27:37.980
out of the 38 developed nations and we're just watching and we're thinking well that's okay
00:27:43.720
so now i want to bring this up too and you hit on it a few minutes ago i'm not against i love
00:27:50.700
charitable activities i love charities i love charities doing great things and i think they
00:27:56.040
do great things so i'm you know most of activism makes change a large part of my life is is that's
00:28:02.760
raising money for charity so quite frankly it's the cornerstone of what you do every day it is
00:28:07.240
the cornerstone but listen i find it really hard for some of you who are doing these things to
00:28:17.000
stand up or get on tv in the morning and say i got 5 000 people and i'm going to shut a major highway
00:28:24.360
that transports on a daily basis 150 000 to 200 000 cars so you're going to have 5 000 people
00:28:33.160
bike along or do something and you're going to shut it and you're going to disrupt
00:28:39.320
hundreds of thousands of people i really do struggle with that and i struggle with it i think
00:28:43.960
disruption is a has become um it's become a good word it's become a positive disruption
00:28:52.760
oh we're a disruptor we're a disruptor in the industry you know what it sounds to me like
00:28:57.720
you're an outsider it sounds to me like you've got a new idea it sounds to me like you why would
00:29:02.440
you say that you're a disruptor why don't you say that you are an advancer or a thinker i think that
00:29:08.540
that makes more sense right to say that you're a disruptor i don't think having pride in being a
00:29:13.820
disruptor should be encouraged we should be talking about activism okay we need change let's all get
00:29:19.760
together in a place that doesn't disturb society and share our message properly with with some
00:29:25.980
coherence well it's interesting because the the indian did you notice has moved up to markham this
00:29:30.920
year yeah i noticed that yeah i was like hallelujah that makes perfect this might be year two for it
00:29:36.460
is it or is this the first year i think it's the first year but it's a great idea but but you know
00:29:40.500
what i'm like the further up i'm not saying we lose that event a lot of people love that event
00:29:46.580
we didn't lose it it's right over there i know but but right over there is only in all of our
00:29:51.940
cities again we we are the second largest country in the world we have the land out the wazoo we
00:29:57.620
have water out this wazoo we have all kinds of places it's very easy rather than uh hold that
00:30:04.100
those two marathons those six charity events that block off major highways and all our cities from
00:30:09.620
the east coast to the west coast right let's move them out somewhere in the country let's build the
00:30:15.540
pass the bikes lanes safely quite frankly because here's the other thing you know making the case
00:30:22.980
that i want to take you know someone and go along a major highway like take for example in toronto
00:30:28.740
which is full of potholes and crap and obstacles and people can get hurt let's build nicely paved
00:30:35.460
areas where people can go train ride run and do things that are very healthy and create centers
00:30:42.660
that they can actually congregate after and and communally have a drink or have a meal and let's
00:30:49.620
do that on the outskirts of town in a happy manner that it's manageable and we're not blocking
00:30:54.820
everything else i'm all for the charity events i'm all for the marathons i'm all for all the physical
00:31:01.300
you know sports every recreation i love it all do it outside the city yeah and if we do that
00:31:07.860
quite frankly mike we avoid all these things i think if you need to look radical get a radical
00:31:12.340
message communicate it well do it in an orderly fashion i i by the way i think that we could
00:31:17.620
at democracy uh democracy park could have a wonderful marathon uh track around it you know
00:31:24.480
what i i all to your point let's build them separately and you know what let's let's go and
00:31:31.140
and and give towns outside of the major chorus an opportunity to present themselves in the best
00:31:37.780
light so you know this city is known for marathons this city is known for bikeathons this city is
00:31:44.140
known for charity events you know let's spread the wealth a little outside the core get people
00:31:49.220
to kind of move and enjoy we we have buses we have transportation let's move everyone outside
00:31:54.700
i do like the idea of trying to get people to extend the core of enjoyment yeah outside the
00:32:00.340
difficult zone well we build you know it's interesting we build these you know years ago
00:32:05.200
we just had the major core cities yeah and we build these great city halls over time we put
00:32:11.120
massive amounts of money into suburban city halls and infrastructure let's use them and let's use
00:32:18.100
them to declutter ourself the protest park thing quite frankly the protest park can be in the core
00:32:23.280
i understand why the major population by the way it's a fun notion in our mind i mean
00:32:28.100
democracy park sorry yeah democracy park yeah tm okay i just want you to know i've already t
00:32:34.400
merch available now but i mean really this is uh this is really a fancy of ours just just
00:32:40.980
talking about what some of the solutions could be and i would encourage you you've watched this
00:32:46.220
you've heard our ideas yeah i i hope that we've expressed them but this was us blue skying what
00:32:52.000
are your ideas what do you think we should be doing you know is there another idea that we've
00:32:55.520
missed share it with us is there a hybrid of this that would be kind of cool i think that we should
00:33:05.240
I'm going to do it on Yonge Street later on today.
00:33:15.300
And I'd like to, again, we need to think of solutions to get our productivity in Canada up.
00:33:22.960
So we can't keep turning a blind eye, doing the same thing that isn't working,
00:33:27.280
to see all the things that we need to make happen go away.
00:33:32.620
We do this for real every day, and we need your support.
00:33:38.460
It's super cheap, and you'll get some fun stuff in the process
00:33:41.540
and become part of the community that communicates some of these ideas with us
00:33:49.100
And check out tplmedia.ca slash local because we're probably in your town already,
00:33:57.280
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