1/7Police with the support of @kristynwongtam and local anti-poor south cabbagetown group are installing cameras at the corner of Sherbourne and Dundas in the coming weeks. As calls for defunding the police grow- racialized, poor communities in Toronto continue to be targeted.

2/ this isn’t the first time attempts to install cameras at the corner have been made. In 2007 local groups organized against the cameras. The cameras were removed just under 2 weeks of their installation. Increasing surveillance is costly and does nothing to deter “crime”.

3/ 2007 “The Toronto Police are installing several cameras in the area of Dundas and Sherbourne to monitor any "criminal activity" or "anti-social behaviour" that takes place. In the heart of one of Canada's poorest neighbourhoods and surrounded by drop-in centres and shelters”

4/“that are seeing their budgets transfered to the police, it is hard to see how these cameras will put food on the table or roofs over the heads of those in the community. Instead, the cameras will record people going hungry and struggling to survive. “Zoe Dodd of Street Health

5/What cameras will show police and @kristynwongtam - are people struggling to survive, they’ll show you poverty, they’ll show you abuse and harassment by the police without accountability. They will not be a deterrent in a neighbourhood that is overly criminalized.

6/KWT in the years she has been City Councillor has ramped up the criminalization of people struggling in poverty, with ballooning budgets for parks ambassadors who’s job is to target poor ppl on streets and in parks. Now she wants to spy on ppl.

7/She talks out two sides of her mouth. Against police checks for the middle class during Covid but increase policing and surveillance for the poorest postal code in the city. This money could be used to support ppl struggling. #defundthepolice #NoCameras