Poverty and War Protest

By Brian Shypula


The ringleader of last year’s rowdy protest that disrupted opening night of the Stratford Festival and cost the city and theatre thousands of dollars for extra security says there will be no repeat come Monday’s start of the 2007 season.

“I can guarantee you that this year has nothing to do with the Festival,” Julian Ichim said yesterday in a call to The Beacon Herald.

The former Kitchener resident and student activist is a member of Stratford Action for Equality, organizers of an anti-war, anti-poverty protest being held Sunday evening outside City Hall to demand an end to spending for the war in Afghanistan and more money for social programs to help the homeless and poor in Canada.

“I don’t see no point to having a fight with the city or the Festival. At this point in time, it doesn’t serve any cause. It doesn’t advance our cause at all,” Mr. Ichim said.

Unlike last year, organizers met with both the theatre and city ahead of this year’s protest and agreed to hold it the day before the theatre season opener and well away from the Festival Theatre.
In fact, the timing has more to do with the weather, Mr. Ichim suggested. “It’s the first really guaranteed warm weekend of the summer.”

Weather could be a factor for protesters who plan to set up a tent city downtown.
Mr. Ichim declined to name a site in order not to tip police or the property owner.

Stratford has a problem with vacant or derelict properties downtown that would be better off developed as low-cost housing to help the homeless and working poor, he said.

“We’re going to choose a site that we think highlights this problem.”

How long the tent city will be occupied will depend on a variety of factors, he said.

“It depends on how police will react to the tent city. It depends on how the property owner will react to the tent city. It depends on what the people who are at the tent city will need,” he said.

Last year’s protest spoiled the traditional splendour of opening night. Theatregoers had to enter through checkpoints in a steel fence surrounding the Festival Theatre grounds.

Dozens of police officers in riot gear were on hand to keep the protesters from following through on their vow to shut down the performance of Coriolanus.

Led by Mr. Ichim, who wore a mask to conceal his identity as he shouted obscenities at police and threatened to start a fight, about 40 picket-carrying protesters chanted demands for a 40 per cent increase in social assistance.

Several times members of the group rushed the fence and got into pushing matches with police.

Mr. Ichim said last year’s protest served a purpose. Without the exposure, members of SAFE wouldn’t have been able to help develop a needle exchange program or be heard by the region’s meth task force.

“We have a vested interest in making sure this city prospers,” he said. “We’re here to fight for the underdog.”

Mr. Ichim is remembered for throwing chocolate milk on then-Canadian Alliance leader Stockwell Day at a Kitchener rally in 2000.

He was charged with assault and received a suspended sentence, probation and was ordered to do community service work.

Mr. Ichim ran for the Marxist-Leninist Party of Canada in Kitchener-Waterloo in the last federal election.

He led a rally against “police brutality” in Stratford in September.