Tamil protestors, including children, stormed onto the Gardiner Expressway and occupied both east and westbound lanes for over five hours on Sunday, May 10 as part of the ongoing demonstration against the Canadian reaction to Sri Lanka’s current political situation.

The demonstration began further uptown around Queen’s Park but began to move south throughout the afternoon. A smaller crowd of approximately 200 people arrived at the Spadina Avenue on ramp and briefly clashed with half a dozen police before taking over the ramp and highway.

The protest hamstrung both the Gardiner and the Don Valley Parkway with both key arterial routes at least partially shut for a few hours.

According to protesters, the Gardiner occupation was unplanned. The mood of the crowd, though, was further impassioned than at previous protests on the back of the news from Sri Lanka of hundreds of Tamil deaths over the weekend. This led to the escalation of intensity and the unprecedented move to the Gardiner.

Police response was swift to contain the protesters to a small section of the Gardiner. It appeared that containment was the strategy of choice for most of the evening. Police Chief Bill Blair said the occupation of the Gardiner was “unlawful” but a volatile situation was made more delicate by the presence of children at the front lines of the protest.

Blair was focused on a safe resolution to the protest. The police were particularly concerned with the enclosed and elevated protest location. A multi-agency force convened to manage the situation with officers from the OPP, RCMP and other Toronto area forces arriving in large numbers to support the Toronto police.

The protest ended peacefully after a representative of the federal Liberal Party assured protest organizers that Michael Ignatieff would raise their concerns with caucus on Monday May 11. At approximately 12:15 a.m. the demonstration fell silent save for the voice of an organizer instructing the crowd of Ignatieff’s message.

A slow but purposeful snake of people walked back down the ramp from whence they came a few hours earlier. Some headed home, others made their way north on Spadina Avenue heading for Queen?s Park to continue the demonstration.