City gives defund protesters until midnight Sunday to remove tents from Hamilton city hall

Hamilton bylaw has ordered the coalition gathered in the city hall forecourt to immediately remove tents and other structures they erected to fight homelessness and protest police budgets.

One police liaison accompanied three bylaw officers who taped removal notices on the flaps of each tent and structure at the site late Thursday.

The notices - which come with a deadline of Sunday at 11:59 p.m. - state the site violates two sections of the city's parks bylaw, specifically dwelling or erecting tents in a park without authorized permits.

The city said in a press release the notices will not stifle the coalition's right to gather in the forecourt, so long as they adhere to the 25-person outdoor limit set out in the province's COVID-19 provisions.

Protesters said they would not leave until their pleas - which include a 50 per cent reduction of the police budget - were met.

The coalition would not confirm Thursday whether they will remove the tents and structures.

We have our own plans in our mind of what we're going to do next," said organizer Sarah Jama, adding the notices did not come as a shock. I would tell everyone to keep watch, keep coming back, keep supporting, so you can learn about our next step."

Jama said the coalition is disappointed in the city's response to their demands. She said no city official - barring a few supportive councillors - has come to the site to speak with them.

Mayor Fred Eisenberger somewhat addressed the coalition's concerns at a COVID-19 briefing Thursday morning and said the city has invested millions of dollars into affordable housing initiatives in recent years.

In terms of defunding the police, 50 per cent defunding of police is not a rational notion," he said. That's certainly not supported in the broader community."

Jama, meanwhile, said the coalition has heard form hundreds of residents who would disagree with that statement.

Six-thousand people on the waiting list for community housing is not rational," she said in response to Eisenberger's comments. People dying in the winter because of lack of housing is not rational. The police service getting more funding than housing or any other public service in our city is not rational."

***Clarification: This story was updated Nov. 27 to clarify that the bylaw officers taped removal notices onto tents and structures.

Sebastian Bron is a Hamilton-based reporter at The Spectator. Reach him via email: sbron@thespec.com