TORONTO (AP) — A Toronto bar that’s become a staging ground for protesters and branded an “anti-Canadian” site is gaining the right to become permanent.
At issue are stickers that appear to have been posted this week on a sign for CaféTO, which got its start as a cafe during last year’s July 1 independence day celebrations. Some were written in English, French and a mix of languages, echoing anti-Canada sentiment from the 1930s to the 1970s.
During events commemorating Canada’s 150th birthday, police arrested an activist after she unfurled a large flag, then sat on it. One of the protesters said the cafe was “built on the corpse of the Celtic Congregational Church which burned in the 1840s.” Other protesters say the bar violates the Treaty of Toronto, signed by colonial Queen Victoria and the aboriginal tribes of the land.
The Toronto Anti-Violence Project and other groups have said CafeTO makes them feel unsafe.
The city’s board of licensing and standards is recommending CaféTO take its name off the sign and close for its first year of operation.
