For her second dose of Covid-19 vaccine, my wife booked an appointment at the Scotiabank Arena for Toronto Vaccine Day (June 27th), also branded as “Our Winning Shot”. The city organized the event with the hope of setting a world record for doses delivered in a single day at a single clinic. My wife went because she got AstraZeneca for her first dose and has found it difficult to source an mRNA vaccine for her second dose. (I am happy to have AtraZeneca for both doses but I’ll save that for another rant.) So I set out with a camera, and Tamiko set out with a bare arm, and together we walked downtown.
Sometimes, when I’m out walking, the city seems to buzz. Thanks to the pandemic and the lockdowns it has required, I haven’t had that feeling for a couple years. But this Sunday was different. Had this been ordinary times, today would have been Toronto’s Pride Parade, the culmination of a month of events, an influx of more than a million tourists, streets overflowing with partiers, a mood, a feeling, a buzz. Even though public health edicts continue to keep things shut down, people know what this Sunday was supposed to have been, and the buzz has started up again.
We walked down Bay Street and when we approached College Street, we could see that cyclists wearing orange vests had blocked the intersection. Looking east, I saw that people were sitting on the road in front of Toronto Police Headquarters and someone was speaking to the crowd from the back of a flatbed truck. One of the orange-vested cyclists explained that it was a protest of Toronto policing. I walked through the crowd for some photos and realized that the speaker was Desmond Cole, author of 2020’s The Skin We’re In (see #31 of my 2020 Reading Roundup). Ostensibly, they were protesting police in pride but, for obvious reasons, that’s not much of an issue this year. The protesters has grafted on other issues: wellness checks and the death of Regis Korchinski-Paquet, policing homelessness and the clearance of encampments as happened last week in Trinity Bellwoods Park, and the racial bias inherent in Toronto policing.
At Dundas, I wanted to return a shirt at Mark’s Work Warehouse, but it’s still not accessible thanks to provincial protocols. I could hear noise at the Yonge/Dundas intersection—always a good sign for street photography—so I persuaded Tamiko to head that way. Boring. I get tired of these religious idiots. Someone yelling rote scripture through a bullhorn. Most of the sidewalk was blocked by people protesting racism, a community group maybe from a church but not connected to the person with the bullhorn. I’d love to support anti-racism protests, but I have a more immediate concern which is avoiding crowded situations that promote the spread of Covid-19. We pushed our way through and headed south on Yonge Street.
At King Street, we ducked into the Starbucks there and ordered iced teas. While we were waiting, a homeless man entered, dropped all his bags on the floor, put on a mask, and stepped to the cash to place an order. When we stepped outside, a couple was making out by the door. Naturally, I tried to shoot them lip-locked, but it didn’t turn out. It was a reminder that, when doing street photography, I need to breathe, to be more controlled, to be more focussed. A man was panhandling outside the door. When we crossed the street, two more men were lying back on the sidewalk and lighting up a crack pipe. Because we were a few minutes early for the appointment, we went into the Commerce Court and drank our iced teas near Tembo, Mother of Elephants.
When it was time, we walked down to Front and Bay where a volunteer directed us to the line. We had to pass a small gathering of anti-vaxx protesters. One had a sign that said the only people in the UK who have died of Covid are people who were vaccinated. Patently untrue. But facts don’t matter any more, do they? While Tamiko lined up, I returned to Front Street and milled around. There were enough people on the sidewalk that I could play the flaneur and work in close. These days, it’s rarely busy enough to do this. Tamiko texted that the line was like a Disney ride, back and forth, back and forth, moving quickly so no one could get impatient. Including her 15 minute wait, it took her all of 40 minutes to get her second dose.
I caught Tamiko walking up Bay with her bling, and me jealous that I never got any bling when I went for my second dose of AZ at the local Shoppers Drug Mart. Meanwhile, a loud-mouthed anti-vaxxer was taunting people: “Why do you think people in Canada want to line up for a vaccine? Could it be because it’s free?” What followed was a vaccine-based anti-socialist riff, demonstrating a clear connection, which I’ve observed elsewhere, between far-right American-style ideology and anti-vaccination/anti-masking protests. What strikes me as curious is the apparent need to pontificate and proselytize, as if pulling a page from the playbook of Christian fundamentalists. If you’re looking for reason, you won’t find any here.
Afterwards, we walked through Berczy Park then up Church Street where we surmised there might be a Pride vibe. There were a lot of people out and almost none wore masks. I felt like a mask pariah for keeping my face covered. I noticed ahead of me a guy who looked at all the maskless people and, like a kid succumbing to peer pressure, took his mask off. There was one “float” parked at the corner of Maitland with some people dressed up, and a person walking down the street on stilts, but mostly people sat at the outdoor patios sharing drinks. Yes, there was a buzz, but nothing like before times.
