Over the weekend, the message sign in front of Oakville's Salvation Army Community Church was changed to spell out "white pride." Police are currently pursuing the incident as a "property crime investigation."
The Salvation Army Oakville Community Church is located on Rebecca Street just off of Fourth Line, near Thomas A. Blakelock High School. The church provides religious services and ran a food bank before COVID-19 began.
Yesterday, Halton police officers were called to the church at 2:00 pm in the afternoon to investigate a damaged sign and "offensive message." Since then, images and video have been circulated on social media including one that shows police huddled around the message, removing it from the sign.
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The story has been shared around, including on some pages that reach millions of followers.
Oakville Mayor Rob Burton released a statement today calling the incident "racist and inflammatory."
"The Town of Oakville, my Council colleagues and I strongly condemn this act of racism," the statement reads. "It is not reflective of our community and values."
"The Weekly Rant" Instagram page was one of the first sources to post an image of the altered Salvation Army sign this weekend. Its founder, Anushay Sheikh, describes it as "a platform aimed towards educating people about systemic racism in Canada."
"We were made aware of this post and shared it to our page to demand for a statement from the Salvation Army, the Town of Oakville, MP Anita Anand, MPP Stephen Crawford, and Mayor Rob Burton," Sheikh says.
"As children, we are taught about history very selectively," she says. "For marginalized communities, the only history we ever learn is white history and we have never felt confident or comfortable in our skin because of the constant villainization of people of colour."
Although it is common for people to ask why statements like this are considered racist, Sheikh says, they must be understood within their context.
"The white pride slogan is used by members of the Ku Klux Klan and was identified as being part of a trend in white supremacist movements and hate speech incidents across North America," she says.
This is only the latest of a string of events in Oakville that are being connected to racism and discrimination. On Saturday, a man was arrested near Trafalgar and Cornwall for assaulting a victim while yelling racial slurs. On July 2, an Oakville teenager was arrested for writing what was called "an anti-black slur," although police did not reveal what was written.
You can read the Sheikh's full statement at the link below, where she discusses the history of racism in Oakville as well as Canada in general.
How to provide witness information
Witnesses are asked to contact Detective Constable Autumn Mills from the Halton Regional Police Service's 2 District (Oakville) Criminal Investigations Bureau at 905-825-4777 ext. 2285.
Anonymous tips can also be submitted to "Halton Crime Stoppers" at 1-800-222-8477 (TIPS) of at www.haltoncrimestoppers.ca.