We arrived in Toronto late Sunday evening, and were slightly baffled by the volume of Sunday night traffic on the highway, only to later find out there was a Tamil protest taking place right on the Gardiner Expressway. After a few hours delay, we managed to make it into the hotel and get tucked in for a much needed sleep.

Union Station was our first port of call Monday morning, where we would liaise with our Toronto street team and kick off our efforts. By the time we had parked and set up, the clock was reading 1,580,700, and it was becoming apparent that this number was not going to become any easier to swallow as the campaign unfolded.

Being the media epicentre of Canada, it was no surprise that two cameras greeted us not more than an hour after arriving. Toronto has always been a great place to spread a message and it seemed we were getting off on the right foot. After a few hours at Union Station, we slowly migrated up towards Dundas Square, which would become our command centre for the next three days. Dundas Square is starting to look more and more like Times Square these days and the giant corporate billboards looming overhead stood in stark contrast to our small truck. You couldn’t help but draw a parallel between the physical positioning/scale of the billboards vs. the passersby and the might of the corporation vs. the individual worker.

People in Toronto received the message loud and clear, and we had passionate response from the immigrant population who talked about the irony of immigrating to a country only to find that local job prospects are disappearing offshore. We spoke to men, women and children from all walks of life and heard a startling amount of personal stories relating to companies sending jobs offshore. We also met a man named Rick Beaudry, who set up a company called B Wyze, that offers onshore IT services for Canadian companies and presents some very interesting and breakthrough alternative solutions to offshoring.

All in all, it was a successful two days. Big thanks to our topnotch street team, and all the people who shared their stories, signed the petition, and showed their support. Go Jays!