About the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty
From its founding in 1990 to its dissolution in 2023, the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP) was one of the most prominent organizations to campaign for the rights of poor and working-class people in Ontario.
OCAP sought to empower poor and working-class people to fight back against harmful policies through direct action, including protests, occupations and creative demonstrations. Over the years they helped build a large network of members and allies that together resisted cuts to social services, aggressive policing and gentrification.
A protest banner from the OCAP fonds.
Donation notes
The donated records are currently being processed as the F 4754 Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP) fonds. This fonds is special in that organizations representing precarious members have rarely been able build such substantial collections of records. The size, completeness, and duration covered by the OCAP fonds, including meeting minutes, newsletters, correspondence, casework files, and calendars, is significant, and gives evidence of the everyday work of sustained political organizing.
The fonds also includes photos, videos, posters and banners that document the extent of the organization’s rallies and other political actions. OCAP members and their allies produced a significant library of original protest art that reflects the changing aesthetics of political activism in Ontario over a 30-year period.
The fonds includes records documenting the pre-history of OCAP, including records created by the London Unemployed Workers Union, the Toronto Union of Unemployed Workers and Campaign Against Poverty to support campaigns and organize the 1989 March Against Poverty.
Some of the OCAP campaigns covered in this fonds include:
- maintaining a tent city at the foot of the CN Tower called Mulroneyville (1990)
- protesting the Axworthy Commission and cuts to social assistance (1994)
- organizing toward the Ontario Days of Action (1995-1998)
- campaigns to defend squatters and tent cities from police evictions
- campaigns against anti-squeegee and anti-panhandling laws
- advocating for asylum seekers
- squat support at the 88-90 Carlton (1997), and the Rooster Squat (1997), Pope Squat (2002) and others
- Raise the Rates campaign
- opposing changes to the Housing Stabilization Funds
The processed fonds will be available to researchers soon.
Contact us to learn more about extent of the collection.