Market Square hunger strike aims to garner Gerretsen's attention on Palestinian plight
A local woman says she is on a hunger strike until Member of Parliament Mark Gerretsen agrees to meet with local pro-Palestinian supporters.
In an email to Kingstonist early on Wednesday, May 21, 2025, Lindsey Pilon expressed her intentions to sit in Springer Market Square for the duration of her public hunger strike. During this strike, she will take nothing by mouth, 'no food, no drink, no medicine,' until Gerretsen, the MP for Kingston and the Islands, meets with the local constituents and supports a two-way arms embargo between Canada and Israel.
On Thursday, May 22, 2025, Pilon remained in her seat at the square, rain-soaked but smiling and energetic. She explained she has many friends in Palestine, but she also counts herself among many Palestinian supporters in the Kingston area.
'We are a collective; it is a groundswell. And there are many different organizations tethered in,' Pilon said.
She feels that Gerretsen doesn't understand or is actively ignoring the large number of his constituents who are Palestinian and Palestinian supporters.
'We've been trying to get his attention and to get him to sign on to the
Vote Palestine platform
, which is pretty rational. And he has refused meetings consistently,' Pilon asserted.
Vote Palestine, a grassroots organization with support from groups and individuals across Canada, contends that '[a]rms dealers in Canada export weapons (including parts and components) as well as military and security technology to Israel, both directly and via the United States. The Canadian military and defence industry also purchase Israeli weapons and parts, which are field-tested on Palestinians, thus directly funding Israel's war efforts and economy. These military imports and exports make Canada complicit in Israel's atrocities carried out in the illegally occupied Palestinian territory.'
Their platform states that the Canadian government should impose a full and immediate two-way arms embargo on Israel that includes ending military trade with Israel through the US or any other third-party state.
Pilon said there have been many requests for Gerretsen's attention to the matter, some polite and some more assertive, 'but regardless, he'll call the police [on protesters outside his office], has refused to meet with us, and is just giving stock and boilerplate responses.'
'I don't personally want to meet with them,' she shared. 'I am just showing my solidarity with the movement. I'm acting as a symbol for the movement at the moment [to draw his attention]. And this is easy and accessible for me to do.'
Being outdoors in the elements helps her endorphin levels, Pilon explained. It's 'like I'm seeing a cousin or a mother,' she explained, looking around at the wind and rain. 'I'm full of fire. My body's made for this. My papa was a Mohawk, my mom's father was a Mohawk, and my mom's mother was Oneida. So we have the rebellious spirit and just [a] love for life.'
Market Square is her ideal location, she said, because anyone who cares to look can see her on the
City's web cam
. Also, the space is potent in an Indigenous historical context, Pilon said: 'This was a meeting place. This was a bloody battleground. The Peacemaker came across Lake Ontario in the stone canoe. This place is profound.'
The legend of the
Great Peacemaker and Hiawatha in Mohawk tradition
centres on a journey of peace and unity, starting from Lake Ontario and extending to the Iroquois Confederacy. The Peacemaker, also known as Deganawidah, travelled across Lake Ontario in a white stone canoe, bringing a message of peace to the warring Haudenosaunee nations. Hiawatha, a Mohawk warrior, was initially seeking revenge, but the Peacemaker convinced him to embrace peace instead.
She likened this struggle for peace and resilience in turmoil to the Palestinian people.
'Palestinians have shown us — the journalists and the doctors —time and time again about courage and nobility and the grandfather teachings. I see my grandfather teachings in them,' Pilon expressed.
'I know that the dogma is fraught, the rhetoric is fraught. Still… we have the power as a society, as a humanity, to stop children from dying and starving. We could do that in the snap of a finger, and it needs to be done… let's get that done, and then we can figure out the rest. We'll figure out the partisanship after.'
Pilon added, 'Palestinian history is being erased, and entire families [are being removed] from the Civil Registry. They feel like their memories are being trampled and they feel hopeless... There's a pervading hopelessness, a feeling like they have no future. And I very much care for these people.'
'And the bombardments of the so-called
Gideon's Chariots
are devastating. They are munitions testing, and [the munitions are] being launched with propellant exported from Turtle Island. And that, as an Indigenous mother, a social activist, human being... is unacceptable.'
Pilon said the level of access to imagery and stories that Palestinian journalists have provided on social media is an alarming call for urgency: 'What we're seeing is devastating every day, all day.'
'If you're at all able to take some time, following the journalists in Palestine means the world to them. It gives them purpose because they feel it. They feel like they're helping to show injustice. I highly recommend you follow
Hamza.Hammad94
, he is a phenomenal journalist,' she said.
'Tuesday night was the first time that I announced that I was going to stop food and water. Honestly, it's a lot easier than I thought it was, so I feel it's not going to be so dramatic. Still, I won't stay... Mark Gerretsen has to meet with the constituents before Friday. After all, the meeting of the House is on the 26th, so I will give him the benefit of the doubt that he will meet with them before Friday, and if not, I will then retire to prepare for other actions, because there will be no rest,' she asserted.
'Gaza is under the rubble; it's a dire time, and we were socialized out of caring for each other. Our manners hold us to these prescribed postures that are not going to help us. And so I love showing people that a different world is possible.'
This is why she sits at a table with two chairs. She says she wants people to engage in conversation with her. 'Come, sit down, let's chat about it all.'
Kingstonist reached out to MP Gerretsen for confirmation of the allegations he's refused to meet with the pro-Palestinian constituents, as well as for comment on this situation and whether he might agree to meet with the constituents in the future. No response was received by time of publication.
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