Some moments ask a community to stand up and be counted. For Richmond Hill, home to one of the largest Iranian Canadian communities in the country, the death of Mahsa Jina Amini was one of those moments.

 

On October 1, 2022, an unprecedented gathering of 50,000 Iranian Canadians took place in Richmond Hill. Fifty thousand people, standing together in our city, giving voice to three words that echoed around the world: Women, Life, Freedom. I have attended many community events in my years of public service. I have never witnessed anything like that day.

 

A gathering of that magnitude deserves more than a passing mention in the news cycle. It deserves remembrance. So I proposed declaring September 16, 2023, the first anniversary of Mahsa Jina Amini’s death, as Mahsa Amini Memorial Day in Richmond Hill.

 

I then moved to make the remembrance permanent: a Member Motion to install a bench with a plaque and plant a tree in her memory. Council adopted it unanimously, and that unanimity spoke volumes. Whatever our backgrounds or politics, we agreed that what happened matters and should not be forgotten.

 

Together with the Iranian Canadian community, we held a commemorative ceremony to unveil the plaque at the bench, in the shadow of the newly planted tree, at the parkette overlooking the very grounds where the massive demonstration took place in October 2022. The tree will grow taller each year. The bench will offer a place to sit, reflect, and remember.

 

Municipal government mostly concerns itself with roads and budgets, and rightly so. But a city is also a moral community. When our residents grieve, we grieve with them. When they stand for human dignity, we stand beside them. Women, Life, Freedom matter in Richmond Hill and everywhere.