{"id":88543,"date":"2019-05-10T16:34:48","date_gmt":"2019-05-10T23:34:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=88543"},"modified":"2019-05-10T16:39:46","modified_gmt":"2019-05-10T23:39:46","slug":"proclamation-of-may-18-2019-as-tamil-genocide-remembrance-day-by-toronto-and-brampton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/05\/10\/proclamation-of-may-18-2019-as-tamil-genocide-remembrance-day-by-toronto-and-brampton\/","title":{"rendered":"Proclamation of May 18, 2019 as ‘Tamil Genocide Remembrance Day’ by Toronto and Brampton"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ma<\/em>hinda Gunasekera<\/em><\/span><\/strong> Tambrook Drive, Agincourt, Toronto, Ontario Canada<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

    10 May 2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mayor John Tory
City Hall, 2nd Floor \u00a0
100 Queen Street W
Toronto, Ontario
M5H 2N2 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mayor Patrick Brown
City of Brampton
2 Wellington Street West
Brampton, Ontario
L6Y 4R2<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dear Mayors John Tory and Mayor Patrick Brown,<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Re: Proclamation of May 18, 2019 as “Tamil Genocide Remembrance Day”<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    I am writing as a\nCanadian of Sri Lankan Sinhalese origin to express our deep disappointment and\ndisbelief on your proclaiming the 18th<\/sup> of May, 2019, as\n        Tamil Remembrance Genocide Day\u201d on one\nsided information presented to you from extremist members of the Tamil\ncommunity that extended support         to the\ninternationally designated terrorist group known as the Liberation Tigers of\nTamil Eelam (LTTE) proscribed by the UN Security Council, USA, UK, EU,\n        Canada, and India amongst a total of 32\ncountries, and without consulting the other members of the Sri Lankan community\nfrom the Sinhalese, non-       \n        political moderate Tamils, Indian Tamils,\nMoors, Malays, Burghers, etc. residing within your two cities.  <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    We find that the\nrules governing the issue of such proclamations strictly prohibit such where it\nrelates to:  (1)  Matters of political controversy; and (2)\n            Events or\norganizations with no direct relationship to the City.  Furthermore, this is bound to create friction\namong the proponents and opposition within    \n    the Sri Lankan community which has been striving to heal the\nunderlying differences and come together in amity and friendship. The word\n‘Genocide’ has     been defined by the\nUnited Nations, and that august body has not considered the actions taken by\nthe security forces of the legally and duly elected                 government of Sri Lanka\nagainst the internationally designated terrorist group known as the Liberation\nTigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) which was engaged in         an armed insurrection including\nsuicide terrorism to break up the state of Sri Lanka, in order to establish a\nseparate mono-ethnic Tamil separate state called     “Eelam” through a continuous\nwave of death and destruction as coming within the scope of the term\n‘genocide’. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    We also wish to\npoint out the false statements presented by those requesting the issue of the\nproclamations which apparently have been accepted without    \nquestion in your determinations:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

(a      (a)<\/strong>    <\/strong>The Tamils are not recognized as a Nation, and form a part of the Nation\nof Sri Lanka which is a multi-lingual, multi-religious state<\/strong>.  The Tamil nation\n        exists outside Sri Lanka in the State of\nTamilnadu in South India where over 75 million Tamils live.  In\nfact, the Tamils were not even recognized as a distinct    \nethnic group in Sri Lanka (Ceylon) till the census of 1911, as they were\npreviously regarded as the Malabars who had been brought as indentured labour\n        from the Malabar coast of India for work\nin tobacco, coffee and tea plantations by European colonial powers.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

(b<\/strong>   \n     <\/strong>(b)The Tamils arrived as peaceful settlers around the 11th<\/sup>\nand 12th<\/sup> centuries, whereas previously they only attempted to invade\nthe land to pillage and        \n    plunder but were driven back every time from the small\npockets they captured  by the indigenous\nSinhala people.  In the 13th<\/sup>\ncentury they succeeded in         establishing a\nsmall kinglet called Jaffnapatam confined to the Jaffna peninsula and a narrow\nstrip of land extending to Mannar on the northwest coast    \n        paying tribute or taxes to the main\nSinhala king whose seat was in Kotte or Kandy. \nThis tiny kinglet lasted about 150 years till such time as the  King of        \n    Kotte sent a military expedition under the command of Prince\nSapumal to regain suzerainty over the terrain of Jaffnapatam.   Tamils who were brought in\n        to grow tobacco by the Portuguese and\nDutch colonial regimes that held sway over the coastal areas from the 16th<\/sup>\nto the 18th<\/sup> centuries were settled in the    \nnorthern and eastern areas where they came to form the predominant group in the\nregion.  It was never the traditional\nhomeland of the Tamils as the        \n    Sinhalese settlements predated the entry of Tamils by over\ntwo millennia as the place names clearly establishes the Sinhalese ancestry in\nthe region.  Even    \ntoday, more Tamils live outside the north and east amidst multi-ethnic communities\nand make up roughly 12 percent of the total population.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

(c       (c)<\/strong>   <\/strong>The\nBritish took over the Dutch possessions in 1796 and the Sinhalese ceded power\nin terms of  the Treaty called the \u2018Kandyan\nConvention\u2019 of 1815.         The Sinhalese began\nto resist the British who disregarded their treaty obligations and took over\nthe lands of the Sinhalese without a penny in    \n               \n        compensation. At this point, the British\ncolonial ruler commenced discriminatory treatment of the Sinhalese and favored\ntreatment of the minority Tamils     under their divide and rule\npolicy. The colonial administration encouraged Christian missionaries to\nestablish schools in Jaffna and other Tamil areas with    \n    few and far between for the others. At the time the British\nleft granting independence to Ceylon (Sri Lanka) in 1948, the number of First\nGrade  schools with    \nlibraries and science laboratories in the Tamil areas exceeded that in the rest\nof the country, as a result of which the Tamils came to dominate the public\n        service and professions.  Following independence and transfer of\npolitical power through the exercise of universal franchise to  the Sinhalese who    \n                comprised\n78 percent of the population, and steps taken by the national governments to\nopen more schools and bring about some equity affected their    \n    level of domination which was regarded as discrimination by\nthe Tamil community.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

(d      (d)<\/strong>  <\/strong>It\nis to the credit of the Tamil community that they have continued to hold\nleading positions even after independence. \nThe first Ceylonese Army        \n        Commander was  Anton Mutukumaru who\nwas a Tamil, six of the twelve Deputy Inspectors General of Police, several\nJudges of the Supreme Court, Heads     of Government\nDepartments, senior Diplomats, leading members of every profession were from\nthe Tamil community.  <\/strong>Every single government formed        \nafter independence have had Tamils holding cabinet positions.  Even\ntoday, Tamils hold key positions in the government, supreme court, central bank\nand         other key institutions, making the\nallegation of discrimination highly questionable.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

(e      (e)<\/strong>  <\/strong>Even\nmany of those Tamils who destroyed their passports enroute to seek refugee\nstatus in Canada, bypassing their original homeland of Tamilnadu\n        separated by just 25 kilometers of ocean\nto which they are linguistically and culturally linked, approached the Sri Lankan\nHigh Commission office in Ottawa     to obtain travel documents\nby the thousands to visit Sri Lanka the land which they claimed had persecuted\nthem. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

(f       (f)<\/strong>    <\/strong>The Tamils who loudly claim discrimination at the hands of the Sinhalese\nmounted a massive campaign against the \u2018Prevention of Social Disabilities Act\u2019\n    of 1957, as it would prevent the high caste Vellalas from\nblocking the entry of so called low caste Hindus ( designated as untouchables)\nfrom entering their     temples or kovils to exercise their\nfundamental  right of freedom of worship\nand entering schools to gain education. \nOne of the key leaders heading this    \n    campaign was Mathematics Professor and Tamil separatist\npolitician C.Suntharalingam.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Influenced by the\n\u2018We Tamil Movement\u2019 of Southern India of the 1920\u2019s to fight for an independent\nTamil state in India from the British, the Tamils in then    \nCeylon withdrew from the Tamil Congress which was part of the National\nGovernment formed immediately after independence to form the new separatist\n    party called the Illankai Thamil Arasu Kadchi (Tamil State\nParty) in the year 1949 just one year after gaining independence. The Tamil\nseparatist movement        continued to grow building\nantagonism towards the Sinhalese and later formed <\/strong>the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) which adopted the infamous\n            Vadukkodai Resolution\nin 1976 to form a Mono-Ethnic  Tamil\nSeparate State called Eelam\u201d encompassing the northern and eastern provinces\ncomprising         1\/3rd<\/sup> of the land\narea and 2\/3rd<\/sup> of the nation\u2019s coastline and oceanic economic zone\nexclusively as a Tamil dominated state.\n<\/strong>  The resolution envisaged the\n    use of armed force to establish the separate state leading\nto the formation of a number of armed Tamil militant groups to whom India provided\nmilitary         training, funds and weapons to\ndestabilize her small neighbour of Sri Lanka. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The LTTE launched attacks on the other Tamil militant\ngroups to gain ascendancy and later became the leading terrorist group\nemploying suicide terrorism     and coming to be recognized as\nthe \u2018Sole Representative\u2019 of the Tamil community including by the Tamil\nNational Alliance (TNA) elected to represent Tamils     in the\nNational Parliament. Contrary to what\nhas been stated, it was the LTTE that carried out attacks against Tamil\npolitical leaders, Tamil academics and        \nschool principals, Tamil police officers including reputed Tamils such as Mayor\nDuraiappa, TULF leader Hon. Amirthalingam, Rajini Thiranagama university\n        professor, Neelan Tiruchelvam leading\nintellectual, the Hon. Lakshman Kadirgamar, distinguished Minister of Foreign\nAffairs and a host of other Tamils        \n    deemed dissidents to their cause. They have been\ndescribed as the most ruthless terrorist group by the FBI in their website.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Thereafter, the\nLTTE began to attack the apparatus of the state responsible for internal\nsecurity, isolated military camps, assassination of political leaders\n        including Ranasinghe Premadasa, President\nof Sri Lanka, Gamini Dissanayake, Presidential candidate,cabinet ministers\nincluding  Lalith Athulathmudali, C.V.\n    Gooneratne, Jeyaraj Fernandopulle, T.Maheswaran, the Navy\nCommander Fernando, attempted assassination of Chandrika Kumaratunge, President\nof Sri         Lanka, Army Commander Sarath\nFonseka and Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapakse. In February 2002, the\ngovernment of the day entered into a        \n            Ceasefire Agreement\n(CFA)with the LTTE appointing the Nordic countries to monitor the\nsituation,  and commenced peace talks\nusing Norway as the            \n    facilitator and the USA, UK and Japan along with Norway as\nCo-Chairs of these talks.  The LTTE did\nnot negotiate in good faith as they used the talks to buy    \ntime to rearm and conscript youth including children to their fighting ranks –\nwhich is a war crime, withdrawing from the talks after six rounds to seek their\n    goal through military means. According to the Nordic\nMonitors, the LTTE had violated the CFA on over 7,000 instances including the\nkilling of more than 400     military and civil personnel\nwithout incurring any penalties, whilst the Sri Lankan Military had been in\nviolation on about 450 occasions mostly relating to    \n    harassment of civilians at military check points. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The <\/strong>LTTE also attacked economic targets such as the Central Bank, Petroleum Storage facilities, The\nInternational Airport at Katunayake destroying six    \n        commercial aircraft belonging to Sri\nLankan Airlines, and regularly planted bombs in public transit, shopping malls,\nbus terminals, rail stations, killing large     numbers of\ncivilians making the population fearful of going about their normal business.\nThey attacked remote rural villages in the north and east to    \n            ethnically cleanse the\nregion and drive out the resident population from areas claimed for their\nseparate state.  They even\nattacked the holy shrine of        \n    Buddhists at the Sri Maha Bodhi in Anuradhapura killing\nabout 140 including monks and lay devotees \nwho were engaged in meditation and other    \n               \ndevotional activities.  They attacked a\nbus carrying 33 Buddhist monks who were proceeding on pilgrimage at Aranthalawa\nusing machine guns and            \n    machetes, and also bombed the Sri Dalada Maligawa in Kandy\nwhich houses the Tooth Relic of the Buddha in the early hours killing about 20\nworshippers     and causing damage to this World Heritage Site\nrecognized by UNESCO.  They attacked\nMuslims at prayer in Kattankudy killing nearly 180 worshippers\n            inside their mosques. The killing rampages continued unabated\nuntil such time as the state decided to combat force with force. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    By mid-2005, the\nLTTE had garnered a huge amount of funds through extortion of the Tamil expats\n(vide HRW report of March 2016), drug running, human    \nsmuggling and other illicit as well as legitimate means sufficient to buy\nnecessary weapons for their land, sea and air forces to launch<\/strong> their final war of        \n    liberation and even\nstockpile weapons in floating warehouses aboard ships parked off the main sea\nlanes out at sea. They attacked unarmed military    \n            personnel on home\nleave for the new year and started hostilities in earnest by shutting\noff the sluice gates at Mavil Aru in August 2006 stopping the flow of\n    drinking and irrigation water to 30,000 farmers living\ndownstream.  The Sri Lankan state called on the Nordic\nMonitors to intervene to restore water, and as     the LTTE\nrefused to do so for over 12 days, the government ordered the military to act\nwith force to resume the water supply. \nThe Sri Lankan state        \n            abandoned the CFA and\ncarried out coordinated action by its security forces to rout the LTTE by\nretaking the east, and then moving up the west coast    \n            evicting the LTTE\nmilitary camps causing them to retreat.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    As the LTTE forces retreated towards their\nstrongholds in the northeast they forced the Tamil civilian population to move\nwith them from west to east to         exploit\ntheir labour, conscript new fighters and form a human shield. The battle progressed rapidly with the LTTE\nlosing ground and fighting cadres till they     became\ncompletely surrounded by the Sri Lankan forces in a narrow strip at\nPutumathalan, in Mullaitivu district beside the Nandikadal lagoon.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Contrary to what is claimed as genocidal attacks by\nthe Sri Lankan forces, the number of genuine civilians killed is unknown as\nnone of the published            \n    figures distinguish between combatants, LTTE Auxiliary\nForces Personnel, and genuine non-combatant civilians. The UN Resident\nRepresentative\u2019s office in     Colombo reported that a total of\n7,721 were killed between end August 2008 and May 13, 2009 which number the\nUN Under Secretary General for        \n            Humanitarian Affairs,\nSir John Holmes, did not accept stating that it could not be verified as the UN\nwas not on the ground other than lower rung Tamil    \n        employees whom the LTTE refused to release.\nAmnesty claimed a total of 10,000 being killed, the UK Sunday Times\nreporter who only overflew the last        \n    battle ground when he accompanied UNSG Ban ki Moon on his\ninspection tour on May 25, 2009 reported that 20,000 had been killed in the\nlast stages (i.e.     January 1 to May 19, 2009), while UNSG’s\nso called Panel of Experts on Sri Lanka sitting in New York estimated tens of\nthousands of persons being killed        \nestimated at 40,000, the same number reported on by the Int’l Crisis Group<\/strong>.  The UNSG\u2019s PoE received its\ninformation from some 4,000 persons, mainly    \n        Tamils living outside Sri Lanka, instructed\nthat the data collected be locked up for the next 20 years till 2031, when\na decision would be made to release        \n    same or keep these locked for a further period. Gordon Weiss who was the UN Spokesperson in\nColombo later inflated the number killed to 40,000 in his    \n    book “The Cage”, which number he lowered to 10,000\nwhen he was being questioned\nby a Sri Lankan audience in Australia, probably with a view to profit\n    from his book sales to members of the expat Tamil community\nnumbering over a million. He has been described elsewhere as an Unreliable\nWitness.  That     pro-LTTE reporter<\/strong> Frances\nHarrison is still counting the dead, having stated that 70,000 to 140,000 <\/strong>may\nhave been killed. Yasmin Sooka who was appointed by Ban ki-Moon as    \n    one of the three members of the Panel of Experts on\nAccountability on Sri Lanka, close friend of Navi Pillay, who is also a\nSouth African Tamil just like Navi     P, who attends all\nthe propaganda meetings organized by the pro-LTTE groups is on the same page\nas Frances Harrison claiming over 110,000 persons being    \nkilled in the last stages. She certainly benefited by her openly partisan\nstand, receiving a grant of 25 million Euros from the EU for a South African\nNGO             headed by her.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    In 2012, the Government of Sri Lanka (GOSL) carried\nout a census among the residents of the north to determine the number of persons\nwho had been             killed in\nthe final stages using Tamil school teachers and public servants as enumerators\nand arrived at a figure of 7,432 excluding those who had died of\n        natural causes. Strangely, on adding up\nthe monthly number of such casualties reported in the propaganda arm of the\nLTTE, namely the Tamilnet, the total     killed for the period\nJanuary 1, 2009 to May 19, 2009 was 7,398 which was below the GOSL census\ncount. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The UNSG’s PoE which claimed 40,000 had been\nkilled also stated that half the LTTE fighters did battle in civilian attire\nthereby blurring the distinction        \n    between combatants and civilians. Furthermore, they had\nbased their conclusions mainly from one sided information provided to them\nby pro-LTTE            \n    elements, which material they recommended be locked away for\na period of 20 years till 2031. Today, Sri Lanka is being hounded by the\nwest and the UN         on the basis of this\nreport produced by the UNSG’s PoE, an internal document prepared purely for the\nguidance of the UNSG, which concluded there were     ‘credible\nallegations’ – not credible evidence, which was apparently leaked by the UNSG’s\noffice to the UNHRC, which Navi Pillay sought to table at the    \n        UNHRC sessions although it was not a UN\nsanctioned document.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Another interesting statistic is the total number\nof injured persons among the Tamil IDPs according to the ICRC responsible for\nferrying them by land and         sea for medical\nattention was 18,439 which is lower than the 40,000 supposedly killed\nduring the last stages. Normally, the injured (WIA) is between 2-3\n        times the number killed, which means that\nthe number injured should have been 80,000 – 120,000.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Amnesty and HRW\ncommissioned a report from the American Association for the Advancement of\nScience (AAAS) to determine the number killed after    \n        analysis of the high resolution satellite\nimagery of the final battleground, as the latter were only able to come up with\na total of 1,346 burial spots in\nthree     burial sites within the Civilian Safety Zone (CSW),\nwhich detailed report is carried in their website. As this report did not support the bogus numbers    \n            swirled around by LTTE\npropagandists, Amnesty and HRW did not proceed with their planned report to\npress for action against Sri Lanka. The AAAS report     was\nalso able to identify some 65 or so craters which they determined had been made\nby Mortar Shells (not artillery) along the perimeter of the CSZ close\n    to the Nandikadal Lagoon where the LTTE fighters were\nconcentrated and close to the coast where the Sea Tigers operated. Even the\nbuildings without            \nroofs initially thought to have been targeted with artillery fire turned out to\nhave been dismantled by the LTTE to cover their bunkers or hide their long\n            range weapons, while\nthe building walls remained undamaged.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The, while t<\/strong>Sri\nLankan forces abandoned air attacks and use of Artillery\/MBRL in the latter\npart to prevent harm to the civilian population, while they faced a\ncontinuous barrage of         artillery and\nmortar fire from the LTTE resulting in the loss of around 2,500 soldiers and a\nfurther 5,000 or more becoming injured. The LTTE too would have\n    lost at least an equal number of combatants due to the\nintensive battles at the end stages. If one takes out 2,500 from the UN\nnumber of 7,721, one is left     with 5,221. Of this number,\nseveral were killed by the LTTE which ordered their cadres to fire on\nescaping civilians, and even unleashed suicide bombers    \n    and artillery fire on the escaping civilians who earlier\nformed a human shield. Some others killed would have been members of the\nLTTE’s Auxiliary Forces     that supplied ammo, removed injured\nand dead fighters, or were engaged in digging trenches or building defensive\nberms, and yet others from the Makkal     Padai, their civilian\nfighters. Once you adjust for the LTTE’s own killings, auxiliary forces\npersonnel, Makkal Padai forces that were killed, you will be able to\n    ascertain the number of genuine civilians who were killed in\nthe crossfire and ongoing battles. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The LTTE was offered several chances to surrender\nbut they did not pay any heed as they expected the international community\nled by the USA to            \n        intervene in the ongoing battles and\nrescue them and obtain asylum for them in an African country such as Eritrea\nfrom where they could continue their        \nseparatist struggle in Sri Lanka. In fact, two 48 hour ceasefires were put\ninto effect by the Sri Lanka military in February and April 2009 to enable the\n               \ncivilians to get out of harms way and move into areas controlled by the\narmy where they would be safe.  However,\nregrettably the LTTE did not allow any of     the civilians to\nmove out and even fired on those who attempted to flee killing them, effectively\nblocking the safe removal of the civilians who were being    \nused as a human shield. Despite the attempts of the LTTE to put the lives of\nthe Tamil civilians in danger, the Sri Lankan Security Forces succeeded in\n               \neliminating the Tamil Tiger fighters and rescuing 295,873 Tamils including some\n11.800 former Tiger cadres that downed their weapons to safety. They were\n    housed in Welfare Camps, provided all meals, medical\/\npsychological care, education, vocational training, and resettled in their\nformer places of residence     after clearing the land of 1.5\nmillion landmines laid by the LTTE to hamper the advance of the country\u2019s armed\nforces. The former Tiger cadres were        \n        enrolled in a rehabilitation program,\ngiven new life skills that would enable them to lead independent lives and\nreleased to society.   ARE THESE ACTS OF    \n    GENOCIDE AGAINST THE TAMILS? \n<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The Justice Maxwell Paranagama Commission on Missing\nPersons in Sri Lanka was assisted by a team of international legal and\nmilitary experts in matters     relating to International\nHuman Rights Regulations, and War Crimes issues in respect of the military\noperations against the LTTE, where they concluded that    \nthe Sri Lankan forces had not violated International HR or committed war\ncrimes. <\/strong>These experts\nwere internationally recognized authorities, many of whom    \nhad served as legal advisers or prosecutors in the International Criminal Courts.  The team of experts was led by Right\nHonourable Sir Desmond de Silva,         QC. (UK)\nwho was Chairman of the Legal Advisory Council, together with Professor Sir\nGeoffrey Nice QC. (UK), Professor David M. Crane (USA), Mr. Rodney\n    Dixon, QC. (UK\/ South Africa), Professor Michael Newton\n(USA) Vanderbilt University, William Fenrick (Canada), Professor Nina Jorgensen\nof Harvard\/ The     Chinese University of Hong Kong, Mr. Paul K.\nMylvaganam (UK) and Major General Sir John Holmes, DSO, OBE, MC (UK).<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Given the facts\nas outlined above, we call on Mayor John Tory of the City of Toronto and Mayor\nPatrick Brown of the City of Brampton, and the Councillors    \nof the respective Cities to review their decision and withdraw the subject\nProclamations made based on one sided and erroneous information.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Yours sincerely,<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Mahinda\nGunasekera<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mahinda Gunasekera Tambrook Drive, Agincourt, Toronto, Ontario Canada     10 May 2019 Mayor John Tory City Hall, 2nd Floor \u00a0 100 Queen Street W Toronto, Ontario M5H 2N2 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 Mayor Patrick BrownCity of Brampton2 Wellington Street WestBrampton, OntarioL6Y 4R2 Dear Mayors John Tory and Mayor Patrick Brown, Re: Proclamation of May 18, 2019 as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-88543","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88543","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88543"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88543\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}