Caribana founder Charles Roach dies
Posted October 3, 2012 2:31 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Lawyer, activist and Caribana founder Charles Roach has died after a long battle with brain cancer.
Roach passed away on Tuesday. He was 79.
The civil rights lawyer emigrated from Trinidad and Tobago in 1955. One of his longest-running court battles was over Canada’s citizenship oath, which includes swearing an oath to the throne.
Roach refused to do so, arguing he should be able to swear an oath to Canada alone, not the monarchy.
He died without ever becoming a Canadian citizen. The court battle is ongoing.
Scarborough NDP MP Rathika Sitsabaiesan honoured Roach in the House of Commons on Wednesday, calling him a “tireless activist and a leading figure in Toronto’s black community.”
Roach is perhaps best known for his fight against racist policing. He was honoured for his activism in July. Roach, along with Dudley Laws, was the co-founder of the Black Action Defense Committee.
Peter Rosenthal , who worked with Roach, said that one of the movement’s key achievements was the creation of the province’s Special Investigations Unit.
In an article for Rabble.ca, Rosenthal also praised Roach’s “spectacular” victory in the case of seven Jamaican nannies. The case was a breakthrough for domestic workers in Canada.
Roach, who once worked as a lawyer for the City of Toronto, was instrumental in the creation of Caribana (now called the Scotiabank Caribbean Carnival).
After working for the city, Roach opened his own practice, Roach Schwartz and Associates. At the same time, he opened a Caribbean club, which led to his involvement in the Caribbean Cultural Committee (CCC) and the creation of Caribana.
He remained involved with Caribana and the CCC until 2007.
Roach also served as lead defence counsel at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in 1998.
He is survived by his second wife June, and his four children with his first wife Hetty, who died in 1999.
