Forming a bright sea of yellow, hundreds of Torontonians converged on Nathan Phillips Square on Sunday dressed in matching shirts, holding colourful banners, and performing the meditative exercises that are part of the traditional Chinese spiritual practice known as Falun Dafa.
The gathering on May 11—which included VIP speeches and a parade through downtown Toronto—marked the 33rd year since Falun Dafa was introduced to the public in China by its founder, Li Hongzhi, in 1992. Similar World Falun Dafa Day festivities take place on or around Mr. Li’s birthday, May 13, in many cities worldwide every year.
Falun Dafa practitioners perform the practice's exercises at Nathan Phillips Square in downtown Toronto on May 11, 2025. Evan Ning/The Epoch Times
Falun Dafa practitioners meditate at Nathan Phillips Square in downtown Toronto on May 11, 2025. Evan Ning/The Epoch Times
As in past years, this occasion in Toronto featured a marching band, a lion dance, choral singers, and dancers in graceful costumes performing Chinese dance. It was organized by the local community of Falun Dafa practitioners in Toronto—among them those who had fled communist China due to an ongoing religious persecution against the group
Finding freedom of belief in Canada, practitioners in many Canadian cities hold the annual event to celebrate as well as raise awareness. The gathering often includes speeches and greetings such as by government officials and community leaders showing their support.
“The Falun Dafa movement has made a great contribution to our country, here in Canada, and seeks to preserve Chinese tradition, spirituality, culture, and values,” Conservative MP Garnett Genuis told The Epoch Times in an interview just ahead of World Falun Dafa Day.
In contrast, “the ongoing persecution of Falun Gong practitioners is deplorable,” Genuis said, referring to the alternative name that Falun Dafa is known by.
“It’s a grave violation of international law and basic norms of human rights, and Conservatives will continue to stand for human rights in China and everywhere, to advocate for recognition of universal human dignity of all people,” Genuis added.
The persecution of Falun Dafa was launched in 1999 by then-Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Jiang Zemin amid the spiritual discipline’s massive popularity and rapid growth just seven years after its public introduction. More than 70 million people in China were practising Falun Dafa by 1998, based on the Chinese regime’s own estimates, surpassing the 60 million CCP members at the time, said the U.S.-based Falun Dafa Information Center (FDIC).
Young Falun Dafa practitioners hold a lion dance performance on stage at Nathan Phillips Square during the ceremonies to celebrate World Falun Dafa Day, in downtown Toronto on May 11, 2025. Evan Ning/The Epoch Times
The FDIC said Jiang saw the ever-growing numbers as a threat, as well as the spiritual practice’s independence from Party control and its guiding principles that were incompatible with communist atheist ideology.
Reports of torture, arbitrary detention, mass arrests, and forced organ harvesting from Falun Dafa prisoners of conscience have emerged in the decades since then.
Former Senator Consiglio Di Nino, who had spoken at the annual Falun Dafa Day event many times in the past, attended again this year and commended Falun Dafa practitioners’ efforts to speak the truth in the face of oppression and injustice.
Young Falun Dafa practitioners perform a traditional Chinese dance on stage at Nathan Phillips Square during the ceremonies to celebrate World Falun Dafa Day, in downtown Toronto on May 11, 2025. Evan Ning/The Epoch Times
Young Falun Dafa practitioners perform a traditional Chinese dance on stage at Nathan Phillips Square during the ceremonies to celebrate World Falun Dafa Day, in downtown Toronto on May 11, 2025. Evan Ning/The Epoch Times
“I want to, once again, acknowledge and respect who you are and what you’re doing, because we do need it, and we continue to need it for the world at large,” he said.
Former Conservative MP Wladyslaw Lizon, originally from Poland, told the rally participants: “I grew up in a communist system. Therefore, I know what it means for followers [of faith] in China who are mistreated by their own government.”
“We should not forget them, and we should never stop asking and pushing the communist government to stop persecution,” he said.
Also speaking was Gloria Fung, president of Canada-Hong Kong Link. Pointing to the CCP’s “brutality in China suppressing Falun Gong brothers and sisters,” Fung said “all of us have known that the CCP will stop at nothing to preserve its power.”
She noted that “now its arms have stretched to Canada and our communities,” and “its goal is to destabilize our Canadian democracy,” referring to Beijing’s transnational repression and foreign interference, such as attempts to influence Chinese-Canadian voters in the recent federal election.
Event hosts (L and 2nd L) and keynote speakers on stage at Nathan Phillips Square to celebrate World Falun Dafa Day, in downtown Toronto on May 11, 2025. (3rd L–R) Dean Baxendale, book publisher and CEO of the China Democracy Fund; Gloria Fung, president of Canada-Hong Kong Link; former Senator Consiglio Di Nino; former Conservative MP Wladyslaw Lizon; Sheng Xue, Chinese-Canadian author and democracy activist; Houqiang Yu, chairman of the Canada Committee of the China Democratic Party; and Kevin Yang and Joel Chipkar with the Falun Dafa Association of Canada. Evan Ning/The Epoch Times
Fung said her organization will continue to push the federal government to combat foreign interference by the CCP in Canada, in particular to expedite establishment of a foreign influence commission in order to fully implement and enforce Bill C-70, the Countering Foreign Interference Act that was passed in June 2024.
Dean Baxendale, a book publisher and CEO of the China Democracy Fund, called World Falun Dafa Day “an important day for freedom.”
“This practice has spread around the world,” Baxendale said in a speech at the rally. “The movement was suppressed by the Chinese Communist Party, as we know, [starting] back in the late ‘90s.”
Falun Dafa practitioners hold a parade to celebrate World Falun Dafa Day in downtown Toronto on May 11, 2025. Evan Ning/The Epoch Times
He said he was in Washington, D.C., earlier this week when the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Stop Forced Organ Harvesting Act, H.R. 1503, aimed at punishing perpetrators of state-sanctioned forced organ harvesting in China. The bill has now been referred to a U.S. Senate committee for consideration.
“But what’s important to understand is that this is not a U.S. problem,” Baxendale said. “This is a global problem, and we need legislators here in Canada to stand up and to push back against the Chinese Communist Party’s oppression and transnational repression writ large around the world.”
Falun Dafa practitioners hold a parade to celebrate World Falun Dafa Day in downtown Toronto on May 11, 2025. Evan Ning/The Epoch Times
Sheng Xue, renowned Chinese-Canadian poet and journalist and Canada vice-president of the global Federation for a Democratic China, told rally attendees that “the most horrifying thing is that [the CCP] has systematically carried out forced organ harvesting against Falun Gong practitioners,” calling it “a large-scale genocide.”Falun Gong didn’t succumb to the totalitarian suppression, she said, but rather “began a great movement for speaking the truth, resisting persecution, fighting for religious freedom, and rising to the mission of ending the Chinese Communist Party’s tyranny.”
It’s “the most tenacious, morally appealing, and peaceful movement in human history,” Sheng said.
Falun Dafa Association of Canada representative Joel Chipkar expressed his appreciation to Falun Dafa’s founder and spoke to how the spiritual faith has benefited its practitioners.
“What began as a quiet spiritual practice based on the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance quickly spread into a profound and life-changing force touching millions of lives around the world,” he said, noting that “Falun Dafa is the fastest-growing spiritual practice in China’s history” and has practitioners in over 150 countries.
“What is most inspiring is the strength and resilience that Falun Dafa has given to people who practise it,” he said. “Even in the face of misinformation and persecution, millions of people have held firm in their faith, responding not with hatred, but with compassion and truth.”
“Their stories of endurance and forgiveness are a testament to the power of Falun Dafa and a beacon of light in our world today,” Chipkar said.
Michael Wing
Editor and Writer
Michael Wing is a writer and editor based in Calgary, Canada, where he was born and educated in the arts. He writes mainly on culture, human interest, and trending news.
