Protesters gathered outside the Chinese consulate in Toronto on Sunday for a march with the Tibetan Freedom Torch — the symbolic foil to the Olympic torch — as it made its final stop in Canada before continuing its global trek to Tibet.

About 150 supporters marched through downtown Toronto in the rain to add their voices to the chorus of worldwide support to remove Tibet from Chinese control.

The torch began its global tour in March in Athens and Olympia, Greece, the site of the first Olympics, and will go to 50 cities before reaching Tibet on the eve of the Summer Games in Beijing.

The torch has already passed through several European countries and visited Victoria, Vancouver, Calgary, Ottawa and Montreal before Toronto, which was an appropriate site for the final Canadian rally, said Tsering Lama of the group Students for a Free Tibet Canada.

"Toronto is actually one of the largest exile populations in the world — about 5,000 of us here — so this is a major centre of major refugee settlements, and so this is a big day for us because we're celebrating our movement," she said.

The march was led by torch-bearer Tsering Dolma, who was born in Tibet in 1929 but fled to Canada with her four children as refugees in 1972.

Through an interpreter, Dolma said the torch exists to raise awareness about Tibet's struggles as China prepares to play host to the world at the Olympics in August.

"The Beijing government has used [the Olympic torch] and taken it all around the world to try to show the people that the Tibetan people are happy under Beijing occupation and Tibet is a part of China," she said. "That's not the truth."

"The Tibetan Freedom Torch is an expression of our undying hope and our undying aspirations for freedom and human rights and justice in Tibet."

The torch will next visit several eastern U.S. cities before heading to Uruguay, Australia, Mexico, Taiwan and India.