Next stop: Quebec City

In a sure sign of Québec officials' commitment to openness on this and other issues around the Summit, Joan Russow, the leader of the Green Party of Canada, was arrested in the midst of the November election campaign for taking photos of the prison. She was detained for 45 minutes after police destroyed her photos. No explanation was given for her arrest, aside from a statement that Russow had “trespassed” on public property.

In the past few weeks, the RCMP has also announced that it has rented all vacant apartments and houses within the security perimeter, as well as reserving all hotel accommodations, to avoid leaving anything vacant for “trouble-makers.” They will reportedly go so far as to seal all sewer entrances within the security perimeter for fear protesters will find their way through the underground maze and onto the laps of government officials and business elite.

Mobilization Against FTAA

In response to the annexation of downtown Québec for the negotiation of the FTAA agreement, and in spite of the high-level police intimidation, several Québec-based groups have been mobilizing in opposition to the Summit.

The largest such group, Opération Québec Printemps 2001 (OQP 2001) was formed in December 1999. It is a coalition of regional groups (25 as of January 1, 2001) and individuals, including several unions, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and campus/community organizations. The coalition has as its mission the organization of educational activities on globalization, the organization of non-violent actions in response to the FTAA and the Summit, the presentation of viable alternatives to corporate globalization, as well as coalition-building with other regional, national, and international organizations. OQP 2001 spokesperson Patrice Breton states that, “We plan not only on mobilizing around the FTAA and the Summit in April, but also on raising awareness of what globalization has really come to represent.”

At present, the OQP 2001 coalition is planning a People's Summit, scheduled for April 17-20 in Québec. The counter-summit will feature workshops, conferences, teach-ins, and demonstrations, as well as groups and individuals from the entire hemisphere.

The coalition has also leased a building just beyond the security perimeter that will serve as the Alternative Media Center. It will assure the presence of a wide-range of media before, during, and after the Summit. The Center is now open to journalists and an OQP 2001-administered Québec City Indy Media site is also up and running in French, Spanish, and English.

Another major group planning events around the Summit is the Montréal-based Anti-Capitalist Convergence (CLAC in French). It was formed in April 2000 to offer a radical, anti-capitalist opposition to corporate globalization. CLAC recently helped form the Summit of the Americas Welcoming Committee (CASA in French), a Québec-based group that, like the CLAC, comes together on the principles of anti- capitalism, anti-patriarchy, refusal of hierarchy, autonomy, non-reformism, and respect for a diversity of tactics.

The CASA and CLAC are now preparing a Carnival Against Capitalism that will include events in Québec City and Montréal throughout the month of April, which will culminate with a Day of Action on Friday, April 20 in Québec. The Carnival will include workshops, teach-ins, concerts, conferences, cabarets, street theater, protests, and direct action. They are also planning a series of consultations in Québec, in which individuals from around Eastern North America can come together to discuss strategies, build networks, and become familiar with Québec City. With the goal of strengthening networks of resistance, CLAC has an FTAA Caravan moving across Maritimes, Québec, northeastern U.S., and Ontario that has already visited dozens of communities and is available upon request.

CASA, along with OQP 2001, is also presently working on locating lodging and food for out- of-towners coming to Québec in April. Since the RCMP has reserved a block of 11,000 hotel rooms for the Summit, the search for space has been difficult. However, OQP 2001 is working on renting halls and gymnasiums and, in conjunction with CLAC, has planned an Adopt a Protester program during the Summit. The idea, as CLAC member Jaggi Singh explains, “is to have protesters sit down and eat with Québec City residents to get the real story (not the corporate media's) out to residents of the city. That way, people will have a chance of understanding what's actually going on.”

Thousands of Dissenters

It's clear that the Summit of the Americas in Québec City will be another test of the neo-liberal agenda's legitimacy. As thousands of protesters from around the hemisphere are expected to converge on the city, the likelihood of the abject failure of the Summit is all too real to organizers. As The Economist stated in their September 2000 issue: “The protesters are right that the most pressing moral, political and economic issue of our time is third-world [sic] poverty. And they are right that the tide of globalization, powerful as the engines driving it may be, can be turned back. The fact that both these things are true is what makes the protesters—and, crucially, the strand of popular opinion that sympathizes with them— so terribly dangerous.”

It is with this in mind that Canadian authorities are doing all they can to ensure that Québec City does not become another Seattle. However, to a growing number of people, the verdict is out, and the FTAA is not on the agenda. Therefore, despite the extreme efforts of Canadian officials, the many dissenting voices in Québec and beyond will not be silenced.                             Z

Darryl Leroux is a freelance journalist living in Ontario. The CLAC can be contacted via their web site: www.quebec2001.net. The OQP 2001 can also be contacted through their web site: www.oqp2001.org.