Still Plenty Against the G20

NewsAdam Kovac — Published November 16, 2010

“We’re around 500 people in the streets on a Friday night here in Montreal to protest a G20 which is taking place in Korea,” said organizer Barbara Legault after the protest.

“We were free and available and thought it was a priority to come here to denounce the G20,” she continued. “We were 20,000 strong in Toronto last summer to fight the G20 who came here to bring their austerity policies, and we’re going to fight them until we win, and there’s no more colonialism, capitalism and patriarchy.”

As the crowd gathered shortly after 5:00 p.m., Legault, who is a volunteer with Convergence des Luttes Anticapitalistes 2000, cautioned those participating that it was to be a peaceful, albeit still politically confrontational, protest. Many members of CLAC originally faced conspiracy charges stemming from protests at the Toronto G20 conference in June, though many had their charges dropped last month.

“We’re going to try to ensure that everyone is safe,” announced Legault through a megaphone. “There are people here that cannot risk arrest, so we ask everyone to take that into consideration for their actions at this protest.”

Despite the warning, at least one person was arrested for vandalizing a storefront with spray paint. Most in the crowd maintained that they were there not to cause damage, but to make their voices heard about what they called an unfair system.

“What happened at the G20 is not an isolated incident that we can leave behind, keeping in mind there are a lot of people still dealing with pretty serious ramifications,” said attendee Kira Page. “[We’re here] to keep up public awareness and show our support for the people still dealing with massive repercussions from the summer.”

—with files from Riley Sparks

This article originally appeared in Volume 31, Issue 14, published November 16, 2010.