August 24, 2007

Thousands of people took to Parliament Hill on Sunday and to the streets of Montebello, Quebec on Monday and Tuesday. They came bearing protest signs and petitions, some in costume, others bearing food for hungry protesters. It was a colourful and creative crowd, unified by their demand that the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America be brought to the public and Parliament for a full debate. Whether it was a group of Raging Grannies, union activists or university students, the question on everyone’s lips was, “whose security and prosperity is the SPP protecting?”

The Council of Canadians was on the ground, both in Ottawa and Montebello, as U.S. President George Bush and Mexican President Felipe Calderón met with Prime Minister Stephen Harper. We brought hundreds of people together at a public forum on Sunday evening, packing an auditorium at the University of Ottawa. Maude Barlow, along with civil society representatives from the U.S. and Mexico, condemned the SPP and promoted a vision of a more just and sustainable North America.

We had of course originally planned to hold the forum in Papineauville, Quebec, just 6 kilometres from where the leaders met on Monday and Tuesday, but the RCMP forced the municipality to cancel our reservation at the last minute. So we made due with a smaller room in Ottawa, and unfortunately had to turn away at least 100 people on Sunday night, as people stood and crouched in the aisles of the auditorium, hungry for more information about the SPP and how to fight it. Visit www.canadians.org, to download audio and video footage from the forum.

Montebello bound
On Monday, we boarded the bus to Montebello, carrying more than 10,000 letters from Council of Canadians members, demanding a moratorium on SPP negotiations and a debate with the public about its implications for Canadians. We had originally negotiated with the RCMP to drop the letters at the gates of the Chateau Montebello. But on Monday, we received an email from the RCMP indicating that the Department of Foreign Affairs was preventing us from delivering the letters to the gates.

Instead, the Council of Canadians led a march of about 1,200 people along the streets of Montebello. We parked our boxes of letters in front of a line of security personnel in riot gear, and led the crowd in a chant, “No to the SPP. Yes to democracy!” In doing so, we joined with Council activists in 30 communities across Canada who participated in our National Day of Action Against the SPP.

This week’s protests helped put the SPP on the political map in a big way. All of the major political parties (with the exception of Harper’s Conservatives) have been critical of the SPP and the secrecy behind it. And on Monday, the North American Competitiveness Council – the all-CEO advisory group that has been intimately involved in the development of the SPP – admitted that the legislatures of Canada, the U.S. and Mexico should “remain fully informed about progress and actively engaged in the process” of implementing the SPP. This is a far cry from our call for public scrutiny and debate, but we see it as recognition of the fact that citizens won’t stand for secrecy around the SPP anymore.

The Council of Canadians has also been front-and-centre in exposing the Quebec provincial police’s use of undercover “provocateurs” during the protests in Montebello.

As you may have read in today’s newspapers, the Sûreté du Québec has finally admitted that their agents infiltrated Monday’s demonstrations in Montebello. This came after Nanaimo Council of Canadians’ activist Paul Manly posted footage on YouTube of a scuffle between union activist Dave Coles and three masked men, one holding a rock. Manly’s video shows that when a crowd of peaceful activists suggested that the masked men were police provocateurs, they quickly shoved themselves behind a line of riot police, and were quietly arrested.