The best part of the NAFTA Leader Summit and the related discussions on the Security and Prosperity Partnerships taking place at Montebello, QC is the attention it has drawn to the issue. Unfortunately, with this attention comes the fear mongering about activists. The Globe and Mail today is calling the activists of "Angry anarchists and family-friendly activists", and the CBC has been reporting throughout the weekend that the RCMP have been advising locals to brace for violence by boarding their windows and removing chairs and rocks that can be thrown. Considering that this is on top of the fences and security cameras that have been installed to ensure that no activist gets close to the actual meetings, it comes across as fear mongering. Since when are activists equated to violence? Did yesterday's anti-SPP rally on Parliament Hill turn violent? Did Parliament have to be boarded up and stones removed? No, instead it was several hundred people from various social and ethnic backgrounds that joined together in a peaceful demonstration.
It was harsh waking up this morning to the sound of Thomas D'Aquino of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives on the CBC stating that these protesters where the left over losers from from past free trade agreements, such as the US-FTA and NAFTA. The strength of the protests at Montebello demonstrate that this is not the "losers" of twenty years ago.
Besides, his assertion demonstrates an ignorance regarding why it is trade agreements that always gets people mobilized. The problem is that negotiations of the SPP have been going for two years without any input from citizens, yet it has huge impacts on what the Canadian government can do to protect it's citizens. Secondly, ten of Canada, the US and Mexico's top CEO are allowed to be present at the discussions, but people from other walks of life are not. When we are talking about border security, why is that the man in the suit gets preferential treatment for entering the United States but the person of Arabic descent is bombarded with questions? These protests have less to do with being anti-trade and have everything to do with how these negotiations are carried out and who can participate. Everyone has to live with the consequences of these negotiations, yet an elite few participate.
D'Aquino statement also fails to recognize that any agreement reached in these negotiations will likely face a strong opposition in the Democrat dominated Congress, who he would be hard pressed to describe as "losers".
1 comments:
It's actually encouraging that the G&M realized that there were "family friendly activists" along with the angry anarchists at the protest.
The sad truth is that the window-breakers are always going to get more press than the family-friendly activists. This gives protesters a challenge: be informed and be creative.
They have to be informed, b/c if you are the guy that the CBC points the camera at, you want to have something more compelling to say than "Bush is a terrorist, man, he should go home".
And they have to be creative b/c a protest is a media event, which serves the purpose of swaying the average news-watcher as much as the guys inside the summit (if not more so) and if you want to take the attention away from the window-breakers, you have to do something news-worthy. But then, Fathers 4 Justice certainly get media attention by dressing up like spider man and climbing government buildings, but I don't know if it's really improved the debate about fathers' rights . . . so I guess the media event created has to be logically connected to the desired outcome (?). Beginning to ramble (Beginning?!). el Mag out.
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