Vigilantes, cowboys and beef

by RENÉ BIBERSTEIN

Heading toward Kananaskis, Alberta, for the G8 Summit protest at the end of June, the former editor of Concordia’s student paper the Link takes a look at the state of the country. The third in a series of dispatches…

Two weeks ago, I was hitchhiking through western Ontario with fellow Montrealer Soo Koelbli. We spent a day in Wiarton, a town with Canada’s most famous groundhog as its claim to fame. During the summer, it also seems a bit like a base camp, full of cottagers and hikers ready to start up the Bruce Peninsula. We met a middle-aged man from Windsor, Ontario, who had holidayed in Kananaskis before. “Maybe I’m being naïve,” he said. “But if the government just let everyone in to the G8 summit, opened up the process, then it seems like there wouldn’t be a problem.”

Facing snow and sub-zero temperatures, we decided that it was impossible to keep camping outside. From Cape Croker we hitched back to Owen Sound. After spending a freezing night on the streets of the city (and being turfed out of a bank lobby by police), we decided to buy discount bus tickets to Calgary.

It took us three days to get here. On our first day in Calgary, we read on the front page of the Calgary Herald that the army had okayed the use of lethal force at the G8. They say they don’t want to kill any protesters at Kananaskis, but soldiers will be ready and armed and they’re warning people to stay away. As well, it seems that Calgary’s Progressive Group for Independent Business will be supplying vigilantes during the protest, who will walk the streets in groups, attempting to prevent activists from damaging mall and office building property.

Calgary sucks. The fourth largest city in Canada, it’s little more than an endless collection of suburbs, highways, office towers and malls. Public space has probably been more aggressively attacked in this city than anywhere else in the country. The “Plus 15” system, a series of malls connected by elevated walkways, has almost completely depleted the sidewalks and streets of people.

A rather drunk young Calgary businessman talks to me on the bus one evening: “This is a tough city,” he says. “You know, my tie’s loose right now, but it should be tight.” He fiddles with it hopelessly and then looks around, as if to see if any of his bosses are watching.
“Everybody here works in offices, or else the oil patch,” he says—and he’s heard about the environmental damages that it’s causing. He tells me that his friend recently quit a well-paying job to work full-time as a cameraman for Indymedia, the activist news source. And as for him, well, he’ll try to come to the protest, if he can get out of work that day.
We’re busy these days, attending planning meetings and adding festive anti-G8 decorations to Calgary’s streets. The city’s activist community is, as you can imagine, small and mostly without experience. The only other major protest hosted here recently was the World Petroleum Conference in 2000, in which police outnumbered activists.

The activists that we meet with tell us that the status of Solidarity Village, where visiting protesters were to stay, is still up in the air. The situation is getting critical. Twenty-two activists flew in from Germany a few days ago, a man tells us, and hundreds more are expected from Europe. Currently, there are about 10 times as many people seeking a place to stay as there are people offering.

But things are slowly coming together. Logistics are being planned, spaces are being rented and marching routes are being set. An Italian activist says it’s not quite what he’s used to from previous protests in Europe—Calgary is one of the most conservative cities he’s seen.

There’s no question that it’s an uphill battle in a place where the most popular bumper sticker reads “I love Alberta beef” and people shout “G8 rules!” out of their pickup trucks at us. :

Contact: biberstein@wildmail.com