Wall Street Protests Coming to Canada

The Occupy Wall Street protests that began in New York’s financial district more than three weeks ago are now spreading across the United States and to other countries, with similar protests being organized in several Canadian cities.

Responding to the call to rally against the inequalities inherent in the global financial system, protesters are planning to gather in Toronto, Montreal, Calgary, Vancouver, and other cities on Oct. 15.

The Vancouver protest will be indefinite, according to the Occupy Vancouver website: “This general occupation of public space is an ongoing event. Bring tent. … We will be out there for as long as it takes.”

Base camp will be the lawn of the Vancouver Art Gallery, a stone’s throw from the city’s financial district.

Occupy Vancouver organizer Min Reyes said interest in joining the protest has been huge, with some unions, including the 600,000-strong Canadian Union of Public Employees, showing solidarity.

“Anybody who’s in social media knows that on the 15th we are all going to take part and tell the IMF and our governments and those bankers, ‘No, we come before money. Humanity comes before corporations and banks. Our children come before politicians’ greed.”

She says it was protesters in Spain, who have been demonstrating against austerity cuts in their country on and off since May, who put out the call for a “global uprising” on Oct. 15.

‘One Simple Demand’

The Wall Street protest that began on Sept. 17 was ignited by Adbusters Magazine, an anti-consumerist publication based in Vancouver known for campaigns such as “Buy Nothing Day” and “Buy Nothing Christmas.”

The magazine launched its campaign for a movement in July, issuing a poster saying simply “Occupy Wall Street Sept. 17. Bring tent,” and blogging that “Our one simple demand is: stop the monied corruption at the heart of our democracy!”

Hundreds, then tens of thousands, subsequently flocked to Wall Street, and despite up to 700 arrests in the largely peaceful demonstrations, the momentum has since spread to several other U.S. cities. Major unions and students have joined in, as have celebrities such as Susan Sarandon and Alec Baldwin.

What we’re witnessing is a kind of a global people’s uprising, a global people’s democracy movement.

—Micah White, senior editor, Adbusters Magazine

“What we’re witnessing is a kind of a global people’s uprising, a global people’s democracy movement,” says Adbusters senior editor Micah White.

“I think it started with the Arab Spring, it continued onto Spain with the Spanish indignados [indignants], it went around in Europe, and now it’s shooting over to North America. I think that definitely this is kind of a global revolutionary moment that now has come to North America finally.”

Although Canada’s economy is relatively stable, the same can’t be said for the United States where 14 million are out of work while Wall Street profits remain stratospheric.

White said, “The situation in America is very dire, more dire than I think most people realize, because at the one hand you have all of the economic problems of unemployment, student loan debt, foreclosures, but at the same time you have a dying culture—you have a corporate-owned, commercialized culture that is killing people on a spiritual level.”

“For 20 years Adbusters has been fighting against the kind of consumerism that is slowly eating away at our spiritual core, and I think that finally people are waking up to just how flat and empty life in America has become.”

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