Photo by Rogue Collective.

Since the Trans Mountain Pipeline extension project was approved by the Trudeau government in 2016, the west coast’s Indigenous communities have fought to cease potential damages on their land. The project, which would extend the pipeline from Edmonton to the Vancouver area, runs through several First Nations communities in B.C. and Alberta—and protests have been abundant. In March, a group of students and youth blockaded the front gates of the construction site of U.S.-based Kinder Morgan on Burnaby Mountain, spending days showing their solidarity against the project’s movement onto sacred land. Even still, the feds seem unmoved: In May, the Liberals purchased the pipeline for $4.5 billion from Kinder Morgan to ensure it will be built.

A protest in 2013 at Short Hills, Ont. Photo by Cody R. Law.

Last fall, Haudenosaunee hunters made their way to the forest with archery equipment for an annual six-day deer harvest. At Short Hills Provincial Park, just southwest of St. Catharines, Ont., the Haudenosaunee Confederacy and Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry collaborated to create a safe space for the hunters. But despite the obvious government support, animal rights activists gathered to protest as cars entered and exited the park. The harvest is an important tradition, but many protesters may not realize the significance of the meat itself: the venison is a healthier and much more affordable meat for the community.

TREATY RIGHTS
The Treaty of Albany 1701, or Nanfan Treaty, gives Haudenosaunee people the right to hunt and fish in southwestern Ontario. But it wasn’t until 1982 that the Government of Ontario recognized and honoured treaty rights; before this, hunting in the area was done outside provincial law. Since 2013, the Short Hills deer harvest has given the Haudenosaunee people another opportunity to act on their right to hunt.

PROTESTS
Since the harvest’s first year, protesters have been known to yell racial slurs at harvest participants and shine spotlights at vehicles that enter the park, obstructing participants’ vision and compromising their safety. According to Paul Williams, member of the Haudenosaunee Wildlife and Habitat Authority, as of late, the majority of the protestors see the provincial park as a deer “sanctuary.” But during the past two years, there have also been counter-protests supporting treaty rights. To ensure the safety of everyone involved, park personnel and regional and provincial police have been present.

VIABLE VENISON
Through the harvest, Haudenosaunee hunters have access to lean venison, which is healthier than the processed, fatty meats many community members rely on. “Often, those [market] foods that are consumed are the ultra-processed kind—generally, ready to eat, ready to heat. We found that [Indigenous] people who consume more traditional food tend to consume less of the ultra-processed foods,” says Malek Batal, a principal investigator of the First Nations Food, Nutrition and Environment Study (FNFNES).

HEALTH REPORT
The FNFNES found that there are high rates of diabetes among Indigenous people living on reserve in Ontario. About 24 percent are living with diabetes, which is three times the national average. And consumption of processed foods, especially meat, is a factor contributing to high rates of diabetes and obesity. Batal suggests that issues with food security affect the development of obesity, which is a major risk factor for diabetes. “Food insecurity means you have access to high-energy, low-nutrient foods, because they’re cheaper,” says Batal. “When ultra-processed foods are available and affordable, you eat more of those kinds of foods, which means that you are more at risk for developing obesity.”

PRICING

Much of this boils down to money. In 2014, the FNFNES reported that food security is a major issue. In Ontario, 29 percent of Indigenous households on-reserve experience food insecurity. About 23 percent of Indigenous households off-reserve experience food insecurity in comparison to about eight percent of Ontario households, which is also the national average. Comparatively, the average weekly cost of groceries for healthy meals is $247 for Indigenous communities in Ontario and $205 in Ottawa.

Photo by Christopher Curtis/Montreal Gazette.

Last weekend, Washington, D.C. was the locus of celebrations marking the transfer of presidential power from Barack Obama to Donald Trump. The traditional ceremonies—from the swearing-in and the inaugural parade along Pennsylvania Avenue to the plethora of balls and galas—coincided with events such as the “Deploraball,” organized by members of the racist, sexist, far-right coalition that calls itself the “alt-right” and that threw its wholehearted support behind Trump. Hats bearing the slogan “Make America Great Again” were a common sight throughout the city, as were blue scarves bearing the name “Trump” in white at each end.

In addition to those grim scenes, the city also played host to myriad protests running the gamut in terms of size, politics, and tactics. A few hundred people gathered to protest the Deploraball on Thursday night, lining up opposite police who used chemical spray on them throughout the evening. There was a sizeable anti-fascist contingent there and at protests the next day; more than a few “Antifaschistiche Aktion” flags, as well as those of various socialist and even communist organizations, could be seen rippling in the breeze throughout the weekend.

A sign at the protest outside the “Deploraball.”

One Trump supporter got into a skirmish with antifa protesters at the Deploraball, instantly drawing a huge crowd of cameras and reporters. It was a fitting prelude to the punch seen ‘round the world, when alt-right leader Richard Spencer—who, despite claiming not to be a neo-Nazi, supports a white ethno-state, has advocated forced sterilization and yelled “Hail Trump” at a conference in late 2016, leading several attendees to do the Nazi salute—was hit in the ear by a masked protester on Friday. Debates are now ongoing regarding the ethics of punching fascists, but if the goal is to stop them from feeling comfortable parading their ideology in public, it appears to have done its job.

On Inauguration Day, several groups, from Black Lives Matter to NoDAPL anti-pipeline activists, formed blockades at checkpoints along the inaugural parade’s route and attempted—in many cases successfully—to prevent Trump supporters from getting through. The anti-war and anti-racist ANSWER Coalition convened as early as 6 a.m. to get protesters onto the parade route. A number of marches converged at McPherson Square for a rally. A group of black bloc protesters engaged in limited property destruction of corporate windows, MAGA hats and, most memorably, an empty limousine; the response from police was aggressive. Flash-bang grenades and chemical irritants were deployed liberally. A group of 222 protesters, legal observers, journalists, and bystanders were kettled and detained, according to the National Lawyers Guild. They are being charged with felony riot, which carries a possible 10-year sentence.

Police line up around a group of detained protesters.

The Women’s March on Washington, the most-publicized protest, drew more than half a million people as well as huge crowds to “sister marches,” with a low estimate counting around 3.6 million in attendance globally on January 21. Easily the largest demonstration of the weekend, the women’s march was also the least overtly political. Many attendees seemed focused on general messages of gender equality and supporting women’s rights without necessarily having considered how best to do that, or what that might mean for women with various intersecting identities. Pink “pussy hats” were everywhere, as were signs that promoted a strictly cisnormative idea of womanhood, and messages from white women thanking police for keeping the peace at the protest pointed to a failure on their part to understand the antagonistic role police play in many women’s lives and in the protests that happened less than 24 hours prior.

It’s unclear if the oppositional energy on display will be effectively harnessed by organizations prepared to push legislators, elect their own candidates and provide alternative means for survival in the meantime, but there are promising signs. The Democratic Socialists of America, billed as the States’ largest socialist organization, has seen its membership skyrocket, and a call-in campaign early in the year led the Republican Party to reverse its decision to gut the Office of Congressional Ethics.

***

What can we in Canada take from the D.C. protests? Aside from the fuzzy feeling of attending one of the various women’s marches across our fair country, there must be something from this moment of great unrest we can apply to our own political circumstances.

At an event held by Jacobin magazine on January 20 in D.C. titled the “Anti-Inauguration,” journalist Anand Gopal stressed the importance of resisting not just Trump, but “the system that makes Trump possible.” In other words, the failed economic policies that have decimated unions, encouraged stratospheric wealth inequality, promoted corporate gluttony at the expense of the climate and of workers; a foreign policy that patrols other countries with unmanned execution robots, that spies on foreigners and citizens alike, that eats up trillions of dollars without making anyone in the world safer; domestic approaches to policing and housing that disproportionately affect racialized and particularly Black people; and a nightmarish immigration policy that sees families broken up or held in detention.

These are aspects of the dominant agenda of both political parties in the U.S., and as the speakers last Friday night noted, this agenda has failed people to such a degree that they have by and large abandoned hope in the political process. In 2016, as barely half of all eligible American voters cast a ballot, just enough in the right states latched onto a destructive strongman whose promises to help are empty but whose threats to hurt are already being fulfilled.

That agenda exists in Canada as well. As with most comparisons between the two countries, it warrants saying that the situation here is less stark in most cases. Canada fought in Afghanistan but not Iraq; we are part of the Five Eyes spy alliance, but didn’t mastermind the NSA’s intrusion into lives all over the world. We have health care, and a social safety net, even if they’re underfunded. The wealthiest one percent of Canadians took in 10.3 percent of all income in 2013, according to Statistics Canada, while economist Emmanuel Saez calculates that the top one percent of American families took in 58 percent of all income from 2008 to 2014.

But Trudeau’s plans for the “middle class and those working hard to enter it,” his pet phrase for the Canadians deserving of the government’s help, are smoke and mirrors. His party appears to understand that people are unhappy with the existing political order, and are expressing such in the votes for Brexit and Trump, but so far they are unwilling to distance themselves from it in anything other than rhetoric.

We saw a huge presence in Canadian cities on January 21 to protest Trump’s inauguration, but there hasn’t been nearly the same response nationwide to the neoliberal agenda put forth in our country. It’s true that Trump presents a unique and immediate threat to the U.S. and the world, through embracing disastrous environmental practices and the fear of an international conflict instigated by his erratic and bombastic behaviour. He is a uniquely hideous figure in almost every possible understanding of the word. His long and storied history of sexual misconduct, which includes several allegations of assault and harassment and him bragging on tape about assaulting women, certainly provided a focus of protest for women who may not otherwise be drawn to politics.

Heeding Gopal’s words means understanding that the same conditions exist to create widespread malaise and dissatisfaction in Canada. They’re not as advanced, to be sure, but we already have a test of our liberal democratic values on the horizon: Kellie Leitch and her advisors have made the calculation that the best way to win the Conservative nomination is to adopt anti-immigrant xenophobia like Trump. Bizarrely, she’s even begun to tweet like him. Whether her attempt at rabble-rousing will succeed is another matter; it seems unlikely without at least a patina of economic populism and charm, both elements she’s lacking.

Canada is not yet at the point America reached before it elected Trump, but we would be wise to be aware of what might lie ahead. The tide appears to be turning in one country after another away from the neoliberal order, and at present, the far right is the only group in most countries offering anything remotely appealing to the average working person. Now is the time for the left to throw itself into resistance, organizing and offering a full and positive alternative to the politics of austerity and division. An alternative that includes the entire working class, that sees identity and class as a “both/and” rather than an “either/or” proposition. We are in a moment of flux, one in which Friedrich Engel’s call to “transition to socialism or [regress] into barbarism” rings truer than it has in decades. One advantage in Canada is that, if the left is able to rise to the occasion now, we might do so before electing our own barbarian.

Denise Hansen examines the Black Lives Matter movement in Canada—and why there’s cause for anger and hope here, too

PROTESTS AND MARCHES AND SIT-INS have never really been my chosen course of social action. I can remember my dear family friend Kathy, a valiant social justice advocate, trying over the years to introduce my tender, elementary-aged sister and me to the world of social action. She’d drag us to women’s marches and tuition rallies but somehow, we always became so besieged by the noise and the cold (this is Canada, after all) that after a mere hour we’d end up at the nearest Tim Horton’s, clutching hot chocolates and talking through alternative ways we could create social change. Still today, I deeply admire the committed and resilient spirit of protestors (and my dear family friend for fearlessly trying to involve us in that world!) but have decided that for me, social justice is best pursued in other ways. So I write.
But that was before Michael Brown.

The night it was announced that a St. Louis County grand jury had decided not to indict police officer Darren Wilson in the shooting death of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown, I was in bed under the covers, glued to the light of my phone, slowly scrolling through news report upon news report, tears falling down my face at the same pace. I fell asleep that night feeling emotionally shattered, and like nothing mattered. It was an indescribable feeling of despair with society that I had never experienced before.

The same week I, along with hundreds of other Torontonians, converged at the U.S. Consulate General in downtown Toronto to express anger and frustration with the non-indictment decision and to protest the systemic oppression black communities both in America and here at home continue to face at the hands of police and the state. At the end of the rally, organizers asked us to turn to the person next to us, take our hand, place it on their back, and say the words “I got your back.” I biked home that cold November night feeling everything but what I had felt earlier that week. The protest made me feel that I, my community: we mattered.
I think there comes a time in every black person’s life where the straw simply breaks. You take it and you take it, and you take it and you see your family take it and your friends take it, and people you don’t even know take it, until one day the load becomes too much. For millions of people, that day came with the events surrounding Michael Brown and Ferguson. A year after Brown’s death and the #BlackLivesMatter protests (unofficially) began, I wanted to find out how far the Black Lives Matter movement had come in turning hearts and minds—in America and here at home—to the supposedly revolutionary idea that black life does, in fact, matter.
Does my black life matter more now, one year later?

PEOPLE OFTEN QUESTION what it was about the Michael Brown shooting that spurred millions of people around the world, black and otherwise, to pay heed to the unjust policing practises afforded to black communities in America. After all, since Trayvon Martin’s death in February 2012 and before Michael Brown’s death in August 2014,countless unarmed people of colour have been killed by police in the
U.S. These are just some of the names of black individuals that were killed by police or vigilantes only one month after Trayvon Martin died: Raymond Allen (age 34), Dante Prince (age 25), Nehemiah Dillard (age 29), Wendall Allen (age 20), Shereese Francis (age 30), Rekia Boyd (age 22), Kendrec McDade (age 19), and Ervin Jefferson (age 18).

“The community response set things off, the way people in Ferguson decided to rise up and come together as a community,” says 25-year-old Tiffany Smith, explaining what galvanized America around Michael Brown. “That really showed all of us that we could do the same.” Seeing the courage of the Ferguson community to come together and revolt spread action like wildfire across the U.S., she adds. She herself has been part of the Black Lives Matter movement since it began last year, protesting and organizing in Atlanta, Georgia.

After Brown’s death, protestors flooded the streets of Ferguson and other cities across America. When the first report came out of Ferguson that police tear-gassed peaceful protestors, the community, understandably, retaliated. In response, President Barack Obama addressed the nation and urged an “open and transparent investigation” into Brown’s death while calling for calm and restraint. But then Officer Darren Wilson’s name was released. National protests intensified, calling for police reform and the immediate arrest of Wilson. A state of emergency was declared in Ferguson. Every night as I turned on the news, I knew I was watching a revolution unfold before me.

As protests strengthened, the Black Lives Freedom Rides—organized by the same three women who began the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag—reportedly brought more than 500 activists from around the country and Canada to Ferguson to join thousands others for Labour Day actions and protests. Highways were stopped, football and baseball games and symphonies were disrupted, Walmarts were shut down, and hundreds of protestors staged die-ins in cities across the country. Black Lives Matter made its way into my conversation circles with friends, colleagues, and people on the street. I felt like a kid in a candy store when the subject came up. For the first time, I was discussing race relations—no! I was discussing anti-black racism!—with people I had known for years. Please, please, please let us hold on to this moment a little while longer, I thought.

In November, with the nation bracing for the Michael Brown grand jury decision, the city of Ferguson became a military war zone with police outfitted in riot gear, body armour, tear gas, and other militarized crowd control items. When the devastatingly predictable nonindictment decision was announced, thousands of people rallied to protest the verdict in more than 170 cities across America and massive protests were launched, shutting down malls and highways to boycott Black Friday.

“But what does asking poor, black families to stop shopping on Black Friday do?” my American friend asked me one day, referring to the Black Friday shopping boycotts. “These are the same families that, because of generations of systemic racism and oppression and as a result, limited financial means and economic wealth, are just trying to save a couple of dollars on their kids’ Christmas presents.” She made a good point. We talked for hours more about protest, boycott, and its place in revolution.

Then in December, another injustice made it to news broadcast. It was announced that a New York grand jury would not indict police officer Daniel Pantaleo for the death of Eric Garner, a 350-or-sopound, asthmatic, married father of six, who was harassed, mobbed, and eventually died at the hands of police via chokehold for selling cigarettes. I was getting ready for work the morning I heard the news. Listening to the audio of Garner desperately plead for his life is something that will stay with me forever. Shaken, I turned the radio off halfway through the audio, only able to muster up the courage to watch the full video a couple of days later.

The Garner non-indictment announcement incited a surge of protests in New York City and across the nation. Basketball teams donned “I Can’t Breathe” T-shirts at games; a Black Lives Matter protest filled the Mall of America; and black congressional staffers walked out of Congress staging a powerful “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” protest. I felt a strange sense of relief when incidents of police violence were still making the evening news and daily newspapers. How strange it is to feel relief when black people—my community—were still the victims of violence and death at the hands of police. But I guess I was just relieved that the struggle still mattered enough to popular media.

With the start of 2015, the most powerful image: a diverse crowd of over 50,000 people marched through New York City. Titled the Millions March NYC, it brought together people of all races, ages, and backgrounds to protest ongoing state-sanctioned violence against black communities. Thousands upon thousands of people protesting anti-black racism; these were images I had never seen in Canada, outside of school textbooks during Black History Month. Then in Baltimore this spring, more outrage as people poured into the streets after 25-year-old Freddie Gray died in police custody after being illegally arrested and detained.

In so many ways, it has been a defining and transformative movement highlighting North America’s fractured race relations and broken criminal justice system. In just one year, the movement has been able to bring international awareness to the systemic dehumanization of blackness that occurs at the hands of the state, most visibly by the police, every day, every hour, and every minute. Similar in size and scope to the civil rights movement of the 1960s, Black Lives Matter has brought race relations and the heartbreaking understanding of how disposable black life is in America to the fore.

Even in places as far away as Australia, Japan, Palestine, the U.K., Cuba, and the West Indies, Black Lives Matter has mobilized people not just to take to the streets in solidarity but also, and more importantly, has mobilized international communities to examine their own practises of policing, race relations, and anti-black racism. Outside of the important conversations it has sparked, Black Lives Matter has seen successes in the policy arena too. In less than one year the movement has seen seven bills aimed at police regulation and accountability introduced to Congress including the Jury Reform Act, the Stop Militarizing Law Enforcement Act, the Right to Know Act, and the End Racial Profiling Act. A federal civil rights investigation has been launched in the death of Eric Garner and its subsequent grand jury decision. The U.S. Department of Justice opened an investigation into the conduct of the Ferguson Police Department and found that the force regularly engaged in conduct that violated the constitutional rights of its black residents (the Department of Justice is now investigating police conduct in other U.S. cities including Baltimore, North Charleston, Cleveland, Albuquerque, and St. Louis).

In August 2014, a petition to create the Michael Brown law, which requires all state, county, and local police to wear a body camera, received well over 100,000 signatures (the threshold required for the Obama administration to respond). The petition also spurred the NYPD to equip police officers with body cameras for a three-month pilot program, have 7,000 body cameras supplied to the LAPD over a two-year period, and have President Obama propose a plan that includes funding over 50,000 body cameras for American law enforcement. The Death in Custody Reporting Act was signed into law and we saw rightful police indictments retained in the deaths of Rekia Boyd, Levar Jones, Bernard Bailey, as well as six police officers indicted in the death of Freddie Gray.

On the grassroots level too, Black Lives Matter has triumphed. Protestors have been able to create and distribute resource toolkits for organizing protests and other actions; nationwide, conferences have been hosted; conference calls regularly occur between groups across the country to share actions and next steps; and Black Lives Matter organizers named 2015 the Year of Resistance. Taken together, we are seeing how, in just one year, grassroots community work can directly shape and inform public policy work.

“That report that came out about Ferguson of how black folks are over-policed,” says Smith, who believes that Black Lives Matter has highlighted the importance of data and the power of information. “That report would have never come out if people weren’t in the streets.”

Rick Jones is lawyer and a founding member of the Neighbourhood Defender Service of Harlem. The NDS is a community-based public defence practice which provides legal representation to residents of Harlem and other historically underserved and over-policed communities in north Manhattan where it’s not uncommon for some of his clients to be stopped by police two to three times a week. Jones agrees that what Black Lives Matter has done best is bridge the worlds of policy and protest (although he’s not sure it’s yet been successful). In his own work, he notes that the action that Black Lives Matter in New York City did to protest Stop-and-Frisk on the streets concretely helped in highlighting the work NDS and other practices did around
Stop-and-Frisk litigation at the policy level.

When I ask Jones how the Black Lives Matter movement has impacted the work NDS does, he tells me, “We’ve been able to help our clients understand that the constitution applies to them, to help them understand that it’s not okay for the police to just throw you up against the wall and go through your pockets for no reason.” This is important work, he stresses, adding that when generational oppression is present—“granddad was oppressed and dad was oppressed and now son is oppressed”—this education becomes a lot more difficult. Even in a country like America where race is talked about often, making the connection between people’s personal struggles to systemic injustices becomes hard because racism has been the status quo for so many generations.

Even harder is asking these same communities to act and expose themselves to a system (police, etc.) that has wronged them in the first place. Black Lives Matter is so remarkable because it has done both: made the link between individual disenfranchisement and systemic oppression and convinced affected communities the fight is worth it. Yet, then, what happens in a place like Canada where race and anti-black racism is almost never talked about? How has Black Lives Matter permeated the Canadian landscape? Has it at all?

ONE YEAR POST-FERGUSON Black Lives Matter has been instrumental in providing Canadian justice organizations and black groups legitimacy when speaking out about how our own black communities are treated by law enforcement. The protests and marches and sit-ins we saw planned by Black Lives Matter organizers across Canada came about not just to show solidarity for black men and women in America who contend with a racist criminal justice system, but also to protest and rally around the racial profiling, suspicion, and institutional anti-blackness that is present in Canadian policing practices.

“In Canada, we maintain a kind of smugness so that when we talk about police and black communities, often we revert to experiences going on in the States,” says Anthony Morgan, a lawyer at the African Canadian Legal Clinic, a not-for-profit organization that advocates for and represents African-Canadians in a number of legal forums. Morgan asserts that the movement has created space to acknowledge how Canada’s black communities experience policing institutions and practises. To him, Black Lives Matter has allowed Canada to critically assess the Special Investigator’s Unit (SIU.), a civilian law enforcement agency that conducts independent investigations to determine whether a criminal offence took place whenever police officers become involved in incidents when someone has been seriously injured, dies, or alleges sexual assault.

Morgan says Black Lives Matter has also allowed us to critically assess the Office of the Independent Police Review Director (OIPRD), an independent civilian oversight agency that receives, manages, and oversees all complaints about police in Ontario. And it has especially engaged people in critically assessing the issue of carding, the practise whereby Toronto police officers stop, question, and collect information on people without arresting them.

While black communities make up only 8.3 percent of Toronto’s population, they accounted for 25 percent of the cards filled out between 2008 and mid-2011. Research shows that in each of Toronto’s 72 patrol zones, blacks are more likely than whites to be stopped and carded and the likelihood increases in areas that are predominantly white. This in Canada’s most multicultural city and a global beacon of what a post-racial society looks like.

Morgan adds that the Black Lives Matter movement has also been effective in raising awareness about the SIU and how many times it has exonerated a police officer who has killed a civilian. Black people are overrepresented in these encounters as well. Jermaine Carby, a black Toronto man, was shot and killed by police last year after being pulled over by police for unknown reasons. Rather than providing answers and support to the Carby family, the SIU is still withholding the suspect officer’s name and details of the incident. “What systems do we have here in Canada that try and justify or explain the killing, harassment, and violence black civilians experience at the hands of police?” asks Morgan. “These are important questions that we’ve finally been able to get at.”

THE SUCCESS OF BLACK LIVES MATTER has had as much to do with its origins as its message. Here is a movement that began as grassroots in nature, had its origins in female leaders and youth, lacked centralized leadership, and used social media as an organizing tool. By virtue of all these characteristics, the movement has wildly succeeded. Black Lives Matter has also wildly succeeded because of its universal message— Black Lives Matter. It’s not only a powerful message, but one that is easily understandable and irrefutably cannot be denied. “One of the realities of protest movements is that unless those who are protesting frame their protest in a way that is not threatening and that is easily understood by the very society that is oppressing them, the protests don’t go anywhere,” explains Ken Coates, Canada Research Chair of Regional Innovation and author of #IdleNoMore: And the Remaking of Canada. In his book, Coates argues that the basic assertion of #IdleNoMore as aboriginal people engaging with their identity and feeling empowered to be a part of the future of Canada was a success in its own right.

“It’s hard for governments and the public at large,” he adds, “to ignore movements that start off with an assertion that cannot be rejected.”

The Black Lives Matter movement has worked in much the same way. Protestors have found a concept that no sensible person can reject. In this way, when government or policing institutions don’t deny that black lives matter, they at the same time are forced to question why then they continue to over-police and over-criminalize black communities; or why they continue to use poor, black populations as revenue tools; or in Toronto, why they continue to unduly target young black men in carding stops (though the city’s mayor recently vowed to end the practice). If black lives matter, why continue to apply these unjust practises to black communities? With three simple words, the Black Lives Matter movement has exposed the hypocrisies and, thus, has been able to rally for change.

“The protestors won as soon as they started organizing,” explains Coates who says that Black Lives Matter protests have spurred a similar paradigm of revolution to Idle No More, where people were equally as excited about being aboriginal and showing their country that aboriginal people were alive, engaged, vibrant as they were ready to assert their presence. “In the same way, Black Lives Matter is as much a conversation among African Americans as it is with African- Americans and the rest of the American population,” he adds. “And that part is really powerful.”

Arguably, the greatest success of the Black Lives Matter movement is that it has made people excited about being black again—a feeling we haven’t seen since the 1960s in America, or in Canada, ever. One year later, Black Lives Matter is and continues to be a powerful assertion of black identity and confidence whereby black communities, especially young black people, have found their voice, realized the future of their communities lay in their hands, and have demanded public attention in this regard. “Black folks who may have not thought about their lives as something that mattered are now reminded,” says Smith, who adds that when Michael Brown was killed, it opened up a new space for young, black activists who saw their involvement in the movement as an act of necessity. “For me being a part of this movement is about my livelihood. I felt like how can I not be a part of this? Black Lives Matter encompasses all of my lived experience: as a black person, as a woman, as a queer person. For me, Black Lives Matter has been this constant reminder that I do matter.”

Popular media feeds us so much bad news coming out of the black community: our crime rates, our lack of involvement in the economic, social, or political dimensions of the wider (whiter) society. In the face of one of these bad news pieces —the excessive violence and death of black individuals at the hands of police—Black Lives Matter has, in Lauryn Hill’s words, turned a negative into a positive picture. It has reminded black people of the simple notion that we do matter. In just one year, the movement has turned the tragic and violent death of Michael Brown into a sense of shared identity and purpose for millions of black people across America, here at home, and across the world.

I remember that cold, November night biking home from a Black Lives Matter protest feeling like I, my community: we mattered. Many gains have been made by Black Lives Matter, but even if the movement does have a long way to go in reforming policy, transforming the school-to-prison pipeline and creating equal opportunities for black populations across social, economic, and political dimensions, thanks to Black Lives Matter, I know my life matters. More than I did last year. And millions more do too.

I matter. A simple and most powerful revolution. If this is just one year in, the Black Lives Matter revolution has only just begun.

And yet, the Chinese occupation of Tibet seems to have been met with little resistance from the worldwide community, despite a reported 127 self-immolations and a duration of more than than 50 years.

March 10 marked the 55^th anniversary of the Tibetan uprising against the Chinese occupation, and in 55 years very little has changed. With the severe repression of human rights, mass relocation of peaceful nomadic tribes, and an estimated 1.2 million deaths as a direct consequence of Chinese occupation, one might expect countries, like Canada, to voice strong protests, to threaten sanctions, and even to put severe pressure on China, as they did to other countries in similar situations.

Well, back in 2008, Stephen Harper did send a strongly worded statement to the Chinese government in regards to the then brutal crackdown on uprisings in Tibet. “Canada shares the concerns about what is happening in Tibet,” Harper said. “Canada calls upon China to fully respect human rights and peaceful protest. Canada also calls on China to show restraint in dealing with this situation.”

This seemed more than a little hollow however, as a few years later, in 2012, Harper agreed to a Chinese takeover of Nexen, despite the ongoing atrocities in Tibet, and protests against said takeover. Arguably, the Harper government is more interested in trade opportunities rather than human rights, despite previous statements to the contrary. According to Students for a Free Tibet at the time, this take-over “would give the Chinese government direct control over critical energy resources.” They added: “It will also make Canada complicit in China’s human rights atrocities in Tibet as the China National Offshore Oil Company (CNOOC) is heavily funding the forced resettlement of Tibetan nomads.”

But hey, on the plus side, at least we got those cuddly panda cubs.

To be fair, the Canadian government has been very supportive of the Dalai Lama since his exile, and made him an honorary Canadian citizen back in 2006. The Dalai Lama has also made several trips to Canada and met with Harper despite warnings from China, who branded him a “political exile who has long been engaged in activities aimed at splitting China under the camouflage of religion.” But this hasn’t been much help to those in Tibet, and the protests and calls for Canada to do better continue.

Protesters matching down Toronto’s Queen’s Street Monday in protest of China’s occupation of Tibet

In Toronto, more than 1,000 people marched to mark the 55th anniversary, and the sixth year since widespread protests have swept through the Tibetan region. It ended outside of the Chines consulate. “Despite 55 years of China’s brutal occupation and systematic attempts to wipe out Tibetan resistance, the Tibetan people’s hope for freedom is stronger than ever before,” Urgyen Badheytsang, national director of Students for a Free Tibet, said in a release. “March 10 is symbolic of the enduring spirit of the Tibetan people’s struggle for freedom.”

He and others are calling on the worldwide community to hold China accountable for its actions. As Badheytsang told Inside Toronto: “I want China’s government to stop torturing Tibetan citizens, give back their human rights, freedom of expression, freedom of religion, their freedom.”

The day of action is organized by the End Immigration Detention network, and comes a few days after the B.C. Coroners Service announced that it will launch an inquest into the death of Lucia Vega Jimenez, who died two months ago after attempting to kill herself while in detention at a Vancouver Airport holding centre.

The death has highlighted the need for a change to the Canadian Immigration laws as Harsha Walia, of No One Is Illegal Vancouver, told The Star “An independent, transparent and public inquest is a necessary first step to shine some light on the secrecy that has surrounded the tragic death of Lucia. However, an inquest alone is not sufficient to address the impunity with which CBSA operates. The devastating consequences of policies like indefinite detention, mandatory detention and administrative detention in Canada need to be scrapped.”

Walia also told the Star that while an independent complaint and investigation process is crucial to the civilian oversight of the CBSA, political and legislative changes are needed to ensure the agency is accountable and transparent to the public.

Canada is the only western country that has no limit to the time an immigrant can be detained. This is a stark contrast to many other countries, such as the U.S. and those in the EU, which have strict laws that limit the maximum time to only 90 days. The Canadian procedure states that as long as the individual in question has a “monthly detention review meeting,” he or she can be detained indefinitely. This has resulted in some people, who cannot be returned to their home country due to circumstances outside their control, being incarcerated for over a decade.

Each city protest will be focusing on different issues within the current system of immigration. Toronto’s protest will concentrate on ending indefinite detention because, says  Tings Chaks, the Toronto protest organizer, it has the largest number of migrant inmates. The Star reports that according to border officials, roughly 600 people are on immigration hold at a given time throughout the year. Of those, it adds, about 10 percent have been detained for over a year.

The petitions demand four major changes to be made to the Immigration Law that would make the system closer to international standards:

Freedom for the wrongly jailed: Release all migrant detainees who have been held for longer than 90 days.

End arbitrary and indefinite detention: Implement a 90-day “presumptive period”. If removal cannot happen within 90 days, immigration detainees must be released. Presumptive periods are recommended by the United Nations, and are the law in the United States and the European Union.

No maximum security holds: Immigration detainees should not be held in maximum security provincial jails; must have access to basic services and be close to family members.

Overhaul the adjudication process: Give migrants fair and full access to legal aid, bail programs and pro bono representation.

We hope the petitions will be enough to convince the government that change is needed, so more extreme protests, such as the 191 migrant detainees who went on hunger strike last year, will no longer be necessary.

An Occupy protester in Toronto. Photo by Ian Willms

Lia Grainger spent more than two months among the dissidents of Occupy. Nine camps, and dozens of interviews later, the Toronto reporter reflects on the movement’s message, its future, and why she’s convinced Canada needs more Occupy—and we need it now

There is no camping on the White House lawn. On the Wednesday before American Thanksgiving, when President Barack Obama drives down a darkened windy H Street and turns into the gated driveway that leads to his abode, no tents sully the immaculately manicured grass. One block away, several hundred people bed down in tents, tarps and cardboard on the modest rectangle of wet grass and snaking pavement known as McPherson Square—as close as they can get to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW. I climb into my two-person MEC tent and join the dissidents.

The surrounding buildings light my nylon interior bright as noon. Eight days ago, I left the comfort of my Toronto home to spend the winter visiting Occupy Wall Street camps and actions across the United States. This is stop number two—last week was New York, and I’ve already spent two nights here in the capitol. Last night was a wet one: heavy rainfall had saturated the earth, turning the grass into icy mud that coated everything—my boots, my clothes, the walls of my tent. The smell of tobacco from hand-rolled cigarettes still hangs in the cold air.

It hasn’t taken long to get to know my neighbours. Nearby, in his own little tent is 57-year-old Frosty, a grandfatherly homeless man who started helping in the camp kitchen after he was kicked out of D.C.’s Old Post Office Pavilion by Homeland Security. A few yards away beneath a patchwork of tarp and plastic is 18-year-old Elliot from Northampton, Massachusetts, a pensive adolescent who has been waiting his whole short life for a movement like this to sweep across the nation. In a large communal tent just off 15th St., a half-dozen new arrivals from New York City doze, including a young Queens native named Kelley. The pint-sized instigator has led the crew on a 230-mile, two-week march from Zuccotti Park in Lower Manhattan, spreading the Occupy gospel along the way.

Like them, I’d ditched everything—job and home—to experience a pivotal moment in the history of our monumental neighbours to the south, and perhaps in our own nation’s history as well. As a 30-year-old, raised by baby boomer parents who took me on peace marches before I could walk, I had inherited a casual commitment to social justice issues and environmentalism that was more theoretical than practical. I had never felt any real ability to influence the political world. Coming of age in a global world sometimes makes corruption and inequality seem insurmountable. You’re not just fighting local or national power; you’re pushing up against the world. Suddenly, here was 2011: Tunisia, Tahrir Square, Puerta del Sol. Individuals were upsetting the order of things by simply standing together. Something big and important and kind of wonderful was happening—something outside of the realm of normal, everyday, North American experience, and I wanted to be a part of it. I wanted to join them.

On October 15, I began to visit the camps. My first was Toronto in October 2011. I then jumped the border to New York (six days), followed by D.C. (four days), Boston (four days), Savannah (two days), Miami (four days), Los Angeles (three days) and Seattle (two days). My last stop was Des Moines, Iowa, where I saw 18 of the hundred-odd Occupy the Caucus protesters get arrested at the campaign headquarters of GOP candidates. I arrived home on New Year’s Day, 2012 with a changed vision of the movement and a transformed understanding of the value of civil dissent. Some of the naivety is gone, and some of the cynicism is back, but if I’ve learned anything, it’s that we still need Occupy—and in Canada, perhaps, more so than ever.

When news of the Occupy movement protest camp in Lower Manhattan’s Zuccotti Park first flooded the Canadian public consciousness in late September 2011, I was skeptical. By now, the precursors to the American explosion of populist rage are well known: the deregulation of banking and lending systems, the housing bubble, the 2008 crash, the subsequent foreclosures and bailouts, the obscene Wall Street bonuses, and the inability of the administration to improve regulation. It all highlighted one overarching theme—an unprecedented and ever-expanding gap between rich and poor. By 2007, the top ten percent of Americans held 73 percent of the nation’s wealth, while the rest held a mere 27 percent. By 2010, 46 million Americans, or 15 percent of the entire population, already lived in poverty.

The unlikely spark was the Estonian-born editor-in-chief of the Vancouver-based, culture-jamming magazine Adbusters. Inspired by the parallel uproar in Greece, Spain, Tunisia, and Egypt, Kalle Lasn and his team spent much of 2011 thinking about a soft regime change in North America. On July 13, Lasn sent a visual call-to-action to the magazine’s 70,000-person mailing list, an image he repeated in the next issue’s centrefold: a serene ballerina poised atop the iconic Wall Street bull, scored with a simple question, “What is our one demand?” The frustrating irony of that query would emerge only in the weeks to come.

“The political left for the past 20 or 30 years has been ineffective and whiny. It’s been a real dud,” says Lasn from his home office in Aldergrove, B.C.  “We need to jump over the dead body of the old Left and come up with new models.” If the Left wanted to follow the Egyptian model, he thought, it only made sense to occupy the iconic economic heart of America. On September 17, the first Occupiers set up camp in Zuccotti Park and renamed it Liberty Square.

It’s easy to see why the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt—achieved in a matter of weeks largely through the power of smartphones, laptops and human bodies as weapons—might make a lifelong activist like Lasn think: “Why not here?” But America is not Egypt. And Canada is not America.

On October 7, 2011, roughly 200 people gather in a semicircle on the grass in Berczy Park on Front Street. The occupation is set to start in a week; this is the designated planning session. Sarah Rotz, a recent graduate of the environmental studies master’s program at York University, addresses the youthful crowd: “Can we have consensus that we’re going to decide things by consensus?”

Numerous participants raise their arms to form an “X,” the agreed-upon signal for a “block” (strong opposition to a statement). A long and painfully nuanced conversation on the definition of consensus ensues. Many of those seated begin rolling their eyes. One person shouts: “What’s our goal here?” The answering shout: “Our goal is to figure out what our goal is.”

The Toronto Occupiers are trying to follow New York’s lead. By early October, Occupy Wall Street had established itself as a leaderless movement with a commitment to horizontal democracy. By design, the Zuccotti Park camp’s consensus-based decision-making process allows everyone to be heard. After three hours of attempting the same style in Toronto, however, little has been accomplished.

Part of the power of the Occupy Wall Street movement in the United States is that it speaks a truth nearly all Americans can recognize—even if some protesters can’t name the banks they’re targeting. The failings of their financial system and the influence of corporate interests in Washington are obvious. The same can’t be said for Canada. Corporate donations to political campaigns were made illegal here in 2007. Our government didn’t inject billions in cash into failing banks. Superior federal regulation prevented the banking catastrophe experienced by the U.S. in 2008.

In Toronto later that evening, I voice my skepticism for the first time: How relevant is the Occupy movement in Canada? The answer I received then was the same one I would receive any time I questioned or criticized the movement in the months to come: It’s new. We don’t know what this is yet. Like many, though, I was impatient to discover what the Occupy would become.

When I arrive in Lower Manhattan on October 16, 2011, the mood in Zuccotti Park is jubilant. Yesterday, thousands of citizens in cities around the world had pitched tents in parks and squares in solidarity with the amorphous demands of the 99 percent. It’s day 30 of Occupy Wall Street. Fresh off a 12-hour Greyhound bus ride from Toronto, I round the corner of Broadway onto Liberty Street and am confronted with a teeming mass of people. One month earlier, this space had been little more than a refuge for Wall Street workers on smoke breaks.

In Occupy camps, talking to strangers is de rigueur. The first person I meet is a 26-year-old Newfoundlander named Kanaska Carter. She has multiple facial piercings, neck and chest tattoos, but exudes a calm, feminine warmth. “The first day there was no organization. People didn’t have any roles at all … it was absolute torture trying to get some kind of consensus on what to do at the general assembly,” says Carter, who has been living here since day one. But by day three, “people realized they had to stop dilly-dallying with all the details and get to the point.”

Behind us, every inch of stone and grass is blanketed with human activity. Cops chat with tourists, families make protest signs, and young moms push baby strollers down narrow walkways. It’s a burgeoning autonomous city: there are named streets, a sanitation station, a hospital, a library and a kitchen where everyone eats for free. At the buzzing media centre, dozens of laptops and devices charge simultaneously while bandanna-ed volunteers furiously blog and live-stream. Photographers and reporters are everywhere. Even Geraldo Rivera, the famously mustached Fox News pundit, drops by—and is welcomed.

Within a couple of hours of arriving, I meet 62-year-old Vietnam veteran Bill Johnsen. With his poor-boy cap and handsomely wrinkled features, he looks like an aged Gene Kelly. He’s been waiting 30 years for this moment: something to jar America’s youth into action. “We’re beginning to break down the robotic, mechanical ways that people have related to one another over the past few decades,” says Johnsen. The lifelong activist beams at the scene around him. “This is rich, this is rich,” he says, nodding. “But how do you sustain this?”

Johnsen’s question animated the conversations of protesters around the world. The media, however, chose a different question to dwell on: What does the 99 percent want? Type “Occupy Wall Street” into Google, and it immediately adds the word “demands.” A small sampling of American and Canadian Occupy signs doesn’t help either:

“I’ll believe corporations are people when Texas executes one.”
“End war! No drones.”
“I couldn’t afford a politician, so I made this sign.”
“Igualdad para todos.”
“Natives have been occupied since contact.”
“We want a university for the 99%.”
“You want a list of demands?? Here: 1) revolution. We are not here to compromise.”

It’s a real mixed bag—one that has confounded the mainstream media and given punditry an easy out. Kevin O’Leary characterized the movement on CBC’s The Lang & O’Leary Exchange in October as: “Just a few guys [with] guitars. Nobody knows what they want. They can’t even name the firms they’re protesting against.” This vagueness of purpose sets Occupy apart from other major movements—civil rights, gay rights, women’s suffrage—where the goals were clear, and victory, when achieved, was obvious.

When Lasn called for an occupation, he pushed for a single demand; his suggestions included a one percent “Robin Hood tax” on all financial transactions and currency trade. Once the epicenter of the movement had shifted from Vancouver to New York, however, the grievances of those pitching tents in Zuccotti Park stretched far beyond any one concrete, answerable request. Lasn now applauds the wide net cast by Occupy: “We wanted a debate, to have an argument about it. That’s exactly what’s happened.”

Many leading leftist thinkers have embraced this amorphous state of opposition to the status quo. In a speech last October 6, Canadian writer and activist Naomi Klein told occupiers in New York: “I am talking about changing the underlying values that govern our society. That is hard to fit into a single media-friendly demand, and it’s also hard to figure out how to do it. But it is no less urgent for being difficult.”

I arrive in Washington, D.C. on November 21, six days after Mayor Bloomberg ordered police to dismantle New York’s Zuccotti Park encampment. Many of those evicted from Wall Street are headed this way. They’ll find Washington isn’t the same ideologue’s utopia. By now, across the continent, occupations are beginning to hold a dystopic mirror to the problems that plague each urban centre. In Vancouver, there have been two drug overdoses, one fatal. In Oakland, police violence flared, and in L.A. and D.C., the camps have become refuges for massive urban homeless populations. Only two months in, and the purpose of the occupation is shifting—from spotlighting inequality of wealth to the more practical task of maintaining the camps.

In the D.C. camp there is a small, dark library, a dismal kitchen, minimal food, and the GAs, if they are held at all, often end in shouting matches. In four days, I struggle to find someone willing to explain his or her reasons for being there. “I’m not interested in politics,” is a common response. Educated idealism has largely been replaced with radicalized anarchy.  One day, as we sit sipping chicken noodle soup from paper cups, a middle-aged female camper explains the camp. “You have four kinds of people here,” she says holding up the fingers of a weather-reddened hand. “The activists, the homeless people who have become activists, the homeless people with no interest in the movement, and the crack heads.”

By November 26 I’m in Boston. I discover the plain concrete rectangle there known as Dewey Square isn’t much better. When I arrive, much of the community is gathered in front of a towering spot-lit brick wall to hold the evening’s general assembly. The facilitators, a young German-American named Anna and a middle-aged man named Greg, first spend ten minutes explaining the general assembly process.

A young man named John stands up. His army issue cap covers his eyes: “The safety group proposes that we remove a certain individual, Henry [from the camp].” Henry is an alcoholic who is at times violent. Despite interventions and counseling from members of the camp, Henry is extremely disruptive. As the group debates the proposal, the hypocrisy becomes apparent: How can an avowedly inclusive community defend forcible removal of a member, especially in a public space?

In the next hour-and-a-half, the conversation vacillates between booting Henry out and allowing him to stay—illuminating both the success and failure of the camps.

In hundreds of parks in towns and cities across North America and the world, Occupy camps vitalize debate by “occupying” what might otherwise be abstract conversations with real people and real problems, often leading to real solutions. At the same time, the energy needed to care for the homeless, addicts, and mentally ill—members of the community most affected by the nation’s wealth disparity—undermines the progress of the movement. At one point, a middle-aged man speaks out: “My friends, this is public land. It’s a disaster if this group decides to evict somebody. As much as I think in my heart that he doesn’t belong here … We would [become] a parody of ourselves.”

The Boston occupiers do not evict Henry that night. Two weeks later, in the early hours of Saturday, December 10, the residents of Occupy Boston and their belongings are forcibly removed from Dewey Square. In many ways, it is a blessing.

By late November, the narrative of the movement in the media is one of police violence. The skull of 24-year-old Iraq war veteran Scott Olsen was fractured by a “police projectile” at Occupy Oakland on October 25. This was followed by Lieutenant Policeman John Pike’s casual deployment of pepper spray into the faces of a seated row of passive protesters at the University of California, Davis. In fact, the movement received its first serious treatment in the media when the NYPD pepper sprayed two penned-in female protesters on September 24. In her October speech in Zuccotti Park, Klein applauded the movement’s non-violence: “You have refused to give the media the images of broken windows and street fights it craves so desperately. And that tremendous discipline has meant that, again and again, the story has been the disgraceful and unprovoked police brutality.”

Perhaps the most iconic representation of Occupy violence is the November 15 photograph of the dripping, pepper-sprayed face of Dorli Rainey, an 84-year-old lifelong activist in Seattle. A few days before Christmas, Rainey and I meet over coffee. She lives in a one-bedroom apartment at a Seattle seniors’ housing development. Among the butterfly magnets and baby animal cards that decorate her fridge is a bumper sticker: “Regime change begins at home.”

When I ask Rainey about getting pepper-sprayed, she tells me it was a good thing: “Absolutely! I’m going to be on the cover of The Guardian weekend edition!” More than fifty-five years in the United States have not erased her lively Austrian accent. She says unprovoked police violence—often captured and broadcast by the protesters themselves via social media—gives the movement currency. It implies the Occupy message has enough weight for those in power to deem it worthy of oppressing. “[Occupy is] a microcosm of the entire population, trying to build a movement,” she says. “It’s bigger than any movement we’ve had before in our lives.”

Even so, numerous experienced and successful activists and intellectuals question the practical value of such attention in the absence of demands. Duff Conacher is one of them. As one of the founders of Democracy Watch, a non-profit Canadian citizens action group, he has spent the past 19 years advocating for democratic reform in Canada. Conacher was frequently called upon by media in the early days of Occupy Canada to explain his hopes for the burgeoning movement. His repeated advice: make demands.

The Toronto-based Conacher now speaks about the movement with fatigue. “Essentially, if you don’t have goals, you’re not cornering anyone,” he says. Democracy Watch, he adds, has won changes by detailing the problems, proving they exist and are bad, then setting out solutions, and pushing for those solutions. Conacher points to one of the primary concerns of the American Occupy movement: campaign finance reform. In Canada, he says, the battle was won seven and four years ago, with Democracy Watch’s Money in Politics coalition. That campaign brought advocacy groups together and forced Harper to revoke the right of corporations, unions, and other organizations to donate to political campaigns. He wonders if Occupy Canada is pushing for anything that activist groups or coalitions aren’t already tackling.

“[Occupy] was a great tactic for bringing attention to a lot of issues,” says Conacher. “But a tactic is not a strategy. Nor is it an organization.” When told many occupiers instead think of the camps as an example of a properly functioning democratic community, Conacher’s response is curt. At some point, he says, activists have to decide whether to create communes where everyone lives in the model way, or to change society so that it is the model way. Protesters, he adds, need to engage with the system in meaningful ways to create change. “Yes, [Occupy] got people involved who were not involved before,” says Conacher. “But what are they doing now?”

Conacher raises a fair question—and it’s one Dave Vasey can answer. Vasey slept in Toronto’s St. James Park for Occupy Toronto’s entire 40 day existence. At 33, Vasey has been organizing—primarily around tar sands issues—for the past four years. When he saw the initial call for Occupy Toronto, he didn’t think it would take off. “But then people started to plan—a lot of young people without much organizing experience. A lot of the white, middle-class, suburban demographic.” He speaks with a casual softness that belies the intensity of his politics. “There were a lot of people coming to political consciousness for the first time.”

So what was accomplished?  “It changed the conversation,” says Vasey, echoing most protesters’ response to this loaded question. “It reintroduced capitalism as an issue to be discussed.”

In the United States, protesters point to a number of tangible wins: last November 5th’s Bank Transfer Day, by which an estimated 650,000 Americans transferred some $4.5 billion from big banks to credit unions; Bank of America’s revocation of their proposed $5 monthly debit card user fee; and several courtroom wins regarding rights to protest and civil dissent. Even the change in conversation is tangible. A Nexis search for the term “income inequality” turned up 91 results in the week before the protests began; in the week of October 30, it’s there close to 500 times. Obama now references “the 99 percent”, framing his administration as sympathetic with the movement’s complaints, a stance he’ll likely maintain throughout this election year.

Will time equal success for Occupy? Conacher references the civil rights movement: “It took years for those protests to slowly build and grow. If you look at Occupy, it’s the opposite. They started big and are getting smaller and smaller.”

Vasey believes the lull is a blessing: “Action, reflection, action. The camp was a tactic, and yes, it needed to end. We know the idea of challenging capitalism will take a lot of work, but we have demonstrated that there is support.”

Adbusters’ Kalle Lasn is adamant the world will witness a resurgence of Occupy. He says it is becoming a “rainbow movement” that it is moving beyond occupation, and that the splintering we’re witnessing will somehow be useful. “Some of us,” he says, “are going to get involved in normal politics, some will move into more extreme ‘Black Bloc’ tactics, some will work on the internet.” These divisions regarding fundamental questions of ideology and strategy are already occurring. In Philadelphia, Occupier Nathan Kleinman is running for congress, yet in Oakland, increasingly violent Black Bloc tactics have derailed peaceful protests.

My last visit to an Occupy protest in the United States is on New Year’s Eve, 2011.

“Let’s see, there was David, Jess, Erin, Frankie, Kevin, Kalen…Geez! That’s 10.” Jessica Mizour, 24, of Des Moines, Iowa, is jotting down the names of the protesters who were moments earlier arrested at Michele Bachmann’s Iowa campaign headquarters. Mazour’s list is written in nearly illegible handwriting, but it isn’t her fault—her desk is her lap, and her office is the back of a graffitied school bus packed with Occupy the Caucus protesters. As she writes, the bus rips down the highway from Michele Bachmann’s headquarters to Newt Gingrich’s. The mood here is different than any other camps I’ve visited—it’s tactical and focused. There are press releases, demands, and a unified message: get money out of politics.

If Occupy is actually evolving into a new method of dissent—a way of exerting pressure on the political system without becoming a part of it—then its continued efforts in themselves could be judged a success. Occupy’s ongoing existence still confounds politicians, law enforcement and the public. Yet, while Occupy reminded candidates in Iowa of dissatisfaction with the status quo, it didn’t force anyone’s hand. To do so, Occupy will likely have to become a part of the system it claims to loathe.

Here in Canada, we’ve weathered the economic and social storm that has pummeled the U.S. and Europe. It’s unlikely we’ll be able to do so indefinitely. Already, our rate of income inequality is growing faster than in the U.S., according to a recent study from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. Plus, Statistics Canada already announced in late 2010 that Canadians are taking on more debt than Americans for the first time in 12 years. And steering the ship is Stephen Harper, a leader intent on stripping this country of the qualities—public health care, environmental protection initiatives, superior social services—that once made us enviable. We need the tools of direct action and horizontal, participatory democracy that Occupy has provided to steel ourselves for the battles we’ll face in the future.

Whatever Occupy becomes, chances are it won’t know where it’s going until it gets there. It has been more than half a year, but these things take time. Hell, we don’t even know what this is yet.

Protesters gather outside the Enbridge annual general meeting. Photo by Jen Chow.

About 200 protesters gathered on King Street today as Enbridge held their annual general meeting inside the King Edward Hotel.

The mass of protesters had congregated on the street to voice their opinions on the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline, which would stretch 1,172 kilometres from Bruderheim, Alta., to the port of Kitimat, B.C. The proposed cost of this venture is in the range of $5.5 billion dollars. The pipeline would transport oil from the tar sands to the west coast for export to a growing Asian market as well as the western United States.

The pipeline would also move through lands which belong to dozens of First Nations groups. A group known as Yinka Dene Alliance, made up of B.C. First Nations, traveled by train across the country for eight long days to arrived in Toronto yesterday. Their goal is to inform people and raise awareness about the damages the Northern Gateway pipeline could cause to the environment and to their homes.

I arrived at the protest, a little damp from the light rain, to see a wide variety of signs and banners raised above the crowed. People were gathered in the middle of the street, chanting “No pipeline, no tankers,” along to the loud beating of drums.

Signs in all capital letters read “SHAME ON ENBRIDGE” and “WATER NOT OIL”—among various other anti-Enbridge slogans. Natalie Guttormsson, who was holding a large yellow sign with the red lettering “RESPECT INDIGENOUS PEOPLES RIGHTS,” said her sign means,  “recognizing that we are living on their land and when they say no to a project it means no.”

Natalie Guttormsson (far right) hold a banner in protest. Photo by Jen Chow.

As it began to rain down harder, the people only became louder. “NO TANKERS, NO PIPELINE, NO JUSTICE, NO PEACE,” rose loud above the sounds of the lunch hour traffic. They came to inform and raise awareness and that’s what they did.

I continued to scour the crowd for someone from the Yinka Dene Allience who was able to answer some of my questions. After asking several different people for an interview I met with Ted White, a councillor for the Aamjiwnaang First Nation. “I’m here to support the people in B.C. about the pipeline going through there,” he said.  “We’ve had problems (in Sarnia) with this company there alone.”

Standing with White was Al (who didn’t give his last name) also from the Aamjiwnaang First Nation, a strong silent type, wearing a black hooded sweatshirt and a camo hat. He joined in our conversation: “The problem there hasn’t even been solved yet and they’re starting more problems on the other side of the country” he said. “They have to deal with these problems first.”

Many people at the protest were there to show their support for the Indigenous people in western Canada. A large number of those  I spoke with at the protest were from the Sarnia area, where another Enbridge project is located. According to Toban Black, Enbridge Line 9 crosses water sheds in the area and is connected to industries in Sarnia and Sarnia Lambton. Black is concerned because tar sands bitumen is processed there. “There is a bigger picture that the Northern Gateway struggle is part of,” he said.

Zack Nicholls, who was taking shelter from the rain, stood inside a bus shelter with his four year old son seated in a stroller is also from Sarnia. “I got the four year old with me,” he said. “Generally, I wouldn’t bring him all this way out but I felt it was important to get out and just be part of something big.” There was a real sense of frustration deep within the calming demeanor of his voice.

The Conservative government’s decision to get rid of the environmental assessment will pave the way for a lot more problems to occur, Nicholls added, especially with the Enbridge pipelines.

“In Sarnia there is just a constant barrage of releases from all the different refineries and the government does nothing. Every single time they do nothing,” said Nicholls. “We do stuff in Sarnia but they’re always just such tiny little events. I needed a pick me up. To be here with hundreds of other like minded people.”

Students protest against tuition hikes in Quebec on April 14th. Photo by Jean Gagnon.

The student strike in Quebec does not look to be ending anytime soon. While a tentative agreement was struck on May 6, following a 22-hour negotiation between the students and the Quebec government, it will likely be annulled after the 150,000 students around the province vote this week.

If the agreement is passed, it would maintain the proposed tuition hikes of $254 a year, over the next seven years. In return, the government offered an equivalent reduction in the mandatory university surcharges and administration fees. These fees cover non-academic services.

In other words, the cost for attending post secondary in Quebec would not change—some numbers will go up and others will go down under the proposed agreement, but the sum total students will pay for their education post-hike will be equivalent to the current cost. It’s hard to say if there is a clear winner in the end.

As the student strike lingers into its third month, the end date is still unclear.  Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, who has become the face of the protest and leader of the Coalilition Large d’Association pour une Solidarité Syndicale Étudiante (better known to the public as CLASSE), spoke with the Globe and Mail (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/face-of-quebecs-student-protest-surprised-by-its-power/article2425572/) Monday regarding the tentative agreement. “The trend seems to indicate that it will be rejected. We will have to evaluate the situation after all the votes are taken,” said the 21 year-old history major at the University of Quebec in Montreal. “What is clear is that the strike would continue and we would return to the bargaining table to discuss the central issue, which is the tuition fee hikes.”

At this point only one school, CEGEP de Gaspésie, has accepted the offer. Five Collèges d’Enseignement Général et Professionnel (CEGEP) have voted against it and seven university departments.

The ongoing protest has seen its scope broaden in recent weeks. “The tuition fee hikes have quickly channeled a great deal of satisfaction towards the government, about accessibility to higher education and other social issues,” Nadeau-Dubois told Rheal Seguin.

This past weekend 3000 protesters ascended on a Liberal Party meeting in Victoriaville. The protest turned violent and sent three students to the hospital with serious injuries. To me, it seems students are becoming more unruly and it is imperative that some kind of resolution is found—or there is potential for the violence to escalate even further.

Within all of the madness which surrounds any type of protest of this magnitude there is one group which is routinely ignored by both sides. André Poulin, executive director for a group of about 800 downtown businesses in Montreal, spoke with a National Post (http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012/05/07/graeme-hamilton-quebec-student-deal-is-far-from-settled/) reporter about the problems they are facing.

“They don’t realize the damage they are causing to people who earn a living operating these businesses,” Poulin told the Post. “Even if there is no violence businesses are affected.”

This is probably the part that most infuriates me: The innocent people caught in the middle. I’m all for a civilized peaceful protest, but when individuals start destroying store fronts, it hurts everyone. Many people have been avoiding the central area of the protest, resulting in loss of business and tourism. Like most downtown cores throughout Canada, many of the businesses are independently owned and operated. Also if these tuition hikes are implemented, many of these students will likely turn to these exact businesses for employment, to help pay for the rising tuition costs.  It essentially gives the whole movement a bad rap; people start talking about the way protesters are acting instead of the issues they are protesting around. If we want to gain the support of people outside of universities and colleges, it’s important to consider public image. And it seems as though it has been tarnished.

I think this whole movement will have implications beyond the educational realm. One interesting fact to note is that the idea for the current tentative agreement was initially proposed by former leader of the Bloc, Giles Duceppe. On top of this, the Bloc has claimed they would abolish tuition hikes if elected.  With the next provincial election slated to happen by the end of the year, quite possibly this summer, the youth vote could actually help slide the Bloc back into the forefront of Quebec politics, a position which has diminished over the past few elections.