Occupy Montreal: Like New York, but with bilingual flavour
City's small business area a logistical problem
By CATHERINE SOLYOM, The Gazette Protesters march over the Brooklyn Bridge during an Occupy Wall Street protest. In Montreal, organizers say 3,000 have signed up for a similar rally.
Photograph by: JESSICA RINALDI REUTERS, The Gazette
MONTREAL - Close to 3,000 people have joined up to Occupy Montreal and they're hoping many more will show up Saturday to take over Victoria Square - the city's equivalent to Wall St., overlooking the Stock Exchange, Quebecor, Power Corp. and the World Trade Centre, among other overt local symbols of capitalism.
It remains to be seen however, how the movement inspired by the Arab Spring and the American Autumn will play out in Montreal, where our social safety net may be wider than in New York City, but our police are no less nervous.
For now, organizers are concentrating on logistics - how to turn the city's small financial district into an urban utopia emulating Zuccotti Sq. in Manhattan, where the Occupy Wall Street movement was born Sept. 17.
Over the last month the movement, broadly defined as one aiming to restore democracy, power and opportunity to the disenfranchised 99 per cent of the population, has spread all over the U.S. and now across the border.
There is Occupy Chicago, Occupy Philly, there's even Occupy Occupy Wall Street - or "Bankers Unite" - to facetiously represent the one per cent of the population who do have money while they chant "Status quo! Status quo!" in the park.
In Quebec there is Occupy Saguenay and even Occupy Pierrefonds - with larger protests planned for Vancouver, Edmonton, Toronto and Montreal.
Occupy Montreal was holding a general assembly Thursday night on how to proceed here.
They need food, tents, Walkie Talkies, and port-o-potties. They don't need leaders or manifestos or political affiliations.
Organizers say the occupation will be bilingual, and non-violent.
Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/business/Occupy+Montreal+Like+York+with+bilingual+flavour/5548496/story.html#ixzz1arQO5UH4
Occupy Montreal to take over Victoria Square Saturday
Thousands of protesters are expected to flood Victoria Square Saturday as the Occupy movement moves to Montreal.
 Nikolaos Gryspolakis, Laura Boyd, and Maxwell Ramstead are taking part in Occupy Montreal (Oct. 14, 2011) |
Updated: Fri Oct. 14 2011 2:28:22 PM
ctvmontreal.ca
ctvmontreal.ca
MONTREAL — Thousands of protesters are expected to flood Victoria Square Saturday as the Occupy movement moves to Montreal.
Starting New York a month ago with Occupy Wall Street, thousands of people have demonstrated for a mass of causes linked by economic disparity.
"What we basically want to allow is for the financial sector to act like a financial sector, as opposed to acting like a giant casino that only benefits very few," said Maxwell Ramstead, who plans to attend Saturday's event.
Calling themselves the 99%, protesters say something must change given high unemployment levels, the lack of a social safety net, and multi-millionaires paying a lower percentage of income taxes than people earning just thousands of dollars a year.
"On Saturday we're going to have more than 1,000 cities participating," said Nikolaos Gryspolakis, one of the people spearheading the Montreal movement. However he cautions that this is a movement without a leader.
"There is no you, it's us. It's a collective," he said.
Police said they usually speak to the leaders of a movement to get an idea of what the group intends, but that is impossible in this case.
Police say they are ready for anything at Saturday's protest, which is scheduled to begin at 9:30 Saturday morning with about 4,500 people listed as "attending" on the Facebook event.
Police say if a group becomes violent, it will not be tolerated.
No comments:
Post a Comment