About 200 protesters gathered in front of the Omni hotel on March 29 to protest neo-liberal free trade in general and goverments' disregard of the environment in particular. Inside the Omni, the environment ministers from 34 American countries were missing the carnivalesque atmosphere down in the street.

MONTREAL—Denis Morton's face was visible only through the mouth and teeth of the paper mâché shark head he decided to sport at Thursday's demonstration outside the Omni hotel where met environment ministers from all the Americas.
With a cardboard finn on his back, he jokingly called himself the protector of the stock market, one who "buys and devours life." The member of activist group salAMI (French pun on the word salami sausage that also means dirty Multilateral Agreement on Investments) was one of the 200 or so carnivalesque demonstrators protesting both neo-liberal free trade in general and governments' disregard for the environment in particular.
Activists, following the trend of spicing up demonstrations, had everyone vibrating to the sounds of dozens of tamtams during the two-hour long demonstration in front of the Omni hotel, on Sherbrooke St., where the conference was held.
Near Morton were also two dozen people dressed as cows with placards saying "FTAA makes us mad cows." Eric Darier, from Greepeace's Montreal chapter, said it is important to use easy visual examples of the possible impacts of free trade on the environment.
Next to him, was a genetically-modified Tony the Tiger, exemplyfiying Kellogg's attempt to commercialize genetically-modified cereals on the North American market.
"With free trade, it will be easier for Kellogg's to spread their genetically-modified cereals across the the continent," Darier warned.
In a press conference held just before the demonstration, citizens' groups criticized Canada for not making clear their position on climate change, a subject that was hotly debated during the two-day conference.
The day before the demonstration, U.S. president George W. Bush said he would not respect the Kyoto Protocol as it was not in his country's "best economic interest." This was a slap in the face to the international community as the agreement was to help reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. Bush's reaction jeopardized the agreement that had been signed in 1997 by 38 developped countries.
"We have a conference of silent environment ministers on the other side of the street who won't account for the fact that George W. Bush declared war on earth yesterday," said Maude Barlow of the Council of Canadians.
By the end of the conference, the environment ministers of all countries (except Canada) had strongly come out against the U.S. policy.
With a president that will not do anything that will not make the most powerful country in the world even more powerful, there is no way anyone should sign a free trade deal with them, Barlow said.
"We're telling our colleagues in the south that this is not MERCOSUR (a free trade agreement between South American countries) and they will loose control over hydro electricity, water, wood, [as corporations will be allowed to take over through privatizations]," Barlow said.

Who decides what's best?

However, the Department of Foreign Affairs and International trade spokesperson Nathalie Dubé pointed out that a Costa Rican official, in an interview in Canada, said that people from the north should not tell them what to do, as they can well decide for themselves.
Asked whether or not telling Latin Americans what is good or bad for them is not reproducing patterns of colonization, Barlow shrugged her head. She said that this criticism is unwarranted, as the Council of Canadians and other North American citizens' groups have good working relationships with landless peasants and social rights activists all over South America.
"The elite in the third world negotiate on behalf of their class. They have more to do with their [political] counterparts in the first world than with their citizens," Barlow said.
Their interests are those of a privileged few, which leads to privatizing natural resource industries, amongst other things. This commodifies the resources and increases the disparities between rich and poor, Barlow argued.
"At this conference, they're talking about corporate social codes [for corporations investing in natural reources of developing countries], but it's all a smoke screen if there is no change in the fundamentals of this free trade agreement, because they just promote the continual growth ethos," Barlow said.
So while the Free Trade Area of the Americas doesn't seem the solution to a better continent, the Canadian Labour Congress' Dave Bennet said that a Common Market, like the European Union, would be a much more pleasant solutions.
The EU has a regional policy to assist poorer countries, like Spain, Portugal or Ireland. It also has standards that all member countries have to meet with respect to labour, social welfare, education and services.
"It's a completely approach than NAFTA or the WTO, which limit the powers of government ... The EU is completely different as it has measures to protect social ecology and the environment amongst others," said Bennett, who is the CLC's National Director of Health, Safety and the Environment.
Integrating the Americas in an ever more globalized world might not be a bad idea, but not if it's only about the financial and business sectors. There also has to be the integration of the political and the social, his argument goes.
The conference of environment ministers was a practice, both for protestors and governments, who will face off again in Quebec City where will be held the Summit of the Americas, April 20-22. The Free Trade Area of the Americas, democracy and development will be on the agenda for the heads of the 34 'democratic' countries in the Americas.
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