Public Security Minister Serge Menard warms to bikeshivist ideology.

For four days our 38-wheel rolling counter-summit of bikesheviks pedaled through the countryside towns and villages of the highway 138 between Montreal and Quebec City. We raised awareness about the Free Trade Area of the Americas and the impact it would have on the environment, on labour standards and on human rights. We also talked about the security overkill of "Fortress Quebec".

Now it seems that our message is finally getting through. Quebec Public Security Minister Serge Menard has publicly marveled about the $100 million security price tag, saying that the money could have "created a lot of bike paths" for the provinces citizens.

We must add to that figure the $13 million that a NAFTA tribunal ordered the Canadian government to pay to Ethyl Corporation in compensation for its attempt to ban MMT (a carcinogenic gasoline additive), the millions of dollars that will have to be paid in compensation to multinational PCB exporters in Canada, the millions of dollars our health system will have to spend in order to treat cancer victims, as well as the incalculable environmental and human costs that we will bear collectively so that corporate "investors rights" can be protected. Once we add up this larger price tag, we begin to realize that by scrapping the FTAA, NAFTA and other investors rights agreements we could build bike paths in every city, town and village across the Americas.

This is what the vélorution is all about. It is gratifying to see the Public Security Minister warming to our bikeshevist ideology. Unfortunately, the message has yet to filter down the chain of command.

Upon entering Quebec City on highway 138, our merry band of vélorutionaries was stopped by some heavily armoured members of the province’s finest. They demanded that we identify ourselves, that we divulge our political opinions vis-à-vis the FTAA and that we tell them what our intentions were while in the province’s capital. Luckily an independent media crew was there to capture the discussion on video tape, otherwise our failure to cooperate might have landed us behind bars even before the first tear gas canister was launched.

Throughout the weekend, bikesheviks experienced what we considered to be forms of police harassment. Most incidents occurred nowhere near the famous security perimeter. Riot squad check points in residential areas all over the city made our comings and goings their business. When video taping police removing the gas mask of a passer by I was threatened with arrest, ostensibly because I did not have a light on the front of my bike (even though I had flashing lights on both the front and the back of my helmet). "You don’t need to film police on the corner for thirty minutes" I was told as the officer put his hand over the camera lens.

Serge Menard should give his troops a little talking to. The bikesheviks would be happy to set-up a vélurtionary re-education camp for the job. The vélorution will not be motorized!