A trip to a local army surplus store in Montreal in search of protective gear for the FTAA summit encovers a surveillance plot... or does it?

Army Excess Store
By Linda Dawn Hammond

In a quest to find sealed protective goggles, to serve the dual purpose of moped riding AND photographing the upcoming FTTA summit meeting, I did the rounds of Montreal army surplus stores last week (April 11th, 2001).

A chatty owner of a Blvd. St.Laurent store informed me that the police have been visiting all the army surpluses in Montreal, asking questions such as- how many gas masks have been recently bought and what other protective devices and weapons, by whom, and with which universities were these customers probably associated.

It was hard to judge what the owner himself was up to. He noticed my name on a document I was carrying and repeated it to himself in full with such velocity that I couldn’t help suspect a hidden recording device. He then declared that "our" peaceful protests were futile, and tried to get me to agree with him verbally that the only way things would change was not through politics or peaceful protest, but through violence. He suggested that when the police hit us, our response should be to fight back en masse. It was the only way to "win". I reminded him that we, as opposed to the police, are unarmed. His solution? That we should also arm ourselves. Of course, this could all have been an innocent ploy to sell me weapons- after all, he HAD picked up a large 8 inch knife while he pontificated, unsheathed it, and was stroking the jagged blade with a cloth as he paced to and fro behind the counter.

All the while I disagreed, of course, stating that our purpose in going was to engage in meaningful and peaceful discussion on the issues of globalization, and to establish a presence with those who would deny us a voice in the decision-making process.

Who knows, perhaps I’m being paranoid for suspecting that he was an informant for the police. He was probably just your average armchair revolutionary shopkeeper, with an axe (and the odd knife) to grind.