On January 1, 1994, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) came into effect, creating a new regional free trade zone stretching from the jungles of Chiapas to the arctic regions of Alaska.

Quebec City: Canada's Turning Point?

By Jason Adams

On January 1, 1994, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) came into effect, creating a new regional free trade zone stretching from the jungles of Chiapas to the arctic regions of Alaska. The moment it came into effect, southern Mexico’s Zapatistas siezed five sympathetic municpalities, declaring them autonomous from the authority of the Mexican state. They had been brought to this point because by signing onto to NAFTA, Mexico had dissolved the long-standing Indigenous collectively run small farms known as ejidos. Ever since that time, event after event has shown that this was a major turning point for Mexico, reinvigorating what had been a rapidly dying vision that another kind of world was indeed possible.
The uprising of the Zapatistas was an inspiration not just to Mexicans, but to people everywhere, including those deep within the belly of the beast.The recent caravan to Mexico City for instance, was flanked by thousands of accompanying supporters from around the U.S., Canada, and the world. Many of those who worked closely with the Zapatista solidarity movement also formed the core that organized resistance to the WTO in Seattle, where, nearly six year after NAFTA, the citizens of the world-dominant United States reached their major turning point as well. On November 30, 1999 Seattle exploded in the largest, most diverse demonstration in any American city since the 1960’s. The bold protests against the World Trade Organization (WTO) resulted in the complete collapse of the meetings and they were declared a failure.
Like the Zapatista uprising, this created a natiowide euphoric sense of hope, a sense that anything was possible, that if we put our minds to it, and worked together, we could make the world pretty much however we wanted it.
The advent of Seattle proved that the resistance to free-market capitalism was truly a global struggle - at the same time Seattle rose up, so too did cities around the world, from Hong Kong to Sao Paolo to London.
But though the youth were certainly inspired, mainstream Canada had not really been affected by Seattle in the way the mainstream U.S. had. In fact, just days before the Quebec City demonstrations began, Canadian polls claimed that as many as 54% supported increasing free trade throughout the Americas in the FTAA. But these questionable statistics crashed through the floor for good finally on April 20, 2001, when Canada reached it’s major turning point as well, with the massive demonstrations in occupied Quebec against the FTAA.
To sum up, in less than a decade, the extremely powerful interests behind all of these undemocratically negotiated free-trade agreements had inadvertantly created what they never intended to; the most extensively supported popular resistance movements seen in Mexico, the United States or Canada since the days of the early 20th century. Regionally, for the first time ever, a solidified, continental movement with the goal of supplanting laissez-faire capitalism had emerged, spanning across all corners of North America.
What exactly was it that made Seattle and Quebec (so similar in so many ways) major turning points for the U.S. and Canada? In Seattle, it was the extents to which both protestors and the police went over these issues; it was when the “no-protest zone