Day one of the G7 finace ministerial in HFX

hfx fri 14 june 2002

Taking the Coast!
G7 face opposition in Atlantic Canada
A brief communique by jon elmer

As the sun was setting over Citadel Hill, military snipers atop the buildings surrounding the conference centre traded their rifles for cameras and got the last few natural-light photographs of the fertile resistance that had been swarming the downtown of Halifax.

Playing host to the Imperial-7 finance ministers comes with all the perks of targeted welfare: namely, several hundred foot soldiers, rented vans for the reinforcements, a helicopter, a few justices of the peace to book the arrestees, some cleared out prison cages, a fresh new arsenal of gas, pepper and stun grenades… that type of welfare. Which is to say nothing of the city 'beautification' projects, the extra lobsters and mussels for the delegates (that’s why they come to Nova Scotia), and the dozens of millions of our dollars spent on the pomp and ceremony as well as the criminalization of dissent.

And dissent it was. Upwards of 500 people took the downtown of Halifax in a 'mobile street party', buttressed by eloquent and uncompromising spoken-word from some of Halifax's hardest working activists, as well as Njoki Njehu of the 50 Years is Enough Network. Equipped with a sound-system mounted on the back of a pick-up truck, the forces of reggae and hip-hop provided the soundtrack for an evening of resistance that took just about every possible street in the (albeit tiny) downtown core.

Shucking the security cages that have been so popular with summit security officials, it was easily moveable metal barricades that provided the security for the ministerial wine-and-cheese (or maybe it was lobster-and-Keith's) this time around. Without a chain-link fence to keep the 'peace' it was up to the resistance to choose it's march-route, with cops scrambling to figure out which way we were headed. Of course, they couldn't, and the crowd took the two most important 'strips' of this tourist city while the foot soldiers shook their heads and radioed for orders from their superiors.

For the most part, the police responded in a rag-tag manner and were left shuffling in every direction, clearly one-step behind the 'headless' organization. When the inevitable police attempt to silence the sound-truck was made later in the evening, a couple hundred activists 'unarrested' the vehicle in style and provided a precedent that will surely carry into Saturday's events. About a hundred activists took a busy downtown mall while bewildered security guards stood aside, and pedestrian traffic looked on in curiosity.

With much ballyhoo about the Black Bloc, authorities and media-saturated pedestrians must have been confused by the presence of the Pink Bloc on the streets of Halifax. Sporting a luscious pink tank (for self-defense), the Pink Bloc must have sent the 'undercover' cops scrambling for orders: "Ah, sergeant, there aren't any kids with black bandannas, so can I arbitrarily arrest these radicals in Pink?" A question to which his superior likely answered: "No, don't do it, we haven't created a media-frenzy about any Pink Bloc to justify the repression, yet".

So it was on day one of the G7 finance ministerial meetings in Halifax. One can only wonder if they will let us as close to the conference centre on Saturday.