Summit
protests
Ronald Reagan and Canadian Premier Brian Mulroney on April 5-6 was touted as an important move to smoothe out frictions that had been growing between the two North American states, in particular over acid rain, since air pollution from US industries is becoming a serious threat to Canadian agriculture. Barry Weisleder reports. Because their talks accomplished nothing, the leaders of the two imperialist governments were barely able to save face by grasping at diplomatic straws. Both Reagan and Mulroney sought to use the Ottawa Summit to divert attention from domestic political crises.
The best Reagan could come up with was the claim that "nothing wrong." Mulroney's equally limp contention, in a slight departure from his prepared address to the Canadian parliament, that Reagan made concessions on the issues of Arctic sovereignty and acid rain strained the already battered credibility of the prime minister.
Reagan's speech to parliament was heckled briefly by several New Democratic Party (NDP) members when the president defended his Star Wars policy and the US funding of Contra mercenaries who are waging war against the people of Nicaragua.
Many workers and NDP members felt that the whole NDP parliamentary caucus should have loudly protested against Reagan's speech, if not staged a walkout when he defended the Contras.
But the real political action was outside, rather than inside the hallowed chamber, and there Mulrony got his fair share of abuse.
over 9,000 people marched and rallied in two separate actions in front of parliament to protest the policies of both right-wing governments.
Chanting, waving placards and flags, and carrying colourful banners, the youthful crowd attending the second and larger of the two rallies demanded an end to the US war against Nicaragua, restrictive Canadian immigration/refugee policy, US/NATO weapons' testing, acid rain/toxic waste dumping, apartheid in South Africa, attacks on women's rights, and the attacks of both governments on social programmes and workers' rights under the guise of "free trade"
Opposition to the US war in Central America, and to Canadian government complicity with US militarism emerged as a dominant theme of the day. Eight of the twelve speakers at the bi-lingual rally delivered an anti-war message. Particularly well received were remarks by Alison Acker of the Central America Solidarity Network who denounced Washington's war as "obscene", and the presentation by Jean-Pierre Duchesneau speaking for the Quebec Coalition to Aid Nicaragua, who pointed to recently revealed sales of arms and planes to the Contras by Quebec-based corporations as a glaring example of Canadian complicity.
After the rally, Duchesneau spoke to a packed forum of over 50 activists sponsored jointly by the Alliance for Socialist Action and Gauche Socialiste.
### March past NATO embassies
On April 6, 150 people demonstrated against Canadian "defence" policies at the Department of National Defence building in Ottawa. Thirty-five were arrested when they attempted to block the entrances in an act of civil disobedience. Sixty activists continued the protest by marching past several NATO country embassies, chanting anti-war slogans. That afternoon, seventy-five students protested against Nancy Reagan's visit to a local high school.
In the final analysis, the leaders' Summit achieved no new policies and the protests did not change any old
But the days of protest activities brought together a broad range of social movements, including labour, who possess the potential to stop the war in Central America, and to go on to establish a government in this country in the interests of the majority - in English Canada and Quebec — a workers' government.
The next small step in this long march forward are the demonstrations against US intervention and Canadian complicity in Central America planned for June 6.
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