Demonstrators at the G-8 Summit next month say they have nailed down a location for their protest camp, but it will be nowhere near where world leaders are scheduled to meet.
Instead, the so-called Solidarity Village will be around 50 kilometres south of Calgary on private land skirting Highway 2A en route to Lethbridge.
“It’s completely different from where we originally planned,” said Melissa Scaman, a local activist and spokesperson for the G-8 Action Coordinating Team (G-8ACT).
The Calgary-based organizers initially hoped to pitch the camp — as many as 10,000 demonstrators are expected to congregate at the village — closer to K-country as a hub for planned activism in response to the world leaders’ meetings.
The camp’s coordinators were heavily involved in negotiations with the Stoney First Nation as late as last week about acquiring land near the G-8 Summit site in Kananaskis Village.
But after months of wrangling it appears protesters have been shut out of the region.
Director of Kananaskis Country Dave Nielsen reportedly told the Calgary Herald Tuesday (May 14) K-country stakeholders, including the Alberta Government, would not permit protesters to camp on Provincial land during the summit.
“We don’t want to see it in Kananaskis,” Nielsen was quoted as saying in the Herald. “Any protest camp in Kananaskis would have strong concerns associated with it, environmentally and… (in terms of) control and orderliness.”
He was unavailable for comment at press time.
Scaman said she does not believe protesters have been shut out of K-country.
“We didn’t want to be in Kananaskis for environmental reasons as well as safety concerns for people who were camping,” she said. “We don’t see it as being shut out of Kananaskis.”
G-8 Summit management office spokesperson Michael O’Shaughnessy denied Federal Government involvement in keeping protesters out of K-country.
“We’re aware groups are in discussions with various landowners,” he said.
“This will be up to the land owners to decide what to do with the land.”
Scaman said Solidarity Village coordinators are not disappointed about being so far removed from the summit site.
“We think it would be a lot more effective if we did actions in the city of Calgary because there’s more people and more attention and more infrastructure to do things rather than being stuck out in the middle of nowhere,” she said.
The Highway 2A site will ease access into Calgary for protesters staying at the site and be less of a logistical burden for camp organizers establishing contingencies for emergencies such as medical concerns, Scaman said.
“The deeper we got into it the better idea it seemed to be closer to Calgary,” she said.
Scaman said the Solidarity Village was never intended to be a launching pad for protesters to infiltrate the summit site in K-country.
“That’s organized by individual groups,” she said.
“Direct action has nothing to do with the Solidarity Village. It’s more viewed as a networking site, a place where a lot of workshops are taking place and entertainment. It’s more a place where people can come to and relax and educate themselves about the G-8.
“It was never about trying to get as close to Kananaskis as possible.”
Scaman acknowledged it is still likely protesters who are not involved with G-8ACT or the Solidarity Village could try to penetrate the Summit site.
“They’ll have their own ideas of what they want to do ahead of time and they’re not going to rely on us who are organizing the Solidarity Village,” she said.
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