The anti-globalization protests in Calgary, Ottawa and Kananaskis are old news. It's the same actors sincerely singing their favourite anti-capitalist songs to a media, led by the CBC that can't get enough of confrontation.
It never seems to occur to the vast majority of protesters that capitalism is the only system in the world that has tolerated that level of protest, yet it's the one they oppose.
Only a capitalist country like Canada would provide funding as it did during the WTO meetings last year in Quebec City for a "People's Summit" organized to criticize government policy. I have to admit they lost me during the People's Summit when they loudly cheered the mention of Fidel Castro, a man not known for his tolerance of pointed criticism.
We hear the same protesters condoning property destruction as a legitimate form of protest and thereby undermining the concerns of other opponents of globalization whose concerns go beyond the simplistic all-or-none rhetoric in favour of a researched point of view.
In spite of the familiar scenes and war of words, things are changing. Free trade is now more widely recognized as an important step in reducing poverty among the world's least developed nations. Not that the leaders of those countries haven't been calling for a reduction in tariffs in agriculture and textiles for some time but the old left as encompassed by groups as disparate as the BCTF to Young Trotskyites have ignored them.
That hasn't been the case with the new left, which has lined up squarely on the side of free trade and advancement of that goal through WTO.
Recently former NDP premier Bob Rae stated that the current opposition of the federal NDP to free trade and the WTO represented a form of democratic socialism that he could no longer support. I'm sure that in light of the softwood lumber dispute many members of the IWA see his point of view.
Last year British Prime Minister, Tony Blair declared in his address to the House of Commons, "the case against [free trade] is misguided, and worse, unfair, and however sincere the protests, they cannot be allowed to stand in the way of rational argument."
Even former opponents of free trade like Oxfam International have changed their views. A report released this year clearly stated that "history makes a mockery of the claim that trade cannot work for the poor."
Maybe they were influenced by new research by David Dollar and Aart Kraay, entitled Trade, Growth and Poverty that found that there is a significant difference in economic growth between those developing nations that embraced free trade since 1980 and those who favoured protectionism.
The fact that poverty in Africa has found a global stage is positive but we should be clear that the task that lies ahead requires changes in trade policies from both rich and poor nations.
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