Organizers of an anti-globalization protest planned for Ottawa this month are trying to encourage activists planning to travel to Kananaskis to spend as much on protests here as they will to get to the G8 meetings in Alberta.
The "Kananaskis tax" idea emerged after some prospective protesters considered renting a jet to get to the gathering, which includes leaders of Western countries with the seven biggest economies plus Russia, said Lisa Freeman, a spokeswoman for the Take the Capital collective of protest groups.
"It was going to cost something like $600 per person," Ms. Freeman said. "A lot of people started saying, 'Hey, look, if you've got that kind of money to spend on a plane to Alberta, you should be able to put together $600 to help local organizing."
She said it's also an effort to combat a public impression that many people who go to protest conferences of world political, economic and financial leaders are "summit-hopping."
Summit-hoppers have divided the anti-globalization movement. Some of its members feel big protests at major meetings are the best way to draw public attention and, perhaps, demonstrate how some authorities choose to quell dissent. Without mass demonstrations, the argument goes, the public doesn't see free speech getting suppressed with tear gas.
A Web site on a Canadian server, titled "Summit Hopping -- Europe Summer 2001," offered activists an itinerary for a whole season's worth of protests from Spain to Slovenia.
Other activists, such as Ms. Freeman, argue that summit-based protests have become predictable and a waste of money.
"Definitely that's a part of it," she said. "It's an attempt to show that our movement doesn't have to be driven by the meetings of the G8 or anybody else. It's an attempt to show that people can create their own mass mobilization."
"While the anti-G8 protests are important, they cannot alone make the transformative change we seek," reads a message sent out by the collective of which Ms. Freeman is a part.
"We want our organizing to be grounded in the reality of local struggles, and to be in solidarity with groups that are fighting the policies of the G8 every day. It's not as if there's gonna be more state to smash in Kananaskis in June ... "
Ms. Freeman said the Take the Capital campaign, occurring at the same time as the G8 meetings but half a continent away, is "a way of drawing together the different groups who fight oppression in so many different ways. It goes hand-in-hand with the day-to-day work."
One of the groups Take the Capital suggests supporting is the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty, a Toronto-based group headed by John Clarke. Mr. Clarke was arrested last year in connection with an episode that saw several activists take over Ontario's then-finance minister Jim Flaherty's constituency office in Whitby, intimidate the staff there and throw some of his office furniture into the street.
Besides organizing protests, however, the poverty group does a lot of what Mr. Clarke calls "casework" on behalf of tenants, immigrants, the disabled and the poor. That casework ranges from informing people of their legal rights, to picketing buildings and making unannounced visits to officials whose decisions group members don't like.
He said the poverty group's budget varies from year to year, but has recently been "in the general region of $100,000 a year."
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