Protesters, you have a friend in Clive Doucet. The Ottawa councillor will set up tables outside city hall Wednesday and Thursday, where he'll collect protesters' concerns and forward them to the feds.
Last week, council rejected Doucet's motion that the municipality take part in his initiative.
While acknowledging it's sometimes hard to decipher a coherent message from the protests that often accompany high-level meetings, such as this week's G8 summit in Kananaskis, Alta., Doucet says that message is generally a plea for true democracy.
An issue he points to specifically is how economically advanced countries continue to hold poor countries liable for debts, many of which were incurred by dictators and are now being paid for by the citizens of these nations.
Another issue, Doucet notes, is how democratically elected officials are made powerless against complex but binding trade agreements, which aren't even subject to proper scrutiny by elected officials.
"(Trade agreements) are passed by federal assemblies as appendixes to carriage bills," he says. "In other words, they are never debated in Parliament. The only thing a parliamentarian that you and I elect can do is vote for or against it."
Doucet says it makes sense protesters would come to the city this week because the summit in the Canadian Rockies was put there deliberately to isolate the process.
When police respond in riot gear, Doucet says, it increases the feeling of alienation, and often fuels violence.
But, the Capital ward councillor says, lessons have been learned from problems during November's G20 meetings in Ottawa. Doucet says police should take a more personal approach, keeping their faces visible and wearing name tags.
He acknowledges there are unfortunate by-products of such protests, like people being fearful of wandering downtown, but Doucet says that's something people must accept if they respect the right to protest.
'UNCOMFORTABLE'
"Dissent is uncomfortable," he says. "I'm uncomfortable with it. If you're a normal person, you don't like to see people constrained by something."
He sympathizes with those whose routines will be upset. But Doucet, who is known for pushing policies that encourage the use of sidewalks and buses over cars, won't shed tears for drivers who are stuck in traffic.
"The roads are public places, and cars don't have any more right to the roads than people," he says.
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