MONTREAL (CP) - The stubborn opponents of globalization are living in the past while governments fight to remove barriers that punish the poor, International Trade Minister Pierre Pettigrew said Friday.
Protesters are planning to conduct several marches in an attempt to disrupt a three-day World Trade Organization meeting that begins in Montreal on Monday.
But Pettigrew warned them they won't succeed against tight security.
"If they want to stop us, fine, good luck," Pettigrew told a news conference.
"I trust the police of Montreal but they (protesters) should bear the responsibility that what they're trying to do is really to screw the African cotton farmers and the African HIV victims as well."
Montreal police Cmdr. Pierre Cadieux told reporters at a technical briefing they have been preparing for the meeting since early June.
A security perimeter will be established around the downtown hotel where the meeting will be held.
City police are being supported by provincial officers and the RCMP. Cadieux refused to divulge any details about security arrangements.
"We're ready for every scenario," he said.
Protesters said the meeting is another "capitalist masquerade" that will aggravate the consequences of extreme poverty, war, misery, and famine.
"Our battle is shared with people around the world and we are organizating in order to fight the global capitalist agenda," said Stefan Christoff, a spokesman for the Popular Mobilization Against the WTO.
"The WTO is but one of the violent instruments of an empire that must be immediately blocked and dismantled."
The protesters blamed the WTO for preventing generic AIDS drugs from being available in Africa. As a force for modern-day colonization, the organization allows multinational corporations to control local economies, they say.
"We're not anti-globalization," said Christoff. "Globalization is something that is an inevitable phenomenon of the world. We're against capitalist globalization."
Opponents of globalization appear to have the support of at least one Canadian political leader. Federal NDP Leader Jack Layton said Canadian sovereignty is threatened by WTO discussions.
Layton said international trade deals give rights to multinational corporations and take them away from people. He said multinationals are arguing before the WTO that Canada should not have control over pesticides.
The companies also contend Canada's unemployment insurance program is a subsidy for workers, he told reporters in Montreal.
"Canadians want to trade but we don't want to trade in an environment that takes away our sovereignty and that's precisely what's happening in these trade negotiations," Layton said.
But Pettigrew said a stronger WTO is needed to help Canada defend its right to fair trade in such disputed products as softwood lumber and steel.
Knocking down agricultural subsidies would also help African cotton farmers who are forced to sell their products at devalued prices because American cotton farmers receive $160,000 a year in government aid.
The three-day meeting will include representatives of 26 countries who will discuss trade issues before a full-scale WTO meeting this fall in Cancun, Mexico.
Pettigrew said the Montreal meeting is important in helping participants address disagreements on agricultural subsidies, trade barriers and pharmaceutical drugs.
"This is basically a meeting that will want to weed out the issues, so that when we arrive in Cancun, we're already hot," he said.
Pettigrew plans to join with Agricultural Minister Lyle Vanclief to push participating countries to reopen their borders to Canadian beef following a mad cow scare.
"It's clearly an opportunity for us to promote the reopening of the borders around the world," he said, noting that Alberta beef will be served to the dignitaries.
While opponents outside North America have made positive contributions by pushing alternatives, including tougher environmental standards, the Montreal protesters are living in the past, Pettigrew said.
He noted there will always be opposition to change as there was with the Industrial Revolution and the introduction of the telephone.
"Every time there is change, people have fear," he said. "It's a normal human reflex of insecurity against evolution and progress."
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