A diverse group of critics voiced a wide-range of concerns this week as Prime Minister Mark Carney held Canada’s first-ever investment summit at the Four Seasons hotel in downtown Toronto.
The summit, which was attended by Blackstone Inc.’s Jon Gray and BlackRock Inc.’s Larry Fink among dozens of other CEOs and institutional investors, was offering investment opportunities in 167 projects across energy, mining, marine infrastructure, power, digital technology manufacturing and transportation sectors across Canada.
On Tuesday, Carney announced “productivity mega deductions” and that the Canadian government is seeking private investment in the country’s four largest airports – in Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal and Calgary – as well as $1 trillion in investments in pipelines, ports and transportation networks, energy resources, artificial intelligence, and critical minerals over the next five years.
Unifor and the Canadian Labour Congress both strongly oppose airport privatization, saying it would raise costs for passengers, worsen working conditions for airport workers, and result in less public revenue.
Meanwhile, on Monday night, a mass demonstration was timed to coincide with a dinner for the summit’s participants at the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO). It drew over 1,000 protestors. The protest followed a two-day panel and counter-summit organized by a group called, “The Many vs. The Money.”
The demonstration was met by hundreds of police in riot gear, who had gated off the AGO hours before the demonstrations and were holding back crowds far from the summit itself.
Nevertheless, the critics of the government’s strategy of courting corporate investment shouted at police over bullhorns, and demonstrated their anger, accusing Carney of rolling back environmental protections, rolling back workers’ rights, as he privatizes public works and cuts back on funding for public services.
A regular feature of any public protest today is the diversity of messaging, and as the megaphone was passed around on Monday evening, protesters chanted for everything from worker’s rights, environmental preservation, indigenous solidarity, Palestinian liberation, fair housing advocacy, and a generally anti-capitalist and anti-corporate agenda.
One person with the bullhorn at the protest outside the OCAD building in Toronto was Miles Magner, a member of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union.
“Different people find themselves at this location because of a specific issue that they’re involved in,” said Magner, “but we’re seeing that there’s a common thread emerging in Canadian politics right now, in the economy, which is Carney’s solution is on the one hand promoting a corporate agenda politically, through subsidies, through tax cuts on corporations.”
Two other people who had traveled to the protest were Rainbow Child from Serpent River First Nation, Ontario, and Kanahus Manuel, from Secwepemc / Ktunaxa Nation.
“Everybody that’s here is fighting for something and the common enemy right now are those 250 billionaire CEOs inside that building. So yeah, we can have a lot in common with each other,” said Manuel.
“Everything who we are as native people comes from the land, our culture, our language, our way of life, our foods, everything that has sustained us since the beginning of time and now these corporations and these organized group of billionaires are coming into our land and trying to take the last of what we have left. We’re forced onto little tiny Indian reserves, 0.2% of our land base here in so-called Canada and their only other choice we have is to fight back. We have to fight back or else we’ll have nothing.”
Rainbow Child agreed, and continued, “We’re supposed to be one of the most richest countries in the fucking world. And here we are, bathing our daughters and babies with fucking bottled water. I’m fucking sick of it, man. I’m sick of these fucking pipelines.”
Support rabble today!
We’re so glad you stopped by! Thanks for consuming rabble content this year.
rabble.ca is 100% reader and donor funded, so as an avid reader of our content, we hope you will consider gifting rabble with a donation during our summer fundraiser today.
Whether it be a one-time donation or a small monthly contribution, your support is critical to keep rabble writers producing the work you’ve come to rely on as a part of a healthy media diet.
Become a rabble rouser — donate to rabble.ca today.
Nick Seebruch, editor
