'Don't want to antagonize:' G7 protestors vow restraint, question if police will follow suit
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Activists protesting the G7 gathering say they'll assemble peacefully but some doubted police will refrain from violently suppressing their right to demonstrate.
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An organizer with an alliance of 25 activist groups across the country that's bringing some of its members to Calgary said they avoid provoking police backlash but might not confine their activities to three designated protest zones being set up for them in Calgary located near the airport, at Municipal Plaza and in Victoria Park.
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'Depending on the security situation, we might do a march and we'll see what the implications of leaving the designated zones are but we don't want to put public safety at risk,' said Yasmeen Khan, North American vice-chair of the International League of Peoples' Struggle in Canada (ILPS).
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'We should be able to bring a voice to the wider public but at the same time, we don't want to antagonize.'
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Police have said they have no legal mandate to confine protestors to the assigned zones but add they won't tolerate law-outbreaking outside them.
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Khan said she expects modest numbers from her alliance's groups to come to Calgary, maybe as few as 100 – mostly activists from around western Canada, though demonstrators from other groups as well as Calgary-based will add to those numbers.
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They'll highlight a host of issues from Indigenous struggles, housing, migrant and national liberation struggles, wages, climate change and international support for Israel's onslaught on Gaza.
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'I don't think we're expecting thousands of people but we're hoping to bring together a political consciousness in Calgary,' she said, adding there's a simmering desire to join that movement in conservative Calgary.
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'There are people in the community who are waiting to come together, to be galvanized.'
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Activists target the G7, said Khan, because they don't believe its leaders seek to address the problems facing regular people.
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'It's a sham sense of democracy and decision-making,' said Khan.
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Activists will hold demonstrations and a 'peoples' forum' at Municipal Plaza June 14-15,, she said, and there could be other protests in the days that follow during the G7, which runs from June 15 to 17 with leaders from Canada, the U.S., the UK, Germany, Italy and France, Japan and the European Union will be gathering at Kananaskis Village to come to consensus on peace and security, economic stability and the war in Ukraine.
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