A crowd of about 150 people showed up at the University of Ottawa Oct. 6 for Occupy Ottawa’s first meeting.
Occupy Ottawa is part of a new movement that has sprung up around the globe, in which people gather in public spaces in protest of social injustice. The first of these protests, Occupy Wall Street, took place Sept. 17 in New York City. Demonstrators have occupied a park in the city’s financial district for over three weeks.
Since the original demonstration in New York, over 400 like-minded protests have surfaced, according to Occupy Wall Street’s website.
“It’s time to put people before profits [and] communities before corporations,” reads the mission statement on Occupy Ottawa’s Facebook group.
“Right now, you’re looking at a climate around the world, especially here in North America, [where] we’re not sheltered from the economic disparities that are becoming really acute, and are driving people to take action,” said the Ottawa movement’s organizer and a graduate in international development, who asked to be identified as Kevin D.
“We’ve tried a lot of different methods, protesting, lobbying groups, but our politicians don’t listen, and that’s why we have this dissent right now.”
The initial Ottawa meeting focused on organizing and planning an overall strategy for the organization. More than 12 sub-committees were formed at the meeting, according to Kevin D, and Confederation Park has been chosen as a location for the group’s “general assembly,” which will take place Oct. 15. Groups in Vancouver, Calgary, Victoria, and Edmonton are also planning action Oct. 15.
While no clear goals have been defined by Occupy Ottawa, literature was on hand stating: “[We] gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice . . . We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies.”
Brigette DePape, the former Senate page who held up a sign that read “Stop Harper” during the June 3 throne speech, was among those in attendance at the meeting.
“This movement started with young people in the States who are fed up with politics as usual,” she said. “We’ve heard about it through social media, and it’s really exciting to see this surge of outrage at the clarity of understanding that our political system is not working for us, and our economic system is not working for us.”
Everyone at the meeting maintained a message of non-violence and agreed the protest will be peaceful.
“[A violent protest would be] completely counter-productive to what we’re trying to do,” said first-year Carleton student Sean Wilkin.
Others said they would personally subdue any upstarts of violence from within the protest.
Although there was a consensus for peaceful protest, there was more debate about whether or not the police should be involved and notified of the group’s upcoming activities. Some were apprehensive.
“We have the right to peacefully assemble. I’m not going to kowtow to the police. They have no right to tell me where I can and cannot protest. If we tell them how many we are, and where we’re going to be, they’re just going to send twice as many people,” a woman, who asked to remain anonymous, said at the meeting.
Others said they believe a transparent dialogue with police was the only way to ensure their right to protest wouldn’t be subverted.
As for the actual occupation of a location in Ottawa, Major’s Hill Park has been discussed as a possibility, but this decision will be made at the general assembly Oct. 15, according to Occupy Ottawa’s Facebook group.
