Canada: Occupy Wall Street movement hits twenty cities

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Canada: Occupy Wall Street movement hits twenty cities

By a WSWS reporting team
17 October 2011

 

Demonstrators in Toronto

Thousands of youth, workers, professionals and retirees marched in “Occupy Canada” demonstrations held in 20 cities and towns across the country on Saturday. Targeting the financial or governmental centers in cities like Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, Kingston, Halifax, Vancouver, Winnipeg, Edmonton and Regina, protestors set up tent villages in downtown public spaces and vowed to continue their action indefinitely. On Sunday, occupiers of St. James Park in Toronto’s financial district voted to march on the stock exchange Monday morning to express their outrage over the burgeoning social inequality in Canada. Similar actions are being planned from coast to coast over the coming days and weeks.

 

Protester in Vancouver

The spread of the Occupy Wall Street protests internationally has undeniable political significance. The movement that is developing is, in its essence, anti-capitalist. The protests are animated by aspirations for social equality. Their banner slogan, “We are the 99 percent,” is imbued with working class hostility to the monopolization of society’s wealth by a tiny financial and corporate elite—the “one percent”—and its domination over political life. They are giving voice to the opposition to mass unemployment, the slashing of wages and conditions, soaring education and health costs, environmental degradation and war.

 

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