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﻿<title﻿>﻿New Socialist Magazine, Defending the Right To Protest in Vancouver - Article﻿</title>﻿
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﻿<b﻿>﻿Defending the Right To Protest in Vancouver 
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by Janis Kaleta﻿<br﻿>﻿
﻿<i﻿>﻿New Socialist Magazine, August - September 1998﻿</i>﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿
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The political stakes are high in what could be a major contest over local state regulations and laws governing the use of public space in Vancouver. It is shaping up to be a battle over the streets, sidewalks, and poles. The outcome could have a profound impact on the social and political lives of a large number of people. It could redefine the available space for dissident political action including the right to protest and assemble, and for occupying public space in general. Thus it has broad implications as a critical site of political action where the interests of labour and social movement activists converge with those of marginalized people like panhandlers, sex workers, homeless youth and drug users.
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The attack on the right to protest has taken the form of billing groups for the `costs of policing' and `engineering' rallies and marches. Invoices have been sent in a completely arbitrary manner; some demos have been overlooked, others have been invoiced whether or not they had a permit from the city. The International Women's Day Committee (IWDC) was billed $6600 for the costs of policing this year's "unpermitted" IWD rally. The Canadian Federation of Students (CFS) has received invoices for two years in a row for extra costs associated with permitted rallies. Organizers of an anti-racist march and rally in Surrey expected 10,000 people to attend and were informed they had to pay $28,000 for 'engineering' and policing costs.
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In part, the financial charges to protest groups are simply a blatant cash grab by city governments intent on implementing the neo-liberal agenda at the level of the local state. Policing is just one of the many city services that are being downloaded onto community groups, families, and individuals as the state restructures how it provides services in the interests of capital. The class bias of the state is clear in the pro-business city councils which have deeply eroded social rights at the local level.
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Public housing, vital health services, community and social programs are disappearing in the wake of land-use plans which favor gentrification and business development over the needs of the urban working class, the poor and the unemployed. People victimized by government austerity measures are being driven into the streets through poverty, homelessness and an unraveling social safety net. Survival there often comes in the form of sex trade work, busking, and panhandling.
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People are being driven into the streets in other ways as well. Anger at the priorities of the neo-liberal political project is finding expression in public dissent. Combined with social dislocation, public dissent can disrupt the security and order of the local business-state relationship. In order to preserve public space as a space for business, local governments have stepped up their efforts to control the streets. The attacks on the right to occupy public space are thus as much about constraint and social control as a cash grab.
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This means that while critical social services are being cut, city funds continue to be directed into systems of social control. Policing constitutes the largest item in the city of Vancouver's budget. In 1996, in the midst of budget-slashing hysteria, city council allocated $195 million for policing. An additional $60,000 was easily found for policing the International AIDS Conference. For the APEC conference last November, the city kicked in $1.5 million, part of which went into `the biggest security operation in Canadian history'.
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A portion of the funds for policing has gone towards social cleansing campaigns aimed at restricting access to public space. In an effort to hide from public view social problems that might indicate something other than a healthy local economy the state, backed by local business associations, has been relentless in attacking those displaced by its policies. Anti-prostitution initiatives, regulations against street vendors and buskers, and anti-panhandling by-laws have been used to target people who make their living on the public streets.
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Social control of dissident and minority political groups is increasing as well. The state has been intervening much more aggressively in terms of a heightened, more agitated police presence at protests and more rigid application of by-laws around public postering and rally permits. The state's ability to intervene effectively in this area is constrained by how successfully it frames its action in democratic terms.
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This was apparent by the widespread popular outrage at the anti-democratic actions of the state at the APEC conference last year. Strong public condemnation of the use of brute force by police during protests served notice to state authorities that democratic rights and freedoms are still considered inviolable by the majority of the public. Similarly, the current assault on the right to protest runs the danger of breaching the appearance of a neutral state serving the general public interest. As such it could undermine the credibility and legitimacy of the allegedly democratic state.
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Obviously preferring popular consent to wide criticism, the state has taken care to frame the billing process in terms of `ensuring public safety' and `protecting property' through the application of the `rule of law'. Additionally, the police have attempted to construct radical activists as outsiders by labeling them `radical fringe elements' who upset `law and order' and `professional protestors who always show up at events' to incite the more moderate elements.
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These ideological tactics, combined with the economic threat of the permit process, have been used by the state to shape and contain radical dissent. The appeal to `legality' has a huge pull on more moderate activists. This was evident at the June 28 anti-racist rally in Surrey. Organized by a broad coalition of groups in response to the murder of a Sikh man by neo-Nazis, it was expected to be the largest anti-racist event in the country's history. When the city of Surrey refused to issue a permit without assurances of a large financial payment the moderates in the coalition withdrew, unwilling to participate in an `illegal' march. Less than 2,000 people attended the rally, a serious lesson in how state attempts to institutionalize protest can actually restrict it to a very limited political space.
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Social activists have begun to organize resistance to these state-imposed limitations. Many are arguing that the right to occupy public space can only be won by actually being in the streets. This entails a strategic approach based on mobilizing large numbers of people in open defiance of state attempts to incorporate, limit, and divert protest activity through its institutions and laws. It means locating resistance in the only space that is truly legitimate for radical political dissent--the public domain external to the state.
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To get the necessary numbers in the street the resistance will have to include both radical activists and the larger broad left community. Rescinding the invoices and ending the practice of billing protest groups could be a pivotal deman﻿d on which to build a broad-based, powerful coalition of resistance. It has that potential because the winning of the right to assemble and protest in public is part of the rich histories of dissent of labour and social movements.
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Clearly recognizing the billing practice as a specific form of attack on that right, the National Action Committee on the Status of Women, the Vancouver Labour Council and the BC Nurses Union have all passed resolutions supporting IWDC and condemning the practice of billing protests. The CFS, anti-APEC protesters, and anti-poverty groups have declared a willingness to fight together to defend the freedom to occupy public space. A coalition formed around the issue of billing could thus become a point of departure from which to link up with the many different struggles against the neo-liberal state. 
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﻿<font﻿ ﻿size="1"﻿>﻿Janis Kaleta is a member of the New Socialist Group and the Vancouver International Women's Day Committee.﻿</font>﻿</font>﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

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