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Seven Gs
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Press Progress's Stephen Magusiak joins Jim and Jeremy to talk about this week's G7 conference—and not about the unimportant parts, like global geopolitics, but about what really matters: what Albertans were doing. Who was organizing around G7 locally and were they successful? The fellas get into it.
Support the Progress Report pod by becoming a patron at theprogressreport.ca/patrons :)
Stephen writes for Press Progress, which you can find at pressprogress.ca
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Transcript
Introduction and Network Overview
00:00:00
Speaker
Hi folks, Jim here. I keep forgetting to record these little intro stingers and shame on me for that because I should have been telling you about the Harbinger Media Network. We are part of the Harbinger Media Network.
00:00:12
Speaker
It is a collection of some of the best podcasts from the radical left all across the country. There's a lot of great stuff on there every week. An episode that I thought was pretty exciting recently was from the ah friends at the Alberta Advantage.
00:00:27
Speaker
They interviewed Tom Fraser. about the politics of union pensions. That might not sound too exciting on its face, but it turns out that some of Canada's largest labour unions through their pensions have gotten mixed up in some pretty problematic stuff.
00:00:42
Speaker
And the Alberta Advantage folks and Tom get into it, so I would check that one out. Also check out Harbinger's own website. It's at the harbingermedianetwork.com.
00:00:54
Speaker
And you can find all of our friends and comrade podcasts on there. Harbinger also runs a news aggregator site called Unrigged at unrigged.ca that collates posts and blog posts and articles from all of our organizations.
00:01:11
Speaker
So check that out too.
Podcast Highlights on Labor and Local Organizing
00:01:12
Speaker
I don't think you would go wrong if you made that your web browser homepage. All right, well that's my bit. On to the chiptune.
00:01:32
Speaker
Friends and enemies, welcome to another episode of the Progress Report podcast. We are your co-hosts, Jim Story and Jeremy Appel. Today we're talking about the big party up in Banff and Kananaskis area, the G7 conference. And we've got Stephen Magusiak from Press Progress here to help us tease our way through a bit of it.
00:01:55
Speaker
Now, I know, folks, you don't usually follow us for foreign policy or geopolitical commentary, and that's not really the focus of the conversation today.
00:02:08
Speaker
We are looking at this more from the lens of local Alberta organizing and, you know, who's up there protesting, who is organizing, who is using this as an opportunity to build their lists, build their movement.
00:02:24
Speaker
I think that there's a lot of interesting stuff going on at that level. So yeah, Jeremy. Jeremy, you were up there all weekend. How are you doing? you You must be a little tired, a little burnt out.
00:02:36
Speaker
Yeah, a bit tired. I've had a pretty hectic week from ah going down to Fort McLeod to attend age raucous to put mildly UCP town hall on their coal policy to Calgary for the progressive ah public's conference where myself and our guest spoke on the weekends and you were in attendance and then ah covering G7 protests in Calgary and Banff. So yeah, I am wiped.
Coal Policy and Rural Conservationists
00:03:13
Speaker
I am somehow still chugging along this week, but I think I might, we're recording this on Thursday. I think I might make tomorrow, Friday, a day where I sleep most of the day.
00:03:28
Speaker
Well, folks, make Jeremy's sacrifice worth it and go read that piece about the Coaltown Hall. It's on Jeremy's personal sub stack. No, it's not. It's a National Observer. It is National Observer.
00:03:42
Speaker
National Observer. Yeah. Head over to the National Observer. and They don't let me reprint my stuff. um I write for them on my newsletter. They like having it exclusive, which is fine.
00:03:55
Speaker
It's fine. I linked to it in my weekly roundup, but yeah, it's, it's a Candice National Observer exclusive. Last I checked, it was still on their front page. So it must be doing numbers or it's just the summer. So yeah,
00:04:11
Speaker
um It may be doing numbers. It it was a ah pretty um pretty entertaining incident ah from what I read. I mean, you've got the what you might call the core blunt constituency out there, the anti-coal rural conservationist crowd.
00:04:29
Speaker
And these people have not lost steam despite the the government pushing through with the coal exploration, these people are not dropping their opposition. They continue to organize, they continue to push hard. And it seems like ah sentiment is is really leaning in their favor out
G7 Protests and Indigenous Representation
00:04:48
Speaker
there.
00:04:48
Speaker
So yeah, folks, check out check out Jeremy's piece. That's not the subject of today's conversation, but it's a good article.
00:04:57
Speaker
Well, let's get back into G7. You were on site, Jeremy. Can you tell us a little bit about who was up there demonstrating when you were up there? Yeah. so there So as I said, I went to two protests, or I guess you could say three, because basically in Calgary on the Sunday, um there was ah in the afternoon there was, ah first there was a protest at city hall, which is one of the three designated protest zones for the G7, uh, you know, dozens of kilometers away from the actual summit, um, in Calgary. And then there was one Banff.
00:05:41
Speaker
Um, and, uh, it was, uh, it was actually, it was related to, uh, the, town hall I covered ah in fact someone on stage mentioned a video I shot of Danielle Smith confronting uh protesters who were ah disrupting our media scrum with her telling them to show a little courtesy and to please stop and uh you know but um and it was it was about protecting the the water right and it was indigenous led ah
00:06:13
Speaker
ah And it um had ah several, ah you know, First Nations ah speakers, people from Keepers the of the Water, which is a great ah organization that people in Alberta should familiarize themselves with.
00:06:32
Speaker
um you know, ah Calgary Climate Hub. um
00:06:40
Speaker
um And then, ah but but also ah ah other organizations that are... less directly connected to the Israehan. So like Migrante, for example, right? the the Which advocates for Filipino migrant workers.
00:06:58
Speaker
ah You have the International League of People Struggles, which is an organization i wasn't familiar with. I discovered this weekend that are quite cool. And they take a very anti-imperialist approach to looking at the world. um And they actually organized the march that came after. And that was sort of the second event of the day.
00:07:18
Speaker
um And the march happened. i saw Rick Bell walking around in in that during the rally. And then I saw him like ah walking along with the march, like sort of at the side.
00:07:33
Speaker
And ah his column is quite funny. It's hilarious. yeah ah ah You can smell the pot smoke, says Rick Bell. Yeah, it was it was it was quite funny. But, you know, Gil and Rick for actually like showing up to events and writing about them from his like predetermined, you know, perspective, like not a lot of these guys actually seem to leave their houses. So, you know, credit where credit's due.
00:08:01
Speaker
um So ah that was the first day. I was exhausted afterwards. And then ah also speaking at the conference over the weekend to rewind a bit was Dr. Joe Vipond of the Calgary Climate Hub.
00:08:18
Speaker
And when I was speaking to him on the Friday night of the conference, he offered to drive me over to Banff on Monday because he was speaking at a climate protest there.
00:08:30
Speaker
um And so I hitched a ride with him on Monday. it was a much smaller protest, but it was also a lot.
00:08:40
Speaker
It was a much ah wider net cast, I would say. um when When we got there, ah there were some Falun Gong ah people ah just hanging out at sort of the protest zone with their signs, which I thought was odd because China isn't at the G7.
00:09:02
Speaker
um There are also Ukrainians, a bunch of people wrapped in Ukrainian flags. Among them was a guy wrapped in an Israeli flag, ah which was pretty awkward because there are also Banff has a small ah Palestine solidarity group that were also there. So it was pretty interesting. in And the Ukrainians I thought was strange because Zelensky was at the G7, was putin famously is not part of the although Trump is trying to get him back in. And Ukraine seems to, I mean, you know, a couple days later, you know, Carney announced more billions of dollars for Ukraine, right?
00:09:48
Speaker
um And so that, ah you know, the Ukrainian, it started with some Ukrainian speaking. And I mean, you know, regardless of what you think, about the causes of the war. Obviously people are suffering there and war as the events organizer told me before, when I sort of interviewed him about ah the connection between like climate and the situation in Palestine and the situation in Ukraine, like war is bad for the climate. Right.
00:10:16
Speaker
And I, I, I think the first Ukraine speaker did good job sort of connecting um the situation Ukraine to sort of why everyone was gathered there today. She talked about a nature, uh, reserve that in, in, in, like, uh, Southeast, South, Southeastern Ukraine, ah like just North of Crimea, that has been attacked by Russian forces over the past,
00:10:45
Speaker
a few years and I thought she was quite apt at that. um And then, ah yeah, there there were some musical interludes which were kind of cool.
00:10:56
Speaker
um Nigel Robinson from Keepers of the Water ah was there. um ah you know, Joe Vipond, as I mentioned.
00:11:07
Speaker
ah But then near the end, because the Falun Gong people had been, ah you know, kind of standing around all day, And, you know, they had signs that had like an anti-government message. I mean, sure, it was a crazy anti-government message about like organ harvesting.
00:11:25
Speaker
But um they they got invited up onto the stage by, you know, an organizer of the event who, you know, ah but didn't know better. um And I only mentioned this not to show on the organizer who I think did a great job otherwise.
00:11:43
Speaker
um by um because I think a lot of people there were confused when the guy got up and blamed the LA riots on communist China and ah talked about how there's this international communist conspiracy you know bringing together China in in in in Cuba, in Venezuela, in Russia, and Iran that is trying to destroy the West.
00:12:08
Speaker
so that that sounds That sounds tight. I wish that that was true. And of course, I pointed out to um you know Dr. Vipond while this guy was speaking. i was like, you know the Falun Gong's cult, right?
00:12:25
Speaker
And it wasn't Joe's decision to bring them up, but like Calgary Climate Hub... um and And then i was like, they also own the Epoch Times. He's like, oh they're like climate deniers. Yeah. Yeah. Like the Epoch Times is one of the world's largest pro-Trump publications, one of the world's largest disseminators of COVID misinformation.
Media and Protest Dynamics at the G7
00:12:51
Speaker
one of the world's largest disseminators of climate denial. ah gentle Gentle tip to all the organizers out there, you should not be sharing the stage with these guys. So um try not to make that mistake in the future.
00:13:06
Speaker
i would describe them as controversial, perhaps.
00:13:12
Speaker
Yeah, when i when I got there, there was a CTV camera person because there's media there. theres This event was quite small. like There was probably as much media there as there were like attendees, um which I mean, you know the kind of the purpose was to get media attention. right It wasn't necessarily to bring out the masses of Banff to this protest.
00:13:35
Speaker
um you know ah but um Well, I think that's kind of rather the point lately with ah the venues they choose for G7 is to keep them in locations that are difficult to get mass protests.
00:13:48
Speaker
It's a trade off, right? I mean, you lower you lower your vulnerability to direct action from demonstrators, but you do increase the risk of bear attacks.
00:13:59
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, the bears had the chance to do the funniest thing ever. They should in touch with the orcas. yeah Yeah, well, in Canaanaskis. But Jeremy, I have a question.
00:14:10
Speaker
um I'm wondering a bit more about the First Nations for representation at either the protests, because there was one interesting piece of Stephen Crowchild. He's a leader in the Soutine of First Nations.
00:14:23
Speaker
who said that he was filled with rage and considered leaving before Donald Trump arrived because the U.S. president, in his words, caused so much pain and suffering in the world. he went He says, and i'm just quoting him here, it was really intense to say the least.
00:14:39
Speaker
And he said when he woke up on Father's Day, like he didn't anticipate he would be seeing lord world leaders and one certain individual has caused so much pain and suffering in the world. And he considered just dipping out on the entire thing.
00:14:53
Speaker
But then, yeah, he spoke to. you got to resist to the urge to dip on a meeting with Donald Trump. It's like the Gamja bar, right? You got to put your hand in the box.
00:15:07
Speaker
But what did they talk about? I'm curious because he describes their interactions in tense. sure he's cordial, but I don't know. I just wish I could have been the fly on the wall in that conversation between the two because he felt rather strongly about Trump's presence at this thing.
00:15:24
Speaker
Well, i'm sure I'm sure Trump called him an Indian. like that yeah you know I can't see him using any other word to describe ah you know ah Indigenous peoples. um there was um That reminds me that during the the first event at Calgary City Hall before the march,
00:15:44
Speaker
um yeah One speaker actually who wasn't indigenous. There were several First Nations speaker, mostly ah Blackfoot, ah two Blackfoot speakers, at least two.
00:15:57
Speaker
And then ah ah Nigel from Keepers of the Water, who is from Cold Lake First Nations, which I believe Dene, but I um might be wrong on that. Let me just check.
00:16:20
Speaker
um
00:16:25
Speaker
yeah, they're denied. Or at least some of them are because there's like multiple First Nations. But anyways, um um a fellow from Calgary Climate Hub, actually, a guy named ah um ah Jared Blustein, I believe, um pointed out that theres there's nothing about treaty rights in you know g on on the agenda for G7, not to mention the climate crisis, not to mention like protecting water.
00:16:57
Speaker
They touched on the climate crisis a bit. I was actually just kind of in prep for this going through the joint statements, but absolutely nothing on Indigenous rights globally. or Yeah, well, I was reading ah Jimmy and Natasha at National Observer um had a story about how G7...
00:17:18
Speaker
leaders released a wildfire charter that didn't have the words climate change in it at all. So, which I think not not doesn't mean they didn't mention climate change at all, period.
00:17:33
Speaker
But it does suggest that ah to the extent they did mention it, it was entirely superficial and was detached from, ah you know, all ah the poly crisis that had.
00:17:48
Speaker
One item they did underline ah specifically was more resource extraction, particularly the critical minerals bit and how to make that better and good and get more of them.
00:17:59
Speaker
um So it's a bit of a negation of any actual action on the climate though. Yes, I mean, to be fair, they did list as one of the seven or eight items, um a global strategy for fighting wildfires.
00:18:17
Speaker
The G7 and the demonstrations around it are really interesting to me because it's such a large kind of general issue event and it it seems to attract such a ah wide spread of people.
00:18:33
Speaker
You mentioned earlier, Jeremy, that you were a little confused that the Ukrainian delegation was out there because, you know, what's to protest, right?
00:18:46
Speaker
Like everyone's on side with Zelensky. Well, I mean, Ukrainians, you know, have a lot to protest, but I meant in terms of ah the G7.
00:18:56
Speaker
Sure. Yes. Yeah. That's, that's what I'm speaking to as well. I mean, there's a, there's reason they're the G7 and not anymore.
00:19:04
Speaker
It's literally Trump, right? like They're there to protest Trump. They don't like Trump. Yeah, yeah that's what I came around because Trump is, i mean, you know, while some would say that he's like, ah you know,
00:19:20
Speaker
a Manchurian candidate of Putin ah I think that that is giving him more credit than he deserves he just likes Putin he they have a similar world view of you know that you're either a killer or a loser and want to be a killer and are authoritarian and um yeah ah you know sort of worship strength and wealth Well, my thesis here is this, if if i can if I can punch in for a second.
00:19:58
Speaker
you know If you look back and you compare this to like the historical big protests around G20, we remember these these giant protests from when we were younger.
00:20:11
Speaker
Back then, a lot of the protests were specifically directly about the the content of the conference. They there were protests against economic globalization.
00:20:23
Speaker
but that kind of protectionist or anti-globalization, let's be specific to, I'm not talking about anti-globalists, not the not the the weird ones, but people who genuinely oppose like international free trade agreements, that sort of thing.
00:20:42
Speaker
that's That's gone now. that you know that That movement isn't really there in Canada anymore. I don't think anyone in Canada is heavily opposing economic globalization anymore.
00:20:57
Speaker
And so when G7 comes to Katanaskis, there isn't like a specific thing at G7 for most people to protest.
Controversial Leaders at the G7: Modi and Others
00:21:05
Speaker
And instead, the demonstrations are more about movement building, about, you know, flexing your support,
00:21:14
Speaker
getting your supporters to do something together, building a list, raising your profile, building new contacts, that sort of thing. But there was one group, I think, that that was very, very specifically protesting G7 itself.
00:21:30
Speaker
And this was the SIC convoy. the you know There was a big lineup of truckers in Banff on the first day. My understanding is that they are still demonstrating and protesting in Calgary today outside City Hall.
00:21:46
Speaker
And they do have something very directly tied to the G7 to protest, which is the invitation of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
00:21:59
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, that was the, I mean, it was pretty stunning when Carney announced that, given that, you know, they, he ah probably ordered the assassination.
00:22:13
Speaker
Yeah, he killed a guy on Canadian soil. Why don't we just do a quick, but why would can we we should probably just do our best to summarize ah why Modi is on the, oh, I don't know, controversial side. Stephen, do you want to run us through it It's a difficult one, but um Modi, like hardcore ally of Stephen Harper, Hindu nationalist, and is ah not loved by the Sikh community for racist policies.
00:22:46
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I think that's a good summary of it. I mean, Modi is nices it a boilerplate, but yeah. Yeah, I mean, Modi ah represents a current of thought ah in India um that, you know, India needs to be a Hindu state rather than this sort of more pluralist state that it was originally founded as under the the Congress Party of Gandhi and Nehru, Gandhi.
00:23:15
Speaker
and um represents a ruling class and a very well i don't think we i don't think we have to admit words about modi modi is uh is a fascist yes and anti-muslim anti-sick yeah uh i mean he lines up very closely with the the growing axis of fascists and ethno-nationalist world leaders like trump and orban etc etc
00:23:44
Speaker
And obviously, Sikhs have very valid grievances because the the Modi government is treating Muslims and Sikhs with yeah great cruelty and disrespect over there. so And this also gets into another one of the of the joint statements that they put out that i that was a little hypocritical in light of Modi being in there.
00:24:11
Speaker
um They wrote, we the leaders of G7 are deeply concerned by growing reports of transnational repression. What is transnational repression? TNR is an aggressive form of foreign interference whereby states or their proxies attempt to intimidate, harass, harm, or coerce individuals or communities outside their borders, which of course very much very famously has happened here.
00:24:40
Speaker
From not just one side, but I mean, like Modi being there seems to be a direct contradiction of No kidding. No, it's like, uh, you know, the hot dog, hot dog soup man from, I think you should leave.
00:24:53
Speaker
Right. Like, yeah, we, so we really, we really need to figure out who's doing all this transnational, uh, repression, um
00:25:05
Speaker
And ah yeah, I mean, also Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was invited, but he didn't show. Oh, really? like he and I didn't realize he was invited. That's incredible. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:25:19
Speaker
What the fuck is the point of the G7? I'm sorry. I don't know. That's a big question. We can get into it, but it's, yeah. Okay. Sorry. I'm sorry. Well, I think it's because these guys, they don't know how to use Slack.
00:25:32
Speaker
So you got to get them all in a room together. The idea of MBS coming here just makes me, like, I'm furious right now. Yeah, I mean, he didn't, but... i wouldn I wouldn't want to come to Calgary if I was if i was MBS. You'd just get Daniel Smith talking your ear off.
00:25:48
Speaker
Yeah, oh my God, she'd be so annoying. Yeah, he just leaves right away because she's so annoying.
00:25:59
Speaker
Yeah, but um um yeah, I mean, that was a big ah criticism of this particular g seven even before it started,
Media Strategies and Political Critiques
00:26:13
Speaker
right? It was like, for a variety of reasons, ah why are you ah inviting this guy who ah probably murdered a Canadian in Canada two here talking about
00:26:31
Speaker
and like that Just to be clear, none of these are members of the G7, so we're talking about so far. Selensky, yeah, it's a little iffy, but i mean it's not going to enrage too many people. makes sense, because Selensky's our boy. You've got to bring Selensky, he's our boy.
00:26:48
Speaker
I understand that. Yeah, we got a lot Ukrainians here. Largest diaspora in the world. I get it. ah Whatever, whatever. And then Modi. oh Nope, nope, nope. And then the fact that they invited MBS.
00:27:03
Speaker
Yeah. Well, I so i suppose the i mean the charitable argument for Modi's inclusion is that you know he is a leader who represents 18% of the world's population.
00:27:17
Speaker
You know, he he represents the most populous country on the planet. So, I mean, I can sort of understand it. And a fast growing economy that's an alternative trade partner to China.
00:27:30
Speaker
Yes. And an alternative trade partner to the United States. You know, for if we're going to talk about somebody being invited who's been doing transnational repression, we also got to talk about inviting the guy who's doing national trans repression, Donald Donald Trump.
00:27:47
Speaker
Ooh, nice turn of phrase there. Good one, Jim. Oh, thanks. I've been drinking my coffee today. There was a, I mean, we're going to talk a little bit about about media, I think. Stephen, you mentioned in the pre-call that you had some thoughts about media.
00:28:03
Speaker
There's one media incident in particular that I want to hear your thoughts on, which is there was a scrum before, because Donald was around only very shortly, right? He He sat down on Sunday, he did a ah round of handshakes and media interviews and couple of quick meetings.
00:28:23
Speaker
But then he he took off because you know Israel and the United States are essentially at war with Iran now. So he had to go play around with that.
00:28:34
Speaker
But there was an incident before he left where he was doing a scrum. He was answering questions from reporters. And Mark Carney stepped in and stopped it. He cut the reporters off and shuffled Donald off stage.
00:28:52
Speaker
And I'm wondering what you guys think of this, because I was seeing online a lot of praise, mostly from partisan liberals or Carney fans, but a lot of praise from for him for shutting Donald up or stopping Donald from speaking. But that's not my read of that situation. It seems like he was protecting Donald from journalistic inquiry. Like, do you think that Mark should' have done that?
00:29:17
Speaker
I think that he was, I think Carney was mostly trying to avoid an embarrassing soundbite because we could be in the election again pretty soon. And he just did not want to be put on the spot.
00:29:30
Speaker
That's my instinct. but I mean, isn't it embarrassing enough for Carney that he ran on all of this elbows up resisting Trump stuff and then immediately upon getting elected started doing everything that Donald Trump asked?
00:29:43
Speaker
Right. And that would have only made it worse, right? Yeah, I mean, trump canada but like, who could have foreseen that, right? It's not like the Liberal Party of Canada has ah history of, I don't know, ah campaigning ah from the left and governing from the right, you know, so it's really, really, you know, caught everyone by surprise, I think.
00:30:11
Speaker
Yeah. Do you think um the next election will also be the last election under first past the post? No. but No, I think that's dead. I don't think anyone is.
00:30:23
Speaker
ah I mean, i think Trudeau killed that for a generation. and it just seems that, you know, there has to be one big broken promise in every liberal campaign platform.
00:30:36
Speaker
Yeah, well, I mean, Carney pledged to, I have it right here at my desk, a flyer of his, um to protect your rights and stand up to Trump.
00:30:50
Speaker
Although Vagor, I think, is definitely a much bigger walker. in terms of a lie than, uh, um, you know, changing the electoral system and then not doing so.
00:31:03
Speaker
I think that's true. I think that's true. because, uh, you know, JT probably would have, uh, gone through with changing the electoral system. If, uh, if everyone had let him change it to his, his favored version, the one that gave the liberals, the largest advantage, like he didn't completely reject the entire concept of it, but, um,
00:31:24
Speaker
You know, here you've got Mark
G7's Effectiveness and Protest Impacts
00:31:26
Speaker
Carney. He told us he was going to stand up against Trump. And instead, we're signing on to these these military deals, the Golden Dome now too, is going to be a massive, massive transfer of wealth to American arms companies.
00:31:42
Speaker
He's doing all of the stuff that Trump is demanding on the border when we should be instead, you know, taking these people in. But he's following his lead there. I don't know. I think just in general, like going back to the Kananaska stuff, like the G7 leaders have a really good reason to hide from the public.
00:32:01
Speaker
The global empire they oversee is just plagued right now. wars, famines, escalating food prices, disaster, like climate change is continuing unabated. like it's just I just can't help but walk away from this whole thing wondering like what was even accomplished here, like what was the point of any of this? Because going through those statements, nothing really firm come came up to me.
00:32:26
Speaker
BLYTHERSON, Economic stimulation for Banff. The hotels did well. Yeah, Banff did great.
00:32:35
Speaker
I'm probably good about affirming the importance of protecting civilians and stuff. I don't know. Like I just, I just can't help but just like roll my eyes at this. And then like, then when Trump leaves, like then what, you don't have your G7 anymore. So what was the point of any of these statements?
00:32:52
Speaker
It did seem like Trump leaving really like deflated the whole thing. Um, there was a lot of media on the first day, but, um, now no one is really paying attention. Uh,
00:33:03
Speaker
They didn't come up with any joint statement, really just a few kind of just mushy things on things like the Beckton civilians, but we condemn Iran, et cetera. ah Why do they- Steven, you were doing a bit of ah a media roundup in prep for the episode. What's your take on the the overall coverage out there?
00:33:24
Speaker
Oh, yeah, very extensive media roundup of ah watching CBC's The National every single morning and getting yelling at it. ah they they All they covered was, um like, literally all they really covered was Trump leaving and then Zelensky leaving because he went there to meet Trump and Trump didn't meet with them.
00:33:43
Speaker
Yeah. It's really service level. Did they talk at all about the Sikh convoy? today Is that getting any purchase in the national media? Not on the national, no. Not one mention, I would say. Correct me if I'm wrong, anyone in the show notes here who wants to yell at me online at Magusiak. But no, I didn't see a single mention of the Sikh convoy. That's very interesting to me. Not one mention of the pro. That seems one of, if not the most significant of all of the protests of the entire thing.
00:34:12
Speaker
Didn't make national news. um I mean, i do remember in a story written in advance of the... I'm not in crack cocaine, nor am an addict. Whoops. What was that? i Just re rewind that one and all and I'll edit it.
00:34:32
Speaker
Yeah, my cursor hovered over the Rob Ford documentary that's on Netflix now. So that was him denying that. No, leave that in, Jim. That's funny. Sounds good. I want to watch it.
00:34:46
Speaker
But um
00:34:53
Speaker
what was going to say? Well, I can just move on my point. Oh, okay. Yeah, I'll clean this up and post then. Steve, go ahead. like The total absence of a joint communique at the summit just sort of illustrates the like policy divisions among leaders of the world's most powerful economies. um like I don't believe it. hold on.
00:35:17
Speaker
You might need to fact check this, Jim. But my understanding is that there really wasn't a proper joint communique with Trump leaving. But I might need to dig into that more. So I'll shut up now. And if I'm wrong, cut it.
00:35:30
Speaker
Well, it seems to me like the two big winners, if there were any winners in this whole situation, were two organizing groups.
00:35:43
Speaker
The Sik Convoy group, which seems to have really successfully organized a large demonstration and is probably building a good good list and probably building a lot of stridency and militancy among its members there.
00:35:58
Speaker
And this growing coalition between the climate groups, the anti-coal people and the First Nations groups. It seems like they did a lot of productive organizing, both of those those two sets.
00:36:14
Speaker
Well, in Palestine... A lot to build in the future. And ah Palestine ah solidarity groups um um also were, you know, all over there, of course, the situation Palestine only growing more worse. Now Israel decided to start a war with Iran, which, ah you know, has...
00:36:37
Speaker
really led to the reemergence of all these pro-Iraq war talking points that if you're against this war, it's because you love ah the Islamic regime in Iran. ah You know, Iranians are going to be like greeting Israelis with flowers. I mean, this type of nonsense that I mean, it's the historical amnesia is absolutely stunning um and ah really disappointing to see.
00:37:04
Speaker
um But um and also, yeah, the the sort of anti-imperialist group, the International League of People Struggles did a lot of organizing in Calgary. ah They held a people's forum the day before.
00:37:17
Speaker
um That was the day of our conference at MRU. But it was the day before the big march and rally. And um I think one problem I was watching ah City News um last night.
00:37:31
Speaker
And they did, there was a segment on sort of the protests in Calgary um against the G7 and um how, in and, you know, Rick Bell talked about this in his column in his own way about how it wasn't, it was really like sort of Mute compared to 2002 and last time the G7 was in Kananaskis and there were protests in Calgary.
00:37:59
Speaker
And they had a MRU professor, Laurie Williams, on and and she pointed out that, um you know, when you have protests, know, if they the the the in that don't have necessarily a unifying message, they're going to get less attention in press coverage because it's harder to like sort of identify what people specifically are protesting.
00:38:23
Speaker
Right. So back in 2002, right.
00:38:26
Speaker
You know, it was the height of the anti-globalization movement. Right. And so there was that sort of unifying message that all these different groups fighting for different things were doing so under the banner of ah fighting ah globalization.
00:38:42
Speaker
um There was less of that this time around. um You know, there were climate groups, there were anti-war and anti-imperialist groups. And they did, some speakers, I think, did quite apt job, and of course, indigenous groups, at tying these things together.
00:39:00
Speaker
But in terms of there being like a big, like headline grabbing, unifying cause, um there just wasn't that ah this time around. And, um you know, I mean, I'm not an organizer. I'm not i'm not saying that
00:39:19
Speaker
I don't know um if there was an alternative or if, um you know, the organizers of the events could have done anything differently or these are just the times um we live in, but it's just an observation.
00:39:33
Speaker
Well, having tried to be an organizer in the initial years of Progress Alberta before we turned most of our resources towards the Progress Report, I can say that from where I'm standing, it looks pretty positive what happened in the around the G7 over the last week.
00:39:53
Speaker
I think a lot of good groups up there did some very effective organizing. i don't think that there was really an opportunity to directly throw a wrench into any works here.
00:40:09
Speaker
but rather it was an opportunity for people to build power, build community, build connections. And it seems like quite a few different worthy organizations did so.
00:40:20
Speaker
So from where I'm standing, the g seven looks like kind of a waste of time for all of the world powers.
Conclusion and Support for Progress Report
00:40:26
Speaker
But for the locals who were organizing, it seems to have been pretty productive. And so I think it's quite positive.
00:40:34
Speaker
Okay, well, i mean I mean, I think we've covered most of it. Again, folks, if you want more of like a foreign policy geopolitical analysis, I'm sorry, we're not we're not your guys. That's really our focus.
00:40:47
Speaker
But Stephen continues to publish with Press Progress. You can find his work online there at pressprogress.ca. Shout out to all of the folks out there, great friends.
00:41:01
Speaker
And as always, you can find us at theprogressreport.ca. It has been a bit of ah a crunch, a bit of a fundraising month for us. We're under a little bit of financial pressure. So if any of you out there enjoyed this episode and want to throw a little change in the can, just browse over to theprogressreport.ca slash patrons, and we can take a little donation there if you'd like to help us keep the lights on.
00:41:28
Speaker
Well, Stephen, thanks so much for joining us today. Always great to talk to you. Jeremy, I hope you get some rest tomorrow. Yeah, always great to be here on the ah progress report pod.
00:41:43
Speaker
I always love talking to you guys. Thanks for having me on. hey don't be a stranger, Stephen. And I didn't even make the press progress progress report. For once you didn't. Yeah, that's all right. i appreciate that.
00:41:56
Speaker
um Yes, we are two different organizations, but we also like money. So check us out at pressprogress.ca and sign and become a member. mean, why not do both, right? Why not do both?
00:42:09
Speaker
All right, folks, we'll see you next time on the Progress Report. Ciao. Bye. Bye, everyone.