Assortment of Protesters Unified on a Theme: World’s Real Problems Ignored

While several thousand Canadians demonstrated against the opening of the Toronto economic summit Sunday, a sidewalk graffiti artist set down the heart of the protest. “Clean city,” he scrawled in chalk, “equals dirty summit.”

The protesters--an assortment of peaceniks, environmentalists, Trotskyites, gays, Sandinistas, Canadian Indians, feminists, Irish nationalists, anti-free traders, leftists and social activists--had widely different causes but chanted their unity on one theme: the city of Toronto had shined itself up beyond reason to impress seven leaders who, in the eyes of the protesters, had turned their backs on the real problems of the world.

To prove their determination, perhaps 2,000 protesters defied a ban on marches and headed down University Avenue toward summit headquarters. But police halted the march after a few blocks and told the demonstrators, through a loudspeaker, “This is an unlawful parade. Please disperse.” The marchers refused, and when they tried to cross metal barricades, the police arrested at least 60.

But the protest was led--and put down--in a relatively low-key way. Some demonstrators climbed the barricades and were swiftly arrested. When the police lost patience, they finally locked arms and walked forward in a phalanx, pushing the rest of the marchers off the street. But police officials described the scene as nonviolent and reported no injuries.

Some of the protesters tried last week to take the summit leaders to court, demanding that Canada refuse them entry for “crimes against humanity.” But a furious judge quashed the flimsy lawsuit Thursday for lack of evidence.

In an odd way, the protesters, although marching to a different tune, had not strayed far from the general Canadian mood about the summit.

Canada is celebrating this 14th annual economic summit and turning it into a wondrous Toronto festival, a chance to show off Canada’s largest city as a rich and sophisticated North American metropolis. Toronto hopes that its beauty, enthusiasm and efficiency during this summit will help it win the right to stage the 1996 Olympics. Prime Minister Brian Mulroney hopes that a smooth, statesmanlike summit will help bolster his faltering popularity.

The protesters, with a lot of wild and absurd jokes, and even with their illegal march, were simply having a party of their own, showing that Toronto, like any other great city, has its loud and angry naysayers.

The protesters, in fact, took advantage of some troubled feelings of many Toronto citizens who wonder whether government officials have gone too far by rounding up the homeless, forcing prostitutes off the streets, flooding downtown with armed Royal Canadian Mounted Police, refusing to license marches and banning cars from many streets.

All this prompted Bob Rae, a Socialist who is leader of the opposition, to rise in the Ontario Legislature in Toronto on Thursday and ask a sarcastic question.

“Why, when these guys get together,” he said, “is it that all of the basic rights we are supposed to be celebrating in the Western World suddenly disappear, all in the name of security?”

The sponsors of the anti-summit demonstration dubbed their meeting--on the grounds of the Ontario Legislature in Queen’s Park--”the popular summit” and, mimicking the officials of the regular summit a bit, handed every reporter a press kit. Instead of the glowing guidebooks handed out by the city of Toronto, however, these kits offered a leaflet describing what it called “the real Toronto”--the neighborhoods of the homeless, the poor and the sick. Tours of these parts of town were offered.

Michael Shapcott, a social worker, urged the demonstrators to count their strength. “There are only seven of them,” he said, “and billions of us.”

While bands played mainly Caribbean music, a host of causes was advertised. Placards called for “AIDS Action Now.” Nurses held up hand-lettered signs describing the summit as “the worst epidemic in town.” Other signs stated that “No Environment Equals No Economy.” Singers against South Africa chanted, “Rap down apartheid.” One group of green-costumed paraders carried a banner, “Save the Rain Forest. Save the Planet.”

One woman in a frilly dress posed as Imelda Marcos, wife of deposed Philippines President Ferdinand E. Marcos, and told the crowd: “I came here to this summit today because they wouldn’t invite me to the other one. Can you imagine me missing a dinner with all the other dictators’ wives?”

Many of the crowd wore badges that identified them as Canadian nationalists opposed to Prime Minister Mulroney’s free trade agreement with the United States. “Free Canada,” one T-shirt proclaimed. “Trade Mulroney.”

Although officials had refused them permission to march, the protesters, arching their banners high, donned badges bearing a cry of defiance, and started to march toward the summit site less than a mile away. “No,” the badges warned any police officer who might stop them. “You’re under arrest.”

The badges, however, had no special power, and several score of the protesters were arrested.