Globalization has rarely come under attack in Canada as it did in November of 1997, during the APEC summit in Vancouver, Canada. APEC, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, is a group of eighteen member "economies" from the Pacific Rim. In 1997, their leaders, including Bill Clinton and Canada’s Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, met for two days to discuss the usual neoliberal concerns: trade liberalization, protections and access for international investors, and – because of the panic over the growing economic crisis in Asia – the "Asian flu."

At the same time, progressive forces mobilized and managed to draw some attention their way, so there was encouraging news coming out of the APEC summit as well. Student groups, organized labor, and human rights organizations from across Canada – and many from abroad – organized a parallel "People’s Summit," specifically to discuss issues left off the official APEC agenda. Those alternative priorities included human rights, the environment, women’s rights, public education, poverty, and labor standards. Massive demonstrations against APEC generated impressive media coverage for these issues, and led to some of the most brutal police repression in recent Canadian times.

Specific agreements and associations, such as APEC and NAFTA, have instigated most of Canadians’ resistance to corporate-driven globalization. They become lightning rods for popular opposition and a focus for demonstrations and media campaigns; activists use them to show that globalization does not happen in a vacuum, emphasizing that real people are making concrete decisions to increase economic internationalization.

Critics argue that globalization harms ordinary citizens by eroding environmental and labor standards, depressing tax rates for business and the wealthy, while lowering minimum wages for the most vulnerable of citizens. Those familiar with the NAFTA debate in the United States will recognize these and other Canadian charges against free trade: that high-paying jobs in the advanced capitalist countries will move to regions where employers have more "freedom" to pay disgustingly low wages and discipline their employees. Governments are forced to weaken standards and lower corporate taxes in order to compete for the quality job-generating investment they were previously able to take for granted.

In Canada, globalization has also become an issue of democracy and national sovereignty. Citizens who might otherwise ignore the whole issue of globalization now distrust agreements on economic liberalization because they limit the powers of elected legislative bodies and transfer those powers to investors in other countries or unelected officials at the World Trade Organization.

Finally, students have opposed globalization because it encourages governments to cut spending on education. Governments complain that in order to stay competitive with other countries, they must reduce taxes; when state revenues then decline, they claim programs need to be cut back. The end result has been alarming increases in tuition fees and a growing corporate influence in education, encouraging institutions to teach technical skills rather than critical thinking. The largest student demonstrations in Canada during the 1990s have been concerned with these issues. Many students are fully aware of the draconian effects of neoliberalism on a global scale, and it is that knowledge, along with a commitment to change, that is fueling opposition to developments like APEC.

Malcolm Fairbrother