Ottawa/CMEDIA: Protesters reportedly rally near the U.S. Embassy in Ottawa calling on the Carney government to reverse course on planned cuts to jobs and public services and prioritize human rights.
The “Draw the Line” protest brings together climate justice, migrant justice, Indigenous justice, labour rights, anti-war, and Palestine solidarity groups on Wellington Street outside the Prime Minister’s Office.
Other cities and towns across Canada, including Vancouver, Edmonton, Saskatoon, Winnipeg, Toronto, Montreal, and Charlottetown have organized similar marches.
Coinciding with the newest Parliamentary session and ahead of the fall budget, protest marches are being held to oppose measures put forward by Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney, including planned spending cuts in the federal public service, the shelving of the Digital Services Tax, and bills including C-2 and C-5.
“People across movements are uniting to say enough…refuse austerity, colonialism, climate destruction, and militarism — and we demand a future where people come before profit,” Sara Washburn, one of the Ottawa-Gatineau march organizers with Fridays for Future Ottawa, has said in a news release. “
Included in the key demands of the protesters at Saturday’s protest are increasing taxes on the ultra-rich and ending corporate subsidies, upholding Indigenous rights and sovereignty, imposing a two-way arms embargo on Israel, cancelation of planned increases to military spending, cancelation of planned public service spending and job cuts, and providing permanent resident status for all migrants.
“Indigenous peoples across so-called Canada are no strangers to colonial, fossil-fuelled bureaucracy, and after a few short months, Mark Carney has shown he is following suit. In his bid to protect Canadian nationalism and corporate interests at all costs, Indigenous peoples and territories are once again expendable in the name of natural resource extraction…now is the time to bring our minds together as one, in pursuit of the future we deserve,” Serena Mendizabal, managing director at Sacred Earth, an Indigenous women-led organization has said
The Saturday protest also includes a plan to paint a large mural in front of the Prime Minister’s Office that will read “people, peace, planet, not profit.”
Marching from Parliament Hill to the U.S. Embassy, the rally will then proceed to the Human Rights Monument on Elgin Street.
