Common Cause Ottawa interview with Pete St-Antoine of Peoples Global Action (PGA) Bloc Ottawa

Q. Could you introduce yourself?

I’m Pete St-Antoine and I organize with Peoples Global Action (PGA) Bloc Ottawa.

Q. PGA Ottawa is organizing around the No 2010 campaign against the Olympics in Vancouver. What are the reasons that you’re opposing it?

There are lots of reasons we’re opposing the Olympics. One of the main ones is that they’re happening on stolen (aboriginal) land. That’s one on the main things that people are rallying around in Vancouver. People are losing their land and they’re also seeing a lot of land being destroyed. A lot of mountains are being destroyed right now. There are huge expansions right now of many resorts. Sun Peaks is one of them. They are countless resorts that are being expanded for the Olympics as part of the infrastructure and also because of the huge amount of traffic that they’re expecting during that time period.

On February 28, on the second anniversary of the start of the Six Nations land reclamation at Caledonia, McMaster University was the site of the important event, “The Land Reclamation at Caledonia/Kanonhstaton: Two Years Later...” The day-long event brought together many of the major figures of this historic and ongoing struggle. The following is a brief summary of the first part of the event.

On February 13, 2008 the “No Olympics on Stolen Native Land” speaking tour passed through Hamilton. The speakers included Kanahus Pellkey, a Secwepemc and Ktnuxa Warrior and member of the Native Youth Movement. They spoke while taking care of their very young children who occasionally grabbed the attention of the 50+ crowd with their laughter and curiosity. Despite the title of the talk, the 2010 Olympics were only briefly mentioned as the speakers spoke freely on a wide range topics. The following is a summary of some of the key themes that we picked up on.

Common Cause is an Ontario anarchist organization that wants to see anarchists active in every town, neighborhood and workplace across Ontario.

A major focus of our activity is work at those crucial points where working class people are organizing together for control over their lives, the decisions affecting them and against oppression Our general approach is to involve ourselves with mass movements and work within these movements, in order to promote anarchist methods of organization involving direct democracy and direct action.

The methods of struggle that we promote are a preparation for the running of society along anarchist and communist lines after the revolution.