Montreal Protesters to US Friends: ‘You’ve Gotta Fight!’
Protesters in Montreal this weekend inflated this balloon in Place du Canada depicting Donald Trump as an incarcerated cartoon chicken. Photos/Joe Maniscalco
By Joe Maniscalco
Some seven million people, according to organizers, took part in this past weekend’s “No Kings Day” rallies across the United States—reportedly making the anti-Trump action one of the largest single day protests in American history.
Canadians, no matter their reputation for being nice, rallied, too. And their polite advice to their American brethren opposing Donald Trump’s authoritarian assault on democracy? “You’ve gotta fight.”
“People need to stand up,” VFX artist Sterling Tipton told Work-Bites at Montreal’s Place du Canada on Oct. 18. “People need to stop being complacent, they need to realize that this is the same kind of s—t that we saw in World War Two—and we all know what happened there. Patterns repeat.”
Tipton was part of a group of roughly 200 to 300 people largely consisting of expats and dual citizenship holders who turned out in Montreal this weekend in solidarity with their American neighbors protesting Trump’s agenda in cities all across the United States.
Democrats Abroad, along with Indivisible Quebec—part of the US-based Indivisible organization and in existence for less than a month—organized the Montreal event.
Montrealers held their own “No Tyrants” rally in Place du Canada on Oct. 18.
“There are a lot of rights that are being threatened and you’ve got to fight for them,” Canadian writer Philipe Fine told Work-Bites. “It’s overwhelming even as a Canadian just to see how quickly things can crumble, and how the executive power of the States can do so much damage to the environment, to labor, and to justice.”
Retired biotechnologist Carolyn Finkle was in downtown, Montreal this weekend with her husband—a furloughed worker with the National Institutes of Health [NIH].
“I think Canada leaned a quick lesson having Trump come into power and turning America into an autocracy—an oligarchy run by a tyrant and becoming lawless,” she said. “I think that Canada is wise to look to the south…they’re our closest neighbors and they love Americans and Americans love Canadians…and say hey, this can happen in any democracy.”
Canadians also demonstrated in other parts of the country over the weekend including the nation’s capital of Ottawa where they rallied against the Trump agenda outside the American embassy.
Montrealer Denise Beneteau carried a sign at Place du Canada denouncing the Trump administration’s draconian Medicaid cuts and talked about now understanding how the Nazis came to power in Germany.
Nae Trump and elbows up—Canadians stand opposed to authoritarianism and fascism.
“You get people brainwashed, you prey on their fears, you set them against other people that haven’t done anything them,” Beneteau told Work-Bites. “Vulnerable people are losing services, losing health care, losing food stamps—plenty of people on food stamps are working people and just can’t make ends meet. It’s terrifying to me that people in need are being cut off from the services that help them—and all to the benefit of billionaires and multimillionaires. Five years ago, I wouldn’t have thought [Trump] could get away with what he’s doing now.”
As grave as the circumstances might’ve been, the Montrealers Work-Bites spoke to still delighted in also seeing Donald Trump depicted as a 10 to 12-foot-tall cartoon chicken imprisoned behind bars at Place du Canada.
Thirty-nine-year-old Canadian-American Taran Singh Brar created the inflatable balloon back in 2017 and has since taken it around the world. This weekend, he said Donald Trump is an “active threat to civil society, free speech, democracy—and every Canadian and American life in continent.”
“Donald Trump means every threat he utters,” Brar told Work-Bites. “So, whether it’s Canada as the 51st state, or whether he wants to use the military on protesters, which we see happening right now, that is what he indents to do.”
“I don’t hate you if I disagree with you.” Former Montreal City Council Member Justine McIntyre talks about the meaning of democracy.
Local Montrealer Linda Bellerose said Canada has it’s own far right “menace” in the person of Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre.
“We voted no last time, but it’s still a treat hovering over us,” she said. “We’re not safe from it.”
Elementary school teacher Aurora D’anna said Canada could, indeed, end up with its own version of Trump if it isn’t careful.
“We’re headed in that direction,” she said. “If you look at what’s happening around the world I think this is where it’s going. Unfortunately, people believe these lies that are being said [by the far right].”
Tipton said she certainly hopes that Canada doesn’t follow the same path as the United States, “But the thing is, she added, “that kind of vitriol and rhetoric is spreading worldwide.”
Montreal residents Linda Bellerose and Sterling Tipton arrived early to Saturday’s anti-Trump rally at Place du Canada.
"And just because we’re across the border doesn’t mean we’re immune from it,” she said. " If we don’t act now and stand our ground for our home turf it could happen here just as easily. I have interests on both sides of the border. You can’t disentangle our dependency on the American economy and vice-versa—if that ship goes down, we go with it.”
Much like New York City, Montreal is in the midst of its own municipal elections. But unlike the current American president—former Montreal City Council Member Justine McIntyre said that she likes it when people disagree with her.
“I like it when we disagree because it gives me a chance to explain why I disagree and to hear from somebody I disagree with and see if there is a way that we can make this work together,” she said. “Is there a way we can have these two conflicting opinions and still talk about them, and still make it work? And there is—and that’s called democracy. If we stop listening to each other, that person becomes our enemy. That’s what’s happening with Donald Trump right now—that’s what he wants us to do. That’s what he wants us to feel—and it’s so important that we refuse that. I don’t hate you if I disagree with you.”
But what impact do the "No Kings” and “No Tyrants” demonstrations actually have? Do they make any difference? The Trump administration has already dismissed the impact of previous “No Kings” rallies held earlier this year.
“I think if you see tens…maybe hundreds of thousands of Americans out protesting today during the ‘No Kings’ rallies in the United States [Trump] is going to see that they’re not just Democrats—they are Republicans and independents, too,” U.S. retiree Cynthia Stewart told Work-Bites in Place du Canada. “It doesn’t matter the political stripe—what matters is people want a law-abiding president and they want their country to follow the Constitution and the rules of law—and that’s what’s slipping away. I think he has to take notice because ultimately these are his voters.”
No Faux-King Way: Cynthia Stewart and Aurora D’anna exercise some free speech.
If nothing else, similar rallies held since the start of Trump 2.0 in January have served to provide less politically active voters with a greater sense of their own agency and to realize what is possible through collective action.
“Maybe it makes you feel a little less helpless because by yourself you don’t know what you’re doing, but together you feel there are people to rally around who believe in the same cause,” D’anna added.
According to Stuart, the real significance of this weekend’s anti-Trump rallies on both sides of the border was to show that the world is “really pissed off about what’s going on.”
“A lot of people in different countries are voicing their opinion about it,” she said. “Unfortunately, what’s happening in the United States with the National Guard on the streets, ICE agents, the cruelty and brutality of what’s happening, is eye-rolling. It’s 1939 Germany—and it’s scary. I think people are afraid. But they’re also standing up.”