Retreat. Protestors flee a barrage of teargas at the Summit of the Americas Conference in Quebec City, April 21, 2001

At the close of the last century and the dawn of the 2000s, I wrote and photographed for a number of small newspapers owned by Canwest, the predecessor of today’s Postmedia, as well as various NGOs.

I covered what were misnamed “anti-globalization protests” like the famous “Battle in Seattle” surrounding the World Trade Organization meetings, which itself set a new standard of sorts for the militarization of civil police forces. The arms race in “less lethal” police weapons was later condemned by the Seattle police chief who oversaw what would become an operational blueprint for the suppression of dissent.

In 2001, I travelled to Quebec City to cover what was shaping up to be one of the largest protests in Canadian history, inspired by the secretive Free Trade Area of the Americas negotiations to be convened in April at the Summit of the Americas Conference. In anticipation of resistance to the FTAA, a huge area around the conference centre had been ringed in concrete barriers and wire fencing — “The Wall,” as it became known.

My experience in Seattle aside, I was not prepared for the ferocity of the fight that ensued in the streets of QC. The violent police repression was shocking, as were preemptive arrests of influential organizers and attacks on journalists.

Back on the West Coast, I reported my observations. I was, if anything, less prepared for the attacks on my integrity from the usual Canadian Alliance members (who could forget the CRAP Party?) to the RCMP. A 500 word letter to the editor appeared (who gets to publish a 500 word screed on the letters page?) signed by a member of the local constabulary. The newspaper editor refused me the courtesy of a reply to set the facts straight.

Three years after the Quebec City riot, my stories and statements from hundreds more witnesses were vindicated by a report from the Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP chaired by Shirley Heafey, finding that “RCMP members used excessive and unjustified force” in response to the protests.

Below is a an excerpted column that I wrote during the aftermath of the FTAA protests with accompanying audio documenting the carpet bombing of the city centre with teargas

Those of us who witnessed first-hand the appalling excesses by police, during the April 2001 Summit of the Americas, are bemused by the sudden media attention [given the next round of negotiations].

Thousands of documents — essays, photographs, audio and video tapes — flooded the Internet during and after the events. Hundreds of witnesses told their stories.

Those “bonded by tear gas,” as protest diarist Naomi Klein put it so succinctly, arranged film festivals, showing footage of police brutality, such as the close-range firing of tear gas canisters at people’s heads. Such an act was recorded on videotape, as police chased innocent crowds far outside the “perimeter” delineated by the ubiquitous “fence.”

I witnessed foolish actions by a few “angry youth” …  But I noticed greater hubris among the 6,000-strong armour-clad police, bristling with all the latest paraphernalia of “non-lethal” warfare: clubs and shields, Arvon guns, tear gas, chemical grenades, armoured vehicles and thundering water cannons.

It seemed, from my perspective, that troops sporting shiny new materiel could not resist testing it on the mostly placid throng. Five thousand cans of tear gas were fired over 72 hours, pouring into the IndyMedia Centre which was [scooping and contradicting traditional media] covering events live on the Web, and fired into the Medical Centre, as medics tended the wounded. The gas found its way into the Conference Centre itself, choking delegates.

No one present can forget the moment, as word spread through the crowd that a young man had been wounded — perhaps gravely — by a rubber bullet, fired point-blank into his throat. Éric Laferrière survived, but with severe damage to his larynx. I saw (and helped treat) grievous wounds caused by rubber bullet fire.

My initiation into the terrifying effects of potentially lethal CS gas came on Saturday, April 21, as I was standing among a throng of other journalists (CBC, Reuters, Associated Press) on a grassy knoll above the intersection of Cotê d’ Abraham & Rue Richelieu. As we chatted, a somewhat amusing theatrical spectacle unfolded below. Several youths had managed to attach a rope to the hated fence and were rocking it to no great effect, under water cannon barrage. Soon, the fence rockers gave up and retreated to dry off. Suddenly, with no apparent reason, tear gas canisters began to land in our midst. I attempted to continue my interview with a local resident, who hoped the young men might be able to pull the fence down later “not to destroy anything, but for the meaning of it,” an act that would, she said, pale in comparison to the violence of the system the “wall of shame” protected.

Overcome by fumes, we scrambled down to flee along the narrow passage of Rue Richelieu, where residents flung open their doors to offer sanctuary, while police lobbed more rounds over our heads, trapping us in a choking noose of gas. Unable to cram ourselves into sardine-tight rooms, we stumbled on to fall, retching among a dozen prostrate souls in a tiny alcove. Somehow, I summoned the presence of mind to leave my tape recorder on and describe — between gasps — the surreal event.

At the end of the audio clip, after collecting myself, I take over from the CBC reporter to interview a Vietnam vet and letter carriers’ union representative from Boston. Robert Hartbrook predicts that it will take generations of work to undo the damage President George W. Bush is unleashing.

Who could have predicted then that a worse threat to American democracy would arise?

Redoubt on Rue Richelieu

Though the foot soldiers of the FTAA were reprimanded for their part in the riot, I’m not sure the generals behind the suppression were ever unmasked. There are still a few faces of resistance who show up to politely request that commerce might account for its “externalities.” I’m guessing that we’ve not seen the last of “less lethal” forms of brave new peacekeeping.