By Liz Rowley

A People's Voice report from Quebec City, where demonstraters were protesting the Summit of the Americas, at which heads of state from every country in the Western Hemisphere, except Cuba, were discussing the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA).

QUEBEC CITY, Canada - This demonstration of tens of thousands goes on forever, 30 people wide.

As I distribute copies of the Communist Party [of Canada]'s statement, I can't possibly reach everyone. We later find out that 70,000 people came out, twice as large as organizers had hoped.

The efforts by police, governments, media and pundits to frighten people and keep them away have failed.In fact, the opposite has happened.

The massive police buildup of 6,000, plus 1,200 army regulars brought up from Valcartier, has become an issue in itself. Frightened by the efforts to restrict democracy and civil rights, people have come out in thousands to show they will not be silenced.

TV images showing row upon row of riot police facing unarmed youth climbing the hated perimeter fence have increased the anger. Why is this fence here? Why are young people being attacked with tear gas and plastic bullets?

Before the day is over, two of our own young people have been injured - one hit in the head by a plastic bullet, another collapsed after being gassed. Everyone gets a taste of the gas somewhere along the march.

In the end, the tear gas also gets [Canadian Prime Minister Jean] Chrétien and the Summit leaders. The conference has to be adjourned Saturday when the winds blow the tear gas back into the Summit compound. There it gets into the ventilation systems, and the buildings are evacuated. The news is hidden from demonstrators and the public. But like the FTAA text, somehow it leaks out, the best news of the day!

Friday's protests also delayed the Summit opening, as well as some of the day's sessions. The protests cannot be ignored. The leaders will hear. And they do.

On this side of the perimeter fence, there is the intoxicating power of masses of people in motion. This is the real power of the people, of democracy and social justice, of unity and solidarity, reflected in the faces of people marching with dignity and moral authority.

They came in more than 300 buses and trains from all over: trade unions, social justice groups, special event groups like Toronto's "Mob4Glob" (mobilization for globalization). The [National Confederation of Trade Unions], Quebec's largest public sector union, has done an outstanding job, with more than 20 buses coming from Local 301 alone! Quebec's teacher's union is also out in force, along with many from the [Quebec Federation of Workers], the [Canadian Labor Congress]'s Quebec affiliate. The [Canadian Auto Workers] has sent 15 buses and paid for more to bring hundreds of social justice and community groups to Quebec City. [Canadian Union of Public Employees], [Canadian Unoin of Postal Workers] and other public sector unions are also present in significant numbers. The Steelworker/

[Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada] has brought six carloads from Toronto and stops along the way.

The Communist Party of Canada (CPC) is also here. Two busloads have arrived, one from Montreal and the other, after a grueling nine-hour trip, from Toronto. Everyone is happy to be here.

Boxes of the CPC statement on capitalist globalization spill out onto the pavement, along with banners of all sorts. Two hours later, 10,000 leaflets have been eaten up by a crowd hungry for information. The Young Communist Organization also has a leaflet, but it, too, is gone in short order.

One key demand - to release the text of the agreement for public debate - has borne fruit. On Friday, an important section of the text was leaked. Dealing with constitutional issues and national sovereignty, it galvanized opposition and focused the demands for openness, publicity, democracy and accountability.

Above all, demonstrators

want Ottawa, [the seat of

Canadian government], to put the FTAA on the public agenda, and to take direction from the Canadian people, not the "economic elites": the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, GATT, the G7 and other un-elected and unaccountable corporate global entities.

The largest contingent are the social justice and community groups from Quebec, Ontario and the Maritimes, many of whom are also union members and activists. The Council of Canadians is front and center, along with the Canadian Federation of Students. The largest proportion of demonstrators are young, providing the protest with much of its enormous energy and optimism.

Music and puppets are everywhere too, many homemade. The puppets are enormous - 15 or 20 feet high. George Bush in ghoulish flight. A huge Uncle Sam standing over a guillotine. A gigantic mother protecting her children from corporate conglomerates. A very ugly Ronald McDonald doing nasty things. And so on.

Much of the music is pots and pans, and rhythm and beat. When members of the pots-and-pans brigade are too tired to walk, they climb the crossbeams on the lamp standards, and entertain us from above with drumbeats on metal. People dance through the streets. "So! So! So! So-lidarité!" goes the favorite chant throughout the day.

Street theatre is everywhere. A group of three show how government is blinded and silenced by money, while corporations go fishing. A large group of 20 or 30 walks in lockstep to the march of a drum, all dressed in corporate suits and ties, movements synchronized, including a stop to look at the relentless watch, and a stop to hold the aching, breaking head.

The rejection of a world run by the corporate, capitalist elite is plain to see. People come dressed as sharks, ghouls, tycoons, carrying signs that make the impassioned case for democracy, for civil and national rights. Many came with U.S. dollar bills taped across their mouths. Others carry Cuban flags made of paper. The Che Guevara stickers made by the Young Communist Organization go like hotcakes, with hundreds of people wearing them throughout the day. A broad sense of solidarity with Cuba, and the Cuban trade unions and people, saturates the protest.

Thousands of people come in their cars, some because there weren't any buses or because the buses were long since filled. Whole families arrive, often with their own signs in the trunk. Everyone has brought water, along with winter coats. Who knew the weather was going to be hot? Winter clothes are stripped off, and suddenly the crowd is a mix of summer and winter, coats tied around the waist, paper hats made of leaflets and newspapers, everybody sunburned and exhausted at the end of the 10 kilometer hike.

Some turn back before the final kilometers, a stretch through industrial land where marchers feel isolated and sidelined. Why did the march not come close to the perimeter, many ask. The end is the exhibition grounds where toilets await, together with brief speeches and more music.

The buses finally arrive, and the worry about finding all the right bodies begins. Who is missing? Who is lost? Is anybody hurt? Are the cell phones working?

Finally we head out for the trip home, secure in the knowledge that we made our contribution to the blooming opposition to the FTAA, its disruption and developing defeat.

Liz Rowley is member of the Editorial Board of the People's Voice.