There is clear evidence that the process of globalization has focused entirely on increasing the rights and economic success of multinational corporations. The social effects of globalization have been marked by an erosion of living standards, environmental degradation, the decay of public and social programs, and an assault on workers’ and human rights around the world.

A recent report by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) finds that inequality is both extremely large and has been growing at an alarming rate over the past two decades of rapid globalization. The CCPA report, The Global Divide, finds that IMF, World trade Organization and World Bank policies of trade and financial liberalization, privatization, fiscal restraint, and deregulation have been significant contributors to the rise in inequality.

Citing recent Worlds Bank data, author Marc Lee reports that inequality trends were relatively flat from the mid-1960s to the early 1980s, but that since then inequality begins to rise dramatically.

The rise in inequality has been most apparent in the world’s poor and underdeveloped countries, but it has also affected the world’s most wealthy countries. In six of the G8 countries, Canada, Italy, Britain, the United States and Russia, inequality has increased. In Germany and France, inequality has remained constant.

Growing inequality, unchanging levels of absolute poverty and the undermining of workers’ rights all provide ample cause for discontent by the majority of citizens of the world. As the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions said to the inaugural meeting of the ILS World Commission on Globalization in March 2002:

"It is unsurprising that as a consequence, there is growing concern world-wide that people and governments are losing control of the processes known as globalization. There is a lack of legitimacy of the intergovernmental institutions that can only worsen until peoples’ social, developmental and environmental concerns are properly addressed by the multilateral system."

In any society, declining economic and social conditions will lead, inevitably, to dissent. That is the reason for the rising levels of popular protest surrounding meetings of the G8, the WTO and other multilateral institutions which govern the global order.

The right to dissent is a cornerstone of democracy. It hinges upon freedom of association and freedom of speech and freedom of thought. If democratic governments pursue agendas that evoke strong opposition among the electorate, they must expect to come face-to-face with protesting citizens. They will have to put up with angry placards and name calling, and if they are embarrassed in front of other world leaders it is the price they pay for being an elected leader rather than a dictator.

It is the response of democratic governments to such protest that has shocked so many people following protests in Seattle, Genoa, Washington and Quebec City. There has been an increase of violent state repression of democratic protest. Government response has become provocative, escalating and increasingly military.

In preparation for Kananaskis, the Calgary police have purchased two armoured vehicle identical to the kind used by the old South African state during the apartheid era. The federal government has empted a Calgary prison in preparation for mass arrests. And, federal government interference is suspected as the cause of the loss of a signed lease for land intended to serve as a solidarity village for protestors.

The questions must be asked: when did protest become so illegitimate in Canada that government can take these kinds of policing actions prior to any act by any citizen, and can attempt to stifle dissent as if suppressing citizens’ rights were simply good governance? Canadians who protest globalization and Canada’s role in the process are neither criminals nor terrorists. Even if there were some small acts of vandalism, how can that warrant tear gas and riot police and armoured vehicles?