With the smoke still clearing on the 2001 Meeting of the G8 in Genoa, Italy, Jean Chretien announced that the 2002 G8 Meeting would be held in Kananaskis, Alberta in June of 2002.

Initially planned for Ottawa, the meeting was moved to Kananaskis officially due to the area’s beauty, a desire to return to a smaller meeting, and the strategic advantages from a security standpoint of having the summit in an isolated, hard to reach area of Canada. While the last rationale was likely a significant factor, it is also quite likely that no municipality in Canada wanted it. After all, the Genoa meeting had seen unprecedented violence on the part of security forces, leading to hundreds of arrest, hundreds of injured, and the death of 23 year-old Carlos Guiliani.

Immediately upon the announcement, Canadian civil society, particularly in Alberta, condemned the choice of Kananaskis and began to mobilize in opposition to the meeting. Organizing has continued over the past few months, focusing on two streams: an opposition to the location and an attempt to have the meeting moved, and organizing for events to counter the meeting and discuss alternatives to the G8.

As with other major summits of the international financial architecture since the APEC meeting in Vancouver, the preparations for the G8 have brought together a wide range of civil society groups. Environmental groups such as the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, the Alberta Wilderness Association, and Wildcanada.net were joined by the Raging Grannies and others in pressuring the governments of both Alberta and Canada to move the meeting.

The past few months has also seen the beginning of the formation of a loose coalition of anti-globalization groups, environmental groups, and labour from around Alberta and across Canada. A spokescouncil meeting at the end of August brought together over a hundred activists from as far away as Toronto, including groups as diverse as the Saskatchewan Federation of Labour, the Mobilization for Global Justice, the Ewok Bloc, and Check Your Head.

Discussion focused on the appropriateness of holding a mass protest in Kananaskis, given the environmental sensitivity of the area, as well as the formulation of a common vision in opposition to the G8. As with other meetings of this nature, a wide range of counter activities is being planned in the months leading up to June and beyond, ranging from direct action to counter-conferences, letter writing campaigns to tree-sits, blockades to brochures. To this end a number of working groups are beginning to form, each which will focus on a different aspect of planning and collectively coordinate overriding concerns such as logistics and housing for out of town activists.

Organizing for the G8 continues in both Calgary and Edmonton to set up the structure of the activities in opposition to the G8.

For those looking to get involved in preparations, the website www.g8.activist.ca is acting as a clearing house for information on the various working groups, the email listservs which are being used for discussion and planning, and scheduling of on-going meetings as well as the next spokescouncil, which is tentatively planned for early November in Calgary.