Disruption of a Montreal corporate luncheon with the U.S. ambassador

The managers of Montreal‘s prestigious Saint-James Club likely regretted inviting the U.S. ambassador to speak at a lunch scheduled for 11:30 a.m. today. Around 10:30 a.m., dozens of workers from Workers’ Alliance blocked the entrances to disrupt the event and denounce U.S. imperialism.

The protesters formed a tight line in front of the underground parking entrance and the club’s main doors, a venue well known among Montreal’s elite. Tickets for the members-only event cost $150.

From the outset of the blockade, the head of security lost his temper. He shouted at the protesters, accusing them of being violent, even as they simply stood in a line, arm in arm. Accompanied by another guard, he then shoved protesters and charged into their ranks in an attempt to break the line, before calling the police.

The SPVM tactical response unit eventually arrived shortly before 11 a.m. The protesters remained on site until noon, sowing confusion among event organizers, who were unable to start the event on time. No further confrontations took place, and no arrests were made.

Pete Hoekstra, the United States ambassador to Canada, was eventually able to enter through a service door after being stuck at his hotel. The event was significantly delayed, and the executives who had given up their lunch hour to hear from Donald Trump‘s envoy were forced to use the alley and postpone some of their activities.

U.S. dignitaries “not welcome”

“The United States bombs, invades, and kidnaps for oil,” fumes Sandra, a Chilean-born mother who took part in the blockade. “They are not welcome.” She says she was there to denounce U.S. foreign policy and Canada’s support for it.

The protesters wanted to be seen and to make their opposition unmistakably clear by disrupting the event. According to Sandra, there is nothing excessive about that, quite the opposite. “The United States is a country that spreads terror all over the world, in Latin America, even at home,” she says. “People are afraid. We’re fed up. Yankee go home.”

Sandra arrived in Quebec with her parents in the 1970s, fleeing the Pinochet dictatorship, “because of the torture, the imprisonment, the disappearances. Anyone with even a shred of conscience could be silenced very quickly.”

Pinochet came to power with the backing of the United States, following the assassination of socialist president Salvador Allende, who had been elected a few years earlier. “At that time, the United States did the same thing in several countries, overthrowing presidents and having opponents assassinated. Today it’s Venezuela, but this has been going on for decades: creating crises, plundering the resources of our continent. It has to stop.”

“The American empire invests enormous sums of money in destruction and disinformation,” she recalls. “To make people believe, for example, that they had the right to invade Iraq. To make people believe it was justified because there was a dictator and weapons of mass destruction. In the end, there weren’t any, but there was plenty of oil. It was all fabricated.” That war is believed to have killed between 200,000 and 450,000 civilians.

“The United States does this regularly and never gets slapped on the wrist,” Sandra adds. “They think they can do whatever they want to us. But at some point, it’s up to us to carry the revolt. There are limits.”

She concludes: “That’s why I wanted to be here, to say it loud and clear, to chant slogans, to say their hands are covered in blood. And when we criticize the United States, we’re not talking about the American people. We’re talking about governments. Whether it’s Trump, Obama, or Bush, they all did the same thing.”