About 30 people gathered at Cornwallis Park on Saturday to protest the Halifax Security Forum. The annual anti-war rally heard speeches from former Halifax poet laureate El Jones and Marxist-Leninist Party member Allan Bezanson.
Protesters carrying drums and signs braved the rain to stand outside the Westin Hotel.
Signs read: “Resistance is a Right” and “Canada needs an anti-war government.”
Another poster crossed out Cornwallis Park and replaced it with “Halifax Peace and Freedom Park.”
The loudspeaker carried by leaders was often turned to the hotel, with shouts of ‘shame’ directed at the forum.
El Jones recited a poem that received cheers from protesters.
“We built this city on land we stole. We built this city on capitalism. We built TPP and free trade proposition. We built Walmarts to push out local competition. We built cheap shiny goods in sweatshop conditions.”
Allan Bezanson ran in the recent federal election as a candidate for the Marxist-Leninist Party of Canada. He spoke on behalf of No Harbour for War at the rally.
“Our former defense minister is … calling for the most aggressive military alliance in the world, led by U.S. imperialism,” Bezanson told the group.
“There’s 51 or 56 think tanks and NGOs here. These are the apologists for imperialism. These are the ones who wrote scholarly articles, who do the scholarly research, and juggle the facts and misrepresent everything.”
Bezanson was also critical of the media.
“We are being inundated with misinformation about what’s going on.”
Yazan Khader spoke at the protest. He is a member of Students Against Israeli Apartheid at Dalhousie University.
“We’re here to make a fuss about the fact that certain people that are being welcomed in Halifax have done some nasty stuff in the past,” Khader said in an interview.
“The Israeli government controls the lives of millions of Palestinians in the West Bank, those people have no vote, they live under military law … they’re treated under very harsh punitive measures that Amnesty International has criticized.”
“We’re here to condemn our government’s support for that.”
Khader said he was satisfied with the turnout, though it has been higher in previous years. The Dalhousie student said he thought people might have been drawn away by other events, such as Hijab Day at the Halifax Central Library.
The protest ended after about an hour of speeches, chanting, and drumming.
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