After the announcement that the World Bank and IMF committees would be meeting in Ottawa on November 17 and 18 in conjunction with the G20 leaders, Global Democracy Ottawa (GDO), of which I am a member, decided to act as host and facilitator for the mobilisation that would occur against the meetings. Mary Hutcheon, Marie Huot, James Pratt, and myself acted as facilitators during the meetings of the spokescouncil where these plans were agreed on, supported by  broader team drawn from several local organisations.

The initial call-out talked about explicitly non-violent activities; it was made clear that property destruction or battles with the police would happen outside this framework. All groups agreed, about 40 being represented, from Ottawa, Montreal, Québec, and Toronto. The November 17 rallies and marches would be peaceful, and the approach to the Conference Centre itself would be divided, with non-violent protest and direct action or civil disobedience taking place in a "Green Zone" on the Rideau and Sussex side, and a "Yellow to Red Zone" on the west side, where people might try to disrupt the meeting using force. In the event, several people were arrested trying to walk up to the front door of the Conference Centre from both sides, while to the best of my knowledge the throwing of paint and the dismantling of steel barriers only took place on the west side.

Throughout the short process (3 weeks of weekly spokescouncil meetings and constant organising to set up logistics, housing, welcome centre, food, legal and medical support, and the rallies themselves) this delicate consensus held, despite some fractious discussions over the necessity of maintaining a clearly non-violent stance, as well as some real divisions over whether to talk to the police.

To be clear, because this is important for the Panel to understand, many of the youth, anarchists and people of colour have no trust or tolerance for the police, seeing them as agents of State repression as well as violent, prejudiced, and racist in their training and group culture, if not individually. Others see the police as a necessary function in a society that is not mature enough for people to take collective responsibility for their communities and individual responsibility for their actions. Still others see the police as part of the community, doing an often-difficult and thankless job. And all have reasons for their perspectives, related to their personal and political backgrounds and experiences.

So in the end responsibility for police liaison was assumed by GDO so as not to implicate other members of the spokescouncil, while allowing practical considerations like march routes and portapotties to be dealt with. The police liaison committee can brief you on the details of their communications and the results. What was relayed to the organisers was that the police had no objections to the proposed march routes and rally plans, that they understood protestors' desire to make their voices heard as their democratic right, and that they would try not to be restrictive or provocative. I can only add that as of 7:00 am I sat next to Sgt. Marc Richer of the RCMP in a CBC Newsworld studio as he said the security forces understood the desire and need to keep the protests peaceful, that they would be trying not to be provocative, and that they might even use officers on bicycles during the march and rally. It wasn't until later that I found out how disingenuous, not to say dishonest, he was being, and that the previous night several people had been stopped, interrogated, threatened with arrest, and ticketed for jaywalking when they asked the officers' badge numbers.

The rest, as they say, is history. My co-MC for the rallies was arrested some time after 10:00 am on the 17th as she tried to protect someone from a police attack, but she can describe that. It was a very confused and disturbing day, as well as a very successful one. Despite the extreme police provocation, no-one responded violently; rather, people tried to protect each other non-violently from the police assaults and calm each other's emotional distress. Black bloc anarchists, taking part in a completely peaceful activity, were protected by church-goers and pagans. The sense that everyone was there with one purpose -- to voice their opposition to an exploitative and unjust world order -- grew stronger under the police assault, rather than diminishing.

The overall message I would leave you with is that despite the apparent fragility of the consensus to stick to non-violent protest during the rallies, it proved extremely strong. Even groups and individuals who had not been part of the decision seemed to understand it immediately and stuck to it despite intense provocation by the police.

In closing I would only add that to me it is misleading to speak of a police "response" when it is clear that the police repeatedly and brutally attacked a peaceful gathering.
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