If Canadians suspect that the anti-globalization protesters in Calgary to protest the G-8 summit were: misinformed, would cut third-world countries off at the knees, limit the ability of the poor to improve their lot, and that the anti-free trade movement is merely hard-left socialism dressed up in drag, the hunch is largely correct. With apologies to Churchill, never have so many protested so often for so wrong a method to relieve poverty around the world. Access to rich countries' markets will lift the poor into better conditions; in contrast, an expansion of protectionist policy under any guise will only guarantee more misery.

But if most Canadians assume as much, they are likely unaware that much of the anti-globalization fervour is taxpayer-funded, either indirectly or directly. There were plenty of government-funded activists in Calgary but before reviewing the usual suspects there, consider how taxpayers have unwittingly helped fund past protests. Remember the 1999 "battle in Seattle " The British Columbia Teachers Federation sent 100 union activists to that melee. That union's take from taxpayers over the past decade was $4.6 million in grants and contributions from the B.C. government. And then there was Quebec City. There, anti-free trade activists were given cash directly: $300,000 by the federal government to hold their own so-called "People's Summit." And Quebec kicked in another $200,000.
As for the latest alternative summit in Calgary, sponsors there included the Canadian Labour Congress, a recipient of $168,500 from the federal departments of Multiculturalism and Environment. (And the CLC's advice to politicians Re-ignite inflation, an insane suggestion since inflation erodes wages and savings, which hurts the poor and middle income earners more than anyone.)

Also in Calgary and perennially at the trough were two well-known champagne socialists. Svend Robinson, who, when not jetting off to hang out with Palestinian terrorists, garners $131,400 from taxpayers every year in his part-time job as a Member of Parliament. Stephen Lewis, a careerist politician as an Ontario New Democrat in the 1960s and 1970s, appointed to the United Nations in the 1980s and still at the taxpayer-funded U.N. showed up to bash capitalists who, incidentally, have supported him his entire life. Also present was Matthew Coon Come, chief of the Assembly of First Nations. His group annoyed the federal government by bashing reforms to the Indian Act so AFN funding has been cut in half, but Mr. Coon Come and his lobbyists will still rake in $10 million this year.

On the environment side, the Canadian Environmental Network, whose website advertised to help protesters deliver their message to the "corporate media," took in $481,250 in 2001 from the federal government. The Sierra Club sent a representative to speak at the alternative summit; their B.C. and Alberta branches received at least $94,026 in federal Environment grants and contributions last year. And the Alberta-based Pembina Institute That environmental lobby took in $101,250 from Ottawa in 2001.

If course, the unions, environmentalists, and left-wing politicians will argue that no indirect taxpayer cash goes to their anti-globalization fiestas. Nonsense. When governments give money to such organizations, taxpayers finance the agenda of groups whose protest abilities would be restricted to what they could raise from donations or dues. Granted that politicians such as Robinson and Lewis will spend their political travel budgets as they like, but surely, taxpayers should not be forced to fund a dime of any lobby group's political activity. If environmental groups, teacher's unions or others want to mistakenly protest free trade, an activity which - unlike the protests - has been of immense help to the world's poor, they should pay their own way, not snatch cash from taxpayers unaware that their pockets have been picked.