Not pictured: Saskatoon.

The Occupy Wall Street movement that recently made headlines in New York is gaining traction across the globe. Similar protests have now been staged or are planned in dozens of cities including London, Boston, Seattle, Toronto — and now Saskatoon.

Inspired in part by democratic protests in the Middle East, known as the Arab Spring, the Occupy Wall Street movement is broadly focused on reducing economic inequality and corporate influence on politics.

An Occupy Saskatoon march is planned for Oct. 15, starting at the University of Saskatchewan Law Building and ending at River Landing. The march takes place at noon and the River Landing gathering at 1:00 p.m.

The Facebook event had over 350 people marked as attending the rally at press time.

“How it got started is a call was put out for solidarity with the occupation that’s happening in New York, and it’s been taken up globally,” said Graham Goff, one of the organizers of the Saskatoon event. “It’s by no means an isolated thing. There are demonstrations in cities across Canada and the entire world.”

Goff, who works with a non-profit organization in Saskatoon, says the march is meant to highlight local issues and is only inspired by the Wall Street protests.

“It was Wall Street that started this, but the problems that are being addressed there are global and at the same time very local that we face here,” said Goff. “The corporatization of our democracy is the main focus of many of these events, and that’s a problem that is every bit as pertinent here as it is there.”

Goff pointed to the ongoing campaign by a group of U of S senators to highlight industry ties with the university as one of the reasons to worry about corporate influence. That group, known as USSWORD, will propose three new motions at a university senate meeting just hours before the march is set to happen.

Goff said the Occupy movement was largely non-ideological, with people from the left and right all coming together. “They’re all here and out in agreement that something is very wrong,” he said.

Asked why he thought the protest movement was only now beginning to take shape, three years after the 2008 financial crisis started, Goff said, “Because there’s no time left.”

“We’re heading to a deepening global crisis financially and especially ecological. I feel many people are beginning to feel time is running out to alter the course of this sinking ship we are on.”

Goff said his biggest hope for Occupy Saskatoon was to create discussion about economic imbalances and address those issues as a community in new ways.

Goff ended the interview with a parting thought.

“Democratic government derives its power from the people, and no true democracy is obtainable when process is determined by economic power, which is the problem we face in Canada and the United States.”

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Photo: PaulS/Flickr