Anti-capitalists marched through downtown Montreal on Monday to disturb what they claimed were the corporate playgrounds of the scheming rich.
For the 10th consecutive year, a group calling itself the “anticapitalist convergence” organized a march in the city to celebrate International Workers’ Day, also known as May Day.
Similar protests took place around the world.
The slogan of this year’s protest was, “They are rich because we are poor and we are right to revolt.”
READ MORE: Tensions run high at Montreal’s May Day anti-capitalist rally
Protesters marched through the city’s downtown, where “the rich mingle and scheme,” according to a news release published Monday by the group.
Demonstrators were seen throwing gas canisters at police amid the protest, according to Canadian Press reporter Giuseppe Valiante.
Valiante also tweeted this picture, which showed paint on the windows of Place Ville-Marie:
The neighbourhood’s bank offices, luxury hotels, restaurants and private nightclubs are places “where this ‘elite’ of vultures decide how we should live our lives, while maintaining us in misery and precarity.”
The anti-capitalist group claims the government’s steps to balance the budget and to reduce debt “is the same capitalist logic that which gets worse and worse each year.”
READ MORE: Overnight protests result in tense clashes between police and protesters
Capitalism is the cause of ecosystem destruction around the world, growing wealth inequality as well as “community and ethnic marginalization,” the group said.
Last year’s protest ended in 10 arrests and one minor injury after protesters – many of whom were wearing ski masks and other face-covering gear – allegedly threw projectiles at police.
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