The current capitalist model threw the planet into an unprecedented economic, environmental and social crisis. Austerity and structural adjustment policies have been imposed in most countries. Populations are subject to restrictive measures, whose principal victims are the most vulnerable. This economic system is directly responsible for climate change, which threaten the integrity of ecosystems and the survival of populations.

Furthermore, the context of wars and its consequences with all the refugees and migrants are the symptoms of a crisis still deeper of the system, which feed the false solutions of withdrawal and hatred, xenophobia and racism, patriarchal and colonialist, in disregard of human dignity and democratic and social rights, including the right to decent work, to health, to education, to housing…

It is in this context that will be held a first World social forum (WSF) in a country of the North, in Canada, in Montreal, from 9 to 14 August of this year. This is an opportunity to carry the message that another world is possible within one of the richest capitalist economies, that globalized solidarity of 99% of the world’s population requires to stop the frantic development of inequalities.

The challenge of the WSF 2016 is to consolidate alliances between social movements and citizens, in a perspective of renewal of the international solidarity action. In Canada, Quebec offers an area of resistance and of construction of collective alternative. The new political situation, which brought to power the current Justin Trudeau’s Government, is the result of a movement of rejection from the Canadian population against an ultraliberal economic policy, based on a predatory extractivism and a strong conservatism.

The fight against oil sands and oil pipelines in Canada, the mobilization of indigenous peoples for their rights, the strength of social, labor and environmental movements have contributed to this political change. Social movements are aware of the historical roots of the liberal party of the new Government in Canadian capitalism and are now fighting for greater political openness and for the inclusion of social struggles.

For fifteen years, the World Social Forums are mobilizing social movements, associations, citizens to assert that another world is not only possible, but necessary and urgent. Hundreds of thousands of people have already defined and implemented the concrete alternatives to deal with problems that affect the lives of populations. In this sense, it is important to increase the political impact of WSF on our convergences and our struggles.

The objective of this first WSF in the North is to go beyond the single sharing of our mobilizations and struggles: let’s take the opportunity to allow social movements to offer political responses to change the course of history.

Participation constraints are important in a country like Canada. We cannot compare the WSF of Montreal with previous WSF. In this context, the challenge of the WSF 2016 of Montreal is to strengthen the content and the impact of our political message, but also the unity of social movements of the North and the South.

To ensure that our message is heard widely, we invite all social movements and citizens from all sources to converge towards Montreal. To participate is also a gesture of support for the WSF process, being held this time in a North country, at the heart of North-American capitalism.

As of Now, we invite you to:

·         prepare activities of meetings of any kind in each of your countries. This may be new activities or activities already planned;

·         announce the activities in the forum website and circulate them around you;

·         greet people will come to contact you from other countries on the occasion of your activity;

·         animate during your activities local exchanges and include inasmuch possible remote participants;

·         remotely participate in activities proposed by others in other countries on issues on which you are active

These remote interactions are also a way to create contacts and foster linkages between the delegations of your movements present in Montreal. You can also create committees in your area to promote participation in all its forms and articulate your activities

During the Forum in Montreal, we invite you to:

·         organize from your country teleconferencing activities with people you know and who are over there;

·         participate remotely to many activities enlarged online with video streaming (*) and chat room (*).

After Montreal, we invite you to organize meetings and events with those who have been there, set up activities and parties

·         to continue to broadcast the forum: testimonies, showing photos  film, video online;

·         to continue to support the ideas and consolidate the “initiatives” announced at the forum and on the forum website by your movements, particularly at the Agora of initiatives on August 13.

We also call for supporting the holding of the WSF by promoting participation to the event, particularly contributing to a solidarity fund centralized at the international level. Among the constraints linked to the reality of North America, public funding will be very limited. The Collective 2016 is unable to establish and distribute amounts to a solidarity fund. Therefore, we have agreed to set up a mechanism of international solidarity fund, in which the local Collective of the WSF 2015 will participate.

To contribute to the Solidarity Fund, please contact:  solidarityfund@fsm2016.org