By World BEYOND War, September 18, 2026
From September 12-14, World BEYOND War was proud to team up with 8th Fire Rising, the Council of Canadians, and dozens of movement allies to convene the Many Versus the Money counter-summit and a massive protest and march to confront PM Carney’s billionaire gala.
The context was Carney’s Investment Summit – the largest gathering of CEOs ever to assemble in Canada. His summit amounted to hundreds of the richest people on the planet coming together for 24 hours behind closed doors at luxury hotels in downtown Toronto to simultaneously auction off public resources and infrastructure, award military contracts, and finance destructive megaprojects like weapons factories, AI data centers, and toxic pipelines.
His guest list included some of the most infamous war profiteers. PM Carney rolled out the red carpet for billionaires like BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, a primary financier of the weapons of genocide used in Gaza and fierce defender of Israel’s war crimes, and the heads of the UAE’s major sovereign wealth funds, who are directly enabling the Rapid Support Forces (RSF)’s escalating genocide in Sudan.
Our counter-summit kicked off with an incredible keynote panel on Saturday night featuring journalist Naomi Klein (author of End Times Fascism), scholar and activist Keeanga-Yahmatta Taylor (author of From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation), and special musical guest Carsie Blanton – watch the recording here.
On Sunday, the counter-summit continued with an all-day teach-in, bringing together organizers, researchers and front-line activists from various movements (labour, Indigenous, tenants, climate, anti-war, migrant rights, Palestine solidarity, and others) in dozens of workshops and panels. Panels tackled AI data centres and LNG projects, health care privatization and military spending, Indigenous land rights and the critical minerals rush. The emphasis throughout was on making connections between issues, people, and organizations. Over 800 people registered for the counter-summit, which closed with a resistance concert in Grange Park.
And on Monday, as Carney’s summit began, we held a press conference to denounce it, and brought together a broad swathe of movements, communities, and organizations for a major rally, march, and protest against Carney’s summit. Well over a thousand of us rallied at Nathan Phillips Square before marching right up to the police barricades surrounding the Art Gallery of Ontario, where Carney was throwing a glitzy gala for some of the world’s worst corporate villains.
As the billionaires hid behind barricades guarded by a massive police presence from at least four different police jurisdictions, we surrounded the building on three sides, forced them to sneak in and out under police escort, and gave these climate-burning, genocide-funding billionaires the welcome they deserved!
Wall to wall media coverage of our opposition
Our opposition to Carney’s CEO Summit was covered by every major local and national media outlet including CBC, Toronto Star, Canadian Press, Global, Globe and Mail, CTV, CP24, City News, and the Grind. Plus international media from Reuters and Bloomberg, to New York Times and Al Jazeera. These were definitely not the headlines Carney was hoping for.
Watch WBW Organizer Rachel Small give a live interview on Breakfast Television breaking down our opposition to Carney’s investment summit and war agenda.
We hosted a press conference to lay bare PM Carney’s plans, hosted with speakers including Yolanda McClean (CUPE Ontario president), Nik Barry-Shaw (Council of Canadians), Syed Hussan (Migrant Workers Alliance for Change), Kai Nagata (Dogwood), Chief Na’Moks (Wet’suwet’en Nation Hereditary Chief), and Gwii Lok’im Gibuu (Gitxsan & Wet’suwet’en Nations). It was streamed by CPAC and can be watched here.
Within 24 hours of our protest at the summit’s opening gala, PM Carney unveiled plans that validated our fears. We warned that Carney’s summit would both auction off public resources and finance destructive projects…and that’s exactly what he immediately set into place, launching plans to privatize major airports, hand out billions in tax breaks, and ensure billions in financing for the war and fossil fuel industries.
It has never been clearer who Canada is serving and how determined PM Carney is to put the profit of billionaires over the needs of the people. Our resistance this weekend is only the beginning.
