The press is all over the summit at Montebello, partly because George W. Bush seldom visits this country, and partly because the protest is expected to be on a scale similar to what happened at the Summit of the Americas in Quebec City in 2001.

So far the protests have been peaceful. Things like a caravan starting here at 8:30 this morning are well-planned photo ops to get the media on-side. And left-wing papers like Hour have been supportive, writing about them in a good light. The Globe, meanwhile, has a piece from Maude Barlow of the Council of Canadians, denouncing the meeting’s lack of transparency. Le Devoir is also on their side, suggesting that three conservative leaders (even by their countries’ standards), combined with executives of the largest corporations in North America might not have everyone’s interests at heart.

And there’s always the NDP. And The Dominion.

Of course, not everyone’s a hippie or hippie ally. The Gazette has a long editorial accusing the left of being paranoid, and trusting that the three amigos are not made of pure evil. It (only half-fairly) paints the environmental and labour lobby as obstructionists who oppose all progress just for its own sake. While it doesn’t take a stretch of the imagination to see that happening, I’m not one for believing that these corporate leaders wouldn’t similarly object strenuously if a policy being considered hurt their bottom line in even the most minute way.

The editorial then curiously uses the example of the harmonization of pesticide regulations to make the point that being screwed over by the U.S. is good because it raises awareness about how we’re being screwed over by the U.S.

Antagoniste also wonders what everyone’s complaining about.

Other Montebello-related tidbits from the papers this weekend:

• CP: Summit participants will be able to see the protesters on closed-circuit TV
• CanWest: Roundup of the agenda items
• Journal de Montréal on the mini-Guantanamo being setup at a local school to house all the young protesters who will be arrested
• La Presse on the lawyers getting ready to help

Finally, La Presse’s André Noël gets the award for lamest story lead related to this issue:

Connaissez-vous le PSP? Oui, bien sûr, il y a la PlayStation Portable de Sony. Mais soyez francs: connaissez-vous le Partenariat nord-américain pour la sécurité et la prospérité?