Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info
In “Montréal” this Friday May 13. We decorated an RBC Branch, in solidarity with the Wet’suwet’en land defenders. We used red paint, like the colour of the blood staining this bank’s hands.
From Escaping Tomorrow’s Cages
This text is the third in a series. To start at the beginning, read the introduction. The second part, a summary of the projects, can be read here.
First, briefly, why oppose prisons in general?
We take as our starting point that the world would be better without prisons. Prisons don’t solve social problems, they exacerbate existing inequalities and play a crucial role in a violent capitalist system. The lie told about prisons is that by disappearing people who have been convicted of criminalized activities, our communities will be “safer”. In reality, breaking up communities, only to later release people with more trauma and fewer resources, does far more harm.
Unsurprisingly, those dealing with poverty, addiction, or mental health struggles are vastly over-represented prison populations. Prisons frame these struggles as individual choices instead of symptoms of a capitalist system that disposes of those viewed as having less to contribute. The legal system itself is designed so that those with less resources are far more likely to end up incarcerated. The over-representation in prison of Indigenous, Black and other people of colour – all communities dealing with higher levels of surveillance and criminalization – is also indicative of how prisons entrench existing inequalities. In Canada, a country built on stolen Indigenous land, prisons have always been institutions used to lock up those who threaten the colonial state and the capitalist system it relies on.
For these reasons, the struggle against prison is a crucial part of struggles against other forms of oppression. Prison is one of the most explicit and violent ways that the state keeps the oppressed in their place and maintains the status quo.
Over the years, through moments of crisis/tension, the government has responded to crises in prison management by directing resources towards expanding the prison system in Ontario. Looking at public discourse around prisons over approximately the last decade, we can see a narrative that the provincial government has built up around their current prison expansion program.
Funding for the two largest projects, the Kemptville and Thunder Bay prisons, was approved back in 2017.
Around that time, Ontario prisons had come under scrutiny for their heavy-handed use of segregation, meaning solitary confinement. In one high-profile case, Adam Capay, a man from Lac Seul First Nation, was held in segregation over 1,500 days, much of that time in a cell that was brightly lit for 24 hours a day. His case was a starting point for two significant reports: Out of Oversight, Out of Mind, a report by the Ontario Ombudsman on the Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services’ handling of segregation placements, and an interim report on from Ontario’s Independent Advisor on Corrections Reform, also on the use of segregation.
In a press release, the province describes the reports as guiding the government’s “ongoing work to reform Ontario’s correctional system.”
The work included “chang[ing] segregation practices, as well as investments made to increase staff and mental health supports for those in custody.”
Crucially, the press release also announces approved funding for a 325-bed multi-purpose correctional centre to replace the existing Thunder Bay Jail and Thunder Bay Correctional Centre, and a 725-bed multi-purpose correctional centre to replace the existing Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre (the details of these projects have changed since then). These investments are described as increasing capacity and reducing overcrowding.
If the link between locking less people in segregation and building new prisons feels murky, the release goes on to explain that these actions meet the goals of reducing segregation by “building a system in which appropriate alternatives to segregation are more available for vulnerable inmates, such as pregnant women and those with acute mental health issues, and ensuring that segregation is used only in rare circumstances”. If it still feels murky, perhaps it’s because surely there are easier ways to avoid locking people in segregation than building new facilities.
While it already feels clear that the government can spin any crisis in corrections into an excuse to expand the prison system, let’s look at a few other issues unfolding at the time.
In August 2017, a joint coroner’s inquest was announced to investigate at least 8 overdose deaths in the Hamilton-Wentworth Detention Centre between 2012-2016. This is one particularly stark example of the overdose crisis unfolding inside Ontario prisons.
The report produced 62 recommendations, none of which were binding, but many of which provide possible justification for the expansion of prison infrastructure. For example, recommendations included introducing full-body scanners, limiting the number of prisoners to a cell, and housing new prisoners in a separate intake area.
Finally, in early 2016, the government of Ontario narrowly avoided a strike during contract negotiations with correctional officers (prison guards) and probation officers represented by Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU). Results of the negotiations included an end to a hiring freeze and the appointment of at least 25 new probation and parole officers. Understaffing and overcrowding of facilities has been a perennial talking point for the corrections unit of the union.
It is unsurprising that correctional staff complaints also throw support behind a prison expansion program. OPSEU president Warren Thomas has made multiple statements in wholehearted support of the Kemptville and Thunder Bay prison projects. In fact, he cited new prison construction as a reason corrections staff remained satisfied with OPSEU representation when complaints emerged from some union members in 2020.
All these events helped form the context for approving upwards of $500 million for prison expansion.
It is true that prisons in Ontario are horrifyingly overcrowded, poorly maintained, frequently locked down due to short staffing and lack even basic services like medical care. While prison expansion is far from the only answer to these problems, it’s unsurprising that it is the one the government reached. Any crisis in corrections will be responded to by an expansion of the system, escalated forms of control, and further categorization, separation, and isolation of prisoners.
In addition to supposedly addressing issues like overcrowding, new projects claim to include more specialized services and programming. The Northern expansion strategy is billed as being “responsive to the needs of Indigenous people and communities”, with “culturally appropriate spaces and aspects of the facilities.” The Eastern strategy includes the expansion of the St. Lawrence Valley Correction and Treatment Centre, a facility specifically for those with mental health or developmental issues.
This ignores the fact that prisons perpetuate a cycle of harm against marginalized communities, and that more “culturally sensitive” or specialized forms of incarceration will never change this. There is also no guarantee that programming or specialized use of facilities will be permanent – the only guarantee is that the state’s capacity to incarcerate people has forever expanded.
https://news.ontario.ca/en/release/44567/ontario-taking-action-to-reform-correctional-system
Ombudsman report: Out of Oversight, Out of Mind: https://www.ombudsman.on.ca/resources/reports-and-case-summaries/reports-on-investigations/2017/out-of-oversight,-out-of-mind
https://news.ontario.ca/en/release/57233/ontario-investing-in-frontline-corrections-workers
From Dark Nights
To the wild celebrations in the public gallery, the presiding judge rejected the application for anarchist comrade Toby Shone’s Serious Crime Prevention Order, declaring there were no grounds for it to be applied under the circumstances. Shouts of ‘Not one step back!’ were responded to with Toby shouting ‘The Revolution is inevitable!’
The result of the court means that comrade Toby will now be released at the latest in August of this year, without the extreme conditions of surveillance and control, that would have led to him not only being cut off from his comrades, but his family, friends and partner. It would have restricted his way of living, his ability to fuction as an anarchist, with many conditions that have been listed before, such as his use of electronic devices through to him having to declare who visits his residence. It would have lasted 5 years and could have been renewed. If it had been broken by Toby it would have led to him serving 10 years in the hellholes of the UK prison system.
The SCPO was a direct attack on Toby as an anarchist, his alternative way of living and his connections to those he is close to. It was clearly linked to the anti-terrorist cops attempting to apply repressive measures on him after the terrorist charges in his previous original trial were dropped.
The move by the anti-terrorist cops sets a new repressive environment on this prison island, that now just like in other European countries such as we have seen with the many repressive operations against comrades in Italy and Greece, that anarchists are deemed as terrorists by the state, that anyone daring to fight back against authority will be subject to such repression. Also it is clear that the British state wants to attack the connections, the affinities, the friendships, even love, of those they want to punish. This a similar vindictive tactic we have seen been used in other countries as well, such as the targetting of partners and family members of revolutionary organisation Conspiracy Cells of Fire members in Greece.
‘Operation Adream’, the repressive attack on Toby, on 325, is also an attack on the anarchist circles and alternative lifestyles as a whole. The years of imprisonment are piling up for those who dared to rebel during the Kill The Bill protest last year, that was attacked by cops and led to a riot. Those who live ‘off-grid’, from Roma/Gypsies/Irish travellers through to van or carvan or boat dwellers, along with squatters are also feeling the full force of British state’s, the Tories, Boris Johnson’s and Priti Patel’s repressive shaping of racist right wing ‘Build Back Better’ UK.
There is indeed a ‘storm coming on the horizon’ as comrade Toby mentioned, it is time for all of us who feel it to move towards it, to revolt against the destruction of our lives, our very existence.
This is only the beginning, ‘Nothing Is Over, The Conflict Continues!’
Some anarchists in solidarity with anarchist comrade Toby Shone
Anonymous submission to North Shore Counter-Info
In “Toronto” on the morning of May 1st, we attacked an RBC branch in solidarity with the Wet’suwet’en land defenders. We left a spray-painted message, a damaged lock, and a mess of red paint.
As we walked away into a beautiful May Day sunrise, we left a trail of messages through the city.
We were left wanting more, but we know that there are many more days ahead.
The time is now, the task is simple! Attack!
From Anarchist Black Cross Brighton
First of May 2022
As a minimal gesture I refuse to eat from the prison servery to mark the Revolutionary 1st of May, to join in the demonstrations around the world using my body as a means of solidarity and to protest the denial of my correspondence by the security company G4S. I will not be isolated from my family, friends and comrades and I continue to define my anti-political convictions. Honour and dignity to all those who have fallen.
Remember Haymarket.
Toby Shone
G4S Parc, UK.
Statement for J11 International Day of Solidarity with Marius Mason & All Long-Term Anarchist Prisoners
“We will have to go to sea and embark on a journey into the unknown. It is up to us to choose the course from the march. We are free to make mistakes.”
Gustavo Rodriguez – ‘Brief Informative Report About The Weather’.
An embrace of life, fire and complicity to all imprisoned anarchist comrades for this June 11th. I have been invited to participate by the comrades in North America, for which they have my thanks and agreement. Whilst I am not condemned to a particularly long sentence, I faced well over a decade at my trial last October in “Operation Adream” and next week I will go to trial again in Bristol on the 6th of May. This time the “anti-terrorist” prosecutors demand up to five years house arrest and special surveillance, which could see me returning to prison frequently. It also has a precedent for the rest of the anarchist space in the UK if the State is successful. International mobilisations are essential for learning about and combining our shared struggles. Opening a space for discussion and praxis enables us to escape the walls and barbed wire which divides and isolates us. I’m locked up for 23 hours a day in a solitary cell, subject to enhanced monitoring and censorship, categorised as “high risk” and placed on the “escape list”. I could not care less. I will leave this place without stepping back one millimetre.
“One who has a why to live can bear almost any how.” – F. Nietzsche.
There are storms gathering on the horizon.
Toby Shone
Written on the eve of Revolutionary 1st of May, 2022.
G4S Parc, UK.
Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info
Late in the night, on May 4th, individuals acting in the spirit of vengeance visited the home of Michael Fortier on Chester Avenue. Mr. Fortier was a federal cabinet minister under Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Today, he is the vice-chairman of capital markets at the Royal Bank of Canada. Tucked away in his big house in the Town of Mount-Royal (a wealthy Montreal neighborhood separated by a long wall from the poor and exploited), Mr. Fortier no doubt feels at ease with his employer’s decision to continue funding the Coastal GasLink pipeline (or any other disgusting project financed by RBC).
As glaciers melt and drought, fire and famine spread, Mr. Fortier may think that his money and connections will protect him, his children and his grandchildren. But the ecologically dispossessed will know the names of those responsible. He must understand that no one is safe amid this storm.
On the night in question, flames spread from an incendiary device to the engine block of his Jaguar, parked in front of his home.
This act is in solidarity with Wet’suwet’en land defenders and all those who fight the extractive industry.
From From Embers
In this episode I chat with two members of Divest McGill, a student-led organization at McGill University in so-called Montreal. They are fighting to force McGill to divest from the fossil fuel industry and transform the university into something liberatory and accountable to the people whose lives it affects. This spring, they led a more than two-week-long open, social occupation of a university building.
All music in this episode is from the 2012 anti-folk opera “What The F*ck Am I Doing Here?” about anarchist participation in the 2012 Quebec student strike. Check it out on Soundcloud here: https://soundcloud.com/whatthefuckamidoinghere/sets/what-the-fuck-am-i-doing-here
Learn more about Divest McGill here: https://www.divestmcgill.ca/
From No Borders Media
Indigenous Land Defenders in the community of Kanehsatake planted the Haudenosaunee Confederacy flag on a contested piece of land to let the public know that the land will be reclaimed.
The action was undertaken [the morning of April 27th] on a 200 acre parcel of land in the middle of Kanehsatake, near Little Tree Gas. There has been a controversy over the land for the past six to seven years, especially after at least an acre of bush line was cut.
The land was supposed to be sold to the Mohawk Council of Kanehsatake (MCK), but that sale never happened, and community members have learned that instead the land has been sold to a private company: Vegibec Inc.
The planting of the flag and the presence of community members is a message to let the public know the land will be reclaimed. For now, community members are monitoring the situation, but a callout for outside solidarity might be made in the near future.
Report by @NoBordersMedia, based on first-hand information by a local community member on-site. See the Twitter thread for more photos.
From the Convergence des luttes anticapitalistes
A video that was sent to us by comrades to celebrate 15 years!
Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info
Over the past 2 months, the RCMP has ramped up their continued harassment and intimidation of the people living at and defending the Yintah from CGL, at km 44 camp, on Gidimt’en territory. A few days ago, cops decided to arrest someone, using the pathetic excuse of “mis-identification”.
We believe that active solidarity is always important, even more so when our comrades are facing repression. This solidarity can be expressed through easy attacks, which break the isolation and fear that the state tries to trap us within. Those involved in funding the pipeline have names and addresses. They might not always be esay to find, but usually, they are the ones trying to protect their peace and tranquility tucked safely away in big houses, far from the social war they are a part of.
With this in mind, and rage in our hearts, this past wednesday we decided to spend the evening in the streets of Westmount. Using a fire extinguisher filled with paint, we had a good time vandalizing the facade of the house at 734 avenue Upper Lansdowne where Nadine Renaud-Tinker, RBC Quebec president lives.
Solidarity with the Wet’suwet’en, and all those defending the Yintah from CGL.
Solidarity with comrades at km 44!
Fuck RCMP, RBC, and CGL!
Some anarchists
