From sub.Media
At 8:00am on the morning of Jan 8th, a group of roughly 25 people shut down the Jacques Cartier Bridge – a vital transportation corridor in so-called “Montreal” – in response to the RCMP’s attack on the Wet’suwet’en.
From unistoten.camp
The Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chiefs have by absolutely no means agreed to let the Coastal GasLink pipeline tear through our traditional territories.
On January 7th at the Gidumt’en access point, the RCMP used excessive and brutal force. We expected a large response, we did not expect a military level invasion where our unarmed women and elders were faced with automatic weapons and bulldozers.
While the chiefs have a responsibility to protect the land, they also have a duty to protect our land defenders. Our people faced an incredible risk of injury or death and that is not a risk we are willing to take for an interim injunction. The agreement we made allows Coastal GasLink to temporarily work behind the Unist’ot’en gate. This will continue to be a waste of their time and resources as they will not be building a pipeline in our traditional territory.
This injunction was against Warner Naziel, Freda Huson, and Jane and John Doe as individuals. Our efforts over the past month made the RCMP, Coastal GasLink, and the colonial governments recognize that this is not an issue of individual “protestors” but rather an issue of our house chiefs’ jurisdiction to make decisions on our own lands. We have fought for many years to make this point by politely telling it like it is. Now, with the world watching, with our voices reverberating around the globe, we have turned the tables.
There can be no question now that this is an issue of Wet’suwet’en Rights and Title. We have demonstrated that this fight is about more than a pipeline; it is about the right of Indigenous peoples around the world to exercise Free, Prior, and Informed Consent.
We have the power to tell the governments of the world that enough is enough, rather than being plowed down by force today or tomorrow. We will use our voice to continue this battle by asserting our Rights and Title.
This week, the Canadian state laid siege to our land behind the smokescreen of “reconciliation.” We see through their attempts to further colonial violence and remove us from our territories. We remain undeterred, unafraid, and unceded.
This fight is far from over.
We paved the way with the Delgamuuk’w court case and the time has come for Delgamuuk’w II. We have never had the financial resources to challenge the colonial court system, due to the enormous price tag of an Aboriginal title case.
Who will stand with us to make sure this pipeline does not go through?
Who will support our work to reclaim our territories and assert our right to Free, Prior, and Informed Consent?
Who will insist that Indigenous peoples have the right to say NO to projects that inflict violence on our people and territories?
We are are humbled by the outpouring of solidarity and support for our Wet’suwet’en people. We expect RCMP aggression at any time. We are still fundraising for our legal battle in the colonial courts. Please donate.
⭐ DONATE to Unist’ot’en Camp Legal Fund
⭐ DONATE to Gidimt’en Access Point
⭐ COME TO CAMP: Supporters in the local area wanting to do something should head to KM 27 now. Meet at the junction of Morice River Road and Morice West where people are gathering to plan additional responses to this incursion.
⭐ HOST A SOLIDARITY EVENT: See the International Solidarity with Wet’suwet’en event page. We are conducting peaceful actions as sovereign peoples on our territories, and ask that all actions taken in solidarity are conducted peacefully and according to the traditional laws of other Indigenous Nations. Forcible trespass onto Wet’suwet’en territories and the removal of Indigenous peoples from their lands must be stopped. Provincial and federal governments must be confronted.
⭐ SIGN THE PLEDGE: Join thousands of organizations and individuals in signing the pledge in support of Unist’ot’en
⭐ CONTACT REPRESENTATIVES: This page has been set up so you can send an email directly to relevant Federal cabinet ministers and BC Provincial cabinet ministers calling on the RCMP and Coastal Gas Link to respect Unist’ot’en/Giltseyu-Dark House on their unceded lands.
#unistoten #wetsuwetenstrong #thetimeisnow #wetsuweten #nopipelines #notrespass #unistotencamp
Alert – RCMP attack imminent – Stay up to date (7 January, 11am)
From Unist’ot’en Camp
The 22,000 sq km of Wet’suwet’en Territory is divided into five clans and 13 house groups. Each clan/house group manages the use of their own territory. Unist’ot’en homestead sits on Gilsteyu Dark House Territory and manager of this territory is house group better known as Unist’ot’en. From the Widzin Kwa bridge at 66 km passing the bridge going down to 44 KM it becomes Gidimt’en Territory. The Unist’ot’en clan cannot decide or make decisions regarding Gidimt’en Territory. That would be against Wet’suwet’en Law.
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UPDATE: THIS IS THE EVENT PAGE for International Solidarity with the Wet’suwe’ten. Please follow for updates.
⭐When conducting solidarity actions, you MUST follow the action protocols as laid out by the Gitimt’en
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The following is a statement from neighboring Wet’suwet’en nation and secondary checkpoint heading towards the Unist’ot’en Territory, Gidimt’en Access Point:
Yesterday, members of the RCMP’s Aboriginal Police Liaison met with the Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chiefs and indicated that specially trained tactical forces will be deployed to forcibly remove Wet’suwet’en people from sovereign Wet’suwet’en territory. Police refused to provide any details of their operation to the Dini’ze and Tsake’ze (hereditary chiefs) including the number of officers moving in, the method of forcible removal, or the timing of deployment. By rejecting the requests for information by the Dini’ze and Tsake’ze the RCMP indicated that they intend to surprise and overwhelm the Wet’suwet’en people who are protecting their territories on the ground.
The RCMP’s ultimatum, to allow TransCanada access to unceded Wet’suwet’en territory or face police invasion, is an act of war. Despite the lip service given to “Truth and Reconciliation”, Canada is now attempting to do what it has always done – criminalize and use violence against indigenous people so that their unceded homelands can be exploited for profit.
The RCMP were advised that there are children, elders, and families visiting and present at the Gidimt’en Access Point, to which they did not respond. Since it was established, the Gidimt’en Access Point has hosted gatherings, workshops, and traditional activities for Wet’suwet’en, and provided an essential space for Wet’suwet’en to reconnect with their traditional territories.
Article 10 of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples clearly states “Indigenous peoples shall not be forcibly removed from their land or territories.” Any removal of Wet’suwet’en peoples by the RCMP, or any other authoritarian forces, will directly violate UNDRIP and the Trudeau government’s promise to implement UNDRIP. We are now preparing for a protracted struggle. The hereditary chiefs of the Wet’suwet’en and the land defenders holding the front lines have no intention of allowing Wet’suwet’en sovereignty to be violated. In plain language, the threat made by RCMP to invade Wet’suwet’en territories is a violation of human rights, a siege, and an extension of the genocide that Wet’suwet’en have survived since contact.
Canada knows that its own actions are illegal. The Wet’suwet’en fought for many years in the Delgamuukw-Gisday’wa court case to have their sovereignty recognized and affirmed by Canadian law. In 1997, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that the Wet’suwet’en people, as represented by their hereditary leaders, had not given up rights and title to 22,000 km2 of Northern British Columbia. Knowing that further litigation would be prohibitively expensive to Indigenous plaintiffs (and that pipeline construction could be completed before any significant legal issues could be further resolved) TransCanada and the provincial and federal governments are openly violating this landmark ruling.
The creation of the Gidimt’en Checkpoint was announced in the Wet’suwet’en feast hall, with the support of all chiefs present. Under ‘Anuc niwh’it’en (Wet’suwet’en law) all five clans of the Wet’suwet’en have unanimously opposed all pipeline proposals. TransCanada lawyers have argued that the Unist’ot’en are essentially a rogue group without a rightful claim to Aboriginal title. The Gidimt’en intervention shows that the Unist’ot’en are not alone, and that the hereditary chiefs of all clans are prepared to uphold Wet’suwet’en law in refusing CGL access.
The Wet’suwet’en have laid out a path toward the implementation of UNDRIP, and the Free, Prior, and Informed Consent requirement of international law. Canada has chosen to ignore this path toward reconciliation. We call on all people of conscience to act in solidarity through an international day of action on Tuesday, January 8th, 2019.
Support the Wet’suwet’en by offering physical support to the camps, monetary or material donation, or by taking action where you stand. We are conducting peaceful actions as sovereign peoples on our territories, and ask that all actions taken in solidarity are conducted peacefully and according to the traditional laws of other Indigenous Nations. Forcible trespass onto Wet’suwet’en territories and the removal of Indigenous peoples from their lands must be stopped. Provincial and federal governments must be confronted.
– Gidimt’en Access Point
Donate to Gidimt’en Access Point
Donate to Unist’ot’en Legal Fund
Guiding principals on how to support, and a fact sheet on the Gidimt’en Access Point
Follow and share! Wet’suwet’en Access Point on Gidimt’en Territory
#Notrespass #Wedzinkwa #Wetsuwetenstrong #unistoten #thetimeisnow
Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info
Access a PDF for printing here.
Not only can blockades “shut down the world”, they also open up space for a new one to be built, or in the case of colonized peoples, a world restored. We can look to many of the indigenous blockades or occupations of the last several decades for the examples of ceremonial, culinary, and other socially reproductive practices that point toward new ways of living which are themselves produced through resistance. Similarly, we see the revitalization of warrior culture being expressed at Standing Rock and other moments of indigenous revolt to be indicative of a broader possibility of life without the state or capitalism.[…]
We hold evident that blockades are a crucial tactic in our war against planetary annihilation. […] With this tactical imperative, we call on all warriors and revolutionaries around the world to immediately orient themselves around blockading infrastructure. Collectives must research infrastructure to find the most vulnerable chokepoints and get organized to block them in effective ways. Those without fighting comrades can still contribute by engaging in lone wolf acts of sabotage. – Disrupt the Flows: War Against DAPL and Planetary Annihilation
We are several settler anarchists in the territory dominated by the Canadian government. Our goal in writing this text is to bring forward some strategic considerations for anarchists who want to contribute to land defense, as well as to publicize some research about the vulnerabilities of Canadian extractive infrastructure for that purpose. We also hope that indigenous communities can use this research to their own ends as well.
We understand the task at hand in our corner of the world as no less than decolonizing the territory dominated by the Canadian government and capitalist economy. Decolonizing this territory necessarily means destroying its colonial governance – a government which depends upon the continuing genocide of indigenous people so that it can maintain sovereignty over the land that it stole. Its system and the way of life it brings is fundamentally built on exploitation of the land and those who inhabit the land.
It’s no secret that the Canadian economy is strongly dependent on ‘natural resource’ exploitation. The transportation infrastructure this economy relies on to get these resources to market, and give them value, is virtually indefensible and its bottlenecks are often close to indigenous communities – which as we will see, is making counter-insurgents panic. Unfortunately, anarchists have rarely engaged with the potential for action and solidarity that this situation of dependency and vulnerability opens up.
We believe that we can’t limit land defense to parcels of territory to be conserved, or settler incursions into treatied territory, because the colonial economy poisons the watershed and spreads destruction beyond these colonial borders. Overthrowing the entire colonial economy is a very long-term undertaking, but in the medium-term we want to build a capacity to block and destroy industrial infrastructure and developments, from pipeline construction to mining and damming operations, to whatever extractive projects indigenous people are resisting. When there is movement capacity, our blockades can become communes; spaces that interweave defense with collective care, and that do away with the laws and logic of capitalism and the government.
We think it’s integral that anarchist contributions to land defense move towards more collective forms of resistance that block infrastructure, as well as face to face relationship-building between anarchist and indigenous communities, but this text will focus on the smaller scale of affinity groups because they are contributions that can happen in the short-term (while impacting the medium- and long-term), and these contributions can happen even when there isn’t a community mobilized against a particular extractive project.
Thinking of how we can contribute in the short-term is valuable to us because most of the time there aren’t escalated tensions around land defense struggles, and we want to act in the present as well as be adequately prepared for when there are. Firstly, contributions in the short-term will help to build an imaginary of how the extractive economy can be resisted in times when there isn’t movement capacity for prolonged occupations, with the goal that these tactics will be taken up more broadly in future social unrest around resource extraction. Also, actions like these can have significant material impacts on extractive projects in the present that have real consequences against the ongoing genocidal project of Canada. Lastly, it can demonstrate to indigenous communities that anarchists are taking risks against shared enemies in our own struggle. We believe this is a prerequisite for powerful solidarity.
As Canada accelerates ecological destruction, and as global warming makes the northern latitudes of Turtle Island of greater strategic and economic value to governments, conflicts between the Canadian government and indigenous people defending the territory will become even more frequent. Anarchists should be prepared to contribute to these moments in a meaningful and effective way, beyond the limited symbolism of actions like banner drops and breaking windows, which have little impact on their targets. The technical skills required to block pipelines and rail are not great, but they still require more development and foresight than putting a rock through glass [see Appendix 6 – Techniques for sabotaging capitalist infrastructure and extractive industries]. Being able to step up our solidarity requires developing practices of sabotage in the present, as well as relationships of struggle between anarchists and indigenous communities engaging in land defense. Such relationships will be essential to moving past the largely limited solidarity expressed through communiques, as well as gauging how different forms of solidarity will be received by different, heterogenous communities in struggle.
In 1990 during the Oka Crisis, when a capitalist development on a Mohawk burial ground created an armed conflict with the Canadian government, sabotage of hydro-electric towers and hard blockades of highways and railways spread like wildfire. This threat of indigenous insurgency is a primary consideration in police operations against any indigenous action, because the government has seen how such sparks can ignite a powderkeg if they don’t tread carefully, particularly when they involve land or treaty claims. During a land defense occupation at Caledonia in 2006, the Commissioner of the OPP explained that he acted on the premise that a misstep on the part of his officers against the occupation would have led to “[a native] flare-up right across the country”, so to deter this greater threat the OPP took no direct action against it [for more on how counter-insurgency strategy has developed since Oka, see From Oka to Caledonia: Assessing the Learning Curve in Intergovernmental Cooperation].
Those who sabotage critical infrastructure, capitalist development, and the police who defend them will unfortunately always be in the minority, but if this minority has a base of social support it is much more difficult to isolate or uproot. This minority’s contributions can have a contagious impact when they inspire others. Being an active minority comes with the risk of instrumentalizing the communities we are in solidarity with, so we are careful to distinguish this path from a vanguardist one:
“The key difference between an influential, insurrectionary minority and a vanguard or a populist group is that the former values its principles and its horizontal relations with society and tries to spread its principles and models without owning them, whereas a vanguard tries to control them – whether through force, charisma, or hiding its true objectives… The influential minority works through resonance, not through control. It assumes risks to create inspiring models and new possibilities, and to criticize convenient lies. It enjoys no intrinsic superiority and falling back on the assumption of such will lead to its isolation and irrelevance. If its creations or criticisms do not inspire people, it will have no influence. Its purpose is not to win followers, but to create social gifts that other people can freely use.” – The Rose of Fire has Returned
And in the case of critical infrastructure whose disruption has a cascading effect, the counter-insurgents said it well:
“..The hard lessons about just how devastatingly effective a small band of determined and well-led (sic) rebels can be.” – Douglas Bland
It may be useful to look closer at how these enemies are thinking about indigenous insurgency in Canada. Conservative military analyst Douglas Bland has long warned that Canada’s economic vulnerability is based on the “critical infrastructure that transports natural resources and manufactured goods from mines, oil fields, hydro-electric facilities and factories to international markets.” Without these critical systems, he cautions, “Canada’s economy would collapse.” His writings warn policy makers of the threat of indigenous insurgency in Canada based on ‘Feasibility Theory’. In counter-insurgency literature, predicting the likelihood of insurgency is shifting from a model centered on the motivations of insurgents to a model centered on how feasible an insurgency is in a given context. Grievances that give motivation to insurgency are a constant that can’t be redressed in a context of colonial genocide, or capitalism for that matter. For that reason, counter-insurgents are studying what makes an insurrection feasible to begin with, and then proposing policies aimed at eliminating those conditions to the extent possible.
Feasibility Theory lists five determinants of what makes an insurgency feasible, which Bland argues are all present within the Canadian context, and of which the Canadian government only has some measure of control over the first three. They are:
1) Social Fractionalization – jargon for class and colonial oppression and the threat of indigenous sovereignty. The government seeks to address this through assimilation, buying out communities resisting extractive projects, and structures like band councils that maintain government control over the population through indigenous faces working for colonial interests.
2) Warrior Cohort – young and middle aged men who are likely to become warriors. Bland completely overlooks the ways women and two-spirit people contribute to indigenous resistance. The government tries to reduce this populations ‘recruitement’ into resistance movements through education and training programs aimed at assimilation.
3) Security Guarantee – the perception of the government’s capacity for repression and securing infrastructure. The government tries to minimize the threat of an inadequate security guarantee through funding the training of on-reserve police services. As we saw with the Chateauguay settler riots during the Oka standoff, this repressive function can also be carried out by settler society.
4,5) Commodity Exports & Topography – “Jurisdiction control of the land remains largely undetermined and at issue. Canada’s transportation and energy infrastructure – the backbone of the country’s resource trade – overlays or borders on many of these Aboriginal and disputed lands. With Canadian natural resource development, extraction, and trade representing 25 percent of Canadian GDP, the security of transportation and energy infrastructure is critical. Canada’s transportation and energy infrastructure has considerable vulnerabilities: it covers vast distances, has limited redundancy and multiple choke-points, and is susceptible to cascading effects should disruptions be sustained or widespread. Its vulnerability and resulting risk to the Canadian economy is significant, and sustained disruption would have catastrophic effects with a matter of weeks.” Topography and reliance on exports are the two determinants that are impossible to change. In fact, Canada is slated to become more dependent on its export economy in the coming years.
All that said, we don’t need proof of the feasibility of indigenous insurgency from a white academic. We see it in the consistent history of indigenous resistance to genocide since contact, and recently in flareups at Oka, Ipperwash, Ts’Peten, Caledonia, Six Nations, Elsipogtog and across the territory during Idle No More.
The appendixes that follow take a look at how extractive infrastructure is vulnerable in more detail. We hope they prove valuable to affinity groups and communities fighting the extractive economy across the territory.
Three main elements of transportation infrastructure: oil and gas pipelines, heavy vehicle highways, and railways. Industries relying on timely delivery systems would be heavily impacted by disruptions (automotive, sales, etc.)
Highways
Heavy truck transportation is responsible for a large portion of Canada’s GDP and is especially prevalent in the Southern Ontario – Quebec corridor. A key vulnerability in this export/import network is the concentration of its critical transportation lifelines in a relatively close area funnelled through six congested gateways mostly in eastern Canada. For example, 75 percent (by value) of Canada-United States trade is carried by trucks through six border crossings: Windsor/Ambassador Bridge, Fort Erie/Niagara Falls, and Sarnia, Ontario. The remainder passes through Lacolle, Quebec; Emerson, Manitoba; and the Pacific Highway in British Columbia.
See Appendix 2 for bottlenecks by province, Appendix 7 for the 20 Worst Traffic Bottlenecks in Canada, and Appendix 6 for several techniques for blocking road infrastructure.
Rail Transportation
Railway is the heart of Canada’s transportation infrastructure. It’s the third largest system in the world: 2,900 locomotives and 10,000 employees. Most important railway commodities: coal, iron, potash, fuel oil, crude petroleum. These types of bulk cargoes can only be transported by rail. Three national railways – VIA, Canadian Pacific, Canadian National – move 70% of freight.
Much of this traffic flows from Canada into the United States, but a large percent of it also moves east and west on two main lines over Lake Superior and through the Winnipeg bottleneck. Every route, including those in the Montreal-Windsor corridor, is vulnerable to blockade and intentional damage. The isolated northern Ontario-Kenora-Winnipeg routes are particularly vulnerable and pass through the homelands of several large First Nations communities.
A burning car on a railway track is not simply a blockade, it is also a very efficient and economical weapon. A car with a full fuel tank would burn at a temperature high enough to warp the track and require extensive repairs. An attack on isolated tracks in sparely settled countryside, for example, north of Lake Superior or west of Thunder Bay to the Manitoba border, would require the deployment by rail of special repair equipment. Once deployed, other attacks on the same line might trap that equipment in the wilderness. There is little doubt that one or two effective attacks, especially ones that derailed trains, would close CP and CN traffic simply because sensible train crews would refuse to travel on insecure railways surrounded by hostile forces.
A map of the rail choke-points throughout Canada (and globally) can be found at empirelogistics.org/sci-map. Several techniques for sabotaging rail lines are in Appendix 6.
Marine
The main value of the marine infrastructure to Canada, especially for the St. Lawrence Seaway, is its utility as an alternative or supporting transportation system for road and rail operations on the west-east transportation corridor.
Although it would be difficult to interfere directly and effectively with terminal operations in Thunder Bay or elsewhere in the St. Lawrence Seaway system, disruptions to road and rail transportations systems leading to the ports would effectively close these vital, weather-sensitive, seasonal operations. Any prolonged stoppage of operations at Thunder Bay would produce serious disruptions along the entire Seaway system and to economic activities throughout north-western Ontario and across the prairie heartlands.
Oil and Natural Gas Pipelines
An enormous 700,000 kilometre network of pipelines as well as railways, trucks and ships move crude oil and natural gas from wellheads mostly in western Canada to refineries and onward to markets in Canada, the United States and Mexico.
Unlike electric energy transmission lines, crude oil and natural gas pipeline are relatively secure from harm once they are properly placed in the ground. Each pipeline, however, requires pump and compressor stations to push product through it. These above-ground stations are susceptible to damage and interference. Other supporting parts to the crude oil and natural gas system might also be vulnerable to interference and accidental damage, including crude oil refineries, natural gas processing plants and storage facilities for both products.
Pipeline valve sites have been targeted several times in the last years by resistance movements, bringing the flow of oil to a halt until the valve is reopened. All pipelines in Canada have their valve site location maps on the National Energy Board website. For instance:
Enbridge Line 9 Detailed Project Maps:
Map 1 – Westover to Montreal (1, 2)
Map 2 – Sarnia to Westover
Several techniques for sabotaging pipelines are in Appendix 6.
Hydroelectric Infrastructure
Vast hydroelectric systems provide energy for transportation, manufacturing, agriculture, etc. Transmission infrastructure is almost impossible to protect because they travel through thousands of kilometers of rugged terrain.
There are four principal hydroelectric systems of waterways, generating plants, and transmissions lines – Hydro-Québec, Hydro One (Ontario), Manitoba Hydro and BC Hydro.
Transmission and distribution lines are critical infrastructure in each system. Transmission lines carry high voltage current to transformer stations. Distribution lines carry energy from these stations to consumers. As the Great Ice Storm of 1998 in eastern Ontario and west Quebec made dramatically obvious, these lines are fragile and exposed to many natural and technical threats. In circumstances where damage is widespread, recovery is difficult, expensive and slow. In 2014, a pilot used a plane to hobble two massive power lines, nearly crippling Hydro-Quebec’s power grid with one act of sabotage. The technique had been used during conflicts in Iraq, Kosovo and Serbia and was “easily accessible on the Internet” – unidentified materials were dropped on the lines from the plane at three locations on the same day.
Several techniques for sabotaging Hydroelectric infrastructure are in Appendix 6.
From Canada and the First Nations: Cooperation or Conflict – Douglas Bland
British Columbia: mountain and coastal road and rail systems; road and rail approaches to Pacific Ocean ports; crude oil and natural gas transmission pipelines, especially pumping stations, compressor stations and refineries; and all the transmission and distribution facilities of BC Hydro.
Alberta: crude oil and natural gas transmission pipelines, especially pumping stations, compressor stations and refineries; and coal-carrying railway systems.
Saskatchewan: crude oil and natural gas transmission pipelines, especially, pumping stations, compressor stations; railway transportation systems for natural resources; and Trans-Canada Highway intersections crossing the province.
Manitoba: The most vulnerable west-east transportation hub in Canada. Any disruption of the concentrated road and railways intersections at Winnipeg would have enormous, negative economic consequences across Canada. There are no easy or cost-effective ways around this transportation hub.
Elsewhere in the province the most important assets are the Manitoba Hydroelectric system from Nelson River generating facilities and the transmission lines running south and the hydroelectric distribution lines in the Winnipeg area.
Ontario: the west-east road and railway transportation convergence in the Thunder Bay area; the access roads and railways into the Thunder Bay port; the junction of the Highway 17 and Highway 11 Trans-Canada Highway systems over Lake Superior at Nipigon; the international bridge at Sault Ste. Marie; the road bridge over the Petawawa River on Highway 17 at Petawawa; the road and railway bridges over the Rideau Canal system on Highway 401 and Highway 2 near Kingston; the 400-series highways in and around Toronto; the roads into the Windsor/Ambassador Bridge border crossing; and the Welland Canal operating facilities.
Quebec: the Hydro Québec transmission lines from the James Bay generating facilities; the Hydro Québec distribution system in lower Quebec; the bridges near Montreal and Quebec City; the east-west-bound highways north and south of the St. Lawrence River; and the highway approaches to the United States.
Atlantic Provinces: roads and railways to Quebec and the United States; road and railway approaches to Halifax harbour; and the hydroelectric transmission and distribution lines from Quebec.
The Territorial North: major roads to Whitehorse and Yellowknife; airports; hydroelectric stations; pipelines; winter roads to mining camps.
From warriorpublications.wordpress.com. For a broader look at similar actions in BC, “BC Native Blockades and Direct Action: From the 1980s to 2006”.
By late July 1990, Indigenous barricades had been set up on seven roads and railways in British Colombia, initially just in support of the Mohawk warriors, but later mutated into a negotiating tactic in a determined effort to seek justice from the provincial government. The blockades wreaked havoc on the tourism and forestry industries of central British Colombia, halted freight train circulation in the interior of the province, and brought losses of $750,000 a day to BC Rail (People of the Pines, 281).
At the peak of the crisis, the Mercier Bridge and Routes 132, 138, and 207 were all blocked creating substantial disruption to traffic. When the Kahnawake-manned barricades at the Mercier Bridge were removed, protesters at Kanehsatake knew that they had little hope of continuing the struggle without such an important negotiating item; they had lost an important resource.
In northern Ontario, Anicinabe near Longlac (Long Lake) blocked the Trans-Canada Highway in early August. On August 13 they also blocked Canadian National Rail for about 1 week (costing an est. $2.6 million in lost revenue each day). This blockade was soon followed by blockades on nearby Canadian Pacific railways by the Pic Mobert and Pays Plat bands. When court injunctions were obtained by railway officials, another blockade would be set up by another band.
In mid-August, a railway bridge in northeastern Alberta was set ablaze. In late August, just after hours after RCMP cleared railway at Seton Lake, BC, a fire caused extensive damage to Seton Portage railway bridge.
In response to rail blockades, a CP Rail official, John Cox, stated:
“Virtually all our transcontinental traffic has been disrupted. We are at the mercy of individual bands & whatever decisions they make” (Entering the War Zone, p. 147).
In early September, after military advances into Mohawk territory, 5 hydro-electric towers were felled in southwestern Ontario. A railway bridge was also set on fire in the same region.
In southern Alberta, Peigan Lonefighters began diverting the Oldman River away from a half-constructed dam. On September 7, dozens of police escorted provincial employees and heavy equipment to repair the dyke which had been breached by the Peigan. Warning shots were fired and a 33-hour standoff occurred.
In the end, the widespread campaign of blockades, sabotage and occupation served to put extreme costs on attempts to evict the Mohawks from their occupation and proved to be very effective in securing their victory to protect their burial grounds and pines.
During the Idle No More movement’s January 16th Day of Action, Indigenous demonstrators stopped passenger railway traffic lines between Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal. Others stalled major highways and rail lines in parts of Alberta, New Brunswick, Ontario, and Manitoba, including Portage la Prairie, which a CN Rail spokesman described as a “critical link” in its network. Demonstrators also gathered in Windsor, Ontario at the Ambassador Bridge to Michigan, shutting down traffic through North America’s busiest border crossing for trade between Canada and the U.S. with 10,000 trucks on average passing daily.
1. Guelph: Arsonists Hit Developers
On the night of Friday April 25th (2008), the same night Mohawk land in Tyendinaga was being attacked by armed Ontario Provincial Police, four dump trucks owned by Priori and Sons and contracted by Reids Heritage Homes were destroyed by fire causing between three and four hundred thousand dollars in damages. On the side of one truck a scrawled note read “Get The Hell Out Of Tyendinaga”
The trucks were targeted because of the environmental destruction these two companies cause turning forests, creaks, rivers, and farmland into concrete and death. They were also selected to send a message to all other developers, currently encroaching on native land, your developments are the continuation of a war on native people started long ago, get out of native land everywhere. Finally, we send a message to all state forces CSIS, RCMP, OPP, and Police. Let this be a sign of days to come.
When you attack natives anywhere, we will attack you everywhere!
To all who love life and resist death
as we are liberated from our fear our presence liberates others
-anarchist(s)
2. Guelph: Settlers block Highway 6, April 2008
Last night, a group of settlers blockaded Highway 6 at Paisley Road in Guelph, Ontario. Our blockade consisted of a flaming barricade, construction pylons, and about 20 people. This blockade was erected to oppose and draw attention too the continued OPP siege in Tyendinaga and the continued state repression of not only indigenous communities, but all of us. We chose Highway 6 because it is the same road being blockaded by members of Six Nations, also in solidarity with Tyendinaga. These blockades are spreading and will continue to spread with growing momentum until all stolen land is returned.
It only takes a few people and last night we demonstrated that. We hope this can be a model for other communities and encourage you to respond locally. As the Railway Ties Collective said in May of 2007, “Real solidarity means shouldering some of the burden of struggle.” Return all stolen land. Free all political prisoners. Abolish all hierarchies.
Anonymous
3. Guelph: Road Blockade in Solidarity with the Mohawk Nation
In the morning of June 17th 2009, a few people dressed in black blocked the Hanlon Highway at Paisley Road during rush hour.
Fallen trees and branches were pulled across the southbound lanes and two smoke bombs were set off to draw attention to the banner, which was dropped from the railway overpass. The banner read: “PARK YOUR CARS! Solidarity with the Mohawk Nation.”
This action was done to disrupt the transport of goods and people, especially those belonging to the Linamar Corporation. Linamar is a member of the Security and Prosperity Partnership, which works to improve the efficiency of North American trade. Amongst its plans is the militarization and fortification of the borders and their guards. Like in Awkesasne, Tyendinaga and Peru, we too stand against the SPP and its projects.
Solidarity with the Mohawk Nation means ATTACK!
From Warrior Up – Techniques for sabotaging capitalist infrastructure and extractive industries
1. Defend the Territory : Blockades (Warrior Publications)
Military manuals suggest that road blocks be placed:
– at choke points, to block the smallest pass (not the widest). For example, on a bridge or in a narrow canyon pass, or on a roadway with heavy forest on either side, etc.
– so that they look down on opposing forces, not up (for example, near the top of a hill).
Vehicles
Many Native blockades are established by simply parking vehicles across the roadway. This has the advantages of being a large barrier that is easily put in place, and which can also be quickly moved on or off the road. Disadvantages include the owner of the vehicle possibly facing charges, the vehicle itself being damaged by vigilante citizens or police, or the vehicle being seized if police overrun the blockade. Some blockades have used abandoned or wrecked vehicles to block a roadway.
When Quebec police raided the Mohawk blockade at Oka/Kanesatake on July 11, 1990, warriors used several abandoned police cars to establish a hasty blockade on a nearby roadway. These vehicles were put in place by a front end loader, and the vehicles themselves were destroyed. The barricade was reinforced over time and persisted throughout much of the summer long standoff.
Shortly after the raid on Kanesatake, Mohawk warriors at Kahnawake seized the Mercier Bridge, a vital commuter link into Montreal. They drove their vehicles onto the bridge and blocked the roadway. When cars began driving around them, they pulled out assault rifles and established an armed blockade, forcing cars back and down off the bridge. This hasty blockade was also reinforced over the days and weeks that followed, including the construction of sand bagged positions (protection against small arms fire).
In 1993, members of the Cheam band in BC blocked a railway by parking heavy machinery on the tracks, threatening to tear the tracks up if the RCMP raided the blockade.
In September 1995, following the police shooting of Dudley George at Ipperwash, Natives set up a road block using an abandoned vehicle that was set on fire. In 2000, Mi’kmaq at Burnt Church, New Brunswick, also blockaded a road using an abandoned car set on fire to prevent RCMP and/or vigilante citizens from entering the reserve-territory.
Spike boards
Another technique often used to establish a blockade is the use of a spike board (at least in south central BC). Similar to the spike belts used by cops, a spike board consists of a piece of lumber with large spike nails hammer through one side. This is laid across the roadway, and is pulled off/on with a rope handle attached to one end. If a vehicle refuses to stop, they will drive over the spikes and puncture their tires.
Spike boards were used during blockades in the south central BC region during the spring of 1995, and during a 10 day blockade of commercial vehicles on Highway 99 at the Sutikalh camp (St’at’imc territory) in 2001.
Trees / Abitis
Some hasty blockades have been established by cutting down trees so that they fall across the roadway, making them impassable. A military term for this technique is abatis (or abattis), with the trees felled so that they cross over top of one another. Historically, abatis were made of branches pushed into the ground with their sharpened tips pointed toward the enemy. An abatis made of trees can be dismantled fairly quickly by forestry workers equipped with chainsaws (metal wire can be added throughout at random and painted to match the bark, which stops chainsaws and wrecks blades), or by heavy trucks equipped with cables that pull the trees off the roadway. Felled trees were used during the 1995 siege at Ts’Peten (Gustafsen Lake) in south central BC (Secwepemc territory), and during the October 2013 Mi’kmaq blockade of fracking vehicles in New Brunswick.
The Piqueteros “hasty blockade” and tire fires
The piqueteros of Argentina, a movement of poor and unemployed people that arose in the late 1990s, developed the hasty blockade to a high level. During large mobilizations, and through coordination between many autonomous groups, they used hasty blockades to paralyse the transportation infrastructure of the entire country. In August 2001, for example, the piqueteros were able to shutdown some 300 highways and roads throughout the country.
The most common tactic used by piqueteros was to arrive on a road, highway or city intersection, and block it with tires. Small fires were often built in the middle of the road, and if necessary the tires themselves were set on fire, often by inserting a few plastic bags doused with gasoline into each tire’s rim and igniting them. The burning plastic bag would quickly ignite the rubber on the tire (tire fires, it should be noted, are highly toxic and could be hazardous to residents in a densely populated area).
In one case, a hasty blockade established by piqueteros consisted of the unravelling of a chain link fence and extending it across a roadway, where it was secured to a telephone pole. The piqueteros, a movement based in community and family groups, would also have a self-defence force at their blockades, usually masked people armed with batons. The batons became one of the symbols of the movement. These groups would defend the blockade against any vigilante actions by motorists as well as assaults by small numbers of police. Piquetero blockades often lasted until police had mobilized a large enough force that threatened the blockade, at which point they dispersed.
2. Coast salish territories: Warriors Burn Down Mine Bridge
Secwepemc Ts’ka7 Warriors deactivate Imperial Metals Ruddock Creek mine road.
International Statement, October 14, 2014
With much discussion with Elders Councils and around Sacred fires and ceremonies the Secwepemc Ts’ka7 Warriors have acted out their collective responsibility and jurisdiction to and in the Ts’ka7 area by deactivating the Imperial Metals Ruddock Creek mine road.
Imperial Metals Corporation never asked for or received free, prior and informed consent to operate in Secwepemc Territory. The Imperial Metals Mount Polley mine disaster, in the area known as Yuct Ne Senxiymetkwe, the absolute destruction and devastation of our Territory has never been answered for. No reparations have been made. Instead Imperial Metals continues to force through another mine in our Territory while criminalizing the Klabona Keepers of the Tahltan Nation also exerting their jurisdictional and withholding consent from the same company.
The Ts’ka7 (Tumtum Lake Area) area is a Sacred and important area for the Secwepemc. These are our Sacred Headwaters where the glaciers meet and melt and have fed the creeks and rivers in our Territory for thousands of years. Our Kikye7e call this our food cupboards. It is where we hunt, it’s where we harvest our food and our medicines. It is the birthing grounds for our water and our salmon. We live off this land. Our land is our survival. We need the land the land doesn’t need us. Mother Earth carries on but it is our survival that is dependent on the land and the water.
The genocidal displacement of the Secwepemc from their Homelands through starvation, fear and assimilation by the state and industry being acted out by Imperial Metals stops now. We are committed to the ongoing protection of our Territory. Our salmon is sacred, our land is sacred, our Women are sacred, our water is sacred and we the Peoples, the rightful title holders are the decision makers and we will protect them.
Agreements made by elected chief and council do not have authority and do not represent us. This is a warning to Imperial Metals Corporation: Leave our Lands and do not come back. This is a warning to the provincial government: You do not have jurisdiction on this Land to issue permits to any corporation. This is a warning to investors (including the province), contractors, suppliers and subsidiaries: Divest from Imperial Metals Corporation. We the Secwepemc, united, will not allow Imperial Metals Corporation to continue. Secwepemc Law will prevail in our Territory.
Secwepemculecw wel me7 yews, wel me7 yews
Secwepemc Ts’ka7 Warriors
1. Pipeline Sabotage in Hamilton with drill and acid (excerpt)
So back when Enbridge started shipping in pipeline segments for their line 10 expansion, we started sabotaging them.
There are vast networks of pipeline infrastructure throughout Turtle Island. They are indefensible; perfect opportunities for effective direct action that harms nothing but an oil company’s bottom line. It’s in this spirit that we found ourselves going for long moonlit strolls through the trenches of the freshly dug line10 right-of-way. Wherever we felt the urge, we drilled various sized holes into pipeline segments while spilling corrosives inside others. […]
A How-To from the heart
You’ll need 1 a decent cordless drill, 2 a good smaller-gauge cobalt or titanium drill bit – preferably with a pilot point, and 3cutting oil. [Oh, the irony!]
With a righteous sense of adventure, prove your stealth ninja skills by getting into the right-of-way. Once you’re in there you’re pretty invisible from the road so long as you’re not fluorescent, adorned in glitter of fucking around with a headlamp too much. Take a breath, take a look, and then find your way to an empty pipeline and start drilling! Go slow [so there’s less noise, reverberation, and friction] and apply enough pressure so that you see metal shavings coming up – and then keep at it for 10 to 15 minutes. Cutting oil will help the process along by keeping the drill tip cool and effective.
2. Arson Attacks to Stop Dakota Access Pipeline (excerpt)
We then began to research the tools necessary to pierce through 5/8 inch steel pipe, the material used for this pipeline. In March we began to apply this self-gathered information. We began in Mahaska County, IA, using oxy-acetylene cutting torches to pierce through exposed, empty steel valves, successfully delaying completion of the pipeline for weeks. After the success of this peaceful action, we began to use this tactic up and down the pipeline, throughout Iowa (and a part of South Dakota), moving from valve to valve until running out of supplies, and continuing to stop the completion of this project. More information on these actions is followed at the end of this statement. […]
We then returned to arsonry as a tactic. Using tires and gasoline-soaked rags we burned multiple valve sites, their electrical units, as well as additional heavy equipment located on DAPL easements throughout Iowa, further halting construction.
After studying intuitively how fires work, and the material of the infrastructures which we wished to halt (metal) we learned that the fire had to be hot enough to melt steel — and we have learned typical arsonry is not allows the most effective means, but every action is a thorn in their side.
On election night, knowing that gasoline burns quickly, but does not sustain by itself, we added motor oil (which burns at a higher temperature and for longer) and rags to coffee canisters and placed them on the seats of the machinery, piercing the coffee canisters once they were in place and striking several matches, anticipating that the seats would burn and maintain a fire long enough to make the machines obsolete. One canister did not light, and that is unfortunate, but five out of six ain’t bad.
As we saw construction continue, we realized that pipe was going into the ground and that our only means to obstruct further corporate desecration was somehow to pierce through the empty steel pipes exposed at the numerous valve sites. We learned that a welding torch using oxygen and acetylene was the proper tool. We bought the equipment outside of our city in efforts to maintain anonymity as our goal was to push this corporation beyond their means to eventually abandon the project. We bought kits at Home Depot and the tanks at welding supply stores, like Praxair and Mathesons. Having no experience with welding equipment before, we learned through our own volition and we were able to get the job down to 7 minutes.
In our particular circumstances, we learned that scouting often hindered our ability to act in windows of opportunity. So, we went with our torches and protective gear on, and found numerous sites, feeling out the “vibe” of each situation, and deciding to act then and there, often in broad daylight. Trust your spirit, trust the signs.
Having run out of supplies (the tanks) we decided to return to arsonry because every action counts. We used gasoline and rags along with tires (as tires burn a nice while, once a steady fire within them burns) to multiple DAPL sites and equipment.
3. Points of Resistance (excerpts)
From dissemination.noblogs.org. The project is for opposing the Enbridge Line 9, but many of the concepts are transferable to other pipeline projects.
understanding infrastructure basics can help us pinpoint an appropriate point of resistance – so here are some basics.
oil is extracted from the tarsands, and upgraded for transportation through pipelines, or refined for their final destination. pumping stations keep the product flowing through pipelines. densitometer stations send back flow rates and viscosity. bulk oil can be stored in tank farms, until it is refined further, or shipped by rail or truck. valve stations contain valves that open or close the pipeline to isolate sections/stop flow. junctions are facilities where other valves can be turned on or off to direct flow into certain facilities.
access
facilities, pump stations, terminals, valves, and densitometer stations are all accessible via maintained roads.
terminals & storage facilities are often secured 24 hours with lighting and staff on site. there is lots of aboveground structure including above ground pipelines, valves, electrical systems, flow measurement systems and large cylindrical storage tanks. there are 3 along line 9 – in sarnia, westover and montreal – but smaller delivery lines also feed offset facilities on the way, such as the petro-canada tanks in so-called missisauga.
pumping stations may or may not be staffed by security at night, and are usually fenced with 6-8 foot fencing topped with barbed wire. infrastructure also exists here, including above ground pipelines, valves, PIG traps, flow measurement and emergency shutoff buttons.
valves & densitometer stations are usually small & isolated, also with 6-8 foot chain link fencing & barbed wire. their enclosures have a gate entry, often secured with a standard key lock that can be cut with larger-sized bolt cutters and contain a small shack housing electrical sources and measurement equipment. valves have an additional link-chain wrapped around the hand wheel and stem, meant to prevent rotation.
integrity dig sites will be accessible via private property/stakeholder driveways or the right of way. they are sometimes marked with construction truck signs and flagging. notices for future digs are posted in the maintenance filings on the neb site.
right of ways are marked at road crossings by a small sign at the side of the road. It’s easy to find the closest crossing to navigate your way in to the site. Though identifiable in natural areas, ROW’s aren’t always easy to access and traverse swamps, river crossings, property lines etc. if you decide to go for a walk in these manmade mosquito breeding corridors you may have to jump some property fences to continue along your journey.
valves
enbridge has a number of valves on all of their pipelines. these valves are often located in more isolated/rural areas, accessible right off a maintained roadway, and surrounded by chain link with razor wire. locks can be cut by larger sets of bolt cutters [or chain link cut with smaller pairs].
*update: since a number of successful valve site occupations and nighttime sabotage actions, enbridge has added heavier reinforced chain link and lock boxes to their valve facility enclosures. while you can’t cut the chain anymore, or access the locks, you can cut through the chain link fence! also: scout appropriately beforehand. enbridge has acknowledge changes in security, which could mean anything from new chains to security patrols to cameras/motion cameras. BE SAFE!
in their line 9 filings, enbridge claims to be intending to use a double flanged electronically actuated valve manufactured by zwick. their schematics can be found here.
while it appears the majority of older manual valves have been converted to electronically actuated valves, operational/functional manual valves do still exist on the line. enbridge claims only 3 are still existing – all near or in quebec [KP 3458.31, KP 3483.12 & KP 3500], however this is not true. there is at least one other near so-called sarnia [KP 2816.37] off mandaumin road and may be more.
*update: enbridge will be converting the mandaumin road valve, but have no fear – that means they will need to shut off line 9 at one point, and electronic valves have been successfully operated. see here and this handy drawing that was submitted to the site through an anonymous email. in that email, it was also noted that different valves may have slightly different electronic interfaces.
manual vs. electronic actuation
a manual valve is only operated by a manual hand wheel, while electronically actuated valves are operated by electricity – either from remotely, or on site if switched to manual operation. the manual hand wheel will not operate the valve unless the power is off or the valve is on manual/on-site operation.
they’re fairly easy to tell apart – manual valves just have an encasement and hand wheel, while electric valves will have a hand wheel, encasement, electric cords attaching to the bottom with hex-bolts, and sometimes other measuring equipment.
other notes
what is known is that electronic-actuated valves rely on a power source, and in so-called canada are mandated to have a backup power source to move the valve into a “closed” position during a power failure [called “fail-to-safe”].
additionally, enbridge has previously submitted that using a manual valve to turn off a pipeline can take between 10-15 minutes of rotation, so go prepared for a workout.
*update: enbridge has removed the handwheels on the manual valves of line 9. you can cast the bolt size and create your own wheel, however – or find an appropriately sized tool [the bolt is bigger than you think. cast it with a pie pan and clay or something similar!].
terminals, stations & other infrastructure
physical pipelines
pipeline networks are vast and hard to secure, making oil & gas company’s weakness our potential strength. the pipeline infratructure itself is above ground at three points: during layout/construction of a new pipeline/segment, during maintenance when it’s uncovered, and where it comes above ground to pumping stations and terminals. physical pipelines themselves can have varying maintenance requirements. while anomalies on pipeline surfaces are often ignored, there are rigid replacement requirements around at least two specific damages that can delay operation.
i. scratches/dents/interference with pipeline flanges – especially open the open face of a flange, or;
ii. scratches on pipe threads of newly laid out/uninstalled pipe.
clearly it’s in our best interest to let everyone know when these things may have been tampered with or damaged.
telecommunications
some pipeline facilities including densitometre stations and valve stations have telecommunications systems to relay information on pumping pressures and pipeline content and allow remote access/control to these systems. it’s not unimaginable that any kind of interference with their telecommunications equipment might lead to a forced shutdown of the pipeline.
1. Coordinated arson attacks against energy multinational RWE (excerpt)
In the late hours of 25-11-16, we carried out coordinated arson attacks against the German energy multinational RWE in the vicinity of the Hambach opencast lignite mine.
After a scout of the area, we split up and set fire to six pumping stations, two electrical transformers, one digger and a substation of the electrical grid.
Pumping stations are key pieces of the mines infrastructure used to lower the water table and prevent the flooding of the mine. They most often resemble a section of exposed pipe and an electrical box surrounded by construction fence. We prised open the electrical boxes using a crowbar and placed simple timed incendiary devices and a bundle of bicycle inner tubes inside to ensure the flames caught nicely.
The incendiary devices were composed of a candle secured to a firelighter cube with a strong rubber band. The candles burnt down slowly, then ignited the firelighters once we were safely away from the area. After smashing a window to gain access, we used the same devices to burn out the cab of the digger.
For the transformers and the substation we burnt car tires filled with gasoline soaked rags. We placed these beneath exposed insulated cabling on the substation and inside the transformers. Within several minutes these targets were engulfed in flames and as we departed the substation exploded, sending arcing electricity and purple flames ten metres into the night sky.
1. Sabotages in southeast Quebec by burning telecomm cable (excerpt)
So the other night on September 21, we’ve set fire to a railroad telecomm cable linking Brigham to Sherbrooke (Qc) to the US, thinking about the Algonquins people recently evicted from a resistance camp and detained in Gatineau. We took the time to select a railway bridge in the middle of nowhere near Waterloo, so we’d not have to dig to get to the cables or attract too much attention. Some fuel was dropped through an opening in the steel casing of the cables, then set on fire. Nothing fancy. It worked better as we’d guessed, as a few seconds later it already smelled burning rubber a few meters away. The enclosed air in the conduct apparently turned the fire into something like a blow torch. Kind of easy game to be reproduced elsewhere by others, we told ourselves… so that’s a reason to let others know.
2. Sabotage of coal rail transport line with disk cutter (excerpt)
We took a risk assessment and as night just started to close in we entered the 1st railway tunnel, we cut both lines with a portable disc cutter, we didn’t imagine de-railing a locomotive but wrecking disruption and economic damage (time is money). We entered a 2nd and did a further two cuts, marking them all with pink paint, and leaving a banner as a warning.
3. Train Tracks Sabotaged With Concrete (excerpt)
We took precautions to notify BNSF (the train company) – we called them and we used wires to send a signal that the tracks were blocked. We did this not to avoid damaging a train, nothing would bring bigger grins to our faces, but to avoid the risk of injuring railway workers.
This action and actions like it are quite easy to do yourself. This only took a few hours and a little bit of planning. The hardest part was calming our nerves. Particularly easy was placing wire on the tracks to send a signal to the train company that the tracks were blocked. This action can and has been easily repeated wherever train tracks are. For more info on how to do this check out this explanatory video (see link online at warriorup.noblogs.org).
4. Arson and sabotage at hambach mine (excerpt)
After wandering along the railway tracks which transport brown coal from the mine to nearby power stations, we came across two signal boxes and a bundle of cables and thought these were perfectly suitable targets for our mischevious intentions.
We opened the boxes with a wide chisel and placed inside 10cm lengths of inner tube stuffed with gasoline soaked cloths then smeared the inside of the boxes with burning gel to make sure it all burnt properly.
We thought the party was over, but then on the way back we noticed some welcoming lights from an office trailer in a fenced compound. Next to the trailer were two parked diggers in dire need of maintainance, we checked the trailer was empty by smashing its windows, then cut the fence and set about immediately improving the air conditioning of the diggers, smashing their windows, cutting all of the hydraulics and adding some extra holes to the coolers. We also poured some dirt and broken glass in the gas tanks and used a bolt cutter to cut the valves of the trailers tires.
200m further, we found a front-end loader and gave it the same treatment aswell as emptying the fire extinguisher found inside the cab into its gas tank.
5. Rail security electronics installation burned (excerpt)
With this communiqué we claim responsibility for the railway sabotage directed at a rail security electronics installation at Rekola in Vantaa. For this action we only needed a crowbar, some toilet paper, a few canisters of gasoline and a light. We broke in through the door and used toilet paper soaked in lighter fluid as a fuse, so we could flee the scene in peace before the arrival of the police and the fire department.
6. Blocking Trains with Jumper Cables (excerpt)
Warrior Up Note: in our experience, this method hasn’t worked to interrupt train activity. Do tests in your area to determine whether it is an effective tactic.
We can also block the rails in a sneaky way: by tricking the signalling system into thinking there is a train on the tracks. This trick will force train traffic to come to a halt until the signal blockage is cleared. It can be done in under a minute, and repeated many times to have a significant impact on train circulation. It can take hours to find and remove this blockage, stopping all train traffic in the meantime.
Here’s how their system works:
A low velocity current runs through each rail. The electricity runs across the junctions of an individual rail with copper wire connections. When a train passes, it forms an electrical connection between rails and signals its presence.
Here’s how we can block the signal:
Get some 6-gauge booster cables. You can paint the wire black to make it harder to find. Rust on the tracks can prevent a solid connection, so connecting directly to the tracks might not work. To avoid this problem, find a section of rail where two junctions are side by side, and connect the copper wires with the booster cable. You can hide the wire with snow or rocks. The connection will lower railway crossing barriers that are nearby.
1. Attack against Communications Infrastructure
A ‘T-mobile’ repeater was destroyed by fire. All effort was made not to endanger any life and the mast was chosen due to its distance from residential buildings and activity. The fence was cut with bolt-croppers and placed at the base of the antenna, wrapped around the electrical cables powering the mast, was a cut tyre filled with rags soaked in paraffin. Soaked rags were also tied to the cables and tucked into the tyre. Firelighters were used to ignite the lot.
From Grinding to a Halt, Evaluating Canada’s Worst Bottlenecks
1. Toronto, Highway 401 between Highway 427 and Yonge Street
2. Toronto, Don Valley Parkway/Highway 404 between Don Mills Road and Finch Avenue
3. Montreal, Highway 40 between Boulevard Pie-IX and Highway 520
4. Toronto, Gardiner Expressway between South Kingsway and Bay Street
5. Montreal, Highway 15 between Highway 40 and Chemin de la Cote-Saint-Luc
6. Toronto, Highway 401 between Bayview Avenue and Don Mills Road
7. Toronto, Highway 409 between Highway 401 and Kipling Avenue
8. Montreal, Highway 25 between Avenue Souligny and Rue Beaubien
9. Vancouver, Granville Street at SW Marine Drive
10. Vancouver, W Georgia Street between Seymour Street and W Pender Street
11. Toronto, Highway 401 between Don Valley Parkway and Victoria Park Avenue
12. Toronto, Black Creek Drive between Weston Road and Trethewey Drive
13. Toronto, Highway 401 between Mavis Road and McLaughlin Road
14. Montreal, Highway 40 between Highway 520 and Boulevard Cavendish
15. Vancouver, Granville Street between W Broadway Street and W 16th Avenue
16. Montreal, Highway 20 near 1re Avenue
17. Quebec City, Highway 73 between Chemin des Quatre Bourgeois and exit to Avenue Dalquier
18. Toronto, Highway 401 interchange at Highway 427
19. Toronto, Highway 400 at Highway 401
20. Vancouver, George Massey Tunnel on Highway 99
Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info
At this very moment a standoff is unfolding, the outcome of which will determine the future of Northern BC for generations to come. Will the entire region be overtaken by the fracking industry, or will Indigenous people asserting their sovereignty be successful in repelling the assault on their homelands?
The future is unwritten. What comes next will be greatly influenced by actions taken in the coming days and weeks. This is a long-term struggle, but it is at a critical moment. That is why we say: The Time is Now. If you are a person of conscience and you understand the magnitude of what is at stake, ask yourself how you might best support the grassroots Wet’suwet’en. For different people, this may mean different things. For some people, it means traveling to the front-lines. For others, awareness-raising efforts or cash/material contributions.
The Unist’ot’en Camp has existed since 2009, and has been continuously occupied since 2012. It was built directly in the way of a proposed pipeline corridor that included multiple mega-projects, including the previously proposed Northern Gateway and the Pacific Trails Pipeline.
The Unist’ot’en, known as the People of the Headwater, are a family group within one of five clans of the Wet’suwet’en Nation. Their territories encompass a wide swath of Northern British Columbia. In 2005, a number of large oil and gas companies announced plans to build a massive pipeline corridor through these lands, some Wet’suwet’en people made it their mission to ensure that the future envisioned by these capitalists would never come to pass. Of the five Wet’suwet’en clans, the Unist’ot’en were the first to officially declare themselves opposed to ALL pipelines being proposed to cross their territories. Today, all five clans stand united in this opposition. This unity was achieved through years of consistent diplomacy and consensus-building on the part of the grassroots Wet’suwet’en. The success of their resistance is attributable, in large part, to a steadfast commitment to the traditional Wet’suwet’en governance structure.
In 2009, a cabin was constructed on the exact GPS coordinates of the proposed path of the proposed energy corridor. Because of the geography of the region, which is rugged, mountainous, and seismically active, rerouting the corridor has never been proposed. The site is situated in the Unist’ot’en territory known as Talbits Kwa, whose boundary follows the bank of the Wedzin Kwa (known colonially as the Morice River). A single-lane bridge is the only way in and out of the territory, and can only be accessed by a logging road running south from Houston, BC. For years, the Unist’ot’en Camp has been maintaining a checkpoint on this bridge. The camp leadership is clear that this not a blockade, as they will grant access to various parties, including logging companies, fishers and hunters, provided that they follow the Free, Prior and Informed Consent protocol.
The Wet’suwet’en people, under the governance of their hereditary chiefs, are standing in the way of the largest fracking project in Canadian history. The Coastal Gas Link pipeline (CGL) aims to connect the fracking operations of Northeastern B.C. with a Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) facility in the coastal town of Kitimat. This export terminal, called LNG Canada, is owned by a consortium of multinational oil giants (Shell, PetroChina, Petronas, KOGAS, and Mitsubishi). Although there are propaganda attempts to lead citizens to believe that this 41 billion dollar investment is inevitable; the global market for LNG is unstable, as there are several countries currently established in this extremely competitive market.
CGL is the first of many proposed pipelines attempting to cut across the Wet’suwet’en traditional territories. If built, it would expedite the construction of subsequent bitumen and fracked gas pipelines, and create incentive for gas companies to tap into shale deposits along the pipeline right of way. This project aims to blaze a trail, in what has been envisioned as an “energy corridor” through some of the only pristine areas left in this entire region. If CGL were to be built and become operational, it would irreversibly transform the ecology and character of Northern B.C.
The Gitimt’en is one of five clans of the Wet’suwet’en Nation. The creation of the Gitimt’en Camp was announced in the Wet’suwet’en feast hall, with the support of all chiefs present. In response to CGL’s injunction, the Gitimt’en Camp was established on the road leading to the Unist’ot’en Camp, as a way of creating a new front line. CGL’s lawyers have been arguing that the Unist’ot’en are essentially a rogue group without a rightful claim to aboriginal title. The Gitimt’en intervention shows that the Unist’ot’en are not alone, and that the hereditary chiefs are prepared to uphold Wet’suwet’en law in refusing CGL access. The Gitimt’en Camp is clear that this not a blockade, as they will grant access to various parties, including logging companies, fishers and hunters, provided that they follow the Free, Prior and Informed Consent protocol.
On Friday, December 21st, a judge granted CGL an extension to their injunction against the Unist’ot’en Camp, applying it to all resistance camps South of Houston. For this reason, the Gitimt’en Camp is on high alert, prepared to defend their unceded territory from the threat of police invasion. Currently, the front-line is being held by a number of Wet’suwet’en chiefs, families, and experienced front-line activists, and the camp is growing by the day. It is a remote and outdoor camp, inhabited in subzero temperatures. Of course, there are costs associated with this. Surviving, let alone organizing, in a remote area in the Northern winter is difficult. Infrastructure at camp will greatly contribute to the ability to organize effectively.
With an injunction in place, police action could come at any time. Local intelligence suggests threat escalation in early January. Wet’suwet’en leaders are asking supporters to treat this situation as urgent.
– Come support on the front lines.*
– Sponsor a member of your community to come support on the front lines (giving Indigenous folks priority).
– Plan a work party. Get a group of friends together and come to camp with a project in mind, such as building a structure. This option is ideal for people who want to support but who can’t be away from home for long periods of time. Examples of building projects that would be appreciated are: a yurt, a prospector tent, a woodshed, a watch house. Keep in mind that all structures will need to be heated, so wood stoves are in high demand.
– Create a pamphlet (about fracking, LNG, the Coastal GasLink pipeline, the Unist’ot’en and Gidimt’en resistance camps, etc) that could used to spread information in person. If a ready-to-print PDF file is posted online, it can be easily reproduced by people far and wide. Have your pamphlet approved through yintahaccess@gmail.com
– Translate existing texts about the camp into other languages.
– Plan a solidarity action. If police and industry move in, it is time to block highways, bridges, and rail lines. It is time to occupy offices, be disruptive, and send a strong message that cannot be ignored. Start thinking about appropriate actions you can take close to home. Bear in mind that using secondary and tertiary targeting (i.e. targeting the business partners of the company you are protesting) is sometimes more effective than appealing to politicians.
– Plan an awareness-raising/fundraising event. Consider a film screening.
– Donate cash or material goods. Current needs are for building supplies, a camp truck, a snowmobile, food, fuel, and transportation costs.
– If you a part of an organization, such as an NGO or union, advocate that your organization issue a public statement of support for the Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chiefs.
– If you are a public figure, please use your influence to raise the profile of the issue. For example, if you have a large social media following, post in support.
– If you are part of an organization that deploys human rights observers to conflict areas, please immediately contact yintahaccess@gmail.com.
– Signal boost by using social media to share media links and hashtags. The 3 official hashtags of the Yintah Access Checkpoint are #notrespass, #wedzinkwa, and #wetsuwetenstrong.
– (Preferred) Send an e-transfer to yintahaccess@gmail.com
– Mail a cheque. Write yintahaccess@gmail.com for name and mailing address.
– Paypal – codym@uvic.ca
– Donate to the GoFundMe campaign here: https://www.gofundme.com/gitdumt039en-access-point
– If you are fundraising, consider setting a goal of a particular item – for example, a camper, a snowmobile, a chainsaw, a generator, or a welder. Having a tangible goal can help make fundraising feel more rewarding.
Note: Gidimt’en Camp and the Unist’ot’en Camp support one another. It is important to note, however, that the two are separate and distinct camps. The two camps are located on the territories of two different clans, and answer to their respective chiefs. This is important for legal reasons. The injunction fails to differentiate between the two camps, but this is not accurate or defensible. The finances of the two camps are separate. If you want to donate to the Unist’ot’en Camp, which is encouraged, please donate to them directly. You can do this via their website at unistotencamp.com
*As life on the front lines can be very difficult physically, emotionally, and mentally, not everyone is encouraged to come. Ask yourself questions like: “In an intense, high-stress situation, am I able to think rationally and act intelligently? Am I prepared for the risk of arrest? Do I bring useful skills? Is the Front-Line the place where I can be the most useful? Is there an Indigenous person that could attend in my place?”
Anyone wishing to come should contact yintahaccess@gmail.com in advance. Visit the camp’s Facebook page by searching Wet’suwet’en Access point on Gidimt’en territory.
From From Embers
This episode features two interviews with organizers of New Years Eve noise demonstrations in Hamilton and in Montreal. We talk about the rage and sadness we feel about the existence of prisons, noise demonstrations, building traditions and rituals, and our favourite New Years Eve stories.
Links:
Seven Years Against Prison (2015)
International Call For New Year’s Even Noise Demonstrations (English, 2018)
From Hamilton Anarchist Support
Cedar has been transferred from Barton Jail in Hamilton to Vanier Centre for Women in Milton where they will serve the duration of their sentence. While there, they would love to receive mail from people (friends and strangers alike!). Mail can be sent to the following address:
Peter “Cedar” HoppertonThey’d be happy to receive letters and would be interested in corresponding with people, and would also appreciate photocopies of things to read (news, articles, zines, books etc.) – just make sure there are no staples. You can also send them books if they are shipped directly from the publisher.
They’re currently most interested in books on Eastern Europe and the Middle East regional histories, and social movements history/histories of uprisings, revolutions etc., but would be interested in pretty much any general history, and anything anarchy related – theory, analysis, reportbacks, callouts, interviews etc. They are also interested in Italian language learning and any books that would help with that. Texts can be in English or French, or Arabic if an English translation accompanies it.
Anonymous submission to No Borders Media
December 24, 2018 — On Christmas Eve, Montreal-area vandals have covered the John A. Macdonald Monument (1895) and the Queen Victoria Statue at McGill (1900) with red and green paint respectively.
This action, claimed by Santa’s Rebel Elves, continues a series of paint attacks on symbols of racist British colonialism in Montreal. The Macdonald Monument has been vandalized at least six times, while the two Queen Victoria Statues in Montreal have been painted at least three times (including in green paint on St. Patrick’s Day 2018).
Concerning the Queen Victoria statue, the Delhi-Dublin Anti-Colonial Solidarity Brigade, responsible for the St. Patrick’s Day vandalism, wrote:
“The presence of racist Queen Victoria statues in Montreal are an insult to the self-determination and resistance struggles of oppressed peoples worldwide, including Indigenous nations in North America (Turtle Island) and Oceania, as well as the peoples of Africa, the Middle East, the Caribbean, the Indian subcontinent, and everywhere the British Empire committed its atrocities.The Queen Victoria statues are also an insult to the legacy of revolt by Irish freedom fighters, and anti-colonial mutineers of British origin. The statues particularly deserve no public space in Quebec, where the Québecois weredenigrated and marginalized by British racists acting in the name of the putrid monarchy represented by Queen Victoria.Queen Victoria’s reign, which continues to be whitewashed in history books and in popular media, represented a massive expansion of the barbaric British Empire. Collectively her reign represents a criminal legacy ofgenocide, mass murder, torture, massacres, terror, forced famines, concentration camps, theft, cultural denigration, racism, and white supremacy. That legacy should be denounced and attacked.”
Concerning the Macdonald Monument, a poster seen on the streets of Montreal concisely sums up his racist legacy as follows:
“John A. Macdonald was a white supremacist. He directly contributed to the genocide of Indigenous peoples with the creation of the brutal residential schools system, as well as other measures meant to destroy native cultures and traditions. He was racist and hostile towards non-white minority groups in Canada, openly promoting the preservation of a so-called “Aryan” Canada. He passed laws to exclude people of Chinese origin. He was responsiblefor the hanging of Métis martyr Louis Riel.Macdonald statues should be removed from public space and instead placed in archives or museums, where they belong as historical artifacts. Public space should celebrate collective struggles for justice and liberation, notwhite supremacy and genocide.” (Poster Link: http://bit.ly/2L0v7a0)
From the Réseau libertaire Brume Noire
The ‘Réseau libertaire Brume Noire’ is officially launching. Every step forward demonstrates the need for solidarity and awareness in the Gaspé (Gespeg) region. Being a citizen group, the collective does not use the many funding that the government offers to companies or organizations. In fact, we try to do things by ourselves and for ourselves. That’s why we appeal to you as well as to the big world of internet to invite you to participate and share our campaign of socio-financing!
Collectivism helps us find people and equipment around the region. Many people support their presence or volunteer work. In order to spread this popular education and to promote libertarian values to all, some funds are needed for reasons such as:
To support the crowdfunding campaign, you can visit the fundrazr page of the Network to buy a sweater, tights or simply make a donation of the amount you want. Every dollar is important to us! You can also share the campaign or like our facebook page. Here are the links:
CAMPAIGN- https://fundrazr.com/ReseauLibertaireBrumeNoire
FACEBOOK- https://www.facebook.com/ReseauLibertaireBrumeNoire/
‘If I can not dance, I do not want to be part of your revolution.’ – Emma Goldman
Raphaël Lévesque, the public face of the neofascist group Atalante, really likes the attention his little stunts get him (that’s why he has long since stopped hiding his identity). However, the central role of a single individual should not prevent us from looking at the people who gravitate to his leadership, because a movement like Atalante is nothing without the militants that give it life.
All the actions that the group has carried out in Québec City and Montréal over the past two years to increase its visibility suggest that, along with its more visible members, Atalante can count on a reserve of a few dozen individuals who support the ultranationalist cause. Despite its small numbers, the group has caught the eye of a section of the mainstream media and has made effective use of social media to promote a so-called “national revolutionary” position within Québec’s far right.
The practice of masking up in public clearly indicates that the majority of Atalante’s militants want hide their association with this openly fascist group. We think it is high time to shine a light on the militants and sympathizers of Atalante.
We also think it’s important to clear up any confusion about Atalante’s political project and to expose the group’s direct ties with different fascist currents.
Despite its marginal nature, Atalante managed to make headlines several times in 2017 and 2018, particularly last May, when a handful of its militants burst into the Montréal offices of VICE with the specific intent of intimidating the staff on site that day. The report published a few days later described the incident thusly:
When an employee opened the door for a man holding bouquet of flowers, a group of six or seven men, all masked except one, burst into the main room with the theme music from the The Price Is Right playing on a small Bluetooth speaker. The men then moved on to the newsroom, where they threw around clown noses and hundreds of leaflets . . .
The specifically attempted to intimidate the journalist Simon Coutu—who has written about the group—by gathering in his office to give him a trophy sporting the inscription: “VICE: Média poubelle 2018.”
Raphaël Lévesque, aka Raf Stomper, said the visit was to thank Coutu in the name of “all of the victims of the war you are trying to start.”
A photograph of the Atalante members in the VICE offices, May 23, 2018.
In response to this dreary bit of political theatre, Atalante was mentioned in media all over Canada, in the United States, and even in Europe. Beyond that, the action was denounced by Premier Philippe Couillard and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. On a propaganda level, Atalante pulled off a neat little coup with only six people and a limited amount of imagination.[i]
As will become clear, this is Atalante’s modus operandi: putting a minimum of energy into these little propaganda actions that gain a lot of media coverage and create a platform for spreading its ideas, accompanied by the use of Facebook to project an image of strength.
Raphaël Lévesque waving around Atalante leaflets in the VICE offices, May 23, 2018.
As the only member of the group who had not covered his face, Atalante’s main man, Raphaël “Raf Stomper” Lévesque, faces a variety of charges for the action against VICE, including break and enter, mischief, criminal harassment, and intimidation. This is just the sort of judicial overkill that is more likely to increase his stature (and boost his already substantial ego) than to achieve anything else.
The thirty-five-year-old Lévesque (born August 5, 1983) is well-known to Québec’s antifascists. He has previously been indicted for assault, uttering threats, and drug trafficking, and was in prison as recently as 2016. In 2017, he called for the torching of the offices of the “Centre de prévention de la radicalisation menant à la violence” should the latter act on its stated intention to set up in Québec City. Although the center’s director Mr. Deparice-Okomba said that this constituted a criminal threat, no legal action seems to have been taken in the matter.
Besides his run-ins with the law, Lévesque is the singer for Légitime Violence, an oï[ii] band that is part of the Rock Against Communism movement[iii], and a known leader of the Québec City Stomper Crew, a bonehead gang[iv] active for a number of years in the Québec City region and known for its ties to organized crime and drug trafficking.
To understand the nature of Atalante today, it is useful to remember that the group grew out of the band Légitime Violence and the bonehead scene around the Québec City Stomper Crew (which is still the heart of the organization).
In the early 2000s, two so-called “apolitical” skinhead youth gangs emerged in the province. They were Coup de Masse (CdM) in Montréal and the Québec City Stompers (2004). Although they claimed to be apolitical, both gangs were strong supporters of Québec nationalism, which led to them being pushed out of the underground scenes in their respective cities. Even if the two gangs, which had very close ties, rejected both the left and the right (there are even stories about battles between the Québec City Stompers and the neo-Nazis in the Sainte-Foy Krew in the late 2000s), the Stompers rapidly gravitated to the bonehead milieu, adopting a so-called “anti-antifascist” position. At that point, the Québec City Stompers were Raphaël Lévesque, Yan Barras, and Martin Léger, with the addition over time of Benjamin Bastien, Antoine Mailhot-Bruneau, Yannick Vézina, Olivier Gadoury, Jonathan Payeur, and Roxanne Baron. Even today, there seems to be a distinction between the memberships of Atalante and the Québec City Stompers —the latter being more narrowly focused and countercultural. While all of the current members of the Québec City Stompers are members of Atalante, the inverse is not the case.
A recent photo of Québec Stompers: Étienne Mailhot-Bruneau, Olivier Gadoury, Raphaël Lévesque, Sven Côté, Antoine Mailhot-Bruneau, Jonathan Payeur, Benjamin Bastien and Yan Barras.
Both of these gangs were enthusiastic aficionados of a musical scene made up of Rock Against Communism (RAC) and Rock Identitaire Français (RIF), two musical styles that are a direct outgrowth of the far-right scene. In Québec, the major bands are Coup de Masse, Section de Guerre, Fleurdelix et les Affreux Gaulois, and Bootprint, joined by Légitime Violence in the late 2000s. A group that could be seen as a major influence on this scene is Trouble Makers, largely associated with RIF. The RIF style is an attempt to package far-right ideas in a slicker and more mainstream musical style than is typical of RAC. Formed in the late 1990s, the members of Trouble Makers are Simon Cadieux, Maxime Taverna, Jonathan Stack, and François-Pierre Stack, the latter three being longstanding identitarian militants, known, among other things, to have been members of different far-right groups, including Québec-Radical and the Affranchistes. Trouble Makers were also the first Québec band to cross the Atlantic to participate in events organized by CasaPound in Italy.
Trouble Makers: Jonathan Stack, Maxime Taverna, Richard Stack, Simon Cadieux.
Maxime Taverna, sporting a t-shirt of CasaPound’s flagship group ZetaZeroAlfa
Early in the 2010s, after numerous attempts to form a far-right collective in Montréal, including Troisième Voie Québec, Légion Nationale, and the Faction Nationaliste, Maxime Taverna founded the neofascist groupuscule La Bannière Noire, which eventually became the Montréal chapter of the Fédération des Québécois de Souche (FQS), a precursor to Atalante. With a membership that included Rémi Chabot, Mathieu Bergeron, François-Pierre Stack, and Francis Hamelin, we can already discern the core of what would eventually become Atalante Montréal. Even if rarely active, the collective took on the task of uniting the far-right bonehead scene by organizing identitarian networking soirées and hosting the radio show La bouche de nos canons, broadcast by Bandiera Nera, a chain connected to Zentropa, a far-right media network with ties to CasaPound. Bannière Noire was the first right-wing collective in Québec to openly develop a relationship with the Italian far right and to use imagery similar to what would later be used by Atalante. It is beyond question that the group and its founder Maxime Taverna have played an important role in the creation of Atalante and continue to hold a place as leading ideologues.[v]
A poster announcing a CasaPound talk organized by Bannière Noire and the Fédération des Québécois de souche, February 28, 2015.
Many former and current members of the nebulous bonehead scene that has existed since the 1990s have taken part in violent attacks, particularly against racialized people.
Jonathan Côté and Steve Lavallée in 1998.
In 1997, eight associates of the Vinland Hammer Skins and Berzerker Boot Boys were accused of a series of attacks with baseball bats and metal bars, injuring around thirty people in bars around the city. Among them, Jonathan Côté, alias “Jo Wennebago” (Chevrotine Jo on Facebook), remains very close to the Stompers. Steve Lavallée (Steve Bateman on Facebook) was a central figure among neo-Nazis back in the day, particularly as a member of the band Coup de Masse and allegedly as a leader of a short-lived Québec section of Blood & Honour. Today, Lavallée seems to have toned it down, but he still hangs out with the boys from Légitime Violence and Atalante.
Jonathan Côté and Steve Lavallée in 2017.
Jonathan Côté with Raphaël Lévesque and Benjamin Bastien.
Steve Lavallée in 2017, sporting an Atalante t-shirt.
On June 22, 2002, Rémi Chabot and Daniel Laverdière gratuitously attacked and stabbed a Haitian worker, Evens Marseille, outside a bar in the Montréal’s East End. Rémi Chabot remains part of the nebulous neo-Nazi scene of which Atalante is the current standard-bearer.
Raphaël Lévesque and Rémi Chabot.
On New Year’s Eve 2007, six of the Stompers, including Raphaël Lévesque, burst in to the Bar-Coop l’AgitéE, a left-wing hangout in Québec City, and one of them, Yan Barras, stabbed six people with an X-Acto knife. Légitime Violence makes reference to this brutal attack in their eponymous song: “Ces petits gauchistes efféminés, qui se permettent de nous critiquer, ils n’oseront jamais nous affronter, on va tous les poignarder!” [These little leftist sissies, who dare to criticize us, wouldn’t have the nerve to face us, we’d just stab them all!][vi]
Raphaël Lévesque, Yan Barras and Étienne Mailhot-Bruneau, Québec Stompers.
In 2008, Mathieu Bergeron and an accomplice, Julien-Alexandre Leclerc, were arrested for knifing two Arab youths and attacking a Haitian taxi driver. Bergeron would remain a key figure in the Montréal neo-Nazi scene for a number of years, as a member of the StrikeForce crew, singer for the RAC band Section St-Laurent, and founder of Faction Nationaliste. Today, Bergeron is part of the Atalante inner circle and has participated in many of the group’s actions. Francis Hamelin, another Montréal associate of Atalante, is a longtime friend of Mathieu Bergeron.
Mathieu Bergeron, with the red shirt, in the early 2010s.
Mathieu Bergeron during an Atalante action in Montréal, January 20, 2018.
Francis Hamelin (left) and Mathieu Bergeron, with members of Troisième Voie Québec, at an anti-Semitic demonstration in the Montréal borough of Hampstead, in 2011. In the middle (with a dog) is Major Serge Provost of the defunct Milice patriotique du Québec. In the back, wearing a black shirt, is Maxime Taverna of La Bannière Noire.
Légitime Violence songs overflow with racism and homophobia (one of them, an Evil Skins cover, has this notable pro-Shoah passage: “Déroulons les barbelés, préparons le Zyklon B!” [Roll out the barbed wire, get the Zyklon B ready!][vii] Before the founding of Atalante in 2016 the band’s influence outside the bonehead scene was fairly limited.
Information about Légitime Violence concerts in Québec City is generally shared in a very controlled word-of-mouth way to avoid reprisals from antifascist groups. They have achieved greater success in Europe, where the band have been able to tour and sell promotional material.
Légitime Violence: Raphaël Lévesque, Jhan Mecteau, Benjamin Bastien & Jean-Seb (missing, Félix Latraverse).
In 2011, the group took a hit, when, responding to public pressure, the Envol et macadam festival in Québec City pulled its concert from the program.
In 2013, the band toured Europe, creating ties with other neo-Nazi bands, and for the first time staking out clear political positions. Two years later, a second tour led members of the group to found a neofascist group on the model of CasaPound (Italy), Hogar Social and Bastion Social (France). The result was Atalante, which was officially founded in 2016.
Légitime Violence also maintains close ties with the RAC and bonehead scene in New York, specifically with the (now defunct) band Offensive Weapon and the label United Riot, which distributed a split recording featuring the two groups in 2013. They also have connections to the 211 Bootboys Crew, a New York City bonehead crew, some of whose members have been found guilty of armed assault and others who currently face charges for beating antifascists outside a recent talk by Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes at the Metropolitan Republican Club in Manhattan.
Lee Rocco, from Offensive Weapon. Note the scarf decorated with a Totenkopf, the SS insignia.
Photos of members of Légitime Violence and Offensive Weapon, with their respective entourages.
John Young (left) of the 211 Boot Boys and the Offensive Weapon entourage pleaded guilty to assault and battery in July 2017, in New York. He appears here with Raphaël Lévesque.
As recently as November 2018, members of Légitime Violence went to France to pay their respects to the late Sergei Ventura, a bonehead piece of shit who had been part of Serge Ayoub and Troisième Voie’s entourage.
The group Troisième Voie before its dissolution. In the middle, Sergei Ventura with Serge Ayoub. Between them is Estaban Morillo, who murdered Clément Méric.
Romain, formerly of Troisième Voie, with Raphaël Lévesque, in the Fall of 2018. Note the Skrewdriver t-shirt .
Défends, the Légitime Violence album that came out in 2017, is intended as a sort of self-referential homage . . . to Atalante.
Légitime Violence in France, Fall 2018.
Buoyed by propaganda and street action, Atalante hopes to contribute to an “identitarian renaissance.” The description the group provides of itself on its Facebook page —which has six thousand subscribers— reflects the “declinist” perspective that characterizes a significant segment of the contemporary far right:
In this sombre age, as globalization and consumerism reign, we are being suffocated by the tyranny of political correctness and the negation of our identity. The West is being undermined from within by the collapse of traditional values and principles.
Atalante’s slogan, “to exist is to fight against that which negates my existence” is borrowed from Dominique Venner, a mythic figure on the French far right. Initially a member of the Organisation Armée Secrète (OAS), a far-right paramilitary group that fought against Algerian independence, later he was a historian who advanced the “clash of civilizations” thesis. Venner committed suicide in 2013 at Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris to protest against same-sex marriage.
An Atalante poster paying homage to Dominique Venner.
Atalante is aggressively ultranationalist, identifying with the culture and history of the French Canadian nation, or as Atalante members put it, New France.[viii] The name Atalante refers to the French frigate the Atalante, which ran aground during a battle with the British in 1760. The group’s logo is a ship’s wheel with a lightning bolt cutting through it.
Indeed, Atalante’s worldview draws heavily on the history of Quebec (or French Canada) as an oppressed, conquered, nation. Understanding this history primarily through a cultural and demographic lens, Atalante holds that French Canadians have been subjected to an attempted genocide for centuries. This narrative draws on specific elements of Quebec history, and in the past, for instance in the 1960s, a similar logic led many people to develop a left-wing nationalism that identified with and supported Third World anticolonial movements. In 2018, however, this approach most easily finds its logical extension in far right conspiracy theories about “white genocide”, the “grand remplacement”, or the “Kalergi Plan”, all of which are in fact reference points for Quebec far rightists (including Atalante) today. The fact that the overwhelming majority of Québécois reject this kind of extreme racism is explained away as a result of “degeneracy” and “brainwashing.” This version of Quebec history has been summed up by Antoine Mailhot-Bruneau in an interview with a far-right website in 2017:
(…) the turning point of the creation of this fake nation [Canada] came when the new way to destroy us was introduced – immigration, that came from the ‘report on the affairs of british north America’ made by Lord Durham in 1839, who recommended that the French had to vanish. This happened before Canada became a county [sic] in 1967; the year 2017 is special because they are celebrating the 150th anniversary of this fraud. First they failed their objectives, because they brought Irish Catholics, Italian Catholics, Greek Catholics, Polish Catholics and many other Catholic Europeans; all those foreigners actually adopted our culture and made us even more European and quite unique. After this failed attempt, they realized they had to bring an entirely opposite culture of strangers to mix with us, or to make us an even smaller minority in Canada. So to mask their plan and make it look more attractive for the leftist ‘nationalists’ and other retarded liberals and Marxists, they decided to bring in immigrants that spoke French, such as Haitians and North Africans. The worst part of their plan is that they actually damaged british culture in Canada more than ours – for example, if you visit a city like Toronto it is worse there than in Montréal. However, we now take in more immigrants than France – imagine our future! All of these immigration politics are a plan to exterminate our people.”
Atalante describes itself as “national revolutionary” organisation[ix]. As one militant put it during an interview with the Breizh.info website:
The use of the word revolutionary shocks a lot of people, but it reflects the fact that we don’t want to retain anything from the decadent and sick modern world. What we want to do is create the warrior aristocracy of tomorrow by encouraging our militants to practice intense sports like extreme fighting and weight training and to read all sorts of literature.
We don’t want to preserve this hierarchy, with the wealthiest at the top and the poorest at the bottom, but want to establish a meritocracy that advocates the foundational Western values. By foundational values, we don’t mean the decadent world of the recent past, but the timeless values of heroism, adventure, a sense of sacrifice, honor, and a taste for risk-taking (there are many others, too).
The members of Atalante are primarily inspired by CasaPound, an Italian neofascist movement from which it borrows both elements of discourse (rhetoric that connects anti-immigrant sentiment with anti-capitalism, etc.) and mobilizing tactics (charity initiatives exclusively for “old stock” citizens, etc.).
In August 2016, in collaboration with the Fédération des Québécois de souche, Atalante organized a seminar in Québec City by Gabriele Adinolfi, a pioneering intellectual of the Italian Third Position movement and a supporter of CasaPound. Then in 2017, members of Atalante, including Antoine and Étienne Mailhot-Bruneau, went to Rome for a get-together with fascist militants from CasaPound and the affiliated Blocco Studentesco.
Promotional poster for a Gabriele Adinolfi conference organized by Atalante and the Fédération des Québécois de souche, in August 2016.
Gabriele Adinolfi conference in Québec City, in August 2016.
Raphaël Lévesque with Gianluca Inannone, CasaPound’s National President.
Jean-Sébastien, Raphaël, and Benjamin of Légitime Violence, with Sébastien De Boëldieu and Gianluca Iannone, respectively the international spokesperson and National President of CasaPound.
Raphaël Lévesque at a CasaPound demonstration against a neighbourhood mosque in Rome, October 2017.
Atalante banner in support of CasaPound at the Italian consulate in Montréal, October 30, 2018.
Atalante banner in support of CasaPound, October 30, 2018.
Atalante doesn’t try to hide its admiration for fascist intellectuals. Next to a portrait of Dominique Venner that is painted on the wall of its gym is one of Julius Evola, a figure recognized by many as the most important thinker of the fascist renaissance of the second half of the twentieth century. In March 2018, Atalante posted a homage to the “martyr” François Duprat, a national-revolutionary theorist and major defender of historic fascism, on its Facebook page.
Portraits of Friedrich Nietzsche, Julius Evola, and Dominique Venner on the wall of Atalante’s Québec City gym.
Homage to François Duprat, fascist and national revolutionary theorist.
As a national-revolutionary group, Atalante co-opts anti-capitalist themes, notably opposition to the international bourgeoisie (embodied in their rhetoric by the spectre of “globalism” and the mythic Georges Soros),[x] claiming that they are carrying out a war against the white working class by introducing “a cheap foreign workforce” that will undermine the gains of “old stock Québécois.”
Atalante leaflet targeting George Soros and the “globalists.”
Paradoxically, although the national revolutionaries, who detest communists and anarchists in a visceral way, up to wishing for their deaths, aren’t satisfied with just co-opting elements of left-wing theory but also frequently adopt tried and true tactics of the anti-capitalist left. The intervention at the VICE offices, for example, is a style of action picked up from Atalante’s sister organizations in Europe, which those organizations have stolen from the toolbox of the far left they so mortally hate. The same is true of the distribution of clothing and food to impoverished (“old stock”) citizens, which is a central Atalante activity in Québec City and Montréal. Then, of course, there are the banner drops, another proven far-left tactic. One might even think that the contemporary far right is incapable of an original thought. . .
The cosmetic shifts in the identitarian far-right scenes on both sides of the Atlantic (European “identitarians” and the alt-right in the U.S.), including the gradual fine-tuning of their images, with the transformation of brutal and scary neo-Nazi boneheads into clean-cut and disciplined nipsters. As Antoine Mailhot-Bruneau has explained, they “realized that if we wanted more people to join, we had to be more casual and more accessible for people.” This face-lift therefore shows a desire to be perceived more positively and eventually accepted by moderate nationalists, to begin with, and then by ever larger sections of society, with the hope that their particular brand of profoundly racist identitarian ultranationalism, based on a cult of violence, will take root in the population at large.
Atalante’s positions have sometimes led them to adopt a critical posture vis-à-vis other far-right tendencies, particularly the current national-populist movement. For example, although Atalante members showed up at the March 4, 2017, Islamophobic demo in Québec City, they stayed in the background, and in a leaflet later posted on Facebook lamented the fixation of the populist groups on Islam, seeing the true enemies as multiculturalism, “mass immigration,” and the “bankster” system.
Similarly, and in keeping with “Third Position” politics, the banner they deployed that day bore a modified Karl Marx reference: “Immigration: Armée de réserve du Capital” [Immigration: Reserve Army of Capital]. (In a similar vein, in 2017, Atalante members distributed pamphlets outside a book launch of the conservative and Islamophobic columnist Mathieu Bock-Côté, criticizing him and others on the right who do not take a more radical anti-systemic stand.)
A banner unfurled by Atalante on March 4th, 2017, in Québec City.
This perspective was further elaborated by Antoine Mailhot-Bruneau in the aforementioned interview:
There are some groups such as the Soldiers of Odin, and an internet group called the Meute – these groups focus on stopping the islamization of Canada while defending democracy, but this is not our way at all. We are indeed against non-European immigration, but more importantly we are against a regime that uses immigration to exterminate us. This regime uses third world immigrants for their industries, putting pressure on the local workers and we cannot defend something that is not defendable like democracy. We believe that democracy is the worst regime the world has ever known, a regime built and lead by the bourgeoisie that have only served the establishment and their interests.”
That said, 2017–2018 was marked by a certain rapprochement between the Islamophobic and anti-immigrant national-populist milieu and the small neofascist current to which Atalante belongs. This occurred incrementally as members of these different groups began “liking” the same racist ideas on social media, became “friends,” and took part in the same demonstrations —in some cases ending up side by side in tense standoffs with antifascists— the neofascists starting to get encouraging feedback from reformist and non-aligned right wingers.
The most visible and tangible example of this occurred on November 25, 2017, in Québec City, when members of Atalante and the Soldiers of Odin came down from their position at a distance on the ramparts of the esplanade to join a La Meute and Storm Alliance demonstration “in support of the RCMP” (!) outside the Quebec National Assembly. Members of these latter two groups enthusiastically applauded the fascists and welcomed them with open arms. (Shortly after this surprising convergence, made possible by the repressive actions of the Québec City police against antiracists, two well-known neo-Nazis in Montréal, Shawn Beauvais-MacDonald and Philippe Gendron, the latter a member of the Soldiers of Odin, tried to form a “Montréal chapter” of Atalante.)
Nonetheless, this wasn’t the first time that Atalante members participated in a demonstration of the broader far right alongside national-populists. In a December 2016 VICE article, before Dave Tregget left the Soldiers of Odin to create the Storm Alliance, we find him on the telephone with Raphaël Lévesque, making sure that Atalante members will be coming out for an SoO anti-immigration demonstration. Katy Latulippe, the president of Soldiers of Odin Québec, has also publicly spoken of her great respect for Atalante, adding that the two groups had carried out joint patrols in Québec City (in essence, acts of intimidation directed at immigrants).
An Atalante and Soldiers of Odin demonstration in Québec City, on April 1, 2018, to commemorate the centenary of the draft riots in Québec.
Recall that Katy Latulippe replaced Dave Tregget at the head of Soldiers of Odin Québec in early 2017; she later reiterated her admiration for Atalante:
“We are united on many issues,” the president of the Québec chapter of the Soldiers of Odin, Katy Latulippe, said about Atalante. “There is a great deal of mutual respect between the two groups. They distribute food in the streets and so do we. Why not have the pleasure of helping each other out? We have good chemistry together. Our homeless and out veterans are dying of hunger in the streets. How can you take in people from other countries, when you aren’t capable of taking care of your own people?”
While the ties to the Soldiers of Odin are not insignificant, the Fédération des Québécois de souche is a more important ideological influence on Atalante. The FQS was created in 2007 by Maxime Fiset as an explicitly white supremacist organization (Fiset is now a repentant former Nazi who has patched himself over into a so-called expert on the far right). The FQS magazine Le Harfang was one of the first francophone publications to promote elements of the Alt-Right, and its editors, who use the collective pseudonym “Rémi Tremblay,” have often collaborated with alt-right publications in the U.S. The FQS’s mission could be described as attempting to unite the diverse far-right tendencies in Québec, from traditional Catholicism to the identitarians, while reducing the gap between the generation that was active in the 1980s and the contemporary militant far right.
It is quite likely intercession by the FQS that enabled Atalante to organize public prayer on the Plains of Abraham on May 1, 2016, with a priest from the Fraternité sacerdotale Saint-Pie X (FSSPX)[xi], a traditionalist far-right Catholic organization. The connection with traditionalist Catholicism arose again in May 2017, when Atalante took responsibility for security at a conference in Montréal organized by the Association des parents catholiques du Québec, another far-right organization, with Marion Sigault (an Alain Soral sympathizer) and Jean-Claude Dupuis (from the above-mentioned FSSPX, and previously a member of Cercle Jeune nation).[xii]
A mass officiated by a priest from the Fraternité sacerdotale Saint-Pie X, on May 1, 2016, in Québec City, organized by members of Atalante and the Fédération des Québécois de souche.
Poster announcing a conference with Jean-Claude Dupuis, a close associate of the Fraternité sacerdotale Saint-Pie X, at which Atalante supposedly provided security
In May 2017, the FQS and Atalante joined forces to organize the visit of a militant from the Groupe Union Défense (GUD), a far-right French student organization and an immediate precursor to Bastion Social. In both February and November 2018, as part of its “militant weekends” reserved for “members and sympathizers,” Atalante turned the microphone over to a “Rémi Tremblay” from the FQS…
A poster announcing a conference with a Groupe Union Défense militant, organized by Atalante and the Fédération des Québécois de souche. |
Poster announcing a training seminar for Atalante militants and sympathizers, in February 2018, with a speaker from the Fédération des Québécois de souche. |
Poster announcing a training seminar for Atalante militants and sympathizers, in November 2018, with a speaker from the Fédération des Québécois de souche. |
As mentioned above, Atalante’s public activity basically consists of distributing lunches to (“old stock”) homeless people, paying symbolic homage to various intellectual “heroes” (Jeanne d’Arc, Dominique Venner, the French navigator Jean Vauquelin, etc.), and putting up paper banners with political slogans in quick and furtive nighttime actions.
A look at the slogans on their banners should suffice to provide a clear idea of their politics: “REMIGRATION,” “IMMIGRATION: RESERVE ARMY OF CAPITAL,” “SOCIAL JUSTICE: PRIORITIZE THE NATION,” “TERRORISTS OUT: ISLAM OUT,” “WESTERN SAMURAI” (!), etc.
On one of their public outings in Montréal, in August 2017, Atalante members put up banners demanding “remigration,” particularly around the Olympic Stadium, where Haitian refugees were being temporarily housed.
Atalante views Muslims and racialized people as the swelling ranks of invaders and terrorists who must be expelled. In the face of what they describe as “our quiet extermination,” in the style of far-right European groups like Génération Identitaire, Atalante calls for “a reverse in the flow of migration and a far-reaching remigration accompanied by an effective policy to increase the birth rate.”
Racist banner unfurled at the Olympic Stadium, August 2017.
“Remigration,” a term that has come into vogue for identitarian movements on both sides of the Atlantic in recent years, essentially designates a programme of ethnic cleansing.
Atalante members have visited Montréal a number of times to sticker, poster, and hang banners. They have received the help of members of their anemic “Montréal chapter,” including Vincent Cyr and Shawn Beauvais-MacDonald (the former anglophone La Meute member who became a local neo-Nazi celebrity following his trip to Charlottesville in August 2017 and his active participation in the “Montreal Storm” neo-Nazi chat rooms under the pseudonym “FriendlyFash”). As we said previously, the increase in these rapid and risk-free incursions has permitted Atalante to achieve a certain visibility in the mass media and on social media.
In January 2018, they put up large banners in Montréal denouncing a series of people associated with the left (broadly speaking) and the antiracist movement in the city. Those who were white were denounced as “traitors,” while people of colour were classified as “parasites.” (Shawn Beauvais-MacDonald, Véronique Stewart, David Leblanc, and Martin Minna were identified as having participated in the action, thanks to the latter’s ineptitude.)
Shawn Beauvais-MacDonald, Véronique Stewart, David Leblanc and Martin Minna, following a banner-hanging action in Montreal, January 2018.
In August 2018, during another postering run, Atalante took up the conspiracy theory in vogue in white supremacist circles that the white farmers in South Africa are the victims of a “genocide” at the hands of the country’s black majority. This conspiracy theory has, in fact, been completely debunked, which hasn’t prevented members of Atalante (including Beauvais-MacDonald, yep, him again) from going to the South African embassy in Ottawa to unfurl a ridiculous banner denouncing the “massacre of Boers.”
Atalante banner unfurled at the office of the High Commissioner for South Africa, in Ottawa, March 2018. On the left, Shawn Beauvais-MacDonald.
In August 2018, Atalante militants in Montréal attacked passersby who objected to the content of the stickers they were posting, uttering threats and screaming at a woman to “go back to your own country.”
In September 2018, during the provincial election, Atalante put up posters on the electoral offices of candidates from the four main parties, denouncing the election as a farce. On its Facebook page, Atalante said it carried out this action because there is “no major difference between the parties’ programmes, other than a lot of nonsense. No inspiring national project capable of serving the common good.” Once again a very minor action that would have been ignored by the media had the left done it got Atalante headlines. As Antoine Mailhot-Bruneau has said regarding the media reaction to these stunts, “with all the people writing to us and encouraging us, journalists are really doing a good job of creating publicity.”
Atalante banner in Montréal. Vincent Cyr and Shawn Beauvais-MacDonald.
Although these minor actions in Montréal got some attention, the group is much more active in Québec City, where members gather regularly as a scene and wander the streets distributing bag lunches, pose in masks adorned with the fleur-de-lis (a practice copied directly from CasaPound), or clean up graffiti judged to be anti-national, later publishing photo albums of their exploits on Facebook.
Atalante in front of the CBC offices in Québec City, July 1st, 2017.
Masked CasaPound militants.
Atalante members polish the cannon, September 2016.
Among the notable Atalante actions in Québec City was the creation of an “identitarian fight club” (opened, it would seem, in June 2017) named La Phalange, which serves simultaneously as a social space and a training centre for far-right militants.
Members of the Atalante entourage training at their private boxing club La Phalange.
It should be noted that the private events organized by Atalante appear to be opportunities to train its militants to carry out nighttime postering campaigns. Last February, Radio-Canada reported that the “militant weekend” mentioned above was held at Domaine Maizerets in Québec City, a publicly funded institution:
The event prospectus specifies a workshop on suvivalism and a conference with spokespeople from the Fédération des Québécois de souche and another national-revolutionary group.
The group’s masked militants took advantage of this gathering to stick up large banners all over Québec City during the night that read “Québec City, Nationalist Stronghold.” Photos of these banners were posted on Facebook.
Atalante banner outside the Quebec National Assembly, February 2018.
Atalante’s relative success is doubtless the result of a complex variety of factors, including the current resurgence of the identitarian right, the effective use of social media to reintroduce certain people and tendencies, and the media’s taste for sensational accounts of bad boys and sordid tales. Nonetheless, the radical left shouldn’t overlook certain tactical elements adopted by Atalante that reflect a genuine political acuity: a small group of dedicated militants can carry out simple targeted actions that spark the imagination and have an impact.
We need to understand that Atalante aspires to develop a coherent and revolutionary theoretical framework, which is not the case with the right-wing national-populist groups like La Meute. To the degree that they effectively establish and adhere to such a theoretical framework, the militants of Atalante will be better positioned than the national-populists and even than some of their liberal critics. Their repugnant ideology will necessarily limit the organization’s recruiting potential, but an eventual crisis could provide the group with an opportunity to effectively intervene and become a genuine movement. The worst-case scenario would be a fascist group occupying the political space that should be seized by the revolutionary left.
Let’s not wait until Atalante becomes as important and influential as groups like CasaPound or Generation Identity to organize to block its expansion. Let’s mobilize now to expose and deconstruct its political project and replace it with a social project that is revolutionary, anti-capitalist, egalitarian, and radically antiracist.
Let’s not lose sight of the fact that even in the absence of a crisis situation on which to capitalize, Atalante represents a genuine threat to that sector of the population that is directly targeted by its discourse, as well as to the comrades organizing in areas where it has a presence. Furthermore, a group like Atalante, as we have frequently repeated, constitutes a sort of pole of attraction offering a reference point and gateway for members of the larger national-populist right.
Consequently, it’s necessary to take Atalante seriously, even if the group only numbers a few dozen members whose activity consists largely of putting up banners and cleaning up graffiti.
We can’t encourage our readers enough to take seriously remaining informed and to share information with local antifascist collectives, or form collectives where there are none.
It is only if we are more numerous and better organized than the fascists that we can hope to block their way.
No pasarán!
Here’s a rogue’s gallery of individuals we have succeeded in identifying from Atalante, Légitime Violence, and the Québec Stompers’ actions and social media networks. People who belong to Atalante and its satellite groups proudly embrace neofascist ideas and a neofascist project. If you have any information about these people that could be of use to antifascists, don’t hesitate to contact us at renseignements @ riseup.net.
| Raphaël Lévesque, aka Raf Stomper [Québec Stomper/Légitime Violence/Atalante] Singer for Légitime Violence, founder of Atalante. After delivering Thai food for a few years, he moved on to trucking with the company Transport Morneau. However, in court he described himself as a “professional musician.” He has made a few trips to Europe in recent years, specifically to visit the neofascist militants of Bastion Social and CasaPound.    |
| Antoine Mailhot-Bruneau – aka Tony Stomper, aka Antoine Pellerin, “Tony Quechault” on Facebook [Québec Stomper/Atalante] After growing up in Mont-Laurier, like his younger brother Étienne, Antoine began college studies at Lionel-Groulx and participated in the 2007 student movement. He subsequently moved to Québec City, where he joined the Québec Stompers. He then began to study in Rimouski to be a seaman, where he recruited Yannick Vézina. He later studied to teach history at Université Laval, but quickly dropped out of the program. His brother Étienne also joined him in the Stompers, with some close friends from Mont-Laurier, including Dominic Brazeau. Antoine Mailhot-Bruneau appears to be a major Atalante militant, possibly its actual ideological leader. Although he claimed to have nothing to hide in a 2017 interview with the fascist site Zentropa Serbia, he has been very careful to keep his role in Atalante a secret, rarely appearing at the group’s public actions, blurring his face in the rare video in which he appears surreptitiously, and operating under various pseudonyms.      |
| Jonathan Payeur, aka Jo Stomper [Québec Stomper/Atalante] Former antiracist skinhead, in recent years Jonathan Payeur has become Raphaël Lévesque’s lapdog. To improve his image for his new white supremacist friends, he has become very active in Atalante and in the more restricted Québec Stompers crew. Roxanne Baron is his partner. One of his main “heavy responsibilities” is to paint all of the silly banners that Atalante places on billboards long enough to take an out of focus and badly framed photo that will be posted on Facebook the same evening.     |
| Benjamin Bastien, aka Ben Stomper [Québec Stomper/Légitime Violence/Atalante] Guitarist for the band Légitime Violence and a key member of the Québec Stompers, Benjamin Bastien has been an active Atalante member since its formation. Originally from Amos, Benjamin was briefly an antiracist, before becoming “apolitical,” and finally an ultranationalist with bonehead connections.   |
| Yannick Vézina, alias Yan Sailor [Québec Stomper /Atalante] Recruited by Antoine Mailhot-Bruneau during his marine studies in Rimouski, Yannick Vézina (alias Yan Sailor) has been active in Atalante since the group was formed. He was identified in photos of the action at the Montréal VICE offices.   |
| Roxanne Baron, alias Rox Stomper [Québec Stomper/Atalante] An Atalante member in Québec City who has been present at many postering and food distribution outings. Jonathan Payeur’s partner.    |
| Étienne Mailhot-Bruneau [Québec Stomper/Atalante] Originally from Mont-Laurier. Antoine Mailhot-Bruneau’s younger brother. Atalante’s illustrator and graphic designer (under the pseudonym Sam Ox), Étienne has been part of the Stompers’ scene for a number of years and appears to have been a full member in good standing for a while now. Everything suggests that Étienne is a key Atalante member.    |
| Yan Barras [Québec Stomper/Atalante] A longstanding member of the Québec Stompers, he is noted for his key role in the knife attack on AgitéE, on December 31, 2006.   |
| Olivier Gadoury [Québec Stomper/Atalante] Present at the founding of Atalante and at several subsequent events.     |
| Sven Côté [Québec Stomper/Atalante] “Svein Krampus” on Facebook. An Atalante member since the winter of 2016. He began to radicalize in 2013, eventually embracing fascism. He grew up and still lives in Québec City. There is a strong suspicion that Côté was behind the attack on the bookstore La Page Noire in Québec City during the night of December 8–9, 2018.     |
| Valéry Lévesque [Atalante] Raphaël Lévesque’s brother Valéry has been a regular fixture in the Québec Stompers scene for years.   |
| Gabriel Bolduc-Hamel [Atalante] Active for a year in Atalante postering and food distribution in Québec City. He has pulled back from the actions but remains active on social media. He is a tattoo artist.    |
| Renaud Lafontaine [Atalante] Known to be involved in Atalante actions in Québec City, Lafontaine was also part of the Atalante action at the VICE offices in Montréal.    |
| Dominic Brazeau [Atalante] Originally from Mont-Laurier, where he attended school with Étienne Mailhot-Bruneau. Brazeau has participated in a number of Atalante actions since the group was formed.     |
| Simon Gaudreau Participated in a number of Atalante actions in 2018.     |
| Nicolas Bergeron The subject of a recent report by VICE, Bergeron directs a “Viking re-enactment” company, Vinland Productions, that is contracted to animate historical re-enactments for primary and secondary school students in Québec City. Bergeron acknowledges being close to Atalante, which he describes a group that aspires to help the community, and to training at the group’s gym, but denies ever having been a member. However, VICE published photos of him posing with Raphaël Lévesque and participating in Atalante demonstrations. He also sports a number of racist and neo-Nazi tattoos, including the “black sun.” Note that “Vinland” (the name Viking explorers gave to the territory now called Newfoundland) has been a common neo-Nazi trope in Québec for thirty years now.     |
| Benjamin Peelman [Atalante] “Peel Bastion”on Facebook. French expat from the Lille region. An Atalante sympathizer from the get-go.     |
| Mathieu Beaudin [Atalante] Young Atalante sympathizer spotted at a number of actions; for example, the torchlight march in August 2016.     |
| Jhan Mectau [Légitime Violence] Bassist for Légitime Violence and tattoo artist under the name Jhan Art. A live action role-playing (LARP) enthusiast.    |
| Félix Latraverse [Légitime Violence] Pelage Delatravars on Facebook. The new Légitime Violence guitarist. He has participated in some Atalante actions. He is part of the band Folk You! which has ties to neo-Nazi movements, and is a fan of Nation Socialist Black Metal (NSBM). He has toured with a number of bands, notably Dèche-Charge, Neurasthène, Délétère, and Haeres, among others. He works at Studio Sonum, the only place where Légitime Violence is still able to perform.     |
| Gérôme Tymchuk-Leblanc Atalante sympathizer who trains at the La Phalange boxing club.   |
| Alexandre Normand Atalante sympathizer. Active member of the Canadian Armed Forces. Normand was the subject of various articles in 2015 revealing his racist beliefs and his links to the far right.   |
| Vincent Cyr [very active] Comes out of the South Shore hardcore punk scene (he lives in Longueuil). He is now part of the shaky Atalante Montréal initiative. He is a butcher who revels in showing off his profession. Central in the Montréal poster runs and prolific with stickers, he is one of Atalante’s principal propagandists in Montréal. Lacking much in the way of communication skills, he tends to simply replicate the campaigns of the (very small) minds in Québec City. He pleaded guilty to armed assault in 2012.     |
| Shawn Beauvais-Macdonald [very active] Initially an “anglophone” member of La Meute (first noted at the demonstration against Bill 103, on March 4, 2017, where he quickly got involved in a shouting match, denouncing antiracists as “race traitors”). Above all, Beauvais-MacDonald gained attention for participating in the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, in August 2017. Very active in the Montréal alt-right scene, particularly on the neonazi « Montreal Storm » discussion group under the pseudonym « FriendlyFash » and on social media in general. He grew closer to Atalante Québec after meeting Raphaël Lévesque and training at the La Phalange boxing club in Québec City. Along with the bonehead Philippe Gendron, he attempted to gather together a group of people to form a Montréal chapter of Atalante, without a whole lot of success. He participates in most of the Montréal group’s covert actions and seems to be trying to draw the Québec alt-right fringe to Atalante. He participated in the Atalante action at the VICE offices.    |
| Philippe Gendron [deactivated] Bonehead from the Joliette area who began his activist life with the Soldiers of Odin. He formed the alleged “Montréal chapter” of Atalante with Shawn Beauvais-MacDonald. After a run-in with some of the city’s antifascists in the summer of 2018, Gendron hightailed it to Québec City to seek refuge in the steroid-enhanced arms of the Québec Stompers. He seems to have been benched by his comrades-in-arms, who have figured out that he’s not the most reliable of militants or the brightest bulb in the marquee. On top of which, he collaborated with the police . . . oops.     |
| Mathieu Bergeron [active] Found guilty of a racist armed assault in 2008, while he was still a minor, Bergeron would remain an important figure for several years in the Montreal ultranationalist and neo-Nazi scenes, notably as a member of the StrikeForce crew, as singer in the Section St-Laurent group and as founder of the Faction Nationaliste group. Bergeron took part in several of the postering actions in Montreal.   |
| Jean “Brunaldo” [French expat, active] Present at some outings and postering runs in Montréal and Québec City and appears in the photos taken on a trekking expedition. Brunaldo (Facebook name; unconfirmed) was previously part of the young bonehead scene in Paris, in the circle around Serge Ayoub of Troisième Voie and the Jeunesses nationalistes révolutionnaires (JNR). Jean was close to Samuel Dufour, a neo-Nazi bonehead who, with Esteban Morrilo, was involved in the murder of Clément Méric, on June 5, 2013, in Paris. He currently seems to be part of the close-knit Atalante inner circle. Chloé Fleury is his partner.     |
| Chloé Fleury, aka Lucy Mergnac [French expat, not very active] Present at a hiking outing with other Atalante militants and has participated in postering in Montréal. Jean Brunaldo is her partner. |
| Francis Hamelin [not very active] Catholic fundamentalist bonehead and raving neo-Nazi. Former member of Troisième Voie Québec who has been seen at Atalante actions in Montréal.  |
| Rémi Chabot [not very active] Old bonehead who assaulted a Haitian worker in 2002, and who remains part of the current ultranationalist milieu and part of Atalante’s entourage.  |
| Félix-Olivier Beauchamp Originally from Mont-Laurier, he has participated in a number of Atalante actions since the group’s founding, both in Montréal and in Québec City.    |
| Éric Gervais Lives in St-Eustache, father of two children. He started his career as a bonehead with Coup de Masse and is still present at most Légitime Violence concerts today.  |
| Jonathan Côté Old bonehead, former member of the Berzerker Boot Boys. He is a longstanding member of the Légitime Violence scene. It was through their contact with him and a few of his old neo-Nazi friends that the Québec Stompers found their way to the far right.Julie Laurier Has been part of the Légitime Violence entourage for years. She is Jonathan Côté’s partner.   |
| Mickaël Delaunay An employee of Vinland Productions, Delauney denies being a member of Atalante, but a recent VICE report has him participating a number of the group’s actions.  |
| Yannick Gasser Lives in Terrebonne. Not very politically active. A fan of Légitime Violence who has been pulled to the right by the band’s entourage. He participated in the homage to Jeanne d’Arc organized by Atalante in May 7, 2018.   |
| Ian Alarie [aka Ian Enforme] A neo-Nazi fan of NSBM, close to the Soldiers of Odin. He lives in the Montréal area, possibly Varennes. He took part is a few Atalante Montréal actions, as well as in the Atalante Québec march.     |
| Martin Léger Previously known by the sobriquet “Cad Stomper,” Léger is far from being an Atalante militant. In fact, the vigour with which he distances himself from the Stompers has led Légitime Violence to dedicate the song Sale traître [Dirty Traitor] to him. That said, we think that Léger warrants a mention, because he manages an armory and a gun range in the Québec City area and made headlines in 2017, when he was associated with a planned pro-gun demonstration at the memorial for the victims of the anti-feminist December 6, 1989, Polytechnique massacre, and released a misogynist video when the demonstration was greeted with intense criticism.   |
| Steve Lavallée An old bonehead, former member of the Berzerker Boot Boys. He is a longstanding member of the Légitime Violence scene. He has developed a passion for “live action role playing” (LARP), and joins other neo-Nazis in the Vinland Viking activities.  |
| Dominic Gendron Longstanding member of the Québec Stompers, he has been exiled to Abitibi for a few years. He nonetheless continued to support the band as well as he could. He participated in some Atalante actions when he was available.    |
| Jonathan Croteau Fan of Légitime Violence who has long been part of the Québec Stompers scene. Among other things, he is alleged to have participated in the New Year’s Eve 2007 attack on the bar AgitéE.  |
| Sébastien Théberge [close to Légitime Violence] Very close to Légitime Violence and an Atalante supporter. Lives in Montmagny. Former member of the Soldiers of Odin, he was present at the Atalante gathering in April 2018 to commemorate a hundred years since the conscription crisis.  |
| Evymay Lacroix Fan of Légitime Violence and into power lifting. Also an aficionado of NSBM and an open neo-Nazi.   |
Québec Stompers: Raphaël Lévesque, Jonathan Payeur, Olivier Gadoury, Benjamin Bastien, Yan Barras and Antoine Mailhot-Bruneau.
Québec Stompers: Roxane Baron, Jonathan Payeur, Étienne Mailhot-Breuneau, Benjamin Bastien, Antoine Mailhot-Bruneau and Raphaël Lévesque. Below, on the left, Jonathan Côté.
Québec Stompers: Valéry Lévesque, Roxane Baron, Yannick Vézina, Antoine Mailhot-Bruneau and Jonathan Payeur.
[i] Atalante militants previously used the same theatrics to intimidate a reporter from CBC News and Ian Bussières from the Soleil. For more information, see “Atalante et le harcèlement des médias.” They also engaged in a certain amount of tweaksome shit directed at La Presse journalist Philippe Tesceira-Lessard, who has published a series of articles about Légitime Violence, bringing to light the criminal histories of our little friends, and on active members of the Canadian Armed Forces among their symathizers.
[ii] Oï is a punk rock subgenre that was initially meant to draw different British working-class subcultures into a unified movement, but which was later hijacked by racist elements in the scene, with the goal of recruiting disillusioned proletarian youth into fascist political movements like the National Front and the British National Party.
[iii] RAC, or “Rock Against Communism,” is a neofascist movement created in the 1980s in reaction to “Rock Against Racism,” a movement formed by left-wing artists and musicians to combat the infiltration of racist elements into the countercultural scene, particularly the skinhead scene. The flagship RAC group is Skrewdriver, with its spiritual leader Ian Stuart, the group’s singer and the founder of the white power federation Blood & Honour.
[iv] The term “boneheads” designates racist and white supremacist skinheads, as opposed to the generic term “skinhead,” which designates members of the traditional skinhead counterculture, which, historically, was an inclusive and antiracist scene.
[v] For more information, see Xavier Camus, “Québec et l’extrême droite italienne.”
[vi] The eponymous song, Légitime Violence , 2010.
[vii] “Un amour perdu,” from the album Nouvelle France Skinhead, 2011.
[viii] The tattoos and inscriptions reading NFSH favoured by Légitime Violence and its fans signify “Nouvelle France Skinhead,” which is also the title of Légitime Violence’s first album, released in 2011.
[ix] The « nationaliste révolutionnaire » tendency is a branch of Third Position fascism. National-revolutionary and Third Position ideology are part of a political tendency that has existed since at least the 1960s, with many points of reference in the fascist movement stretching back to the “Strasserite” tendency in the Nazi Party. The term “Third Position” designates different far-right and neofascist currents characterized by the simultaneous rejection of capitalism and communism and favours an identitarian ultranationalism based on a confused mix of far-left (socialist) and far-right (nationalist) theories. Internationally, the Third Position is currently the dominant tendency within the fascist and revolutionary far right. The anticapitalism of most national revolutionaries is located in an antisemitic framework.
[x] The term “globalist,” like the recurrent references to the the secret hand of George Soros, is generally recognized as euphemistic code for the alleged international Jewish conspiracy, which is itself an echo of various nineteenth-century antisemitic conspiracy theories.
[xi] A leading opponent of the Vatican II reforms, Mgr Marcel Lefebvre founded the Fraternité Saint-Pie-X (FSSPX) in 1970 and established a seminary in the Swiss village of Écône. In 1975, Lefebvre received a Vatican order to dissolve the society, which he ignored. In 1988, in spite of a specific ban pronounced by Pope John Paul II, he consecrated four bishops, authorizing them to carry out the FSSPX’s work, which led to his immediate excommunication and the excommunication of the bishops who participated in the ceremony. Lefebvre, who died three years later, consistently refused to recognize his excommunication.
Lefebvre was suported by far-right movements the world over, including Blas Piñar’s Fuerza Nueva, in Spain, the Movimiento sociale italiano, and the Front national, in France. He regularly expressed vitriolic racism, striking out at Jews and Muslims, and was a fierce opponent of the ecumenical dialogue with other traditions advanced by the pope. In Québec, the Lefebvrists claimed the government was controlled by communists.
The FSSPX welcomes with open arms Catholics who oppose multiculturalism, democracy, and freedom of conscience and is outraged that the Church has abandoned its struggle against these various scourges. As Lefebvre put it: “[T]he union that liberal Catholics want between the Church and revolution is an adulterous union! Such an adulterous union can only produce bastards. . . .It’s the same with the Free Masons. . . . You don’t engage in dialogue with communists. . . . We cannot accept such a dialogue! You don’t engage in a dialogue with the devil.”
In Québec, the FSSPX has served as a spiritual refuge for the far right since the 1980s, when a number of members of the Cercle Jeune nation were active within the sect.
[xii] Dupuis was included in a recent news report by Radio-Canada on the Sainte-Famille private school, which is run by the FSSPX.
