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Call for Autonomous Actions to Oppose the International Corrections and Prisons Association Conference in Montreal!

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Oct 092018

Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info

From the 21st to 26th of October, 2018, Montreal will be the site of the International Corrections and Prisons Association (ICPA) conference, hosted by Correctional Services Canada. The theme this year is “Beyond Prisons: The Way Forward.” Highlighted as topics of some of the conversations are: going forward to make imprisonment and community supervision both more humane and effective, using technology to humanize corrections, and improving community engagement.

The conference is aimed at corrections and prison staff, offering them a mess of programming, including academic research, presentations, and guided visits to prisons, to entrench the view that prisons can be humane, and their professions anything other than deplorable. Also invited are CEOs of companies who cater their businesses towards prisons—whether that be in the form of making electronic bracelets or making the terrible food served in prisons. The conference will include “facility visits” to a halfway house in Saint-Henri, two federal prisons in Laval, and the provincial prison in RDP. (For more info on all the different aspects of the conference visit:
icpa.ca/montreal2018)

We think there are many reasons to oppose this conference, but have decided to highlight the following:

Under the pretext to create more “humane” detention conditions for migrants, CBSA has been awarded huge government budgets for creative new control measures for migrants. Work has begun to attempt to construct a new, higher tech, “more humane” migrant prison in Laval, on land owned by the Correctional Services of Canada. It is meant to replace the current migrant prison right nearby, and “look less like a prison.” In the context of rising fascism and anti-migrant sentiment in Quebec and Canada more broadly it is entirely possible that the number of prison spots available to enforce deportations could double in the coming years, should the current prison be kept open and the new one successfully built. Regardless, a new humanized migrant prison, or the “alternatives to detention” such as ankle bracelets or the equivalent of parole officers for migrants that the government is proposing, should not be embraced simply because they look less like traditional prisons. They serve the same purpose: to expand the CBSA’s capacity for border enforcement and immigration policing—for imprisoning and deporting migrants and to rip people away from their families and communities.
For more information: stopponslaprison.info

As corrections officials gather to talk about how technology can make prisons more humane, we think about the new protocols in Pennsylvania state prisons that are using technology to sterilize communications and make it impossible for people to send books and other physical mail to people inside.
For more information: booksthroughbars.org/takeaction/

As Correctional Services Canada hosts this conference, we think about the recent outcries against solitary confinement and psychological risk assessments of Indigenous prisoners. We think of the role of Canadian penitentiaries in imprisoning Indigenous people resisting colonization for centuries. We think of the early jails that imprisoned Black people resisting slavery, that continue to imprison Black people at high rates today. We think of all those who have died in prison and who continue to die in prison and those resisting prisons around the world.

We are inspired by the recent Prison Strike that took place in many prisons across the US and Canada, which drew attention to the terrible conditions in jails and prisons, but also to the foundations of the prison system as a whole in slavery and colonialism. The death of a man incarcerated in remand in Burnside jail in Halifax just after the strike reminds us of the stakes of the continuation of imprisonment, in any form. The strength of resistance both inside and outside prison walls during the prison strike inspires us to reject the ICPA’s attempt to make imprisonment seem normal and palatable. We reject the attempt to whitewash the reality of imprisonment and call for opposition to this conference.

On Sunday October 21st at 3pm—on the two-month anniversary of the 2018 Prison Strike—there will be a rally against all prisons, outside the ICPA Conference at the
Montréal Marriott Chateau Champlain,
1050 Rue de la Gauchetière Ouest (metro Bonaventure).
Bring banners, signs and noisemakers!

Against all prisons, even the “nice” ones.
The only way forward is an end to prison!

for more information: https://montrealcontrelesprisons.wordpress.com/

Colonial & Racist John A. Macdonald Monument once again vandalized with red paint in Montreal

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Oct 072018

From No Borders Media (Facebook page)

MONTREAL, October 7, 2018 — On the eve of a demonstration against racism in Montreal, a group of anonymous local anti-colonial, anti-racist, anti-capitalist activists have again successfully defaced the historical monument to Canada’s first Prime Minister, John A. Macdonald, located in downtown at Place du Canada.

According to Art Public Montreal: “Among the monuments erected to the memory of Macdonald, the one in Montréal is the most imposing and elaborate.” The monument, built in 1895, is again covered in red paint.

– A video of the vandalism on the statue is available here:
– www.facebook.com/NoBordersMediaNetwork/videos/400435100491036
– https://twitter.com/NoBordersMedia/status/1048916233163354113
(posted by No Borders Media for informational purposes only)

The individuals responsible for this action are not affiliated with today’s anti-racist demonstration (www.manifcontreleracisme.org) but have decided to target the John A. Macdonald statue as a clear symbol of colonialism, racism and white supremacy.

The action today is inspired in part by movements in the USA to target public symbols of white supremacy for removal, such as Confederate statues. It’s also motivated by decolonial protests, like the “Rhodes Must Fall” movement in South Africa. As well, we are directly inspired by protests by anti-colonial activists – both Indigenous and non-Indigenous – against John. A. Macdonald, particularly in Kingston, Ontario, Macdonald’s hometown. We also note efforts elsewhere in the Canadian state to rename the schools named after Macdonald, including a resolution by the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario who denounced Macdonald as the ‘architect of genocide against Indigenous people.’

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 responsible for the hanging of Métis martyr Louis Riel. Macdonald’s statue belongs in a museum, not as a monument taking up public space in Montreal.

Video and text of this action have been shared anonymously with some Montreal-area autonomous media sources.

We express our heartfelt support and solidarity with the protesters taking today’s streets in Montreal in opposition to racism.

Ni patrie, ni état, ni Québec, ni Canada!
— Some local anti-colonial anti-racists.

Colonialism, Democracy, & Fascism: Conversation with Gord Hill

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Oct 062018

From It’s Going Down

Montreal Book Launch for The Antifa Comic Book, by Gord Hill

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Cover photo: Italian anarchist partisan fighters celebrate the defeat of fascism.

In this episode of the It’s Going Down podcast, we talk with long time indigenous author, artist, and organizer, Gord Hill, who for decades has written under the pen name, Zig Zag. While Gord is perhaps best known for documenting indigenous struggles across the so-called Americas, in his newest work for Arsenal Pulp Press, he takes on the history of fascism and resistance to it over the past 100 years in, The Antifa Comic Book: 100 Years of Fascism and Antifa Movements, which also features a forward by Mark Bray.

Our conversation touches on some of the major historical lessons that Gord has concluded on after months of research and writing, largely that European electoral political parties often sabotaged street level and armed resistance to fascism and Nazism, paving the way for the success of these movements in gaining power. We also discuss the connection between colonialism and fascism’s drive for conquest and expansion, and touch on the current situation in the US around immigration and evolving social movements.

The Antifa Comic Book: 100 Years of Fascism and Antifa Movements offers up decades of complex history in an easy to understand and digestible comic book form, without losing any of the major historical lessons and analysis. The book is perfect for people new to antifascism, and leaves the reader with a solid understanding of world events that can inform social movements of today.

But The Antifa Comic Book is simply the latest work in a growing collection of seminal texts that Gord has produced. For years Gord has written and published Warrior Publications, both a news blog and at times a magazine on anti-colonial Native resistance struggles, while also publishing theory and tactical guides for revolutionary movements. Gord for years has also worked within and written about the anarchist movement and the common threads between it and anti-colonial Native resistance. Gord’s work has had a huge impact on It’s Going Down and the contemporary anarchist movement, and texts such as 500 Years Of Indigenous Resistance should be essential reading for all anti-capitalists and anti-racists. Needless to say we are honored to have him on our podcast and hope you enjoy our discussion.

More Info: Warrior Publications and Gord Hill’s work at Arsenal Press

October Anarchist Calendar

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Sep 302018

From Résistance Montréal

PDF

Anti-homophobic Action at Parc Lafontaine

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Sep 282018

Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info

On September 25, 2018, we destroyed three cameras in the men’s washroom in the basement of the Calixa Lavallée building in Parc Lafontaine. We also smashed a peephole. These cameras were installed in the context of Operation Nirvana. This operation seeks to criminalize and arrest men who meet in these washrooms. Plainclothes police go there to seduce men and to incite them into so-called “indecency”. In the place where the cops stand to cruise men, we tagged “RIP Nirvana”. These provocations fit within a long history of morality policing that aims to purge public spaces of all visible queer desire. As such, we affirm that the liberation of our desires is incompatible with the existence of the police.

Montreal’s 14th Annual International Anarchist Theatre Festival Seeks Plays!

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Sep 262018

From the Montreal International Anarchist Theatre Festival

The Montreal International Anarchist Theatre Festival (MIATF), the only festival in the world dedicated to anarchist theatre, is looking for plays, texts, monologues, dance-theatre, puppet shows, mime, in English and French, on the theme of anarchism or any subject pertaining to anarchism, i.e. against all forms of oppression including the State, capitalism, war, capitalism, patriarchy, etc. We will also consider pieces exploring ecological, social and economic justice, racism, feminism, poverty, class and gender oppression from an anarchist perspective. We welcome work from anarchist and non-anarchist writers.

The 2019 edition of the festival will take place on May 22-23.
Are you interested in presenting your work during the festival? Send us the application form by November 7, 2018!

The Ballot Box, the Street, the Strike

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Sep 252018

From Dissident.es

[Editorial of the CUTE magazine, Fall 2018]

The election period brings its own complications for those who wish to directly take part in a campaign like the one for paid internships and for the recognition of studies as a job. For many months now, interventions have burst forth from all sides, intentional or not, to hijack, divert or neutralize the organizational ability of interns in struggle, towards partisan or corporatist ends. These initiatives, in combination with manoeuvres by the government, come from partisan committees rather than national student associations.

The first example – At the end of March, the Minister of Finance brought down the provincial budget, in which $15 million per year has been announced, earmarked for a financial compensation package during the final internship in teaching. After years of cutbacks in public services^[1], no one is fooled: It is indeed an electoral budget in which gifts are being distributed. Financial compensation for final teaching internships has been demanded for more than a dozen years by local and national associations, whose involvement has gone up and down without seeming to lead to any concrete gains. Why has the government decided to move now? The strike! A little more than a year of sustained struggle for the payment of all internships and a serious threat of a stoppage of classes and internships in many programs and many regions was sufficient to make those in power see the need to act. While pressing the demands of CRAIES^[2], and completely aware that the most combative elements in the struggle could be found in large part within the education programs, the measures announced serve, no more no less, to divide the movement and cut off it’s ability to organize. It must be said that the strike days are starting to accumulate and administrations like the one at UQAM are showing some openness to paid internships in every program. The Minister of Higher Education herself has publicly announced, following a high profile action by CUTE UQAM, within the framework of the Summit on higher education, that a major project to explore the possibility of paid internships in many programs would be put in place. In short, if the weakening of the movement seems real following the budget, it is however a knife that cuts both ways: this concession also indicates that the days of the stoppage gave concrete results and it is foreseeable that an unlimited general strike could lead to all interns receiving a salary. It is however necessary to avoid dividing the movement and give the government other escape routes of the same sort.

This is what brings us to the second example. Following this “victory” half-heartedly demanded by CRAIES and UEQ^[3], it was tempting to want to reproduce this recipe. That is the idea held by the Quebec Association of Student Midwives (AESFQ), who have undertaken to imitate the campaign of CRAIES, in an accelerated fashion, within an electoral context, thinking that in this way they can obtain payment for their internships. Thus begins the speeches and photos with politicians, like Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois and Jean-François Lisée, press conferences at the National Assembly, memes on social media, all of it only to demand paid final internships for midwife practice. The FAECUM^[4] is of the same opinion. It encourages the executive of the Social Services Student Association at the Université de Montréal (AESSUM), where the struggle for the payment of all internships is well rooted, to organize a campaign for their discipline only, while sharing with them their worries about seeing this association participate in the strike movement. However, such corporatist concessions would have resulted in weakening the movement as a whole even more and to make all campaigns by program or field of study stagnate. The movement for the payment of all internships has helped reinvigorate the campaigns for the payment of the final teaching internships and for the payment of internships in the study of midwifery, by linking them to a general movement that is rooted in the recognition of the interns’ work and, more broadly, of the work of women, both at the local level and on a global scale. The last thing that is needed right now is to split the movement into specific struggles.

The third and last example. During last winter and spring, activists of Québec Solidaire (QS) from almost everywhere, took it upon themselves to circulate a petition around campuses in favour of paid internships that are mandatory for receiving a diploma. That is notably the case of the QS Campus Association at the Université de Montréal and the QS Sympathizers Group at the Université de Sherbrooke. Rather than being destined to be tabled in the National Assembly, this petition is part and parcel of the new QS strategy that permits the organization to collect voters’ data in view of involving them in the electoral campaign^[5]. Rather than use the pre-election period to invite students to mobilize for paid internships on the campuses, they divert this struggle towards recruitment and to promote voting for a party. But the equation that “a vote for QS = a vote for paid internships” is misleading. Firstly, because the campus committees of QS are not involved in the struggle for paid internships and don’t participate in the activities and meetings in the educational institutions nor within the regional coalitions for paid internships, though everyone is welcome. However it is above all because, even if the position of QS indicates that the party is in favour of the payment of all stages, its electoral programme is itself not specific about the theme of the payment of the final stage in teaching^[6]. It would therefore be better advised for QS activists on the campuses to rally around the movement and organize the strike rather than to re-route the movement from the street towards the ballot box; a strategy that has never been proven effective.

Minister David has put in place a round table with the national student associations to extinguish the fires that we have lit. It is important now to respond in a judicious way. It doesn’t matter which party will take power, we will organize the strike and we will lead it until the end. Let us not be distracted by the elections. That is the watchword that the groups and associations united within the Montreal and Outaouais coalitions have given themselves, for paid internships.It is only in this way that the government will give in.

According to IRIS, there has been more than $4 billion in cuts to public services between 2014 and 2016. Observatoire des conséquences des mesures d’austérité du Québec: https://austerite.iris-recherche.qc.ca/.
Inter-university campaign concerning demands and action for teaching internships.
Student Union of Quebec
Federation of Student Associations of the Université de Montréal Campus.
This declared strategy of Quebec Solidaire is been used equally by the Coalition Avenir Québec: http://journaldequebec.com/2018/02/15/quebec-solidaire-lance-une-petition-pour-demettre-barrette
QS leaflet on the payment of internships: https://quebecsolidaire.net/nouvelle/tract-remunerer-les-stages-ca-presse

Public Advisory in Saint-Henri: Risk of Luxury Car Arson

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Sep 182018

From Corporate media, détournement not required

A flier claiming to be from the Sud-Ouest borough is being refuted by city officials as a fake, and a fear-mongering tactic by opponents of gentrification.

The flier was left on some high-end cars – including an Audi and an Acura – urging owners to move out of St. Henri or face the possibility of their cars being set on fire.

The fliers were mostly recovered from Lea Roback St., where several cars were torched in summer 2017.

The flier says there’s a “risk of luxury car arson” in the area, and that police have not been able to arrest anyone in the arson cases from last year.

It advises residents to not leave flammable materials in the cars, and finally, to move out of the neighbourhood to Westmount or Beaconsfield.

Before the Sud-Ouest’s borough council meeting, City Councillor Craig Sauve said the fliers aren’t just fake, but they may end up scaring residents.

“it’s immature, it’s reckless, it’s dangerous – it doesn’t represent our neighbourhood whatsoever,” Sauve said. “It scares the very people we’re trying to help, so we shouldn’t do these kinds of things. We should try to look out for one another, and try to fight for more affordable housing, and that’s how we succeed as a neighbourhood.”

The car fires were captured on cell phone video last year, and yielded little information about a suspect.

At around 3:45 a.m. on Friday July 14, 2017, two cars were set on fire on Lea Roback Street. Two other nearby cars also caught fire.

A man was seen near the cars shortly before both fires were set, but police did not get a description.

The SPVM admitted that with no description of the suspect, and no security footage, the flier is correct – no arrests were made for the arsons from last year.

“It happened during the night – we had not much detail, no witness, nothing,” Sylvain Parent, Commander of Montreal Police Station 15.

“So of course for us to start an investigation based on the thing that we found on the scene was very difficult,” he added. “That’s why they say that nothing has been done – something has been done, but unfortunately we were unable to relate it to any kind of suspect whatsoever.”

Sauve said the borough and the city are finding ways to increase affordable housing and support community measures that help low income residents.

As he sees it, residents coming together to help each other is the real spirit of St. Henri, not somebody making veiled threats in a pamphlet.

Source: “City councillor says arson leaflets in St. Henri are fear-mongering fakes”, CTV Montreal, 11 September 2018

Postering against Jérôme Blanchet-Gravel

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Sep 162018

Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info

Jérôme Blanchet-Gravel is a fucking pig.

It’s been a few months of hearing about the pretentious, racist, and misogynist young essayist Jérôme Blanchet-Gravel. Whether for his contributions as a “writer” or as a student at Laval University and Ottawa. He says disgusting things, both in the public sphere, as in his articles for reactionary media Causeur and Sputnik, but also in private, as shown by the screenshots that have leaked in recent weeks and been published on many FB pages.

Jérôme doesn’t like having his nose stuck in his own shit, because he sees himself as the next Mathieu Bock-Coté. We don’t need a second one!

Last week we put up different posters featuring his disgusting quotes, around symbolic locations:
– the Quartier de Lune bar in Limoilou in Quebec City, where Jérôme was going to speak at a book launch for Phillipe Sauro Cinq-Mars
– the Amere à boire bar from which he was banned for being a macho dude who actively perpetuates rape culture with his articles (against the #metoo movement for example)

In attacking him, we attack islamophobic racism, misogyny, and rape culture, as well as the bourgeoisie he’s part of.

Indeed, dad has lots of money, he owns a winery, and your sisters are lawyers and a doctor… He considers himself a superior being, so we will bring him back down to earth at every possible opportunity.

Because you’re a fucking pig Jérôme.

signed: the “inclusive little sluts” collective (quote of Jérôme Blanchet-Gravel)

Getting Caught: Call for stories about the times you didn’t get away

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Sep 162018

Anonymous submission to North Shore Counter-Info

It happens. When you’re pushing limits, trying to find new ways to fight back, sooner or later you might get caught. And it’s not the end of the world.

The first time my house got searched, it was 3am. I was all in black with a dufflebag over my shoulder full of crowbars, bolt cutters and gloves, and I was on my out the door. But through the front window, I saw flashing lights and then the shadows of cops walking dogs back and forth on our lawn. They had the street closed off

Yes, getting busted sucks and let’s keep finding ways to avoid it. But there’s value in sitting a while with that moment when you realize you aren’t getting away this time. Reflecting on them can give courage and determination to keep going, to try again, to fail better.

I was 19. I grabbed my roommates who were awake and as the pounding on the door started we tried to decide what to do. They were shining flashlights through the window and knocking on the glass. We decided I would go outside porch to talk to them and my roommate would lock the door behind me.

“Getting Caught” aims to be a place to tell those stories. Submit your very short stories (300 words. The shorter the better) about times when you didn’t away. We’ll collect them and publish them as a pretty risographed brochure, as a pdf, and maybe on a website. You can email your submission to nothing-stops@riseup.net (PGP key here) or you can leave them as a comment on this post on North Shore Counter-Info. If they’re clearly marked as submissions, the mods have agreed to send them along. All submissions will be anonymized even if you tell us who you are. Get your submissions in by October 31, 2018 and the collection will be ready before New Year’s eve.

The cops said they were just looking for some guys who robbed a gas station across the street. If we just let them in, they wouldn’t notice anything that wasn’t those guys. They promised. “But if you make us get a warrant…” I tapped to be let back in to talk with my friends. The house was surrounded. The pounding on the door resumed almost immediately after it closed behind me.

Looking forward to reading you. Stay safe. Never stop.

(Si vous préférez écrire en français, il nous est possible de traduire ton histoire vers l’anglais, alors allez-y, écrivez-la!)

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