Mtlcounter-Info

On Friday, March 15, 2019, less than 24 hours after the Islamophobic massacre in Christchurch, New Zealand, a Québec internet site published a French translation of the killer’s manifesto. Why would someone be in such a rush to translate this document and amplify the killer’s message? This wasn’t a just some error that we can chalk up to a serious journalistic blunder: it was the intentional signal boosting of an Islamophobic manifesto. The translator’s online Islamophobia is extensive and well-documented. ...

The government has announced that they are extending the bidding period until April 1, 2019. We hope this means that the companies have received many calls and are refusing to bid on the contract! Regardless, even a small delay of the construction calendar is welcome. We encourage people to keep calling until April 1st to make our message clear! See revised details below, including contact information for one additional company. ...

Likhts’amisyu Spring Construction Camp: APRIL 28, 2019 – MAY 18, 2019 The Likhts’amisyu Clan, one of the five clans of the Wet’suwet’en Nation, will soon be asserting their sovereignty by creating a new, permanent land reclamation on their territory. In doing so, they are requesting support with their upcoming Spring Construction Camp, scheduled to begin on April 28th, 2019. For almost ten years, the Wet’suwet’en have been resisting an array of oil and gas pipelines with the purpose of transporting bitumen from the Alberta tar sands and fracked gas from Northeastern B.C. to the Northwest Coast for export. The focal point of these efforts have been the Unist’ot’en Camp, a long-standing territorial re-occupation which was built directly in the path of the proposed pipeline corridor. Years of resistance have caused multiple multi-billion-dollar projects to be delayed and/or cancelled, however, this winter, the Coastal GasLink pipeline corporation obtained an injunction, and in January, the RCMP raided the Gidim’ten Access Checkpoint, which had been established on the road leading to the Unist’ot’en Camp. Several days later, CGL and the RCMP breached the gate at the Unist’ot’en Camp. ...

We from Montréal Antifasciste extend our solidarity to all Muslims and to all people of color and antifascists in Christchurch and across Aotearoa. It was with horror that we learned of the massacre that took place in Christchurch on March 15th. Horror that only deepened with every new detail, as we read the assassin’s manifesto, as we learned that racists around the world – including in Aotearoa, including in Quebec – were shamelessly sharing his diy snuff film and cheering his acts. ...

First of all, thank you. Thank you for giving a shit. For deciding that there are futures worth fighting for, even when the future being imposed on us looks increasingly bleak. The good news is that you are here, with your body, along with so many others around the world. Today we have a chance to acknowledge that we are connected to each other and to the living and non-living beings on this planet, in ways that are far more complex and beautiful than any #hashtag could express. ...

In addition to our organizing campaigns, the Montreal IWW also organizes Claim Your Pay campaigns, where our members help workers who have been robbed of their wage after being fired. These campaigns mostly happen in the restaurant business and involve a few hundred dollars. When a worker came into contact with us about some unpaid wages in a restaurant that had just closed, we were not expecting such an important case. ...

In May of 2018, Montreal anti-fascists leaked the contents of a private neo-Nazi chat room called “Montreal Storm” (short for Montreal Stormer Book Club * ), which was active from August 2016 to January 2018, and included 55 users. The leak made it possible to identify several members of the chat room, including Shawn Beauvais MacDonald , Vincent Bélanger Mercure and Gabriel Sohier Chaput , alias Zeiger . The latter was revealed by the Montreal Gazette to be a prolific propagandist for the most radical wing of the Alt-Right and a frequent contributor to The Daily Stormer , arguably the most influential Alt-Right/neo-Nazi website in the world in the 2016-2017 period, and to this day. ...

Montréal Antifasciste recently published an in-depth report on the neo-fascist organization Atalante Québec. That article covers Atalante’s links to similar organizations worldwide, as well as the group’s fascist-inspired political project. It also reveals the identities of most of the group’s core members based in both Québec City and Montréal. One part dedicated to the RAC band Légitime Violence revealed that this type of organization needs to cultivate a presence in very specific communities, namely counter-cultural musical scenes, in order to recruit new members. This is precisely the role played by Légitime Violence, whose members are also all members of Atalante and which was started by the fascist group’s leader, Raphaël Lévesque aka Raf Stomper. We have also seen that a large proportion of Atalante’s members and sympathizers are fans of Légitime Violence, as well as fans of so-called “extreme” music subgenres such as National Socialist Black Metal (NSBM). ...

Poster by Lateef Martin Essay by Funké Aladejebi On 29 January 1969, roughly 200 university students barricaded themselves in the Computer Centre on the ninth floor of the Henry F. Hall Building at Sir George Williams University (now Concordia University) in Montreal, Quebec. The standoff was part of a two-week occupation to protest racial discrimination that culminated in riot police forcibly removing and arresting protesters from the building on 11 February 1969. By the time the Sir George Williams protest—often referred to as an “affair” or “riot”—ended, police had arrested 97 people, including both white and black students, and the university had undergone $1 million dollars’ worth of damage. The protest and its aftermath shattered ideas of racial harmony in Canada, and the event remains the country’s largest student occupation. ...

Call to Action from Ottawa Against Fascism Currently, pro-pipeline reactionaries are planning a truck convoy from Alberta to Ottawa. This intended show of force is meant to pressure the federal government into taking more forceful actions to get major new oil and gas pipelines built. At a time when Indigenous peoples are heroically resisting massive industrialization in the Pacific Northwest, we must fight back against this foray of far-right forces into pro-pipeline activism before it becomes a real threat. ...

Late last night as many had their eyes glued to screens cheering on the Patriots in the Superbowl, a small crew of pals got busy taking on one symbol of so-called Canada’s nationalism: the RCMP. Within just minutes a handful of determined folks had destroyed all electronic keypad entries to the building, filled the manual locks with superglue and toothpicks, and dismantled the entry and exit systems to their gated police vehicle lot. Along the west windows we left what we came to say: “RCMP OFF WET’SUWET’EN LAND”. ...