Mtlcounter-Info

At 6am on March 20th, CBSA entered the home of Lucy Francineth Granados, a member of the Non Status Women’s Collective and ATTAP (Temporary Workers Association), and violently arrested her, injuring her arm. Since her arrest she has been detained at the Laval Immigration Detention Centre pending deportation. CONTEXT After being threatened by the maras (criminal gangs), Lucy traveled alone through Mexico on the infamous La Bestia train to the US and later to Canada, her husband having been killed some years previously in an accident. Her refugee application was refused but she remained in Canada undocumented. She has lived in Montreal for 9 years and is active in community organizations such as the Non Status Women’s Collective and the Temporary Agency Workers Union (ATTAP). Lucy is the sole financial support for her three children. They live in Guatemala with their grandmother and depend entirely on the remittances sent by their mother for all their basic needs (food, shelter, school fees, etc.). If Lucy were deported, her children would immediately lose their sole source of financial support. Last summer she filed a humanitarian application for permanent residence in an attempt to regularize her status. In January, a CBSA officer informed her lawyer that Lucy’s file would not be studied unless she turned herself in to face deportation. However, Canadian immigration law says that the Minister must study all humanitarian applications inside Canada; the CBSA officer illegally misrepresented the situation. Neither Immigration nor CBSA have responded to her lawyer’s demand that the situation be clarified. According to Immigration Canada information, her file is being evaluated, and a response could normally be expected any time if she is allowed to remain in Canada. Unless Minister of Public Safety Ralph Goodale intervenes to suspend the deportation, Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen expedites processing of her file, or the City of Montreal takes its responsibility seriously, Lucy could be deported before her file is determined. ...

Statement from The Tower, Hamilton’s anarchist social centre Early Friday morning, Hamilton police raided a home associated with some of those involved with organizing The Hamilton Anarchist Bookfair. The door was kicked in, a flash grenade was thrown into the house, and a full swat team entered. With their assault rifles drawn, the swat team proceeded to pull everyone out of bed some of whom were naked, and with one exception, put everyone in handcuffs. Three people were detained and one person arrested. Cedar, a member of The Tower Collective and our cherished friend, was arrested, taken away, and currently remains in custody. ...

How can we integrate the emancipation of oppressed groups in the struggles of the popular movements and more particularly in the anarcho-syndicalist struggles / groups? ...

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As workers, unemployed, students and tenants, our best defense against those who exploit and abuse us is solidarity. That is why the Industrial Workers of the World (SITT-IWW Montreal) invites you to gather and fight together in Parc-Extension on May 1st. ...

On Sunday, March 25th, various far-right groups from South-Western Ontario organized what they called a “Patriot Walk” up Locke St. in Hamilton. This was ostensibly a show of support for small businesses on the street who had their facades shattered during a mini-riot a couple of weeks earlier . The far-right hoped to capitalize on bourgeois outrage in Hamilton to put forward their ultra-nationalist form of anti-leftism, but their internal disfunction and overall shittiness, along with antifascists in the area being on point, led them to failure at every step of the way. First, their internal discussions in preparation for the march were leaked on Anti-Racist Canada the week before their event was scheduled to take place. This included a bunch of typical crap about how tough they are, but also developed into a discussion of paying a visit to The Tower, Hamilton’s anarchist social space, that had already been attacked several times in the weeks following the riot on and around Locke. Their plan for Locke seemed to be to walk up the street en masse buying things at shops while not flying their more obviously fascist symbols, just sticking with the Canadian flag. For The Tower though, they seemed more intent on initiating a confrontation. ...

Antifascist comrades from several Montreal campuses joined together recently to express their solidarity with students in struggle, in Montpellier and elsewhere, who are facing the fascist scourge. Whether on our campuses or in the street, fascists are not welcome.

Now as before, they are rich because we are poor. The financial masters of the Western world and seven of their political puppets will meet later this year at la Malbaie. They will fight to continue the exploitation of the global South and the pillaging of natural resources. The G7 will be a magnificient circus, paid for by our own exploitation. Paid by those who break themselves at work, by cut to social services, to education, to healthcare, to human dignity. A circus which will encourage free work given by unpaid internship, which will support the staggering profits of real estate moguls forcing us outside our homes. A circus whose sole goal is to promote an immoral statu quo. Imperialism and colonialism will be celebrated, at the expense of those who produce most of the world’s wealth. But it is not too late to fight back. ...

I rarely read fiction. I regret that truth and so every few months, when I get given a book of dystopian sci-fi or imaginative history, I stumble through it halfheartedly. I know that fiction has a lot to offer in terms of expanding our realm of possibility, of inspiring creation of new worlds. Someone near and dear to me once advocated for changing my reading habits by explaining that non-fiction changes what we know but fiction changes how we think. And yet, I find myself falling back into the practical guides for non-monogamy, the exposés of political corruption, the treatises on decolonial feminism. I’m driven by the internal desire to dismantle systems of dominance and hierarchy. If I can learn enough about them, maybe I’ll be better equipped to aid in their destruction. Theory to practice to theory to practice. ...

The TVA building was the target of an act of vandalism over the night of Thursday to Friday [March 16th]. A window facing De Maisonneuve Boulevard was shattered. A good reminder that possibilities of attack don’t exist only in demos, during which it is not always easy to act due to the large numbers of cops. Just before 3:30am, three masked individuals walking on the boulevard broke the window using blunt objects, then rapidly left the scene. ...

Saturday, April 21, 2018 - 09:30 to 17:00 2149 Mackay The teach-in will take place on Saturday, April 21st, from 9:30AM to 5:00PM at the SCPA, at 2149 Mackay (near the Guy-Concordia subway station). The planned schedule is: 9:30AM : Opening of the doors ; 10:00AM : Room 1 : Anticapitalism and G7 ; 12:00PM : Dinner ; 1:00PM : Room 1 : Street medic Introduction Workshop / Room 2 : Legal Self-Defense Introduction Workshop ; 3:00PM : Room 1 : Safety in Protest Workshop ; 5:00PM : End. Note that the workshops will take place in French. A self-defense (Muay Thai) workshop will also take place, but you must first confirm your presence at rrag7-legal@antig7.org ...

Anti-Racist, Family-Friendly Demonstration in Quebec City! Sunday, March 25, 2018 Get on the Bus From Montreal! Buses leave at 9am and return in the evening. Community groups in Quebec City are organizing a family-friendly Demonstration Against Racism this coming March 25, part of a Festival Against Racism. Quebec City has been a center of activity by anti-immigrant, racist, far-right groups and protests, but local community groups continue to take to the streets to denounce racism, hatred and intolerance. Let’s join them in solidarity and support, as part of a Quebec-wide movement. ...