Comments Off on Two Years of Constellation and the Sky Hasn’t Fallen Yet
Jun202025
Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info
This reportback was inspired by a Mastodon post by Franklin Lopez, who wrote:
“It’s just so fucking cool to be back at the Montreal Anarchist Bookfair after so many years away. Gotta be real—back in the day, the Fair could feel like a stress factory. Lotta tension, lotta unresolved beefs, and way too many identity politickers turning the place into their personal UFC octagon.
But this time? Chill as fuck. Good vibes all around. People actually talking with each other instead of past each other. It felt like a space that remembered what solidarity actually feels like. Massive thanks to the folks at @constellation for bringing the Bookfair back and making it feel like home again.”
‘Twas the most wonderful time of the year. The Constellation Anarchist Festival wrapped up a second year in the traffic cone capital of North America, taking place from May 15-21 at various locations throughout the city.
Constellation is kinda like the old Montreal Anarchist Bookfair but without the Banhammer of Identity Politics restlessly waiting to come down and split your soul apart from your body at any given moment. While the old bookfair took to banning books, hairstyles, and art forms they deemed to be offensive, Constellation has taken a more laissez-faire approach, which is refreshing.
The main event was, of course, the bookfair, which once again went down in the always hot, always humid CEDA. Sure, we might not be able to be in there for more than 20 minutes at a time before crawling to the nearest exit for some fresh air, but honestly, we love that place. Plus, studies have shown that profuse sweating helps rid the body of harmful toxins, including microplastics.
It was rainy so the spot was even more packed than usual. The usual bevy of acronym orgs, zine peddlers, rad crafters, and publishing conglomerates were all there, eager to hawk their sweet, sweet products. There was at least one tarot deck for sale and nobody seemed to be losing their shit over it, almost as if the old bookfair’s claim of tarot being cultural appropriation was a psy-op to keep us from fighting the real enemy: the mid-ass chana masala.
Seriously, what the fuck? The bookfair usually has some tip-top vegan slop, but this year’s chana was so salty, it doubled the size of our kidney stones. We sincerely hope that the food is better next year.
But we digress. Overall, the vibes were right. Like we said, unlike the old bookfair, Constellation doesn’t seem so caught up in trying to police everyone to maintain some subjective semblance of a “safe space.” And everything turned out completely fine. The only thing we weren’t safe from that weekend were some of the smells y’all were expelling. Guys, not showering isn’t gonna hide your trust fund. Luckily, there were face masks available at the entrance that we doubled-up on to shut out the stench.
We don’t even think our White Dread-o-meter went off during the entire weekend, though we also haven’t changed the batteries in a few years. But, seemingly, it’s a non-issue. All the oogles who had dreads in 2016 have had lice by now anyway and have had to shave them off, so let’s just drop it already.
At this point, we can say it’s proven to be the case that we don’t need a central committee deciding what’s allowed or what’s not at one of the world’s largest anarchist events. The best way of making anarchy inclusive and relevant to lots of different people is not by setting down rules that are incomprehensible to anyone outside a narrow milieu of university-based activists (such as telling a Black bookstore they aren’t allowed to table tarot cards because of “cultural appropriation”). We hope we find ways to show our gratitude and respect for all that the old bookfair did to keep an important tradition alive over the years, while remaining true to our anarchist principles and to the promise of the gathering spaces we share.
A Practical Security Handbook for Activists and Campaigns was originally published in the United Kingdom in 2004. While part of this handbook is now outdated, we believe some of it is still very relevant.
This document is a partial re-edition of the original handbook. We have freely adapted its contents, leaving out sections that we deemed outdated or irrelevant to this re-edition, improving wording, and changing a few details, while trying to stay as close as possible to the spirit of the original text. We have also added footnotes to point the reader to up-to-date information on DNA, CCTV, and other topics.
This re-edition contains a wealth of information to help anarchists and other rebels analyze their security needs, plan and carry out direct actions, and detect or evade physical surveillance. We hope it will help you defeat the State and achieve your goals. Good luck!
Comments Off on Appropriating the Bookfair: A Reportback from Constellation 2025
Jun132025
Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info
We heard you like reportbacks from anarchist festivals; may others from this one follow. May 15th-21st, 2025 in Montreal was the second edition of Constellation. Over seven days, there were book launches, parties, benefit shows, bike rides, a book arpentage, a squatted rave in an abandoned magic store, a barbecue, a barbecue that blocked fascists, a mesh networking day, a radical consent workshop, and more. People attended from across the country, from south of the border, and from overseas, and events consistently saw packed rooms, even when there were five happening at the same time.
May 17th was the anarchist bookfair, a Montreal tradition going back to the year 2000. Over ninety publishers, zine distros, artists, and groups held tables. It rained pretty much all day, and there was only space inside CEDA for about two thirds of the tables, but a barn-sized wedding tent was set up on the baseball diamond outside, plus a second smaller one, and they sure proved themselves. Meanwhile, kilos of shoplifted coffee kept attendees caffeinated, kids hung out in the childcare room or attended workshops that included the reading of an anarchist children’s book by the authors, and a kitchen team prepared to feed hundreds of people for free. Easily over 1000 people passed through, and we can’t remember the last time we’ve seen so many new faces at an anarchist event in the city.
Other workshops discussed histories of revolutionary anarchism in eastern Europe and Latin America, artificial intelligence, an anarchist analysis of cancer, the dangers of the militarization of social struggles, the history of resistance to slavery and colonialism in the southeastern US, tenant organizing around lead exposure, and living rurally as anarchists. Land defenders from the Nehirowisiw (Atikamekw) territory about two hours north of Montreal also traveled down to share the context of their struggle against logging with a packed workshop room. This discussion was particularly well-timed, because logging blockades would begin going up again three days later, calling for supporters in the city to join them. Hopefully, lots of the people who attended this discussion picked up some anarchist reflections on anticolonial solidarity in zine form at the bookfair and prepared to make material contributions to this struggle.
In place of a second day of books and zines, on May 18th, CEDA played host to what was billed as a skillfair. It was awesome. Friends reported needing to see the format first-hand to understand its potential and are excited for where it could go in the future. There were tables where people could practice lockpicking, learn how to buy hormones online with Bitcoin, practice soldering electronics, plot organizing against their landlord, learn about mesh networking, make a Riseup account, make alterations to clothes, learn how to improve the security of computer hardware, and learn some DIY chemistry. Workshops introduced people to basic auto repair, screenprinting, Balkan singing, somatic techniques for collective action, guerrilla grafting, and much more. Fewer tables, more extended face-to-face interactions, and virtually no monetary exchange might be some of the factors that provided a nice contrast with bookfair day. We’re also interested in how the skill tabling format can allow for connections to be made between projects and needed practical knowledge.
It’s no secret that the group organizing Constellation has taken a different approach than that associated with the Montreal Anarchist Bookfair Collective (MABC), different permutations of which organized the bookfair until 2023. When the MABC accused Constellation of “appropriating” the bookfair, we were happy to see that local anarchists were pretty unanimous in replying that the bookfair doesn’t belong to anyone, which is another way of saying that it belongs to all of us. We’ve reflected since the weekend on how this perspective offers a more free, dynamic, and inviting environment, while also asking a bit more of each of us.
One level on which this is true is around conflict. Any event bringing so many anarchists together in the same place is bound to see interpersonal and political tensions. We’re happy that the festival was organized without the intention of sweeping conflict out of view or suppressing it, or along the model of a special committee empowered to decide who is welcome and what is allowed. A consequence of this approach is that people who are parties to conflicts, or who have been hurt or even harmed by others, may take autonomous action in an attempt to assert boundaries, stop patterns of harmful behavior, or get retribution. But with freedom comes responsibility. We badly need a healthier culture around conflict, one that is more capable of de-escalating conflicts that are not with the enemy and of changing the nevertheless harmful patterns that give rise to them. It is in part through our responses to how conflicts are brought into our shared spaces that this culture develops as a form of collective responsibility. This can be uncomfortable, whether it’s challenging the tendencies of our closest friends, identifying the fears underlying one’s own learned responses, figuring out the assumptions that are going unquestioned in our social circle, or simply saying things that feel hard to say. At other times, it may just take some initiative.
In one instance, a poster denouncing a tabler, a local writer and zine publisher, was wheatpasted outside CÉDA the night before the bookfair. We don’t particularly like this writer, who has turned their “cancellation” into somewhat of a grift (anyone with the platform this person has is not “cancelled”). But the poster made a pair of serious claims that aren’t backed up to our knowledge by any credible information, in the context of labeling this person unwelcome at anarchist events. Making serious allegations against someone on spurious or non-existent evidence can be incredibly damaging in so many ways to our relationships of trust and to our struggles. We didn’t mind hearing that most of these posters were destroyed before the bookfair even began.
In general, if you decide to bring your beef to the bookfair, especially in a way that makes demands of other anarchists, you should be ready to hear questions, challenges, and perhaps criticism. We’re wary of any group that seeks to engage in conflict in the most public way available to them while demanding that others not intervene; this feels like the opposite extreme to the invisibilization and avoidance of conflict, making it into a spectacle instead. Both extremes deny collective responsibility for conflict, one by relegating it to the private sphere, the other by turning the rest of us into passive spectators. Neither ought we to falsely frame things in terms that shut down debate or threaten to vilify anyone challenging our claims.
Creating methods for redressing harm without appealing to or re-constituting authority feels like a lifelong project. Besides not delegating this responsibility, we’re not sure anyone got anything right on this level over the course of the weekend.
We are NOT the Association of Nehirowisiw Aski Land Defenders, our position is different: “We do NOT call the police, in this situation”. The supposed colonial justice system is one of the central elements of the systemic racism committed against all indigenous people of turtle island. We are indigenous people that resist the ongoing genocide.
Comments Off on Report-back of Anti-Fascist Action on the 19th of May 2025
Jun112025
Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info
On the morning of “Patriot’s Day”, a day where Nouvelle Alliance (a québécois fascist and nationalist group) usually holds an annual show of force, we proved ourselves able to humiliate and claim victory over them. This group tried to assemble itself in front of a statue of Dollard Des Ormeaux, a figure of nationalist mythology whom Nouvelle Alliance tries to rehabilitate glorify and rehabilitate. Every year, they try to have an aesthetic gathering and bring in new members to rehabilitate their own image, tarnished by their venimous discourse and hideous hatred for others.
The few members of Nouvelle Alliance’s fighting core, numbering at barely twelve, met up early in a corner of Parc Lafontaine in order to march onto the the place where they plan to honor their martyr Dollard Des Ormeaux. However, we were better prepared and ready to face them. Whilst a group held the fort on the grounds the fascists aimed to occupy, a welcoming committee made it’s way to make it known that this was anti-fascist territory.
These neo-nazis, still believing strongly in Might Makes Right, did not hesitate to charge our line of anti-fascists and to start throwing hands and feet aided by reinforced gloves. The lil-leader (truly small of stature) François Gervais enjoyed LARPing as a commander ordering around his little troops and attempting to give us orders.
Nouvelle Alliance, far from the medias and university campuses, showed their true colors: raw hatred and a thirst for violence. Their attemps to denigrate us were of an almost absurd level of machismo: including nice quotes like “they sent a gang of faggots” and “there are so many women with them, [a fight] isn’t their place.” In accordance with these values, the only woman of the group stayed far off behind them in order to film their attack, whilst we sticked together in solidarity.
Our counter-attacks frustrated their advance and angered the side in front of us who expect us to give up and to fold in front of their supposed virile strength. The fear in their eyes were not lost by us, and we recognized the hesitation of many of the members of the group to continue fighting. Despite the adversaries’ determination to crack our skulls in, we were courageous and did not falter in responding in kind with our own fists, hands and sticks. None of us even had the idea to flee and it took police intervention to break up the brawl. Our strikes, rallied together by solidarity for our comrades, allowed us to slow down the fascists during a decent number of time: enough for our comrades holding the fort to come to our aid. Thankfully for Nouvelle Alliance, the polce arrived as our comrades were joining us, and the former did not hesitate to show their preference for their fellow fascists by standing by to defend the fascists whilst we were given no choice but to disperse from the park.
The massive victory of the libertarian left on this day was thanks to the unity within the diversity of tactics put into use. Our spirit of combativity and our physical counter-attacks against the fascists kept them away from the place of the Celebration. The Celebration gave popular support and legitimacy to sideline the fascists. Without the former, Nouvelle Alliance would have trampled over the efforts to set up the Celebration and would have inserted themselves into the public space: endangering the Celebration to the point where it would not have been accessible, familial and safe. Without the latter, we would not have shown the legitimacy that we actually have, and the police would have had every excuse to divy up the space and to falsely equivocate the fascist margins and popular anti-fascist resistance. We could freely fill our reclaimed space with joy and solidarity which sprouts from the diversity of tactics, unity within the struggle and unyieldingness against the fascist destruce forces. Continue to massify the struggle and continue striking fascists in the face.
We are witnessing the most documented genocide in history in Palestine and the consolidation of a fascist regime in the United States. Many of us are wondering what to do about it. Here’s a conceptual framework for understanding what’s going on and how we can respond. This synthesis draws upon material from Kelly Hayes and her Organizing My Thoughts blog, the thinking of Mariame Kaba and Andrea Ritchie of Interrupting Criminalization, Ejeris Dixon and his podcast Fascism Barometer, Scot Nakagawa’s The Anti-Authoritarian Playbook blog, Anne Archet’s blog flegmatique, the YouTube channel Thought Slime, and Mark Bray’s Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook, among other sources.
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Some Basics
Fascist movements, parties, and regimes can be recognized by:
an authoritarian trajectory aimed at dismantling democratic structures, eliminating dissent, and maintaining their leader’s power.
blatant lies that do not undermine their support.
a propensity for instrumentalizing crises or creating them out of thin air to enrich themselves and to restrict civil liberties, including freedom of movement and assembly, the right to demonstrate, freedom of the press, and the right to a fair trial.
idealized representations of race and nation, articulated in terms of purity, unity, and loyalty.
a desire to dominate and/or eliminate marginalized groups (women, migrants, 2LGBTQIA+ people, Black people, Indigenous people, religious minorities, people with disabilities, the poor, autistic people, etc.) that takes the form of dehumanizing rhetoric and repeated attacks on their fundamental rights.
a conviction that inequalities do not stem from social conditions but are natural and biological, and that this hierarchy is entirely legitimate.
references to a fictional past where all of the above was allegedly the case.
a fetishization of violence as the response to the humiliation of failing to entirely dominate marginalized groups.
a dual objective of internal cleansing and external expansion.
Fascism can seize state power through elections, a coup d’état, or a combination of both, as in the case of the Trump administration, which won the election and used its ascension to power to carry out an “administrative coup”—the illegal usurpation of congressional power and various state department powers by Elon Musk and the DOGE.
Once in power, fascism uses a well-known operative approach: criminalization. It passes laws that make certain activities criminal and deploys the police, the justice system, and prisons against the people who engage in them. For example, it criminalizes:
giving or receiving certain types of care (abortion, gender-affirming care, and possibly care for people with autism and people with disabilities. . .).
providing information (by transforming the definition of pornography so that the laws sanction any book dealing with queerness, by transforming the definition of antisemitism to include any denunciation of the genocide of the Palestinian people, by arresting lawyers who give legal information to migrants. . .).
simply existing on its territory (the mass revoking of visas, cancellation of status, criminalization of the homeless. . .).
Beyond laws, criminalization is politicized to designate entire groups of people as threats:
trans and intersex women are a threat to cis women in sports and more generally.
demonstrators are a threat to the rest of society.
migrants undermine job security and the housing market and threaten the working class.
Muslims threaten national security.
These threats are nurtured by fascist narratives and presented as existential threats to the nation’s future, thereby:
dehumanizing targeted groups.
pre-emptively stripping them of their fundamental rights.
portraying them as “others” who must be violently controlled, punished, and eliminated.
using them as scapegoats for all the evils of capitalism and fascism.
It is through this process of criminalization that fascist regimes create popular consent for the violence deployed against certain groups (physical and psychological violence, disappearances, forced labor, denial of care, murder. . .). People are made to believe that:
those target by hatred are not victims but are being punished for their crimes.
violence is both justified and completely normal.
those targeted would have been left in peace it they hadn’t committed a crime.
However, what is defined as a crime continuously grows.
This process also exists in so-called liberal democracies, which have developed expansive judicial and prison apparatuses. Fascists need the infrastructure and the legitimization that liberal democracies readily provide for the industrial-carceral system to function.
Keep in mind that:
police and prisons are a legacy of slavery and colonization.
Indigenous peoples in Canada have been the targets of genocidal violence.
their dances, rituals, and languages were criminalized.
they have suffered mass sterilization, forced displacement, and far-reaching abuse in residential schools.
Fascism is not so much a break with liberal democracies as a form its panic takes. As a result, the fascism currently consolidating in the United States and taking shape in Canada and Québec is characterized by:
panic in the face of recent advances in social justice, which they call “wokeness,” and which threaten their domination.
panic over the climate crisis and the efforts to mitigate it, both of which threaten access to the resources that underpin their dominance.
a tense alliance of Christian fundamentalists, a racist and sexist grassroots movement, a political elite, and ultra-rich big tech oligarchs.
Here are a few other important facts about fascism:
The fascists want us to waste our time. They will tell all sorts of lies so that we spend hours trying to prove our point, deconstructing their rhetoric, and clarifying facts. Then the next day they completely change their tune forcing us to do it all over again.
For fascists, certain (mythical) truths are more important than reality. If reality doesn’t agree with their truth, reality is wrong. Their relationship to reality is substantially undermined, so reality won’t convince them that they’re wrong. Reality has no bearing on their truth.
Above all, fascists want power. That’s what motivates them. They will adjust their rhetoric and values as much as is necessary to acquire and maintain power.
Fascists want survival of the fittest, based on a cartoonish Darwinian vision of evolution. They want to dominate. As they see it, anything that keeps them in power is justified. Their domination proves them right, and that’s all they need.
Fascism is not the work of a few outsiders hovering above the population. People participate, cooperate, and then become acculturated to fascism. It becomes their reality, their way of understanding the world.
How to Deal with Fascism
Historically, state apparatuses, opposition parties, the justice system, and the mainstream media have all failed to prevent the rise of fascist regimes. The neoliberal elites who run democracies may appear to oppose fascism, but faced with an increasingly unlivable world in which it becomes impossible to sustain both capitalism and liberal democracy, they too will adopt increasingly fascistic policies. For neoliberals, the criminalization and/or abandonment of ever-larger groups of marginalized people will be articulated as a matter of pragmatism and inevitability, while fascists will present it as the desirable return of a violently unequal natural order. In short, don’t expect the support of the neoliberal elites.
Popular organization is the best form of resistance. If the normalization of police, prisons, and mass surveillance has made this effort more difficult, presenting these tools of control as necessary, even natural, there are nonetheless multiple avenues for collective resistance.
Where to start:
Openly resist the consolidation of fascism. Clearly identify what is happening in the United States, Palestine, Canada, and elsewhere. Talk about fascism with those closest to you. Don’t let it be surreptitious. Force it out into the open.
Act locally against events organized by fascist groups. Attack them in every possible way. Physically prevent them from spreading their hatred.
Call bullshit what it is. Don’t get sidetracked by their lies. Don’t waste your time arguing with them. Don’t get caught up in their way of framing the situation. Bring the discussion back to what they do, to the horrors they commit, to the hatred that drives them.
Above all, don’t immediately fall into line if fascists come to power. When faced with authoritarian power, people tend to anticipate what a repressive government would want, and immediately cooperate, to make sure they don’t anger those in power and to protect themselves. This anticipatory obedience tells the regime what compromises people are willing to make and enables it to go much further much faster. This way of adapting harms everyone. It’s essential not to reflexively obey.
Maintain solidarity. Fascism normalizes human suffering and the jettisoning of groups of people designated as negligible or insignificant. Fascists want us to fall back upon our survival instinct, to get caught up in our personal preoccupations, to be isolated and weak. Solidarity is our strength.
We must build and maintain collective people’s power: the power to keep our communities safe; the power to prevent any of our own from being disappeared; the power to make sure everyone has food. We must begin by exploring all the ways in which we can participate in building this power, for example, by working to:
block fascist advances (e.g., by fighting anything that increases the scope, capacity, resources, and power of the prison state and fascist movements, such as building new prisons, militarizing borders, new identification systems targeting certain groups, etc.).
break their alliances and links with local groups and organizations (e.g., links between workers’ unions and organizations representing the police, links between the police and far-right militias, links between the mass media and transphobic activists, etc.).
minimize the impact of their policies (e.g., build and support a strong community network, self-help groups, secure communications networks, community defense infrastructures, gathering spaces, etc.).
build bridges between the communities affected (e.g., trade unions, women’s groups, anarchist gangs, anti-colonial movements, abolitionists, disability rights activists, etc.).
develop resources (e.g., organizations dedicated to sharing the history of struggle, transformative justice organizations, as many spaces as possible where we can gather, debate, digest all of the available information, have block parties, organize workshops, conferences, and marches, etc.).
To explore this issue further, I suggest the zine Block and Build: But Make It Abolitionist by the Interrupting Criminalization organization. Then it’s a matter of determining what makes sense for us, what we’re able to do, and how we understand our social context and the overall situation. For this, I recommend the zine Making a Plan, also an Interrupting Criminalization publication.
It could start with a union, a local chapter of Food not Bombs, a group that organizes people’s assemblies, a housing committee, a group of friends who make engaged art, a women’s group, and so on. All of it is relevant. these groups must:
develop a common language and an overall assessment of the situation.
coordinate in a decentralized way that encourages autonomous action as part of a larger whole.
develop a security culture commensurate with the level of risk.
prepare for repression by setting up a support system in advance.
Then, when the time comes, it will be possible to fight a fascist regime on a large scale thanks to:
a large enough mass of people committed to noncooperation, people who forget to deliver a letter or to forward an e-mail, who slow down some construction project, who don’t remove books from the shelves, who continue teaching history to children, who sabotage bureaucratic processes, who give false information to the police, who continue making music outside and at night, all of it to disrupt the smooth functioning of the regime.
diversity of tactics, including mass demonstrations, a general strike, industrial sabotage, alternative health care networks, etc.
If we join forces to fight fascism and the criminalization process that underpins it, anything is in our reach.
Comments Off on The Association of Nehirowisiw Aski Land Defenders Wants Saboteurs Handed Over to Police
May262025
Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info
We’re writing what follows to enable anarchist comrades and anticolonial militants to make informed decisions about where and how to engage in struggle.
In a press release published May 17, 2025, and available on their Facebook page, the Association of Nehirowisiw Aski Land Defenders (MAMO First Nations) condemns acts of vandalism recently committed on forestry machinery apparently belonging to a contractor involved in cuts on their territory.
The press release goes further, claiming that “these acts cannot and must not go unpunished.” It continues: “If you witness an act of vandalism or if you have any information that may assist the investigation, we strongly encourage you to share it without delay with the police authorities.”
We believe that relationships of struggle are strongest when they are nourished by practices of honesty and transparent communication on the motivations and limits of each of us. We hope that these events can be the basis for nuanced and open conversations about solidarity.
In the run-up to Journée nationale des Patriotes 2025, celebrated on Monday, May 19, this year, the ethnonationalist organization Nouvelle Alliance (NA) called its second annual commemoration of Nouvelle France settler Adam Dollard des Ormeaux at the monument in his honour in Montreal’s Parc La Fontaine. On May 20, 2024, the far-right group had a similar gathering at Dollard’s monument (the year before that, NA activists had gathered at Pied-du-Courant, in the southeast of the city, to pay tribute to the Lower Canada Patriotes). The folkloric Dollard des Ormeaux is not, it must be stressed, the hero that NA and reactionary nationalists of its ilk insist on glorifying.
One of the posters seen around the Plateau Mont-Royal neighbourhood in May 2024, in the days before the commemoration of the Patriotes.
Did You Know?
Dollard des Ormeaux is not the “saviour of New France” that nineteenth-century “historians” make him out to be.
He was a young French adventurer who tried to steal furs from the Iroquois. The idiot ended up trapped in Long-Sault.
He refused to negotiate with his enemies, which led to the revolt of his Huron allies, and that worked out badly for him and his companions.
Some versions of the story claim that he built an improvised explosive device that detonated where he was holed up, thereby guaranteeing his defeat.
Rather than being the courageous saviour of the colony that Lionel Groulx portrays him as, he is more of the OG imbecile of French Canada, a pillar of self-sabotage, rendered a heroic figure by nationalist scribes in need of foundational yarns.
Also, Fuck Nouvelle Alliance!
Fed up with some fifty identitarian nationalists with stone-age ideas traipsing around Montréal with impunity, concerned citizens and people from the neighbourhood, along with members of community organizations, anti-racist activists, and trade unionists mobilized in recent weeks to organize a “People’s Festival Against Fascism” in protest.
The poster for the People’s Festival Against Fascism that appeared around Montréal in the weeks leading up to the event.
The main goal of this festive gathering was to occupy the area around the Dollard des Ormeaux monument in order to denounce the growing influence of the far right, in general, and the ambitions of Nouvelle Alliance, in particular. The celebration was a great success in its own right, by our count, attracting between three and four hundred people to the park between 10:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m. We salute the tremendous effort made by those involved, and are reassured to see that citizens of Montréal and of Québec generally are ready to mobilize to confront the recent wave of normalization of the far right in public discourse.
A number of articles have been published in the media over the past few days, the majority demonstrating a flagrant lack of understanding of Nouvelle Alliance and its strategy. While we welcome the mainstream media’s growing—albeit belated—interest in Québec’s far right, it is clear that their attention to this area is still leaves something lacking, and that for a variety of structural reasons, they generally ignore the considerable efforts our collective has made over the past few years to shed light on this subject.
Here, then, is a detailed insider’s account of the events of May 19, 2025, that we hope will shed light on elements that have been overlooked or simply glossed over by the media and other key observers.
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Leading up to the Gathering
On the evening of Sunday, May 18, the day before the commemoration, Nouvelle Alliance posted a series of characteristically austere photos on its social media accounts, saying: “the Patriote song [Tex Lecor, 1968] will be sung at the foot of the Dollard des Ormeaux monument.”
Nouvelle Alliance publication on the evening of May 18, 2025, the day before the Dollard des Ormeaux commemoration.
Given that Nouvelle Alliance was certainly well aware of the popular festival scheduled to take place at the foot of the monument at the same time as their event, this made it clear that they planned to occupy the contested space.
How they planned to do that became clear on Monday morning at around 8:00 a.m., when a contingent of a dozen or so people, made up of part of the NA core and a few goons, who were possibly recruited for the occasion, gathered at the opposite end of Parc La Fontaine. This contingent, dressed in black, moving in military formation, and wearing combat gloves and mouthguards had clearly come looking for a fight.
Eliott Labrie Laplante, a member of Nouvelle Alliance’s core group, has never been able to deal with his manhood being called into question! Here, several hours after the morning’s confrontation, he’s still sporting his reinforced gloves.This previously unknown individual, identified as Dany Ayotte from Québec City, was particularly active in the morning’s physical confrontation. Here he is still wearing his reinforced gloves not long after.
This small group soon began marching toward the Dollard Des Ormeaux monument, with the clear aim of physically dislodging the popular rally organizers who were setting up and, we presume, taking control of the space “by any means necessary.”
Fortunately, alerted by the previous day’s publication to the possibility of violence, a few autonomous activists mobilized in the early hours of the morning to confront them and prevent a cowardly attack on citizens taking the opportunity to advance a vision of an inclusive and welcoming Québec. There was a physical confrontation in the southeast section of Parc La Fontaine, during which NA members made full use of their combat gear.
It’s clear that the Nouvelle Alliance core group arrived anticipating—and savouring—this sort of confrontation. This new combative approach, which until now we hadn’t associated with this group, stands in stark contrast to the image of clean-cut middle-class hipsters that the group has promoted for several years. It will be interesting to see for how long NA can maintain this ambiguity. Engaging in hand-to-hand combat with left-wing activists will complicate efforts to carve out a place in mainstream politics by infiltrating the Parti Québécois and Bloc Québécois.
Once an SPVM intervention ended the confrontation, the NA members who had taken part in the assault were held by police at a distance from the monument where two rival events were scheduled to take place.
It’s worth noting that the prevention of NA’s plans as a result of the confrontation enabled the organizers of the popular festival to quietly set up their six tents, hang numerous banners around the monument, and go ahead with the convivial, family-friendly event. We salute the courage of those who blocked NA—whose violent impulses are now obvious—to protect their community and, ultimately, guarantee the success of the event.
A Festive gathering in Parc La Fontaine
By 10:00 a.m., it was party time, and antifascist sympathizers began to gather in growing numbers. Litres of coffee were served, there was face painting for children, lively music rang out across the park, and impromptu soccer matches added to the fun. The atmosphere was decidedly festive!
One of the banners surrounding the monument [Neighbours welcome/fascists out].Hundreds of hot dogs were served.A number of tables were set up in the tents.
Participants in the popular festival chanted anti-fascist slogans to drown out Nouvelle Alliance’s tedious speeches.
The same cannot be said of the experience of the small band of identitarians gathered around NA, who were unable to get close to the monument and found themselves facing off with the police for quite a while.
Nouvelle Alliance activists slink away from the police cordon.
Unfortunately for Nouvelle Alliance, real life isn’t a school yard and announcing your event first isn’t enough to reserve a space, especially when it’s to spread hatred of others disguised as love of your nation.
The nationalist group’s militants and its sympathizers were forced to set up on the sidewalk about fifty metres from the Dollard des Ormeaux monument, held at bay by a large police presence and the several hundred people who attended the festival against fascism. Disappointed and looking dejected, the Nouvelle Alliance militants and their sympathizers tried, rather feebly, to hold their commemoration in spite of everything, but were drowned out by the popular festival’s music and antifascist chants.
Nouvelle Alliance commemorates its ghosts on the sidewalk.
Speaking of sympathizers, we should mention the notable presence of David Leblanc, a neo-Nazi bonehead well known in antifascist circles, since he likes to take photos of himself giving the Nazi salute (he was notably active with Soldiers of Odin Québec). We also mentioned him almost exactly one year ago, since he was also present at the Nouvelle Alliance commemoration on May 20, 2024.
Bonehead Dave Leblanc has a bad cramp in his arm.Leblanc (from behind) having a good laugh in May 2024 with NA members, here with Émile Coderre.Dave Leblanc’s presence went unchallenged at the Nouvelle Alliance event in 2024; seen here holding the Carillon Sacré-Cœur alongside fellow neo-Nazi Shawn Beauvais MacDonald.
At the time, the identity group’s leaders claimed that they couldn’t control who participated in their events, as they were public activities, and that they hadn’t known the ugly truth about David Leblanc. What excuse will the cryptofascists of Nouvelle Alliance come up with this year? Knowingly and without raising an eyebrow, they allowed a loud and proud neo-Nazi to walk alongside them all day, even shaking his hand and chatting with him.
Bonehead Dave Leblanc stands next to Nouvelle Alliance leader François Gervais, giving an interview to Alexandre Cormier-Denis, on May 19, 2025.Neo-Nazi Dave Leblanc marches with Nouvelle Alliance, May 19, 2025.
It’s hard to imagine that some people still doubt Nouvelle Alliance’s ideological position.
Another sinister character who reappeared for the second year running was Shawn Beauvais MacDonald, the main organizer of the Frontenac Active Club, who was again spotted prowling around the Nouvelle Alliance gathering. After arriving alone this time, he was joined by two others and left shortly afterwards.
Beauvais MacDonald was part of the Nouvelle Alliance commemoration in 2024.Shawn Beauvais MacDonald returned in 2025, but left shortly after this meeting at some distance from the festival. Were these people acolytes? Cops telling him to piss off? Who knows?
Perhaps the most significant appearance at the NA commemoration, however, was that of Alexandre Cormier-Denis. Cormier-Denis, whom we’ve already talked about (and will have more to say about very soon. . .), had announced the week before that he would be taking part in the NA commemoration and invited his supporters to join him. Cormier-Denis, it should be remembered, is the main host of the far-right “reinformation” project Nomos.TV, which stands out for its ethnic nationalism and its profoundly racist and Islamophobic statements. His extreme positions led to him being disqualified from presenting a brief to a parliamentary commission on immigration in 2023.
To give you an idea, here’s a sample (from dozens of examples) of Cormier-Denis’s positions (on immigration, “rewilding,” the future of patriotism, etc.), which clearly align with those of Nouvelle Alliance, since they appear to constitute a mutual admiration society:
Cormier-Denis’s presence clearly shows that the social project proposed by Nouvelle Alliance resonates with the worst of Québec’s fascist and fascist-adjacent elements. François Gervais, president of Nouvelle Alliance, readily granted him a live interview lasting several minutes, in which we are treated to a confused and subjective description of the current period, in which antifascists, “Bolsheviks,” and progressive independentists are lumped together.
François Gervais en entrevue avec Alexandre Cormier-Denis pour la chaîne Nomos.tv.
Anyone who thought that Nouvelle Alliance was above the racist rhetoric of Cormier-Denis and his acolytes was clearly wrong. Nomos and Nouvelle Alliance are one and the same movement.
Once the dreary NA speeches were over, their “commemoration,” which lasted at most twenty minutes—compared to an hour last year—turned into a sad and solemn little march (not a smile to be seen), at around 12:30.
The Nouvelle Alliance fools on parade.
Surrounded by dozens of cops, around fifty sympathizers of this groupuscule marched along Rachel and Saint-Denis Streets, toward Carré Saint-Louis, the starting point for the annual Grande marche des Patriotes, organized by the Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste (SSJB). Along the way, the ethnonationalists, still led by their president, chanted reactionary and exclusionary slogans like “Patrie, Nation, Tradition,” as well as classics like “le Québec aux Québécois” [Québec for Quebeckers]. It’s worth noting that these slogans echo those of the French far right. For example, the neo-Nazis of the Comité du 9 Mai (C9M), who marched with impunity in Paris a few weeks ago, regularly chant, among other things, “Europe, Jeunesse, Révolution” [Europe, Youth, Revolution].
Same cadence, same delivery, same content: it’s clear that that’s no coincidence. In addition to its Québec precursors, NA is inspired by the worst of the European far right (identitarians, royalists, revolutionary nationalists, etc.), and that’s worth noting.
Meanwhile, the People’s Festival Against Fascism was in full swing, and a good time was had by young and old alike. More than five hundred hot dogs were served, and the games and music continued for several hours after Nouvelle Alliance’s departure.
Once again, we applaud the extraordinary effort of the organizers and congratulate everyone who chose to spend part of their Monday promoting and defending inclusive anti-racist values.
There was music.We danced!We redecorated the Dollard monument.Between three and four hundred people came over the course of the day.Numerous flags, including the Pride flag, waved above the anti-fascist festival.
Many progressive pro-independence activists were also present, including members of the Front pour l’indépendance nationale (FIN) and OUI Québec, who held up a poster produced for the occasion: “L’indépendance du Québec sera antifasciste” [Québec’s independence will be anti-fascist].
The Patriote tricolour was also waving at the anti-fascist festival!
At Carré Saint-Louis
Nouvelle Alliance’s misadventure wasn’t over. The fun continued when they arrived at Carré Saint-Louis at around 1:00 p.m. and attempted, as they have in the past, to parasitically attach themselves to the annual Grande marche des Patriotes organized by the Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste. To their dismay, they were not welcome—for the second time that day!
Unlike last year, the SSJB had stopped to consider who it partnered with and made the judicious decision to inform Nouvelle Alliance’s leaders in advance that they would not be welcome this time. However, there’s what you say and there’s what you do, and on the ground, the SSJB leadership’s position did not prevail. Instead, the SSJB tried to negotiate a compromise, allowing Nouvelle Alliance to participate if they agreed to put away their banners and flags. Like last year, however, the NA militants failed to keep their word and did, in fact, display their colors as soon as the march got underway. Luckily, the presence of a small (but solid!) progressive pro-independence contingent put an end to that.
OUI Québec militants and comrades from the Front pour l’indépendance nationale (FIN) joined forces to prevent Nouvelle Alliance from joining the main march, sealing NA off. After a brief hesitation, during which the progressive independentists courageously held the line, despite being outnumbered by NA activists, the police intervened to separate the two sides by, quite literally, pushing the progressives out of the way.
An anti-fascist contingent at prevented the identitarian groupuscule from joining the main body of the Grande marche des Patriotes.
The entire SSJB march took place without the toxic presence of Nouvelle Alliance, the latter marching a hundred metres behind, completely surrounded by the SPVM.
Progressive independentists sealed Nouvelle Alliance off from the Grande marche des Patriotes.
We’d like to congratulate OUI Québec and FIN for having the courage to stand up for their anti-fascist principles despite the pallid support of the march’s organizers. Over the years, we’ve often criticized the contemporary independence movement for its complacency toward the far-right groups that pollute its ranks. Let’s give credit where credit is due: OUI Québec’s recent strong stance offers hope for the future of the sovereigntist movement.
Unfortunately, not all sovereigntist groups are created equal, and the ludicrous presence of the Action socialiste de libération nationale (ASLN) at the Grande marche des Patriotes proves the point. The latter, whose rapprochement with Nouvelle Alliance we recently exposed, joined their new comrades for the duration of the march. Friendly handshakes were exchanged, and a few jarring red flags were seen amid Nouvelle Alliance’s sea of blue. This situation marks a turning point in relations between the ASLN and NA. Until recently, the two groups had kept their rapprochement under wraps, but now their alliance has come out into the light of day. Despite their ideological differences as to the ideal future for Québec, it would seem that their reactionary social positions provide sufficient common ground. The rest of the pro-independence camp be warned: support for either of these two groups is support for their conservative, anti-migrant, anti-diversity, anti-woke, and fundamentally reactionary social project.
An image that sums up the whole sordid affair: Nouvelle Alliance leader François Gervais, flanked by neo-Nazi bonehead David Leblanc, gives an interview to ethnic ultranationalist fanatic Alexandre Cormier-Denis for the far-right reinformation channel Nomos.TV, while Billy Savoie and the Stalinist ASLN bozos cackle in the background.
Conclusion
As we have seen, Nouvelle Alliance has become increasingly visible within a far-right ecosystem, from which it foolishly believed it would gloriously emerge to infect the rest of the sovereigntist movement with its nauseating ideas.
It’s about time the mainstream media got its facts right, rather than buying into the mendacious propaganda being spewed by Québec’s far right. It’s a pity, for example, that newspapers readily publish the whimsical nattering of commentators who are either confused or acting in bad faith, such as secularism activist Nadia El-Mabrouk, who, in a letter published in Le Devoir on May 23, admits that she was unaware of Nouvelle Alliance (and, therefore, couldn’t possibly understand the nature of its project and its discourse) but, nevertheless, defends its presence in the broad sovereigntist family, as well as encouraging us to embrace dialogue and universal love.
Fortunately, the new generation of sovereigntists doesn’t share this blindness, as is evidenced by the position taken by OUI CVM, which loudly and clearly denounces this new reactionary alliance and everything it represents.
The struggle for Québec’s independence is a very complex issue, and anti-fascists of different stripes certainly disagree on the desirable outcome, but whatever happens in Québec in the future, we make this promise today: fascists will NEVER rule here.
Bonus tracks :
Leading Nouvelle Alliance activist Émille Coderre, whose problematic past we’ve discussed in the past, and whose entry in the PQ and the Bloc we’ve noted several times, makes a hand gesture widely seen as code in contemporary white supremacist movements. Way to go, guy!
Blockades are going up on Atikamekw territory (Nehirowisiw Aski) to resist the CAQ’s forestry regime. In solidarity, anti-colonial protestors seized the intersection of Papineau and Ontario during rush hour.
Paralysing southbound traffic to the Jacques-Cartier Bridge for close to 20 minutes before the police could arrive. Protestors used road flares and defended eachother in the face of brazen motorists – police were caught by surprise and were unable to intervene. After leaving the intersection, protestors took the streets, and dispersed with no arrests or police interventions. The success of this action inspires us at an urgent moment demanding solidarity with land defenders refusing the CAQ’s land grab.
The frontlines need urgent support as the logging season begins. Land defenders on the Nehirowisiw Aski are directly resisting colonial extraction and the destruction of their territory. This is frontline resistance to the CAQ’s forestry regime—a regime that hands over vast stretches of so-called Quebec’s forests to industry without consent, without regard. They’re calling for material support along with solidarity—whether you can go to the blockade, send funds, or take action here in Tiohtià:ke—this struggle must be taken up by people in the city. We must disrupt comfort, convenience, and quiet complicity.
Indigenous Land defenders are not solely responsible for resisting the colonial death march of extractive industry—the frontlines are everywhere. Don’t wait for permission. Don’t ask for justice. Fight alongside those creating it. Land defenders need immediate material support and brave anti-colonial accomplices.
Announcing the 8th Annual Halifax/K’jipuktuk Anarchist Bookfair September 6th, 2025 (rain date September 7th) Workshop & Table Applications now Open
With each passing day, our lives are further controlled by power structures that subjugate our bodies and land in service of profit. Our social lives have become confined by tech billionaires who horde our data and manipulate our behaviour to train AI. Our alienation from the natural world has become normalized as it crumbles beneath our feet. As the rearing heads of fascism strobe across the doomscroll, we are reminded that now, as always, is the time for anarchism.
Anarchism is not merely a reaction to fascism or capitalist power structures — it invites us to imagine a world, imagine our lives, free of coercion. When much of the public is being swindled into pro-‘Canadian’ rhetoric & consumerism here on stolen land, we as anarchists remain staunchly opposed to nationalism. We see nationalism as a tool of colonialism and capitalism to keep us from seeing the lies behind their facade. We dedicate our lives not to individual wealth & economic progress but to responsible interdependence, solidarity & self determination. We find meaning in exploring our collective dreams of liberation.
On Saturday, September 6th, 2025 we invite you to join us for Kjipuktuk/Halifax’s 8th Annual Anarchist Bookfair to convene, scheme & dream a liberated world together. All ages are welcome to come cultivate curiosity, solidarity & mutual aid through sharing books, zines, art, music, discussion, and skills.
As our world continues on a disturbing & overwhelming trajectory of extraction, displacement & genocide, with anarchism we can ride this shitstorm together with integrity and resolve.
If you would like to table or offer a workshop, please apply by July 10th:
