Montréal Contre-information
Montréal Contre-information
Montréal Contre-information

Hamilton: Rail Sabotage in Solidarity with Wet’suwet’en struggle

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May 212020
 

Anonymous submission to North Shore Counter-Info

Using the jumper-cable and wires method described elsewhere the track signalling system on a CN mainline in Hamilton was sabotaged last week. This was done in continuing solidarity with Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs and land protectors. Work on TC Energy’s Coastal GasLink pipeline continues without the consent of the chiefs and despite the Memorandum of Understanding signed by the chiefs with BC and Kanada. the colonial governments and capitalist industry do not indicate that they will respect the sovereignty of the Wet’suwet’en.

This action was done to support and amplify this struggle and to encourage others to expand solidarity actions beyond letter writing and phone ins. Especially with KKR investment firm’s final investment decision in CGL later this month it is important to continue pressure. The RCMP and CGL mancamps aren’t respecting social distancing but we can still social distance and shut shit down!

Manifesto of Bordeaux Prisoners

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May 142020
 

From Anti-Carceral Group

For more information on the hunger strike and the situation at Bordeaux Prison, read an earlier post.

A group of prisoners at Bordeaux, who aim to create a prisoners committee, communicated the following demands to their lawyer on May 11, 2020.

  1. We demand the release of more prisoners, because what was announced last week [an announcement by Quebec Minister of Public Security Geneviève Guilbault on May 6] affects only a tiny fraction of the detainees. In Bordeaux, very few prisoners meet the categories specified by the decree. We should not be playing with people’s lives – COVID-19 is a fatal disease. We are not reassured by the measures taken to date;

  2. We demand that each day spent in Bordeaux count for three days of prisoners’ sentence, since the conditions in the prison are radically diminished and unacceptable: there are no more visits, no activities, no TV, nothing to do all day;

  3. We demand that prisoners with one year or less remaining on their sentence receive early release;

  4. We demand prisoners receive personal protective equipment. At the moment, prisoners have access to gloves, but they are gloves for serving food – this isn’t adequate. Prisoners do not have any access to masks, and we demand access to masks;

  5. Prisoners in some sectors have been granted X-Boxes, while others have not. We demand access to more activities;

  6. We demand the creation of a prisoners committee and the recognition of this committee by the prison, in order to constitute a common front;

  7. We demand to know how the Bordeaux prisoners’ fund is used – where does the money from this fund go?

 

Bordeaux Hunger Strike

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May 142020
 

From Anti-Carceral Group

Edit: On May 11, 2020 a group of prisoners at Bordeaux, who aim to create a prisoners committee, communicated a series of demands to their lawyer. You can read it here.

On May 5, a group of prisoners at the Etablissement de détention Montréal, better known as Bordeaux prison, began a hunger strike in response to the rapidly escalating COVID-19 crisis at the institution. As of May 8, the hunger strike has spread to at least four sectors of the prison and other acts of resistance have proliferated.

No formal demands have been presented to the public, as the conditions inside presently make it almost impossible for prisoners to communicate with one another. However, individual prisoners have communicated a series of demands. These include:

  • Provide prisoners with masks and hand sanitizer, ensure that prison staff wear their masks and gloves at all times, and ensure proper sanitation of cells and common spaces.

  • Provide prisoners with up-to-date and accurate information about COVID-19 infections and testing at Bordeaux and the safety measures implemented (including the isolation of infected prisoners).

  • Test all prisoners and prison staff for COVID-19 immediately and continually.

  • Expand access to medical release (for prisoners who have been sentenced) and provide expedited bail hearings (for those detained pre-trail). Release as many prisoners as possible to allow social distancing to be practiced in the community and better allow it within the prison (for those not released).

  • End 24-hour lockdown for prisoners who are not infected or symptomatic of COVID-19. Allow prisoners time on the range, and ensure daily access to prison telephones.

  • This list will be updated if and when a series of collective demands are made public

Background information

The dangerous conditions that prompted the strike at Bordeaux have been building for weeks. Bordeaux has quickly become the provincial prison second hardest-hit by COVID-19 in Canada (after Ontario Correctional Institute in Brampton, Ontario). The first positive COVID-19 test among Bordeaux prisoners was registered on April 24. As of May 12, the number COVID-infected prisoners has risen to 55, while at least 30 prison staff have tested positive. From the beginning of the pandemic, moreover, prisoners have criticized the lack of COVID-related safety protocols implemented in the prison, as well as the lack of information provided to prisoners.

Information about the hunger strike is limited and difficult to obtain. Media reporting has largely relied on information from the Quebec prison guards union (Syndicat des agents de la paix en services correctionels du Québec), a deeply unreliable source. Information from prisoners is more reliable, but due to the full or partial lockdown in place (depending on the sector), it has been difficult for prisoners to get information out and, more than this, to ascertain what is happening across the prison’s multiple sectors.

The following provides the most comprehensive and reliable picture of the Bordeaux prison hunger strike, based on information relayed from prisoners to their family members, lawyers, and members of the Anti-Carceral Group.

The origins and spread of the COVID-19 crisis

The COVID-19 virus first hit Sector E, which cages 170 people. This sector is where most prisoners who work in the kitchen and serve food are detained. The possibility that infected prisoners had made or touched the food served to the entire prison caused widespread concern when the news spread.

Sector E was placed on 24-hour a day lockdown (prisoners are confined to their cells) on April 24th. According to the most recent information, it remains on lockdown. Prisoners have no access to showers or prison telephones. Officially, they continue to have once-a-week access to the cantine (with goods delivered to their cells), but reports suggest that certain floors have missed cantine at least one week. Family members outside have been unable to contact their loved ones and have received no information from prison staff, including whether or not their loved one is infected. Some family members have been sending written letters, but do not know if the letters are being received and have not received any letters in return. One family member was finally told on May 8th that letters are being received, but that sending letters in return is prohibited.

Some lawyers who have clients in Sector E have been able to arrange a 10-minute phone call with their client. This has required persistent requests, in writing and by phone, to prison staff. In cases where they have been granted a phone call, a prison guard provides a cellular phone to the prisoner to have the 10-minute call from their cell.

It is unclear how many prisoners in Sector E have been tested. Reports suggest that prisoners in the sector who worked in the kitchen were quickly transferred to Sector A, without having been tested. A report from a prisoner suggests that, by the end of the day on May 8th, nearly all prisoners in that sector had finally been tested.

By May 2, the virus had spread to Sector C, which cages 180 people. The sector was immediately placed on lockdown, with the same restrictions as Sector E. The remainder of the prison was also placed on 23-hour per day lockdown, with prisoners permitted to leave their cells, but not their range, one hour per day. Since May 7, these restrictions have been loosened in Sector B, with prisoners allowed out of their cells for 4 hours per day.

On the evening of May 8th, some prisoners in Sector E and C were finally allowed to make a 5-minute telephone call – their first communication with the outside world in 15 days. As with calls to lawyers, this involved a prison guard providing a cellular phone to the prisoner to make the call.

Despite the dire situation, prison staff do not consistently wear masks and gloves when in proximity to prisoners, and there is no proper sanitation of the cells or ranges. A report from a prisoner on May 8th suggests that guards are finally wearing masks and gloves, but that prisoners still do not have access to PPE. Sectors E and C (and perhaps others) have been periodically deprived of running water for long stretches of time, making cleaning and using the toilet impossible. It is unclear whether guards are tested for COVID-19.

Guards also taunt prisoners, saying they will be infected and allowed to die. Guards in Sector C are demanding that prisoners kneel on the ground to receive their meals; a prisoner with hearing problems, who did not comprehend the order, has missed several meals as a result. A guard in Sector C taunted an 18 year-old detainee by showing him a cell phone and saying he had his mother on the line, and then walking away. The stress level for prisoners continues to mount, and multiple prisoners have expressed that they feel they are being left to die.

The hunger strike and other resistance

In response to the increasingly dangerous situation, acts of resistance at Bordeaux have proliferated. On the morning May 5, prisoners in Sector G began a hunger strike, refusing to eat the meal served to them. By the evening of May 5, prisoners on other wings had joined the strike.

Reports on which sectors are participating in the strike are inconsistent. Multiple sources have confirmed the participation of Sectors D and G. One source, a prisoner in Section B, claims sector B is participating as well. Some prisoners, while refusing to eat the meals served to them, continue to eat food from the cantine.

There are also reports of other acts of resistance at Bordeaux. The source of these reports is the prison guards union, and should therefore be treated with caution. The reported acts of resistance include: breaking windows, spitting on guards, breaking objects in cells, and flooding the ranges with water. Prisoners in Sector E were told their 24-hour per day lockdown would end on May 11, after 17 days. When the lockdown was not lifted, the prisoners reportedly set fire to toilet paper and magazines and overflowed their toilets. The prison responded by shutting off the water.

On May 10, a noise demonstration took place outside Bordeaux. A caravan of 30 cars, including three people with family members in Bordeaux, drove to the prison, honked their horns and waved protest signs to show support for the prisoners and denounce the inaction of the Quebec government.

The response of the Quebec Ministry of Public Security to the escalating COVID-19 crisis at Bordeaux has been minimal. On May 6, the Minister of Public Security, Geneviève Guilbault announced that certain categories of prisoners would be eligible for medical release. Her announcement specified that such releases might be possible for prisoners convicted of non-violent offences, with less than 30 days remaining on their sentence, with health complications. This announcement offers nothing to the 75% of Bordeaux prisoners who are being held pre-trial (and therefore have not been sentenced), and Quebec has consistently refused to follow the lead of provinces like Ontario and Nova Scotia in expediting bail hearings to release remanded prisoners.

 

Noise Demos Outside Montreal-Area Prisons Following Death of Prisoner and a Hunger Strike

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May 112020
 

 

From Anti-Carceral Group

10 May, Montreal – At 2pm today, a caravan of over 30 vehicles visited the Federal Training Centre prison in Laval and the Bordeaux jail in Montreal, demanding the immediate release of all prisoners in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. The vehicles, decorated with slogans such as, ‘Prison Should Not Be A Death Sentence,’ & ‘Free All Prisoners,’ honked their horns, made noise, and held banners in solidarity with those inside.

“We’re here today to show people inside these prisons that they’re not forgotten and that we’re out here working for their release,” said Ellie Santon, a participant in the demonstration. “What’s happening in these prisons is a crisis created by the government. If they wanted to, they could solve all this tomorrow. For some reason they seem intent on letting people die.”

On May 5th, Correctional Services Canada (CSC) announced that a prisoner held inside Laval’s Federal Training Centre had died from COVID-19, the second death inside a federal prison due to the pandemic. 138 prisoners have now tested positive for COVID-19 in the Federal Training Centre, making it the largest outbreak in a Quebec federal prison.

“The government has spent months refusing to act and now the virus has exploded inside prisons and people are dying,” said Virginia Boucher of the Prison Support Committee. “There is no justifiable reason for this. People should be released from prison, now. People in halfway houses should be allowed to live at their own homes full time. Everyone released should have access to safe housing and healthcare.”

On May 5th, prisoners in Quebec’s Bordeaux jail also began a hunger strike that has since spread to multiple sectors of the institution. There are over 60 cases of COVID-19 associated with the Bordeaux jail, where 75 percent of prisoners are being held pre-trial, making it the 2nd largest outbreak in a provincial prison.

“I’m worried about my partner, who is in one of the infected sectors,” said Jean-Louis Nguyen, a participant in the demonstration. “He finally got tested on Friday, but we don’t know the results, and his parole hearing just got postponed by two weeks. Quebec needs to provide public information about what’s happening in its prisons and expedite bail and parole hearings to get as many people as possible out of prison and back with their communities.”

“Quebec’s jails now have the highest infection rate of any province, but they’ve refused to act,” said Ted Rutland of the Anti-Carceral Group. “Provinces like Ontario and Nova Scotia have released thousands of prisoners by speeding up bail hearings and releasing people close to the end of their sentence, but Quebec refuses to follow their example.”

Social distancing is impossible inside prisons and prisoners are at high risk of contracting COVID-19. Health care in prison is abysmal. Guards have employed pepper spray and force against prisoners across the country who have taken action to protest their situation. There are now over 500 confirmed cases of COVID-19 linked to prisons across Canada.

#liberezlestou.te.s
#grevedefaimbordeaux
#bordeauxhungerstrike
#FreeThemAll
#FreeThemAllCaravan
#FreeThemAll4PublicHealth

Fuck the Police – Tomorrow and Forever [Video]

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May 022020
 

Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info

May Day is an occasion to remind ourselves why we fight for a more just world, a world not submitted to the domination of a capitalist elite, a world where we can dream. However, for reasons that are clear, we won’t be able to assemble in the streets this year, but this doesn’t mean the resistance is dead. Despite its ravages, the coronavirus crisis has provided many with the opportunity to break with normality and reconsider the anxiety-inducing, senseless and dehumanizing rhythms of our lives. More than ever, these troubled times are the occasion to reflect on the possibilities of creating a new world that only we can shape through mutual aid and solidarity.

However, times of crisis are also fertile ground for the development of authoritarian solutions. So it’s important to remind ourselves that the proper management of this crisis passes through our capacity for collective action and that we must prepare to respond to police forces that, for their part, will operate with more violence and arrogance than ever. Whether here, in Villeneuve-la-Garenne in France, or elsewhere in the world, confinement measures have given police services a wide array of new powers, allowing them to act with increasing brutality with impunity. Faced with this reality, it was important for us to tell these parasites that, despite the crisis, they will never be welcome in our communities.

City Redecorated for May Day!

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May 022020
 

From the CLAC

bannière

Seen at Hochelaga/Viau overpass :
“We are confined but did not forget… Anticapitalist May Day
Your batons and prisons
Your pipelines
Your healthcare cuts”

bannière
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Banner drop in Rouyn-Noranda:
“The power is austere”

bannière

Seen this morning on A20 highway near L’Isle-Verte, between Trois-Pistoles and Rivière-du-Loup
“May Day: support to the underpaid workers. Despised yesterday, on the front line today !”

The IWW put together my photos of more banners on their Facebook page.

bannière

A banner that reads: Anticapitalist May Day. Confined & revolted

bannière

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Action from the “No housing, no quarantine” collective for MayDay. In front of the office of the Régie du logement.

bannière

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tag
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May Day communiqué from the red committee


Other actions:
CORPIQ offices flooded for May Day

 

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Visibility action taken from the following Facebook page.

Landlord Association’s Offices Flooded for May Day

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May 012020
 

Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info

The pandemic has laid bare the hostility the Corporation des propriétaires immobiliers du Québec (CORPIQ) has for tenants. As tens of thousands of increasingly precarious people struggle to make ends meet, CORPIQ has pressured the Régie du logement to re-start eviction hearings, encouraged landlords to collect rent as usual, and tried to discredit the calls for a global rent strike. CORPIQ defends the class that profits from our basic need for shelter and ensures that many are denied a stable and safe place to live.

The hostility is mutual. On the rainy night of April 29th, in an early celebration of May Day, we paid a visit to CORPIQ’s offices in Ville Saint-Laurent. First, we disabled the security camera. Then, we broke a window and inserted one end of a garden hose into their office, attached the other end to the building’s own outdoor tap, and turned on the water causing a flood.* Good luck with your “return to normal”, assholes.

We have no demands to make to governments, but rather a proposal to other renters and exploited people: what would happen if landlords had to think twice before harassing a tenant, neglecting repairs, or making threats of eviction? What if landlords were terrified of seeing their office vandalized, their car(s) torched, or their home(s) attacked when they try to push us?

Shout out to all the rent strikers organizing to support each other and spread the strike.

Solidarity with prisoners – and everyone trapped in coercive relationships with the state and capital. The recent hunger strikers in Laval show that we can resist even in the bleakest conditions.

We dedicate this action to everyone feeling isolated, depressed, or hopeless in these circumstances. We’ll never stop fighting for a world without systems that profit from our misery.

*We encourage others trying this tactic to use a mail slot when available. There is always a risk of setting off an alarm or getting the cops called when you break a window. We took this risk and bet that any response wouldn’t come fast enough to stop us.

April 19 #FreeThemAllCaravan Reportback

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Apr 232020
 

From Solidarity Across Borders

On April 19th, solidarity caravans drove to prisons and migrant detention centres across the country as part of a day of action against imprisonment. The caravans made noise and held signs in solidarity with those locked up. This mobilization brought together former detainees, prison abolitionists, and migrant justice activists in a first united call, across so-called Canada, to demand the immediate release of all prisoners and status for all migrants in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

We’ve included links to footage and report-backs from the different caravans below. You can also listen to a special live radio broadcast with dispatches from the caravans here. For more footage or reports from the caravans, just search #FreeThemAllCaravan on twitter.

Kingston, ON

Surrey, BC [Twitter link]

Toronto, ON [Twitter link]

Laval, QC [Facebook link]

Background:

Social distancing is impossible inside prisons and detention centres and those inside remain at high risk of contracting COVID-19. There are now over 260 confirmed cases of COVID-19 linked to Canadian carceral institutions around the country, where people are held on both criminal and migrant holds. There have also been cases confirmed in both Laval and Toronto migrant detention centres. On April 16th, the Correctional Service of Canada confirmed that an inmate at BC’s Mission Institution prison had died due to COVID-19, with over 50 other inmates testing positive for the virus.

From March 24th to April 1st, detainees at the Laval migrant prison held an eight-day hunger strike to demand their immediate liberation and decent, safe housing upon release. While many hunger-strikers have since been released, 11 people remain in detention.

Despite the mounting calls from dozens of organizations for Canada to release migrant detainees and prisoners, the Canadian government still refuses to free all prisoners. The CBSA for its part has been slowly releasing migrant detainees on a case-by-case basis through individual detention review hearings.

Released migrants often remain under threat of deportation and face precarity, with no housing, long processing times for work permits, and limited or delayed access to support programs.

This May Day, Resistance Continues Despite the Confinement!

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Apr 202020
 

From the CLAC

In these times of pandemic, capital kills more than ever. Workers are left without equipment in hospitals. Confinement falls upon us because our government did too little, too late. Rich landlords who brought the virus back from their latest trip are angered by a rent strike that their penniless tenants have no other choice but to partake in. The people dying right now are among the most vulnerable, from grocery store clerks, to delivery workers, prisoners, homeless folks, and undocumented migrants. All of this while the most fortunate get to work from home. Nevertheless, social distancing remains an important way to reduce transmission, and this is why WE WILL NOT MEET PHYSICALLY FOR A MAYDAY PROTEST. We will however try to make resistance as visible as possible, given the difficult context.

The Canadian economy, along with that of most countries of the G20, will present a negative fiscal balance this year due to the sanitary crisis. The economy, however, means nothing. It’s a mix of statistical indicators that have never reflected our collective well-being. These indicators are more often related negatively to the health of our relationships, children, and waterways. However, the political elite forces us to mourn the economy by blocking our access to the products of our labor. While the rich live in style on desert islands and in distant townhouses, the poor are stacked in slums, forced to produce wealth, to heal the sick, or to restock grocery store shelves. Confinement makes solidarity very difficult in a context otherwise favorable for the crumbling of the capitalist state.

Let’s take this opportunity to shift environmental questions back to an anticapitalist perspective of climate justice. At a time when the air of our cities is finally breathable, let’s avoid the return to normalcy demanded by the capitalist elite. Let’s avoid making forced isolation and mass surveillance the new normal. Because a return to normalcy would only be the second act of a single tragedy, with societies playing the same role they had in the ongoing ecocide. The system must change, we must build justice anew, a justice which respects life and ecosystems.

We want to belong to the world we inhabit. Capitalism built societies we don’t really want. It’s time to take back control of our future from the rich and powerful who have had it for far too long. It is time to build a world for all of us.

This year we will not take the streets. This is why we ask you to SHOW YOUR ANTICAPITALIST SOLIDARITY THROUGH BANNERS, ART PROJECTS, AND POSTERS. If you can take pictures, images will be presented on a Web page built for this purpose. Details will be available shortly.

We cannot lose hope. The struggle continues to be as necessary as ever.

Montreal Anarchist Bookfair: What We’re Doing in May 2020

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Apr 202020
 

From the Montreal Anarchist Bookfair Collective

Hello everyone,

For a variety of reasons, most of which have to do with COVID-19, the Montreal Anarchist Bookfair collective has made the tough–but in our view, responsible–decision that we are not going to organize the big two-day gathering that has taken place around parc Vinet for most of the past twenty years. Instead, though, we hope to organize a different kind of event on May 17, 2020, to sustain our connections, politics, and solidarity.

As a small collective, our capacities are constrained, and of course, we’re facing new pressures in our lives outside the collective. So we’ll absolutely need your help, just as we have always needed help in the past.

That being said, this is what we hope to do for May 17.

As we’ve always done, we want to provide artists, authors, publishers of anarchist literature, and other sorts of crews and organizations an effective space for selling or freely distributing books, zines, posters, stickers, and other items to people who want them. We envision this as a two-pronged approach: online “tables” and in-person deliveries (on Tioh:tiàke, i.e. the island of Montreal). At a time when anarchist infrastructure is having to close up shop, so to speak, we see sales as a form of solidarity, to keep our many projects alive through this latest crisis, which also makes it all that much more important to get anarchist ideas and inspiration out into the world. The collective will, to a large degree, need to rely on tablers and delivery people to make this work, but we’re definitely up for offering our resources in terms of setting up telecommunications infrastructure and other forms of technical support.

Beyond continuing to distribute books, art, and other anarchist materials, we’d also like to create a space on May 17 for real-time conversations, similar to past bookfairs. We see this as a mix of a small number of talks (which we hope to make as accessible as possible, including via live broadcast on community radio as well as over the internet), more participatory, connective small-group dialogues, and one-on-one conversations between organizers (matched up ahead of time).

Also on May 17, we would love to see an outpouring of street art and banners around Montreal, in a physically distanced art exhibit of sorts, and would encourage artists and others to not only do this but document it with photos too.

As we get closer to May 1, we’ll put out another, longer announcement with more details and probably at least a few more initiatives. By then, for instance, it may be clear whether some sort of physical, social gathering will be possible for the weekend of May 16 and 17, and we’re considering the idea of a post-bookfair zine. We also hope to have our poster, designed by Kevin Lo, ready for May 1, and would love to see it put up around Montreal.

Lastly, much thanks to everyone who wrote to us with suggestions and everyone who has already signed up for our volunteer listserv. If you have any interest in postering in or around Montreal, or could contribute to this project with respect to system administration, website design, or translation (from English to French, but also from English to other languages spoken in Montreal), please sign up by following this link:

https://noise.autistici.org/mailman/listinfo/benevoles-volunteer-salonmtl

Take care, give care, with solidarity,
Montreal Anarchist Bookfair Collective