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

Parc-Extension Residents and Housing Activists Brave Violence at the Hands of BSR Group to Fight Gentrification

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Aug 102018
 

From Parc-Ex Contre la Gentrification (Facebook page)

Over 60 people gathered in front of Parc metro station yesterday afternoon to protest property speculation and gentrification. The action aimed to bring together members of Parc-Ex Against Gentrification, POPIR, Comité B.A.I.L.S, the Parc Extension Action Committee, the Comité Logement de Rosemont, and the Comité Logement du Plateau Mont-Royal to maintain pressure on property developers and send a clear message that condo and luxury apartment developments are not welcome in our neighborhoods.

We then went to the offices of the BSR Group- the property development company carrying out the evictions of Plaza Hutchison tenants- to deliver a letter and disrupt their day-to-day operations. For the past half century, the Plaza Hutchison has served as a meeting place for Parc-Extension, housing community groups, cultural associations, language schools, religious spaces and small local businesses. Since the BSR Group purchased the building, they have relentlessly intimidated, threatened and evicted those tenants without notice, one by one. We went today to the Place Décarie to make Ron Basal and his colleagues aware of our demands- namely that tenants should be allowed to return and the building be given back to the community.

Upon entering the office, we were repeatedly kicked and punched in the face by Ron Basal himself, and by BSR Group employees. Some of us were choked, while several others had their glasses ripped off their faces and broken. Employees uttered death threats, and numerous people were subjected to sexual harassment when one high ranking BSR Group member threatened to expose himself in front of them. When community members quickly decided to leave the building, BSR Group employees physically stopped the elevators, blocked the stairwells, forcibly confined people, and attempted to throw one person down the emergency exit stairwell. It was fucking intense. Many of us, neighbors and activists alike, have visited property development offices before in order to bring forward housing rights demands and to protest gentrification. No one could recall having been met with such violence in recent memory.

We also want to address some claims that have surfaced in media coverage of the action, notably TVA’s reprinting of the BSR Group’s staged photos of « grabuges » and Radio Canada’s assertion that we “forced the door” . It is worth mentioning that Radio Canada journalist Benoît Chapdelaine entered the office with us through its’ unlocked door, tried to dodge the punches, and witnessed the extreme violence of the BSR Group, but made no mention of it. Also, while three people were briefly detained, they were released on-site and there were no arrests.

Although we are disgusted by the actions of these gentrifiers, we remain unwavering in our resolve to disrupt business as usual, to put our bodies on the line and to fight the destruction of Parc Ex. We refuse to remain silent and allow the displacement of working class people of colour from our neighbourhood for the benefit of a new wave of richer and whiter inhabitants.

Expect to hear from us, we won’t back down.

We Promised Them Hell, They Got a Taste of Hell: Action Report

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Jul 102018
 

Anonymous Submission to MTL Counter-info

Before the weekend of action

On June 23rd, the addresses of a La Meute activist and another from Storm Alliance who live in Hochelaga were revealed and they were paid a little visit.

June 27th, CRAM shared the claim for the painting of the Maisonneuve and Macdonald monuments.

The weekend of action in photos

A nice victory – we promised them hell, they got a taste of hell.

Let’s keep up the fight, fascism shall not pass! Another call to action will be published later in the summer, stay tuned!

Multiple Crossing Sites Marked to Help Migrants Cross from US to Canada

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Jul 062018
 

From Solidarity Across Borders

Refugees Welcome Caravan Wraps Up 3 Days of Outreach in Border Region from Coaticook to Huntingdon

Canada Day Action

Signs bearing the words “CROSSING HERE due to (un)Safe Third Country Agreement. Still on unceded indigenous lands” were placed at five different sites along the Canada-US border early morning on Canada Day.

Photos: https://bit.ly/2tZJR2I [Facebook album]

There are multiple sites similar to Roxham Road every few kilometers along Quebec’s border with the United States. In addition to sending a message of support to refugees and migrants who are crossing irregularly from the United States, this action was meant to encourage people living in the area to actively support them – to open minds and hearts, and, in a very literal sense, to Open the Borders.

The signs draw attention to the reason people are crossing in this way: the so-called Safe Third Country agreement, which prevents migrants from making refugee claims if they go to a regular border crossing. They also question the legitimacy of the border and the Canadian state, established by European colonial powers to consolidate control over stolen lands and resources.

Caravan

The action marked the end of the “Refugees Welcome Caravan” which was on the road from June 29th to July 1st, traveling along the Canada-US border from Coaticook to Huntingdon to build support in the border region for migrants. At public gatherings such as an antique car show in Venise en Québec and a farmers’ market in Frelighsburg, shopping mall parking lots, and city centres, the caravan attracted attention with a musical procession, juggling and fire tricks, while passing the message with posters, flyers, speeches and improv theatre. Over the three days, more than 60 people – from Montreal and the region – participated in the 10-car caravan, which spent the two nights in a church and a farm.

Photos: https://bit.ly/2u3ylDu [Facebook album]

The vast majority of people the caravan met supported the message of welcome to refugees. Caravan participants took the opportunity to exchange with people who thought Canada was much more welcoming than the United States and those blinded by racism into believing the fear-mongering propaganda of the right-wing and populist politicians in the hopes of shifting their perspective to the points of view of the oppressed.

Despite current public attention to the violence of the American immigration system, Canada continues to close its border to migrants coming from the United States as refugees. When people manage to cross irregularly, Canada’s refugee system is the next barrier they face: less than 50% of people whose files have been heard (as of March 2018) have been accepted. People who are rejected are deported or forced into precarity as undocumented migrants.

Solidarity Across Borders rejects the case-by-case approach and calls for status for everyone crossing the border. Though Canada is certainly no paradise, people are coming because they think it is the best option for them. No one should have to go through the stress, precarity and humiliation of trying to prove they are a refugee and why they deserve to stay here. No one should be threatened with deportation. No one should be stripped of status and be forced to live in the shadows, prey to exploitation and fearing discovery.

#NoBordersCaravan
#NoCrossingisIllegal
#Statusforall

Maisonneuve and Macdonald Monuments vandalized: Anti-colonial artists and activists denounce British and French colonialism and genocide

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Jun 272018
 

Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info

Six photos of the vandalized statues are available here:

Montreal, June 26, 2018 — We are anti-colonial activists and artists who vandalized two monuments in Montreal celebrating British and French colonialism. The Maisonneuve Monument at Place d’Armes in Old Montreal, as well as the Macdonald Monument at Place du Canada in Downtown West, were both covered in red paint last night. The monuments are unapologetic public icons to the genocide of the Indigenous nations of Turtle Island, and racism in general.

We chose to deface these monuments between two nationalist holidays – St-Jean-Baptiste and Canada Day – as a rejection of all forms of settler-nationalism . We embrace the street slogan of Montreal’s anarchists: Ni patrie, ni état; ni Québec, ni Canada! We also denounce and resist the racist far-right — whether Quebec or Canadian nationalists, whether francophone or anglophone — who are nostalgic about a racist, genocidal, and white supremacist past. Our vandalism is also aimed against them.

The Macdonald Monument, erected in 1895, celebrates a white supremacist. As Prime Minister, John A. Macdonald was directly involved in the genocide of Indigenous peoples through measures like residential schools, meant to destroy and eliminate Indigenous cultures. He was an open racist, hostile towards both Chinese and Indian migrants to Canada at the time, and openly promoted an “Aryan” Canada. Macdonald is also responsible for the hanging of Métis martyr Louis Riel.

The Maisonneuve Monument, also erected in 1895, commemorates the settler ‘founder’ of Montreal, Paul de Chomedey de Maisonneuve, with an offensive monument celebrating the massacre and forced conversion of Indigenous peoples. One of the quotes on the monument, attributed to Maisonneuve, celebrates colonial aggression against the Haudenosaunee Confederacy: « Il est de mon honneur d’accomplir ma mission; tous les arbres de l’île de Montréal devraient-ils se changer en autant d’Iroquois. »

Both these statues should be constantly vandalized until they are finally removed from public space and instead placed in archives or museums, where they belong as historical artifacts. Public space should celebrate collective struggles for justice and liberation, not white supremacy and genocide.

– Some anti-colonial activists, artists and vandals

Background Information:

– Amherst, Maisonneuve et notre mémoire trouée (septembre 2017): www.lapresse.ca/debats/chroniques/rima-elkouri/201709/17/01-5134211-amherst-maisonneuve-et-notre-memoire-trouee.php

– Monument raciste et colonial à John A. Macdonald défiguré à Montréal (novembre 2017) https://montreal-antifasciste.info/fr/2017/11/12/monument-raciste-et-colonial-a-john-a-macdonald-defigure-a-montreal-avec-video-et-photos/

– Deux statues de la reine Victoria vandalisées à Montréal (mars 2018) www.lapresse.ca/actualites/justice-et-faits-divers/faits-divers/201803/15/01-5157416-deux-statues-de-la-reine-victoria-vandalisees-a-montreal.php

– Deux statues de la reine Victoria sont vandalisées à Montréal (mai 2018) https://sub.media/video/deux-statues-de-la-reine-victoria-sont-vandalisees-a-montreal/

– Montreal’s Monuments to Colonialism (September 2017) https://ricochet.media/en/1949/montreals-monuments-to-colonialism

– Colonial and Racist John A. Macdonald Monument Defaced in Montreal (November 2017) https://montreal-antifasciste.info/en/2017/11/12/colonial-racist-john-a-macdonald-monument-defaced-in-montreal-with-video-and-photos/

– Two Queen Victoria Statues Defaced in Downtown Montreal (March 2018) https://thelinknewspaper.ca/article/two-queen-victoria-statues-defaced-in-downtown-montreal

– Queen Victoria Statues Vandalized in Montreal (May 2018) https://sub.media/video/queen-victoria-statues-vandalized-in-montreal/

Small gift for the G7 – It was what it seemed like

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Jun 252018
 

Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info

While the police and their para-military weapons invaded the old city’s streets, looking for some obscure threat; some shadows slid out of their lair. They attacked the telecommunications system recently updated in Charlevoix by some generous and powerful people. The need for a good fiber-optic connection for the G7 festival relies on a few thousands poles and some big black wires. And no, it’s not the kind of thing that can ignite by itself… We also want to cheer the beaver who broke the fiber-optic network in 2013 and the ice which did the same in April of this year. We hope that by testing your network, we helped you miss a few tweets…

We refuse to be bound by your tentaculary networks. For us, every technological advancement comes at the price of another regression in our liberty.

Sabotage during the G7 Summit

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Jun 232018
 

From Sans Attendre Demain

The last G7 was held in La Malbaie, in Quebec, the 8th and 9th of June 2018 in the Charlevoix castle. While the entire area was heavily secured, which we don’t doubt, power also took care to reinforce its critical infrastructures, including cell phone network coverage (with a $15M contract with Bell for the installation of 13 cell phone relays), but also the installation of fiber optic cable in this depopulated and slightly preserved zone of La Malbaie (with a $6M contract with Bell), so that the heads of state could enjoy high speed internet during the summit.

Anyway, everything was supposed to go fine on this side, and yet… and yet a fiber optic cable caught fire during the G7, “making certain communications along route 138 leading to Charlevoix impossible,” according to a local paper. “The outage has affected the wireless service of Telus Mobility and Bell Mobility between Beauport and Baie-Saint-Paul following a cutting of the fiber. Twelve wireless sites were affected by the outage.” The Integrated Network of Multimedia Telecommunications of the Quebec government (RITM), which allows the sharing of services and information between public organizations throughout Quebec, was also affected in Baie-Saint-Paul, as well as the Ministry of Transportation. The damages were such that a plan B had to be activated during the G7: a rerouting solution requiring the deployment of a new fiber.

Of course, because it must not be shouted too loudly, and show the vulnerability of mechanisms always within reach of audacious hands, the state speaks of an accident. All the same the odds are incredible – a crucial fiber optic cable catches fire on its own in the middle of the G7 in the red zone, a cable made of glass or plastic, whose properties do not tend toward spontaneous combustion. Whatever they say, hypothesis for hypothesis, we prefer to think that it is either a divine fire, or an anonymous hand angered by this summit of the powerful that is at the origin of this fire. And since God does not exist…

Warm Night

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Jun 172018
 

Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info

A recent night in June, a McInnis Cement building burns next to the horrible Port-Daniel cement plant. It left behind a blackened carcass. This fire burns for our humiliated hearts. May the ashes return to this land they devastated and the trees take over what’s left…

Every Bank is a Blank Canvas

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Jun 162018
 

Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info

In the night of June 14th, some artists who wish to remain anonymous made a contribution to MURAL Festival 2018. The piece is a postmodern, extinguisher acrylic on bank window, measuring (approximately) 15ft x 8ft. More specifically, we sprayed the facade of the National Bank on Saint-Laurent Boulevard with a fire extinguisher filled with black paint.

It is obvious that politics, both the G7 politician’s and the social activist’s, is a dead end. The problem is figuring out what to do instead. We choose to experiment with confronting that which seeks to turn every part of our lives into a commodity. We’ve watched the state waste hundreds of millions of dollars on a security apparatus for the spectacle of a summit that bears little relation to our lives and long-term struggles. Instead of falling for this trap, we enjoy acting when and where the cops are not expecting us. We will continue to do so.

Solidarity with the anarchists facing repression in Quebec City, Montreal, Hamilton, and worldwide.

– Some vandals

G7: Statement of the Popular Expression Zone

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Jun 152018
 

Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info

8 June 2018, so-called Quebec

Faced with the hideous deployment of the security apparatus put in place during the G7, we decided to organize among friends and block the Dufferin-Montmorency expressway ourselves. We clearly saw that the gatherings and other actions called by the RRAG7, the CLAC and others had no chance of allowing us to experience something seriously enjoyable, and all that needs to be said is we didn’t want to stay discouraged while our neighborhoods were stormed by the cops.

Euphoric, we placed couches in the intersection and furnished the space with banners, laughter, and songs. Comrades put their bodies between the riot police and the space we named Popular Expression Zone for the occasion  to allow us to enjoy ourselves a bit longer. Then we set the living room on fire and left in a demo into the city.

Life, or nothing…

The media, hypnotized by the couches in flames, chose not to relay the communiqué of the Public Space Brigade (BEP). So we decided to share it here:

Public Space Brigade: Don’t panic, everything is under control

That’s the problem.

Even the possibility of criticizing the state is regulated by the cops and fences. Walled-off free speech zones, demonstrations permitted as long as they bother no one. The world has been stolen from us, even the possibility of putting it in question. And quietly people stay in their place, in front of the TV, listening to the radio, suspended in front of screens.

Every year it’s the same theatre piece that is replayed: everyone is there, at their post. The dictatorship of orders reaches its peak, and the peoples try as well as they can to demonstrate an organized opposition to this spectacle.

While we’re battered with messages of fear with respect to possible rises in tension between police and protesters, the politicians discussing security and repression, colonization and oil extraction, war and hatred of migants, exploitation of works and deregulation, have it easy. The question of violence must be posed on a different level.

This popular expression zone is on the opposite end of this buffoonery, this desert you call the G7. It’s the reappropriation from the bottom, from the street, of our lives and our bodies, the relearning of territory and of the freedom to take action against the misery of this rotten system.

Here, we stop the old world. Here, we carve our own in the cracks of its declining power. Here is now – life.

Antifascist Action at the Quebec/US Border

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Jun 152018
 

From It’s Going Down

June 3rd, 2018 – Faith Goldy had called a rally at the Roxham border (U.S/ Quebec) attracting roughly 100 far-right groups and individuals from Ontario and Quebec, as well as a few stragglers from as far away as Alberta and Nova Scotia. This is the first time this sort of collusion between provincial groups has ever been observed at the border here.

Faith Goldy is currently one of Canada’s most prominent far-Right internet personalities. She appeals to both populist forces concerned primarily about “illegal immigration” and “the Muslim threat,” as well as to actual fascists and neo-Nazis. Not only has she not eschewed the latter, she has made a point of pandering to them, i.e. repeating and defending the 14 words (a neo-Nazi slogan), joking with people from the Daily Stormer in Charlottesville, and being an avid defender of “identitarianism” in Canada, including promoting the Alt-Right Identity Canada group. More on Goldy here.

Goldy’s fame spiked in far-Right circles recently, when she filmed herself being spat on and ejected from an antifascist counter protest at the Quebec/U.S. border at Lacolle a few weeks earlier. Many who had never heard of her before, especially within the Quebec far right, took notice, and the June 3 rally suddenly took on greater importance for their forces.

Those who showed up on the 3rd represented Goldy’s range of appeal. There were members of the Proud Boys from Ontario, along with other far-Right internet media warriors, such as Ronny Cameron (self-described “white nationalist” and supporter of the Alt-Right), Alex Van Hamme (Free Bird Media), and Georges Massaad (The Phalange Media). The bulk of those who attended the rally were from Quebec, though. Despite the fact that Goldy had essentially snubbed Quebec organizers, not responding to overtures from Dave Tregget and Sylvain Lacroix, and that her call for “patriots” to bring Red Ensign flags alienated some Quebec nationalists, there was a significant showing of individuals associated with Storm Alliance, Atalante, la Meute, and even the Front Patriotique du Quebec (which had officially disassociated itself from the rally due to the sensitive “red ensign” issue).

In her promo videos, Goldy had asked attendees to be on their “best behavior” but she certainly did not object to Threepers showing up at the Fisher and Roxham Rd intersection, dressed in full tactical gear, to patrol the area. The suggested violence is not lost on observers, the intersection looked more like a militarized zone than a pro-borders demo. But, that’s just the thing–the very presence of far-Right demonstrators and known neo-Nazis is violent. Their fetishized need to patrol settler borders on stolen Indigenous lands reveals them for the white supremacists that they are and the infrastructures of white supremacy they uphold (i.e. borders, anti-migrant legislation, detention centers, safe third-country agreement).

In the past, anti-fascists have publicly called counter-demos. We are often pushed out of the way by SQ riot cops in order to make way for far-Right groups. This time, we made no public call out. Instead, we waited to position ourselves at a strategically advantageous point along Roxham Rd and proceeded to set-up a highway blockade. Our numbers were small, we intentionally chose to be so. Our objective was to concretely disrupt their demo for as long as possible. This was an experiment, one that we are still evaluating.

Solidarity with all migrants crossing borders. Solidarity with all those detained in immigrant detention centers. Solidarity with all Indigenous folks leading the ongoing resistance against the settler colonial states and their borders.

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