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

The Black Bloc Takes Back the Streets of Montreal

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Dec 122015
 

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On the night of Wednesday December 9, a demonstration against austerity took the streets of Montreal, under the banner “Our Struggle Is Not Negotiable“. Québec’s public sector had held a general strike earlier the same day, and some union leaders have been supporting mobilizations on a scale not seen for decades in an effort to increase their bargaining power.

The callout read: We won’t let ourselves be pacified by a sell-out agreement or by a special law. To the front: our struggle is non-negotiable, we won’t back down. The night of December 9th, let’s retake the street. Let’s warm the city with our footsteps and our shouts!

A week earlier, during the night demo of November 30th, a smaller-but-determined bloc had smashed a cop car immediately upon taking the street, entering into a fifteen-minute battle with riot police who were hitting people with batons and plastic bullets at the intersection of Sainte-Catherine street and Bleury street. The successes of the 30th helped provide momentum for the 9th, and the tension and excitement were palpable as participants began to gather at Berri Square.

Barricades on Nov. 30

Barricades on Nov. 30

A few dozen black flags were distributed throughout the burgeoning crowd. Upon taking the street and heading west on Maisonneuve avenue, those who were not masked from the get-go began to cover themselves up. Within minutes, most participants in the 200-person demonstration had concealed their identities, forming potentially the largest black bloc in Montreal since 2012. Our enemies in the mass media didn’t even try to frame the destruction that unfolded as the work of outside agitators as they often do; the bloc was undeniably constitutive of the entire demo.

Early on, half a dozen people swarmed an obnoxious Québécois nationalist who shows up to nearly every demo and snatched away his Québec flag and sign, punching him in the throat when he tried to hold on to his props.

Ten minutes into the demonstration, riot police formed a line to our front and right, at the intersection of Maisonneuve avenue and Saint-Dominique street, trying to funnel us south where they were preparing the same maneuver at Sainte-Dominique street and Sainte-Catherine street. Their strategy was clear: to contain us in the Quartier Latin and away from the prime targets in and around the business district, including the police headquarters. The crowd had the collective intelligence to not let the police determine our route, and reversed upon itself, heading east on Maisonneuve avenue. Masked groups were seen sharing rocks, and the crowd darted south through a parking lot and housing project courtyard to get onto Sainte-Catherine street, where the police had not had time to form new lines to restrict our movement.

What followed was a half hour of riotous cat-and-mouse in which the crowd stayed one step ahead of police control. A group of six bike police on Sainte-Catherine street who were naively approaching to flank the demonstration were attacked with a hail of rocks. Surges of excitement were felt in the crowd as the cops were struck with fear along with projectiles, and rapidly fled east out of view. It was on.

The demonstration made a sprint toward René-Lévesque Boulevard, while those further back chanted calls to stay close together. The demonstration took up all six lanes on René-Lévesque, and looking around, our capacity for destruction appeared significant. The semi-armored units with plastic-bullet guns that typically march along each side of the demo were nowhere to be seen, having been blind-sided with volleys of rocks to the back of the head during the demo the week before. For a breathless twenty-minute stretch, the demo acted as a grand criminal conspiracy. Hammers, flag poles, rocks, and the removable metal garbage canisters on every street corner were used to smash the windows of Citizenship & Immigration Canada, construction conglomerate and defense contractor SNC-Lavelin, several banks, and other buildings. For a festive touch, people also wrecked the Christmas decorations assembled at office building entrances, and overturned SNC-Lavelin’s Christmas tree. A few participants ran ahead and broke the back window of a police van with rocks, while others shot off some very large fireworks at the remaining vans positioned in front of the demo. Cheers erupted with the sound of every shattered window. Unknown accomplices could be seen searching for and sharing projectiles; when the demo passed a construction site, comrades ran ahead to find any materials that could be pillaged, and were successful in breaking up decorative stones along René-Lévesque into throwable chunks.

Police began shooting tear gas while trailing the demo to the east on René-Lévesque, using guns that can fire each canister more than a block. At first, it wasn’t successful in dispersing the demo because the crowd just moved west faster while staying relatively tight. The demonstration began to head north on University, smashing yet another Bank of Montreal window as it passed by. The demo split when faced with a cop car blocking a smaller street, but quickly managed to regroup with itself and responded by howling joyfully. At this point, the police continued to fire tear gas and the crowd had thinned to around 50 people. People began to disperse to the surrounding streets, while groups of police and vans continued to harass small groups of demonstrators walking along the sidewalks back to Berri Square. The Media reported one arrest of a minor for obstructing police work, but no charges related to the mayhem.

Moving forward

Against one of the largest and most experienced riot policing squads in North America, those who took the streets on Wednesday decidedly swung the balance of forces in our favor, at least briefly.

We felt moved to write a reportback because we see a lot of potential in the determination and preparedness of the crowd, and have some further thoughts for how we might expand the scope of these moments, both quantitatively and qualitatively. For now, we offer a few notes on tactics which could expand the time and space of combative demonstrations. Ultimately, though, we want to escape the pattern of being successfully fought out of the streets after smashing a few windows and break with this routine of containment.

This could look like:

  • Bringing rocks, fireworks, and tools along (if it feels safe) so that we have fighting capacity right from the get-go and aren’t completely dependent on scavenging for projectiles on the street.
  • Barricades are our friends, and we don’t give them enough love. Participants can fight behind them at standoffs to prevent charging dispersals, and they also function to disrupt the city in our wake and make police maneuvers more difficult to coordinate. Establishing them behind the demo (ideally in a way that doesn’t obstruct the movement of the demo itself) can also effectively block trailing police cars.
  • Participants can scavenge materials for projectiles to share with the crowd in the time between confrontations, so that when the police inevitably come in harder, people are ready to respond effectively.
  • The police cars trailing the demonstration and in front of it should consistently receive projectiles so they can’t be within throwing distance.
  • Bike cops or riot police should be forcefully prevented from flanking the sides of the demonstration. If necessary, participants can hold the sidewalks as well as the streets.
  • On the 9th, many people were recording the events on their cell phones undisturbed. Ideally, we’d have a culture of explaining to people how this is harmful, and then proceeding to take action against them or their recording devices if necessary. We should note, however, that several independent media initiatives who regularly film at demos appear to have solid practices of not recording or publishing incriminating video. In a video posted to YouTube of Wednesday’s demo, for instance, the camera pans up to avoid filming people destroying property, as the sound of glass shattering can be heard.
  • Tear gas eventually functioned to disperse the demos on both the 30th and the 9th, despite some efforts to throw back the canisters and prepare vinegar-soaked cloths. The main problem appeared to be panic spreading in the crowd, not necessarily the physical effects of tear gas. It is possible that more careful efforts to encourage people to stick together and proceed in an intelligent direction can continue diminishing the impacts of police weapons.
  • Questions of discourse and propaganda: why, as anarchists, do we smash the city? How are these actions connected to austerity? How do our struggles exceed any reformist, demands-oriented focus? Though moments of conflictual action bring together many individuals with divergent perspectives and intentions, it would be interesting for participants to communicate their analyses in these moments of destruction. Smaller crews could come prepared and wheatpaste the streets with posters, put up graffiti, or throw flyers from within the demo or from higher-vantage points.

These ideas mean little on paper, but we look forward to the possibility of elaborating them together in the streets. Our hearts are warmed by the sparks that constitute our history of collective revolts, and the potential for these sparks to catch, because we desire nothing less than a city in ruins.

sncsmash

SNC-Lavalin recieved special attention.

To print: 8.5″ x 14″ | PDF

Against the electoral circus, abstention doesn’t suffice! To the attack!

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Nov 062015
 

Three campaign offices of electoral candidates were attacked in Montreal and Trois-Rivières just prior to the elections. To our knowledge, no claim for these actions has surfaced, so we’ve posted several Media excerpts below.

A window of one of the two offices of the conservative campaign candidate Dominic Therrien was broken over the Sunday night (19/10/2015), several hours before the opening of the voting offices.

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The campaign office in Outremont, Montreal of the leader of the NDP, Thomas Mulcair, was vandalized over Tuesday night (14/10/2015).

The front windows of the office, situated on ave. du Parc, were sprayed with orange paint. The contents of a fire extinguisher was also emptied into the interior of the office through the crack of a window.

“There was powder everywhere. It will have to be all cleaned. We lost time to do it”, lamented the director of the campaign of Mulcair in Outremont, Graham Carpenter.

 

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The campaign office of conservative candidate Wiliam Moughrabi in Ahuntsic-Cartierville, Montreal, was vandalized over Monday night (13/10/2015).

“They threw at least two gallons of red paint on the window of the office”, said M. Moughrabi. “We spent the day of Tuesday cleaning it, and we will still clean it today”.

moughrabi

Highway blockade and banner drop against the dumping in the St. Lawrence

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Nov 022015
 

Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info

On Monday morning, during peak rush hour traffic, we blockaded the Notre-Dame highway with debris and construction materials. We dropped two banners which read “CONTRE LE DÉVERSEMENT DANS LE ST-LAURENT” (Against the dumping in the St. Lawrence) and “SOLIDARITY WITH ALL LAND DEFENDERS”.

On November 3, the city of Montreal plans to dump 8 billion liters of raw sewage (including industrial and medical waste) into the St. Lawrence river. This raw sewage is not only polluting the St-Lawrence, but affects all the communities downstream. Residents of Kahnawake have already demonstrated their anger with Mayor Coderre’s careless treatment of this river through several demonstrations, including stopping railway traffic.

Stopping the flow of morning traffic is a small gesture that speaks to the necessity of stopping this city, this economy, this entire civilization whose proper functioning rests on the displacement or outright attack of all forms of life.

– anarchists

Counter-info in solidarity with the Unist’ot’en camp

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Oct 142015
 

Over the course of the last month, several counter-informational initiatives inspired by the struggle of the Unist’ot’en camp hit the streets of Montreal.

Posters and graffiti in the neighborhood of Hochelaga.

oka

A billboard in the Mile-end was painted with “OKA 25 YEARS, THE RESISTANCE CONTINUES. NI PATRIE, NI ÉTAT, NI QUÉBEC, CANADA

(No nation, no State, no quebec, no canada).

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In the neighborhoods of St. Henri, Parc-Ex, and Hochelaga, several moments of indigenous resistance to the Canadian State were chronicled with graffiti and posters. Kanehsatake, Gustafen Lake ’95, Ipperwash ’95, Kanehstaton ’06, Sharbot Lake ’07, Akwesasne ’09, Tyendinaga ’08, Elsipogtog, Unist’ot’en

 

Native Women Shut Down Pipeline “Consultation”

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Sep 242015
 

From subMedia.tv

First Nations women and supporters sent a clear message to TransCanada this Wednesday evening that the Energy East pipeline is not welcome through First Nations lands.

“What we want TransCanada to understand is that no means no. This is Kanien’ke, this is Mohawk Land and we are tired of occupation, we are tired of environmental disaster.” said Lickers at Wednesday night’s hearing. “This is our land and we are going to protect it.”

Amanda Lickers and Vanessa Gray were 2 of several First Nations opponents to the Energy East present to express their outrage at the public hearings hosted by the Communauté métropolitaine de Montréal.

The purpose of the hearings is to establish a community report to submit to Office of Public Hearings on the Environment (BAPE) and the National Energy Board (NEB).

“But the consultation process does not work”, states Lickers, whose family is from Six Nations of the Grand River, “the NEB hearings for Line 9 were clear as day – between technical and engineering data to basic violations of treaty and territory agreements, Enbridge should have been denied their application but instead they were rubber stamped.”

“TransCanada’s Energy East pipeline threatens the chance of a sustainable future.” says Vanessa, co-founder of Aamjiwnaang and Sarnia Against Pipelines. “TransCanada has already proven to be a dangerous company for Indigenous peoples protecting their territory. Taking back our inherited right to live with the land means we must defend the land and water at any cost.”

After Lickers and Gray took the stage with a banner, the room erupted in chants from supporters, “No consent, no pipelines” and “No tar sands on stolen native lands” as dozens of supporters shut down the hearings in support of First Nations.

The process for public consultation excludes First Nations interests by relying on Crown policy for assessing environmental impacts. “Energy East itself actually violates the Haudenosaunee constitution – the Great Law of Peace – as it jeopardizes future generations access to clean, drinkable water, while expanding the environmental destruction of the tar sands at ground zero in Athabasca.”

But it isn’t just tar sands mining and pipeline transport that those opposing the pipeline development are concerned about. TransCanada requires super tanker transport and new marine terminals to be built for the Energy East, which puts the entire St. Lawrence waterway at risk of bitumen spills as well as threatening delicate Beluga habitat.

Vivisection Laboratory Website Defaced by the ALF and Taken Offline

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Sep 242015
 

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From Contra Info

On the 7th September, 2015, a vivisection laboratory website was sabotaged through defacement. The website server was entered and some of their directories were modified. The result was a more realistic image about what the laboratory does and a message we hope will not be forgotten.

We don’t care about the excuses and lies they use to justify their experiments. What really matters is that people see and know what really happens inside the laboratories, and to cause as much economic damage as possible.

After a few weeks, the website has disappeared. That probably means it has been closed (hopefully permanently). We are proud that the goal of this action has been reached, and we’ll go on until we close all laboratories.

WE ARE APPROACHING!!

ALF

Note from Contra Info: The website referenced is the Chudasama Laboratory of Brain and Behaviour, a part of the McGill University campus in Montreal, Canada, that previously looked like this.

Sep 102015
 

From Its Going Down

The infrastructures of State and capital continue to spread their tentacles, seeking to accelerate the extraction and transportation of resources to the market. The vast territory that is the Canadian North, often sparsely populated due in large part to the displacement, isolation, and genocide of indigenous peoples, is an immense source of profit; oil, gas, forestry, hydro-dams, uranium mines, etc. Various monstrous infrastructural expansion projects are currently trying to connect the Alberta Tar Sands through pipelines along the St. Lawrence river to the Atlantic. These projects entail expanding and constructing new infrastructure such as ports, rail lines, and highways all along this route on colonized territories.

Over the past three weeks, we temporarily interrupted circulation on the CN rail lines twice in the neighborhood of Pointe-St. Charles. We placed a copper wire connecting both sides of the tracks, thus sending a signal indicating a blockage on the tracks and disrupting circulation until the tracks were checked and cleared. This train line in particular is being worked on in order to facilitate the transport of oil eastward to the port of Belledune in New Brunswick.

To block train lines, one can :
1. Obtain at least 8 feet of uninsulated 3AWG copper ground wire (the kind that is used for wiring main service panels in a house).
2. Wrap the wire around each rail of the track, connecting both sides, and ensure good contact.
3. Cover the wire between the tracks so that it is more difficult to detect.
4. Smile at the possibility of causing thousands of tonnes of train traffic to be disrupted.

This simple act is easily reproducible, and demonstrates the vulnerability of their infrastructure despite their surveillance technologies and legal apparatus intent on dulling our teeth. The recent strengthening of the Canadian State’s capacity for repression through Bill C-51, now law, includes legislation requiring a mandatory minimum sentencing of five years for those convicted of tampering with capitalist infrastructure. For us, this legislation further emphasizes how integral the functioning of ‘critical’ infrastructure is to projects of ecological devastation (and the society that needs them), and how powerfully the simple act of sabotage can contribute to struggles against them.

We conceive of our struggle as against civilization and the totalizing domestication it entails; we seek nothing less than the destruction of all forms of domination. As a step in this direction, we hope to contribute to the formation of a specific struggle against these projects of industrial expansion. We want to organize to combat these projects in ways that are decentralized and autonomous, including with consistent and widespread railroad blockades. Autonomous self-organizing escapes a mass movement logic (to impose an agenda through ‘mobilizing’ others while waiting for the ‘right’ conditions to act) and the political recuperation imposed by reformist environmental activism. Convergences can play a crucial role in initiatives flourishing, but it is equally crucial that the struggle against these projects does not start and end there. Let’s up the tension against this world, let’s proliferate the attacks.

Aug 282015
 

Last night, a few friends painted a flaming police cruiser in the neighborhood of Hochelaga along the main boulevard, inspired by the struggle against police in St. Louis and Ferguson. Solidarity with all the rebels out on the streets learning how to fight the police together. Despite the more successful enforcement of social peace in Montreal at the moment, your acts and words resonate with the furthering of hostilities towards white supremacy, the State, and capital in our context.

bruletoute

Jun 242015
 

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Vandalised because of their business name
Our enemies – 11/6/2015

A restaurant named “La Mâle Bouffe” was the target of radical feminists who broke one of its windows and covered the neighborhood of Hochelaga in posters denouncing gentrification. 

It was on June 2, ten days before the opening of his restaurant on rue Ontario, that the owner noticed that a large rock had been thrown through a window of his business.

Posters

The vandals also plastered dozens of posters throughout the neighborhood in which the logo of the restaurant, a mustached man with tattoos, is modified into an anarchist woman.

Around the design, it reads: “When gentrification and sexism get on well together. Against a neighbourhood that is ‘clean,’ expensive, and chauvinist. Against the escalation of violence against women. Reclaim our neighbourhoods and resume control of our streets.”

If the phenomenon continues, new business owners will be afraid to set up shop in Hochelaga, believes the owner.

Vandalism in Hochelaga has become a true plague while several businesses on rue Ontario are regularly targeted by vandals opposed to gentrification.

“This year, they stole flower pots from our terrace, but it’s only the beginning of the season. Last year, vandals threw bricks through the window and another time, they painted an anarchy symbol on the facade” denounced the owner of restaurant Le Valois, who prefered to not say his name.

In dozens

For the last two years, more than a dozen acts of vandalism against businesses were reported in Hochelaga.

For example, the windows of Bagatelle bistro and In Vivo as well as Le Chasseur were smashed with bricks.

A bit more than two years ago, the exterieur of William J. Walter was even covered in yellow paint after an anti-capitalist demonstration.

“Someone put paint in a fire extinguisher and sprayed the entirety of the store, it was truly exasperating. They also smashed a window.” recounted the manager of Benjamin Fallourd.

May 252015
 

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From our enemies – Global News, 01/25/2015

In a brazen attempt to vandalize several businesses at around midnight on Saturday, a group of individuals wearing ski masks broke the windows of four businesses located on Notre-Dame Street in St-Henri.

Dressed all in black, the vandals damaged storefronts as seen in a security video obtained by Global News.

The damage to Jesse Bowden’s shop, Campanelli, was just shy of $8000 in glass alone.

“We’ve never seen or witnessed a group like this, at this time, with so many witnesses, with weapons running en masse in the middle of the street, this isn’t a war zone” says the concerned business owner.

There is speculation that this is a result of growing anti-gentrification sentiment from some people in the community.

According to another local business owner, Corey Shapiro, “It’s no longer vandalism, it’s causing terror to people who live in the area.”

Two of his businesses were attacked over the weekend, businesses he says help the neighbourhood to thrive.

This is not the first time attacks like this have happened in the area.

According to a barber named Thaddeus who works at Shapiro’s barbershop, “We’ve been , and the night before, there was an incident outside Juicyyy lab, so obviously there’s a bunch of people who don’t like what were doing.”


Vandal rampage targets shops on Notre Dame in St. Henri

From our enemies – CTV, 01/25/2015

Police are investigating after at least eight stores in St-Henri were vandalized at 11:30 p.m Saturday night as a group of masked individuals wearing hoods went on a violent destructive rampage on Notre Dame St. W. near Delinelle St. in the Southwest borough.

The masked vandals came equipped to smash windows. “There were about 10 guys all dressed in black and they came with pool balls and crow bars and broke the windows and 30 minutes later everything was broken everywhere,” said Vincent Powell.

Several witnesses called 9-1-1, but when the suspects fled the scene before police arrived.

The Saturday night attacks came one night after an opening night party for a juice bar was targeted by what appeared to be the same attackers. Entrepreneur Corey Shapiro said that smoke bombs were tossed into his newly-opened juice bar Friday. When he went out to look at what was going on, he was hit in the face by pepper spray.

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“I ran outside to see what the story was and I got pepper sprayed by people dressed all in black with masks, who had made a strategic attack on a crowd of a couple of hundred people,” he said. “This was an attack potentially endangering people’s lives.”

Jesse Bowden, who is a co-owner of the Campanelli boutique, was on hand Sunday evaluating the damage. He told CTV Montreal that there has been a history of such attacks on the strip.

“They came through about eight months ago spray painting the whole front of the storeface and a group then put out a manifesto on a website saying it was a politically motivated attack to stop the gentrification of this neighbourhood. These are people who are unhappy with the neighbourhood has changed, but the people that are changing it are all from this neighbourhood,” he said.


From our enemies – Montreal Gazette, 01/25/2015

Business owners in St-Henri are calling on the city of Montreal to take action to stop what some are calling an organized campaign of anti-gentrification “terrorism” in the Sud-Ouest borough neighbourhood.

For several months now, graffiti denouncing gentrification has been appearing on walls and windows of businesses along a stretch of Notre-Dame St. W., a formerly rundown area that has been attracting business catering to higher income residents in recent years.

Last Friday evening, several masked individuals dressed all in black threw a smoke bomb into a crowd celebrating the opening of a high-end juice bar on Notre-Dame St. W. near St-Philippe St. One member of the group also pepper-sprayed the owner of that business, Corey Shapiro, in the face.

And early Sunday, a similarly dressed group was seen breaking windows of several businesses along Notre-Dame St. W. with crowbars and billiard balls. The vandalism was witnessed by many, as it happened shortly after midnight, when bar and restaurant patrons were still out in numbers.

“I’m asking people to stop,” Shapiro said in an interview with the Montreal Gazette on Tuesday. “I’m asking the city to come in and to stop this. It is no longer vandalism. It is terrorism. Somebody is terrorizing the neighbourhood.”

Montreal police say it is too early to say whether the two incidents are linked, but police spokesperson Sgt. Raphaël Bergeron acknowledged there have been a number of similar incidents in that area in recent months.

New condominiums along the Lachine Canal and the opening of the nearby Glen site of the McGill University Health Centre have been attracting wealthier residents to the area in recent years, and not everyone is happy about it.

In an anonymous article posted last November in anarchistnews.org — a website that describes itself as a non-sectarian source for news about and of concern to anarchists — “some anarchists” claimed responsibility for vandalizing several new businesses along Notre-Dame St. W.

The article describes with derision the “new foodie restaurants, high-end boutiques, art galleries and ‘drinkeries’ catering to the residents of all the canal-side condos, replacing the dollar stores and flea markets.” The post goes on to say, “we decided to render some of our disgust with gentrification by vandalizing two such examples with fire extinguishers filled with paint.”

One of those businesses named as targets in the post was Shapiro’s barbershop, Notorious, and another was Campanelli, a coffee shop and clothing boutique. Both were again attacked in last weekend’s vandalism, along with other nearby businesses.

Shapiro also owns an eyewear store called Vintage Frames Company on Notre-Dame St. W. and a half-dozen modest residential properties in St-Henri. But he says he is not in the business of pushing anyone out of the neighbourhood.

He said most of the people in the neighbourhood are happy to see new businesses.

“Some people aren’t. But the people who aren’t, in most cases, are targeting their unhappiness at the wrong people. I’m not responsible for wages or income. I’m not responsible for the world’s jobs. I’m responsible for the wages, income and safety of the people I employ.”

Shapiro admits he may be a particular target for criticism from anti-gentrification activists because he wears gold chains and drives a gold BMW. He says he got the car for free in a marketing deal with BMW and the gold theme runs through his businesses, but he is “not a rich man.”

He seems frustrated when asked how he proposes that the city solve the problem. He is a businessman who deals in eyewear, juice and hair, not a politician, he says.

“I don’t have the solution because this is not my forté. I mean, if the mayor comes to me and says that to solve this problem, he needs a powerful pair of glasses, I’m your guy. Or if he feels he needs a boost in the morning, I got him on the juice. Or if he feels people don’t like him or don’t take him seriously because he has a bad haircut, I’m the guy to cut his hair. But I’m not the guy to plan or tell anybody how to fix this.”

The mayor of the Sud-Ouest borough, Benoit Dorais, said he is already working on some potential solutions. First, he condemned the vandalism publicly and asked Montreal police to increase their surveillance of the St-Henri area.

But he also acknowledged that there is some resentment of the neighbourhood’s new, middle and upper-middle class residents and the businesses that cater to them.

More than half of the Sud-Ouest borough’s residents still live on incomes that fall under the poverty line, he said, and businesses that cater to that clientele are not actually being pushed out.