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

Justice and Jean-Pierre Lizotte, the Poet of Bordeaux Prison

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Sep 062017
 

On September 5, 1999, eighteen years ago, Jean-Pierre Lizotte died as a result of injuries sustained from the blows of a Montreal police officer. I’m re-sharing today an article that I wrote in 2008 (published, in a slightly different form, in the Montreal Gazette) about the “Poet of Bordeaux Prison”. RIP Jean-Pierre Lizotte!

The Gazette’s opinion pages recently provided space to the lawyer for Montreal police officer Giovanni Stante who was charged in the death of Jean-PierreLizotte in 1999. The lawyer takes offense to a Gazette report, subsequent to the police killing of Freddy Villaneuva in Montreal-Nord in August this year. He feels that the report gives the “false impression that Lizotte was a victim of police brutality.”

Stante’s lawyer reiterates that Officer Stante was acquitted by a jury in 2002, and cleared by the Police Ethics Tribunal for inappropriate use of force just this past August 2008. Those are cold, hard facts.

However, there is one eyewitness to the events on the early morning of September 5, 1999 outside the Shed Café on St-Laurent Boulevard who will never get to tell his side, and that’s Jean-Pierre Lizotte himself. Lizotte died subsequent to the substantial injuries he suffered.

Yet, while vigilantly defending Officer Stante almost a decade after the incident in question, Stante’s lawyer goes on to cite Jean-Pierre Lizotte’s extensive criminal record. Dead men tell no tales, as the saying goes.

Fortunately, in the case of Jean-Pierre Lizotte, despite two decades in-and-out of prison, this particular dead man had a lot to say, and he said it, poignantly and insightfully. He deserves his voice too, in these pages, as much as Officer Stante has his voice through his lawyer’s skillful advocacy.

Thanks to a remarkable radio program called Souverains anonymes, which encouraged the creative side of prisoners at Bordeaux, we still have a record of many of Jean-Pierre Lizotte’s words.

After learning of his death, the producers of Souverains Anonymes recalled something Lizotte wrote to Abla Farhoud — a Quebec playwright, writer and actress, originally from Lebanon — who had participated in one show at the Bordeaux prison. Lizotte was responding to the words of the main character of Farhoud’s novel, Le bonheur a la queue glissante, who observed, “My country is that place where my children are happy”.

As an immigrant rights activist, deeply immersed in migrant justice struggles, and indelibly touched by my mother’s own immigrant experience, Lizotte’s response to Farhoud is moving, as he seeks common ground while reflecting on his own life; it’s worth citing in full:

“Hello Abla, my name is JP Lizotte. For the 21 years that I’ve been returning inside, prison has become my country. When I leave it, I become an immigrant! I experience all that an immigrant might experience when they miss their country of origin. When I’m inside, I want to leave. And when I’m outside, I miss the inside. Sometimes I say to myself, “If I had a grandmother or a grandfather, things would have been different for me.” But how can you have a grandmother when you’ve hardly had either a mother or father. The memories that I have make me cry, so I won’t tell them to you. But, a grandmother, like the one in your novel, is not given to everyone. So, I say to everyone who has a grandmother or grandfather, take advantage of it. Thanks.”

There are clear underlying and understandable reasons why Lizotte was in-and-out of prison for more than two decades, beyond the list of criminal offenses that Officer Stante’s lawyer provides, without any context.

His fellow prisoners dubbed Lizotte the “Poet of Bordeaux”, and he wrote prolifically. His poems were in a rhyming and often humorous style that address deeply personal themes: his difficult childhood, his lack of a caring mother, his father’s alcoholism, depression, his HIV-positive status, his drug problems, along with subjects like music, prison and revolt. He even wrote an unpublished memoir about his itinerant life called, Voler par amour, pleurer en silence.

Jean-Pierre Lizotte came from a harsh-lived reality, right from his childhood, as he shared in his poems and writings with simple honesty.

On the late night of September 5, 1999, on a trendy and expensive part of St-Laurent Boulevard, Jean-Pierre Lizotte’s reality came up against the contrasting reality of restaurant patrons, bouncers, and police officers. Lizotte was allegedly causing some sort of disturbance, and he had to be restrained in a full-nelson hold and punched at least two times by Officer Stante’s own testimony (some witnesses claim that Lizotte was punched “repeatedly” and excessively). According to eyewitnesses, there was a pool of blood left at the scene. One eyewitness refers to Lizotte being thrown into a police van “like a sack of potatoes”.

Officer Stante was duly acquitted by a jury in 2002; so were the officers in the infamous Rodney King beating, or more recently the New York City officers who shot and killed the unarmed Sean Bell on the day of his wedding. Police officers are routinely acquitted – if ever charged — within a criminal justice system that appropriately demands proof “beyond a reasonable doubt” before conviction.

Officer Stante might stand acquitted, but it’s still completely valid, and necessary, to question the actions of the Montreal police, despite the police procedures that apparently allow for the punching of an unarmed man held by another officer for the purposes of restraining a suspect. One simple fact that readers should consider: the police did not reveal Jean-Pierre Lizotte’s death in 1999 to the public until 53 days later.

But, what if there was a video of what happened outside the Shed Café in 1999 instead of the imperfect and contradictory memories of eyewitnesses at 2:30 in the morning? What if Jean-Pierre Lizotte was present in the courtroom, in a wheelchair and paralyzed, in front of the jury’s own eyes?

At Stante’s trial, and again in your pages, Officer Stante’s lawyer puts a dead man who can’t defend himself on trial. Lizotte transparently acknowledged who he was. What’s cheap is to still deny Jean-Pierre Lizotte – the homeless “criminal” — his full humanity and dignity, because he possessed it in such abundance.

– Jaggi Singh (September 2008), member of Justice for Victims of Police Killings and Solidarity Across Borders (Cité sans frontières / Solidarity City / Ciudad Solidaria (Montréal))

In response to ‘The Religion of Green Anarchy’

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Aug 252017
 

Anonymous submission

In ‘The religion of green anarchy’, the author continually refers to their ideas of what “green anarchism” is about without referring to where exactly these ideas are stated. There is not a single quote from a green anarchist journal or book in the essay, nor is there any reference to what texts the author has or has not read dealing with green anarchy. If the author’s idea of green anarchy is based on conversations with individuals at land defense camps, it would be good to say so – in this case the critique becomes more about “how some people interpret green anarchy” then about green anarchy in its totality. This essay takes a large and complex tangle of ideas that have been evolving since at least the 80’s[1.For example, the Earth First Journal characterizes EF as having had multiple stages, and characterizes their evolution as realizing the inter-relationship between social and ecological struggles. See 25th anniversary special issue.], and simplifies them into a caricature (‘the morality of pure wilderness’) that neglects most of the theory that makes green anarchist thought and its associated currents worth reading in the first place. I would also suspect that this may be why Green and Black review did not respond to the essay.

It is true that green anarchy idealizes a time when people lived in ‘an unmediated, direct, instinctual way’, and equates this with hunter-gatherer societies[1. See Green Anarchy – really, if you haven’t already checked out this site you probably should just to get the real deal directly from the horse’s mouth, so to speak…]. The introduction to Zerzan’s ‘Running on Emptiness’ memorably asks ‘has anything of value been invented since the Stone Age?’ as a rhetorical question. That said, the actual stance of self-declared green anarchists on returning to the Stone Age is probably more accurately summed up in this quote from ‘Back to Basics: What Is Green Anarchy’:

‘While some primitivists wish for an immediate and complete return to gatherer-hunter band societies, most primitivists understand that an acknowledgement of what has been successful in the past does not unconditionally determine what will work in the future. The term “Future Primitive,” coined by anarcho-primitivist author John Zerzan, hints that a synthesis of primitive techniques and ideas can be joined with contemporary anarchist concepts and motivations to create healthy, sustainable, and egalitarian decentralized situations. Applied non-ideologically, anarcho-primitivism can be an important tool in the de-civilizing project.’

Much of what is theorectically interesting in green anarchy has to do with its critiques of industrialism, its theorization of ‘how we experience Being and the involvement of culture in generating specific subjectivites’[3. See Jensen re: language, Zerzan re: mediation, signification.], its conceptualizations around ‘civilization’, its critiques of ideologies venerating ‘progress’, and its advocacy of ‘total and absolute liberation’. As well, much of the theory behind primitivism and green-anarchy comes from ‘real’ (ie professional-level university) research into stone age societies and human evolution, which will become apparent if one starts to read the literature. Jared Diamond (‘Guns, Germs, and Steel’) has written an essay about the emergence of agriculture entitled ‘The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race”. Even if one does not wish to return to the Stone Age, these are extremely important analysis and should be widely read, if only to help collective theory evolve and coalesce (the importance of shared discourses and reference points), and also as a counter-point to existing social mythologies regarding history and progress which are so pervasive that we may not even be aware that they shape our ideas.

For example, a critique of industrial production should be a sort of ‘anti-capitalism 101’ by now. It relies on taking resources from one place (and thus on imperialism, colonialism, domination etc), manufacturing them in ways that are usually energy-intensive and polluting and require all sorts of chemicals and produces all sorts of non-biodegradable waste, and also requires CO2 intensive long-distance transportation networks. Socially, it ties in with a progressive loss of knowledge of how to make things and live from the world around us.

Now, not everybody has to necessarily subscribe to the desire to completely abandon all factory production or all occupational specialization – there are all sorts of liberatory currents in sydicalist/communist thought theorizing how the means of production can be tools and not masters[4. See, among others ‘continuity and rupture’ by j. moufawad-paul, all of the literature on self-management – ok, it is true, I am committing the same error of being vauge on sources that I previously criticized another for, my apologies, but, that said, these currents definitely exist.] [5. I am also tempted to make a slightly teasing comment along the lines of ‘so if you’re against green anarchism and you’re also against communism, what kind of economic arrangement are you for, anyways?’]. That said, having the analysis of why mass systems dependent on external resources are extremely problematic is a foundation of trying to make something (‘somethings’, to be more accurate) that works.

It is also important to properly value ways of life that were capable of sustaining people from self-perpetuating ecosystems (‘wild’ – yes, it’s true, people are always intervening, the question maybe has more to do with their mindset and the subtleness of their interactions…). A society that is able to make everything it needs from plants, stones, and animals is a society that creates zero waste. This doesn’t necessarily mean that everybody should be forced to return to these lifestyles, but it does mean that these skillsets and knowledges should be actively promoted and encouraged. European peoples also lived this way, so no one has to appropriate from anyone aside from learning about the uses of plants and animals not found in Europe, and maybe a more general learning about worldviews, traditions and cosmologies when people indigenous to Turtle Island desire to share them. There is a lot to learn from a way of being in the world which represents 99.9% of our history. Do you really think people wouldn’t benefit from being able to perceive our reality more like pre-modern peoples did?

Which brings me to my last point: the statement “even if we returned to hunter-gatherer lifestyles, capitalism and domination could continue” – well, ok, I’m sorry but that is just not true. I realize that the current of anarchism represented in Counter-Montreal[6. Editor’s note: MTL Counter-info did not write ‘The religion of green anarchy’. The author of this response seems to have this impression.]  is not big on anti-capitalist economic theory/Marxism (“anti-capitalism” is conspicuously absent on the topic list) and that you apparently don’t like Communists, but, nonetheless, capitalism is in fact defined as an economic system based on the expanded accumulation of capital (I have capital, I build something/invest it, I make profit from what I own, my capital expands.) The emergence of capitalism as an economic system is directly linked with and dependent on technological developments enabling large-scale resource extraction, mass production, long distance transportation, and banking systems. Capitalism is an expansive system that is in constant technological evolution. It is based on being able to produce surplus, which in turn allows for the development of class society (people who don’t have to work or forage for themselves.[7. See the above-mentioned ‘Back to Basics’ for a detailed discussion on the emergence of surplus-production.]) Hunter-gatherer society is a steady-state system in which things mostly don’t change and material class stratification is minimal due to lack of surplus[7. See any first year university textbook. You could also read part three of ‘Socialism: utopian and scientific’ by Friedrich Engels; ‘Imperialism: the highest stage of capitalism’; ‘The Original Affluent Society’ by Marshall Sahlins, or ‘The Domination of Nature’ by William Leiss which provides a much more detailed discussion about the evolution of ideas related to technological development and subjugation than is given in this response.]. I don’t want to be rude and tell people they should maybe read a little more, but is this seriously where the level of ‘analysis of capitalism’ is at these days?

I wrote this response not to be snarky, (well, ok, maybe a little…) but mostly out of sincere concern for collective theory. I am extremely disturbed by a tendency I have observed in which a major component of intellectual activity seems to be identifying ‘wrong ideas and wrong groups of people’. If you have a bunch of nineteen year olds who are just being politicized and they get the idea that communism and green anarchism are things they don’t want to read or identify with and that the basis of being political is hating the right people, what kind of movement are you creating?

Amputating communism and green anarchy from ‘ideas people should be aware of’ is steering people away from the some of the theory that is the most dangerous and subversive to the established order. As well, those who own and manage the human-built world we live in laugh in delight when their assorted foes spend the majority of their energy tearing each other down instead of trying to wrap one’s head around each other’s analysis in a constructive and mutually respectful manner. (ie ‘well, I agree with this, I don’t personally agree with this/want this but if you want it for yourself that’s cool, I strongly disagree with this’ etc etc)

Obviously, critical analysis is extremely important to the evolution of theory, but isn’t it better to be like ‘these strains of thought are important, here are some critiques they have generated’? I mean, yes, there’s a lot one can say to nuance the analysis of green anarchist thought (“cough, much of it emerging from the communist tradition…”), but don’t you think it should at least be read by people who have grown up seeped in the narratives of the dominant culture? Do you really just want to have people engaging in property destruction and fighting cops without really developing their analysis of what has been and what could be beyond ‘State power is bad’?

Sincerely,
One who hopes to see revolution in her lifetime.

Context and Report back from the August 20th three-way clash in Québec City

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Aug 252017
 

Far-Right Islamophobic, Anti-Immigration Group La Meute Greeted by Militant Anti-fascists and Forced to Hole Up in Underground Parking Garage for 5 Hours

From Montreal-Antifasciste

Montréal /Québec City, August 25, 2017 — Anti-racists and anti-fascists from across Québec successfully disrupted a demonstration planned by the xenophobic, anti-immigrant and rabidly Islamophobic group La Meute, in Québec City, on August 20th. For more than 5 hours, the racists were holed up in an underground parking garage, as hundreds of anti-racists laid siege to the building where they had gathered, a massive government facility located directly behind the National Assembly of Québec. After clashes with police and several physical altercations between antifas and alleged La Meute sympathizers (including one siegheiling bonehead), police cleared the way for La Meute members to come out of their hole and march silently around the parliament buildings for a couple of minutes, still shaking and reeling from their prolonged confinement, significantly reduced in numbers and under heavy police escort.

A bit of context

[Jump to action report]

For over a decade now, the social and political climate in Québec has been increasingly poisoned by xenophobic narratives peddled by conservative ideologues, sensationalist mainstream media and “trash” talk radio, right-wing columnists and populist politicians. Ten years ago, this toxic discourse led to a national crisis around so-called “reasonable religious accommodations”, and later to a crassly Islamophobic proposed “Charter of Values” by the nationalist Parti Québécois (PQ) in 2013. The PQ was born in the late sixties as a coalition of left-wing and right-wing nationalists with the shared objective of achieving the political independence of Québec. It organized and lost two referendums on the matter in 1980 and 1995 (that last failure was famously attributed by then Prime Minister Jacques Parizeau to “money and the ethnic vote”), and has gradually re-branded itself as a run-of-the-mill neoliberal party. Over the years, the left wing got increasingly marginalized, and in the last 10 years the party moved dangerously into identity-based politics in a desperate attempt to remain relevant to a xenophobic backward-thinking electoral base.

Not satisfied with the PQ’s drift to the right, a fringe of far-right individuals has coalesced over the last few years into several small groups putting forward anti-immigration and anti-Islam rhetoric as some sort of ambiguous and ill-defined political program, increasingly echoing historical fascism both in form and content.

A turning point for this milieu came in January, when gunman Alexandre Bissonnette entered the Islamic Cultural Centre of Quebec City and opened fire, killing six people and seriously injuring nineteen more. Perversely, this massacre caused the far right to assert itself more than it ever had before, going on an offensive that continues to this day. These groups include a Québec branch of the neo-Nazi inspired Soldiers of Odin, the openly neo-fascist group Fédération des Québécois de souche, the more recently formed Storm Alliance (SA) and the much larger and populist La Meute (meaning Wolf Pack in French).

Founded by ex-military men, La Meute is extremely regimented and authoritarian, its leadership council dictating everything from the top down, including dress code, a strict prohibition against members speaking to the press, and even choosing what its officials are allowed to “like” on Facebook. Ex-members have come forward expressing concerns with the extremely centralized internal politics, despite a seemingly decentralized structure, which is strikingly reminiscent of classic fascist militias. La Meute’s leadership and (in)security service have even adopted black shirts as a uniform over the last few months. They have publicly stated that they are offering their service as a security apparatus to any right-wing event, anywhere in Québec, that might be targeted by anti-racist militants. Following suit, their “Guard” has indeed served as a goon squad for such local Islamophobic luminaries as Djemila Benhabib and Mathieu Bock-Côté, a pathetic conference of assorted reactionaries organized by local far right nationalist outfit Mouvement républicain du Québec, as well as a nation-wide tour by alt-right-inspired vlogger and La Meute cheerleader André “Stu Pitt” Pitre.

Despite their insistence that the group is not racist or anti-immigration, thousands of racist comments have been posted by members on their public and “secret” Facebook group pages, and recently, one of their top lieutenants was spotted in Charlottesville hugging disgraced White Nationalist Chris Cantwell.  (This member, Shawn Beauvais-MacDonald, pictured below, was supposedly relieved from his duties with the organization, which did not stop Robert Proulx (Proule on Facebook), self-described “head of security” at La Meute’s Sunday fail, from subsequently “liking” his posting of the neo-Nazi 14 words on Facebook. Despite La Meute’s claims that this unabashed White Supremacist has been “suspended”, as of August 24, Shawn Beauvais-MacDonald is still listed as a Montréal-Clan 06 member. Update: We have obtained pictures of Shawn Beauvais-MacDonald actually participating in the La Meute protest in Québec City. It appears that this 14 words-loving piece of shit is still an active member, despite La Meute’s claims to the contrary.)

Recently dismissed La Meute Lieutenant Shawn Beauvais-MacDonald professes his adherence to the infamous neo-Nazi 14 words.

On March 4th of this year, hundreds of La Meute members marched in several cities alongside other far right and openly racist forces, as part of a nation-wide day of actions against Bill M-103 (a private member’s motion condemning Islamophobia). In Montreal they marched under heavy police protection, despite a strong anti-fascist mobilization. This initial public show of force marked the first time in decades that an organized far-right group was able to take to the streets in this city, well-known for its militant left.

A bit more context: Québec City has been home for years to an active neo-Nazi scene, gathered around a crew of boneheads who are part of the Rock Against Communism (RAC) movement and have created a fascist militia called Atalante. Its leader announced last week that an “identititarian” fight club would be starting in Québec City, called “La Phalange”, and Atalante carried out an August 19 banner drop intended to intimidate refugees being housed at Montreal’s Olympic Stadium. It turns out the fight club has been effectively operating since June.

La Meute’s anti-refugee bullshit

Despite its repeated claims that the group is not opposed to immigration or refugee claimants, that was the whole basis for La Meute’s mobilization in QC on August 20th.

Because of a loophole in the law regulating refugee claims in Canada, the so-called Safe Third Country Agreement between the US and Canada, there has been a sharp increase in refugee claimants coming through the border irregularly in the last couple of months. Thousands of mostly Haitian claimants have fled the toxic climate in the US, out of fear of being deported by the Trump Administration. The Québec and Canadian governments have reacted to this upsurge by finding accommodations for the refugee claimants, including hosting them inside the Olympic Stadium and setting up a refugee camp near the small border town of Lacolle.

Far-right groups, including La Meute, have swarmed on this issue like flies on a pile of dung. A rally at the US-Canada border by Storm Alliance on July 1st and a proposed anti-immigration demonstration at the Olympic Stadium on August 6th were both derailed by anti-fascist and migrant justice organizers, but the leaders of Storm Alliance have promised to do more actions at the border in the coming weeks, and La Meute called for a “mass demonstration” in Québec City on August 20th. Bizarrely, for a group whose base is strongly Québec nationalist, this demonstration would march behind a Canadian flag and was dressed up as a show of support for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). Their twisted reasoning is that the refugee claimants are “illegal” and that the police should enforce the law. This, of course, makes absolutely no sense, since the irregular refugee claimants actually hand themselves over to the RCMP as soon as they cross the border, in order to be processed by the Canada Border Services Agency and get their refugee claim going. Their crossings are in no way illegal or even clandestine.

So, the whole premise of the August 20th demonstration was clearly a sham to disguise La Meute’s xenophobic program and blatant racism.

Action Report

Upon hearing of La Meute’s plan to rally and march in the capital, anti-racist and anti-fascist organizers in Québec City, Montréal and other regions scrambled to organize a counter-protest within a couple of weeks.

Québec City organizers called for a mass peaceful protest along non-violent lines, whereas the newly created network Montréal Antifasciste and allies mobilized anti-fascist forces with an implicit respect for a diversity of tactics. Three busses were chartered to bring people in from Montréal, and several more made the 2-hour drive independently in the morning. In all, Montréal mobilized between 150 and 200 people to Québec City.

La Meute had warned that they would announce their gathering point on their “secret” Facebook page only 24 hours before the rally. Rumours had circulated that they would try to march from City Hall to the National Assembly, so the counter-protest was set to start from Place D’Youville, a public square located roughly mid-way between these two points.

However, La Meute’s actual gathering spot had been leaked beforehand: they were to meet in the underground parking garage of a government building located directly behind the National Assembly, and would march out of there in formation as a glorious phalanx.

That, as it turned out, was not going to happen.

La Meute’s leadership and rank-and-file confined to an underground parking garage, Québec City, August 20th, 2017.

This choice of meeting place was obviously a hare-brained idea, one that Montréal anti-fascists would quickly turn to their strategic advantage. Rather than disembark at Place D’Youville, they prepared for a quick deployment right at the spot where La Meute had planned to gather. At 12:30PM exactly, the three busloads of anti-fascist and anti-racist activists disembarked and stormed the (only) garage door of the large building, taking everybody by surprise, including the Québec City police, who scrambled to half-assedly deploy a line of riot cops to stop the advancing militants. Too little, too late, as the terrain was already occupied and the garage door completely blocked by anti-fascists.

The large counter-protest was not set to leave Place D’Youville before 1PM, however, so blocking off all access and entry points to that giant building posed a major challenge, especially considering that very minimal scouting had been conducted prior to the busses’ arrival. Two scenarios were possible at that time: 1) hold on to that strong position and wait for reinforcements from the larger group of counter-protesters in order to re-deploy some of the militants to the other side of the building to prevent the La Meute members from even gathering inside, or 2) re-deploy immediately, thereby cutting the group of about 150 people in half and making both groups significantly more vulnerable to police tactics. It was chosen to wait for reinforcements, which turned out to be a tactical mistake.

Several calls were made for the QC crew to dispatch people to back up the blockade, and to go directly to the other side of the building. Unfortunately, the QC comrades either did not comprehend the urgency of the situation, or felt that it would not be safe to do that. Moreover, they waited a full hour to leave Place D’Youville (which was about 7 minutes away on foot), and rather than come directly to support the blockade or deploy strategically around the building, stuck to their original plan and marched to the National Assembly, which by that point did not make much sense, as La Meute was effectively confined inside the parking garage. The two dozen or so protesters who did respond to our direct call for backup did not form a large enough bloc to grow our ranks significantly.

This proved to be a major strategic error, because between 12:30 and 1PM, La Meute members were able to trickle in through the other main entrance, only meters from where the anti-fascists were holding it down, on the other side of the riot cops’ line, and gather inside. That is how they managed to build up a crowd of 200-300.

Nonetheless, during that period of hesitation, the initiative was taken to hand out black t-shirts to the crowd, asking if people wanted to don a mask and showing how to put them on, for those who came a bit unprepared but recognize the importance of maintaining their anonymity – all 50 masks were taken within minutes.

When a large splinter from the larger counter-protest finally made its way to the location of the blockade, the black bloc led a contingent of about 250 people around the building to try and block the other main entrance, both to prevent more La Meute members from entering, and to prevent their protest from getting out, thereby completing the siege. Roughly half of the counter-protesters remained behind to block the garage exit for the duration.

However, as soon as the splinter contingent arrived near the entrance on the other side, a physical altercation occurred between anti-fascists and La Meute sympathizers, prompting the riot cops to use tear gas and batons against the antifas. This quickly degenerated, as some in the bloc had come prepared to defend the crowd from the pigs with fireworks, smoke flares and other projectiles.

Following this deployment failure and set back, militants scrambled to find a plan B, and during this period, scuffles broke out between bloc members and some journalists, who were being their usual dickheads. The cameraman from Global TV had his camera totalled. (This was not without consequence, as the media coverage of the counter-protest would turn out to be even more horrible than usual. The mainstream media’s complicity with police and the state’s repressive apparatus should not be understated. There are countless instances where the media have readily released footage to the police as evidence to charge anti-fascists. This is why many of us feel it is totally warranted to chase them away and damage their tools when they refuse to get out of our faces.)

It was then decided to walk to nearby Grande Allée, a major tourist strip lined with bars and restaurants, to try and circle around to the building where La Meute was holed up and make another attempt at blocking the entry point. A dumpster was grabbed from an alley and brought to the front. By that point, the larger contingent was still following the black bloc. Some chairs were then grabbed from terraces in a rushed attempt to build a barricade at the corner of a side street, along with the contents of the dumpster. Projectiles were also hurled in the direction of a few soft-target traffic cops who were some distance away. This, in our opinion, was a tactical mistake, because there was nothing to be gained from it at that particular time. In retrospect, the dumpster should have been kept longer and not used at that location, where it didn’t serve an immediate purpose, as the traffic cops did not pose an immediate threat. Also, the net result of this show of militant chaos was that it scared off the larger contingent of counter-protesters, who stopped in their tracks, not knowing what to make of it all. This set back the black bloc, as well, because it was no longer able to mobilize the critical mass that had been following it earlier. At that point, we lost the opportunity to circle back to the target location. Anecdotally, a journalist from the daily newspaper Le Soleil was shoved face first into the pavement after he thought it would be a heroic and smart move to pull down the mask of a comrade. He learned very quickly that that was, in fact, a terrible idea.

After a substantial and frankly annoying period of uncertainty, the bloc turned toward the Plaines d’Abraham, which was an odd choice, in hindsight a result of the militants’ lack of familiarity with the city. After circling back to Grande Allée, comrades spotted a group of protesters in the distance carrying Québec and Mouvement de libération nationale du Québec (MLNQ) flags. (MLNQ is a far right nationalist organization passed its heyday, and its flag is adapted from the historic Québec “Patriots’ flag”.) Comrades started chasing this small group away toward Old Québec. In some videos circulated by alternative media, we can see that one member of this group, a man in his fifties, was attacked by anti-fascists after he swung a pole in their direction. This, in our opinion, was an over-the-top aggression on a man who we have no reason to believe was an actual fascist or Nazi. This man was immediately treated by black bloc medics.

Following this incident, the contingent regrouped with some difficulty and circled back around the parliament building to join up again with the other half of the counter-protest that had remained at the garage door to maintain the blockade. That group had held strong by enthusiastically chanting, dancing, chasing away right-wingers and trolling any of La Meute’s leaders or (in)security dudes who dared to poke their heads out of the hole.

A short while later, Montréal anti-racist activist Jaggi Singh, who had been entertaining the crowd with a small megaphone and portable sound system for several hours, was violently arrested by riot cops after he refused to disperse. He was detained and released across town 30 minutes later, without charges.

After that, as the crowd had somewhat thinned out, the police declared the counter-protest illegal and finally made a power play to clear out the garage entry. They pushed everyone onto René-Lévesque Street, pepper spraying numerous people in the process, after which point the counter protest just sort of petered out, as the critical mass of Montrealers had to go back to catch their chartered busses. One crucial piece of information was later revealed: It turned out that Québec police had been harassing one of the bus drivers for hours, pestering him with questions about the protesters and their plans. It is more than likely that the driver told the police that the busses were scheduled to leave the city around 5:30PM, and that that information was relayed to La Meute’s leadership, who then chose to wait out the chaos rather than give up and disband. It must be said that throughout all of this, the police collaborated with La Meute like true BFFs.

Around 6 o’clock, as the busses to Montréal were leaving the city, La Meute finally came out of their hole. From the videos and photos available, its members were visibly shaken by the ordeal they had just experienced, they were exhausted from waiting so long in a hot garage, their numbers were possibly only a fraction of what they would have been if left unopposed, and their leaders were obviously extremely upset. They marched for about a half hour, in silence, flanked by police the whole way, looking gloomy and miserable.

Fallout

As has been pointed out elsewhere, the only way La Meute could claim this epic fiasco as a victory was if the media handed them the victory. And of course that’s what the media did, with great fervour. La Meute’s leaders are spinning the whole affair as a clash between law and order on their side, and chaos on our side. And the media is eagerly swallowing this narrative whole and making it the official story.

Let’s be clear: despite a few over-the-top violent incidents and some tactical mistakes on our part, that clash was a major failure for La Meute and generally a success for the anti-fascists.

Liberals and the media seem to be irremediably stuck in the circular logic of a so-called PR battle. Newsflash: anti-fascists are not fighting the far-right and the fascists to win PR points. It’s not a fucking popularity contest, folks. We are doing it because there can be no platform for hate speech. Period. It’s not always going to be pretty, mistakes will be made, and lessons will be learned and applied. But we can guarantee one thing: the fight against fascism is never going to be a strictly non-violent one. That is simply delusional, and the sooner people realize that, the sooner we can move on to building a mass anti-fascist movement. Besides, if one actually believes the argument that a few isolated violent incidents delegitimizes the entire anti-racist cause, a line repeated ad nauseam by liberal analysts and media parrots, one clearly has not fully grasped the importance of that cause.

Groups like La Meute might pretend they are not violent, but they adhere to varying degrees to a White Supremacist point of view, which is inherently violent. A huge number of their members flirt with openly fascist groups and express violent racist sentiments online, ALL THE FUCKING TIME. Their leaders promote xenophobic, and specifically Islamophobic, rhetoric, which is a supremely violent thing to do in a city where not even seven months ago, a right wing fanatic murdered six practicing Muslims who were doing nothing more than praying in the privacy of a mosque.

That is why we cannot let them grow and take any space in our communities. By all means necessary. Does that mean that every single action that was carried on our side was good? No, of course not. We ALWAYS need to be self-critical and acknowledge our own shit, too.

(For more on the delusional and counter-productive nature of dogmatic non-violence, read the seminal How Nonviolence Protects the State, by Peter Gelderloos.)

Some lessons

  • We need to better define our objectives. It seemed like the Montréal-based and Québec City-based mobilizations may have had different objectives. We need to better communicate our respective intentions in the future, as it is absolutely certain that we are going to have to coordinate inter-regionally in the near future. Also, within the radical anti-fascist milieu, between different affinity groups, we need to better define specific goals for specific actions.
  • We need to better define our enemies. La Meute are not Nazis. It is frankly embarrassing that some on our side seem unable to differentiate between some incoherent far right populist group with no clear political program, like La Meute, and a full-on neo-Nazi outfit like Atalante or neo-fascist pressure groups like la Fédération des Québécois de souche or Horizon Québec Actuel. Of course they are all our enemies ideologically, but we must know them better for what they truly are if we are to defeat them.
  • Proceeding from this, we need to do better at choosing the targets of physical aggression. Few people would cry about a neo-Nazi bonehead getting his faced rearranged. Not so much so with your uncle Jerry from Amqui, who’s a bit on the racist side but wouldn’t hurt a fly. It’s important to make racists afraid again (and I think we can check that box after last Sunday…), but let’s not overburden our already strained public health system.
  • There is a long-standing organizational divide between Montréal and Québec City, one that re-emerges periodically. Montréal’s activist community is much more militant, both in tone and practice, including in its approach to fascists and far-right organizing. Our position is that the militant side of things needs to be developed everywhere where the right-wing is gaining momentum. On the other hand, there are certainly aspects of other people’s contexts that we in Montréal need to learn more about, and take into account better. Maybe capacity building and skill-sharing could also be developed and reinforced between regions, always in a manner respectful of differences (that’s sometimes the difficult part).
  • We need to fight and deconstruct the liberal narrative that all violence is equally bad. That’s just some complacent, ignorant, ahistorical, bullshit. We also need to challenge the media at every opportunity on this, because as long as we let them, this is always going to be their default narrative.

 

¡No pasarán!
— Some Montréal anti-fascists

 

Denouncing violence

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Aug 252017
 

From Céline Hequet, translation by MTL Counter-info

I was not at the counter-demonstration last Sunday in Québec City, but the media wave that followed it has made want to double-lock the doors and let copies of Le Devoir accumulate on the front steps until a winter storm takes them. By force.

In effect, on all platforms, politicians were quick to do their favourite thing, namely to denounce “violence”, a term deployed so often that we don’t know much about what it really even means. What violence? That of the police? Of those who throw things in the streets? Of those who think that some people deserve more than others to live in wealthy countries?

In the case of certain elected representatives, one even wonders if they hadn’t had their Facebook accounts hacked, or whether to see this all as a betrayal of the people who originally put them on the road to fame. We know what it takes to be politically correct; it is about the same thing as it takes to become the most annoying of career politicians. And it’s not like that we’re going to change Québec.

Yes, like others, I saw the images of the guy who the antifascist militants handled a bit roughly, while he affirmed to the camera that he was there to demonstrate with them. I recall that the individual reported other people to the police that he determined to have been insufficiently peaceful.

Was he truly a sympathizer for the counter-demonstration or did he, on the contrary, come precisely so he could undermine it? There is doubt. But it’s true, we should not strike at people without making sure beforehand that they are indeed Nazis.

I could criticize the far left militants. However, when I see the last 100 years of history in the West, I know who is to be found on the right side. And in 50 years, it isn’t three broken chairs and a bleeding nose that we recount to students, but two world wars and the death camps.

So no, when I am asked to denounced the violence of my comrades – of those who were able to see live the Nazi salute that, only on video, had the same effect on me as a punch to the stomach – I cannot accept it. I have the impression that I’m being asked to hit the finger that’s pointing at the fire.

The violence comes from those on the extreme right that, were they coherent with themselves, would self-deport to Europe. Y’all don’t have any more right to be here than anyone else, other than indigenous folks. Go back to where you come from, we don’t want ya anymore.

The violence comes from the members of La Meute who lick the boots of the SPVQ because they know very well that, in their neighbourhood, the cops are already doing the dirty job of profiling for them.

The violence comes from Jean-François Lisée who, plagiarizing Trump on Charlottesville, dared to tweet : «Manifs à Québec: la violence, les masques, c’est pas une façon de s’exprimer. Peu importe son opinion. Point final. #polqc» [Demos in Quebec: violence, masks, it’s not a form of expression. No matter your opinion. Period.”], as if there had been two equally wrong sides.

The violence from the cops who shoot tear gas at demonstrators at close range because they did not have enough with taking one of our friends’ eyes in 2012.

The violence comes from the terrorists who place bombs in mosques of people who live here.

The violence comes from Atalante, who want to see people return to live in countries where their lives are threatened.

So, responsibly, because I am familiar with the big issues hiding behind the media uproar and the sensational images, all I can say is: solidarity with the antifascists! And a warm welcome to the refugees.

No face, no case: in defence of smashing corporate media cameras

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Aug 242017
 

Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info
Download for print here

During the anti-fascist mobilization against the racist far-right in Quebec city on Sunday, a Global News camera was destroyed by black bloc participants [1. Unfamiliar with the black bloc tactic? See ‘What is a black bloc?‘]. Afterwards, an anti-racist in the crowd was overheard asking his friend “I understand attacking the fascists, and even the police who protect them, but journalists?”

We’d like to offer an explanation for why this happened, and why it will continue to be a necessity in demonstrations where people will be breaking the law.

Sometimes, it is necessary to go against what the mainstream considers “acceptable”, to break the law in order to do the ethical thing. Those who mask up to fight the racist far-right have decided, at great personal risk, that they will use any means necessary to shut down fascist organizing. Many of us believe that the entire system needs to be abolished, that the laws are oppressive, or that those who make the laws are responsible for a serious and urgent problem; whether that’s the destruction of our planet, the hundreds of thousands of home foreclosures, murders carried out by police with impunity, etc.

Every photograph that is taken of people wearing masks or doing illegal actions becomes evidence that can be used for repression. Police routinely use footage from demonstrations found on social and independent media to criminally charge people and put them in cages. To make demonstrations safer for those who are already putting themselves at great risk, we need to make our demonstrations camera-free zones (at least in the sections of the demonstration with masked participants).

First off, discourage people from filming or taking pictures during a protest, and explain how it is harmful. Often, people take pictures without thinking, and later get themselves or their friends in trouble. Other people who are filming are corporate journalists or “good citizens” who later hand over the information to the cops.

Trusted movement media is an exception to the ‘camera-free zone’, as they have built trust with participants in the black bloc by consistently blurring masked faces, and not filming any criminalized actions.

Corporate media, on the other hand, exist to propagate and reaffirm a capitalist worldview, and regularly hand over their footage to police without even waiting for a court order. On Sunday in Quebec City, a CTV journalist was told not to film people with masks, to which he replied that he had every right to (which, according to the State’s laws, he indeed does). When he was given a final warning that if he continued his camera would be smashed, he walked over to the police to point us out, and later ripped off the mask of a comrade (which he paid for with a sore face the next day).

The corporate media has always furthered the interests of the class that provides its funding. Anyone who has ever been subjected to their coverage knows it’s biased. The strategy of positive mass media attention is extremely short-sighted – these institutions will never be our allies, as long as we want to challenge power structures in a meaningful way. Any message we try to communicate through corporate media will always be reframed in order to keep liberalism intact.

Those who decide that we need to fight back are already up against fascist thugs and the weaponized police who protect them – we don’t need yet another enemy putting our safety at risk. Although corporate media can be told not to film people in masks, they’ll often continue to sneakily film from a distance, because they have no respect for our struggles. Last Sunday, several antifascists came equipped with water-guns full of black paint to spray in the faces of fascists. Using similar tactics to blind the lenses of corporate media cameras, or even plain-old spray paint, will come in handy in the future.

Demonstrations need to be participatory. If everyone has a camera in their hands, they become another alienated spectator. People go out into the streets to change the world precisely because they’re sick of watching it on TV, and watching how the powerful are constantly changing it for the worse. Street demonstrations need to be spaces of participation, creation, and destruction, not stages for the media and traps for police surveillance.

Several tips for safer blocs

The Quebec police have announced that they will be making future arrests based on video surveillance. Although we don’t want to bolster paranoia, because maybe this is an empty threat, it serves as an opportunity to remember some helpful pointers for wearing masks.

Why wear a mask? It allows us to take action without fear of immediate identification. The more people are masked, the harder it is for the authorities to isolate or identify a part of the crowd. You can wear a mask to protect your identity, or simply to protest against constant surveillance. Developing a practice of masking at demonstrations opens up space for participation in actions for people who would otherwise be risking legal status, immigration status, or employment. It is best to go with friends who can watch your back, to be aware of where the police are, and to be mindful of your surroundings so you can pick the best moment to mask up and unmask.

Don’t be casual about taking off your mask or partially opening up your disguise. Decide wisely when to go into anonymous mode and when (and where) to come out of it. Don’t go halfway. If the cops can find a picture of you with the exact same clothes and shoes, with a mask and without, all your careful disguising will be wasted.

Even if we get away, the police may use photos or video to charge us later. It’s best to cover your hair, face, arms, tattoos, and hands. Make sure that there are no identifying features on your clothes, shoes, or backpack. It’s a good idea to change several pieces of your outer clothing or even your shoes (for instance, bring a light jumper, track pants, or a rain poncho you can throw away). Don’t forget to cover, disguise, or ditch whatever backpack or bag you may bring. Shoes can be covered with black socks. Cloth gloves are best because they don’t transfer fingerprints, unlike plastic gloves. If we bring any materials with us, let’s wipe them down beforehand with rubbing alcohol to remove fingerprints. And most importantly, be sure that when you are masking or unmasking, you are not being filmed!

To read more about safety in a confrontational protest, see the How-to page at MTL Counter-information.

Guidelines for movement media:

Be in solidarity:

  • Don’t start recording until the demonstration has been moving for at least 20 minutes, to give everyone who wants to put on a mask a chance to.
  • Don’t record people doing criminalized actions (like breaking windows, graffiti, throwing projectiles, building barricades, etc). Don’t film the attackers themselves, only the attackers’ targets.
  • If someone is wearing a mask, don’t film them. They are wearing a mask for a reason and your footage can still identify them by other clothing items or their facial features. The only exception to this is if you have built relationships of trust with people wearing masks, and they’re asking you to be there because they know you’re on their side.
  • Before publishing videos and photos, always blur faces. Check out this tutorial if you’re not sure how.
  • Don’t live-stream. The police will be able to save your footage for evidence immediately. If you capture something incriminating, you won’t have a chance to edit it out.

Further reading on anarchists and the media

Caught in the Web of Deception: Anarchists and the Media
“Cops, Pigs, Journalists”: To Inform, To Obey
The Reasons for a Hostility – About the Mass Media

Interview with Gary Metallic, Sr.: We support the blockade and I think a lot of our people support it too

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Aug 162017
 

Video by Ni Québec, ni Canada, transcribed by MTL Counter-info

Call for Supporters from Gary Metallic here

Gary Metallic: My name is Gary Metallic. I’m the District Chief of the Gespegawagi Overseers Tribal Council.

Frank Sorby: And I’m Frank Sorby, subchief of Gespegawagi Tribal Council.

Ni Quebec Ni Canada: We’re here to talk about what’s going on around the Junex company, Galt projects and the blockade. What do you think about what’s going on?

GM: What do we think? From what we’ve heard, we support the blockade, and I think a lot of our people support it. We don’t want oil or fracking exploration or extraction being done on our territory because it’s going to hurt the environment, water, wildlife and so forth.

FS: Basically, you said it all.

NQNC: What do you think about all those people who want to be in relation to Mi’gmaq people and fight together against this project that is devastating the land?

GM: I think we have to form those alliances because, as we spoke about earlier, it’s okay to have protests and blockades but that alone will not be enough to stop whatever governments and mining, gas, oil, or fracking are trying to do. They have the courts at their service and it’s just a matter of time before they’re dismantled. But we have to form the alliance that we talked about, where our legal defence in Aboriginal title claim is combined with what your people are trying to do over there. When we put the two together, it would be, I think, very hard for Quebec to challenge Aboriginal title.

NQNC: What do you think of this resurgence of settlers who want to make links of solidarity and struggle with indigenous people, in this case with Mi’gmaq people, in different ways and on different fronts?

GM: Well our position has always been, as the 7th District Tribal Council, we have to co-exist. No one’s going anywhere. We’ve lived together several hundred years. May have not been the most peaceful relationship, but right now the way things are going, governments and corporate raiders are destroying our lands and resources, and environment. And it’s time for the people to stop them. And the only way to do it is to form these alliances, whether it’s Mi’gmaq, French, Acadian, English, this is the only way that our voices will be heard.

NQNC: What did you think about the reaction of Manon Jeannotte, the band-council chief of Gespeg?

GM: It’s a typical reaction from a band-council, especially if they are doing business with governments and oil and gas companies. I think that’s what we have here in the district, that’s the relationship that has existed since, I believe, 2005. And just her statement alone, saying that if we did oppose what’s happening in the oil extraction or gas by Junex or Squatex, they would meet face to face. But they’ve already been meeting face to face for almost a decade. And I don’t think they have any intentions of opposing what’s going on, based on her statement.

NQNC: What should be done right now?

GM: Right now, as I mentioned earlier, the alliances have to be formed, together with the people who are at the site, and our traditional Tribal District governments. We have the means to provide the legal and constitutional arguments that this land still belongs to us. Quebec had no business or no history giving any licenses to anybody without our consent, so what we do is challenge them on that. And I think bringing up this Aboriginal title land claim, with the constitutional arguments that go with it, that it’s still unceded Mi’gmaq lands, we will get their attention for sure.

NQNC: Why do you think that a lot of environmental groups, mostly settlers, don’t understand the relationship between capitalism and the band-councils? Like they don’t take this into consideration when they speak about relations with indigenous people. This makes a lot of people mixed up and surprised about band-councils signing agreements with companies, or just supporting, or just not resisting or whatever…

GM: Well that’s a big problem, because even we have that amongst ourselves. Our own people don’t understand it. Because of these back room, closed-door negotiations with governments and oil and gas companies, we don’t know what’s going on. But we as the traditional district government know that the relationship is not legitimate. Because there is a definition of band-councils and the traditional ancestral governing systems. And that means that traditional ancestral systems were here long before the band-councils were created in 1876. And therefore, the band-councils are only a federal entity, actually one entity negotiating itself for land claims and rights. And that’s the key. Our defence for court purposes, is that specifically points that out. And to add to that, we also have that clause for co-existence with non-native settlers, that this can be done easily. As I said, we’ve lived together for over a century.

NQNC: Outside of this situation, and more largely, what do you think we can build as a relation in more concrete ways, to build better relations between indigenous and non-indigenous people?

GM: Better relations, I think there is one common factor that will bind us all together. Mother Earth and the resources have to be protected. Because if you look around the globe and what’s happening, global warming and so forth, water being contaminated like in North Dakota. If water is contaminated, water provides life to everyone, humans and species. Now if we don’t protect that, if we can’t do that as human beings, well what’s going to happen?

And the other reason why we have to form these alliances and co-exist is our governments, whether federal or provincial, have done a terrible job of managing our lands and resources, as we can see today. The result of it is global warming. We have scientists saying that if this doesn’t stop, the use of fossil fuels, mankind will just disappear, almost like the dinosaurs. But nobody is listening. So the alliances between our people have to be formed, to take that authority back from these governments that have abused the authority that was given to them. Either by your system, the voting system, and our people have to now assert that aboriginal title, and take that back as well. And that’s where the co-existence will come in.

Preparing the Soil: Grassroots Environmentalism in Gaspesie, Canada (with August 2017 Update)

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Aug 102017
 

Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info

On August 7, militant ecologists established a hard blockade at the entrance to the Galt Site on Mi’kmaq territory near Gaspé. This is a highly strategic action, timed several weeks before Junex is slated to begin unconventional horizontal drilling, and just after it was announced that their government cronies will be hooking their pals at Junex up with a cool 8.4 million taxpayer dollars. Because of widespread opposition to fracking in so-called Quebec and the Maritimes, and the fact that Junex is a junior company propped up by government hand-outs, we believe that this is a highly winnable fight.

This is a hard blockade which the militants are prepared to forcibly defend and as such represents a stark escalation in ecological resistance in our bioregion. What happens in the next two weeks is critical. It is imperative that we stop the industry from getting a hold in Gaspesie, and now is the time to do it.

The following article was published in the Earth First! Journal in the Litha/Summer, 2016 issue, and is reposted here to provide context to anglophones about the years-long struggle against the fledgling oil and gas industry in Northern Mikmaki, a struggle that has garnered little attention outside of so-called Quebec.

Stayed tuned for more information, and if it makes sense for you, start making plans to get yer asses to the front-lines!

Preparing the Soil: Grassroots Environmentalism in Gaspesie

When I first traveled to Gaspé—a city at the tip of the Gaspé Peninsula in eastern Quebec—I was deeply taken with the magnificence of the terrain. It’s a land where the elemental power of nature makes its presence felt. If you’ve been to Gaspé, you likely know what I mean. If you haven’t, but have only heard of it from people who have been, chances are you’ve felt the enchantment of this place even then, because those who describe their experiences of Gaspé easily fall into a tone of voice and manner of speaking reminiscent of someone recalling a beautiful dream.

For the past few years, folks in eastern Quebec have been doggedly organizing against a slew of major industrial projects that have largely escaped the notice of the non-francophone environmentalist movement. For this reason, I decided to go to Gaspé to investigate the plans for industrialization, as well as the resistance to it.

For decades, there has been exploration for oil and gas in Quebec. The province has somewhat of a unique relationship to oil and gas resources, because separatists there have always wanted to keep control over natural resources for their imagined future nation-state. Nationalists in Quebec up until the present continue to tout “energy independence” as a reason to exploit oil and gas resources.

Oil and gas used to be provincially managed, but there was a big boom of selling leases in 2007, and that’s when a lot of the current players got in the game. The two biggest companies are Petrolia and Junex, which were formed with the help of people who had previously worked for the province.

Petrolia and Junex have now completed test drilling, and both are ready to go into production. They say that they are going to do conventional drilling; activists say that they’re going to have to frack in order for it to be profitable.

A few years ago, the anti-shale gas movement in Quebec was huge. At the height of it, there were over 100,000 people in the streets of Montreal. This paved the way for other mobilizations related to environmental issues. The movement evolved into hundreds of citizen committees organized in regional networks, and then in a provincial network, called Reseau Vigilance Hydrocarbure Quebec.

When the Parti Québécois government of Pauline Marois came to power, all permits to frack were suspended and a moratorium was announced, though never actually made legally binding. Eight days before the Marois government lost the election, the Province of Quebec signed a massive deal with Petrolia.

Last year, Quebec received $10 billion in federal transfer payments, which largely came from Alberta oil money. When the 2017 budget gets made, all that money will be gone, and all of a sudden politicians from coast to coast are going to be rushing to do what Canada has always done to make money, and that’s pillage the land.

In addition to the plans to drill for oil in Gaspé, there have also been a flurry of announcements pertaining to Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) in Quebec. This is probably because the process of liquefaction involves super-chilling gas to extremely low temperatures, requiring massive amounts of electricity, which is significantly cheaper in Quebec than elsewhere.

Currently, a company called Tugliq is evaluating different possible routes for a gas pipeline to connect the Bourque gas well in Murdochville to Gaspé, a distance of 58 kilometers (36 miles). This gas liquefaction plant would be located in a barge anchored in the Gaspé harbour. The plan is to then use smaller vessels to transport the LNG to the north shore of the St. Lawrence River, where it would be used as a replacement fuel for diesel. Because natural gas is cleaner-burning than diesel, the government is presenting this as a green energy “transition” fuel.

Tache D’huile

When I came to Gaspesie to research this story, one of the things that I was most curious about was Tache d’Huile (oil stain.) The group was started about three years ago to combat proposed oil and gas drilling. They put out an impressive amount of super high quality media, such as short films, and they have a well-produced regular news video-cast (called “La Breche”) that compiles news about environmental issues with a focus on eastern Quebec.

I spent a week living and working with Maude. Maude is an anarchist from Montréal who has been organizing for over 20 years. We both got involved in activism through punk rock. A few years ago, Maude moved to Gaspé, soon to discover that over 80 percent of the peninsula had been leased to oil and gas companies. She now spends the better part of her waking hours working at her desk in the war room of Tache d’Huile, an insulated attic of a barn on top of a mountain in Gaspé.

Maude is one of the founders of Tache d’Huile and is its most active member. She is paid next to nothing—just expenses, sometimes a bit more. She lives in a trailer with a small stove which requires constant stoking through the long and cold winter. To save on fuel, she cooked the next day’s supper on the wood stove while we talked about our dreams, ambitions, and frustrations.

Anon: Why does Tache d’Huile exist? What is your purpose?

Maude: The common core was about drinking water. In Gaspé you can still drink water out of most of the rivers. It’s not an area that’s very industrialized. Hunting and fishing and these kinds of activities are really central to the culture here. And because of different economic situations, there are less people living here than there used to be. No one really comes to Gaspé and says, “Hey, I’m going to make a bunch of money here.” People who choose to stay and live here appreciate the quality of its environment.

We have a specific concern for Mi’kmaq concerns, because this is Mi’kmaq land. We’ve been working towards creating relationships which didn’t really exist very much before.

[Tache d’Huile] was also organized on the peninsula-level, because Gaspé is Crown land. It’s called “non-organized territory,” which means it’s in no one’s backyard.

We have a big stance against fracking. They say that it’s going to be conventional drilling, but sometimes they admit that they might frack. Basically, after the movement against fracking succeeded, they said, “Well if you won’t let us frack down there, then you at least gotta let us drill in the woods!”

A: Could you tell me about Gaspé?

M: Fishing has been the main industry, and the fishermen had huge families. The relationship between the bosses and the workers and their families could best be described as slavery… There’s been quite a few revolts—with people looting the company store—which were calmed down by the Canadian army. Gaspé was highly affected by the collapse of cod stocks, but fishing is still very much present here.

There has been some forest industry, and some mines, following a boom-and-bust cycle. The whole region is pretty dependent on tourism because it’s beautiful. There’s huge unemployment, high rates of illiteracy, really strong culture, strong accents, and lots of autonomous cultural activities. There are lots of Acadians, and you can see it in the flags, you can hear it in the language, poetry, stories, and songs.

Historically, there has been a big pressure to avoid alliances between Mi’kmaq and Acadian and French people, because the English Empire feared the power of this alliance. So it was actually forbidden for people to hang out. The Mi’kmaq people in Gaspé are trained in English, as part of a deliberate historical effort to separate them culturally from their neighbors, and that gulf still exists.

There are three Mi’kmaq communities, two of which are reserves—Gesgapegiag and Listikuj—so about 5,000 or 6,000 of Gaspé‘s population of 80,000 are Mi’kmaq. They’re really involved in salmon fishing, which they had to really fight for.

A: Could you tell me a bit more about the back to the land movement in Gaspé?

M: There are a few intentional communities already on the peninsula and also some really interesting community projects. There’s a lot of intentionality here because there’s no incentive to inhabit here other than the intention to live closer to nature.

There used to be an impression that we couldn’t do agriculture here, but that’s turned out to not really be true. There are some things that won’t grow here, but there’s been a lot of innovation.

It’s trying to figure itself out. It’s more of an intuition, a call. It’s not super-articulated. But the notion of the territory, the beauty, the cleanliness, is really something that we hear from people. Quite a few people who grew up here left and are coming back because they just need to breathe the ocean, they just need to breathe the bay, the salty air, the mountain…

A: What are the goals of Tache d’Huile? What strategies and tactics do you use to achieve these goals?

M: The goal is the integrity and health of the peninsula’s ecosystems and communities. That’s the goal. The main focus is hydrocarbons and the water. A lot of what we do is communication. People are spread out… The issue really wasn’t getting much attention before we began. What’s going on deep in the woods, no one really talks about. Unless we do something about it, it’s just going to go through. So we do research, hold public assemblies, produce educational materials, release press releases, and talk to the media.

We also do actions to try to get consultations and environmental assessments. This isn’t a panacea but forces the company to give a lot of information. It’s not super exciting work, but it seemed necessary to do before we could get anywhere else.

Then there were a few attempts to be more disruptive, to intervene at the offices of the companies themselves. In December 2014, Tache d’Huile supported the initiative of a camp in Gaspé, and turned out to blockade the road leading to the drilling. That was a really interesting experience. Lots of people were excited. It was hard because it was 40 degrees (Celsius) below [zero]. That’s one thing—winter is really long, and that’s one thing that we have to adapt to and figure out how to act in that context. Lots of the drilling happens in the winter.

A: What are your group’s politics?

M: People are anti-capitalist, whether or not they’d identify as such. They’re all people who are involved in alternative projects. They’re very creative… very aware of the creation of autonomy through other means. But they wouldn’t necessarily frame it in activist terms.

The transition is something that comes up a lot. The necessity for transition, not only energetic transition but also food sovereignty. Gaspé is a remote area, so we’re very vulnerable to the petroleum economy for food.

In our basis of unity, there is also an important sentence about solidarity with other struggles. We’re doing our share here as part of a global movement. We’re saying, “It’s not a good idea here, it’s not a good idea anywhere.”

A: Do you think that there exists a will in Gaspé to create a more bioregional autonomy?

Yes, this I believe in. There is a will. There is a lot of mistrust of the state, the provincial state especially because of an operation in the ’70s where they wanted to shut down a lot of villages, and a lot of people resisted. That stayed in the memories of people, that they wanted to shut them down. There is still an impression that Gaspé is disposable in the eyes of the important people of the capital.

Regional autonomy is something that has been talked about in the past. In 1997, 17,000 people gathered in an arena to decide what to do as a region. I think the spirit of the assembly was to say, “Fuck this, we’re not going to be governed by this Quebec- or Ottawa-centralized shit.” There’s water, there’s land, there’s everything to maintain healthy communities here. It’s definitely something that’s physically plausible. It’s present in the culture, it’s present in the poetry. Even though I didn’t come here to fight oil companies, and no one did, my hope is that through fighting them we’re building relationships and capacity that will help us in building autonomy.

It’s a strong intention, and it takes time, patience, and consistency. What we do doesn’t always come out as super rad, but hopefully, slowly and surely, we’ll be more people moving forward together.

A: What issues have you focused on?

M: First off, there’s oil-by-rail. In our area, the rail line goes through the Matapedia Valley, and passes on the southern shore of the Baie des Chaleurs on the New Brunswick side. So, although it’s very close to us as the crow flies, it’s in another province. It terminates at the port of Belledune, which they want to expand, which would allow the increase of the oil-by-rail traffic to a few hundred tanker cars per day.

Belledune is an area that’s already quite contaminated. A few years back, a company tried to build a toxic waste incinerator, which would have been mostly used by the US Military to get rid of toxic waste. That was fought hard by people and it sparked alliances on both sides of the Baie des Chaleurs. That campaign involved civil disobedience.

With the Megantic tragedy [when a freight train full of crude oil rolled down a hill, resulting in an explosion and fire that killed 42], people are way more sensitive to the issue of oil-by-rail, and there are different fights against it all throughout Quebec. We know that the company doesn’t have enough investors or clients to proceed. We’re pretty confident that we’re winning this fight.

For one thing, it’s Mi’kmaq territory, and the Mi’kmaq were not at all properly consulted. The Mi’kmaq on the Quebec side were not consulted at all. We didn’t know if they knew about the project or not. So we showed up at a pow-wow and asked if we could put up a table and share information. We had a big map, and we had the information about which companies had which claims on which lands… People were really curious. We did our best in English and produced some stuff in English. We met some key people. Someone invited us to a meeting of the band council, where they seemed pretty unaware of the project. Not long after that, they sued Chaleur Terminals Inc. and the province of New Brunswick.

A: When I was doing my research about industrialization in Gaspé, I was pretty astounded by the circumstances surrounding the cement plant at Port Daniel. Could you talk about that?

M: Well it’s really fucking big… It’s in a beautiful area. The people there don’t like visitors, I can tell you that much. They’ve been saying that this cement plant is a green project because it’s supposedly much more energy-efficient than other cement plants. Equiterre (the notorious Quebec NGO that got caught cutting backroom deals with tar sands tycoon Murray Edwards) has said that it’s a green project. All this despite that fact that there were no environmental hearings. There was some talk about using petroleum coke (toxic waste produced by tar sands) as fuel, as well as byproducts from the forestry industry. At the present moment it’s not clear what fuel source they’re going to be using.

The whole project required about a billion dollars of investment. Six hundred million came from the Province of Quebec, 200 million was federal, and the rest was private. It’s a really economically vulnerable area, and it’ll create a few hundred jobs.

This is Quebec—there’s a lot of corruption in government awarding construction contracts, and this is a good example of that. In the name of creating jobs, they’ve taken $800 million of taxpayer money and given it to a private corporation to build something totally unnecessary.

Actually, the company’s getting sued right now by the unions from the other cement plants, because they’re all operating below their capacity right now. They’re super pissed that this one cement plant is getting $800 million of public money and they’re getting squat.

It’s under construction now. We gave up fighting against it. We’ll still say that we think that it’s shit, but we were making too many enemies. We decided that it would be best to focus on fighting the petrol industry, which is our reason for existing.

There are 80,000 people in Gaspé. That means, if you divvied up the $800 million the government gave for this cement plant, each child, woman, and man would get ten thousand dollars. So this is the kind of bullshit that makes people resent Quebec (and Ottawa). Can you imagine if they put that money into actually useful community projects, like sustainable agriculture? The economy here would look really different really fast.

A: Some people believe that these proposed oil and gas projects (in Quebec) have more to do with corrupt politicians awarding contracts to cronies than actual plans for commercial oil and gas production. What’s your take on that theory?

M: Quite a few people believe that it’s all a sham. The most obvious argument is that it’s all government money. There’s not a lot of private investment. The state gives them money to explore, and as long as the state gives them money, they’re happy. There’s been so much exploration for decades. If there was something interesting, we’d know already. And if things are suddenly really interesting, it’s because of new technology, which is to say that they plan to frack.

The sham theory is a slippery thing. It brings us into an area where we are not experts at all. We don’t have engineers on staff. If we treat this issue as a sham, people might think “well then, we don’t have to do anything about it.” So we focus on the ecological impacts of drilling and human rights, the fact that people aren’t being given a voice in what happens in the territory that they inhabit.

A: How do you hope that Tache d’Huile develops?

M: I hope that it develops into a network of people willing to do what’s necessary for a viable future, for example, by exchanging DIY technologies and building a resilience that is rooted in the reality of the territory we inhabit. We can generate an abundance here. We can inhabit the heart of the peninsula. There’s water here, there’s everything that we need for a good life.

 

6 Reasons I Support Arson (As a Tool for Social Justice)

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Jul 182017
 

From Stones and Sticks and Words

May 18 is an important day for me. On May 18 the FFFC[1. Don’t ask me what FFFC stands for, because I don’t know.] firebombed a Royal Bank of Canada branch in a wealthy ottawa neighbourhood. One month later, on June 18, I was arrested, along with Roger Clement and one other person.

It was alleged that I had thrown the firebomb that started the fire at the RBC, and I was charged with three counts of arson to property. The charges were ultimately dropped due to a lack of evidence against me.

Roger plead guilty and was sentenced to four years for his role in the arson of the RBC and his role in a previous action against a different RBC branch.

The third person was never charged with any crime related to the arson or any attack on any RBC.

I think that the timing of the arrests was picked to coincide with the opening of the The People’s Summit, which was part of the anti-globalization protests happening in Toronto. The police and whoever else was part of the decision-making process that resulted in our arrest that day wanted the news cycle to be full of stories about the arrest, rather than about The People’s Summit.

Nothing I write here is an admission of guilt to any so-called crime.

1. It is non-violent.

I’m not an advocate of non-violence, but i support “forms of resistance which maximize respect for life and oppressed peoples’ rights[2. The quote is part of the 4th Peoples’ Global Action Hallmark]”. I’m not an advocate of non-violence, but like any right-thinking person I believe that violence should only be used as a last resort. Arson of property is not violence, as violence is only and exclusively directed towards living beings: humans, animals and plants. Arson is a non-violent option open to reasonable people who want governments and corporations to stop killing people, animals and the planet.

2. I support direct action

Direct action builds individuals’ and groups’ power and consciousness to take action to change the world themselves without leaving it to intermediaries or representatives to do for them. It nurtures people’s individual and collective ability to be determine their own lives. Direct action builds peoples’ power and their capacity to govern themselves. And direct action works. Every successful movement for real social change has used direct action as part of its strategic and tactical toolkit.

3. Building capacity and skills for resistance

Fighting the capitalist and colonial state and economic system with the goal of winning for now and forever will require learning how to break the law and get away with it. Arson, and any type of highly illegal direct action, requires that activists learn to avoid surveillance, police scrutiny, political repression, etc.

In planning and doing these actions activists will learn the skills they need in order to do them effectively and successfully, in ways that contribute to specific campaigns, and help to build movements for social justice. For example, it is essential to find a secure method for publicizing illegal actions, and a secure method to talk about them given the context of police surveillance.

4. Using up State and corporate resources

This is good for 2 reasons:

a) It forces “our” governments to spend resources targeting us rather than targeting resistance abroad. We want them to be worrying about “their” population, not helping to plunder the people of Afghanistan, Iraq, etc.

b) We want them to react to us, and we want to hurt their bottom line, both through militant direct action, and their reactions to our actions.

5. Advancing the debate

Arson and other militant direct action provide an opportunity to dialogue and debate about strategies for system change, as well as about the specific action in question. Proponents can reach out to people who aren’t certain about the necessity, utility and/or desirability of an action, and/or of militant direct action, and ought to listen carefully to their concerns.

It is also an opportunity to identify individuals and organizations opposed to militant direct action.

Finally it is also a good time to criticize those who are opposed to the use of militant direct action.

It is key to remember that dialogue, debate and even criticism is not about being self-righteous, dogmatic or rigid – remember that people’s opinions change over time, and give them the time to change their opinions.

6. I support economic disruption

Economic disruption is a tried and true method for causing corporations and governments to change their behaviour.

Infiltrated! How to prevent political police from undermining grassroots solidarity

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Jul 142017
 

From Stones and Sticks and Words

Editorial note: We republish this text because these lessons remain very relevant, especially given that the Canadian State will likely attempt to infiltrate radical communities in the lead up to the G7 in Charlevoix, QC next summer. For more resources on combating infiltration, check out Stop Hunting Sheep: A Guide to Creating Safer Networks and Stay Calm: Some tips for keeping safe in times of state repression.

On June 25, 2010, activists in Ottawa discovered that the man they knew as François Leclerc was in fact an undercover Ontario Provincial Police officer named Denis Leduc.

Leduc’s identity was revealed during the bail hearings of two people alleged to have firebombed a branch of the Royal Bank of Canada on May 18, 2010.

“The first time I met ‘François Leclerc’ … he gave the story he was there from the north,” says Jeff, a member of EXILE Infoshop, an anarchist hub for anti-capitalist organizing in Ottawa. “He was interested in Indigenous issues. He took out a book, Ward Churchill’s A Little Matter of Genocide, and he wanted to sign up for [the protest against] CANSEC,” an annual arms trade show held in Ottawa.

“He did most of the talking in our relationship […] He told very elaborate stories of whale hunting and seal hunting,” notes Jeff.

I met Leduc for the first time in 2009, when he participated as a street medic in the protest against CANSEC. He was introduced to me by two friends and members of the Indigenous Peoples’ Solidarity Movement of Ottawa (IPSMO). A short, stocky man with shoulder-length red hair, a trim beard, and an eyebrow ring, he had a thick francophone accent and dressed casually.

He was soon invited to an IPSMO organizing meeting. At the time, IPSMO was comprised of student and community activists, and it was most involved in supporting the Algonquins of Barriere Lake (ABL), who were fighting Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada to stop interfering in their governance. Leduc organized with IPSMO for over a year: he regularly attended meetings, took minutes, transported people and equipment in his van, administered the email list, helped set up and take down events, and provided legal support – mostly mundane, routine tasks.

Leduc began to befriend local activists, attend parties, and have drinks after organizing meetings. He told activists that he was married to an Inuit woman and that he was attending university. He said he had family in Montreal; he also mentioned working as a tree planter, and he frequently left Ottawa for weeks or a month at a time, supposedly to visit family or for work.

Organizing, solidarity, and the G20 summit

The ABL have been in conflict with the Quebec and federal governments for the past 25 years. Since 1991, the First Nation has demanded that both levels of government implement the Trilateral Agreement, which establishes revenue sharing and co-management of the territory. Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC), the Sûreté du Québec, and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) have all attempted to undermine the ABL’s self-determination, including in 2008, when INAC exploited a division in the ABL by imposing an election that brought to power a small faction of the community, bypassing the traditional leadership that had earned majority support. The IPSMO had supported the community, including by participating in two ABL-led blockades of Highway 117, the only highway in the area and a major artery.

IPSMO also supported Indigenous activists in opposition to the 2010 Vancouver Olympics and the G20 summit in Toronto. IPSMO was, and remains, a small grassroots collective of activists who combine Indigenous solidarity organizing with anti-capitalist and anti-oppressive politics.

In 2010, the G20 Joint Intelligence Group listed IPSMO, along with 21 other organizations, such as Defenders of the Land and the Council of Canadians, as “domestic groups of concern.” As part of the G20 Integrated Security Unit (a coalition of municipal, regional, and provincial police forces, RCMP, and Canadian Forces), police infiltrated Greenpeace, No One Is Illegal chapters, the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty, and the Southern Ontario Anarchist Resistance, among others.

In that charged political time, Leduc and another undercover officer were also core members of the Collectif du Chat Noir, the anti-authoritarian collective mobilized around the Toronto G20 summit.

Undermine and overreact

From the time he joined IPSMO until the May 18 arson, Leduc avoided encouraging violence or provoking conflict within the group.

“I don’t remember him ever suggesting, like, anything really, like any sort of violent action,” says Krishna Bera, a former IPSMO and EXILE Infoshop member.

But in retrospect, IPSMO activists recalled three incidents where he had undermined the group’s organizing.

The first was when the Olympic torch passed through Ottawa on its way to Vancouver. IPSMO activists had planned to drop a 30-foot-by-50-foot banner that read, “NO OLYMPICS ON STOLEN NATIVE LAND” off a nearby bridge. Activists had made the banner in the parking garage of Leduc’s apartment building, though Leduc himself wasn’t otherwise involved in making it, claiming that day that he had a cold. However, he did drive the activists to the bridge where they dropped the banner.

“I was doing the lookout for cops, and I spotted these two undercovers that were right at the spot that we were at. In my mind, looking back, they … had been tipped off,” says former IPSMO member Louisa Worrell. It appears that Leduc had forewarned the police, who placed undercover officers at the drop site to quickly remove the banner; they didn’t, however, arrest anyone.

In the other two instances of undermining IPSMO solidarity, Leduc had at the last minute cancelled his offers to drive people to do court support in Maniwaki and to drive to Akwesasne to meet Mohawk activists. This impeded efforts to support Indigenous and settler activists arrested during the blockade of Highway 117, and to develop relationships between IPSMO activists and the Mohawk activists in Akwesasne.

Leduc’s strategies revealed the nature of undermining solidarity work: over a longer period, he was careful to preserve his cover while he tried to exercise control over what IPSMO activists did, and he sabotaged efforts to build trust between IPSMO and the Indigenous communities of ABL and Akwesasne.

After the firebombing of the RBC, Leduc’s rhetoric escalated.

“My radar went up immediately […] He mentioned something to me to the effect of, ‘[the firebombing] was just small potatoes and you know these companies deserve a much bigger response than this. That struck me as an odd thing to say, especially to somebody that you’d just met,” says Dave Bleakney, a Canadian Union of Postal Workers activist who met Leduc once, soon after the arson.

Political policing

Since its formation in 1984, CSIS has been responsible for political policing, but all large police forces in Canada, especially the RCMP, engage in it. Indigenous people, and to a lesser extent Indigenous solidarity activists, continue to be among the top targets of this practice in Canada.

In their essay “Surveillance: Fiction or Higher Policing?” Jean-Paul Brodeur and Stéphane Leman-Langlois explain that high policing – the surveillance of political involvement – is “entirely devoted to the preservation of the political regime” as opposed to the supposed “protection of society.”

The purpose of political policing is to identify, surveil, disrupt, and control real or perceived threats to political and economic elites. Political policing is fundamentally different from “law and order” policing, which focuses on arrest and incarceration. It emphasizes intelligence gathering using both technological surveillance and infiltration. The intelligence is intended to be used only when necessary in efforts to control people and organizations considered to be a threat.

The activists I interviewed had all been surprised that Leduc was an undercover officer, either because they didn’t expect to be surveilled in the first place or because Leduc’s behaviour did not fit their expectations of an infiltrator.

This surprise likely stems from the misconception that all infiltrators act as agents provocateurs who try to manipulate activists into taking illegal, violent, unpopular, and ineffective actions. But as Gary T. Marx points out in his theory of social movement infiltration, social movements are damaged by “opposing organizational, tactical, and resource mobilization tasks.” In other words, infiltrators suppress social movements by fomenting divisions and internal conflicts, diverting energies toward defending the movement rather than pursuing broader social goals, sowing misinformation or damaging reputations, obstructing the supply of resources (money, transport, meeting spaces), or sabotaging planned actions. Many infiltrators are thus better described as agents suppressants, who are there to gather intelligence and channel groups away from militant action.

David Gilbert describes in Love and Struggle the agents suppressants in the Weather Underground Organization “who tried to put a damper on evolving movement militancy.”

“Provocateurs,” he says, “are more dramatic and damaging, but much of the Left has an anti-militant bias in not discussing the problem of suppressants at all. There is no simple litmus test to differentiate sincere militancy from provocation or honest caution from suppression.”

Incidents of provocation can be high-profile and sensational, such as undercover police posing as members of the black bloc at Montebello. This can lead activists to paint all militant action as the work of agents provocateurs, even if there is no evidence that this is true. Conversely, because of the low-profile of most agents suppressants, activists are often unaware of their role and impact in pacifying and controlling social movements.

A chilling effect

Seven years after the OPP revealed that Leduc was an infiltrator, there appear to be fewer groups and events organized around openly anti-authoritarian and anti-capitalist politics.

However, IPSMO continues to organize in support of the ABL. It took a lead role in organizing the Indigenous Solidarity Assembly at the 2014 Peoples’ Social Forum, and has supported efforts to protect the sacred Chaudière Falls and its islands from the Windmill Development Group and Dream Unlimited Corp.’s colonial and gentrifying plans to build condominiums on stolen Algonquin land.

But the fallout of the infiltration was significant. The five Ottawa activists I interviewed all said that they are now less likely to trust other activists. They described feeling paranoid, suspicious, and demoralized, but also afraid and violated, knowing that private social moments had been surveilled.

“There’s definitely a sense of invasion, especially knowing that he’d been at my house,” says one member of IPSMO.

The IPSMO activists also emphasized that distrust and paranoia are a bigger problem than infiltration. The longer-term consequences – the sense of destruction and harmed relationships with communities that we are in solidarity with – are much more difficult to bounce back from than the direct effects of the infiltration. Indeed, it seems likely that the choice to out the infiltrator was an intentional effort by the police to create a chilling effect on activism in Ottawa.

“It did sort of dampen enthusiasm in a way. People immediately started to question anybody … who’s not almost mainstream in their activism,” said Bera.

Know your enemy

The infiltration of anarchist, Indigenous solidarity, and anti-Summit organizing from 2009–2010 was part of a long-term effort by the political police to undermine anti-capitalist, Indigenous, and Indigenous solidarity organizing, with specific interest in anti-Olympic and anti-Summit organizing.

Nuanced, strategic organizing should not be hampered by these accounts. Activists can reduce the damage done by infiltrators by being principled in their actions, respectful and accountable in how they organize with others, and by keeping in mind that distrust is usually more harmful than infiltration.

Some of Leduc’s behaviour that was suspicious included his regular absences from Ottawa, his access to a vehicle, his silence about politics, and his sudden militancy after the arson. Marx, in his essay “Thoughts on a Neglected Category of Social Movement Participant: The Agent Provocateur and the Informant,” writes that other indications of infiltrators include “difficulty in reaching the person directly by phone, reluctance to discuss one’s personal past, discrepancies in biographical information, [and] extensive knowledge of weapons and self-defense.”

Police and spy agencies continue to gather intelligence and control activist groups across Canada, and officers and paid informants continue to infiltrate activist groups. They drive activists to events, take minutes, and listen attentively to plans, ideas, dreams, and conflicts. Groups that have been infiltrated have noted that there is no uniform or tidy response to the threat. Activists should understand that the political police closely monitor and even moderate political activities with the intention of gathering intelligence on so-called “subversives.” To stay safe, activists must stay informed of police literature and legislation that upholds the conditions for infiltration, and cultivate knowledge of broad organizing methods to limit the harm caused by surveillance. It’s also vital to keep in mind that one of the purposes of surveillance is to promote distrust, and that paranoia is more corrosive to organizing than infiltration. Strategies are neither neat nor foolproof, and political policing tactics are ever changing. Activists should retain their commitment to nurturing relationships with one another and between oppressed communities, but the hard truth is that they must be savvy about their collective safety.

Policing isn’t broken; it’s working for capitalist and colonial interests

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Jul 142017
 

From Stones and Sticks and Words

On July 24, 2016, Somalian refugee Abdirahman Abdi was brutally beaten to death by two Ottawa police officers.

His death caused outrage, and drew attention to the issue of police brutality towards Black people in Ottawa. Anti-Black racism, and police violence towards Black people has been one of the central political issues of the past two years. This is a short essay that analyzes policing, and some thoughts about what to do to end the violence of policing.

First, I want to acknowledge and affirm that Ottawa, and the entire Ottawa river watershed, is the stolen land of the Algonquin nation. The colonization of Ottawa, and Canada, is the backdrop of the present day fight against the violence of policing. Two hundred years ago, the Algonquin controlled the area, there was no modern police force, and everyone lived according to Algonquin law. It’s the theft of Algonquin land and the genocide of Algonquin people that makes the existence of the City of Ottawa, and the Ottawa Police Service (OPS), possible.

Settler activists in Ottawa have to ask themselves what it means to work for police accountability and transparency, as well as ending all of the violence connected to policing and prisons, when the OPS is a settler police force that enforces the settler laws of a nation and city that exist on stolen Algonquin land. More broadly, activists working to end the violence of policing have to take this colonial context into account in their organizing no matter where in Canada they are.

Law and Order Policing

Law and order policing is what most people tend to think of as “the police”. Law and order policing in principle focuses on enforcing Canadian law, although, in fact, most police officer’s time is not spent enforcing the law, preventing crime or catching criminals.

Police don’t impartially enforce Canadian law, and Canadian law is not impartial: Canadian police officers, police forces and Canadian law privilege certain groups, and oppress others. Groups that are targeted (criminalized) experience higher levels of violence, arrest and incarceration. Many different groups are targeted, including Black people, people of colour and Indigenous people, migrants, poor and working-class people, especially homeless people, street-based sex workers and drug users, people with mental health problems, as well as queer and trans people. Individuals who are members of more than one of these groups are more likely to be attacked, or arrested, or both, by the police.

There have been more than 15 reports written about anti-Black racism in Canadian police forces since the 1970s. In brief, these studies concluded that systemic anti-Black racism exists within Canadian police forces. The reports have also made many suggestions about what could be done to eliminate or mitigate the effects of anti-Black racism in Canadian police forces, but for the most part police forces have refused to implement these suggestions.

As few of the recommendations are implemented, it is only a matter of time before there is another incident of police racism and brutality, such as the murder of Abdirahman Abdi by Const. Daniel Montsion and Const. Dave Weir of the OPS.

There’s a reason that the recommendations from the reports on anti-Black racism in the criminal injustice system haven’t been implemented. Many reasons, really, but at the end of the day it’s because policing isn’t broken; it’s working for capitalist and colonial interests. The police, and the governments they work for, have been reluctant to implement reforms because police doing violence to oppressed people is, sadly, part of what the job is really about.

Political Policing

Political policing focuses on people and organizations that the Canadian state and the political police consider to be subversive and harmful to so-called national security.

Political policing prioritizes intelligence gathering, rather than arrests and incarceration, and the goal of the intelligence gathering is to be able to undermine, disrupt and control the people and organizations they target.

Political policing exists to protect political and economic elites and it attacks people, groups and organizations that these elites consider a threat. For much of Canada’s history this has meant Communists, but more recently the political police have targeted Black nationalists, migrants, and Quebec sovereigntists. Today, Muslim, Indigenous and environmental activists are particularly targeted, while the political police still continue to attack socialists, communists and anarchists.

A recent example of political policing is the RCMP’s Project SITKA. Project SITKA aims to identify members of the leadership of Indigenous resistance movements, especially those who are willing to use “tactics…outside the spectrum of peaceful and lawful demonstration”. The purpose of identifying them is, of course, to neutralize them and reduce or end their effectiveness as activists and leaders. While Project SITKA only identifies 89 individuals, hundreds, maybe thousands, of (primarily Indigenous) people were investigated.

As stated above, political policing emphasizes intelligence gathering in order to control targeted groups. An excellent example of this comes from the Project SITKA report, where the RCMP says, ““In order to be intelligence-led, the National Intelligence Coordination Centre strives to collect all available intelligence and information related to known or anticipated threats. This information is to be acquired through a wide variety of sources, including open source information, a review of police occurrence reports, and other investigative techniques.”

Organizing to End the Violence of Policing

To be effective, organizing for police accountability and an end to police brutality has to make sure not to inadvertently increase the strength of the police. For example, in the US, the police and the Prison-Industrial Complex have been greatly strengthened by liberal reforms that were in principle implemented to reduce police misconduct. More regulation and oversight of the police, rather than reducing police violence, has, in fact, aggravated the problems that liberals said it was intended to resolve.

Activists interested in ending the violence of policing have to pursue reforms that reduce and limit police power while working for strong, healthy and safe communities. They must also refuse to work with the political police in their efforts to gather intelligence on, undermine and control our communities and movements.

Ending the violence of policing is a part of broader struggles: struggles for racial and gender equity in the workplace, for accessible, quality and relevant education for all, for decent, and affordable housing for all, higher welfare rates, a living wage, good quality and culturally appropriate support for people with mental health problems, and much more.

For more information:

The Justice For Abdirahman Abdi Coalition

Naomi Murakawa & #BlackLivesMatter: Liberals, Guns and the Roots of the U.S. Prison Explosion

Gary T. Marx, Thoughts on a Neglected Category of Social Movement Participant

Jean-Paul Brodeur, High Policing and Low Policing: Remarks about the Policing of Political Activities

Jean-Paul Brodeur and Stephane Leman-Langois, Surveillance-Fiction or Higher Policing?

Jean-Paul Brodeu, The Policing Web

Steve Hewitt, Spying 101

Steve Hewitt, Snitch

Gary Kinsman (Author), Dieter K. Buse (Editor), Mercedes Steedman (Editor),  Whose National Security?

Gary Kinsman and Patrizia Gentile, The Canadian War on Queers

Tim Groves, Living among us: Activists speak out on police infiltration

Anti-Black Racism in Ottawa

POLICE OVERSIGHT REVIEW: REFORM RECOMMENDATIONS

SUBMISSION TO THE ANTI-RACISM DIRECTORATE

The RCMP’s Project SITKA

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