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

A Key La Meute Militant Founds a Neo-Nazi Organization… Then Changes His Mind a Few Hours Later

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Nov 202018
 

From Montreal Antifasciste

“Welcome to the official Blood & Honour page—the Québec division of the nationalist identitairian secular movement for a National Socialist autocracy.”

We were shocked to read this introduction to a new Facebook page that appeared on Saturday, November 3 in the early afternoon, announcing the formation of a “Québec Division” of the openly neo-Nazi “Blood & Honour”:


What is Blood & Honour?

Blood & Honour, an international neo-Nazi organization founded in the UK in 1987, takes its name from the Hitler Youth slogan Blut und Ehre, and from a song of that title by the white power band Skrewdriver. Initially rooted in the Rock Against Communism scene, Blood & Honour sections have sprung across the planet over the years. Blood and Honour remains a largely bonehead organization fully committed to neo-Nazi principles and regularly involved in violent actions.

Sometime around 2010, local sections were formed in western Canada. Their members were involved in numerous acts of aggression against people of colour and antifascists, including a particularly horrifying incident where a Filipino man sleeping on a couch outdoors in Vancouver was set on fire. Criminal proceedings and a split within the organization, followed by an antifascist hacking of the Blood & Honour website in 2012, made it possible to publish the names and addresses of members. These setbacks resulted in the group became increasingly low-key and effectively inactive for a number of years. Local sections do, however, continue to exist in British Columbia and Alberta.

The surprising formation and brief existence of a “Québec Division” of Blood & Honour is the first effort we are aware of to establish an official presence in Québec, where the Rock Against Communism scene is dominated by the Légitime Violence boneheads, the leading light of Raf Stomper/Raphaël Lévesque’s Atalante.

Who could be behind this “québec division” of Blood & Honour?

The item published on the new Facebook page was a sort of manifesto of the organization’s values. It was signed by one Michael Roch and linked to the website of the organization in the United Kingdom. The  Blood& Honour Worldwide mentions a Canadian section, but says nothing about a Québec “Division.”

The mysterious “Québec Division” Facebook page redirected us to blog that was “under construction,” administered by a certain Michael Roch’s gmail account:

A quick search led us to the only Facebook account of a Michael Roch in the “nationalist” sphere, a certain Sgn Michael (Roch). The handful of public photos that this individual posted led us to believe that he was in the military.

Only a few minutes after of the Blood & Honour—Division Québec page was initially posted, Agloolik Wolf’s Facebook account was the first among those we follow in the nationalist milieu to share it and encourage his friends to “like” it:

Who is Agloolik Wolf?

Agloolik Wolf is an active member of La Meute, photographed here sporting his La Meute sweatshirt in happier days.

Until recently Agloolik was part of La Garde, La Meute’s “elite” security unit. He is pictured below between Mario Roy (Storm Alliance and La Meute) and Steeve L’Artiss Charland (La Meute Council).

Agoolik Wolf is a very disturbing individual, who is nothing like the standard profile of a Nazi. He claims to be part of the Innu nation and has argued for an alliance of the Québécois de souche and First Nations since his earliest days in La Meute. Up to this point, we thought of him as part of the “moderate” tendency within la Meute.

Agloolik (an Inuit word) is the standard bearer for this alliance between the Québécois and First Nations in opposition to so-called illegal immigration:

This seems to be part of a public relations operation masterminded by Sylvain “Maikan” (which means “wolf” in Innu) Brouillette following his assumption of the leadership of La Meute.

This attempted alliance clearly went nowhere, given the disappointment Agloolik expressed the day after a number of First Nations members demonstrated . . . against La Meute alongside antifascists.

The recent setback for the identitarian group at the border of Kanesatake, immortalized in a video shared more than eight hundred times, couldn’t have been good for morale.

Nonetheless, Agloolik, who regularly posts live video on Facebook, has a significant following and a certain influence within La Meute. Up to this point, he has provided La Meute with a youthful “antiracist” façade, however, it only takes a bit of research to dispose of the gentleman’s somewhat innocent image.

Agloolik Wolf is really just a run-of-the-mill La Meute member—an Islamophobe and a racist.

 

Like most La Meute members, his Islamophobia is seamlessly melded with the most absurd of conspiracy theories. Here, in a discussion about “survivalism” with Monsieur Cochon Bacon, there in an exchange with Mélanie Gagné, whose racist Facebook posts were recently flagged by Xavier Camus. He clearly states that he created his Facebook page specifically to talk freely about the “dangers posed by Islam.”

He is also openly anti-feminist and transphobic, as well as sharing the crude anticommunism common among identitarian nationalists.

A quick glance at his “likes” gives us an idea of who he is. From the racist Fédération des Québécois de souche to the fascist Atalante, by way of the anti-Semitic and transphobic DMS, and a variety of other suspect interests, we arrive at sadly banal picture of a far-right, racist reactionary in Québec in 2018.

Contrary to the image he wants to project, he is unquestionably a far-right racist. Agloolik Wolf protested in the extreme when, on the evening before the La Meute’s July 1, 2018 demonstration in Montréal, a representative of the City’s public security service described La Meute as more or less Nazi.

 

By founding a Québec Division of Blood & Honour, Agloolik Wolf, alias Sgn Michael (Roch), a member La Meute’s La Garde security unit, proves that he is not that all that allergic to the neo-Nazi label.

How did we connect these two accounts to a single individual?

Quite a bit of evidence and a number of crossovers allowed us to quickly connect the two accounts to a single person and to firmly establish that this person, La Meute member Agloolik Wolf, was behind the Québec “Division” of the Nazi terrorist organization Blood & Honour.

A number of clues led us to this conclusion:

A traditionalist Innu comrade from Pessamit confirmed that the first name of the person hiding behind the pseudonym Agloolik Wolf is “Michael,” that he had been in the military, and that he had been adopted by a Québécois family.

The word “autocracy” used on the Blood & Honour—Division Québec page doesn’t appear anywhere on the official Blood & Honour website. However, it appears to be a preferred buzzword for Agloolik Wolf, who released a Facebook live video on the theme in July.

We knew that both accounts belonged to someone in the military, given the photos published and Akloolik’s statements.


The tank squad:


A charming young man:


Keeping good company:

Drifting ever rightward:

 

Among the tip-offs, Agloolik made the mistake of sharing the same photo on his two accounts:

This made it easy for to quickly ascertain that Agloolik Wolf and Michael Roch/Sgn Michael were the same person. But it doesn’t end there: these two Facebook accounts were also connected to a third that was closed some months ago: Éric Mickael Séguin.

The name Éric Mickael Séguin is also connected to the Twitter account @RicoZegow, which is currently inactive but still existent:

Everything points to Séguin being Agloolik’s actual family name; that’s the name that appears on his uniform in this photo, where he is flanked by the cop Picard (sporting the Thin Blue Line badge used by the racist Blue Lives Matter countermovement).

It seems that he is no longer in the military. In this photo, taken in June, he appears to be wearing either a nurse or orderly’s uniform:


It is difficult to determine whether his real first name is Éric or Michael, but we still have enough evidence to connect the three accounts and present a portrait of this individual: a former member of the military, perhaps an officer, an active La Meutemember, a member of the La Meute security team at demonstrations and private meetings, a member of La Garde until he resigned three weeks ago (at the time, he released a mystical-political explaining that his struggle “lies elsewhere”), influential within La Meute, and, as an Innu, a standard bearerfor Brouillette’s “politics of inclusion.”

While many of his close associates “liked” the new Blood & Honour page, there were others who questioned a La Meute member playing such a role in an openly Nazi organization.

At approximately 5:00 p.m., less than four hoursafter posting the Blood & Honour page, he closed his two Facebook pages (Agloolik Wolf andSgn Michael), the Blood & Honour—Division Québec Facebook page, and the associated blog. Unfortunately for him, we were able to grab a certain number of screenshots.

It’s possible that the La Meute Council thought that it was a less than stellar idea for one of its officers, and therefore a key member, to be promoting an openly Nazi organization that defends genocide of alleged inferior “races” for the advance of the “white race.”

What was the impact of this new page?

Among the various “likes,” we find an unsurprising collection of neo-Nazis, including Phil SoWhat (Philippe Gendron, of the Soldiers of Odin, a fascist groupuscule currently in total disarray), as well as, and perhaps more disturbingly, people of a certain age with profiles that appear banal and far removed from Nazism, including members of groups like La Meute (Rhoda Bourque, Christine Boily) and Storm Alliance (Patricia Celtic Gagnon) and simple“patriots.”

Patricia Celtic Gagnon, Veronique Bedard-Lafrance, Phil SoWhat and Rhoda Bourque like Blood & Honour

Danielle Ménard, Christine Léveillé, Hélène Paulin, Sue Sue, Boily Christine and Omer Doucet like Blood & Honour

Chantaline Lariviere, Veronique Bedard-Lafrance, Sue Sue, Yolande Ruest, Stephane Bergeron, Jonas Cheni et Joanne Verdun like the founding principles of Blood & Honour

Yolande Ruest, Stephane Bergeron, Jonas Chenil, Joanne Verdun, Andrée Lyn Filion et Jacqueline Bernier like the founding principles of Blood & Honour

This is precisely the problem with a group like La Meute, of whichAgloolik Wolf, alias Michael Roch, alias Éric MickaelSéguin, is a member: the capacity to act as an incubator and recruiting site for far more radical groups like Blood & Honour.

We already noted and denounced this phenomenon a year ago, on November 25, 2017, when Atalante and the Soldiers of Odin unfurled a nationalist banner on the ramparts in Québec City, to an enthusiastic reception from those within in the ranks of La Meuteand the Storm Alliancedemonstrating at the National Assembly that day.

The problem with these “identitarian nationalist populists” is that they facilitate contact between hundreds of members ofthe “soft” far right and far more radical organizations.

We can draw a number of conclusions:

  • A member of the Canadian army quietly climbed up the ranks of La Meute, becoming part of LaGarde, a high-level post in the organization’s security and discipline apparatus;
  • this person actively and publicly participated in La Meute’s security service, effectively a private militia, and he did so openly with his face uncovered for many months while still in the military, with absolutely no reaction from the Canadian Armed Forces, which boasts about its zero-tolerance policy;
  • this same La Meute officer attempted to found a Québec Division of the neo-Nazi organization Blood & Honour, receiving more than one hundred “likes” in the few hours it existed, many of them from La Meute members.

What we’ve uncovered raises more questions than it provides answers, and some of these questions are unsettling. Using different pseudonyms, this person presented himself as a “non-racist” La Meute member, only to go on to create a neo-Nazi website, all the while being a member of the Canadian Armed Forces and presenting himself as Indigenous. What the hell? Are we simply dealing with a confused person? Is this an intelligence operation gone wrong? These are questions to keep in mind while watching to see where this whole strange story of Agloolik/Roch/Séguin goes.

Our tawdry little tale is in the end of little immediate political consequence. There doesn’t seem like there will be a Blood&Honour—Division Québec. Nonetheless, it does allow us to question the true nature of La Meute. After all, the organization has been trying to clean up its image and regain a foothold for several months now. What this story does provide is the ultimate evidence of the need to continue to fight against La Meute, which has been a racist and Islamophobic organization from the get-go, one founded by soldiers and organized like a paramilitary militia.

EPILOGUE

As we publish this text, ten days after the events in question, the Facebook accounts of Agloolik Wolf and Michael Sgn (without the“Roch”) have reappeared. While Agloolik Wolf appears to have resumed his normal activities (regular posts about things to do with La Meute and the far right), Michael Sgn provides the key that allows us to determine that this central La Meute member and the founder of Blood&Honour—Division Québec are the same person: with his new profile photo, Michael “Roch” Séguin leaves us with no doubt that he and Agloolik Wolf are one and the same.

Bryan Trottier: the racist, misogynist leader of the English-Canada branch of La Meute

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Oct 192018
 

From Montréal-Antifasciste

In a desperate attempt to influence the recent Quebec elections, La Meute has been popping up in the last few weeks with small, decentralized actions. Though the mainstream media has been giving them far too much attention for their size, the extreme-right group’s actions haven’t gained much popular support, in stark contradiction to their leader Sylvain ”Maikan” Brouillette’s slogan: “40,000 members, 40,000 votes”.

It’s within this context that, on the 15th of September, Steeve “L’artiss” Charland (Maikan’s potential rival) led a “mobile protest” which was, in reality, simply a bunch of cars driving around with La Meute flags or stickers. The meet-up for the dozen or so La Meute members was Oka, right next to the Mohawk community of Kanesatake. Upon their arrival, members of the Kanesatake community mobilized to kick them out, subjecting them to boos and insults as they left, and in so doing, refusing to allow their community to be used in the way the extreme-right group have been attempting to use them during the past few months.

«Hey! Get out! Hey, you’re not passing by the reserve either.  Get the fuck out of here!  Get the fuck out.  And they’re not going up this way.»
– A Kanesatake resident speaking to La Meute on September 15, 2018

A video of these events has already been viewed over 50,000 times and shared hundreds of times on Facebook. Some La Meute members used the comments section of the video to spew their racist, colonial hate. A user named “Barb N Bryan Wolfe” took the prize for disgusting comments against indigenous people (image 1). These comments included: “Kanesatake needs to be quarantined,” “This is why we had to fuck you idiots up in ’90,” (referring to the Oka standoff), and calling the Mohawk community “racist Peieces (sic) of shit.”

Who exactly is “Barb N Bryan Wolfe”?

It turns out that this Facebook account is owned by Barbara Edwards (also known as Barbara Wolfe) (image 2), known for organizing an islamophobic protest in Toronto in March 2017.  Bryan Trottier is, in fact, her boyfriend. He has been using the Barb N Bryan Wolfe account to regurgitate his islamophobic hatred and to organize racist events in Ontario. Bryan Trottier is the “Commandant” of the CDN Wolfpack (image 3), the English-Canada branch of La Meute in  Ontario, which currently operates independently from La Meute in Quebec. It also turns out  that Bryan not only uses his girlfriend’s account but also fake accounts under the names of Joshephine Murphy and Zora Xeno.

(Screen capture from February 10, 2018, taken from Anti-Racist Canada)

This is far from the first example of Bryan Trottier’s disgraceful behaviour.

Bryan Trottier

 

Bryan Trottier and Barbara Edwards

Bryan Trottier

Barbara Edwards

False accusations used to spread antifeminism and misogyny

Last June, we published an article on the false accusation of sexual assault orchestrated by a right-wing troll who was using the name “ZoraXeno”. This false accusation, shared by alt-right videoblogger DMS amongst others, was rapidly debunked and denounced.  Like we said then, despicable attempts to employ anonymous accusations of sexual violence won’t keep us from believing victims and survivors in general.

In July, another fake account named “Joshephine Murphy” came out with another false accusation against a member of the pro-union and anti-fascist music group Union Thugs.

Once again, it was denounced as a completely fabricated story, while reiterating support for survivors and feminist struggles against sexual violence and sexism. (image 4-5-6)

Music group Union Thugs denounces the false accusations and the misuse of feminist struggles to undermine anti-fascist work, while expressing support for the battle against the culture of silence.

 

Music label DCHC, which was organizing a show in Ontario with Union Thugs, corrects misinformation while reiterating their support for survivors who anonymously denounce sexual violence.

 

Montreal feminist collective Les Gamines, known to have published numerous anonymous accounts of sexual abuse which identified the abusers, denounces the false accusations brought by Joshephine Murphy (the fake Bryan Trottier account).

Bryan, Joshephine, Zora… même combat

In the most recent false accusation against Union Thugs, the Joshephine Murphy account didn’t even bother to pretend to be a left-wing organizer anymore, as we can see in image 7 with the “anti-communist” logo which refers to the Pinochet-era assassinations. In any case, after the harassment of multiple left-wing Facebook pages, the Joshephine account has finally owned up to being “Bryan.” (Image 8)

He doesn’t hesitate to proclaim himself a La Meute leader in some of his comments (Image 9). Here we can also see that Murphy  is part of the Canadian Wolfpack secret Facebook group (Image 10) :

 

(Screen capture from July 2018, taken from Anti-Racist Canada)

 

Note that Bryan Trottier used both accounts simultaneously to intimidate a radical group from Ontario in the summer of 2018:

Unmasked!

Long story short, Bryan Trottier, aka Joshephine Murphy, aka ZoraXeno, aka Barb N Bryan Wolfe, isn’t some random individual (or group of individuals) but is actually the head of the extreme-right CDN Wolfpack group. Up until this past September 15th, theWolfpack was Quebec group La Meute’s sister organization, organizing islamophobic protests together. Despite their recent split, the head of Quebec’s La Meute group (Sylvain ”Maikan” Brouillette) reminded everyone on the La Meute public Facebook group that “La Meute and CDN Wolfpack will continue to work together closely.”   (September 15, 2018).  At the time this article is being written, the CDN Wolfpack sign-up page was still hosted on Quebec’s La Meute website (image 13).

Both deeply islamophobic and racist groups say they want to protect “western values” (and white western women) against Islam. They frequently employ the concepts of equality between women and men to sanitize their hateful anti-Muslim ideology.

The multiple denunciations of sexual assault within the leadership of La Meute, their hatred of the headscarf (and consequently Muslim women), and their numerous attempts to put forward false accusations of sexual assault in an attempt to discredit feminist struggles against rape culture prove over and over their misogyny and antifeminism.

In conclusion, we reaffirm that the biggest danger to our values – feminist, antiracist, antifascist, and in staunch opposition to colonialism – are the Bryan Trottiers of the world, and racist organizations like La Meute, rather than new immigrants with their languages, cultures and religions.

Colonialism, Democracy, & Fascism: Conversation with Gord Hill

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Oct 062018
 

From It’s Going Down

Montreal Book Launch for The Antifa Comic Book, by Gord Hill

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Cover photo: Italian anarchist partisan fighters celebrate the defeat of fascism.

In this episode of the It’s Going Down podcast, we talk with long time indigenous author, artist, and organizer, Gord Hill, who for decades has written under the pen name, Zig Zag. While Gord is perhaps best known for documenting indigenous struggles across the so-called Americas, in his newest work for Arsenal Pulp Press, he takes on the history of fascism and resistance to it over the past 100 years in, The Antifa Comic Book: 100 Years of Fascism and Antifa Movements, which also features a forward by Mark Bray.

Our conversation touches on some of the major historical lessons that Gord has concluded on after months of research and writing, largely that European electoral political parties often sabotaged street level and armed resistance to fascism and Nazism, paving the way for the success of these movements in gaining power. We also discuss the connection between colonialism and fascism’s drive for conquest and expansion, and touch on the current situation in the US around immigration and evolving social movements.

The Antifa Comic Book: 100 Years of Fascism and Antifa Movements offers up decades of complex history in an easy to understand and digestible comic book form, without losing any of the major historical lessons and analysis. The book is perfect for people new to antifascism, and leaves the reader with a solid understanding of world events that can inform social movements of today.

But The Antifa Comic Book is simply the latest work in a growing collection of seminal texts that Gord has produced. For years Gord has written and published Warrior Publications, both a news blog and at times a magazine on anti-colonial Native resistance struggles, while also publishing theory and tactical guides for revolutionary movements. Gord for years has also worked within and written about the anarchist movement and the common threads between it and anti-colonial Native resistance. Gord’s work has had a huge impact on It’s Going Down and the contemporary anarchist movement, and texts such as 500 Years Of Indigenous Resistance should be essential reading for all anti-capitalists and anti-racists. Needless to say we are honored to have him on our podcast and hope you enjoy our discussion.

More Info: Warrior Publications and Gord Hill’s work at Arsenal Press

Postering against Jérôme Blanchet-Gravel

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Sep 162018
 

Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info

Jérôme Blanchet-Gravel is a fucking pig.

It’s been a few months of hearing about the pretentious, racist, and misogynist young essayist Jérôme Blanchet-Gravel. Whether for his contributions as a “writer” or as a student at Laval University and Ottawa. He says disgusting things, both in the public sphere, as in his articles for reactionary media Causeur and Sputnik, but also in private, as shown by the screenshots that have leaked in recent weeks and been published on many FB pages.

Jérôme doesn’t like having his nose stuck in his own shit, because he sees himself as the next Mathieu Bock-Coté. We don’t need a second one!

Last week we put up different posters featuring his disgusting quotes, around symbolic locations:
– the Quartier de Lune bar in Limoilou in Quebec City, where Jérôme was going to speak at a book launch for Phillipe Sauro Cinq-Mars
– the Amere à boire bar from which he was banned for being a macho dude who actively perpetuates rape culture with his articles (against the #metoo movement for example)

In attacking him, we attack islamophobic racism, misogyny, and rape culture, as well as the bourgeoisie he’s part of.

Indeed, dad has lots of money, he owns a winery, and your sisters are lawyers and a doctor… He considers himself a superior being, so we will bring him back down to earth at every possible opportunity.

Because you’re a fucking pig Jérôme.

signed: the “inclusive little sluts” collective (quote of Jérôme Blanchet-Gravel)

Toronto: Report-back from September 8 Anti-fascist Action

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Sep 122018
 

Anonymous submission to North Shore Counter-Info

On August 8, the racist far-right group PEGIDA and their friends the Proud Boys, Soldiers of Odin, Northern Guard, and Canadian Combat Coalition got together for one of their now regular meetups and public displays of racism and Islamophobia. This time, it seemed they were particularly interested in using the upcoming anniversary of 9/11 to forward their anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant message. This is one individual’s report back on the day; ARC also has a good timeline and photos.

PEGIDA once again assembled on Armoury Street at University, with a rally planned to begin at 1:00. By 12:30 there were around 10 PEGIDA members, mostly of the angry-soccer-mom and your-racist-grandparent variety. Police had assembled several layers of barricades around their gathering. There was already a significant police presence, which increased throughout the day. At the time there were around 30 antifascist/antiracist demonstrators. Both groups’ numbers grew over the next few hours, though the racists’ unfortunately more so. The various far-right groups again used their tactic of showing up after counter-demonstrators were assembled, in groups ranging in size from around 5 to 20. While folks were aware of them coming from a distance, we didn’t have the numbers to go confront them before reaching the protest zone, so we focused on forming lines around the police pen and trying to block their entrance. Cops responded by forcing through the lines to open up an entrance. On a couple occasions this got pretty violent and resulted in one arrest of a counter-demonstrator.

The PEGIDA crowd was, by some observations, set back farther onto Armoury Street than previous times they’ve assembled there. For the first couple hours, counter-protesters stayed clustered around the police barricades, mostly along University and a bit down Armoury. The police presence, which was pretty high by then, ranged from bylaw officers to riot cops, all forming different parts of the human barricade surrounding PEGIDA’s rally and facing out at counter-demonstrators. It felt like, due to the fact that the groups were farther apart, there was a bit less direct back-and-forth/engagement with the racists, and that it was a bit harder to tell what was going on in their pen (at least from the University Avenue vantage point). It also felt like our chants (some of which got pretty inventive!) could be seen both as being shouted directly at the racists and some as more generic anti-hate messages, which isn’t a bad thing to be intentional about as we consider how much we’re trying to engage directly with those groups vs. people passing by and possibly engaging at these events.

Less than a block down the street, the environmental group 350 was holding a climate change rally. We got a bit of engagement from those folks on their way to the rally and on what turned out to be a slow trickle of a march down the sidewalk on their way to Queen’s Park later. Definitely not all, but a number of the passerby’s seemed supportive of our action, or stopped for a minute to ask questions. A few counter-demonstrators were prepared with flyers to hand out to folks passing by with some information on our action, though I didn’t get a chance to see these materials so can’t really comment on the content or how they were received.

Things got interesting around 2:30 when PEGIDA & co., and more police started concentrating around the eastern end of their Armoury pen (the side closer to Nathan Phillips Square). For a minute it was unclear whether they were getting ready to disperse or to march. Shortly after they left though, it became clear that they were marching, with the intent to lay a wreath “for the victims of 9/11” on the cenotaph in front of Old City Hall. This lead to what felt like a momentarily chaotic dispersal of our group in pursuit. A number of people took off east across Nathan Phillips Square, while other stayed closer to the group and (from what I understand) were able to slow down their march at a few points. A few minutes later, the racist groups (police included of course) were marching down Bay Street and a small group of us had assembled about a block down, quickly joined by the rest of our comrades. PEGIDA and co (by some estimates about 60-70 by that point), led a by a police escort, stopped a bit short of us, allowing more police to stream in around them.  Meanwhile our group assembled in a line (between 1-3 people deep at different points) across Bay Street. There were at most around 50 of us at that point. In a disgusting and unsurprising display of support for the racist groups, about 100 police were used to allow these groups to safely march. To be clear, police could have told those groups to disperse, but they didn’t, and allowed them to have their highly performative and outright display of hatred down a major street in the city.

We were informed that police would be allowing the march, and were ordered to clear a path. We stayed in place, linked arms, and used banners to form as solid a line as possible. This seemed like the last real chance to stop the march, because it was clear if that if they wanted to push through us they could, it was just a matter of the level of difficulty or inconvenience we could cause. Unfortunately numbers weren’t on our side, and the police lined up in a wedge formation and advanced into us. Maybe due to the size of our group, they didn’t bring out bikes or batons or any other real instruments (that I saw), but rather they just had the numbers to push us back in a hand-to-hand sort of manner. In some parts of the line this mostly looked like a slow walk back, with some resistance to police, as we tried to stay linked with those in the center, who were getting more violently shoved down the street and struck by police. At this point the goal seemed mostly to be to provide some resistance, and to stay together to stop anyone from being arrested.  We were slowly moved down Bay Street, with resistance every step of the way. While we were definitely outnumbered and not going to be able to stop the march, this display of unity, courage, and determined resistance was seriously beautiful and inspiring.

While our line held pretty well, police were able to break it at times, and two comrades were arrested. A number of others were able to be pulled back from police. Eventually, at Bay and Queen Street, the line broke and our group ran to reassemble on the steps of Old City Hall. Police were able to form enough of a barricade to allow the racists to lay their wreath, and shortly after, the groups dispersed. One more person was arrested at this point, seemingly for something that had happened earlier in the march, as they were basically snatched off the street as things were dying down (based on reports from some comrades who witnessed it). A few comrades took this opportunity to address the significant crowd of people who had stopped to watch at this point. They spoke about what had happened that day and why it should be of concern to everyone. I think they seized an important opportunity here – one thing that seemed clear from Saturday is that we need more people on our side; and that has to start somewhere. If even some of the people who stopped to enjoy the spectacle while we faced down police on Bay Street had felt compelled to step into the street, the day might have ended differently. There’s a variety of ways that could happen, and it’s definitely worth putting more thought into.

In total four people were arrested, and after things died down folks headed over to 52 Division for jail support. A few interesting things happened, including a cathartic moment where the shitty dollar store wreath the racists had used to advance their cause was reclaimed and torn to shreds, and a tense moment where around 7-8 smug Proud Boys and C3 types walked past our group (unsure if coincidentally or because they were looking for a fight). Things did escalate, mostly to yelling but also a few blows, before they left, I guess because…we were standing right in front of a police station. Folks stuck around into the evening, and all four were released by midnight, with charges. Given reflections from previous similar events around jail support, it felt good to see a good number of people there and communicating with legal support. As well, I was glad there were as many of us as there were when the proud boys came by, and that’s something to be careful of.

Overall, the number of people we had out really shaped what we were able to do that day in terms of concrete goals like confronting the racist groups on the street and stopping them from marching. Whether it was just an unlucky day in terms of people’s availability, an indication of the tactics people are interested in engaging in, or anything else, it’s worth talking about and working on. There’s also, always, space in this conversation to be clear on what our goals are in engaging in events like these, how and why we confront these groups, and how this relates to our wider goals for the world that we want to live in.

In the context of Saturday, there was lots to build on, and furthermore, it seemed like things went as well as they did because people have been showing up consistently and building skills and trust with each other. I’m inspired by the spirit, courage, and tactical skills that were shown that day, and look forward to conversations about how we can use them and build on them to make things really interesting.

Good Morning Racists!

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Aug 282018
 

From the Emma Goldman Collective

This past August 25th, the racist group La Meute organized a “visibility action” with all its clans. No doubt sick of demonstrating while trapped in parking lots, this time Clan 02 decided to focus on its strengths: cars, and organized a float parade. From Chicoutimi to Saint-Félicien, passing though Jonquière, Saint-Bruno and Roberval along the way, the wolf cubs traveled in the comfort of their convoy of cars, decorated with spray paint and painter’s tape.

Their plan was to stop in front of the MNAs offices for a little under half an hour in order to chant “fuck Couillard” and distribute flyers demanding even more discriminatory policies from the new government. Alex Maltais even showed us his artistic side, graffitying a little wolf paw on the sidewalk.

In Chicoutimi, in the morning, they were ten. Not a huge demonstration, but since the info had leaked, a group of anti-racist activists were also there to wish them good morning. Racist groups shouldn’t be able to take to the streets without an anti-racist counter-presence. The open presence of a group organized around hatred and xenophobia, as La Meute is, shouldn’t be tolerated, however laughable their actions may be. What would have happened if, Saturday morning, a person from one of the cultural communities hated by La Meute had found themself on Racine street?

Therefore, groups of anti-racists enthusiastically removed several posters and flags that the racists had so skillfully taped to their cars. An activist even risked grabbing a flag attached to Marie-José Dufour’s car – (alias Marie Louve), Clan 02 chief – while she was inside, thus attracting her wrath. Infuriated, Dufour contacted authorities to lodge an official complaint about the material damages.

Nothing remains from La Meute’s stop in Chicoutimi, and that’s good. There’s no place for racism in our neighbourhoods. Concrete responses to every demonstration organized by hateful and intolerant groups is the only answer.

After the wolf cubs had departed, the anti-racists returned in order to clean up the logo left on the sidewalk by Alex Maltais. To their great surprise the graffiti had already vanished, leaving behind a puddle of water. What could have happened? Did Alex, knowing that the police were on the way, erase his work of art? Or did the police force him to do it? Or maybe other citizens decided to erase the racist group’s logo? The mystery remains.

From Embers: Anti-Fascism in Quebec

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Jul 262018
 

From From Embers

An interview with an anti-fascist based in Montreal. We discuss the history of the Quebec far right dating back to the 1930s, anti-fascist resistance in 1990s Montreal, and the contemporary context, including an important victory against La Meute on July 1, 2018.

July 1: Antifascist Victory

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Jul 252018
 

From Montréal-Antifasciste

On July 1st, La Meute, Storm Alliance, and a new group called “Independence Day” planned to converge in downtown Montreal and march against “illegal” immigration, in what La Meute promised would be a demonstration of “historic” proportions. Thanks to a coordinated response from local antifascists, antiracists, anarchists, communists, Indigenous and anticolonial activists, migrant justice groups, and concerned citizens, what it ended up being was a historically colossal failure. This was La Meute’s first attempt at a demonstration in Montreal since March 4, 2017 – and this time, they weren’t able to parade their vicious, hateful rhetoric through the streets.

Antifascists faced a number of logistical challenges. The racists had stated on social media that they would be meeting in “the east of Montreal” and leaving from there to their march, but that they would only announce the precise details the morning of their march. The antiracist demonstration was called at Place Simon Valois not far from Joliette metro, an area considered “home turf” for the radical left, and which it was hoped could be used as a staging area to head further east if necessary (the assumption was that the far rightists would be meeting at Radisson). It looks like the whole thing about “east of Montreal” was likely disinformation on their part, as they in fact met at Bonaventure metro in the west of downtown. On very short notice, the antiracist forces arranged to have metro tickets on hand, and after a quick rally at Place Valois with speeches from Montreal Wolf Pack (an Indigenous street patrol) and local antifascist organizers, headed to Joliette to take the metro west.

Between 200 and 300 hundred people had turned up at Place Simon Valois, and roughly 200 made their way to where the far rightists were meeting. There was some confusion – which was the fault of the organizers – about the nature of the antiracist rally. On social media it had been announced that this was not going to be a counterdemonstration, however those who showed up to organize the event and most of those at the rally wanted to confront the far right head on. That’s why people decided to move to Bonaventure. To anyone who showed up expecting a separate demonstration against racism, and who was disappointed when it became a counterdemonstration downtown, we offer our apologies. We will attempt to do better at communicating in a consistent and accurate way in future.

It is also important to note that we suffered from very limited human resources when organizing on our own side. July 1 is a horrible day to organize a demonstration in Montreal, as so many people are moving that day. The left also relies heavily on student forces and networks which are absent during the summer. And finally, antiracists were already mobilizing that week (and that day) to go to communities close to the border in a “Refugees Welcome Caravan.” While we did the best we could given a very small number of organizers, certain tasks fell by the wayside. One result of this was that, despite our victory on the streets, we were unable to properly put forth our own politics in the media reports that followed. Next time we must do better.
Despite these challenges, on the day itself, once we arrived downtown, it became clear that we significantly outnumbered our opponents. Somewhat spontaneously, our forces split in two, boxing the racists in behind the lines of police protecting them. What followed were several hours of sweltering heat (the hottest July 1 on record in Montreal) as we kept the far rightists immobilized. Big props to those who held their ground in the hot sun, to those who took the initiative to go get water for the crowd once the water the organizers had brought ran out, and to those who took the lead in chanting antiracist, antifascist, and anti-colonialist slogans to keep the crowd’s spirits up.

La Meute would later try to claim that their march was a success, despite only 100 or so people having showed up from across Quebec, because they managed to walk a half a block to their first target before we showed up (the offices of Immigration Canada, which were closed that day). A look at their comments in their private groups, however, shows the truth of the matter, that they had intended to march and had been blocked by our forces, as they had been relying on the police to contain or attack antifascists (as they had done in April in Montreal and in November in Quebec City). When this didn’t happen, they had no plan B, and in what is becoming a La Meute tradition, spent most of the afternoon seeking escape from the heat in a nearby parking garage.

As for Storm Alliance, so few people showed up that leader Eric Trudel ended up berating his own people in a post-march facebook video for being all talk and no action. We don’t know what Trudel was on at the time (though note the constant sniffing of his nose during the video), but this rambling attack on his own people just made him, and Storm Alliance as a whole, look all the more like clowns. The group has certainly not recovered since its founder Dave Tregget quit last winter.

Many factors contributed to our success in blocking this attempted racist march. First and foremost, the success was not strictly ours, but was in fact the success of the Montreal radical left, which contains many divergent tendencies, and which has many serious disagreements, but which came together for this and cooperated in exemplary fashion. Antifascists are part of a broader movement with a deep and rich history in this city; we can only win when we remember this fact and draw upon these forces. Secondly, our antifascist movement itself has now had over a year since La Meute’s first public outing in Montreal to learn from its past mistakes – where our movement was once a loose, disorganized network of groups who had little to no communication with each other, we are now much more effective in our ability to coordinate actions. Thirdly, it needs to be mentioned that La Meute’s own forces were incredibly poorly organized that day, even without consideration of the intense heat – they forgot their water and signs in the car, seemed to be relying on the police to practically conduct their demo for them, and one member even lost a list of all of their Clan’s attendees and then failed to even warn their members about this slip-up until antifascists found the documents and uploaded them for all to see.

Another important factor in our favor, recent interventions by local Montreal activists had brought media attention to the fact that police have openly sided with the far right at numerous demonstrations over the past year; this in turn created a situation where the police were under pressure to not embarrass their bosses by too openly siding with La Meute this time around.

Finally, it must also be noted that far right forces were divided on July 1. While Storm Alliance and Independence Day joined La Meute’s march, another small far right demonstration was making its way unimpeded through the streets of Montreal. The Front Patriotique du Quebec – a small star in a larger constellation of racist forces for whom Quebec independence is of primary importance – has held a “Rally for a Republic of Quebec” every July 1st for several years now. The FPQ did not take kindly to La Meute calling an anti-immigrant rally at the same time as their annual march. While there have been calls for “unity” on the right, these have been surpassed by the attacks on La Meute for being a “federalist” group. In short, many nationalists, including racists and far rightists in the nationalist camp, increasingly see La Meute as an unreliable and arrogant group built up by the media but unable to mobilize any substantial numbers on the ground.

Indeed, giving credit where credit is due, the “La Merde” image antiracists used on social media and posters for July 1 was in fact borrowed from Sylvain Lacroix, the former FPQ member close to the Three Percenters, who is himself now trying to set up a far right militia in Quebec. Those who whined online that this image was “anti-Quebec” should get a grip: the image came from your own side, and from the nationalist section of your side at that! Hatred of La Meute can be pretty intense in some other far right corners, including even threats of violence (the screenshots of which we can’t show right now, for reasons people should be able to surmise).

More marginally, members of the Alt Right scene in Montreal (which contains many actual neo-nazis) similarly view La Meute as a bunch of losers.

We may have won this battle, but the war of combating the rise of the far-right – here and elsewhere – continues. Make no mistake – their movement is absolutely still growing, their anti-immigrant, racist, islamophobic, and misogynist ideas are still taken seriously, and their rhetoric is still peddled by mainstream political parties, one of which – the CAQ – stands a very good chance of winning the upcoming Quebec provincial election in October.

It’s important to celebrate our successes – but it’s even more important, now more than ever, to let them motivate us for the long fight ahead!

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

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Jul 102018
 

Anonymous Submission to MTL Counter-info

Before the weekend of action

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

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

The weekend of action in photos

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

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

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