https://vimeo.com/230527342
From Sub.media
Hundreds of anti-fascists and anti-racists blocked a planned march by islamophobic and anti-migrant far right group La Meute. People clashed with police, beat up a nazi, and kept the racist marchers trapped in a mutli level parking lot for hours. Once the protesters left, the group exited and marched.
Régis Labeaume, the right-wing Mayor of Quebec City, has made inflammatory comments today against anti-racist protesters, and against me personally. The substance of his comments have been reported here.
For those that don’t understand French, Mayor Labeaume talked about a “Singh gang”, referred to antifa protesters repeatedly as “cretins”, stated that the protesters that destroy property are “always from Montreal”, and told the protesters to “go somewhere else than Quebec City” and that “Quebec City is not for you”. Lots more too.
This is my public on-the-record reply:
Mayor Labeaume, like Donald Trump, is claiming equivalency between anti-racists — and the varied tactics and strategies we use — and the racist far-right. His false equivalency, like Donald Trump’s after Charlottesville, is absurd. With his comments today, Mayor Labeaume is essentially pandering to racists in Quebec City, repeating a disgusting tactic he has used since he’s been a public figure.
More generally, Mayor Labeaume is replicating the rhetoric of the racist far-right by essentially telling people to “go back to where you came from”. This is the main talking point of far-right anti-immigrant groups, including the racists of La Meute, the Storm Alliance, and Soldiers of Odin, all of whom have a strong presence in Mayor Labeaume’s Quebec City.
Specifically, in singling me out, Mayor Labeaume is in effect encouraging the internet trolls and anonymous far-right activists who on a daily basis make racist comments, including threats, against me personally. His personalization of me is dangerous and inflammatory. Moreover, it’s incorrect. I wasn’t leading any group or groups. I was an active participant in the anti-racist mobilization on Sunday, and my role was quite public and open, and witnessed widely by fellow protesters and the media. According to one report: “Avant de se faire arrêter violemment, le militant Jaggi Singh ne faisait que danser et scander des slogans, ou partageait quelques informations aux contre-manifestant-e-s.” [tr: Before being arrested violently, the activist Jaggi Singh was dancing and shouting slogans, or sharing information with the counter-demonstrators.]
Labeaume, like Trump, has the mentality of a bigot, but with a huge media platform. In talking about “la gang à Singh” Labeaume sounds like those far-right conspiracy theorists who blame everything on George Soros. The far-right in Quebec has taken up the theme that I’m personally responsible for anti-fascist organizing, and Labeaume repeats their false talking point. Labeaume remarks reminds me of this racist skinhead, but with a suit and tie (go to 1:35).
The Mayor of Quebec City is power-tripping if he thinks he can decide whether I, or anyone else, is welcome to his city. There is no border between Montreal and Quebec City (and if there was, I wouldn’t respect it anyways). I will definitely continue to visit Quebec City, on my own terms, and I look forward to participating in more demonstrations there, and visiting friends and comrades.
Moreover, I feel compelled to add that I have strong connections to Quebec City. I spent a summer in Quebec City a long time ago, working at the Complexe Scientifique on Rue Einstein, trying to improve my French. I was privileged to hear a speech by the late, great, unionist Michel Chartrand in Quebec City, which helped to improve my French in other unpublishable profane ways. I spent a full year engaged in social justice popular education work, spending a significant amount of time in Quebec City in advance of the mass protests against the Summit of the Americas in 2001. I might be a Toronto-born, Montreal-living, anarchist activist, but the Mayor of Quebec will not dictate to me (or anyone else) when and how I can visit Quebec City.
Instead of lashing out at anti-racist protesters, perhaps Labeaume should look inwards at his own complicity for the current xenophobic environment in Quebec City, for which he bears much responsibility. In the past generation a toxic mix of inflammatory talk radio, pandering politicians like Labeaume, and cynicism has made Quebec City into a base for the racist far-right, where anti-immigrant groups feel like they can organize openly with impunity. By insulting anti-racist protesters, Labeaume is providing a smokescreen for his own inaction and apathy in the face of racism, xenophobia and Islamophobia, which has had murderous consequences in Quebec City.
Importantly, it’s clear that neither the Mayor nor the police of Quebec City are capable of dealing with the far-right racist threat in their City, and in significant ways they are complicit in the rise of the far-right. Instead, anti-fascist activists, from Quebec City, Montreal and beyond, will rely on the model of grassroots organizing involving popular education, supporting migrants and other communities under attack and, yes, engaging in direct action to confront far-right racists and fascists when necessary.
Fortunately, Quebec City is much more than inflammatory talk radio, Mayor Labeaume, and racist, right-wing groups. There is a beautiful community in Quebec City, that I have known well in the past. My experiences in Quebec City, with the exception of far-right racists and the police, have been positive. I have learned so much from other organizers in the Quebec City community, and commend their resilience and organizing. Labeaume’s recent comments, which are really about pandering to part of his racist base, will simply increase the resolve of anti-racists and anti-fascists to effectively mobilize, despite the current Mayor.
To repeat some slogans on Quebec City’s streets on Sunday: “Everyone detests racists! Welcome refugees, immigrants, Muslims, Haitians, and everyone!” (The slogans sound better in French!)
— Jaggi Singh, anti-fascist anarchist activist
Send information on the membership of Horizon Quebec Actuel to mtlantifa@riseup.net
Send information on people in these photos to mtlantifa@riseup.net. Once the information is verified, we will add it to the description of the relevant images.
Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info
Inspired by the popular removal of racist monuments across North America in the wake of Charlottesville, and in solidarity with the anti-racists confronting the white supremicist group La Meute in Quebec City today, community members removed and destroyed a Heritage Canada plaque celebrating colonial genocide early this morning in Montreal. They replaced it with a notice commemorating the people killed on the site and honouring resistance to colonialism and to white supremacy. There are many similar monuments in Montreal, just waiting to be taken down …
Send information on the membership of S.O.O. to mtlantifa@riseup.net
Send information on participants in S.O.O. demonstrations to mtlantifa@riseup.net. Once the information is verified, we will add it to the description of the relevant images.
Send information on people in these photos to mtlantifa@riseup.net. Once the information is verified, we will add it to the description of the relevant images.
Send information on the membership of Atalante to mtlantifa@riseup.net
Send information on people in these photos to mtlantifa@riseup.net. Once the information is verified, we will add it to the description of the relevant images.
Send information on the membership of La Meute to mtlantifa@riseup.net
Send information on participants in La Meute demonstrations to mtlantifa@riseup.net. Once the information is verified, we will add it to the description of the relevant images.
The transphobic, far-right, anti-Muslim Students in Support of Free Speech (SSFS) group from Toronto had a disastrous evening today in Montreal. Their planned recruitment event, a Montreal Pub Night, never happened. Instead, the Toronto SSFS President, Mari Jang, and the wannabe Montreal President, Oliver Marshall, spent several hours in a downtown police station filing a police report regarding their cancelled event. There were no arrests or injuries.
Just hours before their scheduled pub night, SSFS had to move their event away from Grumpy’s Bar because the staff and management at Grumpy’s, a Concordia lefty hangout, clearly indicated to SSFS that they were not welcome (instead, Grumpy’s organized their annual fundraiser in support of community group Head and Hands Sex Ed For Youth Project, which is queer and trans inclusive).
Provided with no platform at Grumpy’s, SSFS announced a last-minute move to Trois Brasseurs just a block away. More than an hour before any SSFS individuals or sympathizers arrived, their reserved table was occupied by Montreal-area anti-racists. In all, at least 60 anti-racists mobilized both inside and outside Trois Brasseurs, to make sure there would not be a platform for transphobia or Islamophobia in Montreal. Inside, during the evening, only about 4 individuals tried to attend the SSFS event. They were engaged in discussion and, in at least one case, an individual, when informed about the SSFS’s transphobic and racist affiliations, disassociated with the event and left.
Meanwhile, Oliver Marshall and Mari Jang never attended their co-organized event. Instead, Oliver Marshall was seemingly chased away from the vicinity of Trois Brasseurs, and he spent the evening in the police station, accompanied by Mari Jang and her partner. The police did not seem to be taking the frivolous complaint seriously and, in Mari Jang’s own words, there was an “almost assault.”
The flyer passed out to explain the action today by local anti-racists is included in full below, as well as links providing background to SSFS and their support for transphobic, Islamophobic, far-right views.
— This is a personal report from one observer and participant in today’s anti-racist action.
Students in Support of Free Speech (SSFS) is a Toronto group that since its start has supported a far-right political discourse. We are part of a group of Grumpy’s regulars, Concordia students, and others who object to the presence of Islamophobic, racist, and other far right groups.
SSFS claims to be apolitical and solely about freedom of expression but they have only platformed far right individuals and organizations. The SSFS supported the Halifax Proud Boys who disrupted an Indigenous ceremony. The SSFS supported professor Jordan Peterson after he openly mocked trans students.
SSFS are an attempt to mainstream the hate spouted by others by packaging far right discourse into a more palatable form. Their rallies attract violent provocateurs across the rightwing spectrum such as white supremacist and neo-Nazi Paul Fromm who spoke at their rally in Toronto on July 15th.
We are here to assert our freedom of speech to say the SSFS is not welcome in Montreal. We are here to say hate is not welcome in our spaces. We denounce the SSFS as a far right group that provides a platform for transphobia, Islamophobia, and racism. We encourage you to support Grumpy’s and their fundraiser for Head & Hands!
Background Info:
– Info about the racist Proud Boys disruption in Halifax
– Info about the Students in Support of Free Speech Rally in Toronto for Halifax Proud Boys
– Info about transphobe Jordan Peterson, openly supported by Students in Support of Free Speech
– The Warning Signs of Fascism on Campus; using “free speech” as a cover for extremism
From Montreal-antifasciste.info
The media has begun commenting on a short racist youtube video, shot at Parc Safari (a zoo 45 minutes outside of Montreal) on July 2nd[i]. The video, seemingly shot by a woman who just happened to be innocently visiting the zoo that day, is in fact not easy to make out – one sees a crowd of people milling around of the grass, a woman in a headscarf walking by, and one hears something difficult to make out coming through a sound system. Nothing in fact out of the ordinary to anyone who spends any amount of time out in public in most big cities in North America.
Nonetheless, this anodyne 47 second video clip (linked to by several media websites now) has apparently provoked a storm of controversy, as it shows Muslims praying in public, and not only that but saying their prayers through a sound system. The number of angry complaints and demands for clarification, elicited an official response from the zoo[ii], which explains that the Muslim Association of Canada had organized a group visit to the zoo that day, that they had brought their own portable sound system, and that they had followed all of the zoo’s rules. As Parc Safari explains, their zoo is open to everyone, regardless of nationality, religion, race, culture, language or sexual orientation, and that it is too bad that freedom of religion has offended so many people.
So far, all seems clear, if depressingly so: just another day in this Islamophobic society, just more of the media stirring up fake scandals about “reasonable accommodations.” If anything, we are pleasantly surprised that the zoo issues such a good response.
Scratching a bit beneath the surface, though, there are other facts that should be brought to light.
First, who uploaded this video? On youtube, the video was uploaded by “guindon87” [iii]; this account specializes in uploading anti-Muslim videos, including footage shot by members of far right groups in Quebec. For instance, one recent upload is a video shot by Sylvain Gallant in 2016 in Drummondville[iv], in which he drives by a local mosque asking “Are we going to allow this in Drummondville, a mosque? Me I don’t want any here … we are being invaded by mosques here, there are three, and I am completely fed up!” This video is part of the evidence that was used against Mr Gallant earlier this year, for inciting hatred, getting him 200 hours of community service and a condition of not going on social media for three years[v]. Within the far right, Gallant is seen as a hero being persecuted for free speech. Other videos uploaded by “guindon87” defend the recent St-Jean parade against accusations of racism; include two videos devoted to a local activist, in which he is subjected to racist slurs[vi]; and more in a similar vein, including one in which she calls for the murder of anti-fascists militants[vii]. It is unclear whether guindon87 shot the video in question (which first circulated on facebook), or whether they are simply the one who uploaded it to youtube.
The timing is also curious. The day before this video was shot, the small town of Hemmingford was invaded by members of the Quebec far right, as sixty or so people from groups like the “templar knights” and La Meute heeded a call by the anti-immigrant Storm Alliance to gather at the border to bear witness to irregular crossings by refugees, and to intimidate the latter for good measure. Their anti-immigrant protest was met with a boisterous counterprotest organized by the Montreal group Solidarity Across Borders[viii]. This was all ten minutes away from Parc Safari, which is actually where the Storm Alliance parked their bus. So that weekend, far-rightists from throughout Quebec had gathered in the area.
A further element to consider is that once this video was uploaded to facebook by Audrey Tremblay, it went viral, as of Wednesday having over 1500 shares and 500 comments. In the comments, one can read not only the most vile racism, but also links posted to far right groups such as La Meute. Indeed, the video has been avidly promoted by members of La Meute over the past three days. “Sue Elle” (real name: Sue Charbonneau), a La Meute member from Montreal, posted the video to the Mouvement républicain du Québec and Front Patriotique du Québec web pages, along with a model protest letter to send to the zoo, encouraging people to protest the fact that Muslims had been allowed to pray in public. At the same time, André Pitre (aka “Stu Pitt”) used his youtube channel to promote the issue, tying the Muslims who were at the zoo that day to the Muslim Brotherhood and explaining that they want to set up a global caliphate, and that a key part of “conquest” by Muslims is to humiliate subject populations. According to Pitre, who claims to be nothing more than an ardent free speech advocate, this is what was being done when they broadcast a prayer on their sound system: it was all a matter of “invaders” humiliating their “victims”!
Muslims praying in public should of course not be cause for concern, and certainly should not be considered so controversial as to be newsworthy, any more than Christians saying grace at a restaurant, or people meditating at a park, or any of the other things people do to live their beliefs in a multicultural society. However, we live in a context where previous, equally innocuous, examples of minority groups daring to live in public and claim their place, have become hot-button issues, galvanizing broad racist opposition. Most famously, this racist potential has been harnessed by politicians of both right and “left” during the “reasonable accommodation” and “charter of Quebec Values” “debates”.
Since earlier of this year, following the massacre by a far rightist in a Quebec City mosque, a national populist movement has been on the march. The July 1st demonstration in Hemmingford is just the last in a series of public displays against immigrants and Muslims. La Meute (who were present in large numbers on the 1st, providing most of the boots on the ground) is very much at the center of this racist wave, so far.
This is the context in which a simply trip to the zoo can become a flashpoint for racist organizing.
[i] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAY9FoHHjYY
[ii] https://www.facebook.com/ParcSafari/posts/1555486877824473
[iii] https://www.youtube.com/user/guindon87/videos
[iv] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_ksRxGtzn0
[v] http://www.journalexpress.ca/faits-divers/justice/2017/6/29/des-videos-hargneuses-contre-l-islam-le-mene-devant-le-tribunal.html
[vi] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ar3SiS37iVw
[vii] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDbbv9d4FDY
[viii] http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/quebec-aslyum-seekers-crossing-roxham-road-canada-day-1.4187469
According to Groupe de recherché sur l’extrême droite et ses allié-e-s (GREDA) , there are currently about 60 active Quebecois far right groups, and if you count those which are connected with the rest of Canada, there are about 100. However, once one starts looking at the activities of the groups, there is a lot of collaboration and cross-membership. Provided below is a list of the larger organizations operating in Quebec.
Registered Parties
l’Alliance nationale réformiste du Québec (formerly Front National du Quebec)
Registered with elections Quebec in October 2016, the founder of the party is Daniel Boucher. They aim to field candidates in the 2018 Quebec elections. Among their stated aims are to declare full independence, end reasonable accommodation, end the practice of Islam and destroy every mosque in the province. Boucher claims to have been inspired by meeting Marine Le Pen in March 2016.
Registered as a party in 2012, the current leader of the party is Bernard Gauthier. Citoyens au pouvoir is a populist party. They were at a colloquium of far-right organizations in the suburbs on June 17, and say that they were impressed by La Meute and by some of the organizing.
Founded in 2008, Parti Indépendatiste was led by Éric Tremblay from 2008 to 2011, when Michel Lepage took over. According to the Chief Electoral Officer of Quebec, donations were sixth highest of the provincial parties in Quebec at $5,3350.00. The Parti indépendantiste has been criticised for having links with neo-Nazis. A neo-Nazi, Sebastien Moreau, was the president of the executive committee for the region of Quebec and Marc-Étienne Maurice, a member of the neo-Nazi group Blood & Honour, was a local treasurer.
In May 2017, Alexandre Cormier-Denis, ran for the Parti indépendantiste in the Gouin riding. Cormier-Denis won less than 100 votes — but caused controversy due to racist statements and posters. While most of the media stories about Cormier-Denis were the result of these stunts, his more important ties are to Horizon Quebec Actuel (see below). Despite being promoted by open racists, Cormier-Denis remains a member in good-standing of the Parti Québécois.
Parti unité nationale (formerly the Parti démocratie chrétienne du Québec)
Parti unité nationale was founded in 2000. The founding leader of the party was Gilles Noël and he was re-appointed the leader of the party in 2017. Elections Quebec authorized $16,055 for contributions to the party in 2017 according to the P.U.N. 2016 financial reports.
On June 18, 2017 Gilles Noël was one of the featured speakers at the Rassemblement pour le bien commun et l’intérêt supérieur du Québec (the assembly for the common good and superior interest of Quebec) organized by the Movement Republicain de Quebec and guarded by La Meute.
Large Quebec-based organizations
Fédération des Québécois de Souche (le FQS)
Founded in 2007 by a former skinhead named Maxime Fiset as Quebecers debated reasonable accommodation. The FQS now calls itself a political unifier of “real Quebecers.” Maxime Fiset, who now works against racists to help de-radicalize people, has recently been speaking out in French and English press about his role in founding FQS and in being one of the early adopters of Islamophobic organizing.
The group’s magazine Le Harfang is run by Remi Tremblay and focuses on publishing and disseminating information from the French far right. On May 6, 2017, the FSQ hosted Steven Bissuel of the Group Union Defense (GUD), a militant nationalist student group from France. Atalante (below) was also a sponsor. Founded in the 1960s, GUD has always been unabashedly far right, “nationalist,” and militant. Bissuel has been imprisoned for violent attacks against other students and is also credited with rejuvenating the GUD in Lyon. They were also heavily promoting the June 18 event organized by Mouvement républicain du Québec.
Mouvement républicain du Québec
Founded in March 2017 by Guy Boulianne, author, editor and cultural promoter. On June 18, 2017, Mouvement républicain du Québec helped organize le Rassemblement pour le bien commun et l’intérêt supérieur du Québec (the assembly for the common good and superior interest of Quebec) originally planned at the CEGEP College de Maisonneuve and later moved to the suburb of Vaudreuil-Dorion. The conference featured a host of well-known far-right speakers. La Meute was providing security for the event. Here is an account in French by GREDA of who was there and what happened.
Founded in 2016, it is known for taking more racist positions than the other organizations in this list. Some of their slogans include “Terrorists to the death! Islam Out!” It does co-sponsor events with the FQS and some members of Atalante are also members of FQS.
In August, 2016 Atalante and FQS co-hosted a lecture in Quebec City by Gabriele Adinolfi, a prominent intellectual of the Italian neo-fascist movement. Atalante also engages in social activism, modeled after CasaPound, the best-known exponent of Italian neo-fascism. Atalante, like CasaPound, are committed to welfare programs and direct action, and Atalante hands out food in Quebec City’s underprivileged neighbourhoods, but according to their site, only to people of “Neo-French origin.”
An NGO, founded in 2016, with Alexandre Cormier Denis as President. It is a new organization which aims to educate about French and Quebecois history. When it was founded, the Front National and the COMEF (le Collectif Mer et Francophonie), a global sovereigntist organization of which FN is an important part, celebrated the formation of this organization, which is a Quebec affiliate.
The following is pulled from a post by Itsgoingdown.org. Founded in 2015 by two ex-soldiers, Éric Venne (alias Eric Corvus, who since left the group) and Patrick Beaudry, the first major action of La Meute was on May 21, 2016. According to their Facebook page they have a little more than 42,000 members — but likes have never been an accurate way to guage membership.
The group’s most vocal position is against “radical Islam.” According to GREDA and the experience of protestors in Quebec, La Meute is a paramilitary organization. La Meute members come to rallies well-equipped with weaponry which they are allowed to carry. Since March 2017, they have been coming out in force to numerous anti-Muslim demonstrations across Quebec.
On May 15, 2017 on André Pitre’s YouTube show, La Meute announced that it would be making itself available anywhere in Quebec to stand up against “threats to freedom of speech.” Pitre and La Meute made it clear that what was meant by this, was any intervention by antifascists, feminists, or anti-racists to protest or disrupt racist, sexist, homophobic or transphobic events. It was also made clear in Pitre’s show, that this announcement was the result of Pitre himself reaching out to La Meute and requesting that they play such a role (the declaration was filmed in his living room).
Canadian Coalition of Concerned Canadians (CCCC)
Founded in 2017 by Georges Hallak, CCCC is known as a one-man show. A list of its founding principles can be found here. This group burst onto the scene on March 4, 2017, when along with other far-right groups, CCCC called for demonstrations in 63 cities across Canada. This call was supported by Guy Boulianne’s MRQ and others. The CCCC is now losing steam in Quebec. According to GREDA, Hallak is a federalist.
Global groups
Founded in 2015, this group is affiliated with the German group called Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West. The current president is Stéphane Asselin, and this article from Vice provides an interview with him. According to the December 2016 interview, Asselin helps run a secret page that allies the leaders of most of the province’s far right-wing groups — roughly 50 of them — who are working to get political.
Founded in Finland, the group started growing in Canada and Quebec in 2016. By December 2016, they claimed to have 3500 members in Canada and 400 in Quebec. The current head of the Quebec chapter of Soldiers of Odin is Katy Latulippe. Soldiers of Odin have been patrolling neighbourhoods where Muslims live and have also joined Atalante for its food drives.
In the past months, the Soldiers of Odin began splintering in Canada over whether to remain aligned with their racist namesake in northern Europe. The president of Soldiers of Odin Canada, Bill Daniels, denounced the “racist agenda” of Soldiers of Odin leaders in Finland and said his branch was no longer associated with them. However, Katy Latulippe has said that Quebec will dissociate with Soldiers of Odin Canada and, presumably, retain the affiliation with Finland.
While the Canadian chapters have emphasized their community volunteerism, organizing events such as food drives, they have also clashed with anti-racism demonstrators, and posted blatantly anti-Muslim rhetoric on social media.
The politics of the Finland group were previously cited as the rationale for the split within the Quebec Soldiers of Odin where Katy La Tulippe took over and Martin Tregget left the group to form the Storm Alliance. The Storm Alliance is working with La Meute.
Radio
Garbage talk radio (Radio Poubelle) is big business in Quebec as in other parts of North America. Recently two of the prominent commentators Andre Arthur and Jeff Fillon were fired or let go. However, Eric Duhaime, who works with Rebel Media and FM 93, continues to broadcast Islamophobic tirades and others will be there to take their place. An online radio site which often broadcasts Garbage talk radio is Radio InfoCité.
Online
Online sites keep growing. This list is just a smattering. Three popular sites are Vigile.net, the Council of European Canadians, and Novopress, the press outlet of the bloc identitaire. One of the currently active Facebook pages is Justiciers du Peuple: Christian Desrochers and Alain Parent.
