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

Sabotage during the G7 Summit

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Jun 232018
 

From Sans Attendre Demain

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

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

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

Every Bank is a Blank Canvas

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Jun 162018
 

Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info

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

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

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

– Some vandals

G7: Statement of the Popular Expression Zone

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Jun 152018
 

Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info

8 June 2018, so-called Quebec

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

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

Life, or nothing…

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

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

That’s the problem.

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

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

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

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

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

On June 8th, stop the G7!

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Jun 052018
 

From the RRAG7

Friday, June 8, 2018 – 07:30
Corner of the François-de-Laval and Sainte-Anne boulevards

For the beginning of the G7 Summit, the elites of the world will gather in La Malbaie, isolated in their ivory tower protected by more than half a billion in security costs. They might as well stay there! Everyone in the world will be better off without them and that is why we intend to cut ties with the people creating our misery. Come join us!

Meet us at 7:30AM SHARP in the parking lot of the Normandin on the corner of the François-De Laval and Sainte-Anne boulevards, in the Beauport borough, 5km northeast of downtown Quebec City.

 

June 7th Protest: Mass demonstration against the G7 and to open the borders!

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Jun 052018
 

From the RRAG7

  • June 7th, 2018, 6 P.M. at Parc des Braves (750 ch. Sainte-Foy, Qc City)
  • Mass demonstration against the G7 and to open the borders!
  • Down with capitalist exploitation, colonialism, and racist and sexist politics!

The heads of state of the seven most powerful imperialist and colonialist countries will gather on June 8th and 9th as part of the G7 Summit that will take place at the Manoir Richelieu in La Malbaie. It’s a special occasion for the global elite to celebrate their dominance of the capitalist economy in style. While they claim to be discussing economic growth, job creation, gender equality, and climate change, in reality G7 meetings are key to the process of organizing the global economy in favour of banks and the oil, agricultural, pharmaceutical, tech, and weapons industries.

The West exploits the labour and wealth of Southern countries, causing poverty, environmental destruction, wars, and forced displacement, yet the countries of the G7 feign surprise at the “migrant crisis” taking place. These countries, which have completely destroyed people’s ways of life in order to enrich a tiny minority, are closing their borders, creating a Western “fortress.” In order to gain the public’s support for these policies, they drum up a fear of the Other, supported by the media, through a discourse that strengthens racism and the far-right. At the same time, the governments of the G7 implement austerity measures that worsen working conditions and force the unemployed to sell their labour to respond to the “needs of the market.”

Let’s show them we’ll do whatever it takes to fight this unjust system! The colonialist and patriarchal Canadian state is building fences on unceded indigenous land to allow the G7 leaders to meet in La Malbaie, just as it has imposed borders on indigenous communities and divided up their territory for more than 500 years. Don’t let this happen! Let’s respond to fear and their system with struggle, dignity, and solidarity between people!

On June 7th, join us for a festive mass demonstration against the G7, capitalism, patriarchy, colonialism, racism, and borders! Let’s speak out against the environmental destruction caused by the relentless exploitation of natural resources! Because our world can and must be better for everyone who lives in it and for generations to come!

Groups that want to endorse the call must write to: repac@repac.org

Organized by:

Facebook page for the event: https://fr-ca.facebook.com/events/372541903233181/

Route of the June 7th protest:

Groups endorsing the protest:

  1. AmiEs de la Terre de Québec
  2. Association étudiante des cycles supérieurs de science politique de l’UQAM (AECSSP)
  3. Association of McGill University Support Employees (AMUSE) / Syndicat des employé-e-s occasionnel-le-s de l’Université McGill
  4. Association pour la défense des droits sociaux Québec métropolitain (ADDS QM)
  5. Centre d’entraide Émotions
  6. Centre-Femme aux Plurielles
  7. Centre-Femmes La Jardilec
  8. Centre femmes d’aujourd’hui
  9. CKUT Radio-McGill
  10. Collectif anarchiste Emma Goldman
  11. Collectif opposé à la brutalité policière (COBP)
  12. Collectif d’éducation et de diffusion anarcho-syndicaliste // Anarcho-syndicalist collective for education and diffusion
  13. Comité des citoyens et des citoyennes du quartier Saint-Sauveur
  14. Comité B.A.I.L.S de Hochelaga-Maisonneuve
  15. Comité logement du Plateau Mont-Royal
  16. Comité populaire Saint-Jean-Baptiste
  17. Comité pour les droits humains en Amérique latine (CDHAL)
  18. Convergence des luttes anticapitalistes (CLAC-Montréal)
  19. Corporation pour la défense des droits sociaux (CDDS) de Lotbinière
  20. Droit de parole
  21. Eau Secours
  22. Front d’action populaire en réaménagement urbain (FRAPRU)
  23. Hoodstock
  24. IWW/SITT Québec
  25. L’R des centres de femmes du Québec
  26. Les Alter Citoyens
  27. Les AmiEs de la Terre de Québe
  28. Ligue internationale de la lutte des peuples
  29. Maison des Femmes de Québec
  30. Mandragore
  31. Midnight Kitchen Collective
  32. Montreal-antifasciste
  33. Montréal-Nord Républik (M-NR)
  34. Mouvement d’éducation populaire autonome de Lanaudière (MÉPAL)
  35. Mouvement d’éducation populaire et d’action communautaire du Québec (MÉPACQ)
  36. Ni Québec, ni Canada: projet anticolonial
  37. POPIR-Comité logement
  38. Projet Accompagnement et Solidarité Colombie (PASC)
  39. Regroupement d’éducation populaire de l’Abitibi-Témiscamingue (RÉPAT)
  40. Regroupement d’éducation populaire en action communautaire des régions de Québec et Chaudière-Appalaches (RÉPAC 03-12)
  41. Regroupement des femmes sans emploi du nord de Québec (ROSE du Nord)
  42. Regroupement des groupes de femmes de la région de la Capitale-Nationale (Québec-Portneuf-Charlevoix)
  43. Regroupement des organismes communautaires de la région de Québec (ROC 03)
  44. Regroupement intersectoriel des organismes communautaires de Montréal
  45. Réseau de résistance anti-G7 (RRAG7)
  46. Réseau du Forum Social Québec-Chaudière-Appalaches
  47. Regroupement des organismes d’éducation populaire autonome de la Mauricie (ROÉPAM)
  48. Solidarité Sans Frontières
  49. Table régionale des organismes volontaires d’éducation populaire (TROVEP) de Montréal
  50. Table ronde des organismes volontaires d’éducation populaire autonome de l’Estrie (TROVEP)
  51. Tadamon
  52. Union des Africains du Québec et amis solidaires de l’Afrique

Invitation to the Last RRAG7 Assembly

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May 112018
 

From the Réseau de résistance anti-G7

There is only one month left until the G7 Summit at La Malbaie, which will take place at the Richelieu Manor from June 7th to June 9th! As is the case  each year, the seven main imperialist and colonialist powers of the world will meet to decide how to keep pillaging our communities, while extracting as much profit as possible.

We will not leave them alone! Mobilization and resistance to the G7 keeps moving forward…

Here are the actions planned by the RRAG7:

  • Thursday, June 7th, at 6PM in Quebec City at the Parc des Braves: Join us in a festive and popular protest against the G7, capitalism, colonialism, racism and for open borders!
  • Friday, June 8th, in the Quebec City area, at 7:30AM, there will be an activity to disrupt the G7 Summit. The RRAG7 also calls for a full day of disruptions of the activities of the G7 Summit: Be creative!

We are ready to denounce this unfair system as long as it is necessary!

Subscription: Buses and lodging

It is now time to subscribe. Yes, yes, subscribe. Because without a subscription it is difficult to reserve the right number of buses and to find lodging for those who need it. To subscribe, go on our website and reserve your place before May 27th. The website also include details on how to subscribe non-electronically!

Note that reservation will only be effective when you will confirm your subscription during one of our General Assembly, or during one of our vents. At that time, there will be a “Pay What You Can” box. We suggest a contribution of 20$ for transport. Of course, nobody will be turn back for lack of funds. All the information collected will remain confidential and will be destroyed after the G7.

Last general assembly of the RRAG7 : May 12th

The RRAG7 invites you at its last organization assembly, on Saturday, May 12th from 1PM to 4PM at the 1710 Beaudry (Comité social Centre-Sud).

Spread the word, let’s be as many as possible for this last assembly! It will be an opportunity to exchange on the actions to come or to participate in their organization by joining one of the committees (legal, mobilization, logistics, students, popular education). This assembly will also be an opportunity to confirm your bus and housing reservation as well as the last logistic details.

** The room is wheelchair accessible.
** Whisper translation is available.
For more information, email info@antig7.org or vitit our website.

Report-back from the 2018 CLAC May Day Demo

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May 092018
 

Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info

CLAC organized its annual May Day demonstration on the theme of the G7 this year. The planet’s most powerful will gather June 8th and 9th for a major meeting in the Charlevoix region.

This year, May Day saw the unions agreeing to accommodate the bosses’ calendar by holding a march Saturday April 28th, gathering several thousand people.

On the first of May, three demonstrations were called in Montreal: CLAC’s at Parc Lafontaine, the Revolutionary Communist Party’s in the Golden Square Mile, and the IWW’s in Parc-Extension.

About 200 people gathered towards 6pm at the southwest corner of Parc Lafontaine for the CLAC demo. Lots of police were deployed all around with bike cops as well as numerous buses of riot police. The SPVM had made up its mind to let no one demonstrate on this May Day. The crowd growing gradually, one noticed the presence of about forty individuals putting on black clothing, looking to form a black bloc more consequential than in recent demos in Montreal. The riot cops chose to move in closer to leave the small crowd no room to maneuver.

Just before the departure, some speeches were given on the ravages of capitalism locally and elsewhere. The demo then took the street towards 6:30pm on Sherbrooke, going west. The cops then decided to take the sidewalk on the north side to begin forming a kind of moving kettle around the demo. A small but very determined black bloc did not want to allow them this space prized by the Urban Brigade which gains considerable tactical advantage from it. By taking the sidewalk, the Urban Brigade is able to control the whole of the demo, in that it can decide where to direct the crowd. This greatly limits attacks on symbols of capitalism, such as banks. Taking the sidewalk should be a collective reflex of the demo, because having a demo encircled by the SPVM is a problem for everyone. If removing the cops from the sides remains the work of a small part of the demonstration, it will remain very difficult to hold the street in Montreal in a more combative way.

Protected by banners the black bloc decided to empty a fire extinguisher, throw bricks and rocks, and shoot fireworks at the cops, to force them to make a retreat. While the cops backed up a bit, a number of them choosing to hide behind parked cars in fear, the strategy was not as effective as hoped, as the demo found itself split in two with the arrival of a second Urban Brigade on the other side, which pushed the rear of the demo back east and made one arrest. At this moment the police rapidly regained control of the situation, deploying riot cops on the streets north and south of Sherbrooke. People had no choice but to disperse or return to Parc Lafontaine just five minutes after the start. It wasn’t the clash with the cops that forced the dispersal, but rather the arrival of cops from all sides in large numbers.

The dispersal was also facilitated by the lack of closer links between people in the demo. Being able to keep a much more compact unity could have limited the damage caused by the cops’ intervention. Keeping a slower pace and ensuring that no one is isolated at the front or the back could have possibly allowed the demo to go on for longer. The cops prepare for annual demos like May Day months in advance, and they seek to disperse us as quickly as possible. Finding ways to unite the intentions of every person who shows up is difficult, but it remains the key to continuing to hold the street.

This is a text that calls for others: how did you experience this May Day, and what could be done so that we continue to find each other in the street?

 

May Day 2018 Montreal: Anarchists Attack Police

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May 042018
 

From subMedia

On May Day, the CLAC, or anti-capitalist convergence, started their demo at Parc LaFontaine in Montreal. People took the sidewalks to prevent the cops from flanking the demo. About 5 minutes in, shit kicked off! Anarchists attacked police with rocks, bricks, flags, and fireworks.

CANCELLED: Anarcho-syndicalism and Intersectionality Forum

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Apr 072018
 

From the Anarcho-syndicalist Collective for Education and Diffusion (ASCED)

Following a low number of confirmation on Facebook events, the event of April 28th is cancelled. We’ll organize events in the future.

Saturday April 28th
12h30 to 16h30
Anarchist Library DIRA, 2035, Saint-Laurent bld. Montreal.

Is it possible to focus on the struggles of the working class on an anarchist anti-oppressive basis today?

How can we integrate the emancipation of oppressed groups in the struggles of the popular movements and more particularly in the anarcho-syndicalist struggles / groups?

Can we develop a revolutionary anarcho-syndicalist perspective in specific struggles?

**********************************************

Schedule

12h30
Opening of the doors

13h00
What is anarcho-syndicalism? (English)
Traduction chuchotée sur place

Presentation will be a video-conference. More information to come. Followed by a discussion and a pause.

14h15
Introduction à l’intersectionnalité (French)
by Irina Badita et Nicolas Johan Leport Letexier
(Whispered translation available)

This workshop will be in the first place the occasion to define and put into context the concept of intersectionality from an historical perspective and following a global context. We’ll think collectively about different forms of oppressions and privileges among society and also about ways and future orientations for an inclusive and intersectional activism. On the other hand, we’ll ask ourselves how to fught multiple oppressions, or at least to alleviate the weight on shoulders of those that are notwithstanding victims of racism, sexism and all forms of discrimination.

Followed by a discussion and a pause.

15h30
Discussion  » Anarcho-syndicalism and Intersectionality »
Commentaries and reflexions, debates on the reading notebook texts.

Click here to consult the short texts.

16h30
End

17h00
Closing of the DIRA

Facebook Event

Call to Demonstrate on May Day: You are not alone!

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Apr 032018
 

From the SITT-IWW

Gathering with food and speeches at 2:30 pm at Parc Metro. Departure of the neighborhood demonstration at 4:00 pm.

Followed by the CLAC anti-capitalist protest downtown.

As workers, unemployed, students and tenants, our best defense against those who exploit and abuse us is solidarity. That is why the Industrial Workers of the World (SITT-IWW Montreal) invites you to gather and fight together in Parc-Extension on May 1st.

Our struggles are multiplying on several fronts at the same time. Just like the attacks on us. Strikes and lockouts are muted by the power of the courts, the public sector privatizes and burns its employees, our wages stagnate while our rents increase, racist speeches become commonplace to the delight of the ruling class. Holding the G7 paralyzes a complete region for wealth and power to move the planet. And all that, while the bosses and politicians share the profits.

But no matter what, we fight! Community groups take to the streets to denounce social inequalities. Tenants from working-class neighborhoods are mobilizing against gentrification. Women denounce and take public space with #MeToo. Anti-racist solidarity networks are multiplying to counter the rise of the extreme right. Nurses say, “Enough is enough!” and refuse to wear themselves out in silence. The most precarious workers are organizing and solidarity is on the rise.

We are not as isolated as bosses and politicians would like us to believe. We are not just pawns that will vote and watch as the bosses decide our fate. We fight to make ourselves heard. And that’s why we must go beyond corporatism, stand together and make the bridge between our struggles, that’s our strength!

It is with this spirit of solidarity that the SITT-IWW Montréal invites you to demonstrate on Tuesday, May 1st, in the Parc-Extension neighborhood, on the occasion of the International Workers’ Day, to chant all together: WE ARE NOT ALONE!

We invite all unions, groups and organizations to endorse our call and write to us.

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