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

Nighttime Visit to Lemay’s Installations in Parc Frédéric-Back

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Oct 052019
 

Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info

As part of a series of actions targeting migrant prison profiteers, around 12 of the spherical shaped biogas-capturing wells designed by Lemay and installed in Parc Frédéric-Back were tagged with the words ‘fuck lemay’. Many of these wells also had their unique identifiers blacked-out. Some park benches and one large map of the park, also designed by lemay, were tagged with anti-lemay, anti-cop, anti-authoritarian, and antifascist slogans and symbols. These much needed modifications will no doubt add to the park’s “unique environmental layout”, enhancing the “landscape’s feeling of otherworldliness”.

How to find and take action against border infrastructure anywhere in Canada

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Sep 282019
 

Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info

Construction has begun on a new prison for migrants and refugees in Laval, QC, a suburb just outside of Montreal. As the project has advanced, the struggle to stop it has ramped up as well, with a wide variety of actions being taken to stop its construction. The prison is part of a $138 million plan called the National Immigration Detention Framework (NIDF), announced in 2016 by the governnment of Canada following a period of resistance against the imprisonment of migrants. The NIDF expands and strengthens the government’s capacity to surveil, imprison, and deport migrants, creating two new migrant prisons as well as new forms of surveillance & control such as mandatory ankle bracelets, voice biometric scans, and halfway houses for migrants.

In the midst of this it can be hard to figure out how to intervene in what’s happening, either as an individual or group. In the spirit of spreading all forms of resistance to Canada’s border and prison regimes we’ve brainstormed a list of (just some of) the ways people might contribute to this fight.

Border and detention infrastructure can be found in most cities in Canada. Read on for some ways to identify it in your context (and a few ideas for what to do with that info).

IDENTIFYING BORDER INFRASTRUCTURE IN YOUR AREA

In the US, an extended and fierce struggle againt ICE has been ongoing, with most major cities in the country showing up to shut down ICE offices, hold noise demos outside of detention centers, and take other creative measures to counter the US detention and deportation regime. The government has been feeling the heat, and, while there’s still quite a ways to go, we think it’s both possible and necessary to bring resistance to the border in so-called Canada to this level!

Check if any of the following organizations have locations in your area:

Government:

  • Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) – The main enforcement for the detention, surveillance and deportation of migrants in Canada. Offices, staff, and infrastructure located all over Canada.

Did you know that in 2017, an access to information request resulted in the release of the names and positions of hundreds of CBSA employees? You can read those documents at this link and figure out if there’s anyone in your area whose responsibility for the deportation and detention of migrants should be revealed. https://mtlcounterinfo.org/doxxing-the-canadian-border-services-agency/

  • CBSA migrant detention centres – there are currently three federal migrant prisons – one in Toronto, one in Laval, and one inside the Vancouver airport. Construction on a new one in Surrey, BC, was recently completed, and a new one is being built in Laval, QC.
  • Provincial jails – The CBSA pays millions of dollars to provincial governments each year, as part of deals that allow the agency to imprison migrants in provincial jails. In Ontario, most migrants detained by the CBSA are held in provincial jails.

NGOs profiting from and enforcing the “Alternatives to detention” portion of the NIDF: https://communemag.com/the-same-prison-with-a-nicer-facade/

  • John Howard Society – a non-profit which was awarded almost $5 million to implement the new “Community Case Management and Supervision” program, essentially a regime of programming and halfway houses for migrants that mirrors the existing parole system in Canada. Locations in all provinces across Canada, no location in Yukon or Nunavut. http://johnhoward.ca/services-across-canada/
  • Toronto Bail Program – A recipient of approximtely $7 million to implement the “Community Case Management and Supervision” program, located in Toronto.
  • The Salvation Army – A recipient of over $1 million to implement the “Community Case Management and Supervision” program, locations in most Canadian cities.

Profiteers from the construction of the new migrant prison in Laval

Miscellaneous:

  • GardaWorld – This private security company, contracted as prison guards at the current migrant prison in Laval, and as security at the construction site for the new one, has locations all over Canada. There is no shortage of heinous projects they’re connected to. Check their website to see if they have a location in your area.
  • G4S – Contracted as prison guards at the migrant prison in Toronto.

Once you know the organizations and companies in your area that are profiting from border enforcement, consider trying to find out the names and locations of individuals involved. Try finding out where the executives of the company live, and put up posters in their neighbourhood, or hold a surprise demo outside of their home. You can also send them emails, faxes, and letters from an anonymous computer.

With a trusted friend or friends, take action against the companies or implicated agencies directly!

You can find a collection of communiques from actions that have taken place against the construction of the new migrant prison at this link: https://www.stopponslaprison.info/en/news-and-analysis/

If you’re considering taking direct action against border infrastructure in your area, take a look at this “Recipe for nocturnal direct actions”, which covers a lot of useful information for planning and executing effective direct actions while keeping eachother as safe as possible in the process! https://mtlcounterinfo.org/a-recipe-for-nocturnal-direct-actions/

Still not sure whether there is border infrastructure in your area? Reach out to a nearby No-One Is Illegal chapter or other migrant justice organization and see if they can point you in the right direction. Or, get together with friends for a research night!

There are of course still things you can do even if you live in a small community without any border infrastructure:

1. Share materials and information

Check out the materials page of stopponslaprison.info. You can share and print zines, posters, flyers and stickers with those in your network.

Get a group of friends together, and put up some posters in your neighbourhood, or near a bus stop. You can find instructions on how to make wheatpaste, which makes posters hard to remove, at this link. https://mtlcounterinfo.org/how-to-wheatpaste/

Spend a couple hours putting up stickers in the transit system, in your school, workplace, or in your neighbourhood.

Do a banner drop in a visible location in your area that shares a message against borders and prisons! Here is some information on how to do a banner drop: http://destructables.org/node/56

Plan an information picket or flyering day. Print out some flyers, or make your own! Get a few friends together and hang out at the subway/metro/skytrain or bus station for a few hours, giving people information about the project.

2. Spam the companies

Send spam faxes or flood the phone lines, email accounts, and social media accounts of the companies and their employees.

It’s easy to make temporary email accounts with protonmail or guerrilamail.

You can send faxes for free online at https://www.gotfreefax.com/ or https://faxzero.com/. Sending faxes with a lot of black ink can waste all of the ink on their machine or jam up the machine, making it less possible for them to recieve real faxes.

If you’re thinking of spamming the companies online, keep in mind that you may not want to do so from your own social media account, or IP address. Take a look at the EFF guide to safer online communications, and check out tools such as Tor and TAILS to use to create your temporary anonymous email account and for sending faxes.
https://ssd.eff.org/
https://www.torproject.org/
https://tails.boum.org/

3. Share this call with friends and family, and meet with them to talk about how you might organize something in your area!

Why Stantec and the Guy-Favreau Complex got targeted at the climate march and why the climate movement should fight the border regime

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Sep 282019
 

Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info

Canada is a major contributor to the climate crisis, playing an active role in displacing people from their homes around the world. Canada hosts over 70% of the world’s mining companies, which sow environmental and economic devastation on a global scale. Canada creates more greenhouse gas emissions than any other G20 country, contributing to the creation of climate refugees. And within its borders, the federal government continues to push through pipeline project after pipeline project, despite sustained resistance by Indigenous communities.

As the climate crisis continues to escalate, pushed along by the extractive forces of capitalism and colonialism, this has led to an acceleration of the global migration crisis. In response, we see Canada further fortifying its borders in an attempt to prevent those it has displaced from seeking refuge.

This buildup of border infrastructure is not limited to the border itself. Over the past two decades, migrant detention has been one of the fastest growing forms of incarceration in Canada. The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) has three prisons just for migrants and rents space to detain migrants in jails across the country. In 2016, the government invested an additional $138 million to strengthen and expand this system, leading to the construction of two new migrant prisons (one in Laval, QC) as well as new systems of surveilance and control such as mandatory ankle bracelets and voice biometric scans for migrants.

As Canada responds to climate change by fortressing its borders, those championing the white supremacist politics behind this decision will continue to become more mainstream. In Quebec, we’ve already seen the mainstreaming of anti-islam groups like La Meute, the success of the CAQ’s anti-immigrant election campaign, as well as the violent consequences of its Law 21. As the charade that is the federal election begins, we have already seen a further mainstreaming of white nationalism, as politicians sow fear and hatred of migrants crossing into Quebec at Roxham Road.

Borders and prisons are colonial impositions on these territories, systems fundamentally about domination and control. As Canada continues to invest billions into extraction, those feeling the brunt of the crisis here continue to be Indigenous peoples. Whether its pipelines forcibly installed across Indigenous territories, mining or logging companies operating in Indigenous territories without consent, or the envrionmental devastation caused by refineries built right next to reserves, Indigenous communities are consitently on the frontlines, experiencing the harmful effects of extractivism, as well as leading the resistance to it.

It is for these reasons and more that Stantec and the Guy-Favreau Complex were targeted by people participating in the climate march. The buildings were hit with green paintbombs and spraypainted with “Bienvenue aux migrants” (Welcome migrants). In the Guy-Favreau Complex, the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada holds detention review hearings daily, often resulting in the prolongation of a migrant’s imprisonment. Stantec is an engineering consulting firm involved in the construction of the new migrant prison in Laval.

This new prison is part of Canada’s false solution to the threat posed by climate change, an attempt to further intensify its border infrastructure, to keep out those it continues to displace. The real threats to the earth and the people who live on it are capitalism, the destruction of the environment, and the politicians who, without fail, will continue to defend these systems while scapegoating those displaced by them.

We believe it is necessary to push far beyond making requests of politicians, and toward directly challenging the role Canada is playing in the global crisis. We hope that the climate struggle can broaden its tactics, deepen its analysis, and continue to build links with ongoing struggles against white supremacy, settler colonialism, and border imperialism.

Call for Local Actions: October 3rd, Day of Action against Canada’s Detention of Migrants

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Sep 102019
 

From Solidarity Across Borders

What: Multi-City Day of Action Against Migrant Detention
When: October 3, 2019
Where: Pan-Canadian & international

Over the past two years, there has been an active struggle against the construction of a new prison for migrants planned for Laval, Québec. Opposition to this project has included many groups and tactics, each fighting in their own way for an end to Canada’s border and prison regimes.

The anti-detention committee of Solidarity Across Borders has participated in this struggle by organizing demonstrations, workshops, press conferences, a declaration against the prison (now signed by more than 80 groups), and temporary occupations of the construction site itself. But despite sustained and widespread opposition to this project, initial construction of the new Laval migrant prison recently began.

We are now faced with the urgency of acting rapidly to build pressure on the companies that have received contracts for the construction of this new prison. We have begun a series of weekly actions focusing on these profiteers, and are calling for a multi-city Day of Action on October 3rd, organized by allied groups in cities across the country and internationally.

The new prison in Laval is just one part of Canada’s immigration detention system that the Day of Action aims to challenge. Whether it’s federal migrant prisons, provincial jails detaining migrants for the CBSA, companies profiting off migrant detention, CBSA offices, or the NGOs implementing the CBSA’s new ‘alternative’ systems of surveillance and control, Canada’s immigration detention infrastructure spreads far and wide. We are calling for actions on October 3rd that both challenge this system and help make its infrastructure more visible.

Can you help organize an action in your city? Please write to: solidaritesansfrontieres@gmail.com

No Prisons! No Borders!

For more about immigration detention in Canada and the new migrant prison

To sign our statement against the prison

Tisseur Turns to Courts in Bid to Silence Critics of New Migrant Prison

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Aug 282019
 

From Solidarity Across Borders

Info-picketMontreal, 27 August 2019 — The Superior Court of Quebec has granted Construction Tisseur Inc. a legal injunction against the migrant justice network Solidarity Across Borders. Tisseur was awarded the federal contract to build the new migrant prison in Laval in June. The temporary injunction was sought in response to a festive information-picket, featuring live Klezmer music, outside Tisseur’s headquarters in Val-David last Thursday.

“This sets a very disturbing precedent. It is a huge concern for everyone in Quebec when a company uses the courts to silence critics. We remember Barrick Gold’s legal harassment of Éco-societé for publishing Noir Canada. And we see a clear connection: Canadian mining companies like Barrick Gold contribute to displacing people who then end up in immigration detention centres. We won’t be silenced, there is far too much at stake,” said Jane Doe of Solidarity Across Borders.

Solidarity Across Borders received notice at 6:26 pm on Thursday, 22nd August of a court hearing the following morning. Solidarity Across Borders’ legal representative requested a postponement to allow time to prepare a defence, but the postponement was denied. The temporary injunction, prohibiting Solidarity Across Borders, Jane Doe, and John Doe access to Tisseur’s property at 1670 Route 117 in Val-David, remains in place until September 1st. The injunction could be renewed this week.

“We organized the picket last week to reach out to the workers involved in this project. We believe that detention centres for migrants and refugees, and the immigration system they are part of, undermine labour rights. We wanted to engage with Tisseur workers about this during their lunch hour,” said John Doe of Solidarity Across Borders.

“Tisseur complained that we put up posters on their walls. We taped up silhouettes of friends who had been detained and deported, such as Lucy Granados, a single mother and worker from Guatemala who came to Canada after the US-owned factory she was working at moved to Asia, where labour was cheaper, and “Daniel,” a 17-year old boy who was detained at a Montreal high school and deported alone to Mexico,” said Doe.

“We don’t think Yannick Tisseur was afraid of our temporary posters or non-stick tape, but he is clearly scared of these stories reaching his workers. One of the signs read, ‘Tisseur, would you imprison your kids?’ He doesn’t want his workers to know that this prison will be used to imprison children.”

Tisseur began construction of the new prison, located beside the current Laval Immigration Holding Centre, on 5 August 2019. Scheduled to open in 2021, it is part of a $138 million investment into Canada’s capacity to indefinitely detain and deport migrants, including children. Former detainees report serious mental health problems such as nightmares, depression, suicidal thoughts, difficulty sleeping, anxiety, and other symptoms related to post-traumatic stress syndrome.

22 August – Protest the New Migrant Prison

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Aug 132019
 

From Solidarity Across Borders

Join us for the first of a series of public actions in opposition to the new Laval migrant prison! These actions will take place on Thursdays at noon at various locations, culminating in a multi-city day of action on October 3rd.

The new Laval migrant prison is part of a $138 million investment into Canada’s migrant detention system under the National Immigration Detention Framework (NIDF), a new policy announced in 2016. The NIDF provides for the construction of two new migrant prisons along with expanded carceral technologies to supervise and control migrants outside these facilities.

On Aug 22nd, we will be gathering in front of the Val-David headquarters of Tisseur Inc for a family-friendly, public, information-picket. Tisseur was recently awarded a $50 million contract to oversee construction of the new Laval prison, with initial work already begun.

Companies like Tisseur are eager to help build the infrastructure of an anti-migrant future but we have a vision of the future of our own. It does not include detention, borders, or prisons and we are calling for help to realise it.

To join us on August 22nd: we’ll be driving together from Montreal, so email solidaritesansfrontieres@gmail.com to reserve your place and find out the meet up place. We’ll be meeting at 10am to arrive at noon and return to Montreal no later than 4pm. If you have a car you can bring or lend, please let us know, as well as the number of seats you can offer.

No borders, no prisons, status for all!

Background

Statement to endorse

Olympia, Washington: We Are the Fire That Will Melt ICE – Rest in Power, Will Van Spronsen

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Jul 142019
 

From Puget Sound Anarchists

Early this morning around 4am our friend and comrade Will Van Spronsen was shot and killed by the Tacoma police. All we know about what lead up to this comes from the cops, who are notoriously corrupt and unreliable sources for such a narrative. The story that we do have is that Will attempted to set fire to several vehicles, outbuildings and a propane tank outside the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma which houses hundreds of immigrants awaiting hearings or deportations. He successfully set one vehicle on fire and then exchanged gunfire with Tacoma police officers who fatally shot him. He was pronounced dead on the scene. We find his actions inspiring. The vehicles outside the detention facility are used to forcibly remove people from their homes and deport them, often to situations where they will face severe danger or death. Those vehicles being destroyed is only a start of what is needed. We wish the fires Will set had freed all the inmates and razed the entire Northwest Detention Center to the ground. And we miss our friend and wish from the bottom of our hearts that his action had not ended in his death.

Will Van Spronsen was a long-time anarchist, anti-fascist and a kind, loving person. Here in Olympia some of us remember him as a skilled tarp structure builder from the Occupy encampment in 2011. Others remember him from the protests outside the NWDC last summer where he was accused of lunging at a cop and wrapping his arms around the officer’s neck and shoulders, as the officer was trying to arrest a 17-year-old protester. The very next day when he was released from jail he came right back to the encampment outside the center to support the other protesters. He is also remembered as a patient and thoughtful listener who was always willing to hear people out.

We are grief stricken, inspired and enraged by what occurred early this morning. ICE imprisons, tortures and deports hundreds of thousands of people and the brutality and scale of their harm is only escalating. We need every form of resistance, solidarity and passion to fight against ICE and the borders that they defend. Will gave his life fighting ICE we may never know what specifically was going through his head in the last hours of his life but we know that the NWDC must be destroyed and the prisoners must be freed. We do not need heroes, only friends and comrades. Will was simply a human being, and we wish that he was still with us. It’s doubtless that the cops and the media will attempt to paint him as some sort of monster, but in reality he was a comrade who fought for many years for what he believed in and this morning he was killed doing what he loved; fighting for a better world.

This evening around 8pm roughly 30 anarchists gathered at Percival landing in Olympia WA to remember Will Van Spronsen and to oppose ICE. We held road flares and banners reading “Rest In Power Will Van Spronsen” “Abolish ICE” “RIP Will” “Fire to the Prisons” and “Stop Deportation End Incarceration.” We shared stories and memories of Will with each other, laughed, and cried. Some people split off and plastered downtown Olympia with “Immigrants Welcome” stickers, while others drove circles around downtown flying the “Rest in Power Will” from the back of a truck.

May his memory be a blessing.

Love to those still fighting.

Tisseur Inc. Awarded GC Contract to Build Migrant Prison

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Jul 112019
 

Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info

Three years ago, the Canadian state invested $138 million to expand its migrant detention system, including plans for a new migrant prison in Laval. Since then, a multiform struggle has arisen to stop the construction of this prison. Companies such as Lemay, Loiselle, and Englobe have been continuosly reminded that anyone who chooses to implicate themselves in this project can expect major delays at every stage of the project.

Two years ago, the architecture and engineering firms Lemay and Groupe A were awarded the first contracts to design the new prison. In January of this year, a contract for the General Contractor (GC) was opened for bidding. Just like the architects and engineers, the GC will be intimately involved in every stage of construction. Along with a number of yet-to-be-exposed subcontractors, the GC will be directly undertaking the construction of facilities intended to cage migrants.

Just over a week ago, the CBSA quietly awarded the GC contract to a company based in Val David called Tisseur Inc. Tisseur is a construction company with a history of building schools and bridges, and at $50 million, this is by far the biggest contract they have received to date. They have already posted over a dozen job listings online since signing this contract.

Just like Lemay, Tisseur wants to market themselves as a “socially responsible” enterprise. Their website boasts about their green construction projects and prominently features their code of ethics. But just like Lemay and others, Tisseur is eager to profit from the misery and violence that the Canadian state inflicts on migrants. They shouldn’t expect to do this quietly.

Tisseur may think that scoring such a major government project is their big break, but the recent history of companies such as Lemay, Loiselle, and Englobe suggests that this could instead be the beginning of costly tribulations.

Fuck Borders. Fuck prisons. Fuck everyone who profits from and maintains them.

See you soon.

June 11th: Lemay Vice President’s Car Set on Fire

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Jun 182019
 

 

Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info

On the day of solidarity with long-term anarchist prisoners, the BMW belonging to André Cardinal, parked in front of his private residence in NDG, was set on fire. André Cardinal is the Vice President of Lemay, the architecture firm designing the migrant prison in Laval.

May fires burn for all that the worlds of prison and borders have stolen from us.

Seeds Against the New Migrant Prison in Laval

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Jun 122019
 

Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info

As we all know, the Canadian government decided to invest more than 56$ million into locking up hundreds of people in a brand-new prison in Laval, slated to open in 2021. On June 7th, we decided to take back this site of suffering and grief and transform it into a place of life and hope.

Thanks largely to a donation of organic seeds by a Quebec-based cooperative farm, we sowed the 377,500 square meter construction site with 490kg of oats, peas and fava beans. This action builds on the work of other community members and aims to encourage further efforts to stop the construction of the prison. We also see it as a way of preparing the ground for other projects to collectively reappropriate this land for the common purposes. No prisons, no borders!

Key facts:

In 2017, Canada detained close to six thousand migrants, including 162 minors, in various carceral institutions;

The new prison in Laval is part of a 138$ million package announced by the federal government to accompany its 2016 National Immigration Detention Framework (NIDF). Of the total, 122$ million is allocated for the construction of two migrant prisons. Two Quebec-based firms, Lemay and Groupe A, have signed 5M$ contracts to build the prison in Laval. We are impatiently awaiting the announcement of the general constructor;

A true marketing ploy, the NIDF attempts to shift the public debate from the question of why migrants are detained in the first place to that of the conditions of their detention. In this way, the government prides itself in building a prison that camouflages the fact that it is a prison.

People who are detained often suffer psychological and physical violence at the hands of Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) agents. Since 2000, at least 16 people have died in CBSA custody.

Why do we oppose this prison?

Since its inception, the machinery of the Canadian state has been at the service of economic elites whose sole objective is to exploit resources here and in the Global South, in the process displacing Indigenous peoples throughout the world and extinguishing all forms of life. It is no secret that Canadian companies (Barrick Gold, Goldcorp, Pacific Rime, SNC Lavalin, etc.) working in Africa, South America and the Middle East are accused of violence (murders, gang rapes, forced evictions, etc.) and political interference. Old-style colonialism has been replaced by new forms of control over the bodies and wealth of the Global South, under unbridled capitalism and neoliberalism driving us inexorably towards ecological collapse.

The governments of the Global North promote a utilitarian vision of immigration where migrants are viewed solely as cheap labour; replaceable and temporary. But this migrant workforce has been created by ecological disasters (desertification, deforestation, air and water pollution, floods, etc.), economic and political crises, famine, war – in short, by destruction affecting the entire world, resulting from the greed of a handful of corporations and their masters, which organise this world order.

In this context, the prison, deadly and dehumanising, emerges as a global strategy employed by the west. The objective is twofold: first, to pursue an economic programme characterised by dispossession and unfettered capitalization of remaining resources by the private sector; and secondly, to establish spaces outside the law to confine those deemed “disposable” or a “burden.”

The investment of millions of dollars into the construction of a new migrant prison is not haphazard but exclusively economic necessity and is the result of decades of racist, xenophobic and colonial policies.

Our opposition to the detention of migrants is part of a broader fight against imperialism and colonialism.

— The Rise Up against Prisons and Borders Collective

More information:
http://www.solidarityacrossborders.org/fr/background-immigration-detention-in-canada-and-the-new-refugee-prison-in-laval
www.stopponslaprison.org

www.ledevoir.com/societe/actualites-en-societe/503523/un-nouveau-centre-construit-a-laval-pour-maintenir-la-detention-des-immigrants
https://ici.radio-canada.ca/amp/1176138/centre-surveillance-immigration-englobe-opposants-vandalisme-vehicule

Sign on statement against the new prison:
http://www.solidarityacrossborders.org/en/no-to-a-new-prison-for-refugees-and-migrants-in-laval

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