Regions

A Small Nuisance for the Gardas

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Nov 122018

Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info

Here’s a simple way to complicate the lives of Gardas and other security guards.

During their night rounds, security guards are equipped with a scanner to ensure they complete a number of tasks. They have to scan barcodes, QR codes and magnetic chips to prove to their superiors that they’ve done their rounds.

You’ll find these codes on exit doors, in bathrooms, some classrooms, at the ends of hallways and other places.

These images come from UQAM, but there are certainly some in your institutions, schools or not!

You can do your own rounds, to complicate theirs!

Montreal International Anarchist Theatre Festival: Only one week left…

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Nov 012018

From The Montreal International Anarchist Theatre Festival

The Montreal International Anarchist Theatre Festival (MIATF), the only festival in the world dedicated to anarchist theatre, is looking for plays, texts, monologues, dance-theatre, puppet shows, mime, in English and French, on the theme of anarchism or any subject pertaining to anarchism, i.e. against all forms of oppression including the State, capitalism, war, capitalism, patriarchy, etc. We will also consider pieces exploring ecological, social and economic justice, racism, feminism, poverty, class and gender oppression from an anarchist perspective. We welcome work from anarchist and non-anarchist writers.

The 2019 edition of the festival will take place on May 22-23. Are you interested in presenting your work during the festival? Send us the application form by November 7, 2018!

Anti-homophobic Action at Parc Maisonneuve

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Oct 292018

Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info

The evening of the 15th, we redecorated a few installations at Parc Maisonneuve. In 2013, this park had been the site of Operation Narcisse, a police operation during which plainclothes cops placed charges of “indecency” against men, after having seduced them. Some placards against “indencency” – which have, for the most part, been stolen or vandalised – were installed in the context of this operation with the purpose of intimidating us. Through our actions, we want to denounce the role that undercover cops play in the absurd and useless production of “crimes” implicating queer people. We also wish to denounce the recent installation of a camera at the entrance of the bathrooms in the basement of the Parc Mausonneuve chalet. Sooner or later, they will meet their sad fate.

Discover Westmount: An Up-and-Coming Hub of Anarchist Activity

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Oct 282018

Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info

When you hear the word “Westmount”, temporary autonomous zones, dumpster barricades, and flaming effigies of Trudeau aren’t exactly what pops to mind. People often think of this drab neighborhood looming over St. Henri as purgatory where the absurdly wealthy listlessly drift between a loveless marriage, resentful children, and a soul-crushing job… But not anymore!

Westmount is undergoing revitalization!

Anarchists are transforming it into a mixed-attack neighborhood that offers many opportunities for comrades of every tendency. In desolate Westmount, there’s an activity for anarchists of any stripe—regardless if your flag flies black, half-red, or purple glitterbomb.

Read Buzzfeed’s list of Five Cool Facts You Didn’t Know About Westmount (or, as we like to call it: Nouvelle-Exarchia)

1) Every other home is empty.

While most of those South of Maisonneuve can’t afford their rising rent–let alone buy a home—the tyrannical trillionaires of Westmount can own 2, 3, and sometimes 4 properties! They may be property owners, but not necessarily residents. Perfectly good houses are just sitting there, with empty bedrooms—and stocked fridges! It’s the cheapest Air BnB in the city-breakfast included! Think about it: Second home or…Squatted Social Centre?

2) Westmount pigs are literally the same as Montreal Pigs.

The Scumbag Protectors of the Very Moneyed (S.P.V.M) aren’t good enough for the affluent assholes of Westmount – these burdensome billionaires have –get this– brought in their very own smarmy army.

The only difference is that they aren’t in full-body armour—their soft, supple skin is vulnerable to the many elements (and projectiles). The way we see it: Two Birds; One Molotov.

3) It’s full of artisinale barricade material.

Have you ever been in a rowdy street party and the police just aren’t taking the many “hints” that their invitation wasn’t simply “lost in the mail”? You run to grab a newspaper box, only to realize it’s been bolted to the ground! You look around, but you are bereft of barricade material! This would never happen in Revolutionary Westmount!™ Here, the streets are peppered with grade-A barricade material, and all of it free for the taking. Newspaper Boxes, Dumpsters, and Patio Furniture—Oh my!

4) The walls are a primed canvas.

Did you know that these wealthy whiners haven’t yet heard of public art? It’s true! The many beautiful, blank walls in this tax-shelter territory present a desirable development opportunity. In this beige borough, you’ll never run into the problem of spending the night hanging out with your “squad”, getting ready to “throw up” an “ACAB” only to find another “tagger” has already “1312”-ed your “sick spot”. The walls are waiting for you to “Bank”-sy it up!

5) Last but not least: Banks, and lots of them!

‘Nuf said. (We already made a good bank joke in #4.)

Jokes aside, on the beautiful fall evening, we slashed the tires of two cars parked in the driveway of 3140 rue Jean-Girard, in Westmount. This is the address of Brandon Shiller. Brandon Shiller is a prominent slumlord who buys up properties in low-income areas with the sole purpose of evicting tenants and hiking up the rent. His daddy’s real-estate firm is Shiller Lavy, which is also heavily-involved in gentrifying many neighborhoods in Montreal.

We encourage anyone else concerned with the rising rents and attacks on the poor to let these scumbags, who hide in the wealthiest neighbourhood in Montreal, know how you feel.

Homophobic Cops of Quebec

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Oct 262018

Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info

The following is a list of cops who have, near or far, participated in the development of police operations with the purpose of harassing queer men cruising in public spaces in the so-called province of Quebec. This list is not exhaustive.

Sébastien CHARRON constable│PDQ 15 │SPVM │ Opération Sentier

Geneviève PÉPIN constable│PDQ 15 │SPVM │ Opération Sentier

Jean-Ernest CÉLESTIN chief │PDQ 15 │SPVM │ Opération Sentier

Stéphane BROSSEAU constable│SPVM │ Opération Sentier

Stéphane BÉLANGER commander│PDQ 38 │SPVM│ Operation Nirvana

Suzie PAQUETTE community officer│ PDQ 38│ SPVM │ Opération Nirvana

Christine DOUCET community officer│SPVM │ Opération Nirvana

Josée BELLEMARE community officer │SPVM │ Opération Nirvana

Nathalie LEGROS community officer │SPVM │ Opération Nirvana

Caroline BERNIER community officer│SPVM │ Opération Nirvana

Jean-Guy TRUDEL sergeant │PDQ 38 │SPVM │ Opération Nirvana

Mélanie POTVIN constable│PDQ 38 │ SPVM │ Opération Nirvana

Giovanni CIARLO agent provocateur│ SPVM │ Opération Nirvana

Sylvain JOYAL agent provocateur│SPVM │ Opération Nirvana

Martin BRIÈRE agent provocateur│SPVM │ Opération Nirvana

Josée MIREAULT community officer │ PDQ 44 │SPVM │ Opération Narcisse

Alexandre CLÉMENT mat. 11721 │agent provocateur│SPAL

Pierre QUINTAL spokesperson │SPAL

Gaétan DUROCHER spokesperson │SPAL

Jacques CÔTÉ former captain│SPAL

Réjan PLEAU prevention programs manager│ SPVQ

François BOUCHARD public relations officer │SPVQ

Sandra DION constable│SPVQ │ Opération Rendez-Vous

Catherine VIEL communications officer│SPVQ │ Opération Buisson

Marie-Ève PAINCHAUD constable │SPVQ

Nancy ROUSSEL constable│SPVQ

Christine LEBRASSEUR spokesperson │SPVQ

André MAGNY station director │ Shawinigan │ SQ

The following is a list of politicians and community actors who have, near or far, participated in the development of police operations with the purpose of harassing queer men cruising in public spaces in the so-called province of Quebec. This list is not exhaustive.

Isabelle BOISVERT coordinator│ table en sécurité urbaine du Plateau-Mont-Royal │Centre des Femmes │ Opération Nirvana

Vivianne LAVOIE general director │ table en sécurité urbaine du Plateau-Mont-Royal │Centre des Femmes │ Opération Nirvana

Marc PETTERSEN municipal councilor │Ville de Sauguenay

Robert MILOT mayor │Ville de Sainte-Adèle

Huguette ROY municipal councilor│Saint-Paul-Émard │membre de la table de sécurité urbaine du Sud-Ouest │ Opération Sentier

Michel ANGERS mayor │Ville de Shawinigan

Report-back and Notes on the Big Feast Against the Elections

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Oct 192018

Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info

Late on election night, dozens of black flags lined the streets just south of Lafontaine park. Discarded in the midst of an altercation with riot police who shot canisters at us, broke us up, and temporarily shattered our togetherness, they remained, at least momentarily, scattered across the pavement, there to mark our passage. A passage too short. A passage not nearly close to sweet.

The demo began around 10pm. The lighting of a pink smoke grenade marked the beginning of what was going to be a brief but fiery display of resistance. Fireworks splintered and splattered, dying out among the trees. Cops had been roaming around since the beginning of the banquet, at times hiding behind their unmarked vehicles, but for the most part, staring at us from a distance, as if trying to locate the one transgression, infraction, crime, that would later serve as a justification for the barrels of tear gas they were preparing to unload on us.

As we made our way south bound, a woman exiting the Notre-Dame Hospital tripped and fell. Almost immediately, a dozen or so comrades stopped to offer her a hand. They didn’t know how to help her. And with riot cops charging at us from behind, they knew that they couldn’t offer her anything beyond their awkward, split-second presence. Flaming tear gas cans filled Plessis street and the hospital parking lot. Some of us ran south-east, cutting through that very same parking lot as if avoiding the Wrath. But it was too late. Our stones had landed. Their precious patrol cars had already been dented, their aggressive, obnoxious machismo irreversibly mollified. Others continued down Plessis, smashed a Desjardins bank, and, dwindling in number, stumbled upon the PQ’s Election Night gathering at Usine C where they delivered a brief fuck-you to the bourgeois elements assembled there before needing to escape increasingly confident police charges, dispersing through parks, backyards and alleyways.

The dents we left behind and the flags that we were forced to abandon only minutes into the protest have earmarked your world for destruction. Our dents, our black fabric strewn across your peaceful city roads harbour a world diametrically opposed to yours—a world impatiently awaiting the moment of its revolutionary release, a world no riot cop, no corporate chemical canister will ever be able to contain. A world reviled by even the thought of being asked to elect rulers.

A world in which unaccountable elites are replaced with temporary, revocable assignments open to all. A world in which we would loathe to abandon our decision-making powers to wealthy ‘socialist’ upper-class poster boys who see fit to plaster their unblemished faces on our street corners, choosing instead to safeguard them jealously against those who, under the guise of development and progress—always development and progress—are oh-so-ready to usurp what is rightfully ours, eager and willing to act on behalf of their nameless masses. Wealthy upper-class poster boys who on this very night (October 1st) and for the next four years will greedily suckle champagne from the teats of stingy, blood-thirsty Capital while the rest of us are peacefully tear-gassed.

Starting today, and for the next four years, elected CAQ officials will continue to exacerbate racial tensions, implementing an immigration policy that openly seeks the subordination of migrants and racialized people. Absent any mechanisms by which to hold these officials accountable, we will have to take up tried and tested grassroots tactics as well as imagine and re imagine new ones—ones better suited to a world so (not so?) thoroughly surveilled. The bureaucratic and violent mechanisms through which the state enacts it’s white supremacist policies will have to be undermined, thwarted, or else thoroughly destroyed.

October Anarchist Calendar

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Sep 302018

From Résistance Montréal

PDF

Public Advisory in Saint-Henri: Risk of Luxury Car Arson

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Sep 182018

From Corporate media, détournement not required

A flier claiming to be from the Sud-Ouest borough is being refuted by city officials as a fake, and a fear-mongering tactic by opponents of gentrification.

The flier was left on some high-end cars – including an Audi and an Acura – urging owners to move out of St. Henri or face the possibility of their cars being set on fire.

The fliers were mostly recovered from Lea Roback St., where several cars were torched in summer 2017.

The flier says there’s a “risk of luxury car arson” in the area, and that police have not been able to arrest anyone in the arson cases from last year.

It advises residents to not leave flammable materials in the cars, and finally, to move out of the neighbourhood to Westmount or Beaconsfield.

Before the Sud-Ouest’s borough council meeting, City Councillor Craig Sauve said the fliers aren’t just fake, but they may end up scaring residents.

“it’s immature, it’s reckless, it’s dangerous – it doesn’t represent our neighbourhood whatsoever,” Sauve said. “It scares the very people we’re trying to help, so we shouldn’t do these kinds of things. We should try to look out for one another, and try to fight for more affordable housing, and that’s how we succeed as a neighbourhood.”

The car fires were captured on cell phone video last year, and yielded little information about a suspect.

At around 3:45 a.m. on Friday July 14, 2017, two cars were set on fire on Lea Roback Street. Two other nearby cars also caught fire.

A man was seen near the cars shortly before both fires were set, but police did not get a description.

The SPVM admitted that with no description of the suspect, and no security footage, the flier is correct – no arrests were made for the arsons from last year.

“It happened during the night – we had not much detail, no witness, nothing,” Sylvain Parent, Commander of Montreal Police Station 15.

“So of course for us to start an investigation based on the thing that we found on the scene was very difficult,” he added. “That’s why they say that nothing has been done – something has been done, but unfortunately we were unable to relate it to any kind of suspect whatsoever.”

Sauve said the borough and the city are finding ways to increase affordable housing and support community measures that help low income residents.

As he sees it, residents coming together to help each other is the real spirit of St. Henri, not somebody making veiled threats in a pamphlet.

Source: “City councillor says arson leaflets in St. Henri are fear-mongering fakes”, CTV Montreal, 11 September 2018

CBSA Offices Shut Down by Migrant Justice Activists in honour of Mr. Bolante Idowu Alo and our Deported Friends and Neighbours

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Sep 022018

From Solidarity Across Borders

Montreal CBSA offices were shut down on August 30th in honour of Mr. Bolante Idowu Alo and of our friends, family members and neighbours who have been deported. Migrant justice activists blocked and chained all doors to the building and employees were not able to enter the building to carry on their work for two hours.

We want to ensure that business could not go on as usual. Mr. Bolante Idowu Alo died violently at the hands of the Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA): we cannot let them carry on as though nothing has happened. We call on our communities to not only condemn this outrageous violence but take action to stop it from happening again.

Mr. Alo lived in Canada for 13 years. He repeatedly told Canadian officials that his life was in danger in Nigeria. CBSA nevertheless proceeded with his deportation on 7 August; Mr. Alo died shortly after he was taken off the plane that was supposed to deport him.

We took this action to challenge the normalization of CBSA violence, and of deportations and detentions of migrants and refugees. We want to hold the CBSA accountable. Mr. Alo is not the first person to die in CBSA custody. And he should never have been threatened with deportation in the first place.

We are also remembering other friends, family members, and neighbours who have been detained and forcibly deported from Canada by the CBSA, like Lucy Francineth Granados, who was deported on 13 April 2018, leaving holes in our lives and communities.

In 2016, Canada issued 11,733 removal orders: some left “voluntarily”, others were deported, still others remained to become undocumented migrants. Of the migrants who crossed irregularly into Canada to flee the Trump regime, whose cases have been heard, less than 50% have been accepted as refugees; this figure drops to 10% in the case of Haitians. People whose refugee claims are refused are ordered to return to their countries of citizenship – including to Haiti, despite the fact that Canada issued a warning against travel to Haiti.

In support of the shut down, people gathered outside CBSA offices for a public mourning of Mr. Alo and their deported friends and neighbours. A coffin was placed in front of the building. Black silhouettes with the names of friends who had been deported were lined up against the wall. The rally demanded the abolition of the new Ministry of Border Security, a moratorium on deportations to Haiti, and an end to the deportations of refugees and migrants.

#StopDeportations
#shutdownCBSA
#PortesClosesASFC

Resisting Slavery: From Marie-Joseph Angélique 1734 to Prison Strike 2018

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Aug 272018

From It’s Going Down

Some anarchists came together on the night of August 23rd to cover Montréal’s Vieux Port (Old Port) in posters that read in both French and English:

Resisting Slavery: From Marie-Joseph Angélique 1734 to Prison Strike 2018

August 21 – September 9th

More Info: twitter.com/JailLawSpeak

We postered along the same streets that Angélique was paraded down moments before she was hung, and then burned. Angélique, we remember. Slavery, stolen land, and attempted genocide define the contours of the ever-forming settler states of Turtle Island (North America). In solidarity with prisoners currently fighting slavery inside all US prisons, we wanted to (re)tell the story of Marie-Joseph Angélique. Angélique was a Black woman enslaved in Montréal during the 18th Century who was sentenced to torture and death for allegedly setting fire to her slave owner’s domicile, which resulted in the majority of the city of Montréal burning. We offer Angélique’s story as a reminder that Québec and Canada were engaged in the practice of slavery for over 200 years. We chose Angélique’s story because it connects the city we live in to the ongoing story of resistance to slavery on this continent.

US prisoners have used this strike to reference a long history of resistance to slavery. August 21, 1831 marked the start of Nat Turner’s Rebellion, a significant moment of resistance by enslaved people. August 21, 1971 also marks the day the state killed George Jackson, a Black revolutionary prisoner deeply involved in struggles for the liberation of Black peoples. Jackson’s death ignited an intense period of prison organizing. September 9, 1971 marks the start of the Attica Uprising, one of the most significant moments of resistance inside US prisons. Prisoners at Attica released a list of comprehensive demands to improve their living conditions. Those demands were never met but have clearly influenced the prisoners on strike today.

Resistance to slavery is an ongoing struggle for those facing incarceration in the United States. The 13th Amendment to the US Constitution states:

Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Slavery actively continues within US prisons. The 13th Amendment legally justifies the violent, brutal conditions that define this carceral system. These conditions are what prisoners across the States will be striking against over the next two weeks. And while Canada does not have a similar constitutional amendment, we view prisons not only as an apparatus of domination, but also as an extension of Canada’s settler colonial project. The primary aim for the settler colonial project is to control land for settlement and for the extraction of “natural resources”. It is through these capitalist relationships to land that the colonial system secures its wealth and future existence. However, First Nations, Inuit and Métis Nations are viewed by the political and economic elite as an obstacle to this settler future. The settler state and society have employed tactics and strategies such as: racialized and class-motivated surveillance, policing, military repression, and incarceration. Containment and control are not only central to the settler colonial project, but prisons and incarceration are a strategic part of keeping Indigenous people off the land, and thus less able to challenge state power.

Slavery, stolen land, and attempted genocide are the founding stories of the settler states occupying this continent, and they are the foundations of the systems we seek to abolish. We weave together these aforementioned moments in history to illustrate how they belong to a longer, more global context of colonial expansion, exploitation for profit, and great wealth for some humans at the expense of the objectification of so many forms of life.

Solidarity with the prisoners on strike, in memory of Angélique.

Against prisons, against slavery, against colonialism!

URL link to poster pdf files: https://archive.org/details/PrisonStrike2018posters

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