From-Embers on Montreal Counter-information

Fighting the PRGT Pipeline

Thu, 18 Sep 2025 12:46:00 +0000

An interview with two settler anarchists in northern British Columbia who are active in a growing struggle against the Prince Rupert Gas Transmission Project or PRGT.

Resistance to the project has been heating up all summer as government approvals have been issued and construction work is expected to begin in the fall of 2025.

Discussions includes history and overview of the project, the changing context of the Canada-US trade war, anarchist-indigenous solidarity, and taking some lessons from Shut Down Canada.

Report from Montreal's NYE Noise Demo

Mon, 20 Jan 2025 13:06:00 +0000

From From Embers

A discussion with two organizers of this year’s New Year’s Eve noise demo in Laval. We discuss how things went, prisoner solidarity organizing in Montreal, the value of noise demos as an anarchist tactic and tradition, and where we might go from here.

Thanks to CKUT Prison Radio for the live footage.

Links:

Video from Clash MTL

Report from 2025 Hamilton Noise Demo

Seven Years Against Prison : On the practice of noise demos outside of prisons in Southern Ontario (pdf link)

From Embers: Drag Defence in Quebec

Sat, 22 Jul 2023 13:40:00 +0000

From From Embers

Talking with Louve Rose from P!nk Bloc Montreal about Quebec’s transphobic far right, drag defence, and building a revolutionary anti-capitalist queer organization for both community self-defence and to intervene against gay assimilationism.

Links

P!nk Bloc MTL – Instagram , Facebook , Linktree

August 12 Rad Pride ( Facebook Event )

Montreal Antifasciste

MAF reportback from April 12 drag defence

From Embers - Anti-Fascism in Quebec

The Public Order Emergency Commission

Mon, 16 Jan 2023 12:52:00 +0000

From From Embers

LISTEN HERE

Interview with an anti-fascist observer about insights gained from the Public Order Emergency Commission hearings, a public inquiry into the federal government’s use of the Emergencies Act to repress the so-called Freedom Convoy in February 2022.

We discuss why governments invoke emergencies, OPP’s Project Hendon, how the Convoy was funded, the relationship between convoy organizers and police, comparisons with #ShutDownCanada, liberal conspiracy theories, the scale of economic disruption during the Convoy, and more.

New Communication Infrastructure For Anarchists

Fri, 04 Nov 2022 12:09:00 +0000

From From Embers

Interview with the author of the PET Guide , a zine discussing secure digital communication tools from an anarchist perspective. We discuss Signal and its critics, and some new tools being released that incorporate peer-to-peer communication, end-to-end encryption and the Tor network .

Further reading:

How the U.S. Military buys location data from ordinary apps

The challenge of cracking Iran’s internet blockade

Catholic bishop / Grindr / App data scandal

From Embers: Quebec Nationalism and Settler Futurity – Refusing Innocence

Mon, 31 Oct 2022 12:06:00 +0000

From From Embers

A conversation with two anarchists following a workshop they gave at the Montreal Anarchist Bookfair entitled 10 years since the strike: the place of nationalism within militant struggle. We discuss the history of Quebec nationalism and its influence in anarchist and radical milieus, responsibilities of settlers in anti-colonial struggle and in relating to land, possibilities and uncertain futures opened up by anarchism as a guiding practice, and more.

Student Organizing with Divest McGill

Fri, 29 Apr 2022 12:09:00 +0000

From From Embers

In this episode I chat with two members of Divest McGill , a student-led organization at McGill University in so-called Montreal. They are fighting to force McGill to divest from the fossil fuel industry and transform the university into something liberatory and accountable to the people whose lives it affects. This spring, they led a more than two-week-long open, social occupation of a university building.

All music in this episode is from the 2012 anti-folk opera " What The F*ck Am I Doing Here? " about anarchist participation in the 2012 Quebec student strike. Check it out on Soundcloud here: https://soundcloud.com/whatthefuckamidoinghere/sets/what-the-fuck-am-i-doing-here

From Embers: Social Networks, Online Life and The Fediverse

Sun, 06 Feb 2022 13:10:00 +0000

From From Embers

This week’s discussion features an anarchist who is really into Mastodon. We talk about what’s wrong with corporate social media platforms, what we like and don’t like about spending time catching up online, and how Mastodon/the Fediverse feels different from hanging out on Instagram. We also get some tips for getting started on this alternative social media platform.

Links:
https://kolektiva.social

https://joinmastodon.org

Forthcoming sub.media documentary about Facebook that our guest mentions in the interview:

From Embers: A Stripper's Memoir

Thu, 20 Jan 2022 12:03:00 +0000

From From Embers

This episode features an interview with Cid V. Brunet about their recent memoir “This Is My Real Name: A Stripper’s Memoir.” We talk about stripping, sex work, anarchist community, sex, gender and much more. Get the book at Arsenal Pulp Press .

From Embers: Terrain Vague

Mon, 25 Oct 2021 11:57:00 +0000

From From Embers

The Terrain Vague, which loosely translates into English as the “wasteland,” is a large de-industrialized and partially wooded area on the outskirts of Hochelega, a neighbourhood in Montreal’s east end, and close to the Port of Montreal.

That space is under threat from several major development projects, and those who care about the Terrain Vague have been getting organized in the past years, connecting the developments to broader colonial-capitalist strategies at play by the Quebec government, making links with neighbourhood groups, and taking direct action to physically defend the space.

From Embers: Settlers on the Red Road

Thu, 02 Sep 2021 12:10:00 +0000

From From Embers

Interview with Tawinikay about her essay released in spring 2021 Settlers on the Red Road: On Indigeneity, Appropriation and Belonging which addresses the problem of race-shifting in anarchist and anarchist-adjacent spaces.

Music from Snotty Nose Rez Kids .

From Embers: A Year At 1492 Land Back Lane

Tue, 27 Jul 2021 13:35:00 +0000

From From Embers

This episode features an interview with Skyler Williams of 1492 Land Back Lane, a land reclamation on the edge of the Six Nations of the Grand River reserve near Caledonia, Ontario. This week marks the one year anniversary of the camp which was reclaimed last July in response to plans to develop a subdivision on Six Nations Territory. Skyler speaks about a year spent at the camp, the recent announcement that the McKenzie Meadows subdivision has been cancelled by the developer because of Six Nations resistance, and what’s next for folks at Land Back Lane.

From Embers: Fairy Creek

Thu, 22 Jul 2021 12:28:00 +0000

From From Embers

After a hiatus, the anarchist podcast From Embers re-launched this month.

The first new episode is a discussion with an anarchist participant in the Fairy Creek blockades on so-called Vancouver Island. Listen here:

From Embers: Anarchist Bookfair XX

Fri, 03 May 2019 15:41:59 +0000

From From Embers

The Montreal Anarchist Bookfair is the largest anarchist gathering in North America and 2019 is it’s 20th year. In this episode, I interviewed two members of this year’s bookfair collective. Topics include:

- what, if anything, does the bookfair have to do with books?

-is the bookfair for “us,” for “recruitment,” or both?

-how much should event planners try to shape a space like this? what kinds of policies are appropriate and how, if at all, should they be enforced?

Stop The Prison, Open The Border

Fri, 15 Mar 2019 14:01:26 +0000

From From Embers

This week’s episode features two interviews with people involved in the struggle to stop a new migrant prison from being built in Laval, Quebec. Topics discussed include:

-the project and how the government is trying to frame it as a “nice” cage.

-senses of strategy and what might work to actually stop a project like this.

-actions that have taken place against the prison, how they’ve gone, and what actions might be on the horizon.

From Embers: Unsettling the Commons

Wed, 20 Feb 2019 23:25:22 +0000

From From Embers

An interview with Craig Fortier , who is an organizer and academic based in Toronto. Among other things, Craig is involved with No One Is Illegal and helps coordinate the Field of Dreamers Cooperative Softball Association , which was featured on a recent episode of Talking Radical Radio . Craig is the author of the short book Unsettling The Commons: Social Movements Within, Against and Beyond Settler Colonialism which was published in 2017 by Arbeiter Ring. In it, Craig draws on more than 50 interviews with organizers within what he calls the “anti-authoritarian current” across Canada and the United States, and discusses what it means to “struggle for the commons” in the context of settler colonialism.