Demos

A discourse attached to an affect in relation to demonstrations has percolated on the margins of the milieu of late. “I’m not really interested in demos right now”, “Demos are very limiting”, they say. The leftist tendency to make calling a demo the default response to social problems has rightly attracted criticism. But these critiques are now being used to mask an entirely different position, according to which no demos are worth our time. I feel confident that a take-it-or-leave-it approach to such a wide class of tactics is rarely helpful in developing a coherent projectuality. ...

Your browser does not support the audio element. Yesterday in Tiohtia:ke, forty anarchists (and our friends 🙂 ) attacked the buildings of mcgill university. Armed with rudimentary tools, we succeeded in destroying all windows that stood in our way. With the help of hammers, rocks, and glass bottles, we vandalized this symbol of the colonial capitalist system. Within 15 minutes, we smashed over 30 windows on multiple pavillions of the institution, as well as the electronic locks of the administration building. An exam in progress during the protest was cancelled for 350 students. According to a mcgill spokesperson, the damages are estimated to be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Two comrades who were momentarily detained by the failed pigs of a private security agency, subcontracted by mcgill, were gloriously de-arrested. The police response was slow and ineffective, the protest led to no arrests or injuries. We dispersed completely before the arrival of the spvm. ...

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) ...

*This release is based on the journal Block NATO, organised by CLAC and D4P, but it is independent. We will explain here the reasoning behind our actions of the evening of Friday, November 22nd, because we know why we do these things and we believe very strongly in what we do. Let’s put things first in context : Friday marked the start of NATO’s parliamentary assembly in Montreal. NATO represents the military apparatus of the global north, it’s the biggest military alliance in history. While our governments are already making the life of the excluded and exploited a death circus, NATO pressures Canada to invest 50% more of its GDP into the military. That represents 55 billion dollars. NATO is a major decision-making body that embodies militarist and imperialist interests. It’s also an accomplice in the genocide happening in Palestine. ...

A demo for Palestine attacked Concordia University Sunday evening. Many windows of luxury stores on Sainte-Catherine street were also broken. The police were kept at a distance with the help of molotov cocktails. Photos of the demo

Sunday, August 10th was the second annual edition of Rad Pride. Over 250 people gathered at Papineau metro, pink balaclavas mingling with black bloc and our gayest demo attire. Under the rallying cries of “No pride in genocide” and “Queerness is resistance”, the march set off down Sainte-Catherine. Now, a couple weeks later, we want to offer a look back at this evening from a tactical perspective. ...

On July 19th, under a calm night sky, over 60 people assembled in downtown Montreal to march for Palestine. The demonstration was publicized without using social media, resulting in no police presence visible at the gathering location. The account that follows comes from a couple of participants in the demo. We hope to share an understanding of what went down for those who weren’t there and make some suggestions for next time. ...

First and foremost, I want to state that I was in no way involved in this year’s organization of the March 15th demonstration against police brutality. I knew some of the people involved in its organization before, and some of the people involved in the organization this year, but I only saw the organization evolve from afar. So yes, there was a new collective organizing the March 15th demonstration this year. During and after the demonstration, I’ve heard a number of critiques, some whispers between comrades, some more public. I, for one, want to address those critics. I give my heartfelt and complete thanks to the March 15th collective, who stepped up to the plate and filled some very big shoes, with very little time to do it. It’s a thankless and dreadful job, and they have my full support for stepping up to the plate. ...

Saturday, October 21 in Montreal saw a face-off between a shrinking coalition of religious conservative transphobes and a counter-protest in defense of trans youth. TL;DR: trans defenders won. Called as a Canada-wide day of action by “1 Million March for Children”, with the group “Ensemble pour protéger nos enfants” (hereafter EPPNE; “Together to protect our children”) leading the Montreal event, it was the follow-up to the clashes on September 20th in front of McGill University. That day, an unexpectedly large crowd, mostly composed of Muslim families, with children holding signs reading “I belong to my parents” and shouting transphobic and homophobic insults, confronted an underprepared counter-protest and succeeded in marching through downtown Montreal, leaving trans defenders and their queer and antifascist comrades shaken. ...

Warning: this article contains explicitly homophobic, racist, and antisemitic elements A demonstration “against LGBTQ+ propaganda in schools and institutions” is to be held in Québec City on July 8. The demonstration is part of a series of events that have been taking place in Québec for some time, with the apparent aim of demonizing LGBTQ+ communities and their allies. The pretext for holding the rally in front of the Musée de la civilisation in Québec City is a current exhibition examining “the multiple realities linked to gender identities.” ...

The anti-capitalist MayDay 2022 blatantly showed the limits of our offensive demonstrations. It’s a good thing that comrades were able to hit certain symbolic targets, but it’s a real problem that these attacks signaled the end of the demonstration instead of rekindling its momentum. We must therefore reflect on our means, our tactical choices, and our collective capacities. To start off, lets be clear that it is not the attacks that cause the demonstration to disperse. Some people will always leave an event when it starts becoming more offensive but this is not so much the case here, or only very marginally. We can assume that most of the comrades present know what they are getting into, and what to expect. In the same way, the massive police presence, sometimes sticking very close to the crowd, does not prevent the event from taking place (cf. the last COBP demonstration). The fateful moment arrives with the use of tear gas. ...

On Sunday, March 27, 2022, a small but determined group of anarchists marched to the Russian consulate in Montréal, in solidarity with anarchists, anti-fascists, and anti-war movements active in the territories of Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus. We held up banners saying: “НЕТ ВОЙНЕ” (No War); “ПУТИН: ИДИ НА ХУЙ” (Go fuck yourself, Putin); “Solidarity with UKR[ainian] and RUS[sian] War Resisters”; “Fin aux Tsars! Up the Ⓐntifascist resistance partout”; and the anti-fascist flag. Despite our small numbers, we briefly took the streets, blasting a very sick playlist of mostly Ukrainian and Russian pop music and post-punk tracks. When we reached the consulate, we ziptied the “НЕТ ВОЙНЕ” and “ПУТИН: ИДИ НА ХУЙ” across the gate doors on the front of the consulate. We read the following communiqué from an action that had targeted a recruitment centre near Moscow in early March: ...