May Day

On May Day 2019 in Montreal there were four different demonstrations at different times and locations across the city. The CLAC (Convergence des Luttes Anti-Capitalistes) called for their annual anti-capitalist May Day demonstration to be held in the theme of “No borders”, in the context of the rise of the xenophobic far right in Quebec and the ongoing attept to construct a new migrant prison in Laval, QC. We attended the CLAC’s No Borders May Day, which gathered at 6:30pm at Square Cabot in the west end of downtown Montreal. ...

On Wednesday May 1st, at 6:30pm, in Square Cabot, the anticapitalist caravan is back at it again to say fuck your borders and fuck your prisons! For people fleeing miserable living conditions, what are borders if not fences around prisons? After all, what’s the difference between forcing people to live inside arbitrary perimeters against their will and imprisoning them? Being forced to work for a Canadian company in Honduras, Haiti, Colombia, or elsewhere isn’t much better than being detained. These companies produce all of the useless junk that forms the basis of our modern comfort. The fact that the factories are so far away from Canada makes the exploitation less visible for westerners, though it is clear that slavery has not vanished; it’s only been given a different label. Exploited people pick our fruits, sew our clothes, catch our fish, and die for the rich to get richer, day after day, after day, after day… ...

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.

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. ...

Now as before, they are rich because we are poor. The financial masters of the Western world and seven of their political puppets will meet later this year at la Malbaie. They will fight to continue the exploitation of the global South and the pillaging of natural resources. The G7 will be a magnificient circus, paid for by our own exploitation. Paid by those who break themselves at work, by cut to social services, to education, to healthcare, to human dignity. A circus which will encourage free work given by unpaid internship, which will support the staggering profits of real estate moguls forcing us outside our homes. A circus whose sole goal is to promote an immoral statu quo. Imperialism and colonialism will be celebrated, at the expense of those who produce most of the world’s wealth. But it is not too late to fight back. ...

Despite a sizable turnout on a rainy day, May Day in Montreal left many feeling like the police succeeded in keeping our celebrations tame and orderly. The anti-capitalist demonstration started in two locations: a downtown contingent organized by CLAC (Convergence of Anti-Capitalist Struggles), and an anti-fascist, anti-borders contingent which would join the downtown one from the east. This was organized in part to avoid demonstrating alongside the PCR, authoritarian communists that CLAC persists in organizing with. ...

For the 9th year in a row an autonomous coalition of anti-capitalists invade the streets of Montreal to celebrate people’s struggles.

Entrance of McGill University (corner of Sherbrooke and McGill College, McGill metro station) Square Phillips (corner of Ste-Catherine and Union, McGill metro station) THIS YEAR AGAIN, THIS IS A CALL FOR ECONOMIC DISTURBANCE IN DOWNTOWN MONTREAL, NAMED BY THE BOURGEOIS THEMSELVES AS THE NEW “GOLDEN SQUARE MILE”, ESPECIALLY THE PERIMETER FORMED BY THE SHERBROOKE, RENÉ-LÉVESQUE, PEEL AND UNION STREETS. Again this year, the attacks against workers were dazzling : permanent economic crisis, increases in the cost of living, bosses and governments squeezing even more from employees. Notwithstanding the sacrosanct deficit zero we’ve been getting served for the last 20 years to justify cuts in social programs and help provided to poor workers and unemployed people. To divide our resistances even more, they wave the specter of terrorism and unearth xenophobia on a part of the population to encourage anger toward migrants, foreigners and people of color. Workers, the unemployed, students from everywhere in the world must unite against capitalist power. Against these attacks we must answer with solidarity: ...

The local employment centre of Hochelaga-Maisonneuve was vandalized, over the night of Thursday to Friday, in Montreal, when white and red paint was thrown on the buildings façade and the windows were broken. A passerby called 911 around 5:40 am to communicate the dammages to the building on rue De Rouen. Upon arriving at the location, police also noticed the interior had been ransacked, affirms the spokesperson of the SPVM, Jean-Pierre Brabant. ...

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