In 2016, numerous attacks were launched at diverse symbols of gentrification in the Montreal neighborhoods of Hochelaga-Maisonneuve and Saint-Henri. We wanted to give space to the people involved so that they can explain a point of view, that corporate media consistently ignore or misrepresent. subMedia has obtained an exclusive interview with two anarchists involved in the actions. ...

On the night of December 13, 2016, three branch locations of banks invested in pipelines were sabotaged in different Montreal neighborhoods by coordinated groups. We glued locks and ATM card slots at branches of Toronto Dominion and the Royal Bank of Canada. We painted #NODAPL and ‘Solidarity with all land defenders’ on the walls outside. TD and RBC are among the largest Canadian investors in the Dakota Access Pipeline. RBC is also a major investor in Enbridge’s Line 3, which was just approved by the federal government of Canada, and an investor in Kinder Morgan, whose Trans Mountain pipeline was also just approved by the federal government here. There has been resistance to Enbridge and Kinder Morgan for years. We are continuing it here and we expect it will keep happening. Fuck all the pipelines. ...

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Trains are one of the main ways that oil is transported across Turtle Island. Physical blockades of the tracks have been used effectively many times to hamper ecocidal projects of “resource extraction”. We can also block the rails in a sneaky way: by tricking the signalling system into thinking there is a train on the tracks. This trick will force train traffic to come to a halt until the signal blockage is cleared. It can be done in under a minute, and repeated many times to have a significant impact on train circulation. It can take hours to find and remove this blockage, stopping all train traffic in the meantime. ...

Over the last few months, friends have been playing Camover in the neighbourhood of Hochelaga. We’ve destroyed around twenty security cameras. For your pleasure (and certainly for our own as well!), here’s a photo in which we see a friend sporting a necklace of optical trophies. In response to the recent smashings of gentrifiers in the neighbourhood, and in the context of twenty-two businesses being vandalized in the last year, the city and the police have publicly announced a renewed collaboration. They’re desperately trying to reassert control, faced with people who “aren’t afraid of the police”, and their initiative to install more cameras shows it. Of course, the police know that it’s impossible to be everywhere all of the time. There will always be loopholes that allow those who are creative and well-prepared to attack. That’s where cameras come in: to make us feel powerless and watched. But our masks will continue to give us power against any camera. No face, no case. And so, to keep up morale, we’ve decided to see this increase in the presence of cameras in the neighbourhood as an occasion for more CamOver and increased sabotage of the mechanisms of control that the authorities put in place. ...

On Monday October 31, about 75 people assembled in Hochelag’ with costumes and candy for a Halloween demonstration against gentrification. In a carnivalesque mood, the small crowd took the streets and put up graffiti on the walls of the neighbourhood. In the wake of the demo’s path, one could read: “fuck homa”, “genre = cauchemar” (gender = nightmare), “tout le monde déteste la police” (everyone hates the police), “junkies contre la gentrification” (junkies against gentrification), etc. This gave a bit of colour and life to Hochelag’, a neighbourhood which is undergoing sterilization so that, slowly but surely, all that can thrive are condos, yuppie grocery stores and high-end clothing stores. ...

About a year ago, the good citizens of the neighborhood were indignant about an attack against Electric Kids, whose front window was sprayed with purple paint which we can still see traces of today. Tonight, we decided to attack other businesses on rue Sainte-Catherine – three furniture design boutiques, a real estate office, and a yuppie hair salon. If this is the strategy we use, it’s not just to make those who support and participate in the gentrification of Hochelaga talk about it. We want to do more than just raise our voices, to be more than indignant when faced with this movement that slowly chases us from the neighborhood. Rather than being satisfied with just smashing their windows, we decided to spray the interior of the design businesses with paint to ruin their merchandise. It’s a matter of directly effecting these owners, and not just the facades that protect them. ...

On Saturday November 26 a coalition of anti-fascists, blocked the entrance of the Plaza Theatre, a venue that was hosting the white power metal band Graveland. Montreal cops attacked the crew with pepperspray and rubber bullets, But the Anitfa blockaded the street and held their ground until the concert was canceled.

Oka, Quebec, Mohawk Territory, November 18, 2016 – Women concerned about the threat to potable water are currently blocking access to a valve on a pipeline that has been condemned by two dissenting members of the National Energy Board (NEB). The women demand an immediate closure of the Trans-Northern Pipeline Inc. (TPNI), which crosses through Oka National Park and threatens the water supply of millions of people. “The urgency of this issue has forced us to take serious action. We are using peaceful civil disobedience to draw attention to a vital resource that everyone needs: water!” asserted Jeanne Beauchamp, spokesperson of the group. “We demand that our government and the company shut down this pipeline. The Trans-Northern pipeline crosses multiple crucial waterways, including the Ottawa River, and threatens the security of over three million people in greater Montreal.” ...

As a gesture of solidarity with the First Nations of Standing Rock, a group of 15 non-native militants blocked the railroad tracks in Pointe-Saint-Charles around 4 PM on November 15. The action lasted for around twenty minutes, during the busiest time of train circulation in Montreal. Police threatened to intervene from the moment when a train of commodities was forced to stop. ...