Land Defense

With the rise of Donald Trump’s malignant right wing troll army and the extension of Toronto’s tentacles into every cavern of our cities, the anti-pipeline movement in Southern Ontario has been spread a little thin this year. We’ve pulled off a couple work-stoppages, some night-time sabotage, and made our best effort at storming the closed-door meetings of the NEB, but on the whole we’ve lacked a coordinated strategy. But we felt it appropriate that on the eve of 2017 and at the tail end of Enbridge’s Line 10 pipeline expansion plan, we deliver one more message to the shareholders, architects and cheerleaders of this cross-continent calamity. ...

On December 18th, 2017, two anarchist comrades were sentenced for their role in a 2015 direct action in which a Enbridge’s Line 9 was physically shut down. Their affinity group accomplished this by physically closing a manual valve, thus proving that it was possible to safely shut down pipelines. This action, the first of its kind, inspired a wave of similar actions, including one in which 5 pipelines in 4 different states were shut down simultaneously. ...

Grassroots Mi’kmaq people in the unceded territory of so-called Nova Scotia have been resisting the Alton Gas project, which aims to build salt caverns for natural gas storage. The project could have devastating repercussions for the Shubenacadie river and its unique ecosystem. Water protectors have decided to directly block the project by setting up a truckhouse and a camp citing the 1752 Peace and Friendship treaty.

The night of November 16, we went to visit the suburbs of Quebec City, or more precisely 1205 rue Imperiale, so as to leave a message for Mr. Jean-Yves Lavoie. For those who aren’t familiar with him, Mr. Lavoie is the president of Junex, a company that generates its profits (or, at least, tries to) from exploiting the territory of so-called “Quebec”, meaning among other things fracking projects in “Gaspesie”. ...

Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info OLYMPIA-UNIST’OT’EN-GASPESIE-SECWEPEMCUL’ECW DECOLONIZE TURTLE ISLAND For the last 10 days, an encampment has been blocking the train tracks that lead out of the Port of Olympia, preventing fracking proppants from being sent to North Dakota and Wyoming. In addition to standing in the way of capitalism and environmental destruction, the blockade has created an opening in which we can interact in new, liberated ways. We have made many new friends, deepened existing relationships, and experienced the joy in sharing our lives without regard for profit. ...

Block the extractive economy Support the river camp November 24-26 upcoming, the Liberal Party will meet up for Québec City. These ferocious partisans of the extractivist economy are going to authorize a new reglementary regime for the hydrocarbon extraction that is already a bigger threat than ever before vis-à-vis the water, the planet, and everything that lives upon it. Their determination to privilege the oil capitalists and the mining magnates, despite increasingly loud opposition, demonstrates that only a social force of real consequence can interrupt their activities. It is in this sense that we in the Comités de défense et de décolonisation des territoires (“committees for territorial defence and decolonisation”) call for a week of actions from November 24 to December 2 so as to find each other in the struggle, maintain pressure, attack the infrastructure of the death economy. ...

A breach was opened by an now well-known anonymous group . Their autonomous action to reoccupy the territory demonstrated the inseparability of ecological and decolonial perspectives. By blocking Junex’s oil project and by affirming the legitimacy of traditional Mi’kmaq sovereignty on the territory, their action made space for new possibilities of successful struggle. This call to organize is done with the audacious spirit of the first barricades, now fallen. ...

During the fall of 2016 Mi’kmaq opponents of the Alton Gas project, supported by non-Indigenous allies, set up a truckhouse along the banks of the Shubenacadie River near the Alton Gas brine dumping site. This year, they set up a Treaty Camp along the entrance to the Alton Gas work site, effective blocking the company from working on the project. This camp continues to this date, and needs on-going support and donations. ...

The east of Hochelaga is undergoing full transformation. The construction of the Cité de la Logistique (“logistics city”) is provoking chaos. This project of enlarging the facilities of the port implies, among other things, the destruction of the Terrain vague, to the east of rue Viau. The initiative is part of a larger transport plan that will increase maritime traffic on the Saint Lawrence and, at the same time, its pollution. Let’s say it again: industry and government are devastating the Earth with extraction and with transport of “natural resources”. ...

From one forest to another, over the ocean, solidarity against tragic and toxic mega-projects! Bure: Lutte contre le projet d’enfouissement de déchets nucléaires

Pipelines are war; one built from the insatiable greed of corporations which have normalized violence against the land and its living. Our resolve within this struggle intensifies with each audacious assault Enbridge launches; each time they dismiss the concerns and requests of Indigenous Nations. Every court proceeding. Every act of intimidation. Every lie or false claim of safety or necessity. We’ve had enough. So back when Enbridge started shipping in pipeline segments for their line 10 expansion, we started sabotaging them. ...

On Sunday September 10, we mobilized in solidarity with the ongoing resistance against the extractive oil industry in Gaspésie, in particular, Junex and its investors. Corporations like Junex (and their investors) collude with provincial and federal governments. These collaborations exemplify how neoliberal capitalism (as the current economic and political context) functions to sustain the settler-colonial state of Canada. Recently announced legislation allowing for drilling and fracking in rivers and lakes within so-called Quebec demonstrates such complicity to the point of absurdity - the state no longer seems to even care about making it appear that its role is neutral in paving the way for the poisoning of water and land for capitalist profit. ...