Category: News and Analysis

Peaceful Protest, Outside Agitators, and the State: A Letter to BIPOC Comrades

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It’s been a week of intensity nearly unknown in our lifetimes. I, like many of you, have been glued to my phone for updates from the streets. I watched in both horror and unbridaled joy at the images of burning cop cars and precincts, the gutted Targets and Footlockers. Joy because I think it is a beautiful thing to see such complete antagonism towards a system that has oppressed Black and Brown communities for so long. Antagonism not tempered by liberal notions of “peace” or “civility”. But also horror at the images of the police shooting medics with “less lethal weapons” at close range, or shoving an old man  backwards and walking by him without notice as he convulses on the ground. I watched. I beared witness. I allowed myself to feel the seething anger. Read More …

Toronto Tenants: We’re in this Together

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Since March, tenants have been facing hard choices. While being ordered to stay home, people across Ontario have lost wages. Many have lost their jobs entirely. Although CERB was supposed to solve this economic crisis, Toronto tenants know the math doesn’t add up. As bills pile up and work remains impossible for many, people are being targeted by landlords. We’re told that we’re alone and irresponsible. We’re told we can pay up or get out. We’re told that what little money we have isn’t for survival – but for our landlord. Read More …

Piles of Bricks and Other Things That Are Beside the Point: 11 Arguments Against Protest Conspiracies

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We’ve seen a lot of people on social media spreading rumours and sharing conspiracy theories about the uprising currently going on South of the border. These might be rumours about potential white supremacist attacks and interventions or conspiracies about police agents being responsible for violence carried out by protestors. This kind of online behaviour is harmful and undermines the movements you’re probably trying to support, and we thought we’d take a minute to break down why we should collectively push back against this trend. Read More …

Justice for Regis: Some critical reflections on the May 30 demo

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On May 30, a few days after Regis Korchinski-Paquet was killed by Toronto police, a demo brought thousands of people together in Christie Pitts to challenge police violence and anti-black racism. Over the same period in the US, combative demos occurred every night in many cities in response to a police killing in Minneapolis, pushing back the police and burning their stuff, as well as attacking businesses, part of the capitalist system that has brutalized and exploited black people since its beginnings. Read More …

From Embers: New Content in Spring 2020

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From Embers is a regular anarchist podcast produced in Kingston, Ontario. We produce a few episodes each month about actions and projects going on in so-called Canada that inspire us, or about topics that we think will be relevant to anarchists living north of the border. We are part of the Channel Zero Anarchist Podcast Network. Read More …

Hamilton: Rail Sabotage in Solidarity with Wet’suwet’en struggle

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Anonymous submission to North Shore Counter-Info Using the jumper-cable and wires method described elsewhere the track signalling system on a CN mainline in Hamilton was sabotaged last week. This was done in continuing solidarity with Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs and land protectors. Work on TC Energy’s Coastal GasLink pipeline continues without the consent of the chiefs and despite the Memorandum of Understanding signed by the chiefs with BC and Kanada. the Read More …

Ottawa: Midpoint Reflections on the Pandemic

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Since March, several possibilities have opened up in this city for tenants to work together in our interests against landlords. While Herongate Tenant Coalition was formed in May 2018 by tenants across our neighbourhood in the south end of so-called Ottawa to defend against Timbercreek’s massive demoviction campaign, this pandemic has created another urgency; this time for working class people across the city to unite to proactively address our suffering under these specific conditions we share. Hence why the Keep Your Rent strategy rang so powerfully here as it did in other cities. Read More …