Baden: Interview on the Campaign to Remove Sir John A Statue

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This is a short interview with Cheyanne Thorpe, an Indigenous woman and resident of Waterloo Region, who has been organising protests and public pressure against the placement of the Sir John A MacDonald statue in a public park in Baden Ontario.  The statue, part of the “prime ministers walk” project was located in Baden with little support, after residents in Kitchener and Waterloo rejected the idea that the project be built in their cities. Read More …

Female Keep Separate: Prisons, Gender, and the Violence of Inclusion (version française disponible)

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When finally the cell door closes, when the jangling keys recede, you’ve arrived as far as you’re going that day. Then you can exhale alone with your mattress and be in your own body again, your body no longer a problem to be solved or a question to be answered. Just your own familiar weight under the blanket, where you can just shake and shake and try to sleep and get ready for whatever happens next. Read More …

There Was a Time Before Police, There Will Be a Time After: Reportback on (anti) Canada Day Demo in Guelph

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On July 1st, 2020, the day called “Canada Day”, several hundred people gathered in Lions’ Park in Guelph for a march called Black and Indigenous Solidarity Against Police Brutality. Led by Black and Indigenous youth, this march was very exciting and represents a shift in what demos in the city can be. This reportback is the perspective of just one individual who participated in the demo, to share what happened in Guelph with those elsewhere in the region responding to similar issues of racism and policing. Read More …

Ford Escalates Threat of Mass Evictions

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On July 2, the Ontario government voted to amend Bill 184, the Eviction Bill, in a step towards ensuring mass evictions for Ontario tenants who have been unable to pay rent in full during the COVID-19 crisis. All tenants who have been unable to pay full rent, whether they have signed repayment plans or not, will be affected by this predatory bill. Now heading into its third reading, the amended Bill could be passed into law as early as next week. Read More …

Kingston: Update from Belle Park

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On Monday June 29, 9 Belle Park campers, 3 city of Kingston staff, councillor Rob Hutchison and many community members met in the Belle Park parking lot. Mutual Aid Katarokwi-Kingston asked a few Belle Park Camp supporters to attend this meeting and about 25 people came on short notice.

Rob from the City of Kingston Communications Department attempted to start the meeting, when a member of MAKK pointed out that no camp residents were present and we should wait for them before we start (note: the same thing happened last week too when Joanne Boris from the Housing Department tried to start the meeting). Once campers were also present, Rob stated that the city’s goals were to provide updates, keep campers in the loop on the “transition plan”, and hear from campers about the current situation at the park. Read More …

10 years ago ~ reflections on the state’s utilization of shame: #MyG20Story

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10 years ago today I was just waking up in Toronto, after a day of the largest mobilization I have ever been a part of to this day. What power it felt to be out in those streets. There were SO MANY COPS and also SO MANY OF US. And now on this morning, 10 years ago, so many of us were in jail. Yet the streets continued to be alive with resistance, and we had another demo that afternoon. Somehow until that moment I had evaded arrest. That later demo, (which was going to be a prison demo) did not end up happening, the area was streaming with cops. Me and some pals were stopped, searched, and arrested, like so many. Read More …

Where do you stand? Pride action in the class war of Toronto gay village

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This pride week, residents of Toronto’s Queer Village woke up to a question they can no longer avoid answering: WHERE DO YOU STAND?

On June 26 2020, an ad hoc affinity group of queer and trans Village dwellers peppered the historically queer Church and Wellesley neighbourhood and the blocks surrounding — our turf — with circular floor decals, a now familiar feature of the pandemic urban landscape. Read More …

The time we spent talking about violence: #MyG20Story

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Back in the leadup to the 2010 G20 summit, the debate around violence-nonviolence felt so important – both externally to other group or the public, and within ourselves as individuals. You couldn’t open your mouth in 2010 without talking about violence, but now that debate doesn’t feel at all relevant to my life. It doesn’t at all feel like a sticking point. The issue still comes up, but the illusory divide around it doesn’t seem real now. Maybe watching the endless series of bodies killed by police, watching all the victims as capitalism has conquered the world has made the debate seem trivial. Read More …

Ambitious Times: On Decentralized regional organizing for the 2010 G20 summit

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I’m based in Hamilton was involved in Southern Ontario Anarchist Resistance, SOAR, in the leadup to the 2010 G20 summit. In the years since, a lot of our conversations about that organizing experience since focus on repression – the undercovers, the mass arrests, the prison time – but lately what stands out to me most about it is how ambitious the whole mobilization was. Read More …