Response from The Tower to the “Pride in Hamilton” Report: We Want a World Without Cops, Not Another Investigation

The independent report into policing around the Pride Hamilton 2019 festival was released Monday. Entitled “Pride in Hamilton” and carried out by lawyer Scott Bergman, it comes almost a year after the far-right attack on Pride and in the middle of a wave of demonstrations against police across the continent. It’s common following situations of particularly awful police behaviour for there to be a push for an independent review, and this report is a great example of why any hopes placed in them are so often in vain. Its primary goal is to have the Hamilton police get better at community policing, meaning controlling from within, and counterinsurgency, meaning pacifying social movements. They don’t come right out and say this though, so our hope here is to tease out those threads. Read More …

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

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

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 …

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

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 …

Keep Your Rent Hamilton – Reflections on May Day and Organizing in a Pandemic

The first of May is celebrated in most countries around the world—and by North American leftists—as May Day, or International Workers Day. For most working-class people in Hamilton, however, this year it had a more urgent significance. For the second time since the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis, rent was due. Read More …

Hamilton: Keep your CERB, keep your rent! No bailout for landlords

In the last week, tens of thousands of Hamiltonians have applied for the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB), the government’s COVID-19 income support package which provides payments of $2,000/month for up to four months. In this post we look into the nuts and bolts of the CERB rollout and consider what the government hopes to accomplish by ladling out all this cash. Read More …

Two Demos for Barton Prisoners: What’s possible in the streets during Covid?

Last Friday, April 10, the Barton Prisoner Solidarity Project (BAPSOP) published a report that some prisoners had been attacked by guards after refusing a lockdown, and today two actions occurred to support the prisoners and call for their immediate release. During the day, there was a public call for a car demo, then at night, an invite-only action to go set off lights and fireworks. Read More …