Tag: Ontario-wide

Escaping Tomorrow’s Cages: Summary of the Projects

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Prison is being restructured across the province, and at this time the process is focused on northern and eastern Ontario. These two strategies follow on a previous wave of prison expansion, heavily focused on Toronto but that also included a new prison in Windsor. There will be other waves after this one, probably aimed at south-western Ontario.

Both of these strategies double the prison capacity in the areas they affect. Although some of the projects involve replacing older prisons with new ones, the older ones are also being renovated. Because they are very likely to continue being used in some form, until they are demolished, they still represent capacity that the provincial prison system has at its disposal. Read More …

Escaping Tomorrow’s Cages — Prison Expansion in Ontario

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Escaping Tomorrow’s Cages is written in absolute opposition to the existence of prisons. The Province of Ontario is in the midst of an initiative to expand the provincial prison system in eastern and northern Ontario, and our hope is for this text to contribute to a struggle capable of stopping it.

The initiative includes expanding several existing prisons and building at least two new ones. Together, these projects will effectively double the provincial prison capacity in the areas it effects, mainly in women’s prisons. We find any expansion of the prison system unacceptable. Read More …

Health on a Human Scale: A vaccinated anarchist against vaccine passports

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Quebec is instituting a system of vaccine passports in the coming days, and Ontario is likely to follow suit. The passport is a document confirming your identity and your vaccination status that will have to be shown in order to access many spaces. Not a day goes by here without a barrage of open letters and social media posts asking to be required to show a passport to move around the city, for every worker to be given a policing function.

I got fully vaccinated as soon as it was available to me, and so did all my close people. However, I think the vaccine passport is despicable and that those who are advocating for it are making a serious mistake. Read More …

Argument for Supporting The Sick Day Solidarity Fund

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There has been a call from bureaucrats and reformists not to support the Sick Day Solidarity Fund. They say it distracts from their “real” organizing and promotes charity. First of all, what organizing? Signing petitions and telling people to vote NDP next year? If you want to spear head a campaign that focuses on that, fine. But this sectarian mentality of “my way is the only correct way” promotes an idealist purity that does nothing to help the working class; neither immediately nor in the future. There are a multitude of ways to organize and take action, shitting on each other and knee capping each others’ organizing efforts is not the way to do it. Read More …

Settlers on the Red Road: A Conversation on Indigeneity, Belonging, and Responsibility

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This zine is not going to be comfortable for some people to read. It is likely to personally challenge a few of you out there who may yourself be dipping a toe in the pond of indigeneity, trying it out to see how it feels. This zine is not going to beat around the bush, because the bush has been thoroughly beaten around.

This is the start of a larger discussion on indigeneity, belonging, and responsibility in our anarchist community. But there is something here for everyone, even if you don’t call yourself an anarchist. At the time of it’s writing, it is already long overdue. In the past two years in southern Ontario, there have been multiple incidents of settlers claiming indigeneity within our intersecting anarchist circles, incidents which caused great harm to relationship and undermined solidarity with Indigenous communities. In Quebec, the rise of the “Eastern Métis” threatens to bleed over into radical spaces. In this era of state-sponsored reconciliation, the line between settlers and Indians is being purposefully blurred by Canada in an attempt to gently complete the assimilation initiated long ago and, try as anarchists might to keep ourselves separate, the dominant culture has a way of creeping in. Read More …

Bindo Showan (aka Khalid) Charged in Connection to the Tow Truck Wars

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Woke up this morning to some truly heart-waming news: the cop Bindo Showan of the OPP has a warrant out for his arrest. You might remember Bindo from the name he used while he was pretending to be an activist in the leadup to the G20, ‘Khalid’. His undercover work, pretending to be a friend and comrade to people throughout the region for years, was a crucial part of the G20 Main Conspiracy case. 20 people were initially charged, 17 were pursued, and 6 ultimately did jail time in this case. Read More …

A Call to Shut Down Canada Again

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Right now in Mi’kma’ki, commercial fishermen are physically threatening, intimidating and harassing Indigenous people over their livelihood catch of lobster. The violence has escalated in the past few days, and seems likely to continue to escalate. The RCMP have been filmed allowing commercial fishermen to steal and poison lobster, burn vehicles, smash windows, throw rocks at Mi’kmaq people and attack chiefs and women. Read More …

Details of Police Surveillance Targeting Wet’suwet’en Solidarity Organizing

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North Shore Counter-Info has received legal documents that have not yet been made public containing details about recent investigations targeting anarchists in Southern Ontario who have been engaged with Wet’suwet’en solidarity organizing in 2019 and 2020. Many of these details confirm practices of surveillance that many suspect take place, but that aren’t usually taken seriously. This includes collaboration by big tech companies, tracking devices, and long periods of active surveillance. Read More …