Ottawa: “Rolling Thunder” incidents and responses database

This is an Ottawa community crowd-sourced database to document and track “Rolling Thunder” convoy incursions on residents’ lives, and also organized community responses, all together in one place.

Click here to add entries through the input form: https://airtable.com/shrCLa3fFQjHdK8ls Read More …

Punch Up Collective: Getting It Together

From Punch Up Collective Getting It Together: An Online Workshop for Organizing Collectives for the Real World Saturday, April 23rd, 2022 1-3PM Online – Zoom Ottawa, on unceded Algonquin territory Facilitated by the Punch Up Collective, this workshop is for anyone interested in starting a collective, or those keen to discuss how to make a collective they’re already a part of more effective and sustainable. We live in a frightening Read More …

Gridlocked: The Freedom Convoy and the New Canadian Populism

From Submedia Click here to watch and download video Two years into the COVID-19 pandemic, a popular movement demanding an immediate end to vaccine mandates and other restrictions on daily life has shaken the Canadian state to its core. Its calls have deeply resonated with members of settler-colonial society in which public health measures and other forms of collective solidarity are seen by some as an affront to individual freedom Read More …

Ill Winds from Ottawa

Opponents of vaccine mandates have established protest encampments in Ottawa and elsewhere around Canada, blockading several routes crossing the United States border. Far-right organizers and former police officers have prominent positions in this movement, and police have taken a relatively hands-off approach thus far; it appears likely that the model currently being tested in Canada will appear elsewhere around the world shortly. In the following extensive report, our correspondent in Montréal explores the sequence of events that led up to these developments, reviews the agendas of the various forces vying for control, and reflects on what we can do in a situation in which the far right has gained the initiative. Read More …

Ottawa, the Far-Right, and the State: Inside the Convoy Protests and the Unfolding Three Way Fight

From It’s Going Down Podcast Click here to listen and download On this episode of the It’s Going Down podcast, we speak with two anarchists involved in the Punch Up Collective, a group which is currently mobilizing in Ottawa, the capitol city of so-called Canada, in the midst of an ongoing far-Right protest occupation made up of several hundred vehicles in the downtown area. During our discussion we talk about Read More …

Trip Report: Ottawa on Saturday, February 5

We took the train downtown to avoid getting caught in the traffic jam of the protest itself. I’ve spent the ride alternating between preparing myself for what we’re about to see by mentally going over all of the things I should expect to see and hear in the next few hours at the convoy protest and distracting myself by contemplating whether or not I like Ottawa’s new transit system. I haven’t been to downtown Ottawa since before the pandemic. I know what stop we’re going to but it is unmistakeable anyway, a wave of people dressed in Canadian flag capes, maskless and bearing protest signs prepares to dismount just as we do. I remember using a similar tactic to find the right subway stop to get to Zucotti Park in 2011. There are so many surface-level similarities between here and there that I can’t help but feel a pang of the jealousy and perhaps even empathy with the protestors that I’ve been experiencing all week, watching their moment unfold and remembering moments where I have felt joy, camaraderie and anticipation of the kind that I imagine they are feeling this week. Read More …

Punch Up Collective: Organizing Against the Occupation of Ottawa

Points of crisis can usefully reveal contradictions and opportunities for organizing. Crisis can also shut us down and make it hard to connect, think, and act. The mobilization of the right-wing anti-mandate crew in Ottawa and elsewhere in Canada is one such crisis. Direct confrontation with the far right is important and can be effective, but in the present moment in Ottawa it’s complicated to mobilize in that way. Read More …

Ottawa: RBC Branch Redecorated in Solidarity with Wet’suwet’en

Fire extinguisher full of white paint was used on the facade of a RBC branch located in Ottawa during the holiday week.

The action was meant as an answer to the calls to action from the Gidimt’en clan who retook possession of “Coyote Camp” with their allies. We stand in solidarity with the Wetʼsuwetʼen nation and against KKKanada’s genocidal project.

Fuck CGL, Fuck the RCMP, fuck RBC, Shut down KKKanada and get the fuck out of the Yintah! Read More …

Nothing but dead ends: How the complaints process protects the Ottawa police

Police misconduct and violence are increasingly dominating news headlines. With calls to disarm, defund, and abolish police forces, we’re also seeing inspiring efforts to fundamentally transform how people respond to harm and keep each other safe. For now, however, if you’ve been mistreated by the police in Ottawa, your main recourse is to file a complaint through established complaints procedures. These complaints are one of the few ways we can gain information about the problematic behaviour of cops and how the Ottawa Police Service (OPS) responds to such behaviour. Read More …