Anti-austerity

ArtsFilmStage

Forget The Box’s weekly Arts Calendar is back for its early November edition. The chill has definitely returned to Montreal, but that doesn’t mean it’s time to lock ourselves indoors yet! Take a look at these excellent events if you’re looking for fun and inexpensive things to check out!

As always; if you’re interested in going to one of these events and want to cover it for us, send a message  or leave a comment below.

Bareoke presented by Glam Gam

No stranger to performing in local strip clubs with the burlesque troupe Glam Gam, Lipster’s organizers realized this type of venue would surely allow them to transform their karaoke show into Stripster!

Now you can find them the first Saturday of every month at the historic Café Cléopâtre, which comes equipped with a large stage, a smoke machine and crazy lighting which allows people to take their performances to the next level.

Glam Gam’s organizers have made an important step in making the space open for everyone, according to their Facebook event page : “We are thrilled to have performers of all different backgrounds, ages, body types, gender identities and sexualities. Some people will take off just a sock, others will get down to their skivvies and a lot of brave souls prance around in their birthday suits! The best part is that everyone respects and encourages each other’s boundaries with little to no policing on our part.”

Come see what all the fuss is about!

Bareoke @ Café Cléopâtre, 1230 St Laurent, Saturday, November 5, 10PM, $5

FTB is no stranger to Glam Gam!
FTB is no stranger to Glam Gam!

Fishbowl Collective Presents: An Anti-War Art Pop-up

The Fishbowl Collective will be occupying a studio space in Griffintown and filling it with art of all kinds against war/militarism of any kind!

At 8:30, the space will be taken over by anti-war Pierrots in an hour-long version of Theatre Workshop’s Oh What a Lovely War!

From 9:30-11 the space will act as a showcase for local artists to show their work!

Local anti-war organizations will be tabling in the space.

Oh What A Lovely War's Theatrical Poster
Oh What A Lovely War’s Theatrical Poster

Using songs and documents of the period, Oh What a Lovely War! is an epic theatrical chronicle of the horrors of WWI as presented by a seaside pierrot troupe. It was collectively created by Theatre Workshop in 1963 under Joan Littlewood, and over 50 years later remains unique in its innovative satiric way of looking at the difficult subject of war and its futility. Its dismissal of sentimentality and its distinct anti-war-agit-prop flavour highlights the oppression of the working stiff turned common soldier and points to the absurdity involved in war.

141 Rue Ste Ann, Pay What You Can (All Proceeds go to Actions Réfugiés Montréal)

Pride Screening presented by Socialist Fightback!

Socialist Fightback is screening Pride (2014) at McGill University’s Shatner Building in Room 202 this Wednesday. Entrance is FREE, and a spirited discussion is sure to follow. Curious about what “Solidarity” means to the LGBT community? Check this movie out.

Pride offers an excellent example of solidarity along class lines. Between 1981-1984, the British government under Margaret Thatcher had closed around 20 mining pits and coal mining employment continued to fall. The miners’ strike of 1984-85 was a major industrial action to shut down the British coal industry in an attempt to prevent colliery closures.

Also victims of Thatcher’s bigotry and conservative policies, gays and lesbians came together to collect funds and sustain the miner’s strike. Although reluctant at first, the miners accepted the support from the LGSM.

Pride is a great demonstration of how class unity is the best and most effective way of fighting against all types of oppression.

Pride is screening in the Shatner Building Room 202 @ McGill University, November 9, 7pm, FREE

 

Is there an event that should be featured in Shows This Week? Maybe something FTB should cover, too? Let us know at arts@forgetthebox.net. We can’t be everywhere and can’t write about everything, but we do our best!

News

Yesterday was International Workers’ Day – not in Canada though, at least officially speaking. Thousands of people took to the streets yesterday to mark the beginning of the grève sociale against the austerity measures of the provincial government.

Called to action by the Coalition opposée à la tarification et à la privatisation des services publics, more than 860 community organizations, student associations, and unions across Quebec went on strike yesterday. Among those who went on strike were many of the twenty four CEGEP teacher unions, whose strike mandates had been declared illegal by Quebec’s labour board on April 30.

In Montreal, the day of action started early. At 8 a.m., demonstrators associated with the Coalition blocked access to the Banque Nationale tower. This was followed by a large march of estimated 5000 people. Other forms of direct action included the occupation of Québécor, World Trade Centre, and Place Ville-Marie.

However, the brutality of the SPVM did not show itself until later in the evening. Montreal’s Anti-Capitalist Convergence (CLAC) called on people to gather at Phillips Square at 6:30 p.m. Contingents from north, east, and south-west Montreal joined the main contingent at the square and they started marching at around 7 p.m. In less than 20 minutes, SPVM declared the demonstration illegal and started deploying unreasonable amounts of tear gas, injuring protesters and passers-by alike. CBC reported that even children were caught in the middle of the SPVM and the SQ’s clamping down.

According to photographer Gerry Lauzon, “The riot squad charged and gassed while the protest was peacefully walking, nothing being broken. A lot of civilians were present as non-participants in the vicinity and got gassed as well. Women (one pregnant in the bunch) and children among them. The gas made it’s way in some stores and the metro while people were trying to flee the chaos.”

“I was flushed eastbound on Ste-Catherine by the Surété Quebec and didn’t see much of anything after that until 21:15, when the pissed off crowd that was walking down Ste-Catherine got dispersed at Berri without gas, baton, or shields.”

In an interview with Radio-Canada, SPVM spokesperson Laurent Gingras failed to give an explanation as to why the dispersion maneuver took place. At the end of the day, 84 people were arrested.

In a press release, CLAC declared that they would not be repressed without a fight and that “It’s obvious that the escalation of repression we’ve seen in the last few years is the result of a political directive to nip all protest movements with a radical discourse in the bud.”

Rich Bonemeal, spokesperson for the CLAC says, “We can’t see the forest for the tree that is austerity. Sooner or later we’ll have to face the fact that it’s the capitalist system itself that’s at the root of this inequality and injustice. As long as this system stays in place, there will still be exploiters and exploited, there will still be the extremely rich and the extremely poor, and the capitalist bulldozer will continue to pillage and destroy everything in its way until life on earth becomes impossible. Fighting austerity is a start, but it’s capitalism we must destroy.”

Click on the images below to access the galleries. The one above contains photos from earlier in the day, and the one below contains photos from the 6:30 p.m. demo. All photography by Gerry Lauzon.

Morning ProtestsMorning Protests International Workers\' DayInternational Workers\' Day
AudioPodcast

In our third FTB Podcast, we discuss we discuss the UQAM occupation, anti-austerity protests at other schools and the state of conscious Hip Hop in Montreal. Plus the Montreal Community Calendar.

Host: Jason C. McLean
Producer: Hannah Besseau

    Panelists

Niall Ricardo: UQAM student, anti-austerity activist, FTB contributor

Jesse Anger: poet, FTB contributor

Henry Kronk: McGill student, broacaster

Drew Wolfson Bell: sports Editor at the McGill Daily, third-year Education student

UQAM report by Hannah Besseau

Microphone image: Ernest Duffoo / Flickr Creative Commons

Maple SpringMediaNewsPolitics

The first rule of reading news articles on the internet: if you don’t want to get angry, stay away from the comments. I broke that rule more than once, both during the lead up to the current student protests against austerity and since they started to bloom. I have lived to regret it, though my shattered piece of mind did lead to one rather interesting observation: the rhetoric of trolls has permeated the mainstream.

Are you familiar with CJAD? While their most prominent opinion show hosts veer right of centre, their overall news coverage is quite balanced. However, their audience, at least those who comment on Facebook, is, for the most part, divided between those who feel everything is about language and separatism and those who spew the sort of bile I would only expect from the most ignorant portions of the Republican base south of the border.

A few weeks ago, I saw one comment that made me do a double-take. The commenter was arguing that the reason a pre-strike protest at UQAM drew only a few hundred people was because the unions didn’t have the money to front the students this year and this was good because students’ brains hadn’t developed enough to comprehend complex political and economic philosophy.

I replied, calling him out on his ageism and he actually tried to respond with a flawed scientific argument. It was then that I realized I was speaking with the drunk at the bar that everyone knew was going to be thrown out by bouncers before the night was over, so I closed the tab on my computer and stopped engaging.

The problem is that his condescending attitude has found its place beyond the space inhabited by trolls. You see it all over the media and the web these days. It’s just a little less blatant and a lot more insidious.

So-Called Austerity

CTV news may not be the most progressive media out there, but they have always maintained at least basic journalistic standards when it comes to their reporting. Their bias has always been apparent in what they choose to present, not their choice of words.

Now, that seems to have changed. In at least three recent posts to their website about Printemps 2015, they refer to the Couillard government’s “so-called” austerity measures. So-called? When did the Quebec government’s plan to cut services and pensions fall into the realm of alleged austerity?

I’m pretty sure if you asked Philippe Couillard if his government was implementing austerity measures, he’d deny it, but he’s a politician. However, if you google austerity and compare the definition to what the premier has been doing, you’d see they match. According to the Financial Times Lexicon, “austerity measures refer to official actions taken by the government, during a period of adverse economic conditions, to reduce its budget deficit using a combination of spending cuts or tax rises.” The media even called it austerity until the students got involved.

You may agree with this definition. You may prefer, as I do, to extrapolate a bit and call austerity the practice of cutting off services and support for the poor or those of moderate to average income because of a perceived crisis and implement corporate welfare, er, business incentives and tax breaks. Either way, austerity is what the Couillard administration is bringing in.

Either way, austerity is what those in the streets are fighting. Instead of actually trying to defend austerity, which is really a tough sell, those against the protests have taken to arguing that it’s not really austerity the students, and now others, are fighting.

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Quebec Has it Easy

Leave it to Reddit to explain how a protest clearly against austerity may not be. It all stems from the fact that Couillard’s austerity measures aren’t as severe as those elsewhere. This is true (Greece comes to mind), but it also misses the point completely.

It reminds me of the old right-wing refrain from 2012. You know the old chestnut I’m talking about, the one that points out how Quebec students pay the lowest tuition in North America. While true, it is irrelevant to the discussion.

That fight was for no tuition increase, not even a penny, with the ultimate goal, for some, of university being free. This is a fight for no austerity, not even a little, but a different approach to allocating resources.

Making the argument that students should accept a tuition increase or Quebec should accept its austerity because it’s not that bad compared to other places presupposes that tuition increases and austerity are inevitable and need to be accepted, if only a little bit. Or, just the tip.

Grow Up, Get a Job

I was wondering why these arguments still got any traction and why that random CJAD troll’s statements, which were beyond offensive, weren’t criticised by more than some random lefty who happened to make the mistake of reading the comments. I think it stems from what Winston Churchill said:

“If you’re not a liberal at 20 you have no heart, if you’re not a conservative at 40 you have no brain.”

The modern local equivalent of this statement is “when these kids grow up and get a job, they’ll understand why they’re being foolish.”

The concept that abandoning social justice and embracing neoliberal economic policies and the global austerity agenda is a sign of maturity is not only wrong and condescending to those who have a different opinion, but it is also an option that is only open to the privileged. As someone who is privileged, has grown up to a certain extent, and has a job, I can tell you that austerity is wrong-headed and harmful.

Another world is, in fact, possible, and it starts with those in the streets. Now if only we can all admit that they do know what they’re talking about.

* photos by Gerry Lauzon

Maple SpringNews

The protest called by the ASSE started at Victoria Square with people of all background gathering. I mean from firefighters to high school kids. They came from all over as well, not just Montreal, by the bus load. The protest left on St-Jacques westbound, turned right on University/Rober-Bourassa up to Sherbrooke, eastbound to Berri and finished down at Émilie-Gamelin Park. No itinerary was given to Police but the march was not declared illegal to my knowledge.

At 3pm when arriving at Émilie-Gamelin Park, the crowd split in two with one group going east on Ontario and one staying at the Park. The Ontario march was intercepted by the SPVM riot squad at Montcalm and a stand off took place. Protesters sat down as Police were asking them to proceed South in order to avoid, I’m guessing here, to end too close to the Jacques-Cartier bridge during rush hour.

30 minutes later the stand off was broken when protesters were pepper sprayed and the crowd moved back towards the Park where another stand off took place with the riot squad asking people move off of the road and into the park, they actually said “please” and “thank you”.

That one saw a reversal of roles where in the end, Police retreated to their initial position to cheers from the crowd. However, water bottles thrown at retreating police officers was met with a tear gas gun firing one shot at the crowd. I left shortly after this incident.

I’ve heard of other clashes going on at the end of the protest and I’m not surprised since there was so many people spread out everywhere.

ED’s note, the protest continued into the night:

I saw protesters with red faces from pepper spray but no other injuries. It was interesting to see High School kids getting their first taste of protesting in Montreal and how they realized it was serious business. The feedback I got from some of them is that they will not be deterred and they will be coming back.

The next big rally/protest is scheduled on May 1st.

Maple SpringNews

It’s all in the headline, really. To be completely honest, I was contemplating just posting that sentence with a picture and a series of arrows pointing up. Pretty much says it all, doesn’t it?

A few months ago, Montreal police, along with firefighters, transit workers and other government employees protesting cuts to their pensions were all over the news. They weren’t hiding the fact that these cuts were part of Quebec Premier Philippe Couilard’s austerity agenda. I even remember seeing a fire truck blocking traffic with the word “austerity” painted across the part of the vehicle that holds the ladder.

So what happens when another group, striking students, decide to take up the anti-austerity cause? Well, we get rough cops, a bit of tear gas and a handful of arrests. And that was just yesterday, day one of the strike.

Now, while some police in Laval seemed to get that there is a correlation between students striking against austerity and their own cause, SPVM officers are parading around blissfully ignorant of the irony of wearing red squares on the back of their uniforms while crushing a peaceful protest against austerity. I’d laugh if I didn’t want to cry.

Symbol Appropriation

“On n’a rien volé, nous!” Well, you surely appropriated one symbol, whether by intent or accident, from a movement you are now trying to crush. This despite the fact that the movement you are fighting is itself fighting for what you are fighting for.

Yes, all protesting civil servants have a square with their protest’s mantra written on it plastered all over their vehicles and, in some cases, themselves. Whether by accident or some kind of cruel joke, the squares on police cars and now uniforms are red.

Surely someone in the police brotherhood must have realized the irony. Maybe they found it fitting at the time. It is anything but that now.

No No Solidarité

A few months ago, I openly wondered if it was possible to have solidarity with people who had clearly been enemies in the past. Now, it is abundantly clear that the SPVM officers don’t want to change their tune with protestors, despite fighting for the same overall cause.

They clearly don’t care about the broader issue of austerity. They just want their piece of the pie restored and screw everyone else.

While you may say that they’re just following orders, they presumably were a few months ago when a group of firefighters somehow made it into the council chamber at Montreal City Hall on their watch. The hypocrisy is not surprising, it’s just sad and very, very petty.

* Photo by Cem Ertekin

News

La Coalition opposée à la tarification et à la privatisation des services publics has declared this week a week of action. More than 15 demonstrations will take place in the Greater Montréal area alone. As they say on their Facebook page, The Non Aux Hausses coalition invites everyone, everywhere to join in on the demonstrations against the austerity measures of the Liberal government.

Today is already the second day of actions. Yesterday at Place Émilie Gamelin, at least 500 people attended the gathering held by the teachers, protesting the Liberal government’s austerity measures. The main point was the state of the education system and how the Liberals are leaving it into shambles. There was also interventions from social groups on how the recent measures are directly affecting the welfare of the poorest in our society and especially women. The speakers also indicated that today’s action was but a shadow of things to come with actions to be taken on a weekly and even daily basis throughout the province.

The event closed off with a march accompanied by the SPVM intervention squad.

Click on the image below to see a gallery of photos from Sunday’s event. All photography by Gerry Lauzon.

Anti-Austerity Teacher ProtestAnti-Austerity Teacher Protest

Today’s Anti-Austerity Demonstration

Today at 11:30, a group of protesters occupied the offices of the Bankers Association of Canada in downtown Montreal. The protesters met at McGill College and Sherbrooke, and walked towards Place Montreal Trust. The protest lasted roughly an hour.

More manifs to come in the next three days

Check out this poster below for to see what else to expect this week. If this is what folk are planning for this week only, it looks like Spring 2015 promises to be anything but boring.

NewsPolitics

On November 29, thousands of people gathered at Place du Canada to protest the austerity measures proposed by the Liberal government. The anti-austerity demonstrators marched on Avenue Rene-Levesque, from Rue Metcalfe all the way to Rue de la Montagne, from there they moved up to St. Catherine. The march ended at Place des Festivals.

The march was organized by Confédération des syndicats nationaux, following a grand advertising campaign under the motto: “Refusons l’austérité!” The PLQ government has built up on the budget cuts imposed on Quebec universities under the PQ government; however, the cuts have started to affect more than students. Social and health services will also be affected by the cuts, which is why students and social workers alike marched together.

One group of demonstrators broke off from the main group, calling for a mass strike in Spring 2015. The Comité Large Printemps 2015 has been attending and organizing multiple direct action demonstrations, and it seems that they will continue to do so until Spring 2015. Does it smell like maple to you, too?

Anti-AusterityAnti-Austerity

Click on the photo above to open the gallery. All photography by Cem Ertekin.