Thousands took to the streets in Montreal over November 22‒24 in combined protests in solidarity with Palestine and against a NATO gathering being held in the city.
The direct actions were a significant show of solidarity and sparked panicked reactions from right-wing spokespeople, Zionist genocide apologists and warmongering politicians.
Police responded with extensive violence and arrests, including the use of smoke grenades.
The actions showed a rise in anti-imperialist resistance, connecting Israeli state genocide in Gaza and the invasion of Lebanon with the push for increased NATO funding and imperialist sabre rattling. It also brought out ruling class panic and stumbling attempts to revive a new “red scare” against militant activists.
Montreal actions
The Friday actions were organised by two groups: Convergence of Anti-Capitalist Struggles — a longstanding collective that played major parts in organising alternative globalisation protests in the early 2000s — and Divest for Palestine.
They organised separate marches against the NATO Parliamentary Assembly meeting. The marches converged at the convention centre where the meetings were taking place and drew widespread public attention when footage circulated showing windows at the centre being smashed.
Divest for Palestine said the protest was mobilised against NATO’s “complicity with Israel’s military while it’s conducting its genocide in Gaza, [and] war crimes in Lebanon, Syria” and its role in “enforcing illegal occupation of Palestinian territories”.
Montreal police arrested three people during Friday’s actions. Divest for Palestine member Benoît Allard reported that several protesters were injured by police and at least four had to go to hospital.
One woman was arrested for allegedly assaulting an officer and “impeding police work”. Two men were arrested for “impeding police work”. These sorts of charges are often used by police during protests to remove people and attempt to intimidate other participants.
Saturday’s mobilisation to protest the NATO meeting drew 100 people. It was organised by Le Mouvement Québécois Pour la Paix (Quebec Movement for Peace).
Protesters called on Canada to refuse to meet NATO military spending targets and exit NATO. They also expressed solidarity with Palestine, noting that Israel’s military offensive in Gaza would not be possible without the arms provided by NATO members.
The protests came as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau declared that Canada is on a “clear path” to spend at least 2% of its gross domestic product on defence.
Trudeau, feeling some heat from the incoming Donald Trump regime in the United States and his promised tariffs against Canada, justified the 2% spending target, saying: “We know that the world is changing and Canada, along with our allies, needs to be ready for it.”
Trudeau said Canada has already added CA$175 billion in targeted defence spending and forecasts spending to rise from the current 1.37% of GDP to 1.76% by 2030.
Meanwhile, working-class people struggle to meet daily needs such as food, clothing and shelter.
New ‘red scare’
Right-wing politicians and media figures tried to smear Friday’s actions as antisemitic, after video was circulated of an effigy of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu being burned.
Attached to the effigy was a sign saying: “Netanyahu to The Hague”. This occurred only days after the International Criminal Court issued a warrant for Netanyahu’s arrest, on charges of using “the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare; and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts”.
High-ranking politicians also claimed the protests had been “taken over by anarchists” in attempts to undermine the actions among the public.
Defence Minister Bill Blair, speaking from the Halifax International Security Forum, said, “I believe that a peaceful protest can be co-opted by anarchists who have other agendas. Those agendas were quite apparent by the activities of that mob yesterday.”
The Halifax forum is an international gathering of warmongering politicians and arms manufacturers looking to drum up business for imperialism.
The “other agendas” referenced by Blair were opposition to imperialism, war and the genocide against Palestinians. This was not hidden. People were also marching against imperialist economies that funnel public money to militarism, while gutting budgets for services and resources that working class people and communities desperately need.
Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante also jumped on the “red scare” bandwagon, telling the media that the actions were infiltrated “by professional vandals”.
Plante leaned on the “outside agitator” narrative commonly used to discredit community direct action. These claims have been levelled against communities taking action against police violence, particularly in the wake of the uprisings against the police murder of George Floyd in 2020.
The mayor even revived the image of the “Black Bloc”, a central part of state narratives against alternative globalisation movements in the early 2000s. Notably, though, Plante had to concede that the actions were not antisemitic.
The Palestine solidarity movements, and the way they have generalised opposition against imperialism more broadly, are striking some panic among the ruling classes in Canada. The state is under pressure to discredit these movements and to clamp down on them through police violence and legal measures against solidarity groups and organisers.
Tactics have also included using the largely discredited “terrorist list” against Palestine solidarity groups and activists. Only last month, Samidoun, the Palestine prisoner solidarity group, was added to the country’s terrorist list. Lead organiser Charlotte Kates, who resides in Vancouver, has been arrested several times.
The terrorist list gained notoriety after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon in the US and has been used predominantly to target anti-imperialist resistance groups. At the same time, some politicians have sought to have the list expanded to include indigenous land defenders and direct action anti-poverty groups.
These tactics have also included dramatic and violent police deployments to enact terror list arrests. When Kates was last arrested, Vancouver police mobilised the Emergency Response Team and deployed an armoured vehicle, a flash-bang grenade and broke windows to execute the warrant at her home.
Of course, anarchists, socialists and communists would not, and should not, disavow direct action and direct action against the capitalist state, imperialist federations, or military capital. And they have not, following the Montreal actions.
Challenges remain on explaining direct actions broadly to the community and in showing clearly that the real social violence is not in broken windows but in the broken lives of working-class people facing austerity, policing, militarism, war and genocide. And in defending especially the racialised, migrant and Indigenous communities that are at the forefront of resistance and the ones most severely targeted for repression.