Hamilton

Anonymous submission to North Shore

This week across southern ontario and quebec, we’ve lost count on how many RBC branches were targeted (we estimate 10+) for disruption and attack. So-called toronto, hamilton, montreal… friends in places as small as orillia and as distant as nanaimo. These actions respond to a need to target investors in the Coastal Gaslink pipeline project – which is currently behind schedule thanks to the direct attack that took place in february as well as the successful campaigns to block the project thus far lead by Gidimt’en Clan – but is still rapidly being constructed on unceded Wet’suwet’en territory.

RBC is one of its largest financial backers, and in the past week and preceding months, has been the subject of pressure tactics ranging from direct action interfering with bank branches, to pushing elites/clients to pull their money out of RBC accounts, to organizing to disrupt RBC’s Annual General Meeting in Toronto. The message is clear: the Royal Bank of Canada needs to divest from CGL immediately.

In hamilton, where we’re writing from, bank branches were vandalized, had their locks glued, and ATMs damaged. We chose these methods to directly interfere with the operations of the bank, hurt them financially and in their public image, and to contribute to the spread of easily-replicable, anonymous actions.

RBC was the central target this week, but they are not alone in complicity. We can also set our sights on other big banks, TC Energy, many related contractors and developers, the RCMP, and the State of so-called Canada.

This is only going to escalate. CGL, and their financial allies like RBC, perpetuate the situation by continuing their exploitative projects and violent attacks on Wet’suwet’en territory. The Wedzin Kwa remains under the looming threat of being destroyed via drill. Elders, matriarchs, supporters, comrades, and land defenders face daily assault. We all need to prepare for more, to respond with more boldness, to do more damage. If they push, then we then will push back, but harder. With only a bit of planning and courage, we can act in ways that feed our spirits and keep the fight alive. Stay safe, and we look forward to seeing your work out there in the days to come.

Anonymous Submission to North Shore Counter-Info

Earlier this week a branch of Quantum Murray Environmental in Stoney Creek, Ontario had several of its windows smashed in the middle of the night. Quantum Murray is a construction company that specialized in dealing with industrial-scale environmental problems and infrastructure, but that has more recently gotten into the business of encampment evictions in Hamilton.

For anyone not paying attention, the past two years of covid pandemic have exacerbated problems of homelessness, addiction, and poverty in cities across the world, leading to a growth of encampments in urban parks and green spaces where people live in tents and makeshift structures. Though not an ideal solution, these encampments offer an alternative to the bloated, dangerous, and often dehumanizing shelter system, one that allows some autonomy over movement and safety. Many of us have welcomed these new neighbors, forming bonds of friendship and solidarity, sharing meals and resources. Others have sought to make their lives even more precarious, cold, and impossible. Most prominent among these are the Hamilton Police who have been parading from park to park evicting people with brute force. In some recent downtown evictions, as friends and neighbours stood up to the police and tried to stop this inhumane spectacle, we couldn’t help but notice the presence of a company called Quantum Murray that was helping to destroy and dispose of people’s possessions. And while our rage has been mainly focused on the politicians who create these brutal conditions, the police who enforce them, and the cold-hearted neighbours who can only think about property values, we left these altercations feeling a particular anger towards the QM workers who for some unspeakable reason have decided to ally themselves with this cause. While they should be out fixing cooling towers and dealing with industrial waste sites, instead they are here in these parks ripping apart tents and licking cop boots. There is no reason why Quantum Murray, a nation-wide company with no shortage of work, should spend its time attacking poor and working class people. Because that’s what an eviction is. It’s an attack. And so we attack back. We destroy your property, and send you a message that once you saddle up with shitheads of the world you get treated like one.

Just stop.

Go back to the cooling towers.

And next time your boss asks you to work overtime kicking poor people out of their homes on freezing cold nights, just go home. Call in sick. Call your union and tell them you’ve been asked to perform unsafe work. Do anything except spend your time evicting homeless people and destroying their tents.

More park evictions are planned for the coming days in Hamilton. Let this be a warning to eviction collaborators and a call to our friends to find our own ways to attack.

Tag: Hamilton

Hamilton, Canada: RBC Branches Attacked For Funding Pipeline

Hamilton, Canada: Attack on Encampment Eviction Collaborators