Feb 20
An interesting story was posted yesterday to the Anarchist News website about “a person in Hamilton who has been active in organizing against Line 9”. According to the story, this person was visited by the Hate Crimes and Extremism Unit of the Hamilton Police who took them into custody for breeching the conditions of their bail. The …
Oct 22
I had a long night on Monday working early into Tuesday morning finishing off my story analysing Toronto city councillor’s expense reports. It was nearly daybreak when I got into bed- exhausted, I slept like a log. I was awakened by someone telling me the police were at the front door- quickly throwing on my …
Oct 19
One of the most interesting resources published on the City of Toronto’s website is a detailed listing of councillor’s expense reports. Councillors are given a fixed annual budget each year ($30,815.40 in 2014), details of their spending (and reciepts) can be found at this link. The data can’t be downloaded in spreadsheet form, and it can …
Oct 08
The battle against Enbridge reversing the flow of their Line 9 pipeline seemed destined for failure since the beginning. Line 9 was previously used to carry oil from east-to-west, carrying oil imported into Canadian refineries, the reversal will enable Enbridge to deliver Canadian oil to those refineries instead. The project made sense to most people- even …
Aug 15
Introduction: In Part I of Line 9 Protests Unmasked we explored the history of direct actions against Enbridge’s pipeline reversal from the original #SwampLine9 protest in 2013 to the most recent occupation of a construction site near Innerkip, Ontario. The protests started off with a bang but quickly faded out as the media and public …
Apr 23
City Council’s executive committee recommended today that councillors who receive external funding for trips outside the country should provide financial details. It’s a logical request, one often requested of people in businesses, universities, or virtually any organization with sensible governance. There are important reasons to do this; partly to keep the bean counters happy, but also to …
Feb 04
If you were following this site last summer then you’re probably familiar with Davin Ouimet (a.k.a. Davyn Calfchild) and his partner Cathy Walker. The couple received national exposure after being featured on Sun News for their participation in the Occupy Toronto Livestream fundraiser- an event that turned out to be one of the most vile …
Dec 17
UPDATE: The story originally identified the person in the beige jacket feeding the fire as Chelsea Flook of the Sierra Club. Flook has written and said that it was not here. Your Humble Narrator apologizes for any misconceptions as a result of this error, but still points out that Flook promoted this event- behaviour that’s …
Nov 28
Sakura Saunders is what CSIS or the RCMP would refer to as a multi-issue extremist. She leads militant (and often illegal) actions against mining, oil, Israel, the police, and whatta ya got. Part anarchist and part socialist- it’s not the cause that matters as much as the opportunity to stir-up her revolutionary followers (that, and to fulfil …
Nov 26
Last week the Vancouver Observer published a scare story criticising the Harper government’s extensive spying on anti-oilsands groups. The writer explained that the “federal government” (wait, I thought it was Harper?) has been “vigorously spying” on anti oil sands activists and organizations across the country. Adding some fuel to the fire, they also hinted at a …