Olympic torch protested in Montreal
Riot police had to intervene Thursday night to push back protesters at celebrations marking the arrival of the Olympic torch in Old Montreal.
More than 100 protesters gathered in front of the stage, carrying placards, and chanting “No Olympics on stolen native land.”
No arrests were reported, and officers were on hand to make sure the event went smoothly, said Const. André Leclerc of the Montreal police.
Jacques Villeneuve, a former Formula One world champion, carried the Olympic flame along a snow-filled street in Old Montreal before an exchange in front of the brightly lit Notre-Dame Basilica, a Montreal landmark.
The Vancouver Olympics have been the target of protests by native communities and anti-poverty activists, who are critical of what they said are misplaced priorities and the forced evictions of low-income earners.
On Monday, a group of Mohawk traditionalists in the Kahnawake reserve, south of Montreal, threatened to block the torch if the RCMP ? officially escorting the flame across Canada ? were part of the caravan.
Torch relay organizers finally agreed to allow the community?s police force, the Kahnawake Mohawk Peacekeepers, to take over the security detail.
On Tuesday morning, the torch arrived at Montreal’s Olympic Stadium to commemorate the city’s Olympic connection.
The torch then visited other regions of the province, including Mont-Tremblant, before returning for a tour of the Island of Montreal on Thursday.
Earlier Thursday, Canadian figure-skating legend Barbara Ann Scott carried the torch into the House of Commons in Ottawa.
The torch run officially was to arrive in the national capital region on Saturday. However, an early side trip to Parliament was scheduled during the torch’s Montreal leg because the House was expected to break for the Christmas recess on Friday.
The Olympic flame’s cross-country route, at 45,000 kilometres, was planned to be the longest domestic torch relay in Games history.
5 Royal Bank of Canada outlets vandalized in Ottawa
No Olympics On Stolen Native Land!
Starting February 12 the winter Olympics will take place in occupied
British Colombia.
To date most Indigenous Nations in British Colombia haven’t entered into
treaties with the British Crown or the Canadian government. This means
that, according to International Law, most of British Colombia is
illegally occupied by the Canadian state.
The history of corporate profiteering from the theft of Indigenous lands
and the genocide of Indigenous Peoples is a long one. It is inextricably
linked with the colonization of Turtle Island (North America), and, in
fact, of the vast majority of the globe. A perfect example of this
profiteering from colonization is the Hudson’s Bay Company, with its
history as one of the main agents of colonization in British Colombia and
its sponsorship of the 2010 Olympics. The Olympics are being used to the
ongoing colonization further step by step; for example, the destruction of
sacred mountain environments for the profit of various corporations and
the pleasure of skiers and tourists.
The Royal Bank of Canada is also a sponsor of the 2010 Olympics.
We say fuck RBC. Due to their sponsorship of the Olympics, and the fact
that they are generally heinous, we vandalized 5 RBCs in Ottawa, smashing
one of their branches windows in the early morning.
RBCs in Ottawa have been repeatedly targeted with property damage, and we
felt that we should also do our bit.
We know that this action is just a drop in the bucket, but we also know
that enough drops will fill that bucket up!
So let’s get to it folks!
Soonest begun, soonest done.
The ‘damage to property is violent’ collective.
Shaming the Flame in Halifax
Shaming the Flame in Halifax
Torch relay not welcomed by protesters
by Hillary Lindsay, Halifax Media Co-op, November 18, 2009
http://halifax.mediacoop.ca/story/2102
The Olympic torch arrived in Halifax today and at least some of the city’s residents did not give it a warm welcome.
As the flame passed the corner of Agricola and North St, protesters held a banner expressing solidarity with opposition to the Olympics in British Colombia.
“Politicans appeal to our love of sport to promote the Olympics,” says Laura Merdsoy, one of the protesters. “But the Olympics are really about profit-making for corporate sponsors and big business.”
The Games are costing billions of dollars, points out protester Jane Kirby, “That money should be spent on housing, for example.” Instead, says Kirby, “People living in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside are losing their homes due to gentrification related to the Olympics.”
The group handed out flyers that explained their opposition to the Games: “Corporate sponsors who finance the Olympic spectable profit at the expense of working people, Native communities, and the poor and homeless of the lower-mainland of British Colombia (Coast Salish Territory).” The flyer points out that most of BC remains un-ceded and non-surrendered Native territory.
“Protesters chanted, “Homes Not Games” and “No Olympics on Stolen Native Land” as the torch went by.
2010 Olympics – Your Joint is Running
Video by Professional Recreationalist Bruce Dean
Victoria Olympic Protesters Heroes!
A recent poll on a Victoria radio station CFAX asked it’s listeners whether they thought the Olympic protesters were heroes or villians. The poll results are as follows:
View results online here.
Photos from Victoria Olympic Torch Relay Protest
The Blackbird on Flickr
nofutureface on Flickr
casper.ware on Flickr
dmanifesto on Flickr
ngawangchodron on Flickr
“Let’s play cops and zombies: protest takes over torch relay.”
Excerpt from article written for the The Martlet (UVIC).
The undead aren’t usually political. They made an exception during the Olympic Torch Relay on Oct. 30. Masked and unmasked zombies swarmed the streets in force to protest the Olympics, which they called an abuse of public money and public rights.
The Zombie March, organized by No-2010 Victoria, took almost five hours, much of it in the rain. It disrupted the torch route in several places near downtown. The event had almost 400 participants, according to organizers.
Zombie marchers came under fire by the public and mainstream media during and after the event, for disrupting the torch. Torch-bearers were transported in vans around protest sites, and some people missed their opportunities to see coworkers, friends, or family carry the torch.
“I do acknowledge that it probably stinks on the individual level for people,” noted organizer Mik Turje.
However, Turje also noted No-2010’s concerns were systemic, instead of the individual concerns of torchbearers. Issues of poverty, misspending, colonialism and the effects of the Olympics on Victoria and Vancouver were the main issues that No-2010 was protesting, Turje said.
“I think the Vancouver Organizing Committee (VANOC) and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) are very invested in having the individual stories of the individual torchbearers become more important than the systemic issues,” Turje noted. “Because, you know whose individual stories we’re not hearing, right? We’re not hearing about the people on the streets, we’re not hearing about the people who have been affected due to gentrification, we’re not hearing so many of the marginalized stories.”
View rest of article here.
Marble Chaos
It was documented that during the protest against the Olympics during the torch relay in Victoria that one of the peoples’ in the march threw marbles at the police on horseback as a tactic. This was blown out of proportion in the news media. Trying to distract from the reason we were out there. The local paper, the Times Colonist, then wrote a article saying that NO 2010 Victoria spokepersona Tamara Herman and Zoe Blunt blamed the police for throwing the marbles. This was a complete misrepresentation of what was actually said. After complaints the article was pulled from the TCs website and there was a clarification in the paper the next day explaining that it was false information.
Victoria Times Colonist. November 4, 2009
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