We were totally unprepared. ASO (Anarchists of Southern Ontario) was gaining ground by the time April 2011 came around. We had managed to reach approximately six thousand members and we were actively involved in working class struggles. ASO was also federated with anarchist organizations in the northeastern U.S., Quebec and the Pacific Northwest. We had built strong connections with many unions, including the steelworkers union (which had several subsidiary organizations), student associations in several universities, and had made much progress in the newly founded OFSW (Ontario Food Service Workers) in which anarchist politics had a very strong influence. The student associations that embraced anarchist politics were situated at the University of Windsor, the University of Toronto, Fanshawe College, University of Waterloo, and Wilfred Laurier, whereas the University of Western Ontario was inconsistent and had strong liberal tendencies. Our network had allowed us to organize large demonstrations regularly against the constant layoffs and union busting techniques sanctioned by the government. We had managed to provide a consistent anarchist perspective through independent media, Ontario wide anarchist publications and university papers sympathetic to the cause. We were constantly lambasted in the private media, as well as the national television station (CBC). This was no surprise, for the interests that backed those stations were both corporate and statist.
Although Stephen Harper was no longer in office, there was hardly a change with the Liberal Michael Ignatieff. The neo-liberal economic policies that had destroyed workers rights continued unchecked. Until April 2011 our organizations had not been persecuted other than the blatant lies coming from the corporate and state media until a demonstration in Windsor of approximately fifty thousand workers, students, and the unemployed was confronted violently by the pigs. Teargas, rubber bullets, and nightsticks were used liberally and four students from radical organizations were killed (as well as several hundred injured) in fights with the police. We immediately condemned the violent tactics used by the pigs and held Ontario-wide demonstrations in solidarity with the protest in Windsor which were supported by all the student organizations (including that of the UWO) as well as the steelworkers union and OFSW. Then it happened.
The pigs came out full force, confronting the protesters in every city violently while using plain clothed undercover agents to sneak into protest lines to arrest influential speakers and key figures in the ASO and student organizations. There was video footage of the arrests in London and Toronto, where the plain clothed agents had brutally beat those detained - while the media had dismissed the victims as political deviants and troublemakers.
A law was quickly passed in Parliament to legalize the repression of public dissent, which was totally unprecedented in Canada. Bill C-27 (Public safety and economic growth package) was a Trojan horse for regressive civil rights policies. It highlighted economic benefits for those affected by the longstanding economic crisis while totally annihilating free speech and the right of civil disobedience. The day after it was passed, since the law was regressive, anyone proven to be involved in organizing protests could be arrested for compromising public safety. The bill also provided the legal framework in Parliament to sanction the illegal military policing elements of the SPP (Security and Prosperity Partnership). We found out shortly after that there had been a similar crackdown on our American counterparts. Due to the continuity of government policies already passed by Congress, there was no need for legislative action on behalf of the state; the U.S. government simply revealed its claws.
There were rumours that private contractors from the U.S. had been deployed at an old base just north of Barrie. We would learn that these were the solution to the growing discomfort in the Canadian armed forces regarding their possible deployment in Ontario cities. Most soldiers in the CF (Canadian Forces) had strong sympathies to the growing working class discontent, due to the fact that their friends and families were involved in the struggle. There had already been problems with the redeployment in Afghanistan, which was not supposed to occur but the Canadian government had accepted after intense pressure from NATO. The soldiers began to desert en masse due to the efforts of our organizations to educate and reach out to the soldiers regarding their role in profiting U.S. oil interests through their exploitation of the Afghans. The CF leadership did not have the propaganda resources to indoctrinate their soldiers to the domestic and international interests of the Canadian and American bourgeoisie, especially with the strong independent media presence. Another factor was that the CF officer class was merit based and just like the regular soldiers had connections to the working class through friends and family.
There were several results of the increased repression and presence of foreign mercenaries. Our organization’s principle form of activism at the time was mass demonstrations, which were no longer legal and would be confronted brutally by the pigs. That meant that many of us would have to go underground to continue. Officially the ASO was reduced to a paper organization; we could publish criticisms of the actions of the state and the corporations, but if we were to provide militant solutions in our literature we would be shut down. It was decided at our last delegates council that the ASO would continue to exist only for propaganda purposes and that its finances would be transferred to small and trusted committees to immediately purchase weapons and ammunition from our counterparts in the northeastern United States.
Many voiced disapproval of this decision. Ultimately they were convinced of the necessity of this decision by citing previous revolutions and the crippling dependence anarchist militants had historically placed on other organizations for weapons and ammunition. It was understood that this crackdown was just the beginning and that we would eventually need to defend ourselves against the mercenaries. It was decided that the weapons would be distributed to loyal militants throughout the ASO where they would be held until they were needed. Because the organization had the foresight to act as quickly as it did, the weapons purchase surprisingly went off without problems. Over the period of three weeks, one thousand M4 assault rifles, one hundred and fifty M60 machine guns and five hundred thousand rounds of ammunition were smuggled through Minnesota to northern Ontario where teams then disseminated them by trucks to rural residences of sixty-three ASO militants.
On Labour Day (September 2011), three million people publicly protested bill C-27. The protest erupted quickly into massive confrontations with the pigs in Windsor, London, Waterloo, Guelph, Hamilton, and Toronto. The police were overrun by protesters brandishing baseball bats, hockey sticks, and whatever makeshift riot gear they could get their hands on. Large groups of riot police were detained and disarmed by protesters. The mercenaries and the U.S. Marines were called in to take control of the situation. They opened fire on crowds and renditioned key figures to bases nobody knew existed. They killed over three hundred of us that day. The time was beginning to feel right for retaliation.
