2000s-2010s Southwestern Ontario Left Projects

Last updated 2024 July 6.

This list compiles archives of left projects in Southwestern Ontario from the recent past across political tendencies and areas of struggle. It is nowhere near comprehensive. To limit the scope, I only include Toronto-based links if they were directly connected to goings-on in SW Ontario.

I began looking through these old blogs and websites to learn about projects that are no longer around, since I can’t just find out more about them by running into them around the region. Because of that, I have chosen to exclude projects that are still active, even if they were around during the relevant time period.

Anti-Colonial & Environmental

Kanonhstaton & Six Nations Solidarity

CUPE 3903 First Nations Solidarity Working Group

The fnswg is a body of CUPE 3903, TAs, contract faculty and graduate assistants at York University. The First Nations Solidarity Working Group mandate:

1. 1. To educate and organize the CUPE 3903 membership about issues relating to matters of indigenous sovereignty and solidarity and to encourage membership participation both within the caucus and the local in general on this issue.
  2. To work within and to help build rank and file networks of union activists working on issues of indigenous solidarity and solidarity.
  3. To co-ordinate efforts in support of indigenous sovereignty with other local, regional and national (union and non-union) projects in support of indigenous sovereignty and solidarity.
  4. To actively participate in supporting indigenous struggles such as (but not limited to) the Six Nations land reclamation.

Settlers In Support of Indigenous Sovereignty (News Archive)

Settlers in Support of Indigenous Sovereignty is an international organization dedicated to the struggles of Indigenous Peoples for self-determination and Sovereignty.

NativeWeb is an international, nonprofit, educational organization dedicated to using telecommunications including computer technology and the Internet to disseminate information from and about indigenous nations, peoples, and organizations around the world; to foster communication between native and non-native peoples; to conduct research involving indigenous peoples’ usage of technology and the Internet; and to provide resources, mentoring, and services to facilitate indigenous peoples’ use of this technology.

Six Nations Reclamation (Old Site) (New Site)

This website is designed to provide news updates and background information regarding the ongoing confrontation between onkwehonwe (native people) and police forces at the land reclamation site in Caledonia, Ontario.

It is designed to assist the Haudenosaunee (the Iroquois Confederacy) achieve its goal of achieving a just and peaceful resolution of this dispute. (This is not the official website of the Iroquois Confederacy because there is no such thing.)

Regardless of how the confrontation at the site is resolved, the Confederacy has already won two major victories:

1. 1. the Six Nations elected band council has recognized the Confederacy as the body which should negotiate this matter on behalf of the entire community
  2. the federal Government has committed itself to negotiations with the Confederacy over this matter, the 1st time it has recognized the authority of the Confederacy since it imposed the band council system on the community in 1924.

This website was established by the staff at Onkwawenna Kentyohkwa, a language centre on the Six Nations Grand River Territory that teaches Kanyen’kéha (the “Mohawk” language) to adults.

Solidarity with Six Nations

This blog has been set up by supporters of Six Nations in Brantford, Caledonia, Hamilton, Kitchener-Waterloo and Toronto to keep people updated about the current state of the struggle for the land, to give historical context to current struggles, and to bring attention to injustices that continue as part of colonial processes.

Recently allies have organized under the Six Nations Solidarity Network. Our perspective can best be summed up by the words of Gangulu Elder, Lila Watson: “If you have come to help me you are wasting my time. But if you come because your liberation is bound up with mine that let us struggle together.”

Line 9

Hamilton Line 9

Enbridge’s Line 9 oil pipeline runs from Montreal to Sarnia.

In late July, the National Energy Board approved a plan by Enbridge to reverse the flow of their Line 9 pipeline all the way from Sarnia to Westover, and they are currently seeking approval to move it to Montreal. Although Enbridge denies it, this is part of a plan to move Tar Sands oil from Alberta to ports on the Atlantic coast. On its way, this oil will have to go through Hamilton, stopping at the Westover Terminal near Westover Rd and Concession 6 W in Flamborough.

Opposition to the ludicrous Northern Gateway pipeline that would carry Tar Sands oil west, and to the Keystone XL that would carry it south has already been historic. It is in the context of this powerful resistance, especially the unbroken wall of Indigenous communities blocking any route to the Pacific ocean (the Yinka Dene Alliance), that Enbridge is dusting off their old Trailbreaker pipeline proposal.

Ever since it became clear that attempts to move Tar Sands oil to Canadian ports in the Pacific will be met with massive resistance, there has been an increasing drumbeat among conservatives in Alberta to move the oil east instead. Politically, the timing of the Line 9 reversal can be read as an attempt to play Ontario and BC against each other for the benefit of oil money in Alberta: “If BC is going to play politics with this great opportunity, then we’ll ship all the jobs and cheap oil opportunities to Ontario.” But are there really any advantages for people here?

The nationalist claim that Tar Sands oil is somehow more ethical than oil from Venezuela and Saudi Arabia are an attempt to dress up an economic incentive in altruistic clothes – oil from the Tar Sands is currently much cheaper than overseas oil, creating immense opportunities for the powerful to profit in areas that gain access to it. The jobs oil profiteers claim will be created are in Sarnia and Nanticoke working in heavily toxic atmospheres amid downwards pressure on wages, benefits, and worker protections. Only the powerful have anything to gain by involving Southern Ontario in the Tar Sands racket, but all of us will share the costs as this dirty oil makes catastropic climate change inevitable.

No Line 9 Reversal

This space is meant to act as a platform for people mobilizing against the Line 9 Reversal to share information, experiences and strategies. We are hoping to post community info-sessions, conferences, regional meetings and other pertinent information. Media coverage, news articles, press releases, videos and articles of all kinds will also be included.

Stop Line 9 Toronto

Enbridge has completed the process of reversing the direction of its pipeline (Line 9) between Sarnia and Montreal in order to transport their Tar Sands (Diluted Bitumen) from Alberta to east coast ports for shipment around the world.

We invite you and your neighbours to create a Community Action Group (CAG) to inform people in your Ward about Line 9 and what can be done to keep DilBit out of our city. If you want to start a CAG, contact us. We will supply resources, materials, and training, and connect you with others across the city.

Our goal is to motivate all city councillors to support a motion at city hall to outlaw the transport of these hazardous materials across our city. These “Unconventional Oil” products, which now includes Light Bakken Crude along with DilBit, are extremely explosive, and are solely for export.

Swamp Line 9

As this statement is released, we are digging in and occupying Enbridge’s North Westover Pump Station in the Beverly Swamp. We have done this to stop construction in preparation for the reversal of their Line 9 Pipeline to carry toxic diluted bitumen from the Alberta Tar Sands through our communities and watersheds, likely for export.

For the past year, we have organized in our communities across Southern Ontario to raise awareness of Enbridge’s plan to reverse Line 9. Increased awareness quickly lead to concern and to a desire from our communities to at the very least make our voices heard about our opposition to this project. What we found was a rigged game, where the political party most indebted to the oil industry had taken spectacular measures to remove the usual environmental oversights from Line 9 and other pipeline projects. The Line 9 reversal is, from the perspective of the powerful, a foregone conclusion and they have insultingly offered only the most meaningless opportunities for public engagement.

We are establishing a camp on Enbridge property in the middle of the Beverly Swamp, the largest remaining forested wetland in Southern Ontario. The health of this wetland is crucial to the health of the Spencer Creek, which feeds Cootes Paradise, the beautiful marshland that forms the western end of Lake Ontario. Protecting the water is vitally important — once water is poisoned, it can’t be undone.

This is also stolen Indigenous land and is the traditional territory of the Chonnonton people as well as of the Mississagi Anishinabec and the Onondawaga Haudenosaunee. This pipeline crosses the territories of dozens of Indigenous nations along its route, including the Six Nations of the Grand River who have taken an inspiring lead in building resistance to Line 9. “The whole thing about Line 9 is that it’s going through our territory and Enbride hasn’t consulted us or talked to us at all,” said Missy Elliot of Six Nations. “What’s best for the land is what’s best for our people. We have to protect the land – this isn’t just a side project for us, we have to protect our future. It’s our responsibility.”

Other

Defend the Hanlon Creek Watershed

On Monday, July 27th, at 6:30am, about 60 people walked in and stopped the destruction of this beautiful and precious ecosystem. The City of Guelph then decided to take the protesters to court to deliver us with an injunction. However, to their surprise the court allowed us to remain on the land, and ended up also delivering the City with an injunction (filed by the protesters), declaring that the Minister of Natural Resources had 30 days to issue a work stop order. On August 27th the Minister decided to not issue a work stop order, allowing the City to work under certain conditions in order to ‘protect’ the Jefferson Salamander (a threatened species – see below for more information). However, after resistance to the HCBP continued in various forms by people all over Southern Ontario, the City announced that they were not constructing the culvert until Spring 2010!

The proposed Hanlon Creek Business Park had been highly contested since it was first put forward in 1993, with opposition greatly increasing in the past 11 months. This widespread public outcry is for a variety of reasons, including the intrinsic worth of an Old Growth Forest, the significance of the Paris-Galt Moraine to the integrity of our drinking water, the abundance of ‘brownfields’ and industrial land that is not in use, and provincial and federal regulations concerning the preservation of the Jefferson Salamander and Provincially Significant Wetlands that are found on the site.

We are imploring the City to:

- - Listen to public outcry and respect the intrinsic importance of this land by immediately ending this development and terminating their contract with Drexler.
  - Compensate the skilled labourers of Drexler Construction for lost wages, including those who choose to stand with us.
  - Publicly apologize to the people of Guelph for disregarding their opposition to this development.

Knowing the Land is Resistance

Knowing the Land is Resistance (KLR) is based in the remaining Carolinian forest nestled between the Niagara Escarpment and Lake Ontario, on the traditional territory of the Chonnonton people, now known as South-Western Ontario. In this area, almost all of the forest has been cut and, with very few exceptions, all the grasslands and savannahs have been cleared. But it is a landscape struggling to heal, with vibrant pockets of richness thriving along its many rivers and creeks, huddled close to the escarpment, and sneaking up wherever land is left untended.

As the KLR collective, we seek to ally with these healing lands by connecting with and learning from wild spaces, while also pushing back against the capitalist and colonial systems that continue to profit from their destruction. The coming years hold many opportunities for wildness and health in South-Western Ontario, though it very much depends on our ability to break the grip of governments, land-owners, and corporations who only values land when it is put to use by humans.

Stop Fracking Ontario

Fracking (or “hydraulic fracturing”) is a very toxic, wasteful, and dangerous form of natural gas extraction.

Stop Fracking Ontario is a web project to inform and promote opposition toward fracking in Ontario, and the surrounding region, and elsewhere.

This project is an all-volunteer, non-partisan effort that is not tied to any particular organization. There is no budget (at this time), and no staff. At best, these web pages will provide some material for others to work with.

We will need a broad coalition of citizens to apply the ongoing pressure that could stop the fracking industry.

We also should support a range of positive alternatives, so we actually can phase out ‘natural’ gas.

Anti-Repression & Prisoner Support

Guelph Anarchist Black Cross

The Guelph Anarchist Black Cross Collective is committed to confronting the state, capitalism, colonization, and all forms of exploitation. The function of prisons is inherently codependent with these forces, for neither can exist without the other. We see prison as a daily threat, also manifesting in all aspects of society through surveillance, isolation and repression. We want to contribute to a struggle against prisons, and the world that needs them.

We want to support, provide resources, and help build a framework for defense with communities burdened by the legal system, courts, jails, prison, arrests, and police. This means having access to resources like lawyers, building networks of solidarity, maintaining relationships with those locked up and connecting with those who face similar struggles.

We do not limit our solidarity to “political prisoners”. We want to build a struggle with marginalized communities and anyone who strives for freedom. It is important for any ongoing revolutionary struggle to recognize that the fight against prison is a part of the fight for freedom (for us, as anarchist revolutionaries, repression and prison are a daily threat and reality). It is with this understanding that we expand our ties and strengthen our struggles.

Support the Hanlon Creek 5

At dawn on Monday July 26, the last coldwater creek of the Hanlon Creek watershed became a flashpoint of resistance. 60 people converged and occupied the site, right where a 4-lane culvert was supposed to be put across a tributary of the Hanlon Creek. Autonomous from any organization, a broad coalition of Land Defenders attracted hundreds of supporters from all over Guelph, Southern Ontario, and other parts of this continent. Lasting for 18 days, this action succeeded in stopping construction for 2009, and has created a huge legal and political battle that continues today.

Within four days of being on the land, the City of Guelph delivered an injunction to try and force people off the land, which would have the threat of police and imprisonment to back it up. Seven people’s names were on the injunction, including a claim for $5 million in damages. With only a weekend to prepare, a legal battle soon began, with courtrooms packed full of supporters. In the end, the occupation lasted for 18 days, eventually ending in injunctions forcing the City of Guelph to stop work and the Land Defenders to vacate the site.

Since then, the City of Guelph has maintained their lawsuit against the remaining five individuals (two of the original people were dropped). In August the City reduced their claim to $150,000, to “recover costs associated with stolen equipment and damage to the property.” Then on February 24 2010, the City changed it back to $5 million, “to ensure that the actual cost of damages incurred to date and potential future damages resulting from protestor activity can be recovered so the business park can move forward without further cost to taxpayers.”

This is a support site for these five individuals, collectively known as the Hanlon Creek 5. While there are five named individuals on this lawsuit, this is an issue that affects all of us. At stake is a 675-acre parcel of land which is important to all of us for a long list of reasons. When individuals get targeted in a SLAPP suit like this, it is intended to send a message to all of us – look what happens when you step out of line. The choice the City would leave us with is to conform to actions that don’t stop business-as-usual, but of course that makes no difference to the ongoing destruction of our planet. The success of our movements requires us to stand up for each other and support those who are targeted. Please read the other pages on this site to familiarize with this issue.

Toronto Anarchist Black Cross

Since its inception at the beginning of the 20th century in Czarist Russia, the mission of the Anarchist Black Cross has been to contribute to the defense of mass movements working for liberation from state and capitalist domination. Historically, the ABC has organized support and defense of political prisoners and prisoners of war, maintained physical solidarity against police during factory and school occupations, organized self-defense and armed defense of social movements and fulfilled a broad range of roles within mass movement defense.

We are a collective of prisoner solidarity activists who focus on political prisoner support. We have been working in solidarity with political prisoners for almost ten years, first with Montreal ABCF and now Toronto ABC, collaborating on various projects and initiatives.

General

Autonomy & Solidarity

Autonomy & Solidarity is an exploratory network and political space for socialists, anarchists and anti-capitalists who believe that revolutionary transformation will come from exploited and oppressed people self-organizing from below and not from the top down organizing of any state, party or union bureaucracy. Our name comes from our support for the autonomous struggles of workers and the oppressed, and from our belief in building forms of solidarity that address all forms of oppression and exploitation.

We are active in various anti-poverty, anti-war/occupation, feminist, union, queer liberation and anti-racist movements and coalitions. We also organize discussion groups, public forums and skills workshops, and produce materials and resources to develop and share our politics. Our goal is to develop theory and practice collectively in order to extend our individual capacities and to make better contributions to the movements in which we are active.

We seek to develop the anti-capitalist practices and networks that emerged through our anti-globalization, anti-war and anti-poverty movements. We support direct action and mass struggle, and are committed to decentralized, non-hierarchical forms of organizing. We are also internationalists and want to make connections with progressive and revolutionary movements around the world.

Developing transformative anti-oppression politics is central to our politics. We support the autonomous struggles of women, people of colour, gays and lesbians, bisexuals and transsexuals, transgender and intersex people, young people, people living with disabilities, and indigenous people inside the Canadian State and around the world. We also seek a politics of responsibility for white people to challenge white supremacy, for men to challenge masculine privilege and patriarchy, and for those identifying as heterosexual to challenge relations of heterosexual privilege.

Autonomy & Solidarity seeks to initiate a wide-ranging process of political debate and elaboration. We are supporters of revolutionary pluralism, a political and organizational practice that views non-sectarian debates and discussions amongst revolutionaries from various backgrounds as healthy and generative. Autonomy & Solidarity provides us with a political network through which to explore the questions and debates that have been raised within the new anti-capitalist movements.

Common Cause

Common Cause was an anarchist communist organization based in Southern Ontario, active from 2007-2016.

“We believe that anarchists must participate in campaigns for social, environmental and economic justice as an organized force in order to help spread anarchist principles of direct action, autonomy and self-organization amongst wider segments of the class. […] As part of our larger fight against capitalism and the State, we seek out intermediate struggles and methods that challenge the institutions of patriarchy, white supremacy and disableism that serve to divide the class and perpetuate oppressive hierarchies based on gender, sexuality, race and ‘ability’.”

Queer

Fierce & Fabulous

Fierce & Fabulous formed as a response to our outrage and anger of queer and trans oppression, as well as the queer assimilationist mind frame that continues to plague our city and other cities around us. We recognize the need for queer anarchist struggle everywhere. We are dedicated to fighting against queer bashers, gender binaries, societal norms and all forms of state oppression. We seek to free the minds and crotches of these chains and bondage, and if chains and bondage gear are yer thing we want to help free you from the chains and bondage that keep you from it

Labour

Steel City Solidarity

Steel City Solidarity is a workers action centre for precarious workers in the City of Hamilton. Established as a working group of CUPE 3906, we are composed of precarious workers and labour and community activists from McMaster University and the Hamilton community.

Publications, Media & Distros

4strugglemag

4strugglemag is an independent non-sectarian revolutionary voice. We are unapologetically anti-imperialist and solidly in support of progressive National Liberation, especially the struggles of New African/Black, Mexicano/ Chicano, Puerto Rican and Native American Nations presently controlled by U.S. imperialism. Reflecting the work and principles of political prisoners held by the United States, 4strugglemag advocates for Justice, Equality, Freedom, Socialism, Protection of our Mother Earth, Human Rights and Peace.

ACAB News (Guelph ABC)

ACAB News is a periodical newsletter published by Guelph ABC.

Confrontation

Social conflict across Canada. The corporate media is the voice of the cops and bosses, so read it with caution. This blog is for entertainment only and does not encourage or condone any illegal activity.

The Dominion

The Dominion is a publication of the Media Co-op. Most members receive printed copies of the newspaper, and selected stories from Locals appear in The Dominion.

Special issues of The Dominion (such as the tar sands and State of Mine issues) are distributed through the Locals.

While parts of the website remain live, many links are only accessible through the Wayback Machine.

Hamilton Independent Media Center

The Hamilton Independent Media Center(IMC Hamilton) is a democratic collective of people using alternative media as a tool for social transformation in our community. We are the local organizing unit of the global Indymedia network.

Our work includes:

- - Reporting local events that are ignored or poorly covered by corporate media
  - Seeking a world of equality and justice, free from oppression and exploitation
  - Opposing capitalist and corporatist gobalization, and destructive or unsustainable economic and political systems.
  - Providing tools, skills, and capabilities to others of like mind in our community.
  - Facilitating the networking and coordination of independent journalists in our community.
  - Creating links to alternative media, activist, and research groups.
  - Providing coverage of stories emphasizing the global nature of people’s struggles for social, economic, and environmental justice, directly from their perspective.
  - Encouraging, facilitating, and supporting the creation of independent news gathering organizations, and the ongoing development of the Indymedia network of collectives.

The Hamilton Institute

In case anyone lands on this website hoping for news and analysis about Hamilton from an anarchist perspective, know that this site is no longer being updated or maintained. This project was thrown together with little intention and was never meant to play a meaningful counter-info role.

Mounting Bedlam Distro

MBD is a zine distro and publisher based out of Guelph, Ontario, Kanada. We mostly distribute zines and pamphlets locally at events and social spaces in Southern Ontario. We want the writings that come out of this area to be available in the context of a larger anarchist struggle, to contribute to ongoing discussions and strategies around confronting the existing social order.

The Peak

The Peak is a web and print magazine published on Attawandaron territory (Guelph Ontario). As an alternative publication, we focus our energies on prioritizing under reported voices and marginalized perspectives within and beyond Southern Ontario. Through the publishing of five issues per year, we hope to facilitate dialogues that meaningfully engage readers and continue the dissemination of radical media. The Peak functions as a collective based, horizontal framework that shares diverse interests and perspectives. We stand behind an anti-capitalist analysis that values autonomy, anarchism and critical self-reflection.

Toronto Media Co-op

The site for the Toronto local of The Media Co-op has been archived and will no longer be updated.

The Media Co-op has been publishing grassroots journalism online in the Canadian context since 2006, and its roots in The Dominion print publication go back even farther. We are a media organization with a co-operative structure, but in practice that has looked very different at different moments – check out this account of the history and structure of the organization. Today, we are small, national in scope, and online-only, and we are hard at work refining our role in this country’s always-evolving independent media landscape. What has not changed is our commitment to being reader-funded and member-run, and to producing media from a grassroots perspective.

For us, “grassroots” means that when we cover a topic, we start from the people directly affected by the policies or activities in question first. Once a journalist thoroughly understands the story of those directly affected, she brings their questions to those making the decisions: politicians, corporate executives, and so on.

This approach stems from a certain kind of common sense: if we start by talking to the people who have a vested interest and experience in spinning, framing, or outright lying to their own advantage, then we’re not likely to get the real story. This approach also takes the position that what is actually happening on the ground is more important than what people with power are saying about what’s going on.