Picket and Demo Against CN Rail and SPP

- Support indigenous struggles for sovereignty, dignity and self-determination on Turtle Island ...

-- Oppose CN Rail's racism and colonialism ...

-- Protest Bush, Harper, Calderon and the "Security and Prosperity Partnership" (SPP)

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TUESDAY, AUGUST 14th, NOON
Picket and Demonstration
Montreal Central Train Station
metro Bonaventure
(enter via the metro,
or via the street at 895 de la Gauchetière West,
between University and Mansfield)
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** Meet at the large departures/arrivals sign in the main lobby of the train station. Bring your banners, placards, flags and other symbols of dissent. **

-- We demand that CN Rail drop their racist lawsuits against Mohawk activists at Tyendinaga;
-- We stand in support and solidarity with indigenous struggles for sovereignty and self-determination all over Turtle Island;
-- We denounce CN Rail's role in the corporate North American
Competitiveness Council and the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP).

"When justice fails, block the rails!"


CN Rail is a multi-billion dollar company, headquartered in Montreal, whose tracks and installations occupy native lands from ocean-to-ocean.

CN Rail is currently pursuing multi-million dollar lawsuits against Mohawk activists from the community of Tyendinaga who are actively involved in the defense of their land.

The Mohawks of Tyendinaga are demanding the return of the Culberston Tract, which was stolen from them in 1832. Recently a portion of the land was reclaimed, with the Tyendinaga community demanding that the Ontario government revoke the license legitimizing a private quarry operation that is literally removing land from the Culberston Tract. For more info, consult:

http://ocap.ca/firstnations/tyendinaga/culbertson

CN is threatening more lawsuits against other indigenous communities and activists who block CN rail lines.

CN Rail and their executives are targeting indigenous community organizers who have effectively brought the issue of native sovereignty to the forefront. In the context of unsettled land claims, and the fact that their tracks sit on appropriated native territory, CN Rail's actions are colonial and racist.

While CN uses the courts to attack native activists, their CEO -- E. Hunter Harrison – is a member of the North American Competitiveness Council, a key promoter of the recently formed "Security and Prosperity Partership" (SPP) between Canada, the United States and Mexico. The SPP continues the imposition of the neo-liberal North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), combined with paranoid "Homeland Security" policies.

The SPP is an attack on all working and oppressed peoples, especially the indigenous peoples of "North America". The SPP leaders – George Bush, Stephen Harper and Felipe Calderon -- will be meeting later this summer, from August 20-21, in Montebello, Quebec (just 90 minutes from Montreal).

Join us on August 14 in Montreal, as we build towards the protests against Bush, Harper and Calderon in Montebello on August 20 (info: www.psp-spp.com )

Organized and endorsed by: Block the Empire-Montreal (BLEM), Liberterre, NoOne Is Illegal-Montreal, La Rue Brique, Solidarity Across Borders, Tadamon! Montreal, La Pointe Libertaire and others (to add your group endorsement, please contact noii-montreal@resist.ca)

-> Text of the flyer passed out at the picket against CN on July 1,
2007 in Montreal:

http://nooneisillegal-montreal.blogspot.com/2007/07/flyer-text-why-we-are-protesting.html

-> “About the SPP” Background: http://www.psp-spp.com/?q=en/aboutthespp


INFO: 514-848-7583, noii-montreal@resist.ca

Anti-SPP activists get ready to protest plan to sell out Canada to New American Union

by Psp-Spp.com staff

This August, George Bush, Stephen Harper and Mexican President Felipe Calderon will be just 90 minutes from Montreal, in Montebello, Quebec.


They are meeting at the Chateau Montebello, as part of the so-called "Security and Prosperity Partnership" (aka the "Three Amigos" Summit).

They talk about "security" and "prosperity", but their agenda really means insecurity and misery for working and oppressed peoples in the Americas.

In brief, the "Security and Prosperity Partnership" (SPP) combines the destructive neo-liberal policies of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with the fear and paranoia of post 9-11 "Homeland Security" policies. The SPP is firmly rooted within a colonial and capitalist framework.

SPP is a plot to use the pre-text of the "War on Terrorism" to create a "New American Union" under the substantive direction of the U.S. political-military-industrial complex.

The SPP is described by its proponents as a "NAFTA 2.0", and is promoted and supported by corporations and their lobby groups, like the Canadian Council of Chief Executives.

A group of 30 corporate executives from the NAFTA countries comprise the North American Competitiveness Council, which was set up "to fully incorporate the private sector into the SPP process" (to cite the SPP's own words). Moreover, because the SPP announces itself as a "dialogue based on shared values," it is secretive process, subject to no formal public scrutiny or open debate.

There is no mystery to the SPP agenda: murderous wars and occupations abroad; border militarization; increased detentions and deportations; attacks on indigenous peoples, the poor, migrants, and working people; ecological destruction; mega-projects in the service of corporate greed; and unfortunately, much more and worse.

The SPP reinforces the idea of "Fortress North America", whereby the rich and privileged live in gated communities and gentrified cities, protected by police and security, with easy movement for capital between borders; for the rest, there's border fences, reservations, detention centres, prisons, surveillance, and increased precariousness.

This August, protests are being organized by anti-capitalist social justice activists in Ontario and Quebec, within the framework of the People's Global Action (PGA) Network. With organizing hubs in Ottawa and Montreal, on either end of Montebello on the Highway 148, we are preparing to resist the upcoming SPP meeting.

We are not going to lobby the SPP leaders or governments to be nicer. Justice and dignity is achieved through grassroots mobilizing and struggle, not the charity of rich philanthropists, rock-stars or politicians complicit in a destructive system.

When George Bush, Stephen Harper and Felipe Calderon try to meet at the Chateau Montebello, we are going to protest and try to disrupt their meeting. There will be activities from August 19-21, with a call for a convergence on Montebello (or as close as possible to Montebello) on 3pm on MONDAY, AUGUST 20. An anti-capitalist camp will be set up in the Montebello region in early August, as a convergence space for activists who want to gather early to plan popular and actions.
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Our protests are rooted in our ongoing mobilizing efforts and day-to-day organizing: for indigenous sovereignty and self-determination in the Americas, for immigrant justice and free movement, against deportations and detentions, against war and imperialism, for workers justice, against poverty, for ecological and environmental justice, for the liberation of all political prisoners, in solidarity with social justice movements worldwide.

On January 1, 1994, the day that NAFTA took effect, the Zapatistas began an uprising in southern Mexico, declaring NAFTA a "death sentence" on indigenous peoples. With the SPP, the politicians, bureaucrats and corporations of North America have renewed their death sentence on all of us.

The inspiration of the Zapatistas still resonates, 13 years later, as we make links between our struggles and issues, and unify to confront the SPP at Montebello, and beyond.

Scrap the SPP

Resist the Security and Prosperity Partnership Agreement. Continental Day of Action August 20th

==> LEARN ABOUT THE CORPORATE LOBBY BEHIND THE SPP:
The North American Competitiveness Council (NACC) was launched as part of
the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) in June 2006. It is the only
formal advisory board to the SPP and is made up of 30 corporate leaders
from Canada, the U.S. and Mexico with ten advisors from each of the SPP
signatory states. A September 13, 2006 story in Maclean’s magazine
describes NACC as a “cherrypicked group of executives who were whisked to
Cancun in March by the leaders of Canada, the U.S. and Mexico, and asked
to come up with a plan for taking North American integration beyond
NAFTA.”

Read more at: http://noii-van.resist.ca/?p=438


==> WHAT IS THE SPP?
The Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP) was founded
in March 2005 at a summit of the Heads of State of Canada, the US, and
Mexico. SPP is not an official treaty; it is not an official law;
therefore it has been able to escape any public scrutiny. The major drive
behind the SPP is a CEO-based organization, which is the only official
advisory group to governments on the SPP.

The real face of SPP is to further an agenda of corporate free trade,
border militarization, criminalization of migration, privatization and
theft of indigenous land and resources, repression in the name of national
security, impoverishment and displacement, and cooperation in war and
occupation.

The SPP is a NAFTA-plus-Homeland-Security model and will involve the
harmonization of over 300 areas of regulations, including: integration of
the military and police, expansion of temporary worker programs as a means
of ensuring low wages, coordination of no-fly lists, expedited resource
extraction particularly oil and water on unceded indigenous territories,
and harmonization of health and environmental regulations to lower
standards and development of a North American alternative to the Kyoto
Protocol.

Read more at: http://noii-van.resist.ca/?page_id=102*
Please check http://noii-van.resist.ca frequently for updates or contact
the Scrap SPP Campaign at scrapspp@gmail.com or call 778 885 0040
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* No One Is Ilegal Vancover is an antiauthoritarian anticapitalist initiative