[New-imc] Online form: Proposed new IMC! (montreal.indymedia.org)

[zapat at resist.ca]

Submitted by: Patrick Cadorette <zapat at resist.ca> on Friday, June 27th, 2008 @ 9:46:31 am (-0700)

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proposed_imc_name:
montreal.indymedia.org

proposed_imc_url:
montreal.indymedia.org

current_url:
www.cmaq.net

city:
Montréal

state:
Québec

country:
Canada

contact_name:
Patrick Cadorette

contact_email:
zapat at resist.ca

contact_phone:
+1 514-596-2729

tech_name:
Martin Deshaies-Jacques

tech_email:
martn at revolte.biz

tech_phone:
+1 514-596-2729

focus:
regional_focus

critical_dates:
2010: Olympics (February); SPP Summit; G8 summit (June); all to be held in so-called Canada

supporting_groups:
Our collective is something of a splinter cell from the Centre for media alternatives, which is the Quebec.indymedia.org regional collective. Quebec.indymedia was put on line in 2000. There has been a Montreal.indymedia  for a couple years (from 2000 to 2002), but that collective petered out. The Montreal.indymedia archives are kept in Toronto.

We are still going to work closely with the quebec.indymedia crew, which will now be located only in Quebec City.

The website www.cmaq.net, which is also quebec.indymedia.net, will be re-worked as an inter-regional platform integrating montreal.indymedia and quebec.indymedia. Eventually there might be more indymedia collectives forming in Quebec - we are in touch with people in Trois-Rivières (Mauricie region) and Sherbrooke (Estrie region), who are working to put together autonomous media collective.

We work closely with:

- Montreal-based technical collective Koumbit;
- Montreal infoshop DIRA; 
- Montreal anarchist book store L'Insoumise;
- Autonomous social centre (core collective)
- The Concordia university Public interest research group;

We are also closely related to the Montreal activist nebula: People's Global Action - Montreal, migrant rights group Solidarity Across Borders and No One Is Illegal - Montreal, anti-war group Block the Empire!, mid-east solidarity group Tadamon!, social rights group Comité des sans-emploi, North-eastern federation of anarcho-communists, green anarchist collective La Mauvaise Herbe, and several other groups and direct solidarity collectives.

We also have solid relationships with various media outlets in Montreal, like community radios CKUT and CINQ fm, and automous satirical newspaper Le Couac.

CMAQ is part of an alternative media network that some of our members were instrumental in setting up in 2003.


introductory_statement:
Those of us who have been involved with CMAQ over the last years have worked hard to take the project completely away from the grips of soft social-democrat types and, namely, the influence of state-sponsored local NGO Alternatives, who was instrumental in setting up the CMAQ initially. Our politics are now radically and explicitely critical of this and other similar bullshit institutions.

For the past 2 or 3 years, CMAQ has been an autonomous media collective based both in Quebec City and Montreal. The Quebec.indymedia website is an ultimate reference in Quebec with regards to social justice issues, radical politics and global justice.

Recently it has become increasingly difficult to work and organize between Quebec City and Montreal, in part because the Montreal crew is developing several new projects.

Among those, we have decided to actually open up a space in Montreal, in the same building as the Infoshop and the anarchist bookstore, smack dab in the middle of downtown. This Media Centre will be a hub for Montreal activists and autonomous projects. We will lend the space to the radical community in the hopes of widening the range and scope of global justice politics in Montreal. 
Our space is also right by from the Montreal Native Friendship Centre, with which we hope to develop close ties.

We also are closely following the development of an Autonomous Social Centre (to open sometime in 2009), to which we will lend our technical know-how by setting up a LTSP computer network. (We are hoping to implant several such LTSPs in various activist-run spaces in Montreal in the coming months)

Of course we are well acquainted with the Indymedia Network and its principles, even if admitedly, our (CMAQ's) communication and interaction with the network has been somewhat limited in the past. 

This is something we (as montreal.indymedia) want to improve - get closer to the global indymedia network as well as the "francophone" sub-network.

The Montreal activist scene is vibrant and the montreal.indymedia collective, already active under a different label, is and will continue being a very central part of this community.

Pour collective is united under the Principles of Unity of the IMC-Network and the Hallmarks of the People's Global Action.


resources:
We are in very close contact with the Koumbit worker's coop, who generously host the CMAQ.

We would love to eventually be completely autonomous and have our own server, and lend our hosting capacities to radical groups in and around Montreal. For the time being, this is just slightly out of our reach for reasons of financial precariousness, especially that we are opening up a space.

On the other hand, we are lending our technical skills to all the groups mentioned above and, more generally, to the activist community.

In terms of skill-sharing, our space will be a hub for mutual-aid based learning and popular education.

Between us all, we have skills in free computing and general radical-minded geeking, radio programming, video editing, 
zine making (we want to edit weekly dazibaos), computer design, silk-screening and various DIY graphic expression (stencil making, graffiti, etc.), translation and localization, etc.

outreach:
The collective itself is a coalition of individuals who have been active in various collectives and projects and naturally converged to the indymedia project.

The Montreal activist community is diverse enough that we did not need to do any specific outreach to get a bunch of different people together.

This will be the object of further meditation, as we would nonetheless like to further our reach into various other sub-cultures and communities.

identity_makeup:
The collective, as it is now, is about 50-50 men and women. There are members of our collective who self-identify as queer, and others who self-identify as People of Colour.

Montreal is a bilingual city, and this is also reflected in our makeup.

This being said, a lot of work is left to be done for our collective to be truly representative of this extremely diverse and polymorphic community.

steps_represent_diversity:
Our space, as stated, will be open to all the groups who make up the radical activist community, for events, meetings and such.

We hope that this openness (and the active outreach that comes with it) will demonstrate how our collective is willing to incorporate any and everyone who a) share our principles of unity, and B) is willing to take part in our activities.

Our direct links with a wide range of community and social activism groups in Montreal should facilitate this process.


steps_involve_new_workfields:
Every month, in our space, there will be introductory sessions for newcomers that will cover topics such as:
Intro to Indymedia.montreal and CMAQ
What is Indymedia and why it is necessary;
Autonomous media production;
Media literacy;
Overview of the global justice movement's hitory, and the history of this movement in Quebec, etc.

As for the gendered division of tasks, all of the people involved in our collective self-identify as either feminist, pro-feminist or anti-patriarcal. Several of our members are also part of radical feminist collectives.

Therefore, these issues are very much at the core of our activity and the object of sustained vigilance.


username:
Patrick Cadorette