Canada out of Kandahar!
Protest Canadian Minister of Defence Gordon O'Connor at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal
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TUESDAY, APRIL 3, 11am-1pm
at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel
900 Rene-Levesque West
(corner of Mansfield; metro Bonaventure)
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-> The demonstration outside the Queen Elizabeth Hotel begins at 11am.
-> Please join us at anytime between 11am and 1pm.
-> Bring your banners and noisemakers.
-> Consider taking time off work or school to join us to protest Canada's role in Afghanistan and the so-called "War on Terror"
-> We will be protesting, rain or shine.
WHY WE’RE PROTESTING ...
Conservative Minister of National Defence, Gordon O'Connor, is speaking this April 3, 2007 at the posh Queen Elizabeth Hotel, sponsored by Montreal's Council on Foreign Relations (CORIM), as well as several war-profiteering corporations.
O’Connor is in Montreal as part of an ongoing Conservative public relations campaign to sell the Afghan mission to the Canadian public. O’Connor himself used to work for multi-national public relations firm Hill & Knowlton, the same firm that fabricated atrocities in the lead-up to the attack on Iraq in 1990.
O'Connor recently described Canada's presence in Afghanistan as "retribution" for the death of Canadians at the World Trade Center on 9-11. He misled the public about the treatment of Afghan prisoners who face torture and death. He is a former General who prior to joining cabinet in 2006 spent eight years as a paid lobbyist for the military industry.
Canadian troops are in Afghanistan to allow more American troops to be in Iraq. Gordon O’Connor, along with Stephen Harper, Stockwell Day, Michael Fortier and others in the Conservative cabinet, are the main Canadian apologists for George Bush’s “War on Terror”. They hide their true agenda behind the language of “development” and “democracy” (and strategically exploit compliant government-funded “NGOs”).
A Minister of Defence who justifies Canada's role in Afghanistan in the language of revenge, who is in the pay of military contractors, and who speaks to an audience of war-profiteering businessmen and politicians at a pretentious hotel, deserves to be actively protested and disrupted.
WHO IS SPONSORING O’CONNOR’S SPEECH?
The main sponsors of Gordon O’Connor’s $90/plate lunchtime speech are several companies that profit from war; they include the following Quebec-based companies (all citations are from their public documents and websites):
-- SNC-LAVALIN (455 René-Lévesque Blvd. West), who until 2006 sold bullets to the American military for use in Iraq, and who maintain many military contracts thru various subsidiaries. For example, SNC-Lavalin PAE Inc. “provides a range of logistics support services to the Canadian military on deployed international operations,” including in Afghanistan.
-- BOMBARDIER (800 René-Lévesque Blvd. West), whose military division helps to train NATO pilots, the same pilots who go on to bomb in Afghanistan and elsewhere.
-- CAE (8585 Côte de Liesse), a company that “develops, designs and manufactures aviation training systems for civil and military applications.” Military contracts account for 50% of CAE’s business, again, to help pilots and soldiers to kill
-- OERLIKON (Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Québec), who openly brag that 50% of their business is for the Canadian Department of Defence. In their words: “we are one of the largest providers of land defence systems and battle management systems to the federal government. Our business also comprises sales to international defence customers and commercial sales in the homeland security sector.”
Other chief sponsors of O’Connor’s talk include L-3 Communications, who are the sixth largest defense company in the United States, as well as Quebec-based companies such as CMC Electronics (active in military aviation), Consoltex and Logistik Unicorp.
The link between O’Connor -- a former military industry lobbyist and PR hack -- and the military-industrial complex, couldn’t be clearer and more direct. O’Connor’s luncheon is a celebration of war-profiteers, hiding behind the camouflage of “development” and “security” (as well as various police and hotel security). We’re protesting these war-profiteering companies just as much as Minister O’Connor. In collaboration, the Canadian government and Quebecois capitalists are profiting from the so-called “War on Terror”.
--> We encourage ALL who oppose war and imperialism, and Canada's collaboration with the so-called "War on Terror", to join us on Tuesday, April 3, at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel (900 Rene-Levesque West, corner of Mansfield; metro Bonaventure) between 11am and 1pm. <--
Official details about Gordon O'Connor's talk is available at: http://www.corim.qc.ca
To actively support the demonstration, and to help with mobilizing and organizing efforts please get in touch!
INFO:
bloquezlempiremontreal@resist.ca
http://blocktheempire.blogspot.com
telephone: 514-848-7583
BLOCK THE EMPIRE MONTREAL: A direct-action collective opposed to war and militarization, and their roots and manifestations: colonialism, imperialism and capitalism.
