By: Paula Monroy
November 1, 2011 – Place des Peuples
During the evening, an argument between members of the Anarchist group and the Militia led to the stabbing of the hospital that stands North-West of the camp, right next to Rue Saint Antoine. The GA was delayed.
A friendly weather, which allowed the meeting to occur on the surface again, did not seem to be reason for the GA to continue. Because there were not enough people to have a quorum, the GA was changed to a discussion group. No more than 30 people stayed.
The Finances Committee was not happy with this, members had handed out their proposition regarding the security of the money accumulated from donations.
Their proposition is broken down in three sections: Key holders, Donations and Auditors. The idea is simple, the money will be kept in a float box with only 4 keys available, and two people will be key holders and two more auditors. It reads, “We need two key holders [that] will be responsible for the daily finances so at least one key holder must be on camp each evening[…]The keyholders are the only people who can remove money from the donations bin[…]All requests for reimbursements and payments are made at Donations[…]Once per week, one auditor, one keyholder, and one witness are responsible to count the total donations”. The committee explained that this is the best they came up with for now, participants thanked them.
Some announcements
Action Committee invited everyone to a march on the 7th at 2pm. “We will go to Hydro-Quebec“, calling for artists to call for the media “so we are broadcasted”.
Another demonstration will occur this Thursday at 5:30pm against imperialism.
Also on Thursday, the city is expected to remove water irrigators under the tents.
An over-expected visit
Offering free coffee and timbits, three fire fighters joined to the meeting. The reason being P-51, a law fire regulation. “Candles and combustion engines inside the tents are not allowed”. They recommended campers to buy propane heaters made for tents with no carbon dioxide emissions.
In reaction, participants asked them to join them on the 14th of November “because we need the fire department recommendation to get a permit from the city to get electricity”.
Regarding peace and the militia
Due to the incident from earlier in the evening, a member of the Juridical Committee suggested the creation of a peace declaration. “We have to react as a collective”, he added.
At the beginning of the meeting, someone suggested to exclude the right-wing from the occupation. Nonetheless, it ended with the following, “We are defining what the problems are, we need this before making decisions”, emphasizing, “We are defining who we are”.
So far, the militia have joined the Mediation Committee, responsible to intervene between disputes and bring about reconciliation. In addition, they want to join the movement as civilians.
Someone addressed the fact that the militia is well organized “when they say they are going to do something, they do it…I cannot understand why we are not doing it.”
The meeting ended with music and dancing. The GA dissolved before the end.
Occupy Montreal 