Indigenous Resistance
Early 2020 saw an upsurge of resistance to “resource colonialism” in Canada. The decision to send in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police against an encampment of Wet’suwet’en land defenders in February, who were challenging the destructive Coastal GasLink pipeline project on their traditional territory, sparked a country-wide movement of solidarity. Clearly, the scale and intensity of that resistance shook the Canadian establishment. While straightforward protest actions abounded, tactics frequently involved a level of economic disruption and an effort to delay or disrupt the flow of goods and services.
In Halifax, Nova Scotia, the entrance to the Fairview Cove Container Terminal was blocked. Mohawks in Kahnawake, Quebec and in Tyendinaga, Ontario staged actions that massively disrupted rail transport. In the first case, the blockade was voluntarily taken down after almost a month, while the Tyendinaga protest was confronted by a major mobilization of the Ontario Provincial Police. In British Columbia, among many acts of solidarity, the Port of Vancouver was tenaciously blocked. At one of these actions, a spokesperson articulated a sentiment that was clearly on the minds of many: “We are back at the port because we know the only language these people understand is the language of money and capital. So we will communicate in the language that they understand at the Port of Vancouver.”
The economic impacts of this upsurge of resistance were, indeed, very considerable. Rail networks, both passenger and freight, were massively disrupted. Pulp and paper producers reported huge financial losses. At one point, at least sixty-six cargo ships were unable to unload in British Columbia and the president of the province’s Chamber of Shipping stated, “Those line-ups are only going to increase . . . Eventually there will be no space and they’ll be waiting off the coast of Canada, which is a situation we’d like to avoid.”
The Justin Trudeau government, a wily and duplicitous servant of Big Business, worked frantically to contain the crisis. Its objectives were to avoid an escalation of the disruptive actions, maintain dialogue, and ensure that the Coastal GasLink project was able to proceed. They agreed to long-term negotiations with the traditional leadership of the Wet’suwet’en Nation while trying to guarantee the pipeline project could proceed with minimum delay. We may suppose that the intrusion into Wet’suwet’en land will spark further resistance and, in any case, the Coastal Gaslink is but the thin end of a much larger extractivist wedge. As Todd Gordon and Geoffrey McCormack have shown, the export of environmentally disastrous oil and gas to the Asian market is a strategic priority for Canadian capitalism, and an escalating confrontation with both Indigenous land defenders and the movement for climate justice is inevitable.
The Supply Chain
Indigenous people in Canada have a long history of targeting the flow of goods and services, and the Canadian reserve system has ensured that their communities are well placed to impede road and rail transportation. However, the possibilities of such disruptive forms of action extend to a wide range of working class struggle and movements of social resistance.
Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research has undertaken an incredibly informative study of how the iPhone is produced. Raw materials and component parts are drawn from a range of international sites of intense exploitation. The brutal restructuring of the global workforce, during the neoliberal years, along with innovations in science, technology and productive technique, allow for the creation of a marvellously fine-tuned operation that can ruthlessly extract blood and sweat from those who produce the product. This global supply chain draws from such a wide range of sources, and has so little patience for unprofitable stockpiling, that it finds itself haunted by the ghosts of delay and disruption. The online trade magazine Manufacturing Tomorrow tells us, with regard to the self-explanatory concept of “just in time inventory” (JIT) that, “Traditionally, raw materials and inventory of finished goods were considered assets. This notion has changed because of JIT and now inventory is considered as waste or dead investment, incurring additional costs.”
Those who profit from the supply chain are quite aware of the Achilles Heel that comes along with this mechanism to intensify exploitation. There is even a publication called Supply Chain Management Review that pays close attention to the risk of “disruptive events,” real and potential, of the most varied kind. It informs us that 2018 saw “a 370% increase in Protest/Riot events” that stood in the way of finely balanced corporate enrichment.
In the very early 2000s, I had a conversation with a veteran of the great 1945 Ford Strike in Windsor, Ontario. This pivotal Canadian trade union battle culminated in a massive vehicle blockade to prevent the police from forcing a way through the picket lines. This man’s direct experience of uncompromising class struggle had made a life-long impression on him. Our conversation took place sometime after union leaders had called off the strikes and mass protests known as the Ontario Days of Action, which powerfully challenged a hard-right Ontario government during the late 1990s. We discussed how, with the use of the political strike weapon diminished for the time being, community-based forms of mobilization might still be seriously economically disruptive. He had done some research into the road link between Montreal and Mexico City, known popularly as the “NAFTA Highway.” According to him, a truck travelling the length of this route would negotiate twenty-one traffic lights—and nineteen of them were in Windsor. Whether he was correct or not, this border town remains an obvious bottleneck along a vital road link that is used to transport just in time inventory to key manufacturing hubs.