SOLIDARITY CITY DECLARATION (updated)

[We encourage Montreal-area organizations and groups to discuss and collectively sign this declaration. If your organization would like to endorse this declaration, get in touch. If you would like to get involved more directly in the Solidarity City campaign, also get in touch! You can download a pdf of this declaration HERE.]

For thousands of undocumented immigrants across the country, cities such as Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver are sweatshops. Immigrants and refugees work the most precarious and dangerous jobs. The Canadian economy cannot survive without this super-exploited work force, made particularly vulnerable by their lack of permanent status and the threat of deportation.

In order for their labour to provide this windfall for Canadian capital, non-status migrants are forcibly kept in a state of heightened vulnerability, deprived of access to essential services and basic social and economic rights. This apartheid system is maintained both through laws and regulations and through fear of discovery and deportation.

Everybody should have access to healthcare, education, social housing, food banks, unemployment benefits and any other social welfare regardless of immigration status. Labour norms and human rights should apply equally to all.

At a time when money and corporations can cross borders more easily than ever, these very borders are taking on an ever more deadly character for billions of people around the world. Solidarity City is the name given to the vision that resists this reality, that aims to transform our communities from sites of racist exploitation to places of mutual aid and support.

In order to bring this vision closer to reality, we are asking community organizations and centres, collectives, trade unions, healthcare providers, educational institutions, food banks, shelters, housing co-ops, and everyone else to commit to providing services equally to all, regardless of immigration status. As one important symbolic step, we ask you to endorse this Solidarity City declaration.

By endorsing this declaration, you are agreeing to publicly support the Status for All campaign, meaning opposition to deportations and detentions as well as supporting regularization for all non-status migrants.

Moreover, if your organization provides services, you agree to:

  • never ask for information regarding immigration status;

  • treat all information regarding other people’s immigration status as strictly confidential, and never share it with government agencies;

  • not charge fees based on immigration status;

  • implement a policy of non-cooperation with the Canadian Border Services Agency, including barring them from your premises;

  • work to make sure that labour and other human rights standards are applied equally to all, without regard to immigration status, in our organizations, workplaces, and communities.

Faced with fear, isolation, precarity and division, we strike back with solidarity, mutual aid, and direct action.

SOLIDARITY ACROSS BORDERS
www.solidarityacrossborders.org
438-933-7654 – solidaritesansfrontieres@gmail.com

This declaration is endorsed and signed by:
* Solidarité sans frontières (SSF) / Solidarity Across Borders (SAB)
* Apatrides anonymes
* Artivistic
* Assemblée populaire et autonome de Hochelaga-Maisonneuve (APAQ-Hochelaga-Maisonneuve)
* Assemblée populaire et autonome de Montréal (APAQ-Montréal)
* Assemblée populaire et autonome de Villeray (APAQ-Villeray)
* Association pour la liberté d’expression
* Association de locataires de Villeray (ALV)
* Syndicat des employé-e-s occasionnel-le-s de l’Université McGill (SEOUM)/Association of McGill University Support Employees (AMUSE)
* La Belle Époque
* Cactus Montréal
* Café l’Artère
* Centre communautaire des femmes sud-asiatiques (CCFSA)/South Asian Women’s Community Centre (SAWCC)
* Centre d’éducation et d’action des femmes de Montréal (CÉAF)
* Centre des femmes d’ici et d’ailleurs (CFIA)
* Centre des femmes italiennes de Montréal / Changement de nom pour le Centre des femmes solidaires et engagées
* Centre des femmes de Verdun
* Centre des travailleurs et travailleuses immigrants (CTI)/Immigrant Workers Centre (IWC)
* Centre d’orientation paralégale et sociale pour immigrants (COPSI)
* Centre québécois de formation pour les jeunes en matière de droits humains (CQF)
* Centre social autogéré de Pointe Saint-Charles
* L’Ensemble de l’insurrection chaotique/Chaotic Insurrection Ensemble
* Coalition des familles LGBT (CF-LGBT)
* Collectif opposé à la brutalité policière (COBP)/Collective Opposed to Police Brutality
* Comité d’Action de Parc-Extension (CAPE)
* Comité d’aide aux réfugiés (CAR)/Committee to Aid Refugees (CAR)
* Comité BAIL
* Comité citoyen de Parc-Extension
* Comité Libertad
* Comité logement Ahuntsic-Cartierville
* Comité logement de la Petite Patrie
* Comité logement du Plateau Mont-Royal  (CLPMR)
* Comité pour les droits humains en Amérique latine (CDHAL)
* Conseil central du Montréal métropolitain (CCMM)-CSN
* Convergence des luttes anticapitalistes (CLAC)
* Coopérative d’habitation Le Peuplier de Pointe-Saint-Charles
* Coopérative d’habitation Port d’attache (Parc Extension)
* Dignidad Migrante
* Fédération des coopératives d’habitation intermunicipale du Montréal métropolitain (FECHIMM)
* Fédération des femmes du Québec (FFQ)
* Fédération du Québec pour le planning des naissances (FQPN)
* Femmes du monde à Côte-des-Neiges
* Front d’action populaire en réaménagement urbain (FRAPRU)
* Infologis de l’Est de l’Île de Montréal
* Laboratoire de recherche en relations interculturelles de l’Université de Montréal (LABRRI)
* Médecins du Monde
* Médi@s Libres – Collectif de médias alternatifs
* Mexicain.e.s uni.e.s pour la régularisation (MUR)
* Mouvement Action Justice (MAJ)
* La Patate du Peuple/People’s Potato
* Personne n’est illégal-Montréal/No One Is Illegal-Montreal
* P.O.P.I.R. – Comité Logement
* Projet Accompagnement Solidarité Colombie (PASC)
* Groupe de recherche d’intérêt public-Concordia (GRIP-Concordia)/Quebec Public Interest Research Group-Concordia (QPIRG-Concordia)
* Groupe de recherche d’intérêt public-McGill (GRIP-McGill)/Quebec Public Interest Research Group-McGill (QPIRG-McGill)
* Regroupement des comités logement et associations de locataires du Québec (RCLALQ)
* Regroupement des cuisines collectives du Québec (RCCQ)
* Réseau de la Commission populaire/People’s Commission Network
* Réseau Koumbit
* Services juridiques communautaires de Pointe-Saint-Charles et Petite-Bourgogne
* Le Réseau de Solidarité du Sud-Ouest/Southwest Solidarity Network
* Stella, l’amie de Maimie
* Syndicat des auxiliaires de recherche et d’enseignement de Concordia (SAREC)/Teaching and Research Assistants at Concordia (TRAC)
* Syndicat des étudiant-e-s employé-e-s de l’UQÀM (SÉTUE)
* Syndicat industriel des travailleurs et des travailleuses-Montréal (SITT-Montréal)/Industrial Workers of the World-Montreal (IWW-Montreal)
* Tadamon!

[We encourage Montreal-area organizations and groups to discuss and collectively sign this declaration. If your organization would like to endorse this declaration, or needs more information (including a presentation about the Solidarity City campaign) get in touch: solidaritesansfrontieres@gmail.com]