Anti-GardaWorld demonstration in Montreal ends in extreme SPVM violence
Canada’s close ties to ongoing ICE operations and how resistance to GardaWorld ended in the SPVM pepper spraying, tear gassing and beating of demonstrators.
On February 13, 2026, upwards of 250 demonstrators gathered at Place Vertu in Montreal’s northern suburban and industrial St. Laurent neighbourhood. Amid the brisk February chill, they were protesting Montreal-based multinational security firm GardaWorld’s close business ties with the U.S.’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), with contracts worth around $150 million to provide “emergency detention and related services for aliens in ICE custody”. GardaWorld also holds an additional contract with the U.S. federal government to staff and provide security for the detention facility in the Florida Everglades known as Alligator Alcatraz.
Quebec taxpayers are directly implicated in these affairs. The Quebec provincial government itself has a $300 million investment in GardaWorld’s operations.
Canada’s Liberal Prime Minister, Mark Carney recently made international headlines by outlining Canada’s intention to reduce its reliance on U.S. dominance, as the U.S. has experienced escalating civil unrest following alleged extrajudicial killings by ICE, further restrictions on civil liberties, and a general decline in democratic institutions.
Despite these pronouncements, Canada’s direct institutional and operational ties to the U.S. domestic security apparatus have continued unabated. In addition to GardaWorld’s business dealings, Roshel Smart Armoured Vehicles, based in Brampton, Ontario, sold 20 “Senator” armoured vehicles to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in November 2025, as ICE was preparing for “Operation Metro Surge” in Minnesota.
The protest poster read ICE Kills, Quebec Pays. An image of civil unrest the backdrop. Tear gas, barricades and sparse crowds from an aerial perspective, as though Canada itself were peering down at the chaotic scenes.
Demonstrators gathered in the parking lot of Place Vertu’s SAQ in the Friday afternoon sun. As free meals were distributed, organizers delivered speeches from an enormous PA system mounted in the bed of a pickup truck. Speakers highlighted the devastating impact of ICE raids on immigrant communities in the United States and the role of international capitalism in enabling their “removal” operations. They also applauded the resilience of local organizing efforts in Minnesota to resist ICE in their communities, and the power of solidarity to resist fascism.
The demonstration then took to the streets, with plans to march 2.5km (1.6 miles) to the headquarters of GardaWorld. Antifascist and anti-capitalist chants bellowed in the wide suburban excesses as the group moved North into a drab industrial park.
A small number of Service de police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM) vehicles trailed the demonstration.
At around 5pm, the protest arrived at GardaWorld. Several police vehicles and dozens of SPVM riot police surrounded the sprawling headquarters, 40mm grenade launchers and batons in hand. A single line of orange police tape had been wound across two stop signs in the driveway.
The demonstration lurched towards the police lines. The thin orange line of defence was breached and fluttered to the ground. One demonstrator threw a green smoke bomb harmlessly on the ground in front of the crowd. Others threw small snowballs in the direction of the police.
The SPVM had no patience for such hivernal tomfoolery. Officers began to attach their helmets with visors and equip their riot shields. The police line moved towards the crowd. Seconds later, they released a long burst of pepper spray towards then crowd, then shot a muzzle blast of a mix of pepper spray and tear gas.
From just beside me, one demonstrator threw a handful of snow towards the row of police; less so a projectile and more of a brittle aggregate of water. An officer carrying a 40mm grenade launcher immediately shot muzzle munition in my direction, filling my mouth, nostrils and lungs with a sickening pepper spray-like burning sensation.
“This is probably filling my respiratory system with a type of cancer they haven’t even named yet” I said to Lana, a photographer colleague to my right who also received a hefty dosage of the plume.
The flight of snowballs kept up. A couple more carefully structured projectiles landed with a fluffy explosion on the shields of the police.
Tension mounted.
Without warning, the SPVM surged at the demonstration, screaming and bashing their shields. At the point of contact, they leaned into the demonstrators on the periphery of crowd, jabbing their batons into their midsections and wailing “Bouge! Bouge!” [Move!].
One towering demonstrator boldly stood defiantly at the front of the demonstration with a “No Nazi” sign. He was repeatedly bashed in his groin with broad swings of a police baton by a female officer. He calmly took the blows as they came.
Another duo played melodicas—small, tube-blown piano keyboards that produce goofy, reed-like sounds. As police batons thrashed them, they played on unremittingly.
The scene was surreal.
Once again, the SPVM singled me out, pepper-sprayed me from close range and beat me. Shortly after the police decided to attack the crowd, an officer approached and smashed my camera’s lens hood with his baton while I held it to my face. I heard the plastic snap from its moorings on the lens, but as the beating continued, I didn’t bother risking further injury by worrying about finding it on the pavement.
The photo editor of the McGill Tribune, Armen Erzingatzian, captured one of several moments the officer who was seemingly fixated on me left the police formation to beat me.
Another senior officer, sans shield, approached me from between the lines of police and lifted a can of pepper spray at my face. I held my breath, aimed my lens towards him and turned my face away from the nozzle. The high pressure stream of pepper spray impacted the left side of my head and soaked my lens. My finger remained on the camera shutter.
Thankfully, I was wearing full peripheral goggles, obtained from the generosity of friends in the aftermath of serious eye injuries from being pepper sprayed at close range, repeatedly, at multiple events, by the same SPVM riot police squad throughout 2025. For what felt like ten seconds, the officer waved his arm back and forth, soaking my winter clothing, gloves, camera, goggles, and hair in pepper spray.
Some of the people beside me didn’t have much in the way of facial protective gear and were thoroughly doused in the chemical, screaming in terror as the fervid pain immediately set in.
The officer then stopped spraying us, and moved further in front of me, down the police line, where he let off another long stream of pepper spray, face height, with a back and forth motion into the demonstration. The lads who had been playing Melodica received a ton of it. My lens was saturated in pepper spray, hence the cloudy images. Pepper spray is one of the more unique lens filters in the technical repertoire of documentary photographers.
The crush continued, with people unable to bouge back the way they had come because of the volume of people behind them. The SPVM again fired tear gas projectiles into the crowd.
As more distance was gained from the police lines, they charged again, pushing into the crowd with their shields and swinging their batons wildly.
The SPVM eventually pushed everyone out of the GardaWorld driveway and into the streets. One demonstrator fell backwards into the snow, two officers immediately piled on top of him, pushing his face hard into the slush and began to cuff and arrest him. “Let him go!” “Get off of him!” other demonstrators screamed as they watched on nearby. Officers lifted him off and dragged him behind police lines for processing.
Riot police again charged, pepper spraying and shooting yet more tear gas into the crowd, now divided into two portions.
A strange pattern then emerged. Police banged their shields in unison and advanced, screaming “bouge.” At intervals, they pepper-sprayed the crowd, fired tear gas, and beat demonstrators with their batons at will. Riot officers on bicycles also arrived to reinforce the line. This cycle of violence continued for nearly 40 minutes.
Several demonstrators in the crowd were soaked in pepper spray, red faced and wincing from the intense pain. As dusk fell, the pattern of violent police escalation, followed by several minutes of furious anti-police chanting, then more rounds of tear gas, continued. SPVM repeatedly targeted the head, punching several demonstrators in the face. I also documented several instances of police kicking demonstrators.
Throughout the ordeal, multiple rounds of tear gas were kicked or thrown back at the police lines. Without any respiratory protection of their own, the police also suffered the effects of the chemical agents, coughing and wheezing as their advance was stymied.
The remnants of the demonstration eventually arrived at the point in which they’d first mobilized at Place Vertu. They then dispersed.
The organizers I spoke to had not anticipated this level of violence. Everyone I spoke to was shocked by what they had experienced, many of them having never witnessed police violence at such intensity.
Several people I spoke with reported being struck by police batons and later sought medical care when their injuries had not improved by the following morning. In incidents of police repression, the number of physical injuries is often limited. The more enduring impact of state violence is always psychological.
One arrest was reported.
Amnesty International Canadian Francophone (AICF) was present at the demonstration and considered in a statement following the demonstration that “possible violations of the right to protest under international law” occurred at the hands of the SPVM.
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Wow! OK Madame la Maire, what are you going to do about this?