Fred Burrill
fburrill.bsky.social
Fred Burrill
@fburrill.bsky.social
Settler historian (@UNB) of working-class formation and disintegration, focusing on deindustrialization, settler colonialism, and white supremacy in Quebec and the Maritimes.

Organizer involved in tenant and migrant justice struggles.

Huge baseball fan.
In my very first week in Montreal, 21 yrs ago, I participated in an occupation of the McGill admin office to force the university to create a non-Christian prayer space. Then it was institutional racism and bureaucratic inertia, now it's active, state-sanctioned racism.

www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...
Quebec's new secularism bill targets daycare workers, prayer spaces and religious meals | CBC News
The Quebec government wants to place limits on praying in public and extend a ban on wearing religious symbols to daycare workers as part of a sweeping new secularism bill tabled Thursday.
www.cbc.ca
February 5, 2026 at 5:46 PM
Reposted by Fred Burrill
Join us on Thursday, February 19th for a public talk by Dr. Barbara Lorenzkowski, of Concordia University.

Dr. Lorenzkowski will be lecturing on her oral history research about children's experiences of wartime in Atlantic Canada, focusing on two Hfx case studies.

www.eventbrite.ca/e/bitter-tal...
Bitter Tales: Remembering Wartime Childhoods in Halifax, Nova Scotia, 1939
A public talk on childhood and war in Atlantic Canada, by leading oral historian Dr. Barbara Lorenzkowski
www.eventbrite.ca
February 4, 2026 at 8:12 PM
The world is a dark place but comrades in my city are frequently looting yuppy grocery stores and redistributing the food, so there's hope to be found.
From the scene of the looting of a Rachelle-Béry grocery store last night in the Plateau, action claimed by les Robins des ruelles.
February 4, 2026 at 4:40 PM
Reposted by Fred Burrill
Let Black history month serve to remind us that the living legacy of slavery is the carceral state- policing, prison, immigration detention, and border enforcement. Abolition now.
February 3, 2026 at 5:29 PM
I like what Camfield is saying here. People and labour militants who study deindustrialization and global trade would do well to heed his warnings about left nationalism.

I think his piece misses the mark though by not taking QC nationalism to equal task.

tempestmag.org/2026/02/how-...
How should the Left respond to Trump’s threats against Canada?
Tempest member David Camfield argues for a socialist strategy in response to Trump’s bullying of Canada.
tempestmag.org
February 3, 2026 at 5:18 PM
Reposted by Fred Burrill
Happy Truck Day, to all who celebrate.
February 2, 2026 at 4:20 PM
It's been nine years today since a white supremacist gunman slaughtered 5 worshippers in a mosque in Quebec City.

Ibrahima Barry
Mamadou Tanou Barry Khaled Belkacemi
Aboubaker Thabti
Abdelkrim Hassane
Azzedine Soufiane

Honour the dead, fight white supremacy.
January 29, 2026 at 2:05 PM
Still the only boss worth listening to.
I wrote this song on Saturday, recorded it yesterday and released it to you today in response to the state terror being visited on the city of Minneapolis. It’s dedicated to the people of Minneapolis, our innocent immigrant neighbors and in memory of Alex Pretti and Renee Good.

Stay free
Bruce Springsteen - Streets Of Minneapolis (Official Audio)
YouTube video by Bruce Springsteen
youtu.be
January 28, 2026 at 6:03 PM
Friends don't let friends join settler soc-dem parties, pass the word.
Every leftist begrudgingly signing up to support Avi Lewis today
January 28, 2026 at 6:01 PM
Bernard Drainville never saw a position of power he didn't want to abuse. Concentrate any wealth or decision-making and he'll be there.
January 27, 2026 at 8:17 PM
Reposted by Fred Burrill
#OtD 25 Jan 1995 Manchester United football legend Eric Cantona kung fu kicked a fascist football hooligan, who attended far-right NF and BNP rallies and had convictions for violent crime including attacking an anti-fascist. Commemorative merch here: shop.workingclasshistory.com/collections/...
January 25, 2026 at 7:55 PM
Man nothing gets me more feeling like an anarchist again like an NDP leadership race.

Everyone with otherwise decent analysis re: colonialism and capitalism are like...what if we made Canada GOOD this time?
January 23, 2026 at 7:12 PM
Reposted by Fred Burrill
Fitting to read Carney in the context of European interwar period, when Césaire wrote "it is Nazism, yes, but that before they were its victims, they were its accomplices; that they tolerated that Nazism before it was inflicted on them, that they absolved it, shut their eyes to it, legitimized it"
January 21, 2026 at 10:06 PM
Reposted by Fred Burrill
Yeah no shit the "rules based international order" is a lie, it always was, and those of us not in kindergarten always knew it. Carney built his whole career pretending it was real now he wants to play hero for saying it's not. Oh and his solution? "Suck it up, you fucks, this is gonna suck."
January 21, 2026 at 3:59 AM
Reposted by Fred Burrill
Soundscapes of Resistance: a storytelling project for racialized youth in New Brunswick

Call for participants
nbmediacoop.org/2026/01/20/s...
January 21, 2026 at 1:21 PM
RCMP have murdered another Indigenous person, a Wəlastəkwiyik man named Bronson Paul.

Killer colonial cops should be abolished.

www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...
Indigenous man killed by RCMP remembered as a 'lovable' nephew and father | CBC News
The aunt of a man who was shot and killed in his home by an RCMP officer in Neqotkuk First Nation shared fond memories of her nephew, Bronson Paul, and said she's "angry at the system" for his death.
www.cbc.ca
January 20, 2026 at 5:06 PM
Reposted by Fred Burrill
We're excited to share the details of our Department's upcoming 10th Annual Black History Month lecture.

Our featured speaker will be Dr. Nicholas R. Jones (Yale), lecturing on "Cervantine Blackness as an Ethics of Care."
January 15, 2026 at 5:47 PM
Reposted by Fred Burrill
Just released - the preliminary program for @deindustrialpol.bsky.social's June 18-20 conference in Montreal on "(Un)Just Transitions? Deindustrialization and the Environment." Check it out!

deindustrialization.org/depot2025con...
January 7, 2026 at 2:16 AM
Eugenics (vaccine repeals) and foreign invasion in the same week. An old and frightening combination.
January 6, 2026 at 4:52 PM
Reposted by Fred Burrill
RICO charges dropped against ‘Stop Cop City’ defendants. “A Georgia judge on Tuesday said he will toss the racketeering charges against all 61 defendants accused of a years-long conspiracy to halt the construction of a police and firefighter training facility..." apnews.com/article/atla...
Georgia judge to toss landmark racketeering charges against 'Cop City' protesters
A Georgia judge says he's going to dismiss racketeering charges against all 61 defendants accused of trying to stop the construction of a police and firefighter training facility known as “Cop City."
apnews.com
January 4, 2026 at 1:22 AM
Reposted by Fred Burrill
Appel à candidatures - Devenez le nouveau ou la nouvel artiste en résidence de DePOT ! Une bourse de 16 000 dollars canadiens est offerte à un.e artiste ou à un groupe d'artistes explorant le thème de cette année, « La désindustrialisation et l'environnement ». Postulez avant le 15 janvier !
Artistes résidents – Deindustrialization
Le Programme d’Artistes résidents (AR) pour le projet DéPOT soutient le développement de projets créatifs qui abordent des thématiques liées aux racines historiques de la désindustrialisation et les…
deindustrialization.org
December 5, 2025 at 4:31 PM
Reposted by Fred Burrill
Congratulations to Dr. Steven High. The Left in Power: Bob Rae’s NDP and the Working Class has won the Ontario Historical Society’s 2025 Best Scholarly Book Award: ontariohistoricalsociety.ca/wp-content/u...
December 16, 2025 at 10:53 PM