Andrea Langlois et al - Islands of Resistance - Pirate Radio in Canada

Pirate Radio and Maneuver • 155
abribec
Abribec stickers handed out during the maneuver
ger-of-explosion symbol found on household aerosol products.
The week after the maneuver, the Cossette agency, in charge of the
government’s promotional campaigns, asked Viacom to remove the
Abribec posters from all bus shelters in the greater Québec City area.
They stated, “The request comes directly from the Premier’s Office,
which deems the poster misrepresentative and blames its authors of
distorting the message.” 23 Commenting on the Abribec maneuver in
the weekly paper Voir, journalist Tommy Chouinard retorted, “In
1999, 103 firms made $11.3 billion in profits, but only paid taxes (federal
and provincial) amounting to $394.5 million, which represents a real
tax rate of 3.5%! Some 33 businesses recorded earnings of $1.8 billion
and paid not a single cent from their coffers in taxes, while 158 companies
posted net profits of $25.6 billion dollars and paid only 10% tax.” 24
The sequel to the Abribec maneuver was performed within a demonstration
organized by the militant Collectif pour un Québec sans
pauvreté. A mobile “duty-free zone,” delineated by the area of a pirate
radio transmission, travelled inside a sculpture on wheels that represented
a mobile tax shelter. It took up about two square meters and
the transmitter covered an even larger surface area, creating spaces
within which it was declared that citizens were exempt from paying
taxes to the State — just as large corporations were through tax shelters.
Over an area of several dozen metres around the moving sculpture,
the Abribec pirate transmitter broadcast the following message,
interspersed with silence, delivered by a colourless voice reminiscent
of the type of voice heard in airport duty-frees and Radio-Canada
announcements: “You are in a duty-free zone. Cagibi International
would like to remind you . . . you are now in a duty-free zone.”
The duty-free zone moved around in this way at a demonstration
by community organizations and political groups headed towards the