Fredericton’s Demand the Stars Collective countering fascism one action at a time

At the Social Forum in Wolastokuk, one of the founders of the Demand the Stars Collective, Goose, spoke of the group’s activism, giving “basically a history of street activism” around queer issues between 2023 and 2025.

The Demand the Stars Collective “fights against fascism and queer and transphobia” and recently “successfully fought back” against the restrictive changes made to Policy 713. The speaker started off by recognizing the work of other groups and allies in countering the 2023 version of Policy 713.

The current and recent political context makes it extremely hostile to queer and trans folks: “it’s a real bad time (…) a moral panic,” said Goose. This context extends even in the form of talk of a return to “kitchen table issues” by Heather McPherson, one of the candidates for federal leader of the NDP, a party supposedly to the left.

Conspiracy theories abound around queer and trans people by people of all walks of life. Organizing against Sexual Orientation and Gender Inclusiveness (SOGI) policies in schools goes back to 2011, when the Parents Voice BC group ran candidates for Board of Education positions. More recently, convoy activists were also deeply involved in a conspiracy theory ad with “prolific users of Facebook and Facebook Live,” which, according to Goose, made it very easy to observe them.

When the Demand the Stars Collective learned of a plan by convoy activists to protest a Drag story time in Moncton, they joined a counter-protest. Created around 2023, “the drag defense” movement was different from region to region but had the same goal.

Research continues to be key to countering right-wing conservatism. “We needed to know who these people were (..) what they were planning,” said Goose. The Collective’s members were seeing online comments and sending the information to various groups, like Fierté Fredericton Pride.

The different groups developed strategies to counter protest and to block right-wing actions and protect participants, like “walking people to and from the site of an action” to protect accomplices from harassment. Spencer Sunshine, who writes for the Canada anti-right movement, has many good materials about how to do this type of activism, according to Goose.

The original Policy 713 put forth various changes, including support for having Gender and Sexuality Alliance groups in schools in New Brunswick. The most controversial piece of the original Policy was the self-identification piece.

The Conservative Party’s 2023 review of Policy 713, “framed as a clarification,” was in fact something that was very negative. Many people united to fight these changes and the media did good work in covering these changes. Goose cited Hadeel Ibrahim’s pieces for CBC as positive.

At this time, the Demand the Stars Collective was basically doing “protest security for local 713 activists.”

The 1 Million March 4 Children in September 2023 was planned by right-wing activists. In response, the Demand the Stars Collective organized “low-key” so as not to alert the organizers. Then-Premier Blaine Higgs and Education Minister Bill Hogan attended the event and “hung out” with the protesters in Fredericton. The Moncton counter-action was “horrible (….) people [from Regroupement Féministe du Nouveau-Brunswick] had rocks thrown at them.”

The Demand the Stars Collective protested at a Conservative Party fundraiser in Fredericton; 30-50 people “made a lot of noise.” Then-Premier Higgs came out to speak to protesters but the media framed the Collective’s action as them being insulted that he hadn’t attended their counter-protest, rather than about Policy 713’s revision.

Through 2023-2025, the Collective would learn of right-wing actions and surreptitiously book the Legislature for protests before the others could “take space from people.” They also do other work like creating petitions and networking with other groups.

According to local organizers, there has been a demobilization of activism in Fredericton specific to queer and trans issues in light of changes by the Holt government. Convoy activists are continuing to organize, but have recently pivoted to anti-immigration issues.

Sophie M. Lavoie is a member of the NB Media Co-op’s editorial board.