About À bâbord!

À bâbord!

Overview

À bâbord! (the name is French for "to port!" — the left side of a ship) is a French-language social and political magazine published in Montreal, Quebec, since 2003. Subtitled a "revue sociale et politique," it is one of Quebec's best-known publications of the independent left: a magazine-format review produced by a volunteer-based editorial collective of activists, independent journalists, teachers, students and workers, and deliberately run without hierarchy. Each issue is built around a thematic dossier — recent dossiers have examined antifascism, the family, extractivism, poverty, housing financialisation and food justice — surrounded by interviews, analysis, international coverage and cultural criticism. The magazine appears four times a year in print and digital form, is sold in Quebec bookstores and by subscription, and is a member of the Société de développement des périodiques culturels québécois (SODEP), the association of Quebec cultural periodicals. Its ISSN is 1710-209X (print) and 1710-2103 (electronic).

History

À bâbord! was founded in 2003 by a group of activists, union members and community-sector workers who wanted an alternative medium for Quebec. In the spring of 2003 the team first published a precursor titled Espace des possibles; the first issue of À bâbord! itself followed that autumn, with a caricature of newly elected premier Jean Charest on its cover. The founding collective included Luciano Benvenuto, Monique Moisan, Pierre Mouterde, Alain Marcoux, Claude Rioux and Gaétan Breton. The magazine found its audience quickly: accounts of its history report that after its first year it was printing more than 3,500 copies per issue.

The magazine's precarious economics were tested in June 2008, when Andy Srougi of the masculinist pressure group Fathers 4 Justice sued over an article by feminist activist Barbara Legault. The $24,000 suit threatened the magazine's survival and briefly kept it from covering the masculinist movement in its pages; the suit was dismissed in September 2008. The episode became part of the magazine's identity as a small, self-financed publication willing to absorb legal pressure rather than change its line.

À bâbord! reached its 100th issue in the summer of 2024 ("Maintenir le cap !" — "Stay the course!") and has continued on schedule since: No. 105 (Fall 2025) took up internationalism, No. 106 (Winter 2026) examined grocery stores and food justice under the title "Épiceries : faim de justice," and No. 107 (Spring 2026) carried a dossier on the front lines of antifascism, "Les lignes de front de l'antifascisme." Its back catalogue has been progressively digitised: issues are available through the Érudit platform (since 2020) and, since 2018, through Les Classiques des sciences sociales, the open-access digital library maintained at the Université du Québec à Montréal.

Content and Coverage

Each quarterly issue is organised around a dossier that typically occupies the centre of the magazine: a set of articles, interviews and analyses on a single social or political theme. The dossier subjects trace the preoccupations of the Quebec and international left — syndicalism and how to renew it (No. 91, Spring 2022), the financialisation of housing (No. 94, Winter 2023), lobbying and hidden power (No. 95, Spring 2023), poverty as a collective issue (No. 99, Spring 2024), extractivism (No. 101, Fall 2024), "shattering the family" (No. 102, Winter 2025), an Acadia-themed regional issue (No. 104, Summer 2025) and antifascism (No. 107, Spring 2026). Around the dossier, issues carry interviews with people engaged in social intervention, analytical and opinion pieces, an international section (the Spring 2026 issue, for example, includes pieces on Canada–Mexico trade and labour struggles and on the United States' national security strategy), book and cultural criticism, and illustration and photography integrated into the magazine's distinctive visual style.

The editorial position is explicit. In the magazine's own statement of mandate, carried by Érudit, À bâbord! sets out to inform, to formulate social analyses and critiques, and to offer an open space for debate that strengthens grassroots social movements; it declares complete editorial independence from every organisation, including those that buy group subscriptions or advertising space, and says it refuses advertising whose content runs against its values of liberty, equality, social justice and respect for the environment. Earlier dossiers illustrate the range: a 2015 issue on sex and systems of oppression, a Summer 2020 issue on aging ("Vieillir"), and a Fall 2020 issue on Quebec City's activist scene.

Audience and Reach

À bâbord! addresses the readership of Quebec's social movements and critical intelligentsia: union and community activists, students, teachers, academics and politically engaged general readers, in Quebec primarily and in French-speaking Canada more broadly. It circulates in print through independent bookstores and newsstands in Quebec, by subscription, and in digital form through its own site and the Érudit platform, which also places it in university and public library collections across the francophone world. The only circulation figure in its public record is historical: historical accounts report a print run of more than 3,500 copies per issue after its first year (2004). No current audited circulation figure is published, and none is claimed here. Its influence is better gauged by its longevity — more than two decades and 107 issues by the spring of 2026 — and by its place in Quebec's ecosystem of revues d'idées, where it is regularly cited in academic studies of Quebec's alternative and activist media.

Digital Presence

The magazine's home on the web is ababord.org, which presents current and past issues, subscription information and selected content. Its full archive is available in digital form on Érudit, the Quebec scholarly and cultural publishing platform, which has carried the magazine since 2020 and lists its complete recent run — four issues a year, Winter through Fall. An additional open-access archive is hosted by Les Classiques des sciences sociales at the Université du Québec à Montréal, which has made earlier issues freely available since 2018. The magazine maintains a presence on social media under its own name to announce issues and dossiers; digital subscriptions and single-issue sales (issue No. 107 was listed at $12.95) are handled through its site and through the SODEP online store, where a subscription was listed at $43.49.

Ownership and Organisation

À bâbord! is an independent publication owned and run by its editorial collective; there is no proprietor and no parent media company. In its own words, the magazine is produced by "des militant·e·s, des journalistes indépendant·e·s, des professeur·e·s, des étudiant·e·s, des travailleurs et des travailleuses" — activists, independent journalists, professors, students and workers — and its autonomous, collective and non-hierarchical character is, by its own account, an integral part of its mandate and identity. Editorial work is organised as a collective process rather than under a single editor-in-chief, which is why no individual editor is named on its masthead in the conventional sense.

Funding, as documented in accounts of the magazine, comes from sales and subscriptions, advertising accepted under its values-based policy, and a grant from Canadian Heritage (Patrimoine Canada), the federal department whose periodical support programs assist Canadian magazines. The magazine is a member of SODEP, through which it participates in the collective promotion and distribution infrastructure of Quebec's cultural periodicals. It is published in Montreal, the city given in its bibliographic records as its place of publication.

Contact and Availability

À bâbord! is published in Montreal, Quebec. Its website is ababord.org, where readers can consult the current issue, browse past issues and subscribe; directory listings for the magazine give a Montreal postal address, C.P. 47572, Montréal, QC. Print copies are sold through Quebec independent bookstores and magazine retailers, and single issues and subscriptions are also offered through the SODEP online store (sodep.qc.ca). Digital editions and the archive since 2020 are available on the Érudit platform (erudit.org), and older issues are freely readable at Les Classiques des sciences sociales (UQAM). The magazine publishes in French only; contributions and correspondence are handled through the contact routes published on its website. This profile carries no public business email for the magazine, as none is printed in the sources consulted.