The Media Co-op

More money for hard-hitting investigations!

The Media Co-op has broken critical stories and probed issues glossed by the mainstream media.  We've published exposés of Israeli and Canadian military collusion, the Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement, and the federal government’s European advocacy for the tar sands.

We’ve done this with the barest of resources.

But we want our contributors to be able dig deeper and be better compensated for their efforts, so we’re announcing a new fund for investigative articles. For the next six months (and beyond, we hope), we’ll be offering $400 for an investigative feature to be published in The Dominion every two months.

The articles will be 2200 words and present fresh angles, original research on undetected issues and bold solutions to common problems—all with a Canadian angle. The journalist will work with Dominion editors over the course of a month or more to produce the article.

Pitches are welcome from anyone; priority for payment goes to those who have previously contributed.

*How to pitch an Investigative story:*

1. Set up a Media Co-op account (if you don’t already have one):
mediacoop.ca/user

2. Check out our writer’s guide for hot topics and details about writing for The Dominion: dominionpaper.ca/write

3. Peruse the Media Co-op discussion page for story ideas:
www.mediacoop.ca/group/1496/discuss/7337

4. Pitch!: mediacoop.ca/node/add/pitch

*The deal:*

Pitches should be less than 400 words and include a thorough description of planned sources (interviews or documents) and research. An entire story submitted as a pitch will not be considered for payment. Editors reserve the right to suggest changes and edit stories (with your participation, of course!). Pitches should capture the content, tone and style of the story you plan to submit; if the content submitted differs significantly from the pitch, editors reserve the right to withhold payment.

Deadline for pitches: Sunday, October 2, Midnight

Looking forward to radical investigations,

The Editorial Collective

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE -- SEPTEMBER 17

MEDIA ADVISORY
Monday: Court hearing & press conference with mom of 2 Canadian kids facing deportation

CONTACTS:
Stewart Istvanffy, Paola Ortiz’s lawyer — 514-876-9776
Daniel Veron, Solidarity Across Borders— 438-875-4714

WHAT: Press conference before Paola Ortiz’s federal court hearing
WHEN: Monday September 19, 11 AM
WHERE: The Federal Court, 30 rue McGill
WHO: Paula Ortiz; her lawyer Stewart Istvanffy; and Solidarity Across Borders

MONTREAL—On Monday, a federal judge will hear the case of Paola Ortiz, a mom of two young Canadian kids, who sought asylum in Canada in 2006 after fleeing Mexico to escape sexual abuse and violence at the hands of her then-fiance, who is a federal Mexican police officer. The hearing, which the press is invited to attend (time to be confirmed), represents Ortiz’s last chance for recourse prior to her and her children's scheduled deportation to Mexico at 7 AM on Tuesday September 20th.

At a press conference prior to the hearing, Ms. Ortiz, her lawyer, and members of Solidarity Across Borders will appeal to federal authorities to suspend the deportation, so that Ms. Ortiz can pursue a path to permanent residency. Ms. Ortiz's supporters, who include 19 community organizations and over one hundred neighbours and community members, emphasize that Canada will be complicit in perpetrating violence against women if her deportation is carried out, abrogating the nation's obligations under human rights treaties and the law of refugee protection.

In 2007, the Immigrant and Refugee Board refused to grant refugee status to Ms. Ortiz, despite evidence from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and other sources suggesting grave problems of impunity for perpetrators of violence against women in Mexico, and despite the fact that she has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and depression.

Despite the non-cooperation of federal immigration authorities, Ms. Ortiz has successfully obtained a Certification of Selection by Quebec (CSQ). The deportation would reverse her efforts to legitimately gain residence in Quebec and integrate into her community.

The deportation would also deprive Ms. Ortiz's two kids, who are both Canadian citizens, of necessary medical attention. Her 4-year old daughter has hearing problems and her 2-year old son has recently been diagnosed with autism.  Both children are currently receiving services from medical specialists that Ms. Ortiz and her lawyer say will not be accessible to them should they be sent to Mexico.

A request for a judicial stay of removal has been submitted by Ms. Ortiz's lawyer, with an announcement expected on the morning of Monday September 19th for a hearing to be held later that same day.  Should this stay be denied, she is obliged to show up at Trudeau airport at 7am on Tuesday to be flown back to Mexico.

On Sept. 11, three religious groups set aside conflicting ideologies in a crusade against Islam in Toronto schools, for the third time in less than two months. 

A fringe coalition representing the Jewish Defense League (JDL), Christian Heritage Party (CHP) and the Canadian Hindu Advocacy (CHA) stood together in front of the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) central offices, protesting a decision by administrators at a Toronto middle school allowing Muslim students to hold Friday afternoon prayers in the school’s empty cafeteria.   The latest protest marked the tenth anniversary of the 9-11 attacks, with the goal -- as declared on the large sign carried by one protester -- to draw attention to “the infiltration of radical Islam in Canadian institutions.”  Others brandished placards exclaiming “No to Islam, yes to Muslim” and “The TDSB is on LSD,” while chanting “Muhammad was a pedophile.”   Valley Park Middle School serves an inner-city community that is predominantly Muslim, and approximately 80% of its students actively practice the faith. Three years ago, the principal grew concerned that hundreds of Muslim students were leaving school early on Friday afternoons to attend prayers at a local mosque, as their faith requires.    For Valley Park, accommodating the 30-minute weekly prayer service within the school seemed like a good solution to the problem of lost instructional time and the safety issue of students walking unsupervised to and from the mosque. Three years later, despite the school having received no complaints from students, parents, or the wider community, its religious accommodation has attracted the ire of anti-Islamists, who insist that it unfairly discriminates against other faiths.   School board officials point out that only Muslim students face this timetable conflict with religious services. Like all Western nations, Canada follows the Judeo-Christian calendar. Weekends are designed to accommodate the weekly holy days of the Jewish and Christian religions, but not that of Islam, which falls on Friday.    Media coverage of this issue has focused largely on the in-school prayer debate, dismissing the protesters as an isolated fringe and side-stepping examination of root causes like growing Islamophobia.   The small number of secularists participating in one of the earlier protests were quick to distance themselves from the Islamophobic hysteria on display around them, maintaining they are simply opposed to any religious practices within the public education system.   “It has nothing to do with the specific religion,” said one embarrassed-looking man. “Whether it’s Islam or Catholicism, I don’t want my tax dollars funding any religion in public schools.”    “These people are nuts. They don’t represent Torontonians so nobody really cares too much about what they have to say,” said one mainstream journalist, off the record, at the group’s first protest in July. “We probably won’t cover it, unless it’s a slow news day.”    Politicians seem to hold the same view that the issue is nothing but a local dust-up.     “I have confidence in the ability of school boards and schools to sit down with parents, with the community, and to make decisions that meet the needs of that community,” said Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty during a campaign stop in Newmarket on September 9.    When asked for his party’s position on this issue in the midst of an election campaign, McGuinty said, “If you knock on doors around the province of Ontario and ask them today about schools, they’re not talking about that.”    However, the results of a survey conducted last week by the Association for Canadian Studies suggest that Islamophobia in Canada is not limited to “fringe” elements like the JDL, CHP, CHA, and others. When 1,500 Canadians were asked whether they believe there is an irreconcilable conflict between Western and Muslim societies, more then half of respondents (56%) answered “Yes.”    These findings may signal a growing malignancy in Canada’s body politic. In fact, it appears that Toronto, long considered a bubble of multicultural tolerance, has not been immune to the rising tide of Islamophobia across the Western world since 9-11.   While mainstream public discourse in Toronto has, for the most part, remained fairly civil, virulent on-line opinions, like these reader comments on two Toronto Sun articles, are increasingly common:   “Sick, sick, sick. Children can't say the Lord's prayer...but they bring in an "Imam" representing a death-cult to pray in class?!?!?  What's next - will he bring the suicide vests too??”  Hindus Protest Prayer at Public School,   Toronto Sun, 04/07/11   “It's difficult not to know about this religion. It's in the headlines every day, around the world. And it doesn't look good. What right do you have to pray in a public school setting? Are you that ignorant of Canadian society? Or do you just not care how things are done here?”   Hindus Protest Prayer at Public School,   Toronto Sun, 04/07/11   “I am only going to say this ONCE. I am sick of these douche bag muslim pigs telling us what we can and can't do!  Don't like it go back to your s h i t t bag mud huts. Our kids can't say the Lords prayer because it OFFENDS YOU. I find you all offensive. This is MY COUNTRY. My ancestors had a hand in building this country. My family went to war to fight for OUR FREEDOMS AND RIGHTS. NOT YOURS. PHUK OFF!”   PCs and LIBs dodge religion in school controversy, Toronto Sun, 09/09/11   The recent protests at the Toronto school board have also brought supporters into the light. A Thank You TDSB rally is planned for Saturday, September 17, to show support for the school board’s refusal to back down. With several Muslim organizations helping spreading the word, rally organizers are anticipating that hundreds of supporters could attend.   For their part, the anti-prayer coalition is also planning to show up in numbers. With as many as 300 people expected outside TDSB’s head offices on either side of the issue, a police presence is likely.  

Life "gotten more harsh" for women living in SROs

James Mickleson has lived in a small room on the 4th floor of the Regent Hotel for the past seven years. In that time he says he has seen 17 dead bodies in and around his building, lying in front of his door or in the alley near his house.

On Friday, Mickleson witnessed something he won't forget for a long time. He saw Verna Simard fly out of a 6th floor window and hit the sidewalk in front of the Regent, head first.

"It wasn't just seeing it, it was the noise," he said. "She screamed and then it went silent."

By the time I met with Mickleson, he hadn't slept for over 24 hours, the vision of Simard’s violent death cycling in his mind. "It took me an hour to get the contents of her head off my shoes," he said.

Mickleson first met Simard two years ago when she moved into the hotel, renting one of the notoriously rough Single Room Occupancy (SRO) suites in the building. "I'm going to miss Verna, cause she always knew when I got mad, when somebody was pissed off, she intervened," he said. "She always told me I should move out of here, cause I didn't fit in."

As we spoke, Mickleson sat upright in his wheelchair, tense and alert. His mood captured the sombre atmosphere on Hastings Street during what was originally billed as a block party. As Mickelson wheeled up to a small vigil set up for Simard in front of the hotel, candles flickered, and mourners and friends laid down cigarettes and flowers. 

While it isn’t known exactly what happened to Simard, who was a 50 year old Indigenous woman, many theories floated around the streets as residents participated in the fifth annual Women’s Housing March.

The only certainty seemed to be that Simard‘s death wasn’t an isolated event, but something that could only be understood in the context of extreme violence and ongoing murders of women, which have haunted the neighborhood since convicted mass murderer Robert Pickton roamed the streets.

“Nothing’s changed, if anything it seems to have gotten more harsh for the women living in SROs,” said Carol Martin, a community based victim services worker with the Downtown East Side Women’s Centre. Martin was down the street at the Carnegie Centre when Simard was killed, and Saturday afternoon she was still reeling from what she had seen when she went to the Regent after hearing of Simard's death.

People were “freaked right out” said Martin, sitting down under a small tent beside the main stage on Hastings Street, where scheduled events continued into the evening. “I was in shock, I couldn’t walk away.”

One year and one day before Martin saw Simard's body lying beside the Regent , she witnessed 22 year old Ashley Machiskinic, who was also Indigenous, fall to her death in the alley behind the same hotel.

“I witnessed her breathing her last breath,” she said. “A life is a life is a life, it doesn’t matter what colour you are or where you’re from,” said Martin. “But in reality, it does.”

A disproportionate amount of missing and murdered women across Canada, including in BC and Vancouver are Indigenous women, says Martin, who also helps organize the February 14th Women's Memorial March. And every year, she says, the list gets longer.

Like many others still stunned by Simard’s death, Martin made the time to come out to the march and events on Saturday.

“They need to build housing,” said Martin. “You can’t just do a band-aid solution to problems that have roots right down to violence, death, homelessness, residential schools, child apprehension and police brutality."

The fifth annual women's march called for a boycott against gentrification

In the face of an onslaught of swanky condos and ritzy cafés that are moving into the downtown eastside, residents and supporters took to the streets on Saturday to defend their right to housing.

More than 500 people participated in the fifth annual women’s march that rallied for more than three hours around downtown eastside and the rapidly expanding Gastown. The march was organized by women in the community and started off by serving free pizza to protest a new, expensive pizza place in the neighbourhood – one pie costs $24.

One of the main calls at the protest was for people to boycott gentrification.

Gentrification is a process where richer people purchase property and open businesses in lower-income neighbourhoods, which inevitably displaces and pushes out the incumbent community by hiking up living costs.

This phenomenon is spreading rampantly in the downtown eastside.

“Real estate value has skyrocketed, rent is going up, and sites meant for social housing – like Pantages – are now condos,” said Harsha Walia, organizer with the Downtown Eastside Power of Women Group.

Walia added that the city and the government are complicit in the gentrification by allowing developers to purchase property, to open restaurants and businesses, and to build condos that are unaffordable for those who live in the neighbourhood.

“We’re calling for people to not be complicit, and to boycott these businesses and condos because they shouldn’t be allowed to thrive in this community,” she said. “People have the moral responsibility to say they won’t participate in gentrification.”

These gentrifying businesses tend to bring in affluent customers who are at odds with the existing community and who are at times hostile to residents. They include: Caffe Brixton, London Pub, Everything Café, Keefer Bar, Charles Pub, Acme Café, Salt Tasting Room, Salty Tongue, Irish Heather, Sea Monster Sushi and Bread and Meat (http://dtesnotfordevelopers.wordpress.com).

Developers are also building new condos in the community at a rate eleven times that of affordable social housing. Condos that advocates want a boycott of are V6A, Ginger, The East, Burns Block, Paris Annex, and the newly proposed Sequel 138 at the site of now-demolished Pantages Theatre.

The march made several stops along the way to point out many of the ‘gentrifying sites’, including a mime act by the Carnegie Community Action Project (CCAP) to mock patrons at the Milano Coffee Roasters – a high-end coffee shop.

As part of the act, members said: “We can’t afford to go to your café at all, you’re making a fool of us. Do you know that we’re a community here?”

They asked its customers (and workers), “How do you feel being gawked at? Do you feel welcomed?”

“The downtown eastside is not a freak show, everyone here deserves respect, stop gentrification!”

Among many other festivities at the rally, there was a salsa dancing session and performance by Màs Movement in front of patio customers at Chill Winston, a bar in Gastown.

“This is the spirit of the downtown eastside and this is the spirit of resistance,” Walia screamed into the megaphone at the end of the dancing.

The march also mourned the death of Verna, a resident at the Regent Hotel who was allegedly thrown out of her sixth floor window and fell to her death Friday night.

“It’s a sad day, but it’s also a joyful day,” said Carol Martin, a speaker at the march.  “Because this is where we gain our strength.”

 “This is our community and we are not going away,” Martin said, addressing passers-by and people at the bars in Gastown. “Stop walking around with a blinder on and pretending that we don’t exist.”

Laura Shaver, a resident of the downtown eastside and board member at the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users (VANDU), said she was at the rally to support housing for women and anyone else without housing.

“There’s not enough housing, and our welfare isn’t enough for us to live appropriately,” Shaver said. “We’re here to show people that when we come together as a group, we will stand up strong for our rights.”

• Dominion Stories

 

DOWNTOWN EASTSIDE - More than 500 women and supporters snaked their way through Vancouver's Downtown Eastside today to mark the Fifth Annual Women' s Housing March.

A somber mood was set by the news of a well-known woman's suspicious death last night at the Regent Hotel on East Hastings.

The marchers stopped several times along the route of the "GentriFUCKation Tour" to point out new businesses and the prices they charge for food and services.

The event wrapped up with a block party in the 100 block Hastings.

For more on the march see Homes Now, Not Condos!

 

Originally published at B-Channel News

The online archive was launched on September 7 and was established out of collaboration between Dr. Allan Antliff, Canada Research Chair in Modern Art, and the University of Victoria, MacPherson Library Special Collections and Archives. The inaugural event featured guest speaker Ann Hansen, a freelance writer from Ontario who wrote about her experiences with the Squamish Five in a book titled: Direct Action: Memoirs of an Urban Guerrilla.

“A really successful movements is going to be one where you have a really strong, vibrant alternative value system, alternative culture and where we are coming at the corporations and the state from all kinds of angles, legal actions, little legal actions and if necessary the bigger ones too,” said Hansen during her talk at the inauguration.

The online Anarchist collection contains political posters, letters and papers, journals, art work and video and audio recordings. These resources can be viewed in-person at the archives section of the Library and now online.

“While it may seem ironic for a university to manage an anarchist archive, the University of Victoria Libraries has catalogued, safely stored and preserved materials related to the anarchist movement for several years. Now anarchists, and anyone else interested in the social movement, can access this collection with its focus on Canada,”said the press release issued by Allan Antliff and Susan Henderson (MacPherson Library).

Materials span from the 20th-century to the present and encompasses information and activity across Canada. Issues covered include; indigenous struggles, protest against international trade organizations, feminism, racism, alternative economics and environmental activism. It includes collections such as; Food Not Bombs, David Babarash’s Collection and Jim Campbell’s Collection.

Like with many social movements and ideologies, there is no simple definition of what “Anarchism” is or a consensus on what it means to each Anarchist. George Woodcock, a Canadian Author whose writings will be included in the digital archive, wrote about Anarchism, saying “I shall treat anarchism, despite its many variations: as a system of social thought, aiming at fundamental changes in the structure of society and particularly — for this is the common element uniting all its forms — at the replacement of the authoritarian state by some form of non-governmental cooperation between free individuals.”Allan Antliff has been working with and sharing information with other Anarchist archives, collectors and educational institutions around the world. Other institutions, which he has been working with, that have Anarchist archives include; Leeds University, Queens and the University of Michigan.

The archives received support from MacPherson Library, which has dedicated space to house the collections. Funding for this project was received from the Canadian Fund for Infrastructure, the University of Victoria and the BC Knowledge Development Fund.

The launch of the digital archive took place at UVic and welcomed guest speaker Ann Hansen. Hansen has donated her own collections of material to the archive and spoke about her personal experiences as an Anarchist and her work with Direct Action.

“Militant actions don’t necessarily alienate the public, even in terms of smaller ones; in fact they can contribute to more public awareness around events.  Like even going back to Seattle in 1999, most people didn’t know what the World Trade Organization was or the IMF. All those demonstrations against the G7 and the G20, that’s what brought the public’s awareness to those large anti-democratic organizations,” said Hansen during her talk at UVic.

Hansen was tried in connection to the Cheekye-Dunsmuir bombing, Litton Industries bombing and fire bombings at a Red Hot Video location. Hansen was part of a group called Direct Action, but also referred to in the media as the Squamish Five or Vancouver Five.

According to BC Court of Appeal documents, Hansen was convicted of conspiracy to commit robbery, three counts of automobile theft, three counts of possession of stolen property over $200, two counts of activating an explosive substance, possession of explosives with intent to cause damage, possession of weapons for dangerous purpose, and arson. The conspiracy to commit robbery itself held a sentencing of life in prison, while the other charges totalled 33 years in prison. Hansen was released from prison after serving eight years. In 2002 Hansen published a book about her experiences called Direct Action: Memoirs of an Urban Guerrilla.

Special Issue on Resistance to Pipelines & Tar Sands

In this special edition of the VMC's broadsheet, we look at resistance to oil and natural gas pipelines, and the full spectrum of tar sands expansion in Vancouver and Burnaby (unceded Coast Salish Territories) and in Central BC (unceded Wetsu'wet'en territories). With first hand reports from communities in resistance, the VMC brings you the quality, grassroots news you need to cut through the spin!

Check it out, print it, pass it around. If you can help with distro there will be copies available at Spartacus books from Wednesday onwards.

Click here to download the Balaclava! pipelines special issue.

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Keeping the North End community strong and diverse.

 

On Wednesday September 14th, The Micmac Native Friendship Centre and North End Community Health Centre (NECHC) hosted the community event called: Vision 2011- The future of a community space.  The BBQ and information booths were held at Warrington Park, beside what was St. Pat’s Alexandra School.  The k-9 school was shut down by the Halifax Regional School board this September, and is currently up for sale by the HRM.

The event was organized to draw community attention to the bid that the Friendship Centre and NECHC proposed for the old school site.  They will sell their existing properties on Gottingen St, and share the new buildings.  It is their way to partner in service provision and continue to provide community services to the North End.  

Warrington Park is home to Hope Blooms community garden, a project of the NECHC, which is a garden and salad dressing enterprise run by neighbourhood kids.  All the money earned through salad dressing sales, goes back into the garden and into a scholarship fund for inner city youth.  Many community members expressed their support for the gardens, and the kids were proud of their work in the enterprise.

City staff go to council in November to decide on a bid.  Jane Maloney, executive director of the NECHC believes that their bid is essential for the prosperity of the North End community, and has called on HRM residents to contact their city councillor in support of this proposal.  

To sign the online petition, click here.

Read more about the North End Community Health Clinic.

In May, I requested my police files through the Privacy Act, and after over three months and a complaint to the Privacy Commissioner's Office, I received 44 pages of heavily redacted records.

No real shocker as to what is in the files, though I was a tad surprised to learn that I only received 44 out of 138 pages of information collected about me from the period of 2008 to spring of 2010. 

I, like many others, was actively surveilled in the lead-up to the Olympics, considered a person of interest, and tracked on the "theme" of public order. Though of course no names are named it is obvious that the police were using informants/infiltrators/undercover cops throughout this period, these were the people who continued to recommend I be considered a "person of interest."

In 2009, the Joint Intelligence Group noted that I spoke at a Council of Canadians event about the tar sands in Golden, BC. The cops were acting out of concern for the Olympic Torch.

On Sunday, September 13th 2009, police sat outside and took notes as my friends and I ate together at a restaurant. This was part of a task to "surveil the target(s) and attempt to obtain a lifestyle and a current residence."

Check out the files, attached here as SET A and SET B if you're curious.

Again, if my file over the period leading up to and including the Olympics is 138 pages, I can only imagine the volume of material they've collected on other comrades. Yesterday I sent another complaint to the Privacy Commissioner to see if I can get the remainder of my records. According to ex-CSIS agent-cum-access-to-information-guy Normand Sirois, "The fact that you request your personal information does not necessarily mean that all information will be disclosed to you."

Anyhow, I share this as a point of interest, not as a newsflash. I hope it encourages others to ask for their files (it's free).

Whatever way you understand it, it's pretty fucked up that the cops are collecting information on folks for thinking critical thoughts, and speaking with others about those ideas. Pleading for police reform isn't gonna shift the game. My main reflection upon receiving these files is the importance of not talking to the cops. What you say can (and will) be used against you, and your friends. 

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