The Dominion - Gwalgen Geordie Dent

Co-operative Banking Bulks Up

Tim McSorley — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 06:18:05 +0000

Ontario credit unions weather the economic crisis

TORONTO—Two months ago, members of the Hamilton-based Nasco Employees' Credit Union stopped being members of the Nasco Employees' CU.

On January 6, Nasco Employees' CU was purchased by another Hamilton-based credit union: Prime Financial Savings.

It was a fate that a number of credit unions in Toronto and across Ontario have suffered since 2007 thanks to the global economic crisis. Although business pages in Canada mostly focus on the Big Five banks—Toronto-Dominion, Royal Bank, CIBC, Bank of Montreal and the Bank of Nova Scotia—credit unions have faced their own series of challenges and adjustments.

In August of 2009, I went to close my account at a small, local credit union on Bloor St. But something had happened to St. Mary’s Credit Union since the last time I used the branch: it was no longer St. Mary’s. St. Mary’s had been purchased by Ottawa-based Buduchnist Credit Union two months earlier.

Sources inside the credit union suggested that it had withstood a series of shocks due to the financial crisis. Fearing one more shock could have put them out of business, the bank began talks about being purchased by Buduchnist Credit Union.

When asked if this was the case, Buduchnist Credit Union CEO Oksana Prociuk said she did not wish to comment.

Statistics from the Deposit Insurance Corporation of Ontario website paint a rough picture of how credit unions in the province have fared during the credit crisis. Ontario currently has slightly under 200 credit unions and/or caisse-populaires. Nine Ontario credit unions were liquidated in 2006 (liquidation also includes dissolved, purchased or amalgamated credit unions). In 2007 and 2008, when the credit crisis was in full swing, that figure jumped to 17 per year before falling to eight in 2009.

Statistics from Credit Union Central of Canada’s third quarter results show a similar pattern: while credit union membership is up 0.5 per cent Canada-wide since the end of 2008, Ontario has seen a 1.4 per cent drop over the same period. The number of credit unions and their branches has also gone down more than the national average.

Art Chamberlain, Media Relations Manager for Central 1 Credit Union, said the downturn hit a variety of Ontario credit unions in a much different way than Canada’s major banks. Employment and growth have gone down sharply in Ontario, so instead of losing money on derivatives and bad investments, some credit unions lost money on the major casualty of the recession: people.

“The core of our business is straightforward: taking in deposits and putting out mortgages and personal lending (and a growing amount of small business lending). When there was a downturn, people lost their jobs and the low interest rate environment has not been very great for a number of years, so the spread on lending money has not been great. It’s been a challenging time for small credit units. Our operating costs have been a lot higher (than banks) and our fees have been a lot lower,” he said.

Ron Hodges, Vice President of Finance for the Toronto-based Italian Canadian Savings and Credit Union Ltd., said small-town credit unions suffered considerably because of their members' job losses. “Some of the credit unions are small and are set up to be a credit union for a specific plant. [When] that plant closes, it makes it difficult for the credit union not to close down,” he said.

Hodges' credit union, Italian Canadian Savings, took over some staff, deposits and the lease of the Portuguese Canadian Credit Union (PCCU), which was liquidated in 2009. According to Hodges, “The PCCU ran into financial difficulties; we tried to ensure that the Portuguese community continued to be served.”

Sources from St. Mary’s suggested the PCCU ran into trouble from the credit crisis, but Hodges was unaware of the reason for the PCCU liquidation, and the Deposit Insurance Corporation of Ontario said they could not comment because the matter was before the courts.

Credit unions in Toronto face a number of challenges trying to compete with Canada’s dominating financial institutions.

“We don’t have a huge visual presence,” lamented Chamberlain. “Market penetration is not great. We’re stronger in smaller towns around Ontario. The big banks are located here. The other challenge we face is trying to get our message around in an expensive media market.”

In addition to the slew of ads, Chamberlain said banks also generate advertising through branches and ATMs in full view around Toronto. While credit unions do have access to a number of ATM machines, they are not necessarily branded as such. “We don’t get the subliminal advertising around branches on street corners.”

The relationship with suffering Ontario workers may have hurt deposits, but it also forms the backbone of credit union lending.

“Our decisions around how we treat people and the loans we give are based on a relationship basis. A lot of credit unions are aware and active on community economic development, helping community groups, etc,” said Chamberlain. “We didn’t get caught up in the huge issues that caused problems with the US and big banks here because we weren’t involved in sub-prime mortgages here. Credit unions are a stabilizing force in the economy. There’s a committee working together; we’ve had a media campaign. Behind the scenes there’s been a network of credit unions to help out small businesses. Especially when times are tough."

By focusing on so-called boring, community-based lending, credit unions have managed to avoid the worst of the economic crisis that affected thousands of financial institutions worldwide. “They are less exposed than the banks. They are not international, which is both protective and risky in a more difficult area,” said Jim Maxwell, Chief Administrator and Financial Officer for the Deposit Insurance Corporation of Ontario (DICO).

According to Maxwell, overall, credit unions have been able to turn to methods such as amalgamation, fusing and buying each other out to protect themselves.  

“If you look at the system as a whole there is a consolidation of the system and growth. The system has grown at 5 per cent over the last 5 years. You can't look at the number of institutions; because of mergers branches are staying the same.”

Statistics from Credit Union Central of Canada show that the number of credit unions and branches has decreased Canada-wide since 2007. Ontario has seen both unions and branches decrease since the end of 2008, although assets, savings and loans have increased in both Ontario and Canada.

Several Ontario credit unions have fused together in the last few years. Amalgamation also produced Central 1 Credit Union in 2008. Central 1 was the fusion between Ontario and BC "central" credit unions. Central credit unions act as umbrella organizations for their regions, promoting the interests of their member Credit Unions and offering overall services and liquidity (cash to maintain operations). Similar fusions are planned for central credit unions in the Maritime Provinces.

Meanwhile, however, Prime Financial Savings, the Hamilton credit union that purchased Nasco Employees' CU, has already experienced the difficulties of amalgamation and the credit crisis first-hand.

In their 2008 annual report, CEO William Clark explained why Prime Financial Savings suffered a major loss: “This is attributable to costs associated with the merger of Credit Union Central of Ontario and British Columbia Central into a new organization called Central 1. This merger is the culmination of years of effort to rationalize the internal structures of the Credit Union System across the country.

“To facilitate this merger, Ontario Credit Unions purchased certain investments from Credit Union Central of Ontario. These investments have been impacted by the general deterioration of markets across North America,” he wrote.

According to Jim Maxwell, the trend toward larger institutions increases the ability to hire good staff and use more efficient and cheaper systems. At the same time Maxwell acknowledges that bigger unions face the challenge of maintaining their base in the communities they serve.

Gwalgen Geordie Dent is a journalist with the Toronto Media Co-op. This piece was originally published by the Toronto Media Co-op.

Buduchnist Credit Union

Jailed For Jaywalking?

dawn — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 05:40:22 +0000

Measures aim to clear out Vancouver's Downtown Eastside before the Olympics

TORONTO–With the Olympics less a year away, many pundits and officials have been musing about how the city is going to make good on its plan to “clean-up” Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside (DTES) by 2010. One answer is both crude and sad: jaywalking tickets.

Housing advocates of the DTES say ticketing for minor bylaw infractions are up. According to Nicole Latham, a staff member at the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users (VANDU), suspicions arose at the VANDU July 2008 AGM. “Someone asked how many people had been given a jaywalking ticket and half the room put up their hands.”

According to Laura Track, a lawyer at Pivot Legal Society, jaywalking tickets are only the tip of the iceberg. “Around 30 people were ticketed in two days for camping in parks in mid-July 2008,” she says.

Track and Ann Livingston, Executive Director of VANDU, claim that the Vancouver Police Department (VPD) is on a ticketing binge. Ticketing for jaywalking, selling merchandise and bicycle infractions in the DTES are all on the rise.

Under provincial laws such as the Safe Streets Act and the Trespass Act, 297 tickets were issued to Vancouver residents in 2007. In 2008, that number jumped to 600, well above targets. Both Acts have been labeled by advocates as laws that legislate against poverty and target the homeless.

Vancouver’s Megaphone Magazine tracked, in December 2008, a major "ticketing blitz" in the DTES. A VPD report the following month stated 439 tickets were issued in 2008 for vending, panhandling and loitering in the DTES. “In 2007, bylaw tickets issued in the area totaled only 247,” read the report.

According to information obtained by The Dominion through a Freedom of Information request, tickets issued for illegal vending in all of Vancouver amounted to 263 in 2007. In 2008, 537 tickets were issued city-wide.

In other words, of all the vending tickets issued in Vancouver over the last 2 years, more than 80 per cent have been given out in the DTES.

Statistics from the Freedom of Information request show that other tickets, which seem to discriminate against the homeless, are similarly on the rise. Jaywalking tickets have increased drastically: from 757 in 2007 to 1,086 in 2008. Riding a bike without a helmet resulted in 32 tickets in 2006 and in 2008 that figure rose to 92.

Doug King, Pivot’s Police Campaigner, holds that the targeting of residents in the DTES is intentional; the VPD has admitted as such.

According to King, "The DTES is where the street vending occurs and most of the increase [in tickets] is attributable to about four blocks. The police are being very open about this; they believe in the broken-windows approach to policing." When contacted, VPD spokesperson Jana McGuinness confirmed that new initiatives that target the DTES are being used primarily to address the “open-air drug market."

The idea to increase the amount of bylaw ticketing originally surfaced in 2006 during former Mayor Sam Sullivan’s much maligned "Project Civil City." Civil City was originally promoted as a means of reducing homelessness, street disorder and drug use. According to statistics published in The Tyee in 2008, all three have risen dramatically since the launch of Civil City. Despite this rise, the central strategy of Civil City has been fully embraced by the VPD.

The 2009 VPD Annual Business Plan places significant emphasis on bylaw tickets for crimes prevalent in the DTES. Graffiti, panhandling, street vending, camping and “the scavenger economy” are key issues the VPD says it wants to target. The report also stated that "chronic bylaw offenders” are being targeted with more tickets and more serving of summons.

“There’s speculation in the DTES neighbourhood that this is being done to try to clean up the neighbourhood before the Olympics get into town,” says King. "The VPD [however] is very adamant that [this] is not what they are doing."

While groups like VANDU and Pivot have been key in pointing out the increase in ticketing in the Downtown Eastside, other groups have been fighting it. The Downtown Eastside Women’s Centre (DEWC) held a press conference in February calling attention to the aggressive ticketing by the VPD. According to Priscillia Mays, a member of the Power of Women Group at the DEWC, the ticketing “is happening to ensure that residents live in a state of fear and intimidation so that the DTES is ‘cleansed’ of poor and homeless people in time for the tourists.”

She also says, “It is not a coincidence that all this is happening in the lead-up to the Olympic Games. It is likely that poor people who are unable to pay these hefty tickets will be jailed leading up to 2010 because the VPD Draft Business Plan indicates increased involvement in ensuring that court summons are served to those ‘chronic offenders’ of such ridiculous bylaws.”

Asked why the VPD was targeting the DTES at this time and if the sudden rise in bylaw tickets had anything to do with the Olympics, spokesperson McGuinness refused to comment.

Multiple Canadian government officials could be learning from Atlanta, which used the same strategy for sweeping the streets of homeless people during their Olympic Games in 1996. The Weicker Report, issued in 2002 to a special Vancouver-based committee with members from the federal, provincial and municipal governments, looked at the impact of the Games on “Vancouver’s Inner City Neighbourhood.” It noted the use of jaywalking tickets in Atlanta to lock up the homeless populations.

By 2006, a flurry of local laws were being implemented under Project Civil City to make it easier to ticket people, summon them to court and subject them to a term of incarceration.

One of the changes was the introduction of a pilot project called the Municipal Ticket Information system (MTI). Under old methods of ticketing, a bylaw offender would be issued a notice asking them to pay a fine. If they did not pay, then a summons to court would be issued and served personally to the offender, who could then be acquitted, fined or restricted from areas of the city.

Under the new MTI process, a person given a ticket has 14 days to file a dispute. If they do not, a conviction and imposition of a fine is automatic. City documents point out that the MTI project has added to the number of convictions and fines.

The fear of homeless advocates is that warrants for unpaid tickets and similar offenses will suddenly appear en masse.

“That’s what people are the most afraid of in the neighbourhood; that they will keep issuing tickets at everyone. Then, at any time, people can get warranted," says King. "They are obviously targeting specific people."

In a February 2008 submission to city council, Geoff Plant, Civil City Project Commissioner, put forth a series of "immediate requests" for changes to provincial legislation. He requested that the B.C. government make it easier to get bylaw offenders in court and to incarcerate people who are unable to pay fines.

Plant has been pushing for these legislative changes since last year but the cancellation of the B.C. Fall legislature session in 2008 meant that these changes have not yet been put into effect.

Gwalgen Geordie Dent is a contributing member of Medicoop.ca-Toronto. He is a former health worker in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.

DTES women demand an end to street sweeps

Mining the Congo

hillarybain — Sat, 26 May 2007 16:04:34 +0000

Canadian mining companies in the DRC

This article is second in a two part series. Read the first article here.

Despite eight years of war in the Congo (from 1996 to 2003), with a death toll estimated at between four and ten million, and the continued risk of conflict today, Canada’s interest in the country since 1995 has been almost completely restricted to Congo’s mineral wealth.

Canada plays a major role in mining in Africa, says Denis Tougas, who is a staff member of l'Entraide Missionnaire, an international solidarity organization based in Quebec. Tougas has worked and lived, on and off, for 15 years in the Great Lakes region of Africa. As a resource-based economy, he says, Canada has a developed mining sector, one that accounts for over 30 per cent of all investment in prospecting on the African continent, a portion rivaled only by South Africa.

Before the war and the installation of Laurent Kabila as president, Tougas was working in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and remembers being asked why Kabila was meeting with Canadians. At that time, many of Congo's mining companies were government-owned. According to Tougas, "Kabila was using the plane of [mining company] American Mineral Fields to fly around the county... he was showing that he could make deals with the international community... even though he was not yet president. One of the people Kabila was meeting with was Joe Clark, former Canadian Prime Minister. In the mid 1990s, Clark was both leader of the Progressive Conservative Party and a special advisor on Africa for the mining company First Quantum Mineral. Records show that Canadian mining companies American Mineral Fields and Tenke received large contracts soon after these meetings.

UN report

When the Congo war broke out in 1996, a number of small Canadian mining companies were active in the DRC. In 2002, eight Canadian companies were implicated in the UN report entitled “Report on the Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources and Other Forms of Wealth in the Congo”. In it, the UN panel said that American Mineral Fields, Banro, First Quantum, Hrambee Mining, International Panorama Resources, Kinross Gold, Melkior Resources and Tenke had violated OECD guidelines in mining activities during the Congo war. The report recommended investigations by the Canadian government into their actions.

“The Panel insists that they [the Panel] have concrete evidence of violations,” Mining Watch reported. “The companies vehemently deny the charges.”

The report generated a large backlash within the UN, says Tougas. "A number of UN representatives were angry that the panel [responsible for the report] did not ask for information from the companies involved." In response to the complaints, the panel received explanations from 119 of the 157 companies involved, and in 2003 it released its final report on the exploitation of the Congo, claiming that the allegations for seven out of the eight Canadian companies had been ‘resolved'.’ Many companies alleged they were cleared of wrongdoing but Tougas points out that the report’s use of the word ‘resolved’ “should not be seen as invalidating the Panel’s earlier findings with regard to the activities of those actors.”

In response to the UN report, l'Entraide Missionnaire filed a complaint to the Canadian National Contact Point for the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development to confirm the allegations against First Quantum. Quantum had been accused in the report of bribing officials in Katanga province to get land. However, says Tougas, the strategy of the mining companies had worked, since the complaint was refused because it was deemed to have been ‘resolved’ by the UN Panel.

Part of the problem for solidarity organizations that want Canadian mining companies to change is that, strictly speaking, Canadian companies never broke Congolese law, says Tougas. “These companies were allowed to be [in the Congo] according to the new mining code... signed during the war.” For example, Banro was operating on occupied territory but had signed a contract with the DRC government in Kinshasa allowing their presence in the region.

Still Mining

Eight to ten small Canadian mining companies are in the DRC today. The Montreal Mirror reports that accusations against Anvil Mining Ltd., which mines copper and silver in the DRC, may result in a lawsuit. The Australian-Canadian company is accused “of helping soldiers end an uprising in a village near an Anvil mine... in an assault that killed more than 80 rebels and villagers. Foreign Affairs Canada refuses to comment on whether Canada has been contacted by the AFP or the Australian government for the Anvil investigation,” the Mirror reported.

Le Monde Diplomatique reported that Canadian mining companies Barrick and Banro had been "funding military operations [in the DRC] in exchange for lucrative contracts." A report in Z Magazine in 2006 said Barrick still “operates in the town of Watsa, northwest of the town of Bunia, located in the most violent corner of the Congo. The Ugandan People’s Defense Force (UPDF) controlled the mines intermittently during the war. Officials in Bunia claim that Barrick executives flew into the region, with UPDF and RPF [Rwanda Patriotic Front] escorts, to survey and inspect their mining interests.”

Over the years advisors and directors for Barrick have included George H.W. Bush, Brian Mulroney, Edward Neys (US ambassador to Canada), Howard Baker (US Senator) and J. Trevor Eyton (Canadian Senator), among others.

Government Inaction

Aside from direct links to politicians, Canada has other reasons for not monitoring or trying to stop Canadian exploitation of resources in the DRC. In a recent article in the Georgia Straight, Mining Watch pointed out that governments have allowed mining-friendly tax laws and a “long and lousy tradition of poorly regulated penny-stock companies.”

According to Tougas, “Most of the known resources [in the DRC] are now being found by junior (under $4 million) Canadian companies who were able to take risks... and take advantage of the war.” Today, Tougas says these same companies have a major interest in the South-West province of Katanga.

Though the House of Commons Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade released a report last year, the government has refused to implement its recommendations regarding better monitoring of Canada’s mining firms abroad. Today, the committee says questions about Canadian companies in the Congo are “now under the jurisdiction of the Standing Committee on International Trade.”

Though the mandate and the powers of the Standing Committee on International Trade can be requested via e-mail, repeated requests for these documents were not met.

Tougas says that although the Canadian government occasionally talks about aid to the DRC, more often than not, what the Congolese receive are more Canadian mines, not aid dollars. 75 per cent of mining resources in the DRC are owned by foreign companies. Congo is rated 142nd worldwide on the human development index and 158th for GDP per capita. “The profit is only going to the companies, not the Congoese people,” he said.

However, the Congolese government may be taking matters into its own hands. A report released last year by the DRC looks at mining deals made by the president between 1996-1998. It recommends that deals between the president and 6 Canadian companies and a host of others be ‘revised’ in order to benefit the Congo. The recommendations may not be adopted, however. “It has certainly divided parliament,” he says.

Congo Part II

Canada in the Congo War

hillarybain — Mon, 14 May 2007 14:43:14 +0000

Role of mining, resource extraction has been neglected

Even for those who follow world events, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is little known in Canada.

The DRC holds two major distinctions. First, it is the richest country in Africa in terms of mineral wealth: gold, diamonds, cobalt and chromium all exist in abundance. Second, it is the country in which the highest number of people – roughly, 4 to10 million – have died due to war since World War II.

Africa’s First World War

The second major civil war in the Congo is often referred to as Africa’s first world war. It raged between 1996 and 2003. Several countries, including Zimbabwe, Angola, Chad and Namibia fought with the Congolese government and their rebel allies against the rebels in the east and soldiers from Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi. Alliances, militias, rebels and sites of conflict were constantly shifting throughout the war. At the height of the conflict, 60 per cent of the Congo was under foreign control. In addition to the millions dead, millions more were forced to flee their homes; mass rapes and destruction were commonplace. Large parts of the DRC are still under rebel control and, according to the Belgian-based Crisis Group, about 1000 people are dying every day due to war-related disease, hunger and violence.

The official reason for the war is that it was caused by inter-African tensions. After Congolese president Laurent Kabila came to power, he became distrustful of the power held by his former allies, Rwanda and Uganda. According to a number of sources, Rwandan forces became worried that possible Hutu militias hiding in the Eastern Congo could wage further attacks on Tutsis. An uprising in the Eastern Congo prompted an invasion by Rwanda. Ugandan and Burundi forces entered the country soon thereafter. The DRC government responded by sending forces to retaliate, and the war began.

Western Backing

Writers Asad Ismi, Keith Harmon Snow and David Barouski, who have been writing about the Congo for years, believe this is not the full story. They assert that the Congo conflict had more to do with Western desires for Congo’s resources than squabbling between African states.

A 2004 report by Global Witness points to what drives these desires. According to the report, large amounts of coltan (used in mobile phones), copper, cobalt, gold, diamonds, oil, gas and timber were mined and transported out by companies operating mines in Congolese territory while it was under the foreign control of Burundi, Uganda and Rwanda, and even Congo’s allied states.

Ismi believes that the millions dead in the Congo are mainly the product of Western desires for the Congo’s mineral wealth. “Congo has been ripped apart by imperialism and foreign powers for over a hundred years," he says. "It is well known that [the Congo war] was a brainchild of the US.”

In his article “Congo: The Western Heart of Darkness,” published by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, Ismi points to numerous reports, including those from Human Rights Watch and the Washington Post, which show that “US soldiers were sighted in the company of Rwandan troops in the Congo on July 23 and 24, 1998.” He also notes the US’s refusal “to call for the immediate withdrawal of its close allies, the Rwandan and Ugandan forces, which it…trained, armed and financed.”

“There is enough evidence to conclude that the U.S. backed and justified the invasion of the Congo by its proxies Rwanda and Uganda and then proceeded to join in and encourage the plunder of the country,” especially when taken in context with former US-backed Congo regimes, he says.

Western Mining

In their article “Behind the Numbers: Untold Suffering in the Congo,” Keith Harmon Snow and David Barouski cite numerous examples of companies which directly or indirectly benefited from the DRC war, including Anglo-American, Cabot Co., Metalor and Sony. “Mining in the Congo by western companies proceeds at an unprecedented rate," Snow and Barouski write, "and it is reported that some $6 million in raw cobalt alone… exits DRC daily.” They also argue that the UN peacekeeping mission in Congo, the largest UN mission ever, is concentrating on rebel groups in the eastern Congo, “effectively clearing it for large-scale multi-national mining.”

Ismi agrees. “The richest areas in the East...were being mined…with a weak government in Kinshasa. International Panorama Resources [a Vancouver-based mining company] was mining in the most violent area [of the DRC] and being protected by Uganda.”

Canada’s UN commitment to one of the most deadly wars in history was two aircraft and fifty troops in 2003. In September 2006, Liberal Senator Peter Stollery slammed Canada's "disgraceful" military presence in Africa. When it comes to the major recipients of Canadian aid through CIDA, the DRC doesn't even make the top ten.

Ten Canadian companies were implicated in the UN report entitled "Report on the Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources and other Forms of Wealth in the Congo,” published in 2002. One of the most comprehensive and damning reports on Western activities in the Congo, the UN report implicated 157 companies and recommended travel bans, legal action and investigation by states where these companies were located.

Though all 10 companies were accused of violating the guidelines of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, and some were accused of bribing officials in order to have access to land, the Canadian government has failed to investigate the companies’ role in the Congo war, said Mining Watch Canada.

The recommendations from a 2005 report by the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade, which call for stricter monitoring of mining companies in hotspots like Congo, Guatemala, Romania, El Salvador, India, the Philippines, Peru and Mexico, have not been adopted.

European Union forces stationed in the Congo

Opposition Grows

hillarybain — Thu, 10 May 2007 14:38:35 +0000

Will a B.C. Federal Minister Break the Wheat Board…or the Law?

Who controls the Canadian Wheat Board? That is the question, according to key players involved in a hotly contested plebiscite that is pitting Western farmers against a B.C. federal minister.

The plebiscite concerning the Canadian Wheat Board (CWB) and its monopoly on barley is the latest event in a year that has seen government firings, inter-provincial fighting, opposition motions and what some are calling a gag order against the CWB.

Though the details and complexities of the CWB may seem boring and inconsequential to some, literally hundreds of thousands of jobs and billions of dollars are at stake. Farmers are already struggling; between 1996 and 2001 almost 30,000 farms were lost in Canada.

Started in 1935, the CWB was a means for farmers in the West to sell various types of grain collectively, attracting a single price and avoiding unstable shifts in the market. In 1998, the then-governing Liberals amended the Wheat Board Act to strip the CWB of its Crown Corporation status and allowed farmers to elect the majority of directors. It was the fourth- largest Crown Corporation in Canada at the time.

In the 2006 election, the Conservatives promised to dismantle the Wheat Board's monopoly both on wheat and barley. Since then, the CEO of 25 years for the Wheat Board was fired (incurring outrage from Wheat Board directors) while an order in council was issued preventing the CWB from spending money in favour of the monopoly.

"[ Agricultural Minister Chuck Strahl] doesn't seem to understand that this is a shared governance corporation with a board of directors, 10 of whom are elected by farmers," says CWB Director Bill Toews. "He seems to want to take full authority over the operations of the Board."

Last June, the government tried to amend the Canadian Wheat Board Act. The motion failed and opposition parties reminded the government that a “clear and direct” plebiscite was required before it could be amended.

Opposition Grows

According to Stewart Wells, president of the National Farmers’ Union, the Conservative government ignored the call for the required plebiscite until the NDP government of Manitoba announced their own plebiscite for Manitoba farmers this January. The results showed that between 60 and 70 per cent of farmers want to maintain the monopoly on barley and wheat.

Strahl, a Conservative MP from B.C., dismissed the results as being 'propaganda' and announced a plebiscite for barley farmers would be held in March. Instead of asking whether the monopoly should be maintained or not, however, a third option was put on the ballot; a dual system, where an open market would co-exist with the CWB.

“It's not possible,” says Maureen Fitzhenry, a media relations contact for the CWB, in reference to the existence of the CWB in an open market. “The Wheat Board has almost no facilities…we’d be asking our competitors to move grain. Okay, in all fairness, we could become a grain company, but that would involve the government investing [over a billion dollars] in infrastructure and they’ve made no commitment to do so yet.”

According to Fitzhenry, because the CWB is in competition with major US companies, the Australian Wheat Boardand others., the CWB requires high volume of product from a monopoly. “If [farmers] think there is no risk...they are wrong.”

Conrad Bellehumeur, director of Communication for Minister Strahl, disagrees. “A number of studies in Alberta…show this is possible.” He maintains the Conservatives envision a “strong CWB” within an open-market system and that his party is simply trying to give farmers the “opportunity to choose.”

But Alex Atamanecko, the agricultural critic for the NDP says that, according to the statistics he's seen -- including price comparisons and a report by Murray Fulton from the University of Saskatchewan -- “the Wheat Board as it stands would cease to exist in an open market.”

Fitzhenry doesn’t think Strahl’s Alberta studies are credible. “I think farmers want to keep the Wheat Board. Consistently 60 to 70 per cent of farmers support the single desk system.” Four out of five office directors elected during the last CWB elections are also monopoly supporters, says Fitzhenry. For her, the conflict is a question of “who controls the CWB: farmers or government?”

Wh(e)at’s Next?

Bellehumeur says that barley is the only part of the CWB under review at the moment, but that a ‘wheat plebiscite’ will be instituted later. Wells believes Conservatives are waiting to tackle the wheat monopoly when they get a majority in parliament. Both Wells and Fitzhenry said before the plebiscite that regardless of the result, the Conservatives would interpret the results how they wanted.

Indeed, before the plebiscite, neither Strahl nor his communications director outlined what percentage of the vote was required to move ahead with reforms, saying, “The data will be available to anyone but it's up to me to say what this advice means.”

Wells states that the ‘attack’ on the Wheat Board is caused by a combination of “ignorance, malicious companies, commodity brokers and long standing anti-wheat board people… all within the government.” He wonders if Strahl, with a background in forestry, understands how the Wheat Board operates and whether he is getting biased information from sources in the US.

Atamanecko suggests the 14 US trade challenges under NAFTA and other trade organizations to the CWB may be influencing the Conservative stance.

In response, Strahl’s communication director says that Strahl has been called everything from “undemocratic” to “a communist,” but notes that Conservatives have the largest caucus of farmers in parliament. He thinks that the people making the most noise challenging Strahl’s credibility “are the same people against plebiscite.”

Meanwhile, CWB directors and staff have complained of a government “gag-order” after the CWB was told not to spend money promoting the monopolies. Because Fitzhenry is paid staff, she worries that the government can interpret any comment she makes as an expenditure of funds. “I’m not prepared to do a legal interpretation” she says, “Staff don’t know what they can and can’t say…it makes [our] job difficult.”

Atamanecko goes even further: “Their tactics are sinister and deceitful...they want to dismantle the Wheat Board and are doing everything possible to do so. They've singled out directors, the Wheat Board and contradicted the current CEO…and made the [plebiscite] question fuzzy.”

Results in, Conclusion Not

The plebiscite results released on March 28 show 38 per cent of farmers wanting to keep the monopoly, while 14 per cent want to scrap the CWB all together. Fourty-eight per cent say they want the dual system. Strahl has said he will remove the barley monopoly by August 1, 2007.
For Fitzhenry, the results are meaningless because the plebiscite offered “an unrealistic scenario.” She points out that the minister added up options two and three to declare that farmers wanted to scrap the CWB, “But why not add up one and two…and assume they want to keep [it]?”
Strahl has insisted on amending the Canadian Wheat Board Act by changing the regulations. “We're quite sure we can take it out through regulation,” Strahl says.
Strahl might come up against more opposition, only this time it might be in the courts. Though Strahl and Bellehumeur claim they can legally make the CWB a dual-system, others claim otherwise. Liberal Leader Stephan Dion told a group in March that legislation through parliament was legally required before abolishing the monopoly.

Fitzhenry is not willing to call the government’s actions illegal, but she doesn't think the government’s plebiscite constitutes a plebiscite under the Wheat Board Act. She says that directors for the CWB are of the opinion that in order to change the Wheat Board’s monopoly, an act of parliament is required.

“This isn’t over,” she says

Wheat Field

Conservative Post

Sat, 18 Nov 2006 23:44:19 +0000

Postal Worker Facing Disciplinary Action After Refusing to Deliver Homophobic Pamphlet

The title of the pamphlet in question is "The Prophetic Word: The Plague of this 21st Century: The Consequences of the sin of Homosexuality (AIDS)." photo Tim Dawks

[This article will also appear in the December issue of Briarpatch]

A letter carrier in Vancouver who refused to deliver a homophobic pamphlet for Canada Post in late October may be facing termination.

The conflict within Canada Post began on October 26 when the letter carrier refused to process a pamphlet, published by a Baptist Mission in Ontario, entitled, "The Prophetic Word: The Plague of this 21st Century: The Consequences of the sin of Homosexuality (AIDS)."

According to Eric Aldridge, a postal worker from a different Vancouver station, the 200 pamphlets were slated for delivery in only one area of Vancouver, the Commercial Drive district—a well-known queer community. The letter carrier in question refused to deliver the pamphlet, stating that it violated the collective agreement between the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) and Canada Post regarding discrimination. He quickly received notice that he would be interviewed for disciplinary action and in a manner of days was suspended for delay of mail.

Because walking off the job would be considered a wildcat strike, workers decided to take a 15-minute 'coffee-break' to protest the letter carrier's treatment. After returning and talking with management, they were told that, "No one would be forced to distribute the pamphlet." However in later interviews with the Vancouver Sun, Canada Post spokesperson Colleen Frick stated that the pamphlet would get delivered—eventually. She said the pamphlet was "acceptable and appropriate" and that Canada Post "does not censor" the mail.

According to Aldridge, that is not true. Recently, Canada Post has refused to distribute ad-mail coming from an adult sex shop as well as political information from the "Sex Party," which ran in the last B.C. provincial election. Lillian Au, Communications Manager for Canada Post's Pacific region, stated that in both those cases, Canada Post did, in fact, censor mail. However, she argued that this was due to legislation in the Canada Post Act allowing for the censorship of sexually explicit mail. Regarding censorship of the pamphlet, "Freedom of religion is enshrined in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms," she said.

But Ken Mooney, President of CUPW, feels that Canada Post is selectively enforcing the rules. "They're not paying attention to their own policy," he said, referring both to Canada Post's human rights policy and the collective agreement. Both documents state that sexual discrimination is not acceptable in the work environment.

Canada Post backed down from forcing employees to deliver the pamphlet, taking the extraordinary step of having management hand-deliver it themselves.

Though they do not have to deliver the pamphlet, the postal workers' fight is not over. On November 1, the letter carrier that originally refused to deliver the pamphlet was given a second interview for disciplinary action, this time accusing him of giving a copy of the pamphlet to CBC. Because ad-mail carries the same classification as First Class Mail for Canada Post, the letter carrier has been accused of stealing mail and is therefore facing termination. The CBC and the letter carrier deny a pamphlet was given, though both claim that the CBC received a photocopy. The CUPW is fighting the proposed termination.

When asked if the carrier would be fired, Au refused to comment, stating only that there is an ongoing investigation that can't be discussed because it is a "protection of privacy" matter.

Gwalgen Geordie Dent is a Vancouver-based journalist from the Commercial Drive district.

A postal worker is facing disciplinary action after refusing to deliver a homophobic pamphlet. Gwalgen Geordie Dent investigates.

Public kept in dark about talks on North American integration

Tue, 26 Sep 2006 18:54:41 +0000

From September 12-14, leaders from all three North American Conservative governments met in Banff, British Columbia for the second annual conference on North American integration, entitled "The 2006 North American Forum." According to internal documents "not for public release" obtained by the Banff Crag and Canyon, politicians including the Minister of Public Safety, Stockwell Day, and the Minister of Defence, Gordon O'Conner, met with government and business leaders from the US, Canada and Mexico, including US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, the president and CEO of Canada West Foundation (an Alberta think-tank), a subdirector of PEMEX (a Mexican oil company) and the president of the Lockheed Martin Corp. (the world's largest military contractor).

Although the conference, organized by the Canadian Council of Chief Executives, examines issues of interest to the public, like North American integration of energy and security, it has been held in secret for the second year in a row, without advance warning and without a press release.

According to the Crag, the spokesperson for the forum, John Larsen, refused to reveal who had paid for the forum or whether or not Rumsfeld was attending. Larsen did talk about the secret nature of the event: "You can imagine that if this was all televised or open to public scrutiny, the nature of the conversations and ultimately what you would be able to do with those conversations and how far you might be able to advance the solutions around it would be different."

Maude Barlow, writing in the Toronto Star, pointed out that, "since Paul Martin, Vicente Fox and George W. Bush signed the Security and Prosperity Partnership in March 2005, discussions on continental integration have gone underground. The media have paid little attention to this far-reaching agreement, thus Canadians are unaware that a dozen working groups are currently 'harmonizing' Canadian and US regulations on everything from food to drugs to the environment and even more contentious issues like foreign policy."

As of Sept. 25, only the Banff Crag and Canyon and the Toronto Star had reported that the conference had occurred at all.

Judges steering Egyptian reform

Mon, 05 Jun 2006 21:31:27 +0000

In an attempt to gain an influence-free judiciary and independent press in Egypt, protesters-- including over 300 judges and hundreds of journalists-- staged three major demonstrations in May.

According to the Gulf Times, "judges threatened not to supervise parliamentary elections [in September] in order to pressure the government into granting them full independence from the executive." The absence of judges supervising the elections would have put the government in danger of violating the Egyptian constitution.

Confrontations between the Egyptian government, judges and the press began surfacing in 2005 with allegations of massive vote fraud and election rigging in previous elections.

Since then, a number of arrests and disciplinary actions-- including withholding of wages and firings-- have allegedly been taken against judges, journalists and protesters.

The protests in May were in response to the prosecution of two senior Egyptian judges and have been met with violence and mass arrests by Egyptian police.

Aljazeera

Gulf Times

BBC

United Nations Development Program

Unions 2, BC Government 1

Thu, 30 Mar 2006 00:06:55 +0000

British Columbia's second largest labour union, the B.C. Government and Services Employees' Union (BCGEU), successfully had their concerns addressed in the province's third major labour dispute since 2004.

The Liberal Government has squared off against workers in Canada's most unionized province repeatedly over the last three years, nearly causing a general strike when it tried to implement legislation to force Hospital Employee Union (HEU) workers, 90 per cent of whom are women, back to work in 2004. After allowing HEU contracts to be "ripped up" by hospitals, the government forced the union to accept a 15 per cent pay cut, an increased work week and weak limits on contracting-out of services. The union that initially defied the back-to-work legislation was hit with a $150,000 fine.

The B.C. Government's second attempt to legislate a large union back to work in 2005 was less successful. The mostly female B.C. Teachers' Federation, led by Jinny Sims, defied back to work legislation as well, resulting in the largest fine for a union in Canadian history: $500,000. The government, however, was forced to accept an arbitrated settlement, including $60 million to balance teachers' salaries, cut class sizes and money to deal with special needs students.

This month, the BCGEU avoided a strike that many had predicted when the B.C. Government agreed to "wage increases of 10 per cent over four years, a signing bonus and better job security," according to the CBC.

Other disputes may be on the horizon, however. According to General Strike News, March 31 is the day contracts expire for many unions-- including B.C.'s largest union, CUPE-- and the year-long agreements reached with the HEU and the B.C. Teachers' Federation will come to an end.

Geordie Gwalgen Dent

» CBC: http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2005/10/23/teachers-sunday051023.html

» General Strike News

» CBC: BCGEU reaches 4-year contract deal

» CBC: Sellout in BC; Workers Remain Defiant

» CBC: BCGEU strike threat looms

West Papua still struggling for independence

Fri, 17 Mar 2006 15:48:17 +0000

The Australian government has moved 43 West Papua refugees to refugee processing on Christmas Island, according to SBS News.

The island made headlines in 2001 when the Australian government moved 420 asylum seekers from Afghanistan and Sri Lanka to Christmas Island and refused to allow them to apply for refugee status.

The asylum seekers claim to have left Indonesia's West Papua province because of government violence. According to an article written by journalist John Pilger, 10% of West Papua's population has been killed since Indonesia began its occupation of the province in 1949.

West Papua, known in Indonesia as Irian Jaya, only comprises 1% of the population of Indonesia, but with 21% of the land mass, it is home to a wealth of natural resources, including gold, copper, nickel, wood and oil. West Papua is home to the "world's largest gold reserve and third-largest copper deposit," according to Pilger. Life expectancy and government provisions, however, are lower than in the rest of Indonesia, and infant mortality is higher.

In January, four teenagers on their way to school were killed by the Indonesian military, according to activists stationed in West Papua. One of the teenagers was a close relative of members of the 43 refugees currently being held on Christmas Island. Nick Chesterfield from the Australia-West Papua National Authority suggested that the killings were in retaliation to the refugees leaving Indonesia.

Geordie Gwalgen Dent

Move over Hollywood, African film industry booming

Thu, 09 Mar 2006 18:03:29 +0000

The African film industry received another boost during the Academy Awards this year with the South African film Tsotsi taking home the best foreign language film award. Although the film was not the first academy award for South Africa, it comes at a time when African-made films are a booming domestic and international industry.

In the last five years, Nigeria, Africa's most populous country, has been churning out between 600 and 2,000 films a year, becoming the third-largest film industry behind the US and India. "Nollywood" has become a multi-million dollar industry both in Africa and in the US, which has almost a million African-born citizens.

Most of the Nollywood films are extremely low budget, costing less than $15,000 US and usually shot with one digital camera over a two-week period. This, however, hasn't hindered their popularity in Africa. Nigerian actors from low-budget pulp films have become household names in Ghana and Zambia, while actors' guilds have seen a huge increase in membership.

Geordie Gwalgen Dent

New York Times

Washington Post

allAfrica.com

World Bank gets reality check

Wed, 01 Mar 2006 00:34:24 +0000

The World Bank has recently released a report on poverty in Latin America arguing for a reversal of many of the market reform policies known as "The Washington Consensus." The Bank has been supporting these policies for more than 15 years, reports The Washington Post

Under The Washington Consensus, countries were offered loans from the IMF and World Bank if they deregulated industries, privatized corporations and chose to focus on balanced budgets and inflation control over state welfare and reducing unemployment. The report entitled "Poverty Reduction and Growth: Virtuous and Vicious Circle" argues that the World Bank should be focusing on reducing income inequality and highlights the importance of an increased role of the state.

Canada's Phantom Menace In Afghanistan

Wed, 01 Mar 2006 00:01:14 +0000

Who is receiving Canada's "Phantom Aid?"

How much of Canada's funding in Afghanistan is going to clean water and how much to the military? photo: CIDA

Afghanistan became Canada's largest recipient of foreign aid in 2002, but critics say that this money may be aiding Canada more than Afghanistan. According to the Canadian International Development Agency's (CIDA) website, Canada has given $100 million to Afghanistan since March 2005, up from $10 million in 2001. In an interview with CBC in February, senior CIDA official Bob Johnson predicted that between 2001 and 2009, Canada will spend $616 million in Afghanistan. Recent claims by a former minister in Afghanistan, however, have called into question the effectiveness of that aid. Ramazan Bashardost, a former planning minister, said that the billions of dollars Afghanistan has received in aid from donor countries, including Canada, has not resulted in "the least improvement" in Afghani people's lives. Responding to questions about Canadian aid in Afghanistan, New-Democratic Party's (NDP) Foreign Policy critic Alexa McDonough said that it is difficult to determine how much of the aid sent to Afghanistan is going to development assistance (education, transport infrastructure, health clinics) and how much is going to indirect military assistance. A January op/ed piece from mediamonitors.net pegged current direct Canadian military costs in Afghanistan at $600 million a year. How is it that a Member of Parliament and foreign affairs critic on the foreign affairs committee does not know how millions of Canadian dollars are being used? "All of this is happening in the never-never land of no committees in the PMO [Prime Minister's Office]," said McDonough, referring to the government's lack of transparency.

A 2005 report by Action Aid suggests that even the aid that is earmarked for beneficial infrastructure may not be reaching its nominal destination. Action Aid found that many countries are donating "phantom aid": aid that does not help the people it is intended for in the donor country. Phantom aid includes spending on overpriced technical assistance, aid tied to spending in the donor country, double-counted debt relief, and other aid that never materializes for poor countries.

Canada's habit of tying aid to spending in Canada, effectively transforming aid into subsidies for Canadian corporations, has given us "a black eye in the international community" said McDonough.

A September 2005 article in Reuters reported that during last year's famine in Niger, 90% of the food money given by Canada had to be spent on food from Canada. A report by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) found that this kind of policy can result in food taking four to five months longer to arrive and, when it does, can drive down prices for local farmers if the famine has already passed.

Most OECD countries, including Canada, signed onto the UN's 1070 mandate to have overseas aid reach 0.7% of Gross National Income (GNI); however, very few, save Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Luxemburg, have managed to come even close to that goal. In 2003 Canada donated 0.22% of its GNI to aid but spent 1.1% of its GNI on the military. In addition, research by Action Aid shows that when phantom aid is taken into account, the percentage of real aid given is even lower.

Phantom aid accounts for over half of Canada's aid spending. 17% of Canadian phantom aid is spent on technical assistance that could be spent in the donor country and therefore cost less, be more effective and better coordinated. In addition, the Action Aid report states that 47% of Canadian phantom aid is tied to spending in Canada.

McDonough hopes that the new Conservative government will improve Canada's reputation in aid spending. She points out that in February 2005, all of the then opposition parties, including the Conservatives, committed to an increase in aid and a restructuring of how aid is used. In a recent letter to Prime Minister Harper, NDP Leader Jack Layton reminded Conservatives of their election promise to increase aid by over $400 million over the next five years. This would bring Canada's aid up to 0.42% of its GNI by 2010.

When asked if she felt the Prime Minister would rescind on these commitments McDonough responded, "You don't speculate on the odds of whether or not [the Prime Minister] will live up to [his commitments], you use every tool you can to push them through."

After last year's famines in Niger and Mauritania, the Canadian government changed its aid policy, requiring 50% of food aid be purchased from Canada, down from 90%. This may be a sign that Canada's aid programs may be on the verge of reducing other tied aid, which is good news for countries like Afghanistan, which is scheduled to receive hundreds of millions of aid dollars from Canada over the next four years.

Geordie Gwalgen Dent investigates where Canada's aid money goes and considers what that might mean for Afghanistan.

Sweden to abandon oil and nuclear power

Tue, 14 Feb 2006 17:29:49 +0000

Sweden is attempting to become the world's first oil-free country by 2020, without the use of nuclear power. According to the Swedish government, "Energy policy should create the conditions for efficient and sustainable energy use and a cost-effective Swedish energy supply which has minimum negative impact on health, the environment and the climate. It should also facilitate the transition to an ecologically sustainable society."

Currently 45 per cent of Swedish electricity comes from nuclear power while 8 per cent comes from fossil fuels. In the last two years, however, Sweden has stopped importing electricity and has increased its production of hydroelectric power to compensate. A 1980 referendum called for the phasing out of nuclear power, allowing operating plants to operate only until the end of their technical life (assumed to be 25 years).

According to the Guardian "The Swedish government is working with carmakers Saab and Volvo to develop cars and lorries that burn ethanol and other biofuels." Public and private industries are being given grants to convert to other energy sources.

Sweden has decided to convert to renewable energy sources to prevent the problems of climate change and avoid the predicted high oil prices --problems similar to those Sweden faced in the 1970's. Brazil and Iceland have also developed plans to shift 80 to 100 per cent of the fuel used by their transport vehicles to renewable energy sources in the near future.

Geordie Gwalgen Dent

African AIDS education may be working in Zimbabwe

Wed, 08 Feb 2006 23:23:36 +0000

A recently published census conducted in Zimbabwe has shown a 50% drop in prevalence of HIV in some groups. The study, conducted by researchers from London and Zimbabwe between 1997 and 2003, focused on nearly 10 000 people and found that a reduction of sexual partners, a delay on first-time sexual encounters and an increase in the use of condoms, has produced an overall decline in HIV.

Women, aged 15 to 24 saw a 49% reduction in HIV prevalence, while men aged 17 to 29 saw a 23% drop. Although Zimbabwe does not have the AIDS prevention resources or funds compared to some of its neighbors such as Zambia, the country has joined Uganda in being one of the only 2 Sub-Sahara countries to see a significant decline in their the prevalence of HIV.

The decrease has been attributed to education programs launched in the 1990's which focused on a variety of behaviors which reduce the risk of HIV transmission such as monogamy, abstenance and using condoms. Canadian support to fight against AIDS in Africa has mostly focused on he use of anti-retroviral drugs but high costs have meant that only 5% of those in Zimbabwe in need of these drugs are receiving them.

Of global HIV infections, 70% of them are in Africa and 80% of all AIDS-related deaths are in Africa as well. Some countries such as Botswana, Lesotho and Zimbabwe have infection rates of over 30% of the population.

health-e.org.za

United Nations