Montreal

The Dominion Newspaper Cooperative is looking for interns!

Are you:

• passionate about writing, editing and the news?
• inspired by social justice and grassroots organizing?
• looking for a different experience from corporate news organisatons?
• looking for experience with a monthly national publication and news website?

The Dominion Newspaper Cooperative – http://dominionpaper.ca & http://mediacoop.ca – is a national web & print news outlet that aims to provide accurate, critical coverage that is accountable to its readers and the subjects it tackles. Canada's first national media cooperative, we have local coops in Halifax, Vancouver and Toronto.

Interns with the Cooperative will have a chance to gain experience in all aspects of a print and online news outlet, including editing & writing, blogging, participating in editorial meetings, layout & design, and fundraising & circulation. Specific tasks will be worked out with interns based on interests and actual staffing needs.

To apply, please send us a short email (max. 300 words) explaining why you would like to intern at the Dominion Newspaper Cooperative by December 18th 2009. Internships will begin in early January 2009 in our new office located in Montreal, QC.

While we are currently unable to pay interns, we are willing to structure the internships to meet course-credit needs and make sure the experience is enriching and fun. Internships run a minimum of 3 months.

Please note: Interns must be located in Montreal for the duration of their internship.

Send your emails to info@mediacoop.ca

Public Works and Government Services Canada has awarded a $25,000 contract to a BC firm in return for a controversial service -- the design of urban camouflage specifically suited to Toronto, Montréal and Vancouver.

The contract requirements are as follows:

The Department of National Defence, Defence Research and
Development Canada - Suffield, (DRDC-S), AB, has a requirement to develop a Canadian Urban Environment Pattern (CUEPAT) based on the unique requirements of Canada's three major metropolitan areas, Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal. The current CBR individual protective equipment (IPE) used by the Canadian military is provided in a woodland or desert camouflage. A camouflage suited to the Canadian urban environment is required when the milatary (sic) operates in urban terrain.

Hyperstealth Biotechnology Corp, pride of Maple Ridge, BC, was the only firm invited to bid on the contract. The company has designed camouflage patterns for countries including Israel, Iraq and Malaysia.

A quarter million dollars aimed at groups who are victims of hate crimes will flow to ten Jewish groups in Montréal, according to a recent announcement by the federal government.

The funding, which comes from the Ministry of Public Safety, "helps defray the costs of security infrastructure enhancements at not-for-profit community centres, provincially recognized educational institutions, and places of worship linked to a community with a demonstrated history of being victimized by hate-motivated crime."

Funds can be used for:

-security assessments (not to exceed 25% of total project costs)

-security equipment and hardware, such as alarm systems, closed-circuit televisions, digital video recorders, fences, gates, lighting, intercom systems;

-minor construction costs related to the project, such as contractor fees, labour, equipment rental, installation fees; and

-training costs directly related to the new security infrastructure

Ten Jewish organizations in Montréal will split the disbursement of $223,003.

The announcement brings to mind Yves Engler's recent piece, Silencing the Critics. He states:

Media makers in Montréal, take note... The first session of the Alternative Media Open House launched successfully last night at Nelson Mandela Park.

There are two more sessions, one on Friday and the next on Sunday.

"We are hoping to make connections with people in the communities we are doing the open houses in and to recruit a few new volunteers who may not have otherwise known these opportunities were open to them," says Courtney Kirkby, a radio producer at CKUT who's helping to organize the events.

The events offer free food, and are really about people getting to know each other.

"This is a unique chance to actually meet a wide range of media-makers in the city and find out what goes into a story and how independent, alternative journalism and news collectives can work," says Kirkby.

Event details are below... Enjoy!

--français ci-dessous--

Interested in community journalism?

CKUT 90.3FM & the Dominion present ALTERNATIVE MEDIA OPEN HOUSE in Côte-des-Neiges, Point St. Charles and the Plateau
***********************************************************
LOCATION: Saint Columba House
(2365, Grand Trunk @ rue Ropery)
TIME: 3:30pm-7:00pm
DATE: FRIDAY, July 24th
*Free food provided by Midnight Kitchen
***********************************************************
LOCATION: Maison de l'Amitié
(120 avenue Duluth Est, @ ave. Coloniale)
TIME: 1:30pm-4:00pm
DATE: SUNDAY, July 26th
***********************************************************

A chance to meet alternative, independent journalist, producers and editors. Find out how to get involved and how to gain media-making skills.

Contact: Courtney Kirkby, news@ckut.ca or 514.448.4041x6788

++

Le journalisme communautaire vous interesses?

Quick roundup of mainstream news coverage: The Montreal Gazette on the squat and on the police raid, CTV on the evictions, backgrounder in The Hour.

--Reposting ASC Press Release--

4:45 pm, May 30th, 2009 - for immediate release. Riot squads brutally evicted the people occupying a building at the corner of St-Patrick and Atwater this afternoon. Yesterday night, about a hundred people took this building in order to set up the Autonomous social center in a permanent space. At the present time, everyone who was inside has managed to exit the building and to join the support demonstration. The demo, a few hundred people strong, has now taken to the streets.

Towards 3 pm, the police promised they would talk to the Social center's "diplomats" before intervening. At the set meeting time, the police rushed towards the fence that surrounds the building's backyard instead. At the time, a few dozens of people, including a few families with children, were enjoying the sun and playing music, talking and eating. The police broke the fence's locker and rushed towards the building's entrance gate while reading the first eviction notice received by the squatters.

For immediate and widespread distribution:

Québec – Canada – Americas

mining, human rights and citizens’ rights

an open-pit mine on the mont-royal?

see : www.royalor.com

citizens’-action

may 11 2009

Mont-Royal 1 :30 -2 :30

(at the gazebo at Duluth & Parc)

Representatives of different communities affected by Canadian open-pit mining projects will stake a claim on the mineral rights of the Mont-Royal. Their aim is to symbolically demonstrate the harms and prejudices faced by their communities whether in Québec, elsewhere in Canada , in Mexico , in Honduras , in Chile or in Papua New-Guinea. The claim will be duly filed with the Ministère des Ressources naturelles du Québec.

Come one, come all to call for :

1. a reform of mining laws

2. the legal accountability of canadian companies operating abroad

3. a public debate free of « slapp » suits
________

In collaboration with Coalition québécoise sur les impacts socio-environnementaux des transnationales en Amérique Latine and many other organizations. For more information : Lazar Konforti 514.827.7486 lazar.konforti@gmail.com, Daviken Studnicki-Gizbert 514.398.4251 daviken.studnicki-gizbert@mcgill.ca. An event organized in conjunction with the Cadre des activités parallèles du 5e Congrès mondial d’éducation relative à l’environnement (www.5weec.uqam.ca), May 10 - 15 Palais des Congrès Montréal.

Election signs get defaced and destroyed at an unparalleled rate in Montreal... but this is the first time I've heard of city officials taking part.

The Communist Party had some election signs up, with slogans like "Canada out of Afghanistan" and "End Canadian Support for Israeli Apartheid". Apparently, Westmount officials took them down.

If this is true, then Westmount has really stepped in it. Defacing or removing election signs is a criminal offense.

--

The press release:

Westmount on warpath against Communist candidate’s election posters

On September 28 & 29 2008, Westmount Public Security removed election posters of Communist Party of Canada candidate BILL SLOAN from public poles in the riding of WESTMOUNT-VILLE-MARIE.

The recently posted signs, duly Authorized by the registered agent of the Party, put forward his positions on Canadian policy concerning Afghanistan and Israel. In one case, "CANADA OUT OF AFGHANISTAN" and the other, "END CANADIAN SUPPORT TO APARTHEID ISRAEL".

The signs were removed by the Westmount administration without giving either the candidate or the Party notice, either before or after the removal. Bill Sloan learned of the City’s actions when the Westmount Independent published a note in its October 7-8, 2008 issue, mentioning that "Offensive" posters had been taken down by Westmont public security

" I called their public security on October 9 and spoke to the Director, Mr. Richard Blondin. He confirmed that his service had indeed removed my posters on September 28 and 29, but did not tell me what they had done with them. He declined to explain for what reasons or under what authority they had acted."

The anti-terrorist battle inside Canada's borders
by David Parker
July 17th, 2008.

HALIFAX - In Canada since 9/11, the domestic climate of rising national security fears, fanned by a sensationalist media trumpeting the “War on Terror”, has led the government to justify practices which undermine long-standing principles of human rights.

In December 2001, Canada passed the Anti-Terrorist Act (ATA) to deal with threats to national security. The ATA makes changes to the criminal code that “aim to disable and dismantle the activities of terrorist groups and those who support them”. It destroys civil liberties and gives police vast new powers, eroding due process and privacy. [1]

According to Gary Kinsman, professor at Laurentian University, the concept of ‘national security’ is doubly problematic. Nation refers here to groups who fit the image of the Canadian state - white heterosexual males, construed as ‘safe’, while racialized communities are excluded as ‘outsiders’ and enemies of the state. [2] Despite purported concern with security, state initiatives have only endangered non-citizens and criminalized legitimate social protest.

The arrest of 21 South Asian Muslim men for allegedly plotting to blow up a nuclear reactor in 2003 (known as Project Thread) garnered wide media attention. All were eventually deported on minor immigration charges, not one was charged with a terrorist offence [3]. They were detained up to 5 months, interrogated about their faith and threatened with deportation to Guantanamo Bay, infamous torture camp of the United States, where Omar Khadr, youngest detainee and Canadian citizen, remains after 6 years, subjected to torture methods detailed in leaked FBI files [4].