Ontario

The Liberal party, currently the confused chameleon of the Canadian political scene, is attempting to brand itself as an ardent critic of the secretive Security and Prosperity Partnership.

[Received via email]

by Paula LaPierre

In Response to “Our natives must evolve into an economic force in Canada”, The Ottawa Citizen, published: Friday, July 06, 2007, by Fred Maroun of Ottawa, Re: “Turning guilt into billions of dollars”, July 1, and “We can't keep native communities on life-support forever”, June 29.

The editor at the Owen Sound Sun Times wrote an amazingly frank editorial (for a CanWest-owned paper), entitled "Indian Act is racist at heart and should be abolished". His opening line: "Canada is a an apartheid state."

More:

Most reserves (the exceptions are communities that have negotiated self-government) still operate under the rule of the Indian Act, first authored in 1876 and "updated" several times since then.

Today was an international day of action against Toronto's Barrick Gold, said to be the largest gold mining company in the world. Here's one activist with a concise summary:

...political parties would be buying ads in Quebec right about now, pointing out that Stephen Harper is a Leafs fan.

The band that "would seem to venerate Rush, Neil Young and Gordon Lightfoot in equal measure" takes the stage tonight at the Horseshoe and then at Massey Hall tomorrow to wrap up 17 years of relentlessly quirky, beautiful rock and roll.

The Star has a little retrospective.

He's bang-on, really. I've had some near-religious experiences at Rheostatics live shows, cherish a number of their songs ("Aliens (Christmas 1998)" is a fave) and have always found the lads – Dave Bidini, Martin Tielli, Tim Vesely and Michael Phillip Wojewoda, as well as past drummers Dave Clark and Don Kerr – a tremendous bunch of guys, but I'm by no means an aficionado because, to be honest, sometimes I find their more freewheeling antics quite impenetrable.

Today's Ottawa Citizen cover story about JTF2 contains a few nuggets of information:

The government wants the country's special forces units to be able to work more closely with similar units in the United States when reacting to incidents that potentially threaten North America. Canada's special forces will also play more of a role in training foreign militaries.

Emphasis added. JTF2's operations are completely secret, however, so there's no way of knowing who they're training, unless the government deigns to reveal it.

Another interesting interview on the Autonomy & Solidarity website.

This is a very interesting interview done by CBC with Barbara McDougall who is representing the Canadian government at the negotiating table. She says some quite positive things about Six Nations and also critiques the people in Caledonia who are stirring up trouble...

I just came across some great interviews with people from Six Nations. I found Janie Jamison's words particularly kick-ass.

Mahmoud Jaballah, Mohammad Mahjoub, and Hassan Almrei have sent an open letter to Canadians about their indefinite detainment.

There is a mounting campaign to "Close Guantanamo North", a reference to the "prison within a prison" at the Millhaven Institution. It's where the Canadian government is indefinitely detaining non-citizens under "security certificates", an "anti-terror" provision which allows the government to suspend the civil liberties of foreign nationals and hold them without granting access to evidence against them, if it exists.