The Dominion - Business

The CETAstration of Canadian Municipalities

Miles — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 14:41:23 +0000

Pending trade agreement with EU only benefits big business

CHARLOTTETOWN—As Canada negotiates its furthest reaching free trade agreement to date, cities and towns across the country are sounding warning bells that it could change local governance as we know it.

The Canadian government is negotiating a Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) with the European Union. The accord goes far beyond the reach of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), offering unrestricted trade in goods, services and investments between the 27 EU nations and all levels of Canadian government.

“The first thing to realize is that it [CETA] involves far more than trade,” says Scott Sinclair, Senior Research Fellow with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA). He warns of the potential for the deal to greatly affect municipalities’ ability to govern.

The agreement has become known as the “next-generation” deal because of the degree to which it includes all aspects of trade, covering intellectual property, standards and regulations, settlement dispute resolutions, services, investments and government procurement.

The biggest business leaders in Canada and Europe have been the driving force behind the negotiations. They stand to profit, particularly through the agreement's offer of sub-national procurement contracts, which is creating worry and opposition within municipalities.

Municipal-level governments traditionally use procurement contracts to benefit the local economy, opening bids, or a tender contracts, that target local businesses. These local contracts create jobs and opportunities in the region, and and can promote certain kinds of development policies.

But under CETA, non-federal contracts, formerly exempted from free trade agreements, will soon be open to any and all competition, and not limited to local businesses or groups.

Example: the City of Charlottetown, PEI, recently announced an $18 million combined sewer contract that will be opened up to local Maritime engineering, construction and water treatment companies.

For a major project such as this, Charlottetown might look to local contractors for the construction services in order to create jobs in the community. The project may also use the tenders to support environmental or other development initiatives.

However if CETA becomes law, Charlottetown would lose its authority to choose to hire locally and to choose to which parties to grant the procurement contract.

The EU is pushing for a “non-discrimination” clause within the CETA agreement that would mean the procurement terms would apply to all levels of government: when any government calls a bid, it must be open to foreign investors as well as local or national ones.

Minimum limits (or “thresholds”) are in place to distinguish projects and services that are worthwhile to open to foreign investors, which allow smaller contracts to remain outside the purview of the CETA. These limits have been criticized as being too low; they are modelled off of World Trade Organization figures and are set at $340,600 for goods and services and $8.5 million for construction projects.

Charlottetown city councillor Cecil Villard admitted that while the thresholds pose little to no threat for a municipality the size of his city, larger municipalities have much to lose. “My first reaction was that I would be more concerned about the level of thresholds if I were a big city. Toronto’s, Vancouver’s, and Montreal’s are sure to feel the impact,” Villard told The Dominion in an interview.

In fact, municipalities have been calling for a complete exemption from the agreement. The City of Toronto passed a resolution on March 6 demanding its exemption from CETA. And Toronto is not alone: Montreal, Hamilton, Burnaby, Prince Albert and Kingston have all passed resolutions to safeguard their rights to local governance.

The Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) has submitted seven principles to International Trade Minister Ed Fast and the negotiating team. The principles lay out the protections it would like to see in CETA. The Council of Canadians and the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) have also launched a major national campaign to educate and empower the public on the potential consequences of CETA.

As pointed out in a recent NDP report, CETA “deprives provincial and municipal governments of crucial economic levers, particularly during economic downturns, to use government purchasing to stimulate the economy and encourage local spinoffs.”

CETA fails to recognize the autonomy of municipalities and is solely playing to the interests of big businesses, say its critics. “It's a bill of rights for corporations,” according to Leo Broderick, Vice Chair of the Council of Canadians.

Inspired by the concept of social justice, Chera-Lee advocates for human and environmental rights through community and legal initiatives from Charlottetown.

CETA versus Canadian Municipalities

Plan Nord Under the Microscope

dawn — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 09:48:35 +0000

Public involvement in diamond venture ends once gems are found

MONTREAL—Since the mid 1990s, every man, woman and child living in Quebec has donated the equivalent of $20 towards exploration costs for the province's first diamond mine project. But when a mine was finally discovered and the promised rewards for years of the province's investment began to be realized, the Quebec government sold the project to a private company. Not only that, but Quebeckers can expect to shell out even more as the now privately owned mine moves towards production.

According to documents obtained by The Dominion, all that’s left for the public after they invested over $157 million in the Renard Diamond Project is a 37 per cent stake in a private company, and token public representation on the company’s board of directors.

The diamond mine is today being hailed as a model operation by the Quebec government. But a deeper look into what this model would mean for Quebeckers casts a long shadow over the government’s economic policies.

For the last seven years, the sun has been shining over Quebec’s mining sector. Between 2009 and 2010, total mining investments in Quebec increased by almost 43 per cent, totaling $2.9 billion. Over the past six months, things have gotten so hot that the skin has started to peel off the hands of boardroom executives, geologists and international investors. The key moment came in May 2011 when Quebec Premier Jean Charest announced his now-famous legacy project, the Plan Nord.

The good times in the mining industry could last for the next 25 years, if Charest is to have his way. “The Plan Nord will lead to over $80 billion in investments... and create or consolidate, on average, 20,000 jobs a year,” reads the Plan Nord website. The idea behind the plan is to "stimulate" the energy, mineral resources, forest and wildlife sectors, as well as those of tourism and "bio-food" production.

The Renard Diamond Project is one of 11 mega-mining projects proposed as part of the Plan Nord. Unlike most of the other mining projects, the $675 million Renard project is the only mine venture whose development involved a serious public partnership approach—the rest of the projects are private sector initiatives.

The Renard Diamond Project got its start in 1996 in the Nord-du-Quebec region, about 600 kilometres north of the great Lac-St-Jean, as a 50-50 joint-venture between Diaquem—a wholly-owned subsidiary of crown corporation Quebec Society for Mining Exploration (SOQUEM)—and Ashton Mining of Canada Inc—a wholly-owned subsidiary of Rio Tinto plc.

Founded in 1965, SOQUEM is a holdover from the “maitres chez nous” (masters in our own house) economic doctrine which saw the creation of many Quebec-owned corporations. At one point, SOQUEM was an exploration powerhouse, employing more than 1,500 people and at the forefront of geologic mapping.

After 45 years in the business, SOQUEM’s mandate has shrunk to supporting specific projects only. In the first quarter of 2011, SOQUEM—now a 50-employee entity—was swallowed up by the mammoth Investissement Quebec (IQ), the Quebec government's investment arm.

Fifteen years down the risky road of exploration, the Renard Diamond Project promoters discovered a field of kimberlite intrusions—volcanic rock known to contain diamonds—with a mineral reserve of 18 million carats. Exploration risks stem from the fact that anomalistic (diamond containing) geological formations are hard to find, and expensive to analyze.

Ashton Mining was bought out and the Renard Project is now under the Stornoway Diamond Corporation flag. “Excluding potential deposits, we evaluate the life duration of the project at at least 25 years,” Ghislain Poirier, Vice President Public Affairs at Stornoway told a local newspaper last winter. The plan for the mine includes two 100-meter-deep open pit mines, one 600-meter-deep open pit mine and several underground mines. The Renard mine would be Quebec’s first diamond mine.

Stornoway released its conclusive feasibility study in November 2011. According to the company, the mine will begin commercial production by 2016. Mine permits, community hearings and negotiations with the Cree Nation and other local communities have yet to be completed.

Public money for a private mine

Beyond the celebratory press releases, the course of events in the boardrooms and corporate headquarters linked to the deal has been anything but usual. In December 2010, a sudden and unexpected transaction occurred. Just as the public finally stood to make a return on the $57 million it invested in exploration, IQ sold its stake in the Renard project to Stornoway.

The transaction left IQ with a minority share of Stornoway, and a meager two per cent revenue royalty on net smelter returns on future production. Three senior IQ administrators joined Stornoway’s 11-member board. IQ also agreed to provide Stornoway with an additional $100 million to fund mine construction.

“They're just being nice to the company,” said MiningWatch Canada’s Jamie Kneen.

IQ spokesperson Chantal Corbeil refused to comment on the rationale behind this divestment.

“They are not allowed to reveal what's being discussed on the board, not even to Cabinet,” said Kneen of the three IQ board members now serving Stornoway. “The public is not represented in this mining project,” he said.

Before the Renard mines produce a single diamond, the people of Quebec have already spent $157 million, and been left without representation that will guarantee a return on their investments in the actual mine development. But according to IQ’s Corbeil, the good news is that IQ owns 37 per cent of Stornoway, and if the company is successful, the government will cash in royalties and taxes. Royalties of two per cent on net returns amount to very little. Had the royalty been applied to both net returns and extracted value, it could have amounted to a more significant sum.

Without diving too deep into economic detail, it's worth noting that 100 per cent of exploration costs are tax deductible in Quebec, and a significant portion of them are reimbursable. In other words, beyond the $157 million already committed, additional fiscal incentives are handed to Stornoway through tax credits and exploration reimbursements.

Diamonds will come out of the ground at the Renard mine site until the company signs an agreement with the Cree of the Otish region. Stornoway is currently negotiating an Impact and Benefits Agreement (IBA) with the Cree Nation of Mistissini and the Grand Council of the Crees.

“The Cree Nation has adopted a mining policy,” said Cree negotiator Abel Bosum. “This policy makes clear what our conditions are for supporting a mining project on Cree land. It also sets out who needs to be part of negotiations to make a mining project work: The Cree Nation, the local Cree community and/or the Cree users of the land.”

In addition, Route 167 will need to be extended 243 kilometers, from the town of Mistissini to the Otish Mountains. Finally, a 165-kilometre Hydro-Quebec transmission line will also have to be built, connecting the Nikamo sub-station to the future Renard sub-station.

Premier Charest has already made an infrastructure announcement through which Plan Nord is to pump $287.6 million into Route 167. Stornoway is expected to put $44 million into the pavement effort.

Proponents of this infrastructure spending argue that these expenses will also benefit a conservation megaproject, carried out by the Ministry of Sustainable Development, Environment and Parks (MDDEP) in collaboration with the Mistissini Cree Nation, which plans to establish the 11,000 square kilometre Albanel-Temiscamie-Otish National Park, at the end of Route 167.

This major northern infrastructure spending bumps public expenditures to $444.6 million.

Figures for the cost of setting the electricity line to power the Renard project are not yet public, as Hydro-Quebec is still in the process of completing its pre-project study. Details of preferential electricity rates—a standard Hydro-Quebec practice—are not available yet either. It is expected, as announced in the Plan Nord, that Hydro-Quebec will pay the bill. The exact corridor and final design of the 165-kilometre line, should be ready by the fall of 2012, as confirmed on the phone by Richard Simard, manager of community relations at Hydro-Quebec.

“I can't tell you the cost, I don't have the cost,” the Hydro-Quebec manager told The Dominion, when pressed for an estimate of total expenditures. “But one thing's for sure,” Simard said.

“As far as I can remember, this is the first time that we build such a long line.”

Old Rules for a New Game

The Renard mine site is just one project encompassed by the ambitious Plan Nord, which covers a territory of 1.2 million square kilometers, encompassing crown, Cree, Innu, Inuit and Naskapi lands.

“The Cree support the Plan Nord for now,” said Abel Bosum. But even the largest official Cree organization is not giving the government a blank check on Plan Nord.

“We support it, [on] the condition that we can conclude a reasonable and fair settlement on governance issues, that the Cree vision of the Plan Nord in different sectors—even beyond mining—be taken into account and that we participate in its planning and development in the respect of the Cree way of life,” Bosum told The Dominion by phone. Bosum invoked section 22 of the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement to underline the fact that his nation, like other northern First Nations, has the right to a review process on major projects, and expects proper consultation.

The scope of Plan Nord and its potential impacts on rural and Indigenous communities is mind-boggling, as is the money to be made: its release is timed with growing demand and higher prices for precious metals. What may come as a surprise, however, is that the laws and regulations that will guide mining activities under Plan Nord are more than 140 years old.

The Mining Act of Quebec, first minted in 1880—and almost untouched since—prioritizes mining activity over other types of land use.

“The law is wrong because it has priority over many other laws on land development,” said Ugo Lapointe of the Coalition for Better Mining in Quebec. “What we denounce are the great powers that are given to mining corporations, compared to the power of municipalities, First Nations and citizens."

Quebec’s mining law is currently under review. A new Quebec-wide standard known as Bill 14 is about to be adopted though it satisfies neither opposition parties nor civil society groups.

If the rules of the game seem old fashioned, consider the royalty regime. The government recently increased the royalty rate from 12 per cent to 16 per cent of net profit on a mine-by-mine basis: an improvement, it may seem, but only on the surface, since net profits are lowered with accounting tricks, as the Auditor General of Quebec revealed in 2009.

Building an economic strategy as big as Plan Nord around antiquated rules of the game has led some to speculate that the Quebec government is stuck in a colonial model of development.

“Mining in 2011 continues to be a colonial development, like in 1870,” said Martine Ouellet, Parti Quebecois spokesperson and Official Opposition critic on mining and shale gas. “It's pitiful to watch the Liberal Party [of Quebec] perpetuate this colonial development to the advantage of foreign multinationals, instead of to the benefit of the Quebecois.”

The mass transfer of funds from public to private hands isn’t unique to the Renard Diamond Project. Plan Nord's first action, which covers the years from 2011 to 2016, proposes making $2.1 billion in investments. Of the total, $500 million will be taken from the pockets of IQ and dumped into private sector projects.

The next months will reveal how much more money will be pumped into the Renard Diamond Project, further calling into question the economic strategies behind Plan Nord.

Frederic Dubois is a reporter and interactive documentary maker. Questions? Comments? Drop us a line: info@mediacoop.ca.

Renard Project

Renard Project Map

Spin Cycles for Social Change

Tim McSorley — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 10:05:09 +0000

Montreal laundromat co-op hopes to build a stronger neighbourhood

MONTREAL—A dryer whirs, and a young mother folds her family's laundry. Another woman enters with two school-aged kids, who stand by as she loads the washing machine. Anyone passing by might assume it's just a clean, bright laundromat in a poor Montreal neighbourhood. But for Mohammad Hassan, it's bursting with potential for social change.

The Jobra Solidarity Co-operative is a laundromat with an anti-poverty mission in the north end of Park Extension, an enclaved Montreal neighbourhood of 1.6 square kilometres with 33,000 residents, mainly immigrants.

A poster on one wall reads: “Co-operative members learn from each other, innovate together, and by increasing their control over their livelihoods, build up the sense of dignity that the experience of poverty destroys.” Beside that hang enlarged photos of microcredit workshops held there last spring, along with photocopies of local press coverage, information on how to become a member, and a mock-up of a big $1,000 cheque awarded to Hassan, Jobra's main founder, for being a community organizer who “walks the talk.”

Hassan and a handful of other volunteers, despite numerous and ongoing challenges, have opened this social enterprise where members become owners, and profits (yet to be seen) will be turned back into resources to serve the local community. Hassan said a laundromat was chosen as a space for Jobra's anti-poverty work because laundromats can run without a manager present, they are recession-proof since people won't easily give up clean clothes, and they generally have a 75 per cent rate of return.

“People who stay at home, especially women, can have a place to come to and meet people, they can have a chance to talk to each other, share their ideas, and challenges of daily life,” said Hassan, describing his vision for Jobra. “They can explore their ambitions.”

Jobra will eventually offer entrepreneurial training and micro-loans, says Hassan, to help people escape cycles of poverty.

Hassan first came to Park Extension in 1983 as a refugee from Bangladesh. Though he rarely refers to his own story, Hassan knows first-hand the difficulties of poverty, finding work, living in cramped housing, trying to integrate and raising a family in those circumstances. He hasn't lived in Park Extension since 1989, but since 2004 he has been committed to anti-poverty organizing in the neighbourhood.

“It's an emotional attachment for me,” Hassan said. “When I came to Canada, I had big hopes and dreams.”

“This is one of the richest countries in the world,” he said, noting Park Extension is the second poorest neighbourhood in Canada. “Why does it have to be like this?”

Since opening in March 2010, the co-operative has just been breaking even. Its programming has been scarce, and locals have yet to access any micro-loans.

“It's in a holding pattern. Nothing is working,” Hassan said. “We don't have staff, that's the main challenge.”

Hassan has struggled since 2005 to establish the co-operative. He and others researched, lobbied various local politicians, wrote proposals and attended meetings. They had trouble finding a space and convincing funding bodies that their project was feasible. Once they found a space, getting proper zoning was a barrier. Jobra was eventually awarded start-up money through various local economic development funds. Altogether, it was awarded more than $140,000 to establish the space.

With the structure and physical location now in place, Hassan said, the challenge now is clear.

“We need to build the place. We need more publicity. We need more community support.”

Situated about one kilometre away from the social services concentrated at the south end of Park Extension, the laundromat has high-quality washers and dryers, and two folding tables. On a shelf sit dozens of flyers for social services, and nearby, a chalkboard for kids.

The semi-basement space also has a back room of about 300 square feet, for which Jobra is seeking proper municipal zoning. People would be able to meet more regularly, notes Hassan, if there was a regular co-ordinator to manage the space.

A few groups have tried to use it as meeting space. Last summer, a local resident was using it to help kids fix their bikes—it became a popular with kids, but was unsustainable. A group of seniors and a religious group have also asked to use the meeting room, but were turned down.

“We don't have the capacity right now,” Hassan said, adding there is an urgent need for meeting space in the north end of Park Extension.

Joanne Penhale is a Montreal-based freelance reporter, features-writer, community organizer and urban gardener.

Jobra co-op

How Ethical are Canada’s Ethical Funds?

Tim McSorley — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 13:37:16 +0000

“Conscientious” investments and the tar sands connection

ROBLIN, MANITOBA—As controversy continues to mount over the environmental impact of the tar sands in northeastern Alberta, so too does the dilemma facing people who have money invested in Ethical Funds.

Ethical Funds (EF), a division of Vancouver-based NEI Investments, is the largest ethical investment mutual fund in Canada and was formed more than 20 years ago. It calls itself a “pioneer and visionary at the forefront of responsible investing." According to their website, Ethical Funds believes that companies with strong financial performance and good environmental, social and governance practices can best mitigate financial risk over the long term. One of EF’s core values, it declares, is that “disadvantaged communities should not bear the brunt of adverse environmental impacts.”

But even though all five of Canada’s major banks lend money to tar sands operators, all five are included in the portfolios of various ethical investment funds in this country. Even Suncor Energy, a major corporation which actually extracts bitumen from the sands, is listed in Ethical Funds. Suncor produces some 329,000 barrels or oil per day from tar sands operations.

Suncor, along with Scotiabank and the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) are ranked among EF’s top ten holdings.

Last spring, the US-based environmental group Rainforest Action Network (RAN), found that tar sands investment by Canadian banks totaled almost $50 billion.

In a letter to RAN, RBC confirmed it was “a financier of oil sands activity, although, at almost $17 billion not currently the largest.”

There is no doubt that the impacts of tar sands extraction are enormous.

People living downstream of the tar sands, in the community of Fort Chipewyan, have been reporting elevated rates of cancer and other illnesses and blaming it on pollution from the tar sands. Details of their ailments have been widely documented, including in a recent special production of CBC's The Nature of Things.

Dr David Schindler, an internationally recognized water expert at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, reports that tar sands development has been contaminating the Athabasca River watershed, to a greater degree than earlier thought.

He warns that the tar sands extraction is elevating levels of poisons in the Athabasca River and its tributaries to the point where they are “likely toxic to fish embryos.”

Alberta-based Pembina Institute says that among the provinces, Alberta was responsible for about 52 per cent of the increase in all greenhouse gas emissions in Canada between 1990 and 2008. Pembina predicts that given the projected growth of the tar sands, their emissions will nearly triple by 2020.

In addition, millions of hectares of boreal forest are being bulldozed to make way for more tar sands extraction. According to data compiled by Greenpeace, forests fallen to make way for the tar sands could eventually amount to an area twice the size of New Brunswick.

So how is this all sitting with those who have invested in Ethical Funds, or are interested in ethical investment in general?

Lindy Clubb of Winnipeg has thought about investing in “ethicals.” But she has too many concerns. “There are poor standards, monitoring and compliance performances in the resource and development sectors so nothing is without risk," she said. "Consumers should be aware of unethical investments and use their money to influence banks and government to have and follow higher standards that protect air, water, soil, wildlife and habitat.”

The Social Investment Organization (SIO) of Canada was set up to promote the practice of socially responsible investment in Canada, and represents financial institutions as well as individual investors. Its executive director, Eugene Ellmen, is more forgiving of the situation than some.

He says those who want no part of the tar sands can ask for “oil sands-free” portfolios. Others willing to invest in that project can still do so while pressing the companies to do better, he added.

Ian Hanington of Vancouver says he owns some ethical funds. He reluctantly accepted an explanation given him by a company representative some time ago: that it would be impossible for a Canadian fund to offer any returns to its investors without having some tar sands investment. “It’s probably sad but true. Maybe Canada really has become ‘a petro state with a petro dollar!’” he said.

Others have decided to divest. “I used to own Ethical Funds—no more! I've lost faith in this outfit,” said Elaine Hughes of Archerwill, Saskatchewan.

Environmental Services Group, is another department within NEI Investments. According to its website, ESG Services provides research and evaluations of companies for managers of "socially responsible investments," including Ethical Funds. But the name Ethical Funds itself might be a bit of a misnomer. In the words of NEI's Vice President for ESG Services Robert Walker, “Note that we do not describe the companies in our funds as ‘ethical.’ This is not our claim.”

Walker says his industry is constantly “pressuring” the companies they invest in to tackle such things as climate change, by preparing and publishing report cards on their performances. He believes companies like RBC are already making progress in this area.

In his defense, Walker might point to a recent policy announcement by RBC. On its website, the bank states, “The new policy is intended to ensure that we gather the appropriate information on relevant environmental and social aspects of our clients' business to evaluate potential impacts on a client's financial position, and to understand how they are preventing or mitigating their impact on environmentally sensitive areas,” explains RBC.

Even the Rainforest Action Network is hailing this as a positive indication that, at least RBC is taking “a step away” from its tar sands involvement. Some were more hesitant in their praise, though. The Carrier Sekani Tribal Council in northern BC, whose population resides along the proposed route for a major oil sands pipeline, said that RBC must follow their policies with action if they don't want their "words to ring hollow."

It’s impossible to know how many conscientious investors might even be aware of the Ethical Funds-oil sands connection, and if they would take action if they had more information.

But the Oil Sands Program Director for The Pembina Institute, Jennifer Grant, says there are choices.

“Some investors may choose to exclude the environmental and economic risks associated with oil sands development from their portfolios. Other investors may use their holdings with oil sands companies to force increased disclosure on impacts and drive improved performance," said Grant. "Both approaches are valuable to address the unresolved impacts of oil sands development."

Larry Powell is an online journalist specializing in the environment. He publishes the blog PathsLessTravelled.com

Ethical Fund paper trail

Sharing Wheels

Moira Peters — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 05:43:38 +0000

Vancouver car sharing co-op’s success spurs private competition

VANCOUVER—I fired up my 1994 Volkswagen Golf. After two weeks of sitting idle, the decrepit car filled my East Vancouver cul-de-sac with thick blue exhaust. At the time—last year—I lived on East 10th Avenue, which is practically a highway for cyclists. I hung my head in shame as I pulled away and some poor biker disappeared, hacking in the toxic plume.

It was time for that horrible car to go.

In British Columbia you can trade in your crappy car for bus passes, bike discounts or a car sharing membership. This is how I discovered the Co-operative Auto Network (CAN). Formed in Vancouver in 1996 as part of a university project, the network has since expanded from a two-car, 16-member operation to one with 240 cars and more than 7,000 members. The network has also seen the rise of Zipcar, a competing car sharing organization that operates under a traditional business model.

Tanya Paz, client relations and development director of CAN, sees a couple of advantages of running car sharing as a co-op instead of as a for-profit enterprise. Besides the availability of seed funding from local credit unions, “people feel like they have more of a sense of ownership,” which motivates members to respect the cars, according to Paz.

In the beginning, 28-year-old Tracey Axelson, CAN’s founder, struggled to have her vision taken seriously—by insurance companies, the city and financiers—as she lacked business experience. . Car sharing organizations already existed in Germany, Switzerland and Montreal, but Paz recalls critics telling the organizers of the fledgling network that on “the West Coast, people will never give up their cars.”

Car sharing works best, according to Paz, in areas where there is a combination of easy, pleasant walking, safe cycling and frequent transit. The costs are worthwhile if somebody doesn’t need to drive every day and only takes short trips. For out-of-town trips, the per-kilometre rate charged by the co-op is often more expensive than renting.

“The car co-op program has taught me that I probably need a car in the future,” said Brandy Trudeau, a former Zipcar member and current CAN member, “because of my mobility issues and the fact that there isn’t a car right outside my door.” Trudeau has arthritis and found Zipcars were not easily accessible in her neighborhood. She is content with her CAN membership for now. “I actually like being able to try different cars,” she said. “The variety of vehicles is kind of fun.”

Currently, CAN’s roaming agreements with other car sharing organizations allow members access to cars in Victoria, San Francisco and Halifax, and Paz says CAN is working on expanding to other cities.

CAN has consulted for other car sharing start-ups around the world, but staff did not expect a private car sharing organization they consulted for to become competition. Zipcar launched about 10 years ago in Cambridge, Massachusetts and has spread to 94 American cities as well as to London, Toronto and Vancouver. Zipcar now has more than 400,000 members.

“Of course we never expected them to go to Toronto or come here,” said Paz. “But I would say that they made us grow smarter, and the amount of money that they spend on advertising has really brought a lot of members to us.”

CAN was already established in Vancouver when Zipcar arrived, so Zipcar employed a different growth strategy in the West Coast city. Paz is critical. “They don’t grow in a very sustainable manner and some of their business decisions don’t make much sense to me,” she said. Zipcar launched its Vancouver operation in 2007 with 100 cars and the expectation of expansion, but wound up culling the fleet to 80.

Whether co-operative or private, car sharing networks can boast that they help reduce carbon emissions—over three quarters of a ton per household per year, according to a June, 2010 study by the Mineta Institute at the San Jose State University.

The study acknowledges that at an individual level, emissions can increase. “There are times when it’s really nice to have a car and previously I would just suck it up or take a cab,” said Trudeau. “Now I find that instead I’m booking a car for a day and going and doing all the things I want to do. I find that I’m spending a little bit more money.”

Running a co-operative can be a challenge because it is subject to the whims of its ever-changing democratically elected board of volunteers, said Paz. Members do not necessarily have business experience. The board might request that staff use cheques instead of credit cards for business expenses, for example. “The reality of doing business today is that [using cheques] is quite a delay,” said Paz. “There are times that I’m sure the founder thinks, ‘Why didn’t I just own this myself?'”

Paz is passionate about the co-operative business model because it fosters a co-operative economy as a whole.

“It’s basically a different way of doing business, of thinking about things,” said Paz. “[Co-ops] have the heart of an NGO and the mind of a business. So you’re working for the best interests of the members, but also for the benefit of your society around you as a whole.”

Erin Empey is a Vancouver-based writer.

Car share

Dressing Up

hillarybain — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 05:06:53 +0000

Kids shake it up in Halifax's North End

HALIFAX—Eleven-year-old Craig Cain eagerly shakes bottles of Hope Blooms salad dressing and pours them into dishes for a potential customer to taste. He tells the customer his favourite flavour is Creamy Dill and Garlic, and smiles widely when a purchase is made. It is 7:45 on a Saturday morning. At one point, when offered a $20 bill for a $6 bottle of salad dressing, he pauses and asks, without guile, “Do you need change for that?” He is eager. So eager, he happily got up two hours earlier that morning to volunteer to sell salad dressing.

Cain is one of almost 40 kids who work on a youth project at the North End Community Garden in Halifax, and who, with the help of sponsors and the program’s organizers, have started a registered charity and a business: Hope Blooms. The majority of the money from the business goes into a scholarship fund for the young people; the rest goes to a community charity.

“First we pick the stuff from the garden, then we take it in, then we clean it, then we spin it, then we cut it, then we put it in the blender with the other ingredients and then we pour it into the bottles.” Cain has been working in the garden for two years. He has learned how to grow plants and how to make salad dressing. He says it’s a lot of fun.

Eleven-year-old Karen Chen says she and her colleagues have to pay attention to how many vegetables they grow, and that relates to how much salad dressing they can make and sell. Each bottle of salad dressing contains a half-cup of herbs. “It’s a lot. We need a lot each time,” says Chen. “Some people just come to our garden and take our stuff and smash it. It’s bad. I think that each plant has its own life,” says Chen, “It makes us really, really angry.”

Vandalism of the garden is only one of the challenges the kids in the area are facing. “The community has its challenges, as do all marginalized communities, as it relates to crime and poverty,” says Cheyanne Gorman-Tolliver. Gorman-Tolliver works with the Black Business Institute (BBI), which is working closely with Hope Blooms. “But the people are strong and they make a way.”

“Sometimes we have to start over again [after the garden is vandalized],” says eight-year-old Folayemi Boboye. “We may have to make more compost and start growing again.” Boboye has a unique view on the garden: she says it is patient.

“I think it’s the kids who are patient,” counters Chen. “We have to have patience and help the garden.” They agree, however, that, like all of us, the garden needs to take time to grow. It needs someone to take good care of it.

Jillian Martin, who works at the North End Community Health Centre, has noticed a difference in the young people’s commitment to taking care of their garden and their business. Each year, their willingness to show up and work hard improves. “Now that they know what it’s all about,...as soon as they get there, they’re ready to work,” says Martin, who describes her role with the garden as a manager of operations.

She says it was a real learning process and that it took a long time to get the business started and on track. With help from the BBI, they came up with a business plan and learned about things such as a financial forecast—“terms we’d never heard of,” says Martin. The Centre for Women and Business at Mount Saint Vincent also provided a lot of assistance. “We’re good at using our resources and asking for help because we recognize that we don’t really know what we’re doing when it comes to business, but the spirit is there and the dream is there so we just have to kind of go with the flow. It’s not hard to keep going because there’s just so much inspiration and the kids love it.”

The kids also love the business camp BBI hosts each year. At the camp, the children learn important points of running a business. They learn “entrepreneurship...and the value of making a product, selling it, and feeling proud of yourself for doing your own thing” says Martin. Cain says he is learning how to count change, how to sell, and that sometimes it’s important to get up really early.

Cain wants to start his own line of salad dressing when he grows up. He wants to be a business man.

The program has the kids seriously considering their futures. “They actually take the time to think, ‘what do I want to be when I grow up, and how do I get there?’” says Martin. A few weeks ago, one young girl asked Martin what community college was about and whether she could use the money from the scholarships for college rather than university. Martin says, “They’ve been starting to ask [these kinds of] questions, realizing, 'I do have a prospect of education, I do have this money coming when I graduate, what should I do with it?'”

Jessie Jollymore, Martin’s colleague at the Health Centre, is the woman whose vision was to develop the garden. She says that when she has taken the young people to various events and presentations, she has them speak about their dreams for the future. The children talk about wanting to be teachers, doctors, marine biologists: at this point, says Jollymore, the room goes silent. She says people are surprised to hear that these kids from low-income, disadvantaged communities have dreams. “They shouldn’t be [surprised],” she says, “Everyone has dreams.”

Chen wants to be a chef when she grows up. “Getting people to eat nutritious food is the biggest challenge,” she says. “Some people don’t like vegetables and eat unhealthy things.” After displaying her knowledge of the various nutrients and vitamins found in fruits and vegetables, she continues, “I never really liked cucumbers, but after I started working in the garden I took a bite of cucumber and felt like I wanted to go outside and yell, ‘Delicious!’”

Boboye eats a lot of vegetables now too. She takes what she grows home to her mother. “My mom always makes some salads and they’re really good.” She says she has learned that it’s important to eat good, healthy food.

“The moms have really taken an interest,” says Martin. “I think they really enjoy coming to a place where they can see their kids flourishing.”

Last year, the youth shared their proceeds with ARK, a shelter for street-involved and homeless youths. “They’ve been developing a sense of making money, and giving it back to the community.” This year, they will choose another organization with whom to share their proceeds.

Chen says, “We’re helping a lot of people by selling what we make.”

“It means a lot to me to see positivity coming into the neighbourhood...the community gets a really negative rap sometimes from the media,” says Martin.

Jollymore says that the whole project is about the kids having a sense of empowerment regarding their futures. It’s also about spreading that sense of empowerment throughout the community. Cain wants to see more people from his school come to the garden and help out. “They don’t get paid to come here, they don’t get paid to make [the salad dressing],” says Martin, but they come anyway.

A greenhouse is in the process of being built so herbs for the salad dressing can be grown all winter long. It looks like the business will keep flourishing. So far, Hope Blooms has sold out every week they've set up shop at the market.

Charlene is a freelancer and a recent graduate of Journalism at King's. She holds a BA and MA in English literature. She works as a Junior Program Officer at Imhotep Legacy Academy.

Craig Cain

Greenhouse

Race to the Bottom to Continue for G20 Nations

Moira Peters — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 05:04:00 +0000

A critical analysis of the G20's Toronto Summit Declaration

TORONTO—As the 2010 G20 summit wound down behind the fences of "Fortress Toronto", more than 1,000 people had already been sent to jail. While the police attacked crowds and snatched organizers in the streets, the Group of 20 gathered to write the Toronto Summit Declaration, a 27-page document released the evening of Sunday, June 27. A critical reading of this text reveals it as evidence that those who took great risk to mobilize against the G20 did so on behalf of the health of communities and the planet.

Although the Toronto Declaration begins with a populist appeal to sustainability, job creation and financial regulation, it enshrines a commitment to force the poor and working class around the world to tighten their belts yet again as states are ordered to implement strict new austerity programs.

The Declaration proposes an ambitious new structural adjustment agenda, designed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, which aims to halve First World deficits by 2013.

Shoring up financial sector abuse of public funds is one of the most pressing public concerns (bank bailouts have been denounced around the world), but the language in the Toronto Declaration does not guarantee meaningful public oversight of the financial sector.

The Declaration welcomes the recently-passed US Financial Reform Bill, which according to Newsweek "effectively anoints the existing banking elite" without putting a cap on executive compensation. Nor does the bill crack down on banks that are supposedly "too big to fail"—banks like JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Bank of America and Morgan Stanley.

Financial oversight will remain with elites—led by the IMF and other Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs, such as the Inter American Development Bank and the African Development Bank)—and the declaration proposes these institutions should become "even stronger partners" in the future.

The Declaration indicates that G20 countries will pump $350 billion into MDBs, doubling the MDBs' lending capacity, so they can "focus on lifting the lives of the poor, underwriting growth, and addressing climate change and food security."

The move towards putting MDBs on the front lines of global lending could be a response to the growing global rejection of larger International Financial Institutions (IFIs) like the World Bank and the IMF. This shift is reminiscent of a move away from global trade and regional agreements like the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas and the World Trade Organization, and towards smaller regional deals and bilateral agreements such as the recently-inked Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement.

The Toronto Declaration makes a point of noting that Haiti's debt with IFIs will be cancelled, but avoids mention of the larger debt the country owes to the Inter American Development Bank (IADB). Haiti owes less than $200 million to the World Bank and the IMF, while their outstanding debt to the IADB is upwards of $441 million. The IADB has also positioned itself to become the lead development bank behind the $10 billion given by "donor nations"—mostly OECD countries—for reconstruction of the country.

In addition to increased involvement in global economics by the IADB and by other regional development banks, the Toronto Declaration promises more privatized "development financing" for low-income countries. This could mean further subsidies for transnational corporations active in resource extraction and the maquila (sweatshop) sector.

Language in the document about increasing "global output," creating tens of millions of jobs, and reducing global "imbalances" flies in the face of the document's own recommendations for countries with higher debt-loads to continue a regulatory race to the bottom by "maintaining open markets and enhancing export competitiveness"—an openness that has historically widened global gaps, put millions of people out of work (or forced them to migrate for work) and siphoned the resources of low-income countries into the bank accounts of corporations.

The Toronto Declaration also welcomed the launch of the Global Agriculture and Food Security Program, which proposes to create food sovereignty with public-private partnerships. This contradicts the demands of peasant groups like Via Campesina, who stated at the end of 2009 that "the absence of the heads of state of the G8 countries [at the November 2009 Food and Agriculture Summit] has been one of the key causes of [its] dismal failure. Concrete measures were not taken to eradicate hunger, to stop the speculation on food or to hold back the expansion of agrofuels."

The Declaration asks that the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Devleopment, the International Labour Organization, the World Bank and the World Trade Organization (WTO) "report on the benefits of trade liberalization for employment and growth" at the next G20 meeting. States are cautioned to stick with WTO measures and avoid new "barriers to investment or trade in goods and services." Such barriers could be new environmental legislation and new forms of taxation on corporate activity.

On the topic of climate change, G20 countries that support the accord which came out of Cophenhagen last year issued a weak call for other nations to "associate with it."

Dawn Paley is an organizer with the Vancouver Media Co-op. This article was originally published by the Vancouver Media Co-op.

Corporate Facism

Canada Confronts Europe on Bank Levies

Martin Lukacs — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 05:45:42 +0000

Flaherty leads the charge against Robin Hood Tax

TORONTO—A confrontation is brewing at the upcoming G20 summit in Toronto, pitting Canada against European countries who are promoting a global “Robin Hood” bank tax that could raise hundreds of billions of dollars for social programs, food security or debt-payment.

A number of European nations, led by Britain, are calling for the adoption of taxes that would discourage speculative trading. Canada, however, is opposed to the taxes, and the US, while still uncommitted, is leaning towards Canada’s position. Opposition from one country would undermine the consensus required for the adoption of the multinational bank tax.

In early February, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown suggested that a deal on a potential tax levy could be reached at the Toronto G20 Summit. A few days later the Canadian government publicly opposed any such agreement.

“We’re not going to impose capital taxes on our financial institutions,” Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty told journalists. “We’re against raising taxes and I hope to be able to convince my colleagues that these are unwise moves.” The Conservative government has also argued that as the only G8 country whose banks did not require bailouts it should not have to enter into a bank taxation plan.

The Association for the Taxation of Financial Transactions for the Aid of Citizens (ATTAC) has criticized the Conservative government for rejecting financial regulation, accusing it of being beholden to financial interests.

“The Conservative government is opposed in principle to any new form of tax,” said Claude Vaillancourt, co-president of ATTAC-Quebec. “The Conservatives are blinded by the non-interventionist principles of neo-liberal economics, to which they adhere with ideological fervency.”

Britain has been at the forefront of the push for various tax and levy schemes to curtail bank risk. Prior to the economic crisis, London was a preeminent banking centre and over the past 20 years has been steadfastly opposed to most regulation of financial services.

The crisis changed all that. After the insolvency of several British banks and a $1.38 trillion bank bailout, and with an election looming, Prime Minister Brown is suddenly talking tough about banks “giving back to society,” telling the media he is “interested in how support is building up for international action.”

Britain’s proposals include a tax on bank transactions and a levy-style tax on assets. The transaction tax, often called the "Robin Hood tax" or the "Tobin tax" (after the US economist James Tobin, who first proposed it in 1972), is the more ambitious. It would focus on the trillions of transactions that take place in financial markets every day, including speculative ones such such as derivatives, which were a key part of the financial crash.

Precipitating the crash, these assets, including bundles of sub-prime mortgages, became overvalued due to speculation. When their values fell rapidly in 2008 the collapse began.

The transaction tax would put a very small tax (from 0.05 per cent to one per cent) on each of these transactions. Critics of unregulated banking argue that had such a tax been in place a few years ago investment banks would have thought twice about performing these transactions, thus lessening the likelihood of the crash.

“A low transactions tax...has little or no impact upon useful, longer term transactions, but limits ‘noise trading’ and very short-term ‘in and out’ speculation,” said Canadian Labour Congress economist Andrew Jackson. “Progressive economists who have advocated a financial transaction tax...believe that it would reduce speculation and volatility, without interfering with normal and useful activities including stock and currency trading and even hedging for legitimate purposes.”

A 2009 study by the Austrian government showed that a 0.05 per cent tax on UK financial trades could raise about £100 billion per year, paying for the expansion of social programs, paying down debt and providing insurance funds against future bailouts.

Grassroots organizations like ATTAC-Quebec take a stronger position, suggesting that any new funds from a tax should not go to banks, which might only encourage them to take more risks, potentially leading to new crises.

“The tax should simply be a fee for assisting citizens across the world,” said Vaillancourt. “This tax could, for example, give all citizens basic services—quality health care or free education.”

Despite its current opposition Canada was one of the first G20 countries to consider adopting the Tobin tax. In 1999 the Liberal government passed a resolution to “enact a Tobin tax in concert with the international community.” However, the Reform Party (later the Conservative Party) opposed the resolution and it did not gain enough international support to be enacted.

The other proposal promoted by European countries is a tax or levy on the assets of banks. It would not bring in sums on the scale of a Tobin tax, though some financial analysts believe it would restrain banks and raise some bailout money. As it stands now the levy has gained support from Britain’s key European counterparts, France and Germany, both of whom are strongly promoting it. From the perspective of the banks this is a more acceptable proposal than the Tobin tax as it would be either a one-off or infrequent fee based on a bank’s worth rather than a tax on its every transaction.

A great deal of Canada’s authority on these bank tax issues within the G20 is based on the perception that the country’s traditional banking sector was able to withstand the financial crisis. The historical record is murkier. While it is true that Canada did not have to bail out its banks there is much more to the story than mainstream media accolades of bank prudence and wise Conservative government policy.

In the late 1990s, and again in the early part of the new millennium, the five Canadian banks aimed to merge into three institutions to obtain the capital base to compete internationally with banks such as Citigroup, UBS and Royal Bank of Scotland. They hoped to enter the “major leagues” of investment banking and non-traditional speculative banking: the very markets that were at the heart of the crash.

Critics argue these merger attempts were not prevented because of a prudent fear of systemic risk, or the Liberal government’s foresight. News of the banks’ ambitions and public outcry about layoffs, branch closures and increased service charges forced the Canadian government to block the mergers. Canadian financial elites and the business class harshly criticized the government. Yet it may have been fortunate for them, and the current government, that the Canadian public was not swayed. Otherwise, Canadian banks might have been bailed out as well in 2008.

The International Monetary Fund has also weighed in, with Managing Director Dominic Strauss-Kahn saying countries opposing bank levies only because they escaped the current crisis unscathed are being “shortsighted.”

The US position leading up to the June G20 meetings is likely to be a major determinant of the success or failure of the G20 bank tax talks. The US bank bailouts have made it difficult for the US government, unlike Canada, to point to their strong financial sector as a reason to oppose bank taxes. Nevertheless, the US has also come out strongly against the Tobin tax and has reacted ambiguously to the idea of an international bank levy.

On the other hand, the Obama administration has made public statements over the last few months about an internal bank levy proposal. This may lead the US to be more open to an international levy given that it would shield them from capital flight if all nations bought in.

Because consensus is required for G20 policy decisions the growing Atlantic divide leaves any tax or levy plans up in the air. Meanwhile, the positions of the other 15 G20 countries are still being developed and do not seem to be getting much attention from the major players.

Though tax-watching might seem like a dull sport it is worth observing the developments this month. The European powers backing these taxes have been shaken by the crisis and pressured by their electorate. Regardless of motivations the taxes could have real-world effects that should not be minimized. The taxes are not radical but at least they point in the right direction: towards the banks.

Darren Puscas is a researcher on a project on women and unionization at McMaster University, and is the editor of the blog www.g20breakdown.com.

This story was published in The Dominion's special issue on the G8 and G20 summits in Ontario. We will continue to publish independent, investigative news about the G8 and G20 throughout the month of June.

For up-to-the-minute G8/G20 news from the streets of Toronto, visit the Toronto Media Co-op.

Dollar bills stick together

Goldcorp Drilled by Shareholders

Moira Peters — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 09:28:38 +0000

Mining company challenged at AGM to respect host communities

TORONTO—Shareholders of Canadian mining giant Goldcorp Inc. got a glimpse—albeit brief—into the lives of Central Americans whose land is being exploited by the company for gold. Some even paid attention.

Representatives from communities hosting Goldcorp mines in Central America made their way from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador to address the company’s annual general meeting (AGM) in Toronto on May 19, 2010.

Shareholders learned about the devastating effects Goldcorp’s operations have had on communities in Central America. The presenters told of an increase in health problems, cracked houses, widespread social conflict and the criminalization of protest in their towns and villages.

Carlos Amador, a teacher from Honduras, challenged the company's reclamation process at the closed San Martin mine in central Honduras, which in 1999 displaced 14 families and contaminated water to the point beyond which even the World Bank recommended.

"Who will control the acid drainage? Who is going to clean up the water contaminated with heavy metals?" he asked.

The AGM was not an easy venue for the visitors to tell their stories. Goldcorp attempted to cut Javier de Leon of Guatemala short during question period when de Leon tried to explain the environmental, health and social devastation brought by a Goldcorp mine to his town of San Miguel Ixtahuacan. He had previously been given less than a minute to address the meeting. When a supporter of the visiting group refused to be silent—protesting that de Leon deserved to be heard after traversing a continent to address the meeting—President and CEO Chuck Jeannes relented and gave de Leon the platform.

All the presenters spoke of the need not only for effective and fair consultation with potentially impacted communities before mining operations begin, but also the consent of those communities.

To that aim, a shareholder resolution was brought forward by Kathryn Anderson of the Maritimes-Guatemala Breaking the Silence (BTS) Network, which called on Goldcorp to adopt a corporate policy on free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) by September 1, 2010.

FPIC is a central theme of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) and is the basis of Article 169 of the International Labour Organization, which states that before a mega-project—such as a mine or a hydroelectric dam—can begin on Indigenous lands, residents need to be consulted about the proposed project and to give their informed consent.

The Goldcorp operations influenced by Anderson’s proposed policy would impact not only Indigenous communities, but all communities dependent for survival on natural resources.

Specifically, the resolution calls on Goldcorp to respect UNDRIP as best practice with regards to FPIC rights; to note the legal difference between consultation and consent; to implement the proposed policy retroactively to ensure that all Goldcorp’s mining licenses were obtained in adherence to this policy; to cease all operations, expansions, and exploration where consent of the affected population has not been obtained by the state; and to apply this policy to any license with partial or full Goldcorp ownership.

“The shareholder resolution was brought forward because in cases like San Miguel Ixtahuacan [in Guatemala], we have seen the results of not having FPIC. Communities have not had the full disclosure of costs, benefits, and risks of open-pit gold mining,” said Anderson. “When a full discussion is not there, it creates an enormous amount of conflict.”

In its pre-AGM letter to shareholders, Goldcorp urged its investors to vote against Anderson’s resolution, saying the company would be launching its own human rights platform at the AGM.

In fact, just days before its AGM, Goldcorp released a Human Rights Impact Assessment (HRIA) of the Marlin Mine in San Miguel Ixtahuacan—the result of a petition by shareholders. Initial assessments of the HRIA by various NGOs, including Amnesty International, express concerns that affected communities were not invited to discuss whether or not the study would have been appropriate or beneficial. Although both a Goldcorp representative and an investor sat on the steering committee for the HRIA, no resident was given such a privilege. Meanwhile, both the communities and NGOs argued that the study would only increase social tensions in the already-fractured communities; the assessor, On Common Grounds, itself concluded that the study resulted in escalated social tensions and polarization between and among communities.

Shareholders representing 90 per cent of Goldcorp’s shares voted against Anderson's proposed resolution. She was surprised by the 10 per cent of shares in its favour, given that shareholders rarely vote against the company line. “We do not have an explanation for that yet,” she said. “Did someone advise a large block of shareholders to vote against Goldcorp in this instance? Or is it because people specifically read and heard our concerns?”

Although Goldcorp claims it participates in consultations with populations affected by its mines, company representatives refuse to articulate a detailed consultation process or put one into company policy. Furthermore, nowhere does Goldcorp claim to respect the rights of communities to say no to mining, which is a keystone of Anderson’s resolution.

When it ignored the results of community-organized consultations in 2005 in Sipakapa, a region bordering the Marlin Mine—where 11 out of 13 communities unanimously opposed the mine’s presence—the local government was pressured to address the issue. The municipality of San Miguel has since organized its own upcoming consultation. Goldcorp General Counsel VP David Deisley said the company is not legally required to respect the results of such a consultation.

Goldcorp in general, and Jeannes in particular, consistently deny FPIC is directly applicable to the company, arguing the laws for consultation and consent apply to governments, not corporations.

Nelly Rivera de Silva of El Salvador explained that despite a moratorium on all mining exploitation in her country, she will be directly impacted by Goldcorp’s proposed Cerro Blanco mine to be built in Guatemala several kilometers upstream of Lake Guija—a binational lake. The lake is the tributary of the Lempa River, the most important watershed in El Salvador. Another 13 mining projects line El Salvador’s border with Guatemala, and 42 line its border with Honduras.

Rivera explained that she came to Canada to address Goldcorp on home soil and to inform people of the local repercussions of gold mining.

Goldcorp’s eight-page glossy handout on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) states: “Sustainable operations are dependent upon good working relationships with the communities in which we operate...We believe our transparent approach to doing business is the only way to fully engage our stakeholders in a meaningful, mutually beneficial relationship.”

But Rivera thinks this company line is an insult to shareholder intelligence.

“Why wouldn’t you think something is not quite right when members of the affected communities are coming all the way to Canada just to have their voices heard?” she asked.

As he was leaving the meeting, a shareholder addressed one of the 50 protesters demonstrating outside the AGM, asking why they were “anti-employment.” His sentiments reflect a feeling by many Canadians that mining companies are effectively bringing development and prosperity to people who would be starving if it weren’t for opportunities from the North.

De Leon had a different story. He maintained that Goldcorp is making millions in profit at the expense of the social fabric in Guatemala, where community tensions and social conflict are direct results of the affected communities having no say about the open-pit gold mine.

De Leon has felt this tension point-blank. After receiving numerous death threats, he was shot at four times on April 19, 2010, a few days before his departure for Canada. He said the majority of such threats come from mine workers or people with personal connections to the mine. Feeling tense, vulnerable, and worried for his family’s safety, de Leon said that a majority of investors do not know or care about this reality.

“No shareholder wants to hear what we have to say. They only want to see the renewal of their investment,” he said. “No-one claims ownership of the damages done to the environment, to society, or to the politics of Guatemala.”

Referenda have been organized across Guatemala to address the lack of informed consent, but neither the national government nor the company recognizes these consultations as legitimate, even though in some cases 100 per cent of an affected population has voted against mining.

Although it wouldn’t legally uphold FPIC, Bill C-300, a private member’s bill tabled by Liberal MP John McKay, could create some legal options for communities impacted by Canadian mines.

The Canadian government provides political and economic support to Canadian mining companies like Goldcorp operating abroad, through embassy relations, tax incentives and investment support with public funds like the Canada Pension Plan. Bill C-300 would make this political support and public money contingent on Canadian companies meeting certain human rights standards—standards these companies have already agreed to in various voluntary principles on corporate social responsibility, many of which are found in the CSR standards for Export Development Canada.

The bill would establish a legal complaints mechanism allowing people who wish to report human rights violations to do so with the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT). If DFAIT concludes that a company's actions violate established guidelines for responsible behaviour, the company’s political and economic support from Canada would be withdrawn.

Bill C-300 is a watered-down version of recommendations made at the 2007 National Roundtables on Corporate Social Responsibility, which was approved by the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada. Nevertheless, the mining industry has launched strong opposition to the bill.

Rare for a private member’s bill, C-300 has passed through two votes in the House of Commons, and is currently at the end of its committee stage. MPs have reported receiving more letters in support of C-300 than any other bill in recent memory. If it succeeds in the committee, the bill will return to the House for a third and final vote; and if passed, it will go to the Senate. Since the Conservative Party opposes the bill on the basis that it would hurt the image of Canadian mining companies and their global competitiveness, the bill will likely die in the Senate because of a Conservative majority.

All four Central American activists who flew to Canada to speak to Goldcorp’s shareholders were adamant that voluntary standards for Canadian companies do not protect against human rights abuses. Although they were all in support of Bill C-300, they continue to push for free, prior and informed consent to be a focal point of Canadian legislation.

Valerie Croft worked in Guatemala as an International Accompanier in 2008 and is active in issues relating to corporate accountability.

Cleaning up Goldcorp's toxic mess

Feliciano Orellana and Carlos Amador

Barrick Supported Police Who Carried Out Fiery Evictions in PNG

Moira Peters — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 05:22:55 +0000

Amnesty report confirms links between cops & Canadian mining company

TORONTO—Amnesty International (AI) recently made waves in human rights circles, publishing a new report focusing on Canadian mining giant Barrick Gold's role in violent forced evictions in the Porgera region of Papua New Guinea (PNG).

The publication marks AI’s first report detailing the human rights abuses occurring near a Canadian mine. Publishing such a report can be risky business; the threat of a lawsuit targeting individual journalists and publishers for reporting on the activities of extractive companies is not one that many NGOs can afford to face, and Barrick is known to take crippling legal action when challenged on its human rights record.

Although AI does not conclude that representatives of Barrick directly ordered the evictions, the international human rights organization does express its concern about the company's continued support for a police unit participating in illegal activities in the region.

The report, titled “Undermining Rights: Forced Evictions and Police Brutality around the Porgera Gold Mine, Papua New Guinea,” examines links between Barrick Gold and a special Mobile Squad of police officers which burned to the ground more than 130 homes in the Porgera region between April and July 2009. The report found Barrick Gold provided food, housing and fuel to the Mobile Squad during the period of the evictions, and continues to do so despite a PNG court ordering the retreat of the police.

The Porgera Joint Venture (PJV) gold mine is located in the Porgera region of Enga, a highland province of PNG. PJV has been in operation since 2006, and continues to be 95 per cent owned and operated by subsidiaries of Canada-based Barrick, the largest mining company in the world. The remaining five per cent is split between the Enga provincial government and select local landowners. Barrick had been exploring expansion of its mine site for two years, but ceased exploration one month before the evictions.

According to the AI report, in 2008 PJV produced 627,000 ounces of gold, worth approximately $US546 million.

Jefferey Simon, a resident and member of the Akali Tange Association—a human rights organization in the Porgera area that was formed in 2004 to document abuses at PJV—explained in an interview that there is a strong history of artisanal mining in the community, which has provided a source of income alongside subsistence agriculture.

When the government of PNG granted PJV exclusive exploitation rights to a large region known as the Special Mining Lease (SML) area, it effectively cut off the community's ability to support itself, according to Simon.

PNG's 1992 Mining Act states that "all land in the State is available...for exploration and mining and the grant of tenements over it." However, the country's constitution recognizes Customary Law, which dictates that all individuals—including unborn generations—have the right to use land and resources for livelihood and traditional activities. In 2000 the National Parliament enacted the Underlying Law Act, mandating the courts to pay greater attention to Customary Law when upholding the law of the country.

Under the pretext of addressing illegal mining activities and the general decline in law and order around PJV, a request was made by the Porgera District Law and Order Committee for a 30-member police unit to patrol the area. Instead, in April 2009, a 200-member elite Mobile Squad unit, typically sent to regions of high conflict and usually armed with assault rifles, arrived within SML, an area with some 10,000 Indigenous inhabitants.

According to AI's report, when police arrived in the area to begin Operation “Ipili,” PJV provided logistical support and conducted frequent briefings.

On April 27, 2009, police encircled houses in the community of Wuangima and proceeded to violently evict families from their homes and set fire to at least 130 houses.

According to the AI report, after refusing to leave his house, one man was locked inside while police set fire to his home. He escaped with the help of neighbours. One woman, while nursing her child, was struck on her shoulder by a police officer with the butt of his rifle.

Those who were away tending their gardens came home to find only the charred remains of their houses and their highly valuable livestock killed by police. Those who had been home met with violent confrontation: witnesses testify that police pointed their weapons at them, threatened and yelled at them to leave their houses. Others reported police officers shot at or near them.

At least three women independently testified to AI about being raped by police officers. AI is strongly pressing for further investigations into these reports.

In a meeting held December 3, 2009, between AI and Barrick Gold, the company insisted that PJV was only one of several parties that supported the April 2009 deployment of police to the area. Barrick denied having prior knowledge of police actions in Wuangima.

Barrick has publicly insisted that the buildings destroyed were nothing more than temporary shelters used by migrants to the area, and that they housed people participating in illegal mining activity.

However, AI's research provided significant evidence to the contrary. Taking lengthy testimonies of residents and religious leaders, examining photographs taken before and during the burnings, and relying on the physical evidence of the charred remains of the houses, AI concluded the buildings destroyed were solidly constructed with wooden frames and traditional woven bamboo walls.

The remains of established gardens and the existence of a church in Wuangima constructed in 2004 by residents provide further evidence that the community was not temporary. PJV surveyed the area in 2007 in the hopes of expanding the mine, and would have known the area was established with permanent homes.

According to the AI report, Barrick and PJV finally acknowledged in their meeting with AI that some of the houses in Wuangima were in fact occupied for quite some time. The company maintained, however, that it had not been in a position to authorize or dictate the activity of the Mobile Squad, and claimed it had no prior knowledge of the evictions.

Barrick Gold, like many other Canadian mining companies, claim they support strong human rights standards, and their operations fully support the Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights, a non-binding agreement signed by governments, companies, NGOs and observer organizations.

These principles dictate the company must document and report to the appropriate authorities cases where physical force is used by public security, as well as record and report any credible allegation of human rights abuses by public security. In addition, companies should urge an investigation and support action to prevent recurrence of such physical force.

Barrick maintains it did not know the intentions of police. However, according to the AI report, PJV had almost daily communications with police. PJV in fact participated in a police briefing meeting the morning of the evictions. Barrick told AI that PJV employees saw smoke only after the buildings were burning. Photos taken during the raid show PJV employees watching from the mine site.

According to the report, the General Manager of Corporate and Legal for PJV contacted the Commander of the Mobile Squad, but after his being told the evictions were legal there were no further investigations on the part of PJV or Barrick.

Corporate accountability is a large focus within Amnesty International Canada (AIC) for the next several years.

“One of the challenges of researching community concerns that relate to large corporations is the fear of a lawsuit or some form of legal action,” said Ian Heide, the coordinator for Business and Human Rights for AIC. “The complexity of the situation in terms of government responsibility versus corporation responsibility or obligation means that AI needs to be sure of our research before going public."

AI has good reason to be careful. Noir Canada—edited by Alain Denault and the Collectif Ressources d’Afrique and published in French out of Montreal—details the role of Canadian companies operating in Africa with the support of the Canadian government. In that particular case, lawyers for Barrick Gold claimed there were inaccuracies in the book’s detailing of Barrick’s role in the 1996 massacre in Bulyanhulu, Tanzania, where more than 50 small-scale miners were buried alive. Barrick Gold filed a SLAPP lawsuit (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) against the writers, editors, translators and publishers of Noir Canada in order to block the translation of the book into English. Barrick Gold has also sued The Observer and The Guardian over articles they published about the Bulyanhulu massacre.

Simon explained the importance of the AI report. “Both the company and the state are bonded for development,” he said. “The only way to express ourselves is through media and connecting with international NGOs who can carry out adequate research and produce reliable reports.”

While acknowledging the quick response by AI—the report was researched and released within eight months of the evictions—Jethro Tulin, another resident of Porgera, thinks the report could have gone further. According to Tulin, there is no room for doubt that the company was responsible, but this was not made clear in the report. He maintains that even if AI did not have proof that Barrick was directly responsible for ordering the forced evictions, they could have recorded opinions of witnesses and made stronger recommendations to Barrick.

“AI has a reputation for being fair and impartial,” responded Heide, “so we only name governments and companies when we are certain that what we are saying is accurate and fair.”

Simon and Tulin agree with AI's report in its clear statement of the unanimous demand by people living near Barrick’s Porgera mine to be relocated to areas outside the SML.

AI has called on the Government of PNG to investigate the evictions and ensure that alternative accommodations and adequate compensation are provided for those who have been displaced.

Valerie Croft worked in Guatemala as an International Accompanier in 2008 and is active in issues relating to corporate accountability.

Mines causing environmental devastation in Papua New Guinea

Guatemalan Coffee a Complex Blend

Moira Peters — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 05:16:47 +0000

Threats, exile a bitter part of coffee farmers' work

HALIFAX—They call him “the Hurricane.”

Guatemalan coffee farmer Leocadio Juracan (his family name is close to the Spanish word for hurricane) has had a special relationship with many Nova Scotians—though most don’t even know it.

His coffee-farming co-operative—part of the Comite Campesino Del Altiplano (CCDA), or Highland Peasant Farmers’ Committee—has been delighting Nova Scotian palates with its fair trade, shade-grown organic coffee for close to nine years, through a partnership with Just Us! Coffee roasters in Wolfville, Nova Scotia.

Juracan is touring Nova Scotia this weekend, speaking to audiences in Wolfville, Halifax, Tatamagouche and Antigonish. The agenda focuses on more than just light versus dark roasts.

According to Kathryn Anderson, Maritimes Co-ordinator of the Maritimes-Guatemala Breaking the Silence (BTS) Solidarity Network—a long-time partner of the CCDA—the organization currently faces “perhaps the greatest threat to its existence since its founding” in 1982.

In May 2008, Juracan explained, after signing an agreement with Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom on a framework for rural development, the CCDA’s car was shot at six times while driving down a rural road. The car’s passengers thankfully escaped injury.

"CCDA coffee is about more than fair trade prices for local producers," said Jackie McVicar, Co-ordinator of BTS Guatemala and former BTS intern with the CCDA. McVicar believes the CCDA’s vehicle was targeted. "CCDA coffee implies political advocacy and ongoing work in the struggle for labour justice and access to land for thousands of Guatemalan peasants. This work is happening at both the grassroots and national level," she said.

Authorities chalked up the shooting to "common crime," an assessment that may seem reasonable in a country with one of the highest violent crime rates in Latin America. But since then, the organization has suffered through two robberies in which a total of $40,000 worth of coffee was stolen. Its leaders have received threats of murder and violence by letter and by phone. A “climate of terror” surrounds the CCDA, said Juracan.

“The robbery and threats the CCDA received reflect an attempt to destabilize the organization and delegitimize the work they are doing,” said McVicar. “CCDA coffee isn't just about better wages. It's about changing structures of oppression."

In February, the threats started to target Juracan’s children. He decided to leave Guatemala, at least until the danger subsided. With the help of Canadian allies, he discreetly left the country with his family, and they found their way to Vancouver.

“If [the threats] had been just toward me,” Juracan said, “I would have kept on.”

****

The coffee grown by the CCDA—known as “Café Justicia” and sold to roasters around the world—provides capital for development projects and a fair wage for the farmers, said Juracan.

He listed home construction, a rural hospital, health promotion, training for midwives, teacher pay supplements and educational scholarships as the CCDA’s ongoing projects.

But these “alternative” economic models are threatening to some, explained Juracan.

“Guatemala is not a poor country,” he said. “There is a sector of society that is extremely rich, that has appropriated the wealth of the country and excluded the majority of the population.”

This oligarchy has a vested interest in business as usual, said Juracan. He dismissed the theory that threats and attacks against the CCDA are the work of common criminals, noting they always take place immediately after the group takes a public political position: criticizing the government for lack of action on land reform, for example, an issue for which resolution is decades overdue; or condemning the murder of unionists. “We connect [the attacks against us] to political acts,” he said.

Residual violence from Guatemala’s 36-year civil war may exacerbate the current violence. The conflict, which divided communities and in which more than 250,000 were killed—most of them by military and government-backed paramilitary groups—left a legacy of violence that has been hard for the country to shake. It is perfectly plausible, according to Juracan, that his attackers would have connections to wartime paramilitary groups.

****

Juracan and his family planned to return to Guatemala after two or three months, hoping the security situation would improve. Unfortunately, in the few weeks since they arrived in Canada, there is no encouraging news.

"There is more news of harassment and intimidation, hooded men roaming the community, gunshots at night,” said the campesino.

During his time in Canada, Juracan said he would like to generate conditions for a return to his home country. Many CCDA members continue to work hard in Guatemala for political change, and Juracan plans to strengthen solidarity between the CCDA and concerned Canadians.

Still, said Juracan, he would rather his stay be as short as possible. Being forced out of his country for doing his work is a difficult pill to swallow.

Tomorrow, March 22 at 7pm, Jurican will speak at Immaculata Hall 202, Saint Francis Xavier University in Antigonish. CCDA coffee is available in Nova Scotia as Just Us! Coffee’s "Breaking the Silence Blend."

Ben Sichel is a writer and teacher in Halifax. He recently took a group of students on an educational trip to Guatemala. An original version of this article was published by the Halifax Media Co-op.

Leocadio Juracan

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

Seeding Divestment

Moira Peters — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 06:40:30 +0000

Carleton's Yafa Jarrar discusses BDS campaign

The divestment report urging Carleton University to divest from companies implicated in Israel's occupation and grave violations of human rights is a true gem for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. The report's research, argumentation, corroboration and writing style are impeccable and deeply impressive. In making the case for divestment from Israel, the report from Students Against Israeli Apartheid (SAIA) combines the best of both worlds: the commitment to truth and justice of the most sincere and far-sighted human rights defenders and the piercing logic of the most able lawyers. SAIA's time-honoured commitment to just peace and international law, distinguished professionalism and creativity are truly inspiring. They build on the wonderful, pioneering divestment victory at Hampshire College last year to take divestment to the next level. This makes a superb model for the mushrooming divestment campaigns around the world.
—The Global BDS Movement

The Dominion: How did the recent divestment campaign by SAIA-Carleton get started?

Yafa Jarrar: In the summer of 2009, SAIA-Carleton members started researching companies that Carleton’s Pension Fund invested in. SAIA was able to obtain a list, with the help of a faculty member who put forward the request. Of about 550 companies that contribute to the Pension Plan, five were found to be complicit in the occupation of Palestine and in violation of Palestinian human rights. These companies are BAE Systems, L-3 Communications, Motorola, Northrop Grumman, and Tesco. After rigorous research for seven months, SAIA found that each of these companies is actively involved in significant violations of international humanitarian law. SAIA-Carleton immediately decided to start a divestment campaign after learning of Carleton’s unethical investments in the illegal military occupation of Palestine.

SAIA-Carleton prepared a detailed document titled, “Carleton University Pension Fund: Complicity in Violations of Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.” The three main demands addressed in this campaign are: that Carleton University Board of Governors, via the Pension Fund Committee, immediately divest of its stock in the five companies; that Carleton University refrain from investing in other companies involved in violations of international law in the future (such as mining companies, weapons manufactures and tobacco companies); and that Carleton work with the entire university community to develop, adopt and implement a broader policy of Socially Responsible Investment (SRI), through a transparent process.

How does Carleton University's involvement with these specific companies constitute complicity in the ongoing occupation of Palestine?

Each of these five companies is actively involved in significant violations of international humanitarian law, including grave breaches of the Fourth Geneva Convention amounting to war crimes. The five companies contribute extensively to these violations in numerous ways, including: manufacturing weapons or weapons components that are used to kill and maim Palestinian civilians; providing surveillance equipment and electronics that serve to support the illegal Israeli settlements in Palestine; economically developing the illegal settlements in the West Bank, thereby entrenching the occupation of Palestinian land; by perpetrating the illegal siege on Gaza; and Israel’s discriminatory practices and policies against the Palestinians, both in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) and within Israel.

These companies benefit by contributing to the ongoing occupation of Palestinian lands and repression of the Palestinian people. By investing in these firms, not only does Carleton University violate its own ethical principles (as an academic institution), but it also becomes complicit in breaches of international law and violations of human rights. All peoples and organizations, including Carleton University, are bound by the principles of international law. In reference to the Nuremberg Principles, the 2004 Opinion of the International Court of Justice, Articles 49 and 147 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, the UN Security Council Resolutions 446, 452, 465, and 471, Article 8 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, the Goldstone Report, and Canadian Domestic Law, it is incumbent upon Carleton University to end its investment in such companies, and any other company that supports the illegal occupation of Palestinian land.

How does SAIA-Carleton's divestment campaign contribute to the BDS movement, both in the global and Canadian context?

If our divestment campaign succeeds, there will be a major snowball effect that will motivate more Canadian and international campuses to start researching and hopefully adopting similar divestment campaigns. We know there are a few American and Canadian campuses that have already begun their research.

How do you see this divestment campaign as similar to earlier anti-apartheid divestment campaigns targeting Apartheid South Africa?

It is very similar. Divestment campaigns targeting Apartheid South Africa back in the 1980s based their activism upon anti-racist and anti-oppressive principles, precisely what SAIA-Carleton’s mandate calls for. SAIA-Carleton’s current divestment campaign is continuously referring to the successes of Carleton’s Anti-Apartheid Action Group. In March 1987, Carleton’s Board of Governors fully divested from South Africa after a two-year campaign by the Carleton Anti-Apartheid Action Group. Carleton and other campuses around the world were able to divest from Apartheid South Africa because of student activism, and we should be able to do it today in the face of Apartheid Israel. According to South African activists and figures like Archbishop Desmond Tutu, it took the South Africans 25 years to get the word across [in reference to the global South African BDS movement]. These figures observe that the Global BDS movement against Israeli Apartheid is moving along even quicker and more effectively facing successes and support from labour unions, churches, student unions, academics and human rights organizations.

What advice do you have for other campuses about launching divestment campaigns?

I call upon all students and activists to start launching similar divestment campaigns if they find their universities complicit in apartheid Israel. My advice to them is to use our research document, as well as that of Hampshire College, as reference documents, and to gain as much popular support as possible after they have completed the research. One thing SAIA-Carleton has learned from Hampshire’s experience is that for this divestment campaign to be successful we have to work on educating and gaining the support of the Carleton community. In the end, it will be the students, faculty, and staff who will have to pressure the university, not just the group who launches the campaign.

How does this divestment campaign fit into a broader socially responsible investment policy at Carleton University?

Currently, Carleton’s Pension Fund does not have a Socially or Ethically Responsible Investment policy in place, and has no mandate except increasing income. The fund’s portfolio includes many weapons manufacturers, oil and gas companies and casinos, which exploit Palestinian workers, brutally enforce the military occupation of Palestinian land, and are suspects in the commission of possible war crimes in Gaza. This leaves the university open to public censure for colluding in ethical and human rights violations. To adopt an SRI policy would put Carleton and its employees on the moral high ground, making it attractive to investors, students, and faculty. Other universities and educational pension funds have adopted SRI policies, including Yale, Queens, McGill, UBC, and Hampshire College.

Where is the campaign now and what can we expect to see next from SAIA-Carleton?

SAIA-Carleton is working on making the research document public. We are conducting educational workshops and presentations to the Carleton community (student unions, clubs and groups, faculty, and classroom presentations) to gain the support of the community on this campaign. So far, students, faculty and staff who learned about Carleton’s unethical investment in weapon companies and companies that violate international law and the rights of the Palestinians, have been appalled, shocked, and ready to support us. We are expecting a positive response from everyone in the Carleton community because there is no justification for support of weapon and war investments. Weapon companies that manufacture Hellfire missiles and Apache Helicopters that kill Palestinian children and students should have no place at our university. After we gain public support, SAIA-Carleton, along with the larger community, will take the campaign to the Board of Governors and the Pension Fund to demand official and immediate divestment.

A complete schedule of Israeli Apartheid Week with speaker biographies is available on the website.

Yafa Jarrar is a Palestinian activist who was born in Jerusalem. She moved to Canada in 2003 to attend Lester B. Pearson College of the Pacific. She is currently completing her MA in Political Science at Carleton University and a member of SAIA-Carleton.

Ali Mustafa is a freelance journalist, writer, and media activist. He resides in Toronto.

BDS poster

2010 Carte Blanche

dawn — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 06:11:49 +0000

Olympic spending tallies won’t come in till the party’s over

VANCOUVER—“There’s nothing wrong with a scaled down Olympics,” said CTV sports anchor Brian Williams in his keynote address at the 2009 Webster awards in Vancouver.

Williams' comment was met with applause by hundreds of journalists in attendance for the ceremony marking the year's best reporting in BC. They seemed to have forgotten that beyond some cosmetic cuts, there is little that has been scaled down for the 2010 Games in Vancouver.

Instead, the cost of the games has risen drastically. In 2003, the Auditor General of BC estimated that the total cost of hosting the 2010 Olympics would be $2.89 billion.

The report estimated BC would incur costs of $1.2 billion related to hosting the Games. This estimate left out most infrastructure costs, but the figure was twice the amount touted by the Vancouver Organizing Committee and the BC government, who claimed the Games would cost the province $600 million.

The cost to the federal government for hosting the Games was also underestimated. For example, the security budget, originally estimated at $175 million, has since ballooned to over $900 million, more than two thirds of which will be covered by the feds.

The Economist reported in September that BC’s costs for the Games are closer to $4.75 billion, an estimate that includes the Sea to Sky highway expansion, $1 billion for the Convention Centre (which will house media during the Games) and the $2 billion Canada Line extension of the Sky Train. Add to that the security budget and other costs, and the tab is at least $6 billion.

At the municipal level, Vancouver City Council had to bail out the developers backing the construction of the Olympic Village with $458 million.

“I’m willing to bet that it’s going to be a pretty expensive party, once it’s all tallied up,” Marc Lee, an economist with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, told The Dominion at his office in Vancouver.

“We won’t know until it’s over how much we ultimately spent on it.”

Whatever the cost overruns, the province of British Columbia will be the one to pick up the tab. “Any cost increases or revenue shortfalls the [Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games] cannot control—arising from inflation, interest or exchange rate fluctuations, the state of the economy, world threat levels, weather events and so on—are a financial responsibility of the Province,” reads a 2003 report from the BC Auditor General.

All levels of government have announced large deficits and spending cuts over the last few months.

Vancouver now faces a shortfall of $61 million. Since the city is not allowed to run a deficit, this will mean new rounds of cuts and tax increases.

The provincial government suspended balanced budget legislation for the second time this year, and will now run four consecutive years of deficits. The deficit forecasted for 2009-2010 is $2.8 billion, BC’s largest ever.

The federal government changed their budget estimate, upping the deficit to $51.9 billion over the next six years.

A recent report by Toronto Dominion Bank suggests that the federal deficit over the next year for Canada and all the provinces combined could equal $100 billion.

These revenue shortfalls result in part from the global recession and falling commodity prices, and are being used to justify even more cuts to the social safety net in BC and Canada.

Lee said he wouldn’t be surprised if VANOC tables a “massive” deficit as the games close out, which would be rolled into the provincial budget and become “part of the justification for further cuts elsewhere.”

BC’s economy brings in about $200 billion a year in revenue, leading some people to argue that even if the total cost of the games checks out higher than the current $4.75 billion, it would be a relatively small portion of provincial spending.

But, counters Lee, motioning out his office window towards Vancouver's downtown east side, “symbolically, the challenges out there on the street, and the need for housing, and other infrastructure, and just the sheer amount of political energy that’s been put into the Olympics, you kind of wonder whether there could have been better uses of that money.”

Dawn Paley is a journalist in Vancouver. She is covering the Olympics at 2010.mediacoop.ca.

For up-to-the-minute Olympics resistance coverage, check out the Vancouver Media Co-op, and the Convergence website. Follow the VMC on twitter!

Big Owe

"Illegal" Olympics Sign?

Greenwashing at the Games

dawn — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 06:19:22 +0000

Heavy polluters look lighter as Olympic sponsors

VANCOUVER—As the debate about global warming heated up on the road to climate talks in Copenhagen, companies with investments in Alberta’s tar sands were scrambling to clean up their image as dirty oil producers.

Sponsoring the 2010 Olympics—frequently proclaiming themselves the "Green Games"—has become a convenient branding tool for companies profiting from the increasingly controversial tar sands, according to a University of Toronto professor who has written several books on the Olympics.

“Big corporations can milk that green image, and they have an excellent venue to do so with the Games because there is so much world attention,” said Professor Emeritus Helen Lenskyj.

Petro-Canada, which recently merged with Suncor to create a tar sands giant, is one of only six national partners sponsoring the Games. After expressing interest in an interview, Petro-Canada spokesperson Dany Laferriere refused to answer questions from The Dominion about his company’s Olympic sponsorship.

Becoming a national partner cost Petro-Canada $62.5 million, but there is a payoff, according to Lenskyj. “I think companies have a fair amount of success in greenwashing, with light green corporate environmentalism,” she told The Dominion in a phone interview.

Companies such as Petro-Canada need all the greenwashing they can get. The Alberta tar sands has the highest carbon footprint of any commercial oil project on the planet, according a recent report written by award-winning business reporter Andrew Nikiforuk. If the world’s largest energy project continues on its current growth path, the tar sands alone will produce more greenhouse gas emissions than Ireland, Austria or Portugal by 2020.

“Petro-Canada has been involved with the Olympics for a long time, before it merged with Suncor,” said Harjap Grewal, a member of the Olympics Resistance Network. Petro-Canada sponsored the 1988 torch relay for the Calgary Winter Games.

The Lubicon Cree, an Indigenous nation still fighting for a Treaty recognition, protested the 1988 torch relay with a campaign called “Shame the Flame,” accusing Petro-Canada of stealing their land rights and resources, according to Lenskyj.

Today, Native rights activist Mike Mercredi accuses companies such as Suncor of committing a “slow industrial genocide” by poisoning the water supply of Fort Chipewyan, a native community downstream from the tar sands.

“Around 11 million liters of toxic chemicals, including carcinogens and other deadly poisons, are leaking into groundwater and the Athabasca and poisoning entire communities,” said a Greenpeace representative in a press release.

In 1988, Lubicon protesters and their allies were banned from Olympic venues and public spaces at the University of Calgary after protesting Petro-Canada. A similar scenario may occur in Vancouver, where the University of British Columbia is taking a prominent role in the Games, to the chagrin of some student activists.

The Royal Bank of Canada, another national Olympic partner, is the prime financier of the tar sands. Canada’s largest bank directly funds fossil fuel extraction with $15.9 billion per year, creating 198 million tonnes of climate changing carbon dioxide emissions, according to a 2008 report from Rainforest Action Network.

Promoters of the "Green Games" are not talking about the tar sands, however. The Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games (VANOC) touts that some rain water from Richmond’s ice-skating rink, a prime venue, will be pumped into the building’s toilets and that waste wood from constructing the Whistler Creekside development will be chipped and reused on site.

“Organizers trot out a list of simple things [that seem green] for people who don’t know the difference between dark green and light green environmentalism,” said Lenskyj.

“The Vancouver Winter Games will be featuring more than just Gold, Silver and Bronze in 2010. Green will also be very much part of the mix,” explains General Motors, another national Olympic partner, on its website. The auto giant promises that 30 per cent of its Olympic fleet will be hybrids.

But activists have the power to turn Olympic greenwashing on its head, according to Grewal.

“Most of the world is aware that the development model practiced by these companies is causing the climate crisis,” he said. “The fact that they are pretending to be green gives activists a chance to highlight their actual policies.”

Chris Arsenault is the author of Blowback: A Canadian History of Agent Orange. He is currently writing a history of sabotage in the oil patch.

Greenwashing at the Games - tar sands