The Dominion - Features

Canada’s Spy Groups Divulge Secret Intelligence to Energy Companies

Miles — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 13:03:11 +0000

Documents raise fears that info on environmentalists, Indigenous groups and more shared with industry at biannual, secret-level, briefings.

TORONTO—The Canadian government has been orchestrating briefings that provide energy companies with classified intelligence from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, the RCMP and other agencies, raising concerns that federal officials are spying on environmentalists and First Nations in order to provide information to the businesses they criticize.

The secret-level briefings have taken place twice a year since 2005, and are detailed in documents obtained under the Access to Information Act, and in publicly-available government files.

The draft agenda for one of the briefings, acquired by The Dominion, shows that the RCMP and CSIS assisted the department of Natural Resources in organizing a daylong event on November 25, 2010, at CSIS headquarters in Ottawa, and a networking reception the previous night at the Chateau Laurier.

The focus of the classified briefing was on "the geopolitics of the Arctic," but there were also presentations on topics including cyber-security, intellectual property rights and the Toronto G20 summit. Speakers at the event were from the RCMP and CSIS, as well as the Department of National Defence and Public Safety Canada. Two presenters had their names and affiliations redacted from the document.

Attendees were also given the option to review selected classified reports. However, note-taking at the event was prohibited.

Natural Resources spokesperson Jacinthe Perras stated that the classified briefings enable the owners and operators of energy infrastructure, “to plan and develop measures to protect their facilities.”

In an email to The Dominion, Perras explained that the department is mandated to “engage with partners and key stakeholders” by federal policy such as the National Strategy and Action Plan for Critical Infrastructure.

This plan is based on the concept that some infrastructure is so vital to the functioning of the country that it deserves special protection. Ten critical infrastructure sectors are identified including finance, transportation, health care and energy. For each sector a government department has been charged with fostering relationships with partners, including through the sharing of information. Natural Resources is the lead department for the energy sector.

"These forums provide excellent opportunities for energy sector stakeholders to develop ongoing trusting relations which facilitate the exchange of pertinent information 'off the record,'” writes Felix Kwamena, a director of energy infrastructure security at Natural Resources, in a 2010 summary of various governments’ efforts to protect energy installations.

But groups protesting energy projects such as the tar sands have misgiving about this cozy relationship.

“I see a worrying trend of blurring the lines between government security apparatus and the private sector,” said Keith Stewart, a climate campaigner with Greenpeace Canada. “What we are seeing is government working at the behest of these big multinational corporations, rather than seeing themselves as a regulator of those companies in the public interest.”

“They have created this security culture where there is no separation between the federal government, and the fossil fuel sector,“ said Clayton Thomas-Muller, an organizer with the Indigenous Environmental Network, a group fighting for the rights of Indigenous people around the world and a vocal opponent of tar sands projects.

Thomas-Muller and Stewart both told The Dominion that they are concerned that groups opposing energy projects may be spied upon by intelligence agencies that report on their activities to energy companies.

“We know [Greenpeace] have been surveilled...and we also know we have had undercover officers attend our trainings,” said Stewart. “The concern for me is if they are doing this to hand over information to the private sector.”

“Natural Resources Canada does not monitor these groups nor does it provide information on them to private companies,” Perras asserted.

However, the perceived threat to energy infrastructure by organizations and First Nations opposing energy projects was revealed in an academic paper by Jeff Monaghan and Kevin Walby who exposed a CSIS document from 2008 that claims, “Multi-issue extremists [including environmental groups] and Aboriginal extremists may pursue common causes, and both groups have demonstrated the intent and the capability to carry out attacks against critical infrastructure in Canada."

“I have no doubt whatsoever that there are active files on dozens and dozens of First Nations who are quite simply asserting their rights to title over their traditional lands,” said Thomas-Muller.

He pointed to revelations that an RCMP unit was tasked with monitoring First Nations communities with the potential to engage in protests. Operating between 2007 and 2010, the unit sent their weekly report to roughly 450 recipients, including energy companies.

The Mounties say they’re just doing their job.

“The RCMP is required to produce and disseminate criminal threat assessments and other criminal intelligence related to critical infrastructure protection,” explained Greg Cox, a spokesperson for the RCMP. He maintained that “no personal information is shared,” and that “the sharing of criminal information between law enforcement and the private sector is nothing new.”

CSIS declined to comment for this story.

However, documents released to The Dominion show that a component of CSIS, the Integrated Threat Assessment Centre (ITAC), has been writing intelligence reports on environmental groups.

An August 2010 ITAC intelligence document on the 2010 World Energy Congress, which took place in Montreal the following month, notes that "companies such as Shell, Encana, Enbridge, to name a few are amongst conference participants who have been subject to demonstrations in the past."

It goes on to state that "pro-environmental groups...intend to stage what they refer to as an 'emergency forum on energy,'" specifically naming the group Mouvement Sortons le Quebec du Nucleaire, an organization challenging nuclear energy plans in the province. The document also names Climate Action Montreal, a group that held a climate camp to train activists opposed to the tar sands.

The ITAC documents were of a lower security clearance than the classified information being provided at the Natural Resources briefings.

“There should be a lot more transparency,” Stewart said. “We are not saying they need to be publicizing all of the results of their investigation, but if they are going to be working closely with the private sector and sharing that information with them and granting them security clearance, Canadians have a right to know.”
The names of the companies invited to attend the classified briefings have never been revealed. However, the former Minister of Natural Resources, Gary Lunn, boasted at the 2007 International Pipeline Security Forum that his ministry had “sponsored over 200 industry representatives in obtaining Secret Level II security clearance. This enables us to share information with industry and their associations.”

A 2006 report by Natural Resources names the industry associations with which its energy infrastructure protection division liaised. These included the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, which represents nearly 100 oil and gas companies including Shell and Suncor; and the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association, which represents companies such as Enbridge and TransCanada and the Canadian Nuclear Association.

In addition to holding briefings, Natural Resources also distributed reports to the energy sector that contained “unclassified information and intelligence” and were shared with “approximately 300 stakeholders three to five times every week,” according to an internal review.

The classified briefings even touched on seemingly unrelated topics such as the 2010 G20 summit in Toronto. An internal RCMP email dated October 21, 2010, reveals that Natural Resources requested the RCMP provide a review of the G20 summit at a briefing taking place the following month.

“This didn't make a lot of sense to me because of course the G20 and the protest against it happened in Toronto, and the energy companies are based in Calgary. There isn’t any energy infrastructure in downtown Toronto,” said Stewart.

During the classified briefing, held November 25, 2010, RCMP Staff Sergeant John Shoemaker reported to energy companies on intelligence efforts to protect the Summit.

The G20 intelligence unit employed surveillance, monitoring and undercover infiltration of protest groups including First Nations and environmental groups. They showed a keen interest in Greenpeace’s activities. However, PowerPoint slides from Shoemaker’s presentation made no direct mention of Greenpeace or any other environmental or First Nations group, beyond listing “issue specific extremism/activism” and “Aboriginal activism” as a “public order” threat.

Although the presentation did not deal specifically with energy infrastructure, Perras said the “report helped inform the development of an all-hazards approach to critical energy infrastructure protection.”

Stewart doesn’t think that intelligence agencies should be focusing their energies on non-violent groups like Greenpeace.

“The only threat we pose is the threat to change peoples minds, and changing public opinion—and I understand why oil companies might be worried about that. I understand why government might be worried about that, but I think that is a fundamental part of democracy and they just have to learn to live with free speech,” declared Stewart.

He believes the Harper government is trying to demonize groups opposed to energy projects. He pointed to legislation that was introduced to increase the budget for the auditing of environmental organizations, a document that lists “environmental NGOs” and “Aboriginal groups” as adversaries, an increased budget for the auditing of environmental organizations, and a commentary by Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver, who warned that environmental groups ”threaten to hijack our regulatory system to achieve their radical ideological agenda.”

“In terms of democracy, you need a separation of oil and state. We need to separate the private interest of corporations from [the] interest of Canadians, and we’re seeing a lot of blurring of that line,” said Stewart. “The government seems to be saying what is good for companies like Shell or Enbridge is good for Canada. We think that is an important debate in a democracy."

Tim Groves is an investigative researcher and journalist based in Toronto. He can be reached at timgrovesreports [@] gmail.com. For more information on his work and writing, click here.

Oilspy

Canada Boosts Police Power in Mexico

Tim McSorley — Wed, 04 Jul 2012 10:45:35 +0000

Ottawa's role in the permanent war against the people of Mexico

CIUDAD JUAREZ, MEXICO—The music is loud and the bar is well stocked. I sit timidly with a can of beer, eyes on the entrance. This was a happening nightclub before Juarez was transformed into a war zone. My companion, Julian Cardona, who used to shoot photos for the society pages of a local newspaper, describes what it used to be like here: Hummers triple-parked on the sidewalk, hundred-dollar tips, well-dressed Texans waiting behind velvet ropes to get in. Not anymore. The night I visited, the place was near empty, waitresses busy with their iPhones, a wandering cigarette vendor calling out to make a sale.

It was Cardona's idea to go to the nightclub; he said it would help me understand the city better. His career has taken an unexpected turn because of the violence: these days, instead of shooting for the society pages, he shoots crime scenes in one of the world’s most violent cities.

Ciudad Juarez, a city that boomed with the introduction of maquiladoras, has long been a city with high levels of violence. The murders of women through the 1990s gained international attention. For each dead woman, there were nine murdered men.

But when Juarez transformed into the focal point of Mexico’s war against drug traffickers, things in the city began to change beyond recognition. President Felipe Calderon launched a militarized war on drug traffickers at the beginning of his term in December 2006. At the end of March 2008, thousands of soldiers and federal police officers arrived in Ciudad Juarez as part of a surge against drug traffickers. After the police and troops arrived, the murder rate skyrocketed, violence increased, and kidnappings spiked. Ciudad Juarez became synonymous with everything that is wrong in Mexico.

But what’s happening in Mexico and in Juarez isn’t happening in isolation. On the one hand, drug consumption in Canada and the US fuels much of the demand that keeps the cartels in business. On the other, Canada and the US have increased their support for the Mexican police and army, even as their role in cities like Juarez is coming under intense criticism. This relationship was highlighted in March when defence ministers from all three countries held trilateral meetings for the first time.

"What we've seen here in [Ciudad Juarez] is that the city was militarized on the last day of March of 2008, when federal forces arrived here, thousands of troops from the army and the federal police," said Carlos Yeffim Fong, an activist and student who lives in Ciudad Juarez. At the peak of the militarization of Juarez, between 2009 and 2010, 5,000 federal police and 5,000 soldiers were in the city.

"Generally, before the soldiers came, there was an average of two murders a day, and when the soldiers arrived, that number began to rise, to five, and later to 10," recounted Fong on a cool November afternoon at the campus of the state-funded Autonomous University of Ciudad Juarez (UACJ). "We've seen various cases where the army and federal police killed minors, as well as police and soldiers directly involved in robbery."

Locals also link federal police, known in Mexico as Federales, to kidnapping.

"When the wave of kidnappings grew, it was because of the arrival of the federal police," said Leobardo Alvarado, who runs the alternative news outlet JuarezDialoga. "Of course, it hasn't been proven that it has to do with that, but yes there are many documented cases where there were people linked to the federal police who committed these crimes."

The involvement of police in illegal activities is nothing new. "Mexican police, indeed, are widely reported to be involved in the trade of drugs, actively through assistance or passively through corruption," wrote Mathieu Deflem, a professor at the University of South Carolina, in 2001. But over the past ten years, the level of police involvement in the drug trade has deepened.

"There's always been a really close line, or, well, they're the same," said Cardona, who has lived in Juarez for over 30 years. "The police and the entire state apparatus, all of the institutions of the state, have always been the guarantors of the drug trade."

I interviewed Cardona on the patio of a Starbucks, the only establishment in Juarez that still dares to open its outdoor seating area. Our table faced a Wal-Mart, built over top of what was once a bullfighting arena. Every so often, we'd see a police car make a slow loop through the parking lot, lights flashing.

Police involvement in the drug trade intensified with the growth of Mexico's internal drug market, whose expansion has to do in part with increased border controls introduced after September 11, 2001. "Just 10 years ago, there was a lot of narcotrafico in Mexico but Mexicans themselves weren’t consuming the drugs," said Dr William I Robinson, professor and author of A Theory of Global Capitalism. "Now there’s millions of Mexicans that are addicted to drugs, and that are consumers of drugs also, and that’s because of those changes at the border and the changes in the velocity of drugs moving through Mexico."

As local drug markets grew, according to Cardona, police began to move drugs themselves, to execute people and even to move bodies in patrol cars, all of which meant they earned more money. Instead of wiping out these behaviors, the militarization of the city seems to have exacerbated them. "What happens is that when the Federales arrive in Juarez, and the army, is that they basically displace local state or municipal police from their markets," said Cardona.

Not everyone agrees on what exactly pushed Ciudad Juarez onto the map as a city with one of the highest murder rates in the world. The mainstream media claimed the violence stemmed from a turf war between the Sinaloa Cartel and La Linea, the armed wing of the Juarez Cartel, which they claim police and soldiers helped to quell. Upon careful examination, this narrative is constructed in the media using official sources such as unnamed officials and the US Drug Enforcement Administration. The residents of Juarez I spoke to, however, place the blame squarely at the hands of the police and the army.

According to Molly Molloy, a librarian at New Mexico State University who tracks the violence in Mexico, close to 95,000 people have been murdered in the country since the beginning of Calderon's term. In Juarez alone, more than 10,000 people have been murdered since 2008. Officials often state the dead were involved in the drug trade, but murders are rarely investigated.

"Most of the killings are between people, well, the people who died were unarmed," said Dr. Hector Padilla, a professor at the UACJ, with a dry chuckle. "The majority are people who were in transit, or who were working, or in their homes and someone arrives and pluck," he said, making a gun with his fingers and pulling the trigger.

The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre puts the number of internally displaced people at 160,000, though other studies show the number could be much higher. In addition, more than 5,000 people have been disappeared since 2006, and the number of federal prisoners has quintupled to more than 18,000, 40 per cent of whom are in pre-trial detention.

Images of gun-fighting, seized drugs and arrests are regularly reported on the evening news, while blogs disseminate torture-kill videos and grisly images of massacres and corpses cut into pieces.

Since the war on drugs was declared, police and policing have been a key component of the Merida Initiative, a US-Mexico strategy that aims to disrupt drug traffickers. In 2010, there were an estimated 409,536 police in Mexico, according to Insyde, a non-profit organization involved in US-funded police training. Federal police, of which there are more than 30,000, all receive in-country military training.

Before the US announced the Merida Initiative in 2007, Canada had already begun to increase security co-operation with Mexico.

Under the rubric of the Security and Prosperity Partnership, then-Minister of Public Safety Stockwell Day and his Mexican counterpart agreed to create a working group focused on bilateral security co-operation in early 2007. Two years later, RCMP officers were training Mexican Federal police.

"The Royal Canadian Mounted Police, along with trainers from the United States and other international partners, are providing basic training to Mexican Federal Police recruits," said Stephen Harper during a stop in Guadalajara in 2009. In addition to training 1,500 low-level Federales, the RCMP trained 300 mid-level Mexican officers, and 32 Mexican police commanders received training at the Canadian Police College.

There is no transparency from the RCMP regarding which Mexican officers have attended training in Canada, and thus far no way to verify whether or not Canadian-trained officers have been directly involved in criminal acts. "For security reasons we cannot give you the names of the Officials that attended training at our Canadian Police College," wrote RCMP media liaison Greg Cox in an email to The Dominion.

By late 2011, US funding had been used to "train over 55,000 law enforcement and justice sector officials, including 7,200 Federal police officers," according to the US State Department.

The New York Times reported that this training involved "conducting wiretaps, running informants and interrogating suspects."

Regardless of the stated efforts of international police forces, corruption among Mexican police has not diminished. "We do not want to overstate this finding: We see no evidence that police corruption is actually falling," reads a 2011 report prepared by the right-wing Rand Corporation.

RCMP and US training of Mexican police is taking place alongside officers from Israel, Colombia, France, Spain, El Salvador, Holland, and the Czech Republic. Maribel Cervantes Guerrero, the highest ranking federal police officer in Mexico, was trained in the US, Israel and Spain.

International co-operation in matters of security creates spaces where "bureaucrats and military elites actively study and borrow each other’s techniques and advise one another on effective ruling practices," according to Laleh Khalili, a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Politics and International Studies at the University of London.

Renewed international interest on the part of Canada, the US and others in training Mexican police comes despite the fact that there is no proof that such training improves security or democracy.

"There is no evidence that almost a century of US assistance to foreign police has improved either the security of the people in recipient countries or the democratic practices of their police and security forces," points out Dr Martha Huggins, who has written extensively on US training of Latin American police. Instead, she says, "the outcome of such training may suggest that the training of Latin American police has deliberately been used to increase US control over recipient countries and those governments' undemocratic control over their populations."

But this isn't just about the US training Mexican cops. The RCMP’s training of Mexico’s police indicates that Ottawa is interested in developing a stronger influence over Mexico’s internal security matters.

In addition to police training, Canada and Mexico hold annual political, military and inter-army talks, and work together with the US and other nations through the Florida-based, anti-drugs Joint Interagency Task Force South. Mexico is also a member state of Canada's Directorate of Military Training and Co-operation, an organization the Department of National Defence says is designed to "enhance bilateral defence relationships with countries of strategic interest to Canada."

From March 26 to 27, 2012, defence ministers from Canada, the US and Mexico held their first trilateral meeting, promising to increase defence co-operation in the fight against drug cartels, as well as protecting trade. "By virtue of our geography, our peoples, and our trading relationship, our three nations share many defence interests,” reads a joint statement by defence ministers.

With bilateral merchandise trade at $21.3 billion and Canadian foreign direct investment at $4.9 billion in 2009, the government of Canada considers Mexico "one of Canada’s most important trading partners in the world."

By 2011 there were more than 2,500 Canadian companies operating in Mexico. Canada's presence is especially strong in the mining and aerospace sector; Goldcorp and Bombardier have made major investments over the past two years.

Canada's growing corporate presence in Mexico may in part explain the increasingly close military and police co-operation. "If it’s a problem for Mexico, it’s a problem for Canada," said Defence Minister Peter MacKay in a statement to the media after the March meeting.

The fact that policing is the central focus of Canada’s security engagement with Mexico is in line with current military strategy, which advocates local police taking a key role over the long term.

"In the simplest of terms, the aim of military intervention is to restore the situation to the point at which the host nation police and security forces are able to maintain law and order," reads Canada's Counterinsurgency Operations Manual.

Indeed, getting the army off the streets of Juarez and the rest of Mexico is also a stated goal of the US State Department. "The Ambassador emphasized that the Mexican military needed an exit strategy," reads a State Department cable released by Wikileaks. "Mexico must build up its civil police and prosecutorial forces to fill much of the space currently occupied by the military."

Though homicide rates have begun to drop in Ciudad Juarez, there continues to be far more murders in the city than there were prior to 2008. Federal police still patrol Juarez, usually masked, often in the back of a pick-up truck with semi-automatic AR-15 rifles across their chests. Residents indicate that simply being out on the street is enough to provoke search and detention by police, likening the situation to an unofficial curfew under which the poorest are regular targets for police abuse.

Far from improving security for residents of Mexican cities and towns, the replacement of soldiers with an expanded, internationally trained, militarized police force is tantamount to the extension of war, by another name.

Dawn Paley is a freelance journalist and co-founder of the Vancouver Media Co-op.

Mexico outlines

Food For Thought

Miles — Mon, 18 Jun 2012 14:24:56 +0000

DARTMOUTH, NOVA SCOTIA—As government agencies find themselves unwilling or, more likely, unable to solve Canada’s poverty problems, provincial organizations like Feed Nova Scotia and individual food banks like Stairs United, in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, confront these issues head-on, constantly enlarging and improving as they daily wage one of our nation’s most difficult battles: to keep our poorest and most vulnerable citizens as well fed as possible.

Canada’s first food bank opened its doors in Edmonton, Alberta in 1981. Prior to this, low income people scrounged extra food from a miscellaneous assortment of soup kitchens, churches and charities, or simply went without. Of course, poverty and hunger were not restricted to Edmonton and very soon other cities and towns followed the food bank’s example. Since that time, those providing free food to Canada’s poorest citizens have opened over 800 food banks and now operate more than 3,000 food programs.

In many ways the food bank at Stairs Memorial United Church in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia is a microcosm of the national food bank movement, expanding and modifying its services to meet an ever-growing and changing need.

Martin Walker is the current president of the North Dartmouth Outreach Resource Centre (NDORC), the organization that now officially runs the Stairs food bank. “I’m really impressed by the hands-on attitude of the volunteers here, the get-it-done attitude. They know that people need this and they just do it.” says Walker. “There’s almost no turnover here among our volunteers. Once people come here to help out, even if they didn’t plan a long-term commitment, they really tend to stay.”

Back in the mid-seventies when Stairs first started, it wasn’t really a food bank at all. Parishioners would bring contributions directly to the minister at the time, Reverend Vince Ihasz, who stored the food in his clothes closet and discreetly allocated the donations to those in need.

By 1987, the demand reached such proportions that a Food Bank Committee was established to be directly responsible to the congregation.

The passing decades have seen not only the growth of food banking but constant evolution and adaptation to changing times and needs. Many food banks have expanded their mandate to include provision of other services such as training in food preparation, assistance with job searching and raising awareness of hunger and poverty. Food banks have become one-stop-shops, offering clients resources and referrals to other support services, such as child care and affordable housing. All of this has been accomplished with heavy reliance on volunteer labour: almost half of all food banks in Canada are run entirely by volunteers.

There would appear to be three major factors fueling the evolution of food banks in Canada. First are the basic improvements and efficiencies gained through experience.

Frances Hunter, who has been Food Bank Manager at Stairs for 15 years, remembers driving to several different grocery stores to pick up day-old bread and items from the donation bins. Workers from other food banks would be doing much the same thing in their locale. “It’s just something I was called to do,” Hunter says. She’s very animated when discussing the clients. “Each one is different. They need to feel they are respected. Each one has a story and they want to be listened to. They want to be hugged and see a friendly face and that’s what I do – give them a hug and a big smile. That’s my reward too, the hugs and smiles I get.”

Increased demand in Nova Scotia, like all provinces in Canada, has seen the creation of central collection and distribution agencies. Feed Nova Scotia, a non-profit NGO created in 1984 as a Metro Food Society, now coordinates food bank operations in the greater Halifax area. Today it gathers and allocates food to more than 150 member agency food banks and meal programs across Nova Scotia.

The second factor that appears to be stimulating food bank modifications is contact with clients at the grassroots level, which is bringing into focus previously unrecognized needs. Stairs United, for instance, like almost every food bank in the country, now supplies diapers, dish and laundry detergent and toiletries. The church has also set aside an area for clothing and book donations.

Regular interaction with clients also allows volunteers to get a sense of the extreme social and psychological isolation poverty produces, causing most food banks to invite other agencies to visit during open hours and make themselves more readily available to those in need. Gordon McKeen, president of NDORC for the past ten years, explains the benefits of regular interaction.

“Our clients can be very fragile because of the problems they have and also because of the way that society treats them,” says McKeen. “For many people, it’s not easy to come to a food bank. One woman told me she walked past half-a-dozen times before she came in. For this reason we want to be very gentle in our dealings. We also want to be humble. Any of us can fall victim to circumstance. Finally, we need to be frugal both with our assets and our energy so that we can make sure every client gets help and shares the resources we have to offer.”

Stairs is regularly visited by Dartmouth Family Centre, Dalhousie Legal Aid, the Public Good Society and the newly formed Community Health Team, among others. Thanks to these organizations, clients can get advice and assistance with child-care issues, tenant-landlord problems, education and employment concerns, and questions about medical access and health issues.

The current minister at Stairs, Reverend Sarah Reaburn, remains closely connected with the food bank as well, usually spending the entire morning speaking (and sometimes praying) with clients who otherwise might not have that kind of spiritual connection in their lives.

“People frequently want to discuss their grief, often old grief that hasn’t been dealt with. There are also relationship problems and these often involve addiction issues. Lots of people just want to pray,” says Reaburn. “Of course, some people just want to chat! Since I’ve been doing this for over five years, I know these folks and they know me so there’s always lots of catching up.”

Stairs may be slightly ahead of the curve with one of their client services: transportation. Recognizing that many people have trouble getting their groceries home due to handicaps and other access issues, Councillor Jim Smith (District 9 Albro Lake Harbourview) has been offering rides to Stairs patrons almost every Wednesday morning for the last six years.

Last year Smith invited Ralph MacKenzie to join him and just a few months ago, the two men, along with the Public Good Society, a Dartmouth-based non-profit, obtained the license to operate the first urban community-based van in the Halifax Regional Municipality. The van is available to other charitable organizations and agencies making food bank visits available to those who otherwise could not participate.

“Some people wouldn’t come to the food bank at all without a ride home,” says MacKenzie. “They can’t afford cab-fare and physically can’t carry the groceries home. People talk about what a great thing you’re doing, but I feel really rewarded. I’m building relationships with these people. I know their names, where they live, and what’s going on in their families. I'm making friends. I love it.”

Being face-to-face with poverty is a powerful motivator and food banks like Stairs have responded. With only two paid staff, Stairs makes sure that one of them is an outreach worker, in this case, Tom Clarke. Clarke joined the food bank for what he thought was a one year stint. Fifteen years later he’s still the outreach coordinator.

Stairs also invites another outreach worker, Kevin Little from the non-profit Public Good Society, to attend the food bank to arrange job postings, education and employment opportunities, housing connections, and contacts with other helping agencies. Thanks to their work, clients have improved their education, gotten jobs and training grants, and became acquainted with numerous other beneficial organizations.

Lamont Dobbin volunteers at Stairs United. He lives and works in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia

Helen and Heather prepare client orders in the pantry at Stairs United.

Laboratory, Honduras

dawn — Fri, 08 Jun 2012 11:46:44 +0000

Dueling truth commissions, ongoing repression, and Canada’s role in the new Honduras

TORONTO—Just over one year ago, renowned Garifuna leader Miriam Miranda was brutally assaulted and illegally detained by police. “I have a scar on my stomach from a burn caused by a tear gas canister fired at me at point blank,” said Miranda, in an interview with The Dominion. It was a peaceful roadblock in Triunfo de la Cruz—a Garífuna community on the north coast of Honduras—when Miranda was hit with the canister, beaten, assailed with racial slurs and jailed without explanation.

Miranda was the only person detained that day. As coordinator of the Fraternal Black Organization of Honduras (OFRANEH), she had clearly been targeted by police. She was detained more than two hours without receiving medical attention, only to learn later that she would be accused of sedition.

The roadblock where Miranda was arrested was part of protests across the country that were an expression of solidarity with the public school teachers’ union and their fight against privatization and repression. The Garífuna community was also calling for recognition and respect of their ancestral territories.

Miranda’s assault came more than 18 months after the 2009 coup d’état which deposed President Mel Zelaya and sparked sweeping civil unrest throughout the country.

A revived neoliberal economic agenda supported by Canada and the U.S., combined with brutal social repression, has plagued Honduran communities ever since. “With the 2009 coup d’etat, Honduras became a laboratory of political, social, and economic imperialism,” said Miranda.

Indeed, from signing a free trade deal to watchdogging the military and police, Canada has played a significant role in this neoliberal experiment, tinkering in legislative, industry, and security reforms that are defining the post-coup Honduras.

Early in the morning of June 28, 2009, Honduran soldiers forced a pajama-clad Zelaya onto a plane to Costa Rica. Congress Speaker Roberto Micheletti stepped in as interim President, though his appointment went unrecognized by the Organization of American States(OAS), who quickly suspended Honduras’ membership.

Micheletti’s tenuous reign was short-lived, however, as the November 29th elections ushered in the presidency of Porfirio Lobo, who was inaugurated on January 27, 2010. Despite the refusal of the National Popular Resistance Front (FNRP) and many national and international organizations to recognize the elections, they were supported by numerous states, including Canada. Honduras was readmitted to the OAS on June 1, 2010.

Zelaya’s critics in the National Congress and military defended the coup as a preemptive measure to thwart an upcoming public poll on whether to convene a constituent assembly, framing it as an illegal attempt to open up the constitution to allow successive terms in office.

Many Hondurans saw the coup as “made in the USA,” as Miranda put it, engineered in North America in collusion with the local oligarchy, whose patience with the left-turning Zelaya had grown thin.

Zelaya had stirred up talk of agrarian reform, minimum wage increases, stiffer regulations on foreign industries, and, with the support of Congress, had recently signed Honduras on to ALBA—Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s “Bolivarian” alternative for Latin America.

“It’s clear that the US saw Honduras as kind of the weakest link in the ALBA block,” said Tom Loudon, Executive Secretary to Honduras’ alternative truth commission, in a phone interview from Tegucigalpa, calling the coup “a strike at Chavez’s block.”

The coup sparked widespread mobilization within Honduras, where daily demonstrations ensued for more than three months, drawing hundreds of thousands of protesters across the country. This incited extraordinary repression perpetrated by the military, police and vigilante forces, including 4,234 human rights violations in the first 100 days following the coup.

Berta Cáceres, Director of the Civil Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH), describes “assassinations of Indigenous people, assassinations of people in the Honduran resistance, of journalists [and] lawyers, and all this in a state of impunity.”

Indeed, the Committee for Relatives of the Disappeared in Honduras (COFADEH) documented 54 political assassinations during Micheletti’s short rule, while The Center for Economic and Policy Research reports another 120 since Lobo’s inauguration. Cáceres situates this criminalization of social movements, social struggles, women leaders and social leaders of the country as part of a broader economic, political, and military strategy.

In response to rampant repression and violence, an "official" Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was established under the auspices of the OAS as part of a 12-point resolution know as the San José Accord.

Though the Accord was meant to be diplomatic, mediated by Costa Rican President Oscar Arias, the TRC was established under decree of de facto President Lobo, who also hand-picked the five representatives to lead it, including Canadian diplomat Michael Kergin.

Human rights organizations have criticized the TRC for failing to comply with international standards. Under the banner of the Plataforma de Derechos Humanos (Human Rights Platform), these organizations launched an alternative commission, the “Comisión de Verdad,” on June 28, 2010; the one year anniversary of the coup.

Despite the constraints of a much smaller budget (estimated at about one sixth the official TRC’s rumoured $5 million), the alternative commission took its cues from a broader segment of society.

“Our goal has been primarily, from the very beginning, to give voice to the victims,” said Loudon, a long-time affiliate with the Friendship Office of the Americas.

The commission has been guided by of a team of nine human rights defenders—two Honduran and seven international—including Toronto-based lawyer, Craig Scott, who was elected as an NDP Member of Parliament (Toronto-Danforth) this past March.

Under their counsel, the commission sent two teams to collect testimonies across the country and opened offices in Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula. “We have a much more robust —evidentially, and just in terms of our method—approach to the human rights situation than the government commission,” said Scott in an interview with The Dominion. Scott has stepped down as commissioner since his election as MP.

In addition to financial barriers, security hurdles have also stalled the Alternative Commission’s work.

“The stress-levels of our staff—especially the Honduran staff—were through the roof,” explained Scott. “Our only two Honduran commissioners had to flee the country.” After receiving anonymous threats, Commissioner Padre Fausto Milla left for several months, and Commissioner Helen Umaña left in August 2011, with no plans to return.

Further, one of the staff suffered an attempted kidnapping, in which he was hauled from a taxi by police officers and pistol-whipped, before struggling free and escaping. “We’re sure if it had been successful, they would have killed him,” said Loudon. “As he was fleeing, they were shooting at him.”

The commission is planning to release their final report by the end of June. It will appear in the form of three volumes: cases, patterns, and an executive summary.

The first volume profiles twenty-four of the most emblematic human rights cases in chronological order. These include assassinations, the dismissal of four publicly anti-coup Supreme Court judges, and the ransacking of the offices of COMAL—a fair trade organization based in Siguatepeque, a small city in a lush agricultural region northwest of Tegucigalpa.

The second volume identifies patterns, including the massive repression of demonstrations, such as the mass arrest of 400 protesters near the Nicaraguan border on June 30, 2009, two days after the coup. Other patterns include the persecution of vulnerable social groups, and violations related to land and natural resources.

The executive summary is likely to be the only volume translated into English.

In August 2011, Prime Minister Harper became the first foreign leader to visit Honduras since it was readmitted to the OAS. It was during this visit that Harper and Lobo finalized a Free Trade Agreement (FTA).

Canada had begun free trade negotiations with the “C4 countries” (Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and El Salvador) in 2001. But by the end of 2010, despite the post-coup climate of repression and human rights abuses, Canada decided to shed the collective and go bilateral.

“The idea of a Free Trade Agreement in that kind of context, was frankly almost obscene,” said Scott. “[Harper] probably sent as strong a signal as you could that the whole philosophy was one of economic trade and growth as the completely dominant paradigm for how a country like Honduras moves forward.”

A negotiating document acquired from the Honduran Secretary of Industry and Trade through an Access to Information request notes that over the course of 2010, Canada’s imports from Honduras had eclipsed exports by $20.9 million. Overall bilateral trade increased after the coup, showing a 9.3 per cent increase from 2009 to 2010, and a 22 per cent increase to $235 million in 2011.

Leading up to the FTA, Canadian companies already held 90 per cent of investment in Honduras’ mining sector, amounting to $146 million in total assets employed by Canadian firms by 2009. During a meeting with de facto President Lobo in April 2010, Canadian Ambassador Neil Reeder suggested that with the FTA this number would balloon to $700 million.

As the FTA was inked, ten of the most prominent Honduran human rights organizations released a document rejecting the agreement. The “Pronouncement Rejecting the Extractive Policy of the Government of Canada and the Bilateral Trade Deal between Canada and Honduras” describes the detrimental impacts that Canadian investments have already had on the environment, health, and self-determination of communities and rejects the FTA for facilitating further exploitation.

“The Free Trade Agreement with Canada has opened more doors for Canadian transnational mining companies...Leading to the violation of labour rights,” said Cáceres, whose organization signed the pronouncement. “And still, even at the international level, there is a lack of justice against these Canadian transnationals.”

The coup was carried out less than three weeks prior to the final reading of a proposed mining law that would have demanded community consent, raised taxes, prohibited open-pit mining, and banned the use of cyanide in new concessions. It has since been substituted with a new law on mining and hydrocarbons currently before Congress, which would slacken regulations and leave the county vulnerable to even more extractive development.

An April 23 communiqué put out by the Honduran National Coalition of Environmental and Social Networks against Open-Pit Mining and the Siria Valley Environmental Committee, denounced Congress for avoiding consultation with Honduran organizations on the new law, instead shopping it around to Canadian mining corporations and government officials.

The communiqué notes that Rigoberto Cuellar, Minister of Natural Resources (SERNA), and Aldo Santos, director of the Directorate for the Promotion of Mining (DEFOMIN), traveled to Canada to promote the proposed law at the annual convention of the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada in March. The Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade sent two government representatives to attend, including International Trade Minister Ed Fast, who met with the Hondurans.

The proposed mining law represents just one of Canada’s efforts towards increased involvement in internal Honduran affairs.

Canada has provided one of two foreign advisors to a new, independent police monitoring body, known as the Commission for the Reform of Public Security. With an express focus on rural security, this body has also been acting as a key advisor to the proposed mining law. In November 2011, Honduran police took part in a training workshop on Military-Police Cooperation run by Canada’s Pearson Peacekeeping Centre. Canada has also participated in anti-narcotics operations in the region, including Op Martillo.

With continued impunity for both local human rights violators and foreign perpetrators, hope is hard to muster.

“The train has left the station in so many ways; the government has been barreling ahead with its neoliberal and oppressive agenda,” says Scott. According to Scott, the test will be whether or not the Alternative Commission is found to be useful as a way for new political forces and social actors to try to take back their country.

Regardless, the Alternative Commission's report is sure have local significance. “The report of the truth commission will be very important because it will verify situations that strip perpetrators of responsibility for their crimes,” says Cáceres.

Meanwhile, the movement presses on. In April, thousands of landless Honduran farmers occupied 30,000 acres of land across the country. Elections are on the horizon for November 2013, when the resistance movement will run candidates under the recently founded Liberation and Re-foundation Party (PLR).

Ongoing repression does not mean that the Honduran people stop fighting, says Cáceres. "Instead, we strengthen our struggles.”

Emma Feltes is a writer, researcher, and rights advocate based in Toronto and sometimes elsewhere. Her work centres on Indigenous-State relations in Canada and Latin America, land rights, cultural heritage, and urban issues.

Mel's Return

Budget Axe Falls on Retirement Supports

Miles — Fri, 04 May 2012 09:53:00 +0000

Feds continue burden-shifting onto the 99 per cent

VANCOUVER—The federal government recently raised the age threshold for Old Age Security benefits from 65 to 67. This new age requirement will come into effect in 2023. The Harper government says that the OAS in its current form is an untenable strain on resources as Canada’s population ages. But, as critics point out, the fiscal case presented for the cuts has been deeply flawed and misleading.

The federal government argues that the OAS cuts are necessary to stem “unsustainable” program expenditures that are rising from $39 billion in 2011 to $108 billion in 2030 (and Canadians are left to simply imagine how quickly costs will rise in later years).

The government's projections, however, do not adjust for inflation or economic growth. They were stated in nominal rather than proportional terms, creating a “sticker shock” effect. Put in more meaningful numbers, the cost of OAS will rise by 2.4 per cent to 3.2 per cent of the GDP between 2011 and 2030.

The government case also omits that these cost increases are projected to peak in 2031, then plateau and ultimately reverse, falling back to 2.4 per cent of GDP by 2060 (according to the government’s own actuarial report on OAS).

The more sober assessment of the OAS situation is supported by the non-partisan Parliamentary Budget Officer, Kevin Page, who said that the program was already on sustainable long-term fiscal footing, “even under the baseline assumption that there is some additional enrichment to elderly benefit payments.”

Even evaluated on the grounds of the modest budget savings they appear to offer, the OAS cuts are problematic.

The lost income resulting from the OAS cuts is substantial for individuals. The exact amount varies depending on the year of retirement. For example, a person who is 35 years old today stands to lose a total of $24,451 as a result of the changes.

“Canada’s public pensions are already too meager. And I fear, if they are raising the age, that it won’t be long before we see further cuts in these inadequate pensions,” said Gudrun Langolf, first vice president of B.C.’s Council of Senior Citizens’ Organizations.

Cuts to retirement income will push more seniors into low-income status, and degrade the quality of life of others, particularly at a time when employment-based pensions are increasingly scarce and also facing cuts.

Workplace pensions are rapidly being converted into “defined-contribution” plans. These plans offer weaker income security, largely because they channel retirement savings into individual investment accounts that are vulnerable to the short-term fluctuations of the market.

The burden of the OAS cuts, as is all too often the case, will be borne disproportionately by low-income seniors, as well workers in what the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives calls physically demanding or stressful occupations (for whom delayed retirement is especially burdensome).

As Michael Wolfson, the former Assistant Chief Statistician at Statistics Canada, has noted, the costs will also inevitably be carried by taxpayers through provincial governments, which will have to fill the income gap left by OAS cuts from their welfare budgets and through other forms of social assistance. Since OAS benefits are taxable, any potential fiscal savings from the cuts will be further offset by a drop in federal and provincial income tax revenue.

Some Canadians will manage to sock away more money in private retirement savings programs such as RRSPs, but ownership of these plans is already highly skewed towards the top of the income distribution. Participation rates in private retirement savings plans in 2008 were 86 per cent for the top fifth of income earners and 9 per cent for the bottom fifth, according to Statistics Canada.

Private retirement savings programs also carry far higher administrative costs than public pensions, reducing the overall efficiency of the retirement system, even while increasing income inequality in retirement.

The OAS particulars aside, Canadians might also ask why their future incomes must be targeted for belt tightening, while corporate tax rates continue to fall (to 15 per cent federally this year, down from 28 per cent in 2000). This is to say nothing of billions spent on the war in Afghanistan, over $600 million planned spending on building new prison cells, and an estimated $25 billion on new fighter jets.

Perhaps unsurprising in this context, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development has taken particular note of Canada’s growing inequality, which has seen the incomes of the top 0.1 per cent more than double over the past 30 years, while their tax rates have fallen precipitously (and median Canadian wages have stagnated).

Cuts to OAS appear to be just one more turn of the vice-grip that places the burden of government austerity measures onto the backs of those who can least afford it. What remains to be seen is how communities and citizens will respond to this set of policies in an era of majority government and renewed activism in Canada.

Alex Hemingway is a Vancouver-based educator and PhD student in Political Science at UBC. He received master's degrees in Global Politics and Social Policy at the London School of Economics.

OAS umbrella

Occupy Pensions!

The Case of Wally Fowler

Tim McSorley — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 09:05:20 +0000

Racism and possible cover-up in Canadian military see light of day with exclusively released documents

HALIFAX—In 2001, with a wife and her three children in tow, Private Wally Fowler, an African-Nova Scotian, was assigned to Traffic Tech training at Canadian Forces Base (CFB) Esquimalt, on Vancouver Island, British Columbia. It was not an auspicious match by any account, and since then Fowler has clung tirelessly to the assertion that he and his family were the frequent victims of racism and discrimination in Esquimalt.

The experience has cost Fowler dearly. He lost his wife, his career and in 2004, after leaving the military, he became mentally unstable and was hospitalized for an extended period.

Fortunately, an encounter in 2011 with Sergeant Rubin Coward, a military administrative specialist known to some as “the only man who can beat the military,” has given the Fowler case new life and a new direction.

Coward’s reputation can be traced back to 1993 when he single-handedly fought and won his own discrimination case at CFB Greenwood, where he was the first African-Nova Scotian Non-Commissioned Officer to be the chief clerk in 404 Maritime Patrol and Training Squadron. It took Coward over six years to advance his own case and he is adamant that the chips are stacked against anyone who tries to take on the military with charges of discrimination.

Coward's administrative acumen has yielded a trove of documents on Fowler’s case under the Privacy Act. These documents show that Fowler's initial accusations of racism were well known and corroborated by his military superiors at CFB Esquimalt. These documents also point to a series of mishandled opportunities and a possible cover-up that implicates a wide swath of persons, some among the upper echelons of the Canadian military establishment. If the nation had known what some within the military had known, Wally Fowler’s story would have become a national scandal.

In Esquimalt, in 2001, Fowler and his family attracted all manner of attention—but of the negative, racist sort. His daughter was spat on in school. The bus driver called his young son a “nigger.” His wife had bananas thrown at her while walking home from work and was frequently refused service at local stores. For several months, Fowler filed complaint form after complaint form with the military, but nothing came of them.

“He filed these forms with the appropriate military administrators,” says Coward. “As of late 1990, we have a policy of 'zero tolerance' within the military. Several of these instances happened on the base, and involved members of the PMQ [Personnel Married Quarters]. So these should have been investigated.”

Fowler says no resolution ever came.

“It was always just 'being looked at,'” says Fowler. “Even the bus driver was only relocated to a different route. That was it.”

As the racist incidents and the inaction of the military continued, Fowler requested that he and his family be transferred back to Atlantic Canada, where they would have support of the African-Nova Scotian community. In response to Fowler's request, a variety of sources, including Fowler's military superiors at CFB Esquimalt, began to confirm in writing what Fowler had been saying all along. There was racism at CFB Esquimalt and Private Fowler had felt its effects. In a social work report dated May 1, 2002, Captain DH Wong, the base's Formation Social Work Officer, noted:

“Pte Fowler and his family appear to have been victims of racial discrimination on a number of occasions...It is recommended that Pte Fowler be posted to a Halifax area unit and that his employment be restricted such that he be available to provide his family with a stable home environment, and facilitate their attendance in a program which would heal the harm done by the racial discrimination experienced in his current posting.”

In a move request dated May 31, 2002, Commander RK Taylor, the Base Administration Officer, confirmed Captain Wong's assessment.

“[Fowler] and his family have consistently experienced racial discrimination outside of the military workplace. Specifically, his children have been taunted and harassed at school and in the PMQ area where they live...Such unpleasant living circumstances have greatly affected the quality of life of this serviceman and his family...I wholeheartedly support the recommendation that he and his family be posted to Halifax or as a secondary preference another base in the Atlantic region...While he and his family will undoubtedly need to heal and learn coping skills, it is my assessment that the Fowlers will achieve this goal without career restrictions placed upon him.”

Lieutenant Commander DF Ohs, the Chaplain BRT, also confirmed the situation. In a memo dated July 3, 2002, Ohs noted that Fowler had provided him with “ample evidence that this is not just a hunch or a personal feeling, but in fact a reality.” He went on to express his concern for the family's well-being:

“They are not coping well with their present reality. Their trust level with the local community is non-existent and they are truly miserable...For all our good intentions, our national and world image could be deeply stained on just one accusation of failing to take care of one of our own families, facing severe discrimination [to them] because they are from a visible minority, and because 'no one would listen to them.' If the member were to seek the assistance of his racial community, I believe this could be perceived a national scandal.”

David Wong, now retired from the military, does not remember the details of the Fowler case, a case he dealt with 10 years ago. The retired captain does, however, remember what he would have done in order to have written the aforementioned social work report.

“I would have verified the instances of discrimination that he and his family would have reported to me,” said Wong in an interview with The Dominion. “I would have followed up on that, making an assessment on whether they had in fact suffered this discrimination, and tried to assess the impact...that it was having on the family...I would have written that in a report to his commanding officer, with a recommendation in his case of a posting to a community where he could get the support of...a community which was probably more multicultural, more accepting of people of colour.”

When asked if Fowler's case would have been unique in the Canadian military in 2002, Wong replied, “Hardly. That would be naive to say that. There's no doubt that other people were subjected to racial slurs and racial comments, racial insults, and racial discrimination of one sort or another.”

In May and June of 2002, National Defence Headquarters in Ottawa began to take interest in the events unfolding at CFB Esquimalt. On June 24, 2002, Chief Warrant Officer Levesque from Human Resources in Ottawa, sent an email to Captain Wong, asking him if he knew of any “other persons in similar circumstances in the Esquimalt/Victoria area.” That same day, Wong replied:

“I can count myself in that number...How many such people do we have here? I can't give you a number. However, colleagues tell me that they have recently started to take notice and ask the question, and they are alarmed at the high number of people who are reporting having suffered instances of prejudice and discrimination.”

Fowler's original request, dated April 16, 2002, was for a “compassionate posting” and not a “contingency move.” The difference between the two is important. A compassionate posting implies that there may be something wrong with the requester, rather than the circumstances. A compassionate posting risks affecting a soldier's career in that a caveat will be applied to their file.

A “contingency move” is granted when the military acknowledges that the requester is dealing with circumstances beyond the capabilities of the individual involved. So it is telling that when Commander RK Taylor, the Base Administration Officer, made his recommendation, it was for Fowler to receive a contingency move, rather than a compassionate posting.

As National Defence was considering what to do with Wally Fowler, a tangled thread of internal emails circulated. On July 8, 2002, Colonel Wauthier at National Defence Headquarters suggested a half-dozen possible locations available for transfer, including Greenwood, Nova Scotia. In the same email, Wauthier noted that should Fowler insist upon a move to Halifax, “we will consider [it] at that time.”

In correspondence the following day, all but two of those locations seemed to have disappeared. In an email dated July 9, 2002, Master Corporal Guy, stationed at CFB Esquimalt, noted:

“I received a phone call from CWO Levesque [Traffic Tech career manager] and he told me that in regards to Pte Fowler, he did not have any positions available in the East Coast and the only choices are Winnipeg and Trenton...Pte Fowler said that he would not want Winnipeg as he feels he would be harassed again there. The CWO said now that the options are now limited to simply Trenton.”

This transpired in spite of the fact that CWO Levesque was copied in the original Wauthier email. Clearly, as of July 8, Levesque was aware that there were postings available in Greenwood, NS. Levesque would have been aware that Commander Taylor from CFB Esquimalt and others had specifically requested that Fowler be posted to Halifax, or at the very least to Atlantic Canada.

The final decision was made by Fowler's “career manager,” Chief Warrant Officer J. Melancon.

Instead of honouring the recommendation coming from CFB Esquimalt to re-post Wally Fowler to Atlantic Canada, CWO Melancon confirmed that Fowler had only two possible transfer options. Fowler was told to chose between CFB Winnipeg or CFB Trenton, Ontario.

Rubin Coward finds CWO Melancon’s decision troubling, especially considering the extenuating circumstances that led to Fowler's request for a move.

“In totality, the reasoning behind Commander Taylor's strong recommendation to send Wally and his family back east was twofold,” says Coward. “One: to allow the member to be reintegrated with Black people in his own milieu. And secondly: to allow the individual a chance to heal. And I would say, under normal circumstances, having put sixteen years into the system myself, there's no way normally that a Chief Warrant Officer could veto the recommendation of a Commander, unless he himself had an agenda.”

In the summer of 2002, faced with what he perceived as his only option, and wishing to be as close to his support network in Atlantic Canada as possible, Fowler chose the location farthest east: Trenton.

Then something even more curious happened.

CWO Melancon transferred himself from his Ottawa office, and posted himself as Base CWO of CFB Trenton. The former Base Chief Warrant Officer in Trenton transferred into Melancon's position in Ottawa, inheriting Fowler's career file. The logic behind such a transfer, in effect a self-demotion for Melancon, is difficult to understand.

Very little documentation is on hand concerning Fowler's posting at CFB Trenton. Coward suspects that staff at CFB Trenton may have “closed ranks” and that future information requests may yet reveal another series of documents from this time period. The only documentation available is Fowler's own testimony about his treatment, which he describes as “hell.”

“Melancon's puppets were everywhere,” claims Fowler. “I was starting to get written up over everything. They'd keep a log on my actions, sometimes minute-to-minute. They kept me in a basement, ironing flags. Or I'd be driving around, sorting through trash.”

At present, no documentation can confirm these allegations.

Coward suggests that even before Fowler’s transfer to Trenton, Fowler was suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder as a result of racist treatment while at Esquimalt, and he was in an even more fragile mental state in Trenton.

In fall 2002, Fowler began to experience a steady mental break down. In December 2002, he went on extended sick leave. In mid-January he was examined by Dr Bodden, a psychiatrist with Area Support Unit Toronto.

In a consultation report, dated January 16, 2003, Dr Bodden noted:

“Wally identifies a number of problems with his mood. Since arriving at Trenton, he has experienced a number of difficulties which have ultimately culminated in his mood being down most of the time, frequent ruminations about his difficulties, impaired concentration, decreased energy, decreased interest, significant initial insomnia of four to five hours duration...increased appetite with a 45-pound weight gain, and feelings of guilt. He denies suicidal ideation. He feels very helpless and hopeless.”

Notably, Dr Bodden mentioned that Fowler's posting to Trenton, and not Atlantic Canada, was possibly “redressable.”

“In other words,” says Coward, “if Wally were to have the knowledge and had somebody who would assist him in putting together a redress, he could have very easily been moved to Nova Scotia. But being a private, and not having that knowledge, he was subjected to whatever agenda Chief Warrant Officer Melancon had.”

A social work report, dated February 3, 2003, noted that members of the military consulted Captain DN Penley (a Social Worker stationed at Trenton) about Fowler five times between November 2002 and January 2003. In one communique between Penley and the Commanding Officer of 2 Air Movements Squadron, 8 Wing Trenton, Penley notes:

“Several other helping professionals involved in this case were consulted by WSWO [Wing Squadron Warrant Officer]...CFMAP [Canadian Forces Member Assistance Program] counsellor indicated that racism experienced by s/m and family in Esquimalt was highly traumatizing, which may have disadvantaged s/m's introduction to his military career at a critical juncture.”

With his mental state beginning to suffer greatly, and his family becoming increasingly depressed, in early February Fowler requested discharge from the military.

Captain Penley, in a communique written on February 3, again suggests:

“[A] compassionate posting to Nova Scotia could be considered as an alternative in order to attempt salvaging the s/m's career.”

CWO Melancon's motivations in blocking recommendations to post Fowler to CFB Halifax or Greenwood, and then re-posting himself to CFB Trenton once Fowler was posted there, remains a mystery unlikely to be resolved. On February 13, 2003, Jean Melancon passed away suddenly while stationed at CFB Trenton.

Once dismissed, it appears that the loose ends of Fowler's file were quickly “cleaned up.” By April 2003 there was no trace of the original documents from CFB Esquimalt, documents that suggest mistreatment of Wally Fowler and his family, and a subsequent mishandling of their case. In April of 2003, in response to discrimination charges brought to him by Fowler, Lieutenant Colonel Romanow noted in a memo:

“Pte Fowler alleges that he and his family have been subjected to discrimination and racism at each of the postings (Borden, Esquimalt and Trenton) he has had since rejoining the CF in 2000. It is noted that there is no substantiation or evidence supporting his allegations on the file. Consequently, there does not appear to be any immediate risk to the CF of having to respond to a grievance or human rights complaint, based on discrimination...It is recommended that Pte Fowler be released from the CF under item 5d as proposed.”

Romanow's statement that no substantiation or evidence supporting Fowler's allegations flies in the face of what is now known: Captain Wong had undertaken an investigation and came to the conclusion that Fowler was the victim of racism; Base Command had interviewed Fowler, was attempting to resolve one specific incident and was taking steps to “reinforce the Good Neighbour Policy to include racial tolerance” on the base; and, in 2003, the Canadian Forces Members Assistance Program counsellor had found the racism that Wally Fowler had experienced while at Esquimalt was “highly traumatic.” According to Romanow, however, as of 2003, all this evidence had disappeared.

It is troubling to contemplate where the original documents from CFB Esquimalt might have gone. Retired Captain Wong is equally baffled.

“Good question,” said Wong to The Dominion, when asked where the documents might have gone. “I guess it would be relevant to a subsequent investigation, wouldn't it? I couldn't tell you...I suppose as a journalist you can put that question to the Minister [of Defence].”

At press time, neither the Minister of Defence nor the Department of National Defence had any comment regarding the missing evidence.

In June of 2003, with his step-children still attending public school, Wally Fowler was given a 5d dismissal—a dismissal with no pension attached. He was given seven days back-pay, although he had to wait to move until the end of June in order for his step-children to complete their school year.

Three years after the move to Esquimalt, Fowler and his family returned home to Halifax, to the support of his community. For several months Fowler attempted to get compensation or a pension from the military, but to no avail. He solicited then-Minister of National Defence David Pratt. Fowler penned a letter to Pratt on February 2, 2004. Pratt responded on March 12, 2004, saying he was “disturbed” by Fowler's account of the racism he had “allegedly suffered,” and said he had ordered a review to determine if Fowler's treatment by the armed forces negatively impacted his career, and whether this treatment was related to Fowler's “ethnic origin.”

There is reason to believe that a review of Fowler's career would have turned up the original documents from Esquimalt—documents that show the extent of the racism to which Fowler and his family had been exposed. A review would have also found the potentially redressable posting to CFB Trenton, and the decision of CWO Melancon to go against Commander Taylor's recommendation that Fowler be posted to Halifax, or elsewhere in Atlantic Canada.

Nothing was found.

On February 12, 2004, as the military began to search for information on Fowler in response to Pratt's career review, a flourish of internal emails erupted. All of them were written by individuals looking for Fowler's case file, but none of them being able to find it. A message from Captain Jackson noted:

“I looked in NGRS and Excel and could not find it. How about you?”

To which Warrant Officer Laing replied, 11 minutes later:

“Not at this level. Nothing in the “I” drive either.”

Lost files notwithstanding, the case continued, slated to be addressed in the House of Commons on April 19, 2004. That month, another flourish of inter-departmental emails ensued.

On April 5, Lieutenant Navy Green asked CFB Esquimalt:

“Nothing in your records for anything relating to the Fowler family in Mqs out there?”

MWO Ennis, in Esquimalt, the same day, replied:

“A records check does not indicate any investigation files/reports involving Pte Fowler at CFB Esquimalt. As noted below one file was noted CFB Trenton involving a Breach of Probation issue.”

Without the proper documentation, the case before the House of Commons was weak. Fowler, unhappy with the results of the investigation, solicited Pratt once more. Pratt again sided on paper with Fowler; writing to the National Defence Ombudsman on Fowler's behalf, he noted:

“I am informed that your investigator did contact Mr Fowler, but that he may not be prepared to fully support your investigation. Nevertheless, it is requested that your office conduct a viability assessment for the conduct of this investigation and provide your recommendations to me.”

On July 2, 2004, the final results of the investigation arrived in the form of a letter from Captain DJ Kyle, the Base Commander at Esquimalt, to the Director of Military Careers at NDHQ:

“A search of all documents relating to the investigation of racism and/or harassment concerning Private (Retired) Fowler has been conducted with negative results. The supervisor of Private (Retired) Fowler has confirmed that the Private was not involved in any investigation concerning racism and/or harassment during his posting to Canadian Forces Base Esquimalt.”

Every trace of wrongdoing in the Fowler file had vanished.

Wally Fowler then suffered a mental breakdown. In the late summer of 2004 he was found on the highway outside of Halifax, wandering naked. When the police cuffed him, he attempted to gouge his eyes out on the window of their cruiser. He was taken to the Nova Scotia Hospital, where he was kept under intermittent restraint and constant surveillance for the following month and a half.

Without a military pension, and with no income, Fowler's vehicle was repossessed; his mortgage also spiralled out of control. Fowler's partner and her three children, whom Fowler was raising as his own, left him. The psychiatry team at the Nova Scotia Hospital diagnosed Fowler with schizophrenia and asked the Department of National Defence to provide him with a pension. Finally, in winter, 2004, Fowler was granted a limited pension. At this point, having moved back with his parents, his life was in shambles.

Fowler, in a fragile mental state, continued his attempt to get a full medical pension, but to no avail. On July 28, 2005, the Canadian Forces Grievance Board (CFGB) recommended that Fowler's application for redress of grievances be denied. Notably, the CFGB's investigation justified Fowler's 2003 posting to Trenton, as Major Lionais noted:

“[I]did not support a posting to Halifax due to the fact that the city achieved notoriety in the late 1990s for racial conflict issues in one of its high schools.”

What a racial conflict at a high school in Halifax had to do with refusing the recommendations from CFB Esquimalt that Fowler be moved back to his community on a contingency move is not known.

In 2005, Fowler received a letter from the Chief of the Defence Staff, General RJ Hillier; it was a final response to Fowler's application for a redress of grievance. In the letter, Hillier noted:

“In its analysis, CFGB found that there was no substantiated racist conduct or harassment on the part of any Canadian Forces member towards you. I agree with the CFGB. I believe that the CF, given the circumstances, was sensitive and responsive to your situation...I am not prepared to grant the redress you are seeking. I am satisfied that you were not discriminated against and that you took your voluntary release.”

It was the same story as before, now handed to Fowler by the Chief of the Defence Staff himself. Fowler began to vacillate between continuing his pursuit of redress of grievance and giving up on what seemed to be a hopeless endeavour. His mental state again wavered; he suffered another breakdown in 2005. He began to shred much of the original documentation related to his military career, as it made him angry. He took work as a community service worker and drifted between jobs.

Years went by and nothing advanced beyond a bureaucratic shuffle. Finally, in 2011, Fowler met Coward. Coward believed Fowler; with 16 years in the system, Coward says he’s seen it all before.

“[In the military] racism is both systemic and institutional,” says Coward. “And it's clear to see how they operate. What they do at the end of the day, they inundate the individual with a plethora of documentation, in Wally's case some 4,000 pages, and most of it is fluff. And of course, even when Wally took it to his lawyer, the first thing the lawyer said was, 'I can't go through all that,' unless Wally had a quarter million dollars in his back pocket. And the military is acutely aware that there's a significant financial uphill battle to fight these buggers.

“The area where they try to defeat you is in administration. And if you're not as sound an administrator, you're easily defeated. Because you just don't know the system. For people like Wally who don't have that knowledge? They're dead in the water, and the system knows it.”

Armed with the “vanished” documents from CFB Esquimalt, Coward is confident that Fowler's case merits a second look. He wants a Ministerial Inquiry. He also wants a review of the Human Rights Commission, the means by which racism is reported on in the Canadian military. He wants compensation for Wally Fowler, who he says should have been enjoying a long and illustrious career with the Canadian military by now. According to Coward, Veterans' Affairs is now offering Wally Fowler a full medical pension. But at this late date, after years of disappearing documentation, a pension is not enough for Fowler and Coward.

“They're now offering a bun,” says Coward. “And what they don't know is he can get the whole bakery.”

Miles Howe is an editor with The Dominion and a member of the Halifax Media Co-op.

Questions? Comments? Drop us a line: info@mediacoop.ca

Wally Fowler and Rubin Coward

Social Profiling Under Scrutiny

Natascia L — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 12:54:11 +0000

A new report indicates little progress has been made in eliminating social profiling

MONTREAL—“We need to do a clean-up,” says Bernard St-Jacques of the homelessness problem in Montreal, which affects to 25,000 to 30,000 people according to the Réseau d’Aide aux Personnes Seules et Itinérantes de Montréal (RAPSIM).

St-Jacques is the community organizer for public space and jurisdiction at RAPSIM and the author of a report on social profiling released last Wednesday. Profilage social et jurisdiction: portrait de la situation dans l’espace public montréalais contains the results of a questionnaire asking 40 Montreal organizations about their experiences—and those of the homeless people who use their services—with social profiling.

The report was inspired by a similar one done by the Quebec Human Rights and Youth Rights Commission in 2009. Its most significant finding: homeless people receive a disproportionate number of fines from the police. The majority of fines were for minor infractions regarding “incivilities.” According to the report, Montreal’s homeless represent one per cent of the population but they were the subject of 31.6 per cent of the police reports in 2004, 20.3 per cent in 2005. The report concluded social profiling contributed significantly to these statistics, and made a series of recommendations to the Montreal Police Service (SPVM).

Two years later, RAPSIM’s report commends the police on a few improvements in this area. SPVM documented a 30 per cent decrease in the number of fines given to homeless people between 2008 and 2009. It also partnered with the Équipe Mobile de Référence et d’Interventions en Itinérance whose members go on patrol with police, providing advice on approaching the homeless and suggesting alternatives to fines or arrest. "They (SPVM) have changed their directives: on the level of interventions, police officers are less encouraged to target homeless people," says St-Jacques.

Still, 85 per cent of the respondents to RAPSIM’s questionnaire described the relations between homeless people and police as negative: 56 per cent reported being the victims of physical abuse and 46 percent reported verbal abuse or discrimination. Sixty-one per cent indicated they still frequently receive fines.

The report denounces police for rarely following procedure when it comes to situations involving homeless people. St-Jacques says nothing has been done since the release of the Commission’s recommendations to correct or reprimand this misconduct. Clinique Droits Devant, RAPSIM’s legal aid service, dealt with 16 cases last year concerning police misconduct, and sixty-three per cent of respondents described their legal situation as poor.

"The attitude of police toward homeless people hasn't really changed for the best; the mentality hasn't really changed," says Johanne Galipeau of Action Autonomie, a mental health advocacy and legal aid organization that participated in RAPSIM’s questionnaire. "Maybe there are less fines, but there is a lack of respect. Abuse, brutality; these situations have not changed—have little changed."

She criticizes police for being quick to use a heavy hand on a person acting outside "societal norms." As a result, the homeless have made a connection between the police and being escorted to the hospital or prison, she says. Losing confidence in the system means the homeless have ceased asking for help.

Galipeau says police tend to receive the brunt of social profiling accusations because they are the first responders.

RAPSIM’s report indicates 60 per cent of respondents felt the treatment of homeless people in public spaces in general has improved little or not at all in the past five years—whether that treatment be from residents, business owners, other citizens or the police.

“Police members are not apart from society,” says Marie-Eve Sylvestre. “They’re part of it and their construction or their perception of homelessness and of some people who may have characteristics of homeless people are also constructed by society.”

Sylvestre is a civil law professor at the University of Ottawa and was one of two researchers involved in developing RAPSIM’s report. She says social profiling by police stems largely from society’s narratives of homeless people. For instance, the misconception that all homeless are dangerous is often used as a justification for their arrest. “We believe the police have constructed a perception of the harm caused by homeless people based on the needs and complaints of very few individuals who have some power in the neighborhoods [where the arrests and fines are occurring,]” says Sylvestre.

Making these complaints is possible, she adds, because some municipal bylaws and provincial laws concerning the use of public space discriminate against homeless people. Prohibitions against public drinking, public noise, public gathering and public drunkenness target the homeless in particular. These laws apply to all citizens, but people living on the street are more likely to violate them because they have no private address. "The fact of not having private spaces, that your private space eventually becomes the public space, well, that impedes a protection of your rights," says St-Jacques.

Between 2000 and 2003, more and more public places were being redefined as 'parks' or 'squares' meaning the city had more control over them, explains the RAPSIM report. It became illegal to use public installations, like park benches or low walls, in a manner for which they were not intended (i.e. sleeping.) It also became illegal to remain in public areas after their “closing times.” Céline Bellot, a researcher in the Centre International de Criminologie Comparée at the Université de Montréal who worked on RAPSIM’s report, documented a four-fold increase in the fines given out to homeless between 1994 and 2003.

St-Jacques also points to the development during this period of downtown Montreal’s infrastructure, housing, commercial areas, tourist attractions and festival spaces as a contributor to the police’s targeting of the homeless population. Downtown organizations recorded worse relations with the police during the summer and festival seasons. "It's obvious," St-Jacques says. "The marginalized population found themselves in the way of these projects."

The inclusion of homeless people in these projects—and their reinsertion into society as a whole—could greatly deter social profiling, believes Richard Chrétien, director of Sac à Dos. His organization has strived to maintain positive relationships with the police officers, residents and business owners surrounding Sac à Dos’ Ste-Catherine/René-Lévesque location. Its members have worked in the community in urban development and cleanup projects, as well as with local stores and events like the Festival de Jazz and Francopholies. "It helps in talking about people living on the street a little bit differently; not just seeing homeless people as a problem, but to see homeless peoples' ability to integrate," Chrétien says. "Plus, it attacks the problem itself."

The problem of homelessness, he means. Central to both RAPSIM’s and the Commission’s reports was the idea that homelessness is a societal failure leading to the denial of basics right to a part of its population. Both groups recommended a steep increase in services for the homeless and improved preventions to homelessness on the municipal and provincial levels.

In 2010, Mayor Gérald Tremblay announced an interdepartmental action plan for homelessness. Despite the plan’s acknowledgement of a social profiling problem, St-Jacques finds it insufficient for its lack of proposed changes to discriminatory municipal laws and police training in regards to the treatment of homeless people. He is most critical of the minimal funding provided to programs and community groups working to improve the basic living conditions of the homeless. "We are far from having our demands met, especially on the jurisdiction and social profiling levels," he says.

RAPSIM plans to continue its research in the area of social profiling. It will be teaming up with other organizations and the Quebec Human Rights and Youth Rights Commission to create a farther-reaching monitoring system that will include a demographic breakdown of social profiling trends, and statistics specific to Montreal’s various neighborhoods. St-Jacques wants to develop a better method of documenting cases of police abuse and misconduct. He hopes the Commission will align this work with its portfolio on racial profiling to form a stronger attack on this issue.

Natascia Lypny is a Montreal native and bilingual freelance journalist currently pursuing a journalism and
sociology degree at the University of King's College and Dalhousie University in Halifax.

Homeless fines

Descartes Without Debt

hillarybain — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 12:12:52 +0000

Course teaches great books free of charge

HALIFAX—The Halifax Humanities 101 program graduated its sixth class at King’s College Chapel on June 4, reigniting the debate regarding the value of a humanities course for low-income people.

Over eight months, students of Halifax Humanities attended classes twice a week and read Plato, Homer, Dante, St. Augustine, Shakespeare, Machiavelli, Descartes, Kant, Nietzsche, Alice Munro, and Virginia Woolf—to name a few—in between lectures. The program is free, and books and reading materials are provided for students to keep. University professors, who volunteer their time, teach all the classes.

Raising funds for a course that does not bill itself as "employment training" for people on low incomes is not always easy, says Mary Lu Redden, the Director of Halifax Humanities. But according to the program’s participants, the opportunity to study classic works of literature, philosophy and art has a value that’s impossible to quantify.

“It opens up your mind and your heart,” says Bonnie Shepherd, one of the program’s first students six years ago. “You have more compassion and empathy when you realize what humans throughout the ages have gone through.”

“When the curriculum was first devised, I wondered if it might be better to be more practical and better suited to the students’ experience,” says Dr. Henry Roper, a volunteer professor from King’s University who has been with the program since its creation. That didn’t seem to be what the participants were looking for, explains Roper. He says the curriculum gets shaped by the needs and wants of the participants each year.

“The opportunity to learn from so many excellent and learned minds has been a remarkable, precious experience,” says Jan G., one of this year’s graduates. “Learning about the journey of humanity through the ages brings a better sense of understanding the world we live in. This experience has given me more confidence in my approach to life.”

“The great works of the West should be available to anyone who wants to tolle lege [take up and read], to bum a phrase from Augustine,” says Dr. Laura Penny, another volunteer professor with Halifax Humanities. “It's a real joy to be part of a program that makes it clear that reading, thinking, and writing are not elitist or superfluous hobbies, but a way to understand the world and the self.”

“There’s something about the core of Marxism that poor people get right away,” says Dr. Sarah Clift who teaches Nietzsche, Marx and others as part of the course. “There’s nothing theoretical about it. [The students] understand the alienation of labour immediately.”

It wasn’t Marx who first touched Kathleen Higney, but Socrates.

Higney remembers her first class in September 2007 on the Socratic method. "I remember wondering, ‘What the heck is [the professor] talking about?’ But I was hooked and carried on...listening, questioning, thinking, and writing.”

Higney has continued studying through the Seminar for Graduates, offered to people who complete the first course. “I highly recommend Halifax Humanities 101 to adults who love to learn but cannot afford the cost of university tuition and books,” she says.

The course is also an invitation to participate in the broader community—an invitation that is desperately needed and rarely extended, says Clift. “The barrier is real and it has social, spiritual and financial implications.”

Lauri Noye, one of this year’s graduates, brightened up her class by bringing her seizure-alert dog to every session. She has felt that isolation in her own life.

“I had become housebound a while ago and this [course] helped me to get out,” says Noye. “I learned a lot about myself and the community and I made new friends. My relationship to the community at large has changed. I found out about things going on that I can participate in and I’m more involved.”

Heather D., who was co-valedictorian of this year's class, had a similar experience. She noticed the change when she found herself attending several New Year’s Levees for the very first time in her life. “I would never have done that before. I have a wider sense of community. Not in a million years would I have come into contact with this group. It’s so outside your known world,” she says. Heather feels the benefits are not limited to those attending the course. “All the people around me have also been affected. It was a ripple effect. It’s not always a dollars-and-cents payoff.”

Halifax Humanities 101 will begin classes again in the fall.

Lamont Dobbin is a recent graduate of the Halifax Humanities course. He lives below the poverty line on a disability pension.

Halifax Humanities 101

Pulp Dreams

hillarybain — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 05:24:19 +0000

Pictou Mill is Asia Pulp Paper's latest acquisition

HALIFAX—If you thought that the Canadian pulp and paper industry was environmentally irresponsible, you were right. But the new players on the clear-cut block make them look like a bunch of patchouli-scented tree-huggers. This is the story of how Canada hopped into bed with one of Asia's worst environmental criminals, and how for the Pictou Landing Indian Band in Nova Scotia, it's just one more proverbial slap in the face.

Amidst a lack of fanfare from mainstream Canadian media, and encouragement by the federal government, a company known as Paper Excellence Canada Holdings Corporation has lately been buying up Canadian pulp mills at a rapid rate. Paper Excellence is a shell company of global pulp and paper giant Asia Pulp Paper (APP), itself the logging and pulping arm of the massive Indonesian conglomerate, known as Sinar Mas.

In 2001, APP defaulted on $12 billion in bonds, kicking the Indonesian economy, and indeed the entire Southeast Asian economy, into a downward spiral. Three independent audits have never been able to account for between three and four billion dollars, in part because APP simply re-financed itself through the financial arm of Sinar Mas. APP has illegally logged a national park in Cambodia, and makes a regular practice of creating shell companies, illegally logging, and by the time the underpaid forestry authorities figure out who's responsible...POOF! They're gone.

Richard Brooks, Forests Campaign Coordinator for Greenpeace, has spearheaded a global campaign to boycott APP products. Large-scale paper distributors, such as Xerox, Staples, and Target, have heeded Brooks' message, and now refuse to carry APP products. In an interview with The Dominion, Brooks says:

(APP) is on this mission to grow themselves into the largest paper company in the world...They're involved with illegal logging and deforestation in Indonesia, and quite a bit of their pulp and paper production is in Indonesia...These are old-growth, tropical, rainforests that are being cut down, and turned into acacia plantations and eucalyptus plantations, or are being turned into palm oil plantations, which is another division of their company.

Brooks continues:

You've got endangered species habitat that's being wiped out...orangutans, Sumatran tigers, rhinos...a lot of logging that happens outside of their legal concessions. There's evidence of them logging in protected areas...Huge amount of conflict with local communities which they are disenfranchising...basically going in, logging the hell out of the forest, putting in these (palm oil) plantations, and not asking for any approval from local communities.

If Paper Excellence/APP/Sinar Mas get their hands on the Northern Pulp-owned mill in Pictou, Nova Scotia, and all signs point to the deal being finalized shortly, it will be their fifth Canadian pulp mill acquisition in as many years. The other mills are located in Howe Sound, British Columbia, MacKenzie, British Columbia, Meadow Lake, Saskatchewan, and Prince Albert, Saskatchewan.

The Canadian pulp mills in question haven't seen this much attention in years. The mill in Pictou has been surviving on a steady diet of government loans for almost a generation. The Prince Albert mill was mothballed at the time of sale. But China is entering a phase of consumerism known as the "paper-culture," and suddenly pulp is again a very hot global commodity. APP simply can't keep up with the Chinese demand for toilet paper, so it has come calling for the mills, and, more importantly, Canada's forests.

We should note that Paper Excellence is not buying any Canadian paper-making facilities. Brooks interprets this to mean that we are in fact witnessing the death of the Canadian, if not North American, paper-making industry, as Canadian pulp will now travel back to Asia, get mixed up with Indonesian hardwood pulp, be made into paper, and then travel back to Canada.

Ed Roste, Vice President of Operations for Paper Excellence, and former VP at Meadow Lake, Paper Excellence's first Canadian pulp mill acquisition in 2006, claims, in an email interview, that while the majority of Canadian pulp will in fact be shipped to China to make paper, there is still a significant North American client base for Canadian pulp. Roste speaks of the “excitement” of the new market opportunities.

The Harper government has opened the public coffers to pay for upgrades to mills all across the country. Canadian taxpayers are on the hook for the 'Pulp and Paper Green Transformation Program' (PPGTP), in which Canadian mills can access up to $1 billion in grants. If Canadian pulp and paper mills were nationalized, such a program might make economic sense for Canadians. As it is taxpayers are to pay for "greening" the mills, only to have many of them sold off to foreign investors, like Sinar Mas, with problematic environmental and financial histories. Paper Excellence's Howe Sound mill received more than $45 million, and the Meadow Lake mill received $2.6 million.

Not to be outdone, in January of 2011, two months prior to the sale being made public, Peter MacKay, Canadian Minister of National Defense, whose family handily owns sizable woodlot holdings in the Pictou area, announced that the Pictou mill would be receiving $28 million under the federal grant. In a telephone interview, Don Breen, Vice-President of Strategic Planning and Government Affairs at Northern Pulp, noted that the $28 million would be used to “reduce odour at the mill by up to 70 per cent, improve boiler performance, and invest in renewable energy initiatives.”

In Nova Scotia, the Pictou mill isn't just a taxpayer-subsidized employer to 230 mill workers, it's the home of a very dirty secret.

Opened in 1966, it is infamous for its continued use of once-idyllic Boat Harbour, a natural lagoon that is located on Pictou Landing Indian Band reserve lands, as an effluent dumping grounds. As documented by the King's College Investigative Journalist Team in 2009, an estimated 1,000,000,000,000 litres of liquid pulp mill waste has poured into Boat Harbour since then, causing untold environmental destruction.

Indeed, an indemnity agreement was signed in 1995 between Scott Maritimes, original owners of the mill, and the provincial government. The agreement guarantees that the Nova Scotia government (actually, Nova Scotia taxpayers) will swallow the costs of cleaning up Boat Harbour. The agreement is valid in transfers of mill ownership. The current NDP provincial government has no alternative plan on what to do with the mill waste, and the Pictou Landing Band is currently in a two-year-and-counting legal battle with the province to see Boat Harbour closed.

Boat Harbour is now a foul-smelling, foam-encrusted, 142-acre wasteland, largely devoid of life. Don Breen, one of the witnesses to the 1995 indemnity, makes no mention of any of the $28 million going to clean up the Boat Harbour disaster that he personally has helped whoever owns the Pictou mill wash their hands of.

In an interview with The Dominion, Kevin Christmas, Indigenous Mi'gmaw, band advisor to Pictou Landing and long-time activist against the pollution of Boat Harbour, notes that effluent-capture technology has existed for years, and that the dire straits of the Pictou Landing Band could have been avoided from the start.

“Boat Harbour is at the tail end of a beautiful reserve called Canada.” says Christmas. “What happens there is one hundred and ten million gallons of the worst possible effluent is being dumped every day, for the last fifty years, in the middle of this beautiful reserve...It's destroying and killing the people. The children...[they] don't know what's wrong with them. But they are not going to live very long lives, and probably will never have children because of base-metal contamination. It's the end of the generation at Pictou Landing.”

Charlie Parker, Minister of the Nova Scotia Department of Natural Resources, whose riding is located in Pictou West, site of the mill, unveiled the province's 'Renewable Electricity Plan' (REP) in 2010. The REP considers biomass burning, which can involve large-scale, whole-tree harvesting, to be a renewable source of energy.

The repercussions of this definition of 'renewable' have already been felt in Northern Pulp-owned land. In the summer of 2009, Northern Pulp made national headlines in Canada by decimating a wide swath of land in the Musquodoboit-Sheet Harbour area through whole-tree harvesting. Katy Didkowsky, of the Save the Caribou Committee, and a local tourism operator, called the scene a “purposeful massacre.”

Musquodoboit-Sheet Harbour may only be the start. Frank Magazine (Issue 611) recently reported that over 28,000 parcels of land in Nova Scotia, almost 250,000 acres, are without an original Crown grant. The archaic, neo-colonial law in Nova Scotia states that without an original grant, which may be over 300 years old, the land belongs to, and can revert back to, the Crown. Nova Scotia has one of the lowest percentages of Crown land available. That the provincial government has found this new source of potentially exploitable land is perhaps more than convenient.

In this light, it is no great stretch of imagination to interpret the $28 million grant for odour reduction, improved boiler performance, and "green" energy capture as simply implying that emissions from the mill will smell better, while processing more trees, potentially whole trees, and burning more wood as biomass. Anonymous sources in Pictou confirm the mill's preparedness for increased production, and note that boilers “which have not been active for years” are now operational.

The Pictou Chamber of Commerce has come out in favour of the mill's sale. The Communications, Energy, and Paperworkers Union of Canada (CEP) has also endorsed the sale of the mill in Pictou, as it has done for the other four Paper Excellence acquisitions. Representatives from the CEP were unavailable for comment on whether they knew, or cared, who the actual new owners of the mill were.

The NDP government of Nova Scotia went so far as to engage in a public meet-and-greet with Paper Excellence's VP Ed Roste, and fully endorsed the sale. When Richard Brooks questioned whether the government knew of the links to APP and Sinar Mas, the province pleaded ignorance.

All groups were shamefully mum on addressing the decades-overdue clean-up of Boat Harbour.

For the rest of Nova Scotia, and Canada, it remains to be seen whether we will see the forest for the trees.

Miles Howe is a journalist in Halifax. This article was originally published by the Halifax Media Co-op.

Pictou Mill

Grounds for Disruption

Moira Peters — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 06:58:17 +0000

Tent cities evolve to bring politics out of—and permanence into—the housing debate

VANCOUVER—On the anniversary of the 2010 Olympics, a second tent city will disrupt Vancouver. Like the Olympic Tent Village that occupied 58 West Hastings in the Downtown East Side one year ago, this incarnation may only last a few weeks. However, discussions have been initiated within Vancouver Action (VANACT), the primary group organizing the tent city, about evolving this tent city into a more permanent project, mirroring such tent cities as those in and around Seattle, Washington State.

"[Last year] we thought it would last a week, but by the end of the week there was a community meeting where individuals decided to stay until people got housing,” said Tristan Markle of VANACT. Markle was involved in last year’s tent village, and hopes to carry those lessons into this year’s project.

“Learning from that experience, we have to be prepared and anticipate that the people who need a liberated space might want to stay as long as necessary,” he said. Those who stayed and squatted 58 West Hastings eventually helped secure low-income housing for 35 residents of Olympic Tent Village.

When it was occupied one year ago, 58 West Hastings was an empty lot that the Vancouver Olympic Committee (VANOC) had leased from condo developer Concord Pacific with the intention of using the space for Olympics-related parking. This year’s tent village is expected to occupy a space in the now desolate and bankrupt Olympic Village, which has come to symbolize both the misplaced financial extravagance of the Games, and the city’s failure to follow through with its Olympic promise of more low-income homes.

****

Across the border in Seattle, one finds a history of tent cities that have survived in various forms for over a decade. In the late 1990s, Tent City 1, and then Tent City 2, were created illegally to address the growing numbers of homeless people in the King County region of Washington State. Both were opposed by local government and eventually shut down, but the dire need for such an establishment had been made visible.

Tent City 3 was created in 2000, but it was not until March of 2002 that its legality was made clear following a court ordered “Consent Degree” between the organizers and the city attorney. This “Consent Degree” established basic rules and a system of temporary locations on offered private land. Tent City 3 continues to provide shelter for approximately 100 people.

Partly in response to some of the limitations of this legal yet controlled encampment, Tent City 4 was created in May of 2004, with the intent of defying the “Consent Decree” by occupying public spaces and using public resources. It eventually transitioned from using public spaces into a system of staying on properties owned by faith-based organizations, such as parking lots. This project also continues to operate, with a population fluctuating between 50 to 100 people.

More recently, a separate project to provide shelter for the growing numbers of homeless people was created in the University District of Seattle. It was coined “Nickelsville” in response to then-Mayor Greg Nickel’s use of police to clear out homeless encampments, and specifically an edict issued by the mayor on April 4, 2008, that outlawed setting up shelter on city property such as overpasses, greenways and parks. The original location of Nickelsville was at 7115 West Marginal Way SW in Seattle, and was built in the early morning of September 22, 2008. This encampment only lasted four days, until police entered, arresting 23 people and removing the installed shelters.

Nickelsville stumbled through a few more locations before it found a more stable home in the private parking lot of the University Christian Church in the University District, a space made more secure due in part to great support by the local faith-based communities. This began a string of temporary locations for Nickelsville, sometimes moving to areas of King County outside Seattle.

Nickelsville built a list of rules that are largely self-enforced. No drugs, alcohol or criminal activity is tolerated within the tent city; any offenders risk immediate eviction. The entry point to the tent city is carefully monitored with an official check-in table. Many tenants take on roles such as security and “moving boss” to help ensure respect for the rules and oversee getting everyone packed between locations.

By August 2010, Nickelsville was back in the space it had occupied nearly two years prior, at the University Congregational United Church of Christ. While some locals were happy to have the tent city back, others recalled increased break-ins and other associated criminal activity. Church groups intended to mitigate the motivations for increased local crime by helping provide Nickelsville tenants with access to bathrooms, showers and other facilities. Nevertheless, wherever the tent city went, there was often local resistance to Nickelsville sharing the neighbourhood. The neighbourhood agitation, combined with a growing need for shelter, contributed to the push by organizers to re-envision Nickelsville as a more stable project with a permanent location.

Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn formed a citizen review panel in October 2010 to explore solutions to the growing problem of homelessness. It recommended the creation of a permanent tent city location. Such an initiative has been strongly supported by the organizers and tenants of Nickelsville, and is listed as a demand in a recent declaration endorsed by several of the organizations deeply involved with the tent city. Nickelsville presently occupies an old Lake City Fire Station, north of the University District—a location that provides warmth during the winter months. While this site continues to provide shelter for approximately 100 people, the community hopes a permanent location could accommodate up to 1,000 tenants.

****

The size of Nickelsville, and its long history, can be attributed to both Seattle’s large homeless population and also a well-organized network of citizen support.

A homelessness count performed in Seattle in the early hours of January 28, 2011, found 1,753 people in Seattle and 2,442 people in the greater King County area on the streets between 2:00 am and 5:00 am, while more than 6,000 others took advantage of available emergency shelters and other accommodation. Currently, Seattle has nearly 2,000 shelter beds and more than 3,000 in the King County region in total.

In contrast, Vancouver’s 2010 count found 811 people on the street and an additional 765 in shelters. Both Seattle and Vancouver are faced with dramatically increasing rates of homelessness.

“One study shows Vancouver to be the most unaffordable city in the world,” said Markle. “And one year after the Olympics, homelessness has tripled.”

Similar stories are told in Seattle. On January 10, 2011, at a community meeting on homelessness, Ruth Blaw, director of the Orion youth shelter, which is run under the umbrella organization Youthcare, explained that the organization had seen the use of its services double in the past 18 months, and they are no longer able to provide beds to meet demand.

The meeting was part of the University District Conversation on Homelessness, which convenes monthly at a local church or faith-based community center. Updates are provided on the most recent political news affecting homeless individuals, and representatives from local churches, synagogues, mosques and other groups meet to help form a unified face in tackling ongoing issues around homelessness.

The tent cities in King County have been able to depend on the support of such groups for logistics. The groups also play a crucial role in pushing back against government reluctance to make serious commitments. In 2007, under the pressure of these groups, the state government introduced Bill HB 2244, which prevented city governments from stopping churches from hosting tent cities, or setting a time limit of less than 90 days on the stay of individuals within the encampments.

A younger initiative, Vancouver’s tent city movement has involvement from its own faith-based community. One of the major support pillars of the Olympic Tent Village was Streams of Justice, a Christian social justice movement.

Dave Diewert of Streams of Justice offered a lucid description of the social mechanics behind the Olympic Tent Village in the second edition of Village Voice, the newsletter of the tent city. He explained that the political component of the Olympic tent village was a kind of “eruption,” a disruption of the status quo. This eruption “crosses lines of legality and illegality of who owns this space and who occupies this space...eruptions of those structures become opportunities to say something strong. The point is for this action to bring into light in a powerful way...the reality of homelessness, gentrification, and the criminalization of poverty.”

****

Markle sees the upcoming tent city as a similar eruption, explaining that one of its most direct intentions is “to bring the issues out into the open, rather than having them brushed under the carpet or hidden out of sight, so that people are forced to confront the issues.”

A similar phenomena was taking place in the early tent cities of Seattle, with illegal occupations in response to an acute housing crisis. However, Seattle’s tent cit[ies] gradually evolved, accruing stability. Nickelsville’s goal of providing shelter for 1,000 people demonstrates how the focus has shifted to providing a steady base for a many homeless people as possible.

The example of Nickelsville reveals an inverse relationship between permanence and visibility with respect to the issue of homelessness: as permanent shelter needs are met, political visibility goes down.

On the one end, tent cities that mark a large public event—such as the Olympic Tent Village and the tent city created in Allen Gardens during the G20 summit in Toronto, which lasted for just one night—act, according to Markle, as “political manifestation[s] that bring the politics [of homelessness] into the open.”

In the middle, more permanent establishments such as Tent City 1 and Tent City 2 in Seattle, while being illegal “eruptions,” also provide longer-term shelter. The state sanctions, or at least tolerates, tent cities that shift from one site to another approximately every three months, but their continual change of location, and all of the associated hurdles, help maintain public awareness of the ongoing need for housing solutions.

At the other end of the spectrum, tent cities with a permanent location and properly established facilities begin to blur the line between quasi-legal occupations and traditional homeless shelters. As Markle explained, forcing people into small shelters or scattered spaces throughout a city means that the problem of homelessness “doesn’t appear to be a political issue.” Similarly, once a tent city is located in a more permanent location, often in a low-income area far from an urban centre, it is effectively “out of sight and out of mind” for many city dwellers. However, Markle is clear to point out that “shelters are [important] emergency stop gap measures until real housing [can be acquired].”

****

The eruptive tent city is also “an affirmation of community” which may carry though to later incarnations, according to Diewert. The establishment of a tent city represents a refusal of citizens to “sit around and wait for the state, nor to give it opportunities to act and set the framework within which...action can take place, but rather for the community to say ‘we can do this’ and to take initiative.”

This perspective is echoed in the opinions of others. “The main point of a tent city is an exercise in self sustainability, self-organization, and community-building,” said Yifan Li of VANACT, who also helped build last year’s Olympic Tent Village. In a similar vein, Markle said the “hope is that the tent city is a solidarity action between folks who live in the inner city and allies city-wide.”

The strength of this solidarity will perhaps dictate the resilience and longevity of Vancouver’s newest tent city.

“Once a space is liberated...people will take advantage of that liberated space and create a community there, but one has to be prepared to support it as long as possible,” said Markle.

Whether Vancouver's upcoming tent city is the starting point of such a venture will depend on what unfolds in the ensuing weeks.

Zander Winther is a recent graduate of the Philosophy MA program at the University of Waterloo, and currently feels at home in both Vancouver and Seattle.

Tent City Crowd

Tent City Tents

Canada's Debt-ucation Province

hillarybain — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 05:23:32 +0000

Students in Nova Scotia fear skyrocketing tuition fees

HALIFAX—“At times, I wanted to disappear forever and not bother anyone with my stupid money problems,” recalls Jane (not her real name), who, like many other graduates in Nova Scotia, accrued tens of thousands of dollars of debt in student loans over the course of her university education. In her thirties, Jane’s debt is over $60,000 but under $90,000. She is currently filing for bankruptcy, and her financial and legal counsellors have advised her not to publicly discuss the particulars of her case.

“I made the decision to declare bankruptcy because it was the only option available to me,” says Jane in an email interview. “I owed a lot of money from student loans and debt from private institutions...I realize that yes, I did sign a contract to help me attain my education, however with a reasonable expectation that I was going to find a job and be in a position to pay the money back. Well, the fairy tale didn't work out for me and I am desperate for the chance to move on with my life.”

The average Nova Scotia post-secondary student graduates with a debt of $31,000. Under Canadian law, former students must wait seven years before they can apply for discharge from student loan debt. No other type of debt applies such restrictive discharge restrictions.

In a 2008 study of the 2003 graduating class of Maritime universities, the Maritimes Provinces Higher Education Commission found that of those who borrowed over $30,000, 79 per cent were making payments on outstanding loans five years after graduation. Twenty-one per cent of those surveyed still had outstanding debt at or above $30,000.

Forcing former students to prioritize their debt payments over everything else hurts not only students but also the larger economy, according to Elise Graham. Graham is Chairperson of the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS)-Nova Scotia, as well as a student at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (NSCAD).

“Students who graduate with $31,000 in debt are leaving the province,” says Graham. “They’re going to find jobs that are not necessarily in their field of study—just what pays.”

Numerous studies, including “Educational Debt Burden and Career Choice,” published in 2006, demonstrate the link between a student's debt load and the career they choose. When debt loads are high, students will opt, out of financial necessity, for higher paying career opportunities. Newly graduated lawyers with heavy debt loads are less likely to choose to practice public interest law. Heavily indebted graduates with degrees in medicine are less likely to choose careers in research or internal medicine, and will instead opt to specialize in higher paying fields.

The financial difficulties that stem from an inability to repay debt are also linked to emotional and physiological distress, according to several studies, including "The impact of financial circumstances on student health," published in 2005. As Jane’s debt load reached a proportion she could not control, she found that her own mental health was failing.

“One thing that is important to understand is the toll that these massive debts can take on a person's ego,” says Jane. “It was intimidating admitting the sheer scale of the debt to myself and figuring out how long it was going to take for me to pay it back, and those figures were absolutely insurmountable considering my current income. My self-worth took quite a beating and the stress of always worrying about money negatively affected my relationships with loved ones and close friends. I would often feel very ashamed as though I had done something terribly wrong.”

Where affordable education is a priority, governments find the money to keep tuition reasonable. In Sweden, Norway and Denmark, university is free for EU passport holders. In France, Germany, Italy and Spain, tuition for EU residents is nominal. In Nova Scotia, which flaunts itself as “Canada’s Education Province,” the average tuition is $5,495, several hundred dollars above the national average. Nova Scotia may have more universities and colleges per capita than anywhere else in the country, but tuition fees, until 2009, were the highest in the country for over twenty years running. The recently-published "O’Neill Report," as it has come to be known, commissioned by the provincial government, suggests that future students might find their debt getting bigger still.

In September 2010, Nova Scotia Premier Darrell Dexter commissioned former Bank of Montreal executive vice-president, Dr. Tim O’Neill, to prepare the Report on the University System in Nova Scotia. The language in the report, such as “severe recession,” “fiscal responsibility” and “spending restraint” hint at a provincial government looking to tighten its belt on post-secondary education expenditures.

The O’Neill Report recommends a complete deregulation of tuition fees, while earmarking a percentage of tuition revenue increases for student assistance. This model, known as a high-fee,high-aid model, stands to drive up-front tuition fees through the roof.

In one scenario recommended by O’Neill, the CFS found that in five years time tuition and ancillary fees for Nova Scotia students would cost an average of $11,630—an increase of 86 per cent. Rates would be even higher for out-of-province and international students, who together make up 41 per cent of Nova Scotia's student population.

A complex process requiring new levels of administration would allow students to recoup a percentage of their up-front tuition payments based on their income. Many fear the high sticker price will be an immediate deterrent.

“I think sticker shock will be sufficient to divert the people who really ought to be going to university,” says Dr. Laura Penny, lecturer at Mount Saint Vincent University and best-selling Canadian author, “so the student aid top-ups are a moot point. Students have to be part of the system to access aid. But the higher tuition goes, the more the system is perceived as strictly for the elite.”

A University of Toronto (U of T) study highlighted by The Tuition Trap, a 2005 report commissioned by the Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations (OCUFA), supports Penny’s theory. The study found that over 70 per cent of students in the law department come from high-income families. Tuition fees at U of T's faculty of law are currently over $20,000 per year.

The Tuition Trap also highlights the fact that during the several-year period when tuition for medical school in Ontario increased from $5,000 to $14,500, enrollment of students whose families earned less than $40,000 dropped significantly—from 23 per cent to 10 per cent.

O’Neill, who declined to be interviewed for this story, argues that targeted assistance will offset the proven link between increased tuition fees and decreased access.

Nowhere in his 188-page report does O’Neill provide a formula indicating how this “high aid” is to be calculated or distributed. A 2005 report by the Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations showed that increasing public funding, not tuition, was the best way to ensure access to education for both low- and middle-income students.

In this light, the mood of unease and suspicion among Nova Scotian students, prospective students and staff is appropriate.

“Raising tuition makes our universities less competitive,” says Penny. “We're already losing Nova Scotia students to Newfoundland. Given that students and staff have a huge economic multiplier effect—especially in small college towns like Antigonish and Wolfville—this strikes me as a short-sighted economic strategy, a cheapness that may not turn out to be cheap at all, in terms of lost revenues and spin-offs.”

Elise Graham agrees.

“Newfoundland and Labrador have very low tuition fees [on average $2,500], coupled with a significant amount of government funding, and their student population is growing,” she says. “Other students are leaving other provinces and going to Newfoundland, because they can afford their education.”

“If Nova Scotia is serious about wanting to rebuild the economy, [it shouldn’t be] saddling our young people with debt,” says Graham.

Judging by the tens of billions of tax dollars that are now being ear-marking for prisons, military, and, perhaps closer to the minds of Nova Scotians, a multi-million dollar convention centre, many wonder if the “severe recession” conditions that O’Neill refers to in his report even exist.

“This government is spending millions on building a trade centre, and are cutting millions from their education budget,” says Judy Haiven, a professor at the Sobey School of Business at Saint Mary’s University. “That’s a direct subsidy to the business class, and a removal of subsidies from those who need education.”

“We as a society benefit from an educated workforce, and we need to create a tax structure where education is reasonable—or free. If higher income earners paid $800 more in taxes towards education, we could be offering free or highly subsidized education to all those who wanted to go,” says Haiven.

CFS-Nova Scotia is planning a day of action on February 2, 2010. Student activists are urging those who stand to be affected by deregulated tuition—in effect all of Nova Scotia and beyond—to show their solidarity with the next generation of university graduates. Graham is calling for “Canada-wide support in our fight against the O’Neill Report.”

As for Jane, her bankruptcy trial looms.

“I feel awful knowing that student debt is rising; and thinking about the students who may have to go through what I went through is terrible,” she says. “If education is a priority, then it should be accessible to everyone and not be a pair of concrete boots forced onto those who don't have wealthy parents.”

Miles Howe is a university graduate now living debt-free in Halifax. This article was originally published by the Halifax Media Co-op.

teach Out 2

The Roots of Rage

hillarybain — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 05:44:34 +0000

Halifax's poverty, racism and "swarmings"

HALIFAX—Halifax doesn’t feel like a violent city. In fact, walking down North Street past jellybean-coloured houses and a view of the harbour, you can even hear birds chirping. But this is the same city—the same area of the same city—where seven violent attacks stunned Halifax residents over Labour Day weekend. All were perpetrated by groups of young people, most of whom are allegedly black.

“Violence can happen anywhere, but not with the volume and intensity that Halifax has for a city its size,” says Jeff*, a recent victim who sustained severe injuries. Jeff will be unable to work for several months and says the recent attacks in Halifax have left him with conflicting emotions. “I love this city but don't want to live somewhere where I don't feel safe.”

Jeff and his partner were walking in his North End neighbourhood early one September evening when they were approached by a group of young people who asked them for a cigarette. Before he could respond, Jeff was severely beaten by between six and eight young men and women.

His experience is typical in what have become known as "swarmings" in Halifax. Swarmings are violent physical attacks perpetrated by large groups of people upon individuals or small groups. These attacks are unprovoked and random: the perpetrators and the victims are unknown to each other and, while robbery has sometimes been involved, it does not appear to be the main motivation for the attack.

This kind of violence is not new to the city. In 2006, after several swarmings and an unrelated deadly bar fight, Halifax Mayor Peter Kelly initiated a Roundtable on Violence in the Halifax Regional Municipality (HRM). Now, four years later, the roundtables are over and the report is written, but Halifax's streets are still not safe. At the time of this article's release, an eighth attack—where injuries were sustained—and another attempted attack—where the victim escaped—were reported.

According to a 2005 Statistics Canada survey, Halifax has the highest rates of violent crime in the country—sexual and physical assault, homicides, robbery and break-and-enters. Furthermore, the locally-commissioned roundtable report, written by criminologist Dan Clairmont, states that the HRM is tied with Regina and Saskatoon for the highest percentage of youth (ages 19-24) involved with violent crime in the country.

“The causes of youth crime are hard to pinpoint in terms of finding a single, all-encompassing source,” says Charys Payne, Dalhousie law student and youth worker. “However, one of the roots of crime is, of course, poverty. Furthermore, in the North End—a racialized community—this is coupled with the experience of racism.” The Ryerson Anti-Racism Task Force defines racialization as “the social process by which certain groups of people are singled out for unequal treatment on the basis of race and other characteristics, whether real or imagined.” The Task Force also says that racialization is a historical process.

In Halifax, the roots of this process are clear.

According to the website of the 2006 Racism, Violence and Health Project undertaken by Dalhousie University’s Department of Social Work (for which Payne was a researcher), thousands of Blacks settled in Nova Scotia during the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, and thousands more settled here after the American Revolution. They were promised land and freedom in exchange for fighting for Britain, but upon arrival were denied both land and equal rights.

In more recent history, the infamous destruction of the Black community of Africville in the late 1960s displaced citizens who were then relocated to the Uniacke Square public housing project in the North End of Halifax. Former Africville residents and their descendants, according to the Racism, Violence and Health Project website, still face serious socio-economic hardships, and many still live in public housing.

In 2007-2008, Payne was the Executive Director of Saint George’s YouthNet, a youth organization a few blocks from Uniacke Square that offers free morning, lunch, after-school and summer programs. Reflecting on the causes of violence in the North End, she says, “intergenerational poverty begets systemic violence.” Payne explains that poor, racialized youth “already face the strongly held stereotype that they are violent and angry so this behavior becomes a sort of armor which shields them from the pain of exclusion from middle class judgment.”

In short, for symptoms to improve, the core issues need to be addressed. From Payne’s perspective, “while the reality is sometimes bleak this does not mean that the situation cannot be resolved."

“It all comes back to issues that are unaddressed in our lives,” says Marshall Williams Jr., suggesting abuse, discrimination and lack of self-respect as examples of the roots of violent behaviour. Williams is a resident of the Preston area, the largest Indigenous Black community in Canada and member of the IMove (In My Own Voice) youth group, a media-based program for at-risk youth. Unfortunately, young people don’t get together on the streets to talk about their issues, according to Williams. “They’re getting together and reflecting them back out.”

Williams, 29, says more and better recreation facilities, community organizations, and an improved education system could give support to young people—especially to those who do not have their needs met within their homes. He has seen the decline of these supports as he has gotten older, with fewer recreation opportunities available, and decreased youth involvement in community organizations.

According to Williams, “The people in the position to address these things are not addressing them.”

The Roundtable on Violence was intended to locate and target the underlying causes of Halifax’s crime and violence, but it is unclear whether or how the recommendations have been implemented. Mayor Peter Kelly did not respond to calls for an interview.

Sarah MacLaren, Executive Director of Leave Out Violence (LOVE) Halifax, says the greatest disappointment regarding the roundtable report is that it was released just prior to the city’s 2006 budget, but appropriate funds were not earmarked to address the recommendations.

MacLaren also notes that when money is spent, it’s not necessarily spent well. As an example, she points to new recreation facilities in the HRM: while some youth will benefit from these facilities, she says that those who can’t afford new sneakers or sports equipment, or who don’t have transportation to the recreation centres, are the ones who could really use them.

There is also the question of the education system. Rocking back in her chair behind a desk full of papers, MacLaren says she does not believe all the responsibility lies with the Department of Education, but “in terms of access to youth over years and hours, they have the most. Youth spend a lot of time at school.” Unlike provinces that have publicly funded alternative schools, Nova Scotia lacks educational infrastructure for those students whose needs lie beyond the traditional classroom, or who have unique learning needs.

MacLaren asks, “Where’s the formal curriculum around life skills? Where are the alternative schools?” She sees schools as a logical locale for prevention-based programming, but does not believe that they are the only place to engage disenfranchized youth. Most of the young people MacLaren works with have already been implicated in violence and, she says, “I have seen youth completely turn around when given the support they need.”

LOVE, an organization that helps youth overcome the challenge of violence in their lives, is only one of the places young people end up. Many youth who have committed a violent crime end up negotiating the Youth Criminal Justice System, which MacLaren sees as being a prolonged and sometimes unhelpful process.

One of the recommendations of the roundtable report is a stronger focus on in-depth restorative justice programs through the Department of Justice and the Community Justice Society (CJS). In practice, restorative justice involves both those who have been involved in and affected by the crime—i.e.; the perpetrators of the crime and the victim—in a co-operative process that determines the outcome for both parties, with the intent to seek true justice.

"Enforcement and accountability are necessary, but so are social development strategies that provide alternatives and opportunities,” says Yvonne Atwell, Executive Director of CJS. While CJS is a program of the provincial government, the roundtable report recommends that the municipality’s role in furthering restorative justice in Halifax “would be an advocacy [role] vis-a-vis the provincial government.”

So far, “we haven’t seen anything from the city whatsoever,” says Atwell.

Williams believes that if the money spent to keep people in prison were redirected to community programs and supports, Halifax would see fewer people locked up. He says it costs around $125,000 to keep someone in prison for a year—which, for five people, would be over $600,000. "I guarantee,” Williams says, "if you put half that money into community programs and supports, four out of those five youth aren’t going to be in the criminal system anymore.”

For Jeff, whose life has been turned upside-down by the attack, “the best type of punishment for this would be to give back to the victim.”

In a recent email exchange he acknowledged his anger, especially given he is no longer able to do the work he loves. At the same time, he says he’d "like to have the opportunity to explain to [the attackers] and show them how I live and work in the hope that maybe it would restore what little empathy they have towards other people.”

As complicated as it may be for the victim, Williams sees this kind of empathy as a two-way street. “It’s really hard to hate somebody when you know what they’ve been through,” he says.

* The victim’s name has been changed to protect his or her anonymity.

Angela Day is a writer, educator, urban gardener and community organizer with roots in Halifax. She currently coordinates programs for young women across HRM. This article was originally published by the Halifax Media Co-op.

Swarming Illustration

Marshall Williams

A Dark Anniversary

Tim McSorley — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 05:30:05 +0000

Abousfian Abdelrazik marks one year back in Canada, languishes under UN watch list

MONTREAL—“There are certain anniversaries that should never take place. The lack of action by the Harper government is unacceptable. Why is Abousfian still waiting for his name to be cleared?” asks Mary Foster, an organizer with the Abousfian Abdelrazik support committee "Project Fly Home."

On June 4, 2009, Federal Court Judge Rossel Zinn issued a stern ruling that Minister of Foreign Affairs Lawrence Cannon had been acting in bad faith and that the Canadian government would need to bring Abdelrazik back to Canada from Sudan. One year later, Abdelrazik continues to wait for his name to be removed from the United Nations Security Council Committee 1267 "Consolidated List," colloquially known as the Al-Qaeda and Taliban Terrorist List, or, for short, the "1267 List." Being on the list impedes Abdelrazik from functioning in the most basic of ways.

Abdelrazik recently sat down at a busy coffee shop in downtown Montreal to speak with The Dominion about what he has dubbed "living in a prison without walls."

A victorious grassroots movement brought Abdelrazik home last fall after six years of forced exile and imprisonment in Sudan. Abdelrazik tried to establish the cornerstones of a regular life—reconnect with family; find an apartment; see what work was available; and get through administrative tasks such as opening a bank account.

“It was very confusing and shameful how I was treated. Less than a week after depositing a small amount in my new account, I was contacted by Caisse Desjardins and told my account had been frozen and that they were unsure as to why but that there was nothing they could do. So no pension and no money and what I am supposed to do?” Abdelrazik asks quietly.

His legal team quickly learned that the reason behind the freeze was that he is still on the 1267 List. Beyond the complete asset freeze, Abdelrazik is also subjected to a total flight ban, and it is illegal for any employer to hire him or for him to receive social assistance, making it difficult to cover his and his children’s basic expenses. Listed individuals face vague allegations; they have no right to a hearing before they are placed on the list; and they are provided with no evidence to support the claims against them. In response, Project Fly Home launched a “Break the Silence” campaign to have him de-listed and to create a surge of popular support.

“Once again it is Lawrence Cannon and his department who have the ability to take me off the list. They refuse to tell me why I am on it, and why they have not worked to take me off of it,” Abdelrazik explains.

Break the Silence has been gaining momentum, with major unions and labour federations such as the Canadian Labour Congress, the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, the Canadian section of the International Machinists and most recently the Canadian Association of University Teachers publicly endorsing the initiative and agreeing to hire Abdelrazik for short term contracts. Despite large labour organizations engaging in acts of civil disobedience, Cannon continues to reject responsibility for de-listing Abdelrazik and claims it is up to Abdelrazik himself to get off the list. So far there have been no legal repercussions for unions and organizations actively working to oppose the sanctions against Abdelrazik.

While individuals can apply to be de-listed, says Foster, the process is highly politicized and nearly impossible to get through without state support. But the Canadian government could lift the sanctions itself. “Cabinet could immediately pass an Order in Council to modify or repeal the regulations which implement the 1267 regime in Canada,” Foster explains.

The Dominion received no response from Cannon or Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada (DFAIT) by the time of print, but on May 18, Canwest Global quoted Cannon as saying: “All I can say is that in the past I tried to make sure that Mr. Abdelrazik had the support he needed to be removed from the UN list. That attempt, unfortunately, failed.”

A precedent backs Abdelrazik’s assertion that the responsibility for de-listing falls upon Cannon and the Department of Foreign Affairs. On June 3, 2002, on a recommendation from the then-Liberal Minister of Foreign Affairs, the regulations implementing the 1267 regime in Canada were modified to exempt Liban Hussein, an Ottawa citizen who was arrested November 7, 2001, at the request of the United States. The US accused him of supporting terrorism. The exemption effectively ended the sanctions against the only Canadian on the list at the time, and his name was subsequently removed from the Security Council’s 1267 List.

In the first week of June, Abdelrazik’s legal team filed to the Federal Court of Canada a challenge against the United Nations 1267 List. Comparable challenges have been filed in Switzerland and Belgium; both countries saw their federal courts strike down the 1267 regime as unconstitutional and undemocratic. “It is quite risky for countries to put people on the 1267 List because it will undoubtedly be challenged in the high courts because it is so starkly against basic due process,” says Foster.

In his judgment that forced the Canadian government to bring Abdelrazik back to Canada, Federal Court Judge Zinn wrote, "I add my name to those who view the 1267 Committee regime as a denial of basic legal remedies and as untenable under the principles of international human rights. There is nothing in the listing or de-listing procedure that recognizes the principles of natural justice or that provides for basic procedural fairness...It can hardly be said that the 1267 Committee process meets the requirement of independence and impartiality when, as appears may be the case involving Mr. Abdelrazik, the nation requesting the listing is one of the members of the body that decides whether to list or, equally as important, to de-list a person. The accuser is also the judge."

University of Ottawa Law Professor Amir Attaran has been closely following the case of Abdelrazik and cautions against putting the responsibility solely on the Canadian government. “While Canada’s almost certainly illegal error has been to follow an unjust UN system, the deeper problem lies with the UN, which created and administers the 1267 sanctions system, and which oddly believes it is consistent with human rights law. It is time to call into question the belief, too frequent and trusting on the political left, that the UN are good guys. They are not: Abdelrazik’s unjust persecution amply proves it.”

The 1267 List was established as a sanctions regime measure “to deter terrorism” by the United Nations Security Council in 1999 after the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya. In 2001, after the 9/11 attacks in the United States, the list was broadened to target Al Qaeda as well as the Taliban. The resolution has been widely understood to be serving a political agenda to target countries the United States deems problematic. However, it seems to have evolved to become a tool numerous states are using to stifle political dissent and internal sovereignty movements, including Russia against Chechnyans and India against members of the Khalistan movement.

When asked what he would like to see happen next, Abdelrazik smiles softly and with quiet determination states, “The government could revoke the regulations entirely. This step would send a clear signal to the United Nations Security Council that Canada will no longer participate in this unjust regime and will let me continue on with my life. Until then we will continue with the campaign.”

Amy Miller is a media maker and community organizer who resides in Montreal.

Fly home

Preemptive Lockdown

Moira Peters — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 05:44:25 +0000

Briefly, the G8 summit in St. Petersburg, 2006

Large summits are nothing new. The 36th G8 summit will set up shop in Huntsville June 25-26. Toronto, a past host, will this time welcome the 4th G20 summit June 26-27. The following is the last in a six-part series of briefs looking back on past G7/G8 summits and protest. Check back each Sunday for a blast from the past when we recap a different summit's official agenda and civilian and activist responses.

****

St. Petersburg marked the first Russian G8 summit following the country's inclusion in the group in 1997. Its focus was to be on energy security. Wanting to impress its new G8 partners, the Kremlin hired US-based PR firm Ketchum to improve its image. Ketchum has worked extensively for the US Military and Department of Education, where the company was caught up in controversy for allegedly paying commentators to promote then-President George W. Bush's policies. Ketchum was also in hot water over its use of fabricated news segments promoting the benefits of drugs produced by one one of its pharmaceutical clients.

The actual summit took place in Strela, a suburb outside the city. Heavy police presence made it nearly impossible to access, so most protests took place in the city center. As a result, the summit itself was only slightly disrupted by protests, but heavy media attention aided in the dissemination of protesters' messages.

Ella Pamfilova, Coordinator for the National Working Group of Civil G8 2006 said NGOs and civil society were successful in interacting with and influencing the G8. “A number of our recommendations were taken into account by the G8 but we would like to get better results in future.”

The Network Against G8 (SPB8) organized a series of counter-G8 events, protests and publications. A Libertarian Forum was organized in Moscow, as well as the Russian Social Forum and the Other Russia Conference.

Russia was well-equipped to handle protesters. St. Petersburg Special Forces (OMON) made use of Israeli armored vehicles for crowd dispersal, firing water, tear gas and paint. Numerous ports were closed and the St. Petersburg airport was closed, except to airplanes carrying official delegations.

Prior to the meetings in St. Petersburg, over 200 people were reported to have been arrested, some accused of terrorism, to prevent their participation in anti-G8 protests. Representatives from 40 foreign NGOs were refused entry to Russia, apparently for “mistakes in connection with the negligent filling in of forms,” and countless Russians were denied entry into conferences and prevented from traveling.

According to eye-witness reports, people were removed from trains and buses throughout Russia moments before departure for Moscow. Others were summoned to their local police station, threatened with detention on administrative or trumped-up drug charges, reminiscent of the Genoa summit. Protesters were reportedly beaten and attacked in the days before the summit. The Legal Team from the Network Against G8 registered approximately 600 cases of human rights violations during the St. Petersburg summit.

“It seems that since 2006 the authorities started collecting lists of all possible troublemakers, and many preemptive measures were taken,” said Zhelya, an organizer with the anti-G8 protesters. “These lists are still being used by them when protests take place in this or that part of the country.”

Amanda Wilson is a researcher and writer based in Ottawa.

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.

Briefly, the G7 summit in Toronto, 1988

Briefly, the G7 summit in Halifax, 1995

Briefly, the G8 summit in Genoa, 2001

Briefly, the G8 summit in Kananaskis, 2002

Briefly, the G8 summit in Gleneagles, 2005

Civil G8 2006

A G8 Facelift and the War on Error

Moira Peters — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 05:30:55 +0000

Briefly, the G8 summit in Gleneagles, 2005

Large summits are nothing new. The 36th G8 summit will set up shop in Huntsville June 25-26. Toronto, a past host, will this time welcome the 4th G20 summit June 26-27. The following is the fifth in a six-part series of briefs looking back on past G7/G8 summits and protest. Check back each Sunday for a blast from the past when we recap a different summit's official agenda and civilian and activist responses.

****

In the words of Waldo Bello, Senior Analyst with Focus on the Global South, the Gleneagles summit was British Prime Minister Tony Blair's attempt to give the G8 a “facelift” in a battle for the “souls of global society.” Dubbed the "Year for Africa,” the 2005 Summit's focus was aid for Africa and achieving the Millenium Development Goals.

Some progress was made: G8 leaders established the “Commission for Africa” and addressed issues of corruption, HIV/AIDS, improved aid provision, education, trade justice, debt cancellation and security.

“Though the G8 has made substantial progress in debt cancellation," wrote Saran Yun of the G8 Research Group at the University of Toronto, "its contributions to effective aid, education, anti-corruption measures, and the fight against infectious diseases have been minimal. In terms of trade reform, the G8’s performance has been dismal at best.” Despite the emphasis on developing countries at Gleneagles, at the following G8 meeting in St. Petersburg, Russia, African development had all but disappeared from the G8 agenda.

A report by watchdog NGO CorpWatch highlights the strong presence of corporations at the Glengeagles summit. “Blair, [Gordon] Brown and Bono say they want to use the Gleneagles summit to tackle the issues of climate change and poverty in Africa. We argue in this report that the corporate agenda advanced by the G8 ultimately contradicts the achievement of any genuine and lasting ecological and social justice. Precisely because of the corporate agenda, any pronouncements from the G8 are likely to be nothing but ‘greenwash,’” states the report.

The "7/7" London bombings occurred during this summit, not believed to be a coincidence.

Thousands converged on Gleneagles to protest the summit. Security forces attempted to create a “sterile zone” free of protests: high metal fencing and concrete blast barriers were erected around the town and an “air exclusion zone” was imposed. ID “access passes” were distributed to residents to easily identify outside protesters at roadblocks and checkpoints.

The Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army (CIRCA), a network of clown affinity groups, attended the Gleneagles protests. According to CIRCA member General Unrest, CIRCA uses a combination of street theatre and play-tactics to “undermine and ridicule the intimidation and provocation of security forces at demonstrations.” By blowing kisses at police officers, or encircling a group of police who had cornered Black Bloc protesters, CIRCA helped diffuse tense situations and expose the ridiculous security measures at the summit.

CIRCA’s goals were “to wage a War on Error, since we believe that our laughter, our freedom, and our love of life is confronted by fundamentalists who preach the gospel of Error," said General Unrest in an interview. "From July 6-8, 2005, the most dangerous Errorists of the world’s eight richest countries (G8) were meeting in Gleneagles, Scotland, to plan further Errorism on a global scale.”

Amanda Wilson is a researcher and writer based in Ottawa.

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

Briefly, the G7 summit in Toronto, 1988

Briefly, the G7 summit in Halifax, 1995

Briefly, the G8 summit in Genoa, 2001

Briefly, the G8 summit in Kananaskis, 2002

CIRCA