Tim McSorley's blog

It was just a few weeks ago that the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives came out with a study showing the disparity that Indigenous people continue to face in Canada when it comes to employment. While carrying out similar - if not identical jobs - Aboriginal people make, on average, 30 per cent less than non-aboriginals. It's a shocking number, and speaks volumes to the poverty that continues to plague Aboriginal communities across the country.

The latest piece we are featuring in our partnership with Work For All is pleasantly timely, then. As I am is a powerful, experimental documentary challenging how Aboriginal people are seen in the workplace. Directed by Algonquin filmmaker Nadia Myre, and based on a poem written by Mohawk writer Janet Marie Rogers, it both celebrates diversity of culture in the workplace, and pushes us to question how easy it is label colleagues as 'others' while all the while carrying out the same tasks and duties.

Africville was a small, African-Canadian community in Halifax, razed in the 1960s in order to make way for new development. While it's been several decades, the pain of the action taken without any consultation with area's residents - they were moved without choice - remains today. The issue was back in the news recently, since the provincial government made an apology and offered reparations for the act. The offer has been met with scepticism and mixed feelings though, as Dalal Razzaq has reported for the Halifax Media Co-op.

It's fitting then that the second film we're featuring in our partnership with Work For All is Remember Africville, a short NFB documentary shot in the 1980s and examining the fall-out and the continuing search for answers around this East Coast tragedy. You can watch it above, and for more information check out the Work For All blog.

The Dominion Newspaper Cooperative is looking for interns!

Are you:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Send your emails to info@mediacoop.ca

Residents of Guelph, ON, have been occupying the proposed site of the Hanlon Creek Busines Park. The site is also home to Guelph's Old Growth Forest, and endangers local wetlands and the Jefferson Salamander, on Ontario's official threatened species list.

The occupation began on Monday, July 27th. They were notified that they would be evicted as of July 30th at 4pm, but the time came and went and protestors are still there.

More information is available on their blog at http://hcbpoccupation.wordpress.com, or contact them for interviews or more information at +15198206280, +15198206239 or hcbpoccupatio[at]gmail[dot]com. They are also inviting supporters to the site to lend a hand - a map with directions can be found on their website.

Photo by Sal Jefferson

In an election where debate over health care has been next to non-existent, an article in Embassy magazine slipped through the cracks.

In July, a group of 200 American investors, led by an Arizonan businessman, launched a $155 million lawsuit under the North American Free Trade Agreement against the Canadian government. They say the lawsuit is recourse for barriers they faced in trying to establish private health clinics in Canada.

The article points out that he medicare system is probably safe for now, since it is still primarily publicly run. But while this case may be dismissed, there will certainly be more to come. And if in the meantime more private health services are introduced in Canada, the next NAFTA challenge will be that much harder to fight.

(via Rabble's Election Blog)