TORONTO, Oct. 8, 2008 /CNW/ - On Monday, October 13, the Canadian Pacific Spirit Train will bring Olympic spirit to the Cooksville GO Station and surrounding community with a free festival from 1:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.

Six-time Juno award winner Colin James headlines the event, while Olympic and Paralympic athletes bring the excitement of the games to this traveling outdoor festival promoting the Vancouver 2010 Games.

GO Transit is proud to have the Cooksville GO Station in Mississauga as the location for this festival stop. "We are happy to work with Canadian Pacific and help encourage national pride for the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games," said GO Transit Managing Director Gary McNeil.

This free, all day event has something for the entire family to enjoy from musical performances to interacting with Olympic and Paralympic athletes. Visitors can also enjoy many activities and explore various exhibits. The Kids' Zone will offer workshops where families and kids can build their own mini Olympic wooden Inukshuks in honour of the Vancouver Olympic emblem. Other activities include trying out sledge hockey, a challenging Paralympic sport, or creating a video postcard message for Canadian athletes at the video booth.

For more information on the CP Spirit Train village, please visit
www.cpspirittrain.com for up-to-date event details, including concert and performance schedules, and an in-depth look at CP's historical involvement with the Olympics.

The 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team has been deployed to streets in the US. Amy Goodman has an excellent piece about the underreported shift of US soldiers from Iraq to US streets.

In December 2001, in the midst of restricted access to bank accounts due to a financial crisis, respectable, middle-class Argentines rose up, took to the streets, smashed bank windows and ultimately forced the government out of power, despite a massive police crackdown and a failed attempt to control the media. Here in the U.S., with the prospect of a complete failure of our financial system, the people have spoken and do not want an unprecedented act of corporate welfare. We don’t know how close the system is to collapse, nor do we know how close the people are to taking to the streets. The creation of an active-duty military force, the sea-smurfs, that could be used to suppress public protest here at home is a very bad sign.

Iceland is nearing economic collapse as its second largest bank has been nationalized by the government.

The most free-market of the Nordic countries, it seems as if Iceland has been too heavily involved in the credit markets for the last 15 years. The Guardian reports:

Inflation and interest rates are raging upwards. The krona, Iceland's currency, is in freefall and is rated just above those of Zimbabwe and Turkmenistan. One of the country's three independent banks has been nationalised, another is asking customers for money, and the discredited government and officials from the central bank have been huddled behind closed doors for three days with still no sign of a plan. International banks won't send any more money and supplies of foreign currency are running out.

In a telling turn of events, Iceland has had to get a loan from cash-rich Russia to help stave off collapse. The Prime Minister of Iceland has reportedly stated,

"We have been calling for aid from neighboring countries and have been turned down. In times of crisis, one has to look for new friends."

Nouriel Roubini, one of the economists who successfully predicted the subprime crisis years ago, has been allowing full access for the time being to his blog: RGE Monitor.

Roubini, once considered a perma-bear (a perpetual pessamist about the economy) has recently looked at banking crises historically to find the best way to prevent a total economic meltdown.

Surprise, surprise, he found that the US $700 billion plan may not be the best way to go. Instead, he suggests that the way Scandinavian countries (Norway, Sweden, Finland) dealt with previous crises, may be the better method.

To understand how this works on a more understandable level, Planet Money, a spin-off of the award winning radio show This American Life has been putting out some great radio about the credit crisis and solutions.

Could Conservative fortunes have run out?

The impending economic problems in the US have caused many Canadians to turn to other parties. While the Conservatives are still leading nationally, they are behind the 8-ball in Ontario for the first time in months. The Liberals are leading by nearly nine percent.

In Quebec, the Conservatives have slipped to third, just two percent ahead of the NDP. The Bloc are leading.

In BC, the Tories are in a dead heat with the NDP.

UPDATE: An Algonquin man is hospitalized the morning after Quebec police shot him in the chest with a tear-gas cannister. A disabled teenage girl was also treated with oxygen in the local Health Clinic. Twenty two children under eight and two babies were caught in the tear gas shot by the police.

To view photos

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Tuesday, October, 7, 2008

Canada and Quebec use riot police, tear gas, and "pain compliance" on peaceful Algonquin families to avoid negotiations: 'pain compliance' perfect description of Conservative's aboriginal policy, say community spokespeople

Kitiganik/Rapid Lake, Algonquin Territory / - Yesterday afternoon, the Conservative government and Quebec used riot police, tear gas, and "pain compliance" techniques to end a peaceful blockade erected by Algonquin families from Barriere Lake, rather than negotiate, as requested by the community. The blockade on Highway 117 in Northern Quebec began at 6:00am Monday, with nearly a hundred community members of all ages and their supporters promising to remain until Canada's Conservative government and Quebec honoured signed agreements and Barriere Lake's leadership customs. Around 4pm, nearly sixty Quebec officers and riot police encircled families after a meal and without warning launched tear gas canisters, one of which hit a child in the chest.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Monday, October 6, 2008

Quebec police threaten to mass arrest peaceful Algonquin road blockaders: Community determined to maintain blockade until Canada and Quebec honour their agreements and respect leadership customs

Kitiganik/Rapid Lake, Algonquin Territory / - Families from the Barriere Lake First Nation in Northern Quebec set up a peaceful blockade at 6:00 am this morning, promising to maintain it until Canada and Quebec respect and implement widely praised agreements, and Canada appoints an observer to witness a leadership reselection in the community, and respects its outcome.

"We maintained a peaceful presence all day, but Canada and Quebec would now rather have the Quebec police arrest youth, elders and mothers, than deal in good faith with our community," said Norman Matchewan, a youth spokesperson, from the site of the blockade, as riot police from Montreal prepared to make arrests.

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Media Contacts:

Norman Matchewan, Barriere Lake spokesperson : 647 - 227 - 6696, 514 - 831 - 6902

Michel Thusky, Barriere Lake spokesperson: 819 - 435 - 2171

For more information: www.barrierelakesolidarity.blogspot.com

Collectif de Solidarité Lac Barrière
*******************************************
www.solidaritelacbarriere.blogspot.com
barrierelakesolidarity@gmail.com
514.398.7432

-------------------------------------------
Christian Peacemaker Teams Canada
25 Cecil St., Unit 307
Toronto ON M5T 1N1
Tel: 416-423-5525; Fax: 416-423-7140
canada@cpt.org
www.cpt.org

MEDIA ADVISORY

October 6, 2008

Contact: Joel Klassen (613) 331-0969 (English & French);

Christine Downing 647-296-0969 (English)

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Barriere Lake Algonquins peacefully blockade highway 117:
Community loses patience with broken agreements and coup d'etat on Algonquin territory

Brief description: After exhausting all political avenues, the Algonquins of Barriere Lake and many non-native supporters have just blockaded highway 117. They will maintain the peaceful blockade until both the Canadian and Quebec governments honour their signed agreements that would allow co-management of their traditional territory and resource revenue sharing, and until Canada respects their leadership customs by appointing an observer to witness a leadership selection in accordance with their Customary Governance, and in good faith recognize the outcome.

Click here for the Algonquins' full list of demands

Quotes from Barriere Lake Algonquin Spokespeople:

Michel Thusky, community spokesperson: "To avoid their obligations, the federal government has deliberately violated our leadership customs by ousting our Customary Chief and Council. In what amounts to a coup d'etat, they are recognizing a Chief and Council rejected by a community majority. The Quebec government is cooperating with the federal government too because they are using the leadership issue as an excuse to bury the 1991 and 1998 Agreements they signed with our First Nation."

The In-SHUCK-ch's road to reconciliation is a fine piece of investigative journalism by the Straight's Stephen Hui.

A 2005 report, Transformation: From Myth to Reality, commissioned by Canada, B.C., and the In-SHUCK-ch, calls the First Nation's communities "as isolated as any one can find in Canada", noting that the reserves lack safe road access and land-line telephones and aren't connected to the power grid. Without cellphone coverage, residents who have them communicate by two-way radio.

One hundred and eighty-seven, or 20 percent, of the In-SHUCK-ch Nation's 933 members live on its reserves, while the rest live in Vancouver, the Fraser Valley, and elsewhere. In a survey conducted for the 2005 report, most members residing off-reserve cited housing and employment as reasons for doing so. Sixty-five percent of off-reserve respondents said they want to live in the valley.

"Despite being relatively close to the Lower Mainland and to the 2010 Olympics in Whistler, the lower Lillooet River Valley has been left to economically stagnate—a direct result of the lack of basic infrastructure," the report states.

Bad month for Xstrata, one of the worlds biggest mining groups.

First, CAW Local 599 goes on strike in Timmins, Ontario at the Copper Kidd Metallurgical mine.

Then it's pitch to take over Lonmin, an Anglo-African platinum mine company , fails because of the Credit Crisis.

Xstrata took over Canadian mining company Falconbridge in 2006.

Farmers in West Bengal, India have pushed Tata Motors off agricultural land.

"The West Bengal government acquired 1,000 acres of land for the Nano project in 2006.

"At least 10,000 farmers accepted compensation for their land, but approximately 2,000 of them rejected it as inadequate and demanded 400 acres of land be returned.

"'You cannot run a plant with police protection, you cannot run a plant when bombs are being thrown, you cannot run a plant when workers are being intimidated,' Tata said."

Harper during the debates:

"We are not in the kind of economic crisis we have in the US."

Merrill Lynch Canada Inc.:

"Households in this country are so indebted that it's only a matter of time before we see a major downturn here as well."

The Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver:

"The Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver says the number of residential property sales declined 42.9 per cent in September from a year earlier."

For a Full Photo Essay, please click here

Activists in Edmonton interrupted the 2010 Olympics Spirit Train stop-off there on September 29th.

Their actions came on the heels of a protest in Vancouver that marked the launch of the train. Vancouver's Olympics Resistance Network has called for mobilization as the train travels east.

A smaller demonstration against the Spirit Train took place in Calgary.

In Sudbury, the local Coalition Against War and Occupation (SAWO) is planning to protest the train as it rolls through on October 11th. The train's last stop will be in Montréal on October 18th.

"Focus on the Born": Image from a demonstration against Bill C-484, The Unborn Victims of Crime Act

When it became clear that an imminent election was in the stars, Harper distanced himself from the widely opposed Bill C-484, The Unborn Victims of Crime Act.

Now infamous, Bill C-484 was a private member bill introduced by Ken Epp (MP for Edmonton Sherwood Park, Alberta). It assigned legal personhood to unborn fetuses (in contravention of the Criminal Code). It was denounced by the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada (ARCC), and other feminist organizations, as "an unconstitutional infringement on women’s rights." Similar laws are used in the United States to criminalize pregnant women who use drugs or alcohol for endangering the fetus, or to prosecute those who help them seek abortions.

While Epp refused to drop the Bill, which had passed its second reading, Harper vowed not to reopen the "debate" on abortion. (A promise, incidentally, that he has made before, during the 2004 election, and again in January 2005.)

But does that mean that reproductive rights are no longer an election issue?

Quite the opposite, according to the ARCC. Harper has said that he would not block private member bills about abortion (like C-484) in future.

In fact, on this issue, he has said he would lift tight party discipline and allow a free vote. Considering that the vast majority (74%) of current Conservative MPs are anti-choice, a majority Conservative Government could easily pass an anti-abortion bill into law.

Consider the following facts, largely culled from yesterday's press release issued by the ARCC:

Dear Friends, Family, and Comrades:
We are the RNC 8: individuals targeted because of our political beliefs and work organizing for protests at the 2008 Republican National Convention, in what appears to be the first use of Minnesota’s version of the US Patriot Act. The 8 of us are currently charged with Conspiracy to Commit Riot in Furtherance of Terrorism, a 2nd degree felony that carries the possibility of several years in prison. We are writing to let you know about our situation, to ask for support, and to offer words of hope.

A little background: the RNC Welcoming Committee was a group formed in late 2006 upon hearing that the 2008 Republican National Convention would be descending on Minneapolis-St. Paul where we live, work, and build community. The Welcoming Committee’s purpose was to serve as an anarchist/anti-authoritarian organizing body, creating an informational and logistical framework for radical resistance to the RNC. We spent more than a year and a half doing outreach, facilitating meetings throughout the country, and networking folks of all political persuasions who shared a common interest in voicing dissent in the streets of St. Paul while the GOP’s machine chugged away inside the convention.
In mid-August the Welcoming Committee opened a “Convergence Center,”a space for protesters to gather, eat, share resources, and build networks of solidarity. On Friday, August 29th, 2008, as folks were finishing dinner and sitting down to a movie the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Department stormed in, guns drawn, ordering everyone to the ground. This evening raid resulted in seized property (mostly literature), and after being cuffed, searched, and IDed, the 60+individual inside were released.

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)

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Monday, September 29, 2008

Barriere Lake slows down traffic on Highway 117: continues to pressure Minister Lawrence Cannon and his Conservative Government to respect Barriere Lake's agreements and leadership customs

Kitiganik/Rapid Lake, Algonquin Territory Territoire Algonquin /- On the National Day of Political Action, at 1:30 pm, the Algonquins of Barriere Lake will slow down traffic on highway 117 to distribute flyers and raise awareness about the Conservative government's violations of their rights.

"The federal government must accept reasonable demands we've spent years trying to reach them about – that the government honour agreements they've signed with us and stop undemocratically propping up an illegitimate Chief and Council in our community," says Norman Matchewan, a youth spokesperson for Barriere Lake.

They want the Government of Canada to uphold an internationally lauded sustainable development agreement Barriere Lake signed with Quebec and the Conservative federal government in 1991. The Government of Canada has been in breach of the agreement since 2001.
To resolve the situation, Barriere Lake is demanding that the Government of Canada send observers to witness a leadership re-selection, in accordance with Barriere Lake's Customary Governance Code, in good faith recognize the outcome, and then cease all interference in their internal affairs.

– 30 –

Media Contacts:

Norman Matchewan, Barriere Lake spokesperson: 819-435 - 2171

Michel Thusky, Barriere Lake spokesperson : (819) 435-2171

Collectif de Solidarité Lac Barrière
*******************************************
www.solidaritelacbarriere.blogspot.com
barrierelakesolidarity@gmail.com
514.398.7432
Reply

Forward

This little gem of insanity was recently introduced by Republican Tom Tancredo.

The Jihad Prevention Act will, among other things, "require aliens to attest that they will not advocate installing a Sharia law system in the United States as a condition for admission."

It will also allow anyone advocating the installation of a Sharia Law system to have their visa and/or naturalization paper's revoked.

Shawn Brant has had 7 of the charges against him dropped by the Ontario Crown.

He has plead guilty to 3 of the other charges against him and according to CBC will "receive a sentence of time already served in pretrial detention, plus a 90-day conditional sentence to be spent on his reserve."

A presentation made in August of this year in Napanee, Ontario by Brant's lawyer, Peter Rosenthal, warned that Brant was going to expose police actions if taken to trail including alleged illegal wire tapping by the OPP and the reversal of previously granted immunity.

The crown was seeking a 12 year jail sentence for Brant.

*Correction: In the original edit of this posting, Peter Rosenthal was incorrectly said to have made a presentation in Caledonia. The presentation was in Napanee.

Hat Tip: shmeen from livejournal