The Dominion - New Brunswick

Was the fix in for Mi'kmaq Warriors at Elsipogtog?

dawn — Thu, 24 Oct 2013 15:56:49 +0000

Signs point to some having prior knowledge October 17th was 'take down' day

MONCTON, NB–Coady Stevens, the first of six Mi'kmaq Warrior to appear on charges related to the anti-shale gas encampment along Highway 134, has been denied bail.

As bail hearings today continue for the five remaining incarcerated members of the Mi'kmaq Warriors Society, enough information is beginning to surface to suggest that the vicious pre-dawn RCMP takedown of the anti-shale gas encampment on the morning of October 17th was a well known fact among some before it happened.

This is not to suggest that these people necessarily knew of the severity or magnitude of the RCMP raid, or even what it would look like. On the other hand, the possibility that others knew of the raid on October 17th is becoming too real to ignore.

Not only this, but there is a clear possibility that the greater narrative behind the raid is the measured destruction of the Mi'kmaq Warriors Society, to be replaced in their stead by a joint Assembly of First Nations/RCMP force.

Did Elsipogtog First Nation Chief Sock know that Thursday was the day?

Much has been made of the fact that Chief Sock and members of his council were arrested on the morning of October 17th. Sock and council were arrested in the second confrontation with RCMP, after the police had swept through the encampment, making numerous arrests, with guns drawn in the pre-dawn hours.

What brings Sock's pre-awareness of the events of the 17th into question is a series of notes obtained by APTN journalist Jorge Barerra.

The notes, which Sock has since admitted to Barerra that he penned, were taken during a meeting between Chief Sock, Robert Levi and 'Jumbo' Sock, who are both councillors from Elsipogtog First Nation, Tobique First Nation member John Deveau and Listuguj First Nation member Wendell Metallic, and two provincially-appointed advisors and other members of the New Brunswick provincial government, which included premier and Aboriginal Affairs Minister David Alward, as well as Energy minister Craig Leonard.

The Sock notes suggest that the talks focused, at least for a period, on a timeline of when to take down the ongoing blockade.

Point '8' on page one reads: “Blockade down, protest continues.”

Point '3' on page two of Sock's hand-written notes says: “Week – time limit Monday to next Wednesday.”

Point '4' on the same page reads: “Equipment out Thursday?”

These notes were written on Monday, October 7th, so it is reasonably safe to conclude that the “next Wednesday” in question refers to Wednesday, October 16th. The Thursday in question is October 17th, the date of the vicious raid.

Granted, Sock does continue to publicly denounce SWN Resources Canada's seismic testing in the area. In an attempt to patch up relations between his community and the RCMP, he even helped clean up the wreckage of six torched police cars. But based on his own notes, one must consider the possibility that he was aware that there was a plan in motion to dismantle the encampment and end the peaceful anti-shale gas encampment on Thursday, October 17th.

A blockade of millions of dollars of seismic testing equipment, without which SWN could not work, is one thing. A peaceful protest alongside the highway, where people can vent their indignation without actually stopping the Texas-based company from testing for shale gas deposits, is quite another.

One is effective, albeit potentially illegal in the eyes of the Crown. The other is a co-option of energy towards ineffective means, that is, if you actually want to stop the company from working.

The fly in Sock's ear: John Deveau, heir to the director's chair of the joint AFN/RCMP crisis response team in New Brunswick

Deveau, one of Sock's provincially-appointed advisers, is an intriguing character and no stranger to the anti-shale gas protests in Elsipogtog. We have written in more detail about him here.

But to fully understand his role in the current anti-shale gas movement – and it is a big one – we need to back up for a moment to late June of 2013, when Elsipogtog's anti-shale gas movement was being led by Elsipogtog 'War Chief' John Levi.

After 12 anti-shale gas arrests occurred on June 21st, 2013, along Highway 126 in Kent County, the community of Elsipogtog was understandably up in arms. A eight and a half month pregnant woman had been arrested, and an elder had been roughed up enough by RCMP that she was bleeding from the mouth by the time they zip-strapped her and tossed her in their wagon.

In response, on June 23rd, two new players were introduced to the community during a town hall-style meeting in Elsipogtog.

The first was the Mi'kmaq Warriors Society. The second was Tobique First Nation member Wendell Nicholas.

When first brought before the community of Elsipogtog, Nicholas was introduced as a 'UN Independant [sic] Observer'. His rather vaguely defined mission at the time was related to making observations and preparing an upcoming report for a branch of the United Nations.

Claire Stewart Kannigan, working for rabble.ca, identified a mis-print on Nicholas' shirt and started snooping. When Kannigan couldn't find an established connection between Nicholas and the United Nations, and proceeded to out him on rabble, Nicholas promptly re-branded himself - with the assistance of a Chief Sock-led press conference - as the leader of a new 'peacekeeping' team known as the 'Elsipogtog Peacekeepers'.

In the midst of a heated summer of protests, with residents tired of watching their community members being roughed up by the RCMP, the press conference introducing Nicholas was awash with hand shakes, ceremony and praise for Nicholas' new team – even if his role wasn't entirely understood beyond being something of a liaison between Elsipogtog band council and the RCMP.

As it turn out, Nicholas is something of an old hand in the game of liaising between First Nations communities and the Royal Colonial Mounted Police. In fact, he is the brainchild behind the Public Safety Cooperation Protocol (PSCP).

At the very least co-authored by Nicholas in 2004, the PSCP is amongst the modern day memorandums that facilitates sharing information between Indian Act chiefs and the RCMP on Indigenous unrest across Turtle Island. It is, in essence, an agreement between then AFN Chief Phil Fontaine and RCMP Commissioner Zaccardelli – on behalf of the Queen – to spy on and squash Indigenous grassroots unrest before it starts. The terms used in the PSCP are more flowery and bureaucratic than that, but the song remains the same.

Fontaine found himself outed and discredited when he collaborated with the RCMP to quash Indigenous unrest in 2007. His intelligence sharing with the police smacks of the Nicholas-penned PSCP agreement.

As for Nicholas, he hired members of the Elsipogtog community on as peacekeepers, and also hired people from outside of the community.

Suddenly summertime anti-shale gas protests alongside of the highways in Kent County were highly monitored affairs, with people wearing bright orange 'Elsipogtog Peacekeepers' t-shirts wandering around everywhere, some speaking to the police, some taking notes on clipboards.

One of those bright-shirted protest monitors was former US National Guardsman and police officer –and Nicholas' cousin- John Deveau.

At some point, possibly due to failing health or prior commitments, Nicholas stopped being the public face of the Elsipogtog Peacekeepers. Handing over the daily duties to Deveau, Nicholas retired to a behind-the-scenes roll as Elsipogtog's Public Safety Advisor, where he appears to remain.

Deveau, for his part, took over the directorship of the 'peacekeeping' team, and is actively drawing a salary of $60,000 a year as the director of the 'Wabanaki Peacekeepers', essentially version 2.0 of the Elsipogtog outfit, but with better equipment and full-time salaries.

Make no mistake. This is the pleasant name given to the Deveau-run joint AFN/RCMP crisis response team, the team that all summer long was liaising with SWN, the RCMP and Elsipogtog Band Council – all the while presenting itself as a neutral negotiating body to grassroots activists actually on the ground.

October 16th, 2013: John Deveau gets outed by the grassroots.

On Wednesday, October 16th, a crew of grassroots activists from Elsipogtog, as well as members of the Mi'kmaq Warrior Society, broke in on a John Deveau-chaired meeting. Present were numerous members of the RCMP, Elsipogtog 'War Chief' John Levi and several members of the Elsipogtog community.

Elsipogtog elder – and Levi's aunt – Norma Augustine requested that Deveau, as well as bad-faith RCMP negotiator “Dickie” Bernard, be escorted out of Elsipogtog First Nation.

And by now the entire nation knows what took place on Thursday October 17th.

A tale of two Johns. Dividing camps, co-opting a movement

Elsipogtog 'War Chief' John Levi's influence upon the autumn anti-shale gas blockade along Highway 134 was virtually non-existent before October 17th. Levi, a clean and sober sun-dancer, has made much of what he perceived as the Mi'kmaq Warriors less-than-puritan lifestyle, and has privately used this as his reasoning not to attend the blockade.

It is possible that some of these disparaging remarks were fuelled by the general misunderstanding over Levi's role as Elsipogtog's 'War Chief', and where exactly that placed him within the Mi'kmaq Warrior Society.

In effect, it placed him nowhere.

The Mi'kmaq Warrior Society operates as an independent body, with it's own Chief and ranking system.

For his part, Levi was appointed 'War Chief' of Elsipogtog by Noel Augustine, Keptin of District 6 of the Migmaw Grand Council. The Grand Council is a modern day facsimile of a traditional Mi'kmaq government style that does not appear to wield much more than figurehead-style power. Noel Augustine, for example, has issued a variety of eviction notices to SWN Resources Canada, all of which have fallen upon the deaf ears of the Texas-based gas giant.

The more nefarious possibility is that Levi, under the influence of Deveau, could not infiltrate the encampment to any degree of information-gathering success, and thus reverted to a public smear campaign against the Warriors.

In any case, with the violent takedown of the Warrior Society out of the way, Levi is once again a common sight at the quickly rebuilding camp along Highway 134. It has been reported that Levi's main aim at Highway 134, however, is in actively trying to encourage activists to move towards last summer's encampment along Highway 116.

To boot, it has been reported that Levi is in negotiations with RCMP, offering the police that he can move the camp to the out-of-the-way Highway 116 location, in exchange for the police grounding their ever-present spy plane that continues to monitor the encampment along Highway 134.

Despite the destruction of the encampment during the raid of the 17th, the Highway 134 encampment by far remains the more tactical of camps.

SWN's seismic testing lines are slated to be near Highway 11, one of the main arteries of transport in New Brunswick. Snap highway blockades, as occurred on October 19th as a show of defiance in the face of the RCMP's raid, are also a quick and potential technique when the encampment remains on the 134. The 116 camp, arguably safer due to it's proximity to Elsipogtog First Nation, is tucked far out of the way of any action save the falling of leaves.

Sadly, especially considering the very real legal costs now being incurred by the five Warriors who remain without a bail hearing, Levi's camp division has also reached a financial level.

Splitting up donations from well-intention sources, including accepting money from the popular group The Indigo Girls, and then funnelling this money towards other side-projects, rather than towards the immediate legal costs of the Mi'kmaq Warriors, is only the tip of the iceberg.

At the Wilsons' gas station in Elsipogtog, there are now two donation jars side by side. One for donations to the Highway 134 encampment, and one for the Highway 116 encampment. Social media has also begun offering a variety of sources for donations. Most appear to agree that the Warriors' legal defence fund, which has already paid out a retainer to lawyers Lemieux and Menard, is the grassroots choice for donations.

APTN reported Monday that Chief Sock may well give the Elsipogtog band seal of approval, as it relates to anti-shale gas protests, to Levi. What exactly this means is entirely unclear.

With a summer's worth of experience in leading blockade-free anti-shale gas protests on the side of the highway, and with close friend John Deveau there to guide him, Levi may well be the front-runner for the band's endorsement.

The case of the missing van – and the missing Christian Peacemaker Team

At the rebuilding encampment along Highway 134, rumours continue to circulate of pre-October 17th tip-offs to the effect that Thursday would be a bad morning to be there. None of these rumours have been validated, yet, except for one.

On the evening of October 16th, Lorraine Clair, whose van originally had been blocking the entrance to the compound where SWN Resources Canada's seismic testing equipment was being held, left the encampment. She left with her van.

It is unclear whether she had some kind of verbal altercation with members of the Mi'kmaq Warriors Society before she drove off.

In any case, before leaving the encampment, Clair contacted Chris Sabas Shirazi, the senior member of the Christian Peacemaker Team that had been monitoring the Indigenous anti-shale gas activists from Elsipogtog since the summer. Clair asked Shirazi to leave the encampment with her.

Shirazi then asked Elsipogtog elder Kenneth Francis, who was on the scene to give Clair's dead van a battery boost if she should leave. Francis concurred that the CPT team should leave the encampment.

In her attempt to justify fleeing a scene that in hindsight was in desperate need of some kind of independent monitoring to counter the RCMP narrative that is seeing multiple charges being levied at all six incarcerated members of the Warrior Society, Shirazi noted that Clair – after John Levi became a non-factor at the Highway 134 encampment – was her “community partner from Elsipogtog.” Rather than seeking a new “community partner” at a live situation with the very real potential for confrontation to erupt, it appears that the CPT's partnership chain ended with Clair.

So on the night of the 16th, at the request of Clair and Francis, the CPT left the as-yet peaceful encampment on Highway 134.

In her defence, Shirazi did attempt to return to the site in the morning. She also took some great video – amongst many other great videos – of the secondary confrontation with RCMP on the morning of the 17th.

Of the initial conflict, precious little footage exists that is not in RCMP hands.

Clair, for her part, appears to have located a computer on the evening of the 16th. She wrote a short message, all in caps, and posted it on the most visited of social media sites. The message mentioned that the “peaceful” part of the protest was over, and encouraged all supporters to meet her and others at the Highway 116 encampment for a noontime ceremony on the 17th. It cannot be determined what Clair was basing her assessment on; as a first-hand observer I saw no violence break out at the encampment on the night of the 16th to suggest that the peaceful part of the encampment had ended.

Confrontataion at Elsipogtog

Cranberry Co-operative Goes Big in Rogersville

Moira Peters — Mon, 03 May 2010 05:07:26 +0000

Ocean Spray to take over 3,400 hectares in New Brunswick

FREDERICTON—Rogersville, a predominately francophone village in southeastern New Brunswick with a population of 1,100 and a greater regional population of 3,500, is set to become North America's largest cranberry-growing farm. In spite of the promise of jobs big agricultural brings, not everyone is supportive of the new cranberry beds.

"Whoever approved this project must not care too much about the environment. This is my opinion,” said Roger Babin, from the neighbouring village of Acadieville. “I've talked to people, some who used to go to this area for pleasure and now they hate to go there for a drive. Seeing what is happening hurts them. Others seem happy that work is being generated. We saw around 30 pieces of machinery working today. Yes, there is work, but at what price?"

Premier Shawn Graham was on hand to break the ground for the operations last June. "This project puts Rogersville on the map as one of Canada's key cranberry growing regions. Having an internationally recognized juice brand such as Ocean Spray choose our province as the location for a potential regional hub demonstrates that New Brunswick is the place to be for business and that we have the expertise to produce world-class agricultural products," said Graham.

Approximately 3,400 hectares of Crown land has been leased to Ocean Spray. The company plans to transform 775 hectares into profitable cranberry beds and expects to employ 100 people. Ocean Spray has invested $8 million in the first phase of the project and plans to invest $90 million over five phases. More than 100 acres have been planted this spring and another 200 acres will be planted in the spring of 2011. The first yield of cranberries is expected in 2012.

The government of New Brunswick granted conditional environmental approval to Ocean Spray to develop the cranberry bog on May 29, 2009. The project will involve withdrawing water from Lac Despres and impounding South Lake, about 20 kilometres west of Rogersville. Ocean Spray is required to monitor pesticide residues, in-stream total suspended sediments, groundwater levels, stream flows, effects to Lac Despres and South Lake and effects to endangered and rare species such as the Southern twayblade. The Southern twayblade, a rare bog orchid, has been found at only six sites in the province.

At the end of the project, Ocean Spray must restore to functional wetlands those areas lost to infill from the project. Babin wonders whether restoration of the wetlands is possible.

"What will happen to the water around the project if pesticides are used? Now there are many jobs, but once the project is running, how many people will be needed to keep it going?" asked Babin.

Babin, a 64-year-old father of seven, grandfather of fifteen and great-grandfather of one, has worked in the woods all his life. Surrounded by woods and encroaching clearcuts, Babin and his neighbours no longer make a living from the forest. Two of Babin's children have worked in Alberta and two of his grandchildren now work in Edmonton.

Babin has seen too many clearcuts in his area. He wants the government to protect the public forest for its watersheds and biodiversity—and he is not alone. A public survey commissioned by the government of New Brunswick in 2008 revealed that respondents in all areas of the province ranked the environment their highest value. The protection of water, air and soil was ranked as the most important forest value by 45 per cent of respondents, and the forest as “a place for a variety of animal and plant life” was ranked second by 38 per cent of respondents. Economic wealth and jobs ranked third by 17 per cent.

Today, Babin is a driving force behind a petition to ban herbicide spraying in public forests in New Brunswick.

****

Ocean Spray, started 75 years ago by three farmers from Massachusetts and New Jersey, is the largest cranberry growers' cooperative, supplying two-thirds of the world's cranberries. The cooperative has been North America's top producer of canned and bottled juice drinks since 1981. Ocean Spray made $1.9 billion in gross sales in 2008.

Ocean Spray growers individually own their bogs while the factories and the brand are collectively owned. To meet global demand for cranberries, the company decided to create a separate investing business from the cooperative. Ocean Spray's search for an ideal growing environment for cranberries led them to the bogs of Rogersville.

Tracy Glynn is an organizer with the New Brunswick Media Co-op (NBMC) and a director on the board of the Dominion Newspaper Cooperative. This article was originally published by the NBMC.

cranberry fields

Sprayed Kedgwick Women Fight Back

hillarybain — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 06:20:03 +0000

Herbicide use set to increase in New Brunswick

On September 4, people working in the woods of northern New Brunswick, including more than 50 women planting trees, were doused with chemicals from a helicopter spraying the public forest to kill the hardwoods for a softwood plantation.

Betty St. Pierre, a spokeswoman for the group of people who say they were sprayed, says people were told to evacuate the area in Kedgwick because of imminent spraying, but the spraying began before they had the chance to leave. According to St. Pierre, tree planters experienced runny eyes, sore throats and nausea after being sprayed by the herbicide.

Many of the women and men are afraid to speak publicly about the event for fear of losing their jobs. St. Pierre, who scales trees for a living, says someone has to speak up.

“We have had enough. They are scaring people by telling them there will be no work. Meanwhile, they are using us as guinea pigs.” She says that since the incident many people have relayed stories of getting sprayed while fishing or working in the woods.

The frustration is apparent in St. Pierre's voice as she describes the community and surrounding forest.

“A man reported fish kills along a stream here after the last spraying. It is not normal to do that to the forest. We can't prove we are sick because of the spraying but cancer and pesticides have been linked. People are starting to question why do so many people in our community, in northern New Brunswick, have cancer, and rare cancers,” she says.

A new high-tech wind tunnel was unveiled at the Acadia Research Forest near Fredericton on the same day that the news broke across the province that women sprayed in Kedgwick were calling for a ban on aerial forest spraying. The HJ Irving-JJC Picot Wind Tunnel will be used to determine the exact location where spraying planes should fly depending on weather and wind.

St. Pierre says her message for the provincial government is to ban all pesticides. St. Pierre and a group of women have held community demonstrations and have collected 5,000 signatures on a petition calling for a ban on aerial forest spraying. They plan to present the petition to New Brunswick Premier Shawn Graham when the NB Legislature reopens on November 17.

On its website, the New Brunswick Department of Natural Resources (DNR) admits it has tried alternatives to spraying herbicides on New Brunswick's public forest but continues to use herbicides because they are cheaper and involve less labour. “Natural Resources has tried clearing the brush using hand tools and brush saws. Cut stems re-sprout the following year, causing severe competition; therefore, these treatments must be repeated often. This raises the cost to over 10 times that of a single application of herbicide.” According to DNR, herbicides are sprayed on approximately 25 per cent of the softwood land cut over each year in the province.

In late January, the province of New Brunswick announced a new plan for the forest that would allow the area of plantations on public lands to increase to 28 per cent. Plantations currently represent 10 per cent of the public forest.

More plantations will mean an increase in herbicide spraying. The increase in plantation area concerns scientists working with the Greater Fundy Ecosystem Research Group. They recommend that plantations not exceed more than 15 per cent of the forest area in order to preserve biodiversity.

St. Pierre points to other regions in Canada that have banned spraying. No herbicides have been sprayed on Quebec's public forest since 2001. Carol Hughes and Glen Thibeault, two NDP MPs in Northern Ontario, are expressing concerns with aerial forest spraying. Hughes is calling for an investigation on the impacts of aerial spraying of glyphosate over forests in northern Ontario.

Over half of the forest in New Brunswick is designated Crown land (public land). This land has never been ceded by its Indigenous people.

Tracy Glynn is the Forest Campaigner at the Conservation Council of New Brunswick and a director on the board of the Dominion Newspaper Cooperative.

Aerial Spraying

Kedgwick - Foresticide cropped

"Pack Up and Get Out"

Moira Peters — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 05:11:21 +0000

Why the Tobique First Nation took control of their territory’s hydro dam

TOBIQUE FIRST NATION, NB—A group from the Tobique First Nation walked peacefully into the hydro station just outside their reserve on the morning of Monday, June 8. Stephen (Red Feather) Perley approached the New Brunswick Power Corporation (NB Power) employees and said, “You guys have fifteen minutes to pack up and get out.” The employees left. Perley and others wrapped a chain around the gate and locked it. The dam was now the property of the Tobique First Nation.

Tobique, the largest Maliseet reserve in the province, first rejected a developer’s bid to build a hydro dam on its territory in 1844. The next such bid came in 1895 and was also rejected. As New Brunswick’s Telegraph Journal reported in a series of historical pieces, the Tobique River was then “part of what may well have been the greatest salmon river system in the world;” hundreds of thousands of fish swam up these rivers each year to spawn. The abundant salmon defined the community’s way of life, providing food and employment—many worked as guides in the summer months.

Individual developers eventually gave way to provincial and federal agencies. In 1950 New Brunswick’s premier approved the construction of a dam at Tobique, this time without consulting the land’s Maliseet owners. By the end of that year, construction on the dam had begun.

When Tobique’s chief learned of the plan, he wrote to Indian Affairs, demanding “suitable action to protect our rights.” He continued, “If the building [of the dam] cannot be stopped, we demand compensation,” suggesting “free electricity for all domestic uses [and] business on the reservation.” This was never honoured—as soon as the community had power lines, they received power bills. The Band Council paid these bills for Elders and people on social assistance.

****

Today, few wild salmon make their way up the Tobique river. The dam has eroded the reserve’s riverbanks, leading to “trees being washed away and homes in danger of falling into the river,” according to Maliseet activist Terry Sappier. Many of the edible and medicinal plants are gone—the islands they grew on are underwater. And ironically, because they are considered a rural area, Tobique residents are charged among the highest electricity rates in the province.

The Tobique Band Council is currently around $20 million in debt and, last spring, Canada’s Department of Indian and Northern Affairs put Tobique’s finances under third party management. The new manager stopped paying the power bills of Elders, and in April of 2008 these households began receiving bills for thousands of dollars.

****

Despite its troubles, Tobique remains a lush, picturesque locale, with many proud residents deeply devoted to their land and to each other. When NB Power threatened to cut off an Elder’s electricity in May 2008, the community stepped in. They set up a blockade, denying NB Power access, first to the reserve and soon after that to the dam. Almost all band members stopped paying their power bills pending a negotiated agreement.

In July 2008, the Tobique First Nation began allowing NB Power access to the dam to do repairs and maintenance on the condition that NB Power employees check in with them first and that a band member escort the employees into the dam or reserve.

That month, NB Power "forgave" over $200,000 in hydro bills, but they were not willing to negotiate a long-term arrangement to the community’s satisfaction. Women sat at the blockade every day until November, when New Brunswick’s annual no-disconnect policy came into effect. (The policy prevents NB Power from cutting off anyone’s electricity from November to April, which is all the more poignant since the death in 2008 of Paul Durelle, a man in Baie-Ste-Anne, NB, whose power was cut off by NB Power when he couldn’t pay his bills over the winter.)

This spring, the struggle resurfaced. In May, band members discovered an NB Power employee on the reserve reading meters. The community mobilized and, on June 8, took over the generating station. The 2008 blockade went back up, this time by the highway in front of the dam.

Tensions escalated on June 26, when a truck rolled by the blockade and into the station. When the blockaders caught up with it, the driver was talking on his cell phone. Perley told him to hang up. “You’re trespassing,” Perley said, “On behalf of Tobique First Nation, I’m seizing the truck.”

They escorted the flustered driver up to the blockade, where they gave him food and water. He phoned his employer to pick him up, but NB Power refused. The RCMP drove him home.

At the time of writing, negotiations continue. Maliseet women sit at the blockade every day playing cards and watching for NB Power trucks as cars drive by, many honking in support. The dam continues to operate; NB Power continues to profit from Tobique’s land, and the blockaders continue to allow workers in for maintenance and repairs.

The First Nation has made some gains: on June 30 the provincial Minister of Aboriginal Affairs committed New Brunswick to funding the restoration of eroded riverbanks and to cleaning up toxic and other wastes dumped at and around the dam.

Additionally, Ottawa’s Department of Justice recently validated Tobique’s specific land claim, which will likely be the largest in Atlantic Canada, and negotiations are underway for compensation.

However, the dam, and now a truck worth $170,000, are in the hands of the Tobique First Nation. They say they are not giving them back without an equitable settlement. In addition to riverbank restoration and toxic waste cleanup, the Maliseet activists have asked NB Power to compensate them for the damage done to their land, royalties on the electricity generated and a share of it for their reserve, as well as training for Tobique First Nation members in operating the hydro station. Given NB Power's interactions with the First Nation so far, such a solution seems unlikely in the near future, and Tobique’s unpaid power bills now total over $800,000.

Daniel Thau-Eleff is a playwright, activist and journalist based in Winnipeg.

NB Power

Irving Refinery Blues

macdonald — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 13:45:49 +0000

Irving Refinery Blues

Please forgive me-- this may end up seeming like a rant in places, for I simply must get some things off my chest. I hope my prediction that it will make sense by the end is true.

I am a strong proponent of the idea that hitchhiking is simply one of the greatest forms of grassroots journalism. When you enter a new place, the odds are quite high that you are traveling with a local. If this is the case, then you will become immediately armed with “insider” information to which there is little match. The sorts of things I am often lucky to learn, in any case, would certainly not be told in any tourist information booth.

I woke up today in Riviere Du Loup, in Eastern Québec. I made a cold instant coffee and ate some granola bars before wandering across the highway to seek rides further East. I managed three rides fairly easily, each of them pleasant and warm, no hassles and even interesting tangents of separate activity here and there. But what I need to rant about was the ranting of my last ride of the day, a man named Doug who picked me up when I was but one ride from here-- Saint John, New Brunswick.

Political and Chemical Blowback

hillarybain — Thu, 07 May 2009 05:26:24 +0000

How the Canadian government poisoned rural New Brunswick

VANCOUVER–The term ‘blowback’ has two definitions. One is environmental, the other political; both come with a human cost. Blowback happens when chemicals sprayed in the air catch wind currents, blow back towards those doing the spraying and fall on homes, farms and people. Blowback also describes the unintended adverse results of a political action or situation. Chris Arsenault documents how these dual forms of blowback met in rural New Brunswick in his first book Blowback: A Canadian History of Agent Orange and the War at Home.

Blowback documents the irresponsibility of the Canadian government as it pursued a decades-long campaign to spray small town and rural New Brunswick with more than a million litres of Agent Orange, considered one of the deadliest synthetic chemicals known to humankind.

From 1956 to 1984, the military and its private contractors showered more than 1.3 million litres of toxic defoliant on and around the Canadian Forces Base Gagetown, including the town of Enniskillen and its several hundred residents. The reason for spraying was simple: to defoliate trees and brush to make space for acres of training ground and shooting ranges at the base, writes Arsenault.

Arsenault is unabashedly critical of Canadian military neglect, which he describes as deliberate, and has choice words about the systemic defoliation at Gagetown:

…partially a story of inaction, ignorance incompetence and laziness: contract supervisors who didn’t follow safety labels; military personnel who buried improperly sealed barrels of toxin in random locations; aerial sprayers who missed their targets, destroying crops and swaths of land; and power companies who decided spraying dioxin was a cheaper way to clear brush from electrical lines than hiring workers with saws and axes.

Spraying was also used on the land because the topography and foliage simulated conditions in Vietnam. “Of all possible North American test sites,” Arsenault outlines, “it had the terrain most like Vietnam.”

Arsenault uses facts gleaned from Freedom of Information requests, primary sources and interviews to condemn the Canadian government for its complicity in using chemicals against its own people at a concentration higher than the US sprayed in Southeast Asia.

Agent Orange gained infamy when the US used it during the Vietnam War, resulting in serious health consequences for multiple generations of Vietnamese.

In his opening passages, Arsenault outlines similar consequences in New Brunswick, including a resident of Enniskillen who had 11 tumours removed from her body.

One of the most galling examples of private traumas endured by those spraying and being sprayed with the toxic defoliant is that of Ken Dobbie. As a teenager in 1966, he handled Agent Orange with his bare hands while on a six-week contract to strip the bush. Now suffering from a host of neurological and blood disorders, Dobbie told Arsenault, “We were told this stuff was safe enough to drink.” Dobbie is now a leading plaintiff in a lawsuit against the federal government.

In 115 pages, Arsenault has compiled a history of Agent Orange in Canada that includes both insight and humour. From the first internal memo to the NDP politician in the 1980s to the press exposés and to the largest class-action lawsuit in US history, Blowback is compelling reading for every Canadian who wants to know more about the wizard behind the curtain. The author's research unearths years of military paper trails and includes extensive interviews with past Gagetown military personnel, labourers contracted to spray, and rural New Brunswick residents.

With dozens of footnotes per chapter, the passages can seem textbook-like. The stories he relates about the individuals most impacted by spraying—like Paul and Cora Thompson, who can’t have children, and Marilyn Kissinger, whose brother and teenage friends died en masse—are haunting and unforgettable, but also underdeveloped. Arsenault seems to have established the trust of one-time Gagetown infantry and past Enniskillen residents. He does each one justice, but would do the reader a favour by indulging a narrative style to heighten memories, loss and sacrifice. However, he does corroborate first-person accounts with documented information, enhancing one through the use of the other.

The war at home, Arsenault writes, is not for mere poetic effect or political rhetoric. No, the history of Agent Orange in Canada is about the war coming home and being waged against Canadians. What citizens finally realized, and what spurred them to mobilize, writes Arsenault, is that they have the justification and agency to blow back against the government and military that poisoned them.

Megan Stewart is a Vancouver-based journalist.

Blowback

Only Non-Irving Owned Newspaper in New Brunswick Goes Under

Stuart Neatby — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 19:51:09 +0000

A press release issued by the Carleton Free Press, less than a year after the small paper began circulation in northern New Brunswick:

Carleton Free Press suspends publication

Citing the downturn in the economy and inability to compete with a chain that has cut its advertising and subscription prices to the bone for the next year, the Carleton FreePress today announced it is suspending publication.

Today’s paper will be the last.

“We have tried everything,” said publisher Ken Langdon. “Our staff has been heroic, right down to the last person. We’ve got a good paper. We’ve earned a place in the fabric of Carleton County, but in the end we simply cannot compete with Irvings’ financial power.

“Brunswick News can afford to drop a few million dollars here to get the Bugle-Observer’s monopoly back and the Irving chain’s manager is willing to do what it takes here to discourage any others who might take heart from our success to compete in other New Brunswick markets,”

Langdon said three factors converged in the last few weeks to create insurmountable problems for the paper. One was the market crash and the fallout on the local economy. The other was the cost of adding a second paper on Fridays, which the FreePress felt it had to do to compete. The third was a Bugle-Observer announcement that it was cutting its ad prices in half for the next year and it’s per issue price from $1.25 to 25 cents. (This week it offered a year-long special buy at 29 per cent of its regular ad rate.)

“The last few weeks have been harrowing,” said Langdon. “We have wracked our brains to find a way to save the paper but we can’t alter the numbers.

“Big bucks have prevailed.”

Irvings under fire in NB

dru — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 20:57:21 +0000

Is New Brunswick finally getting tired of having one company own all of its newspapers?

With a new paper starting up and the Conservatives saying that the media monopoly needs to be looked into, NB might just be on the verge of doing something about its little problem.

Whitewashing Agent Orange

hillarybain — Sat, 11 Aug 2007 17:05:52 +0000

Green Party Leader decries CANTOX Report

The leader of Canada's Green Party is accusing consulting firm CANTOX Environmental of “whitewashing a major health scandal” after the firm released a report on the effects of Agent Orange spraying at Canadian Forces Base Gagetown.

“The so-called health risk assessment released on June 21 is not useful as a guide to governmental responsibilities to compensate workers and bystanders,” said Elizabeth May in a July press release.

The report by CANTOX is part of the ongoing CFB Gagetown fact-finding initiative, a federally funded project hoping to determine the health risks of chemicals sprayed at the base.

While some facts about chemical spraying are still unknown, it is public information that the Canadian military sprayed 6,504 barrels (1,328,767 litres) of chemical defoliants on 181,038 acres of Base Gagetown between 1956 and 1984. These chemicals included Agent Orange, Agent White and the extremely toxic Agent Purple.

On June 21 of this year, CANTOX Environmental concluded that people who lived or worked at CFB Gagetown, including most soldiers, were not at risk for long-term health effects from the active ingredients in herbicide applications.

The Green Party leader and some veterans say CANTOX's findings are not to be trusted. The company “has a reputation of never finding a risk when conducting health risk assessments,” said Elizabeth May.

According to May, “CANTOX found no risk in an area near the coke ovens site in Sydney that later was found to have arsenic levels high enough to be an acute health hazard. CANTOX ruled no risk to health in expanding the St. John Irving refinery and no risk in adding caffeine to children’s soda pop.”

The goal of CANTOX's June 21 report was to determine if exposure to the active ingredients in the herbicides used at CFB Gagetown from 1952 to the present day may have posed any potential risks to human health.

The potential for groundwater contamination from Agent Orange was excluded from CANTOX's study. For veterans and people who live near the base, this is a major cause of concern.

“There are 65 lakes and 251 streams on the base, all the residue of which runs into the St. John River and our well water,” said Gloria Paul, a retired nurse whose property borders CFB Gagetown. Unhappy with omissions in the fact-finding process, Paul wants to test her own water for chemical poisons, but “it costs $900 for one well test.”

The most comprehensive recent research on the long-term effects of Agent Orange contamination was conducted in Vietnam by Hatfield Consultants, a Canadian company. “We did a number of soil samples and followed [chemicals comprising Agent Orange] through the food chain into ponds, fish and then into humans,” said Dr. Wayne Dwernychuck, a lead researcher from Hatfield Consultants.

The recent CANTOX study didn't look for Agent Orange in fish or other animal life.

According to Elizabeth May, “CANTOX assumed a rapid rate of decomposition in the environment, essentially assuming that each year’s dose of herbicides had vanished from the environment before the next year’s spray program.”

This aspect of CANTOX's research methodology is problematic because, based on the findings of Hatfield Consultants, Agent Orange stays in ecosystems for long periods. “We found [Agent Orange] in children who had been born long after the [Vietnam] war ended,” said Dr. Dwernychuck, who concluded that the children were sick because of water, food and other substances poisoned with Agent Orange decades before they were born.

Some suggest that CANTOX has a conflict of interest when it comes to studying Agent Orange contamination.

More than 20 years ago, one of CANTOX’s founders, Dr. Len Ritter, was personally responsible as a civil servant for providing advice to the federal government that 2,4,5-T (a component of Agent Orange now banned in Canada) was safe when the US banned it.

The general attitude of the Canadian government when it comes to veterans who say they were poisoned by the chemicals officials once told them were “safe enough to drink” is markedly different from how the British and Americans have dealt with the issue.

In April, the British government awarded a special pension to Keith Pilmoor, a British solider from Bradford who said he was exposed to the defoliant sprayed at CFB Gagetown in 1966 and was sick for decades afterward.

The United States Department of Veterans Affairs compensates American service members who may have been exposed to Agent Orange during the Vietnam war.

Agent Orange in Vietnam

Uranium rising

hillarybain — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 13:21:42 +0000

Plan to mine radioactive ore generates controversy in Moncton, New Brunwick

One of the largest and most profitable mining companies in the world -- a company that received a failing grade on the Globe and Mail's corporate social responsibility survey -- is prospecting for the radioactive ore near Moncton, New Brunswick.

CVRD-Inco spent roughly $4 million to buy exclusive uranium prospecting rights for the next year on a 136,000-hectare area between Sussex and Moncton. The area includes land bordering the city of Moncton's watershed, which supplies drinking water for 100,000 residents.

New Brunswick Health Minister and Moncton MLA Mike Murphy has stated unequivocally that there will be no mine in the watershed, but according to Department of Natural Resources spokesman Brent Roy, Minister Murphy doesn't have the legislative authority to make that call.

"Prospecting just happens to intersect with the northern tip of the watershed and this is a legal legislative activity," said Roy in an interview. "In order to say 'no' [to mining in the watershed], we would have to change the law."

"The mining industry isn't in the business of taking 'no' for an answer," said Dr. Mark Winfield, a nuclear analyst with the Pembina Institute.

But they're hardly alone. Despite Health Minister Murphy's assurances that CVRD-Inco will not open a mine, Roy feels otherwise.

"The price of uranium is really high right now and we should be looking for it if we want to be in business," Roy said.

"Existing mines in northern Saskatchewan have caused severe contamination through heavy metals like arsenic, and long-lived radionuclides, along with conventional pollutants," said Winfield. In 2004, Health Canada concluded that effluent from uranium mines meets the definition of a toxic substance under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act.

"There's no such thing as 100 per cent safe," said Moncton City Councillor Steve Boyce. "We've been assured [of environmental safety] by CVRD-Inco, the same company that has been charged with dumping mine tailings into a brook in Ontario."

In an interview, CVRD-Inco spokesman Cory McPhee stated the obvious: "The ultimate goal is to explore for resources and open a mine."

So, it looks like two camps are digging in for a good old-fashioned showdown. Elements within the provincial government, and of course the mining company, are on one side pushing for the project, while Moncton City Council and environmental groups are hoping to bury it.

On the surface, it looks like the impending showdown could be characterized by what some corporate consultants call a NIMBY (Not In My Backyard) campaign. But CVRD-Inco's mining plans, and government support for them, dig at something a little deeper in New Brunswick provincial politics.

In early June, Premier Shawn Graham received a standing ovation during an address to the Canadian Nuclear Society when he stated that the "possibility of a second nuclear unit at Point Lepreau is very interesting to us and will be closely examined."

It seems as though power and the desire for it, specifically nuclear power, runs in the Graham family. Alan R. Graham, father of Premier Shawn Graham, sits on the Atomic Energy Control Board (AECB), the federal agency responsible for enforcing health, safety, security and environmental standards related to nuclear energy.

As a member of the AECB, Alan Graham, a Liberal party stalwart appointed to the board in 1998, is responsible for issuing licenses for nuclear activities, one of which may come from the N.B. government, led by his son.

Unearthing a little more toxic bureaucracy, the Atomic Energy Control Board reports to Parliament through the minister of natural resources, rather than the minister of the environment.

"The Department of Natural Resources is not in the business of protecting the environment; they're in the business of development," said Councillor Boyce. Thus, if the AECB is making a tough decision between a potentially dangerous mine and economic development, the board has political interest in siding with development, due to the mandate of the department it reports to.

Nova Scotia enacted a formal moratorium on uranium mining in 1982.

"Politicians were responding to public outcry," said Rick Ratcliffe, spokesman for the Nova Scotia Department of the Environment. Notice, it's the Department of the Environment, rather than the Ministry of Natural Resources that now administers uranium mining policy in Nova Scotia.

"CVRD-Inco didn't put the uranium there," said Corey McPhee, who has worked at Inco for the last 17 years. "We have a 100-year history of mining and mining responsibly."

'Responsible' is the last word Tracy Glynn, a staffer at the New Brunswick Conservation Council, would use to describe Inco.

Glynn wrote her masters thesis in Indonesia, where Inco operates a major mining complex.

In 2005, Glynn found that Inco was providing local communities with bacteria-contaminated water. Inco's senior employees, mostly from Canada and Australia, were given clean, filtered water.

"No local people were employed as managers at the company's Indonesian operations," said Glynn, who spent time with affected communities. "The young people would have frequent protests calling for employment at the mine."

When giving Inco a failing grade in its 2005 Corporate Social Responsibility Survey, the Globe and Mail noted that company policies had led to "strained community relations at nickel projects in New Caledonia [an island in the South Pacific] and Guatemala."

"Inco has been trying for about 10 years to get the huge Goro Nickle mine up and running in New Caledonia," said Catherine Coumans, a policy expert with Mining Watch Canada, a union-funded, non-governmental organization based in Ottawa.

"The mining permit they were granted in 2004 was yanked," said Coumans, who said Inco has been more or less ignoring the order. Many of New Caledonia's residents are indigenous people who have been "fighting Inco tooth and nail; taking them to court, blocking roads and burning equipment," said Coumans.

New Caledonia has some of the highest biodiversity on Earth. Inco's operations there have already destroyed eco-systems that may have included previously undiscovered plant and animal species, said Coumans.

"We think we are improving, in terms of corporate social responsibility," said CVRD-Inco spokesman Cory McPhee. "An example of that might be seen in our New Caledonia project where we have begun sitting down and talking with the community." Coumans agreed that community relations have improved in New Caledonia since Inco was bought out by CVRD of Brazil in 2006.

However, New Caledonia is but one of the company's trouble-spots. In Montreal, on November 13, 2006, Mining Watch Canada brought together a panel made up of community leaders from Indonesia, Guatemala, New Caledonia and Canada, who discussed their struggles against Inco. Those fighting against the mine worry that New Brunswick may have a delegate at events like this in the future.

And according to Dr. Winfield, the potential health and environmental impacts of the mine are not balanced out by any positive ones.
"The inter-governmental panel on climate change was very clear that nuclear [energy] can't compete economically," he said. "New Brunswick has better options for energy: a lot of coast line, a lot of wind, tidal power.

"They should be pursuing these options before going down this [nuclear] path."

Inco in Sudbury

Support the Troops or Support the War?

hillarybain — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 14:42:58 +0000

In Afghanistan, it might be difficult to do both

GAGETOWN, NB -- When some 2,500 people braved snow and ice to form a massive Canadian flag at CFB Gagetown as a part of an emotional farewell to soldiers departing for Afghanistan, it seemed like patriotism at its best.

There was only one problem: many attendees were forced to participate in the rally.

An email to base employees obtained by the Dominion states, “All military and civilian personnel not in an essential service position or undergoing training are required to attend the ceremonies.” On January 26, 708 soldiers from CFB Gagetown will start deploying for Afghanistan as part of Canada’s third rotation.

“I support the military 100 per cent, but when someone tells me I am required to do something, I get up in arms,” said one long-time base employee who didn’t want to be named for fear of professional reprisal. “I will not support our men going over to fight and die in a war we have nothing to do with,” added the employee.

“A lot of the time they [soldiers] don’t have a choice,” says 17-year-old Shayley Jestin as she volunteers at a table passing out yellow ribbons. “Supporting the troops is different from supporting the war,” says Jestin, whose father is in the military.

At the January 19 rally, scampering kids munched hot dogs and blue cotton candy, politicians made pro-war speeches and soldiers held their loved ones. For some families, this will be a last caress. Word around the base is that one in 10 soldiers will die in Afghanistan; media reports say one in six is expected to be injured.

“It’s like feeling every emotion at the same time,” says Sapper Bruce MacCleary who will be deployed to Kandahar in February. “Anyone who says they aren’t worried is lying,” says MacCleary while holding his 16-month-old daughter.

During my interview with MacCleary and his wife Samantha, public affairs officer Lieutenant Desmond James, a clean-cut navy man with sharp eyes, watches closely. After asking the standard questions about training, feelings and worries, I try something a little different.

“In 2005, Major General Andrew Leslie went on record saying ‘Afghanistan is a 20-year venture’, because ‘every time you kill an angry young man overseas, you’re creating 15 more who will come after you.’ By this logic, don’t you think the occupation is misguided?” I ask.

Sapper MacCleary answers the question.

We shake hands and walk our separate ways. MacCleary starts talking to public affairs officer Lieut. James. Moments later MacCleary returns and asks to withdraw his answer.

“Soldiers don’t comment on policy or rules,” said public affairs officer James when asked why MacClearly wasn’t allowed to give his opinion on the subject for which he’s risking his life.

It’s ironic that average soldiers, support staff and their families can’t talk about the politics behind the mission when at times they likely understand the situation better than politicians and generals.

Take this statement from Defence Minister Gordon O’Connor’s Gagetown speech, “The Afghan economy has tripled over the last five years.” This may be true, but only one domestic sector is growing: heroin. According to American government figures, last year Afghanistan produced more drugs than ever before.

According to The Washington Post, the country now supplies 90 per cent of the world’s heroin.

“The Taliban don’t want heroin production to be brought low,” said Veterans Affairs Minister Greg Thompson who took the stage after O’Connor. Thompson would do well to remember that the Taliban, while imposing fundamentalist religious law, were the ones who curtailed heroin production in the 1990s.

Western forces haven’t embarked on a Colombia-style aerial eradication campaign on heroin poppies for fear of crippling the Afghan economy and driving tens of thousands of average farmers towards the insurgency.

“It’s in our national interest to deal with terrorism where it is bred,” said Gordon O’Connor, as Canadian flags wave on tele-screens behind him.

The terrorists operating in Afghanistan were once part of this national interest: Osama Bin Laden and his mujahedeen were trained and armed by the CIA and its western proxies during the 1980s when they launched Jihad against Soviet occupiers.

“I believe the media has been emphasizing the negative stuff too much,” says Sapper MacCleary, as the public affairs officer nods in agreement.

“Families would like to see and hear more about the reconstruction,” said MacCleary.

Afghan families would also like to see more reconstruction.

But the money hasn’t been forthcoming to make this happen. According to the NDP’s Jack Layton, “For each $1 we’re spending in Afghanistan, only 10 cents goes to aid and reconstruction, while the other 90 cents goes into combat.”

“Five years after the overthrow of the Taliban, Kabul has only three hours of electricity per day and unsanitary and inadequate drinking water,” writes Christian Parenti, who reported from Afghanistan for The Nation in 2006.

Canada’s core strategy for subduing Afghanistan is based on the ‘three block war’: defence, diplomacy and development. However, according to NGOs working on the ground, the focus on defence is undermining the other aspects.

The fate of Doctors Without Borders (MSF), one of the world’s most respected humanitarian groups who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1999, illustrates this situation perfectly. MSF assisted the people of Afghanistan from 1980 – 2004, until they were forced to pull out after five of their staff were murdered.

According to MSF, “The violence directed at humanitarian aid workers in Afghanistan comes amid consistent efforts by the US-led coalition to use humanitarian aid to build support for its military and political aims... The organization has also spoken out against the military’s attempt to usurp humanitarian aid.”

Towards the end of the Gagetown event, I slip outside for a smoke and a coffee and start chatting with a mother whose son is going to Kandahar next week.

“There are a lot of sides to it,” she says, as the snow pelts down. The woman, who didn’t want to be named, drove up from Nova Scotia to attend the event. She’s worried about her son, but “it’s his job. We can’t be all doctors and lawyers.” When asked about the occupation itself, she takes a classic unassuming tone.

“I’m really not educated enough to say if I am for or against it,” she says, “but I wouldn’t want foreign soldiers coming here and telling us what to do.”

Sapper Bruce MacCleary

hillarybain — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 14:36:28 +0000

Sapper Bruce MacCleary with his wife and daughter in Gagetown.

New Brunswick's New Business

Tue, 10 Oct 2006 17:08:45 +0000

An afternoon at an arms convention with some nice folks

David Innis stands by the NBAD display at a military trade show in Halifax. photo: Chris Arsenault

David Innis doesn't seem like a bad guy.

He's got a warm red face, a half-decent tie and wants to bring investment and jobs to New Brunswick.

But, as chairman of the New Brunswick Aerospace Defence Association (NBADA), Innis is essentially an arms dealer.

His job is to lure more military -- excuse me-- 'aerospace and defence' investment to the province.

"New Brunswick has a pretty well-established defence industry," Innis said while working the NBADA booth at a military trade show in Halifax in September.

The New Brunswick Aerospace Defence Association, including some 60 companies, "was born five years ago to give the businesses and the companies themselves a forum or an opportunity to engage in this industry in a more co-operative manner and engage the world that exists out there," Innis said.

And what a world it is. Inside the convention centre, government functionaries with receding hairlines and businessmen in grey suits brush shoulders with soldiers in military fatigues. Several hundred people interested in the business of war have gathered for this spectacle.

On the convention's second floor sits the main presentation room, where major arms makers like Boeing explain how smaller firms can win subcontracts on their projects. Boeing's rep reads from prepared notes, bragging how his firm produces one-third of all satellites currently in orbit and generated $54.8 billion in revenue from 145 countries in 2005. The PowerPoint presentation on the screen behind the rep shows white missiles blasting into blue sky, with a superimposed American flag in the background.

Boeing's PowerPoint presentation plays like a bad Nickelback video, complete with a hard-rock song entitled 'Anywhere, Anytime' that seems to have been written especially for the weapons firm.

With clients in 145 countries, the company is certainly ready to get paid by 'anyone at anytime,' selling weapons to both sides in various wars.

"As everything is becoming more global, we really have to step forward and look at the industry in a larger context than we have in the past. It involves an awful lot more networking," Innis said. The New Brunswick table is fairly small and not too impressive compared to major players like General Dynamics Canada, Raytheon and Boeing.

Many companies at the arms fair offer bowls of Werther's Originals or Campino hard candy on their displays. Buying missiles, armoured personnel carriers and aircraft components should, after all, be a sweet affair.

Many New Brunswick weapons firms are small subcontractors making component parts for large war machines. One of the province's defence "success stories," according to a government press release, is DEW Engineering, who operate a 100,000 square-foot facility in Miramichi.

This firm produces, among other things, "add-on armour for the world market". Vehicles like Army Stryker, involved in the occupation of Iraq, use this sort of add-on armour.

"New Brunswick has everything that it needs to fully participate in this industry," Innis said.

When people who sell weapons talk about their industry, concepts like war, kill, maimed kids, vanquished infrastructure and greed rarely fall into the lexicon. It's a 'defence industry' not a 'weapons that kill people' industry.

In his 1961 farewell address, President Dwight D. Eisenhower issued the American people, and by extension the rest of us, a serious warning.

"We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex," said Eisenhower.

Today, the influence of the military industrial complex is beyond unwarranted; it is all encompassing.

In 2005, the United States spent $455 billion on its military; more than the combined total of the 32 next most powerful nations, notes a report from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

In 2005, Canada was already the seventh largest military spender of the 26 countries in NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

"For the price of one military helicopter, the government could build 1,000 homes to shelter Canada's homeless," notes a report from the Polaris Institute, a left-leaning think tank based in Ottawa.

During the last week of June 2006, Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced $15 billion in new spending on military vehicles, including transport planes, heavy-lift helicopters, troop carrier ships and trucks, to be spent over the next number of years.

Chris Arsenault spends an afternoon at an arms convention with some nice folks.

Minimal Improvement

Thu, 13 Jul 2006 15:05:17 +0000

Minimum wage hike in New Brunswick is still not enough professor says

A full-time person working for the new minimum wage in New Brunswick earns roughly $13,400 per year before deductions, barely enough to support a single person, let alone a family.

On July 1, the minimum wage in New Brunswick increased 20 cents to $6.70 per hour, an adjustment that UNB professor Thom Workman calls "political tokenism."

"It isn't at all significant, 20 cents doesn't go far enough to turn the minimum wage into a living wage," said Dr. Workman, a political science professor specializing in Atlantic Canadian wage policy. He thinks living standards for the lower echelons of New Brunswick society have stagnated or even decreased over the past 30 years.

"Had increases been pegged to the rate of inflation from the 1970s onward, the minimum wage would take low income individuals and families at least above the poverty line," said Dr. Workman.

Based on research from 2001, Workman thinks the minimum wage would be around $9 an hour, if it had kept pace with post 1970s inflation.

The Conservatives, however, are patting themselves on the back. "I am very pleased that government continues to follow through on addressing the minimum wage," said Post-Secondary Education and Training Minister Jody Carr, when he announced the changes.

A person working full-time for the new minimum wage earns roughly $13,400 per year before deductions, barley enough to support a single person, let alone a family. However, according to Carr, "This [increase] will benefit thousands of New Brunswick workers while respecting the needs of employers in the province."

The question then is: do employers need a perpetual under-class?

"This is a recognition by business owners that the cost of living is higher," said Fredericton Chamber of Commerce spokesperson Anthony Knight.

If business owners are recognizing the cost of living is increasing, would they accept a $9 minimum wage, allowing workers the same standard of dignity they received 30 years ago, before inflationary roll backs ate into their real income?

"I think we'd need to have an open dialogue with government and business leaders to have such a dramatic increase," said Mr. Knight.

Some business interests argue that raising the minimum wage could eliminate jobs because employers would leave in search of cheaper workers, a suggestion that Dr. Workman dismisses.

"The idea that the minimum wage can't go higher or it will decrease employment is a bald face lie. The minimum wage is largely in the service sector," he says.

"Where is Tim Horton's going to move to? The service industry isn't moving." The province plans to raise the minimum wage again in July 2007, to $7.10 per hour but that may not even keep up with inflation, especially with rising gas and home heating costs.

The minimum wage rate also influences other wages at the lower end of the economic spectrum.

"For a lot of workers, the minimum wage is a bench mark," said Workman. "In 2001, 25 per cent of all wage earners in New Brunswick were working within $2.50 of the minimum wage, which is why food bank use is high and our poverty rates are high."

Low wages equal more than just economic poverty. If money is power, and power is influence, then a sizable portion of the population don't have much of a voice.

While interviewing a half dozen groups and individuals for this story, not a single person could provide contact information for someone currently working for minimum wage.

"I know people, but they wouldn't talk to you," said Penny Alberts, a St. John-based anti-poverty activist. "There is a real stigma attached to earning low wages and being poor. And people I know wouldn't want to give their names," she said.

While legislated minimum wages are higher in other provinces, $7.55 in Saskatchewan, $7.15 in Nova Scotia and $8 in British Columbia, the purchasing power of the minimum wage is generally stagnating or decreasing across the country, while poverty and inequality rates increase.

An internationally cited 2005 study by Social Watch, a coalition of 400 non-governmental organizations from 50 countries, found that poverty in Canada is rising among children and new immigrants, the middle class is finding it increasingly difficult to afford education and housing, and 250,000 Canadians are homeless and living on the streets. According to the study's author, economist Armine Yalnizyan, "[Canadians] are worse off now than we were when we wrote the 1948 declaration of human rights."

Chris Arsenault interviews professor Thom Workman about the minimal minimum wage hike in New Brunswick and its impacts.

Uncertain Futures

Thu, 06 Jul 2006 15:13:54 +0000

Gaining access to publicly funded abortions is not easy in New Brunswick

The only hospital in New Brunswick that was providing publicly funded abortions stopped performing the procedure at the end of June. photo: JoEllen Donahue Hermes

The decision to have an abortion is rarely easy, but after the Dr. Everett Chalmers Hospital in Fredericton stopped performing the procedure at the end of June, and with pro-life groups rallying to prevent Moncton's George Dumont Hospital from picking up the slack, many New Brunswickers are wondering about the procedure's future in the province.

"We have no information, no idea on anything. All we know is that we are busy," said Simone Leibovitch, a staffer at Morgentaler clinic in Fredericton, which charges up to $750 for an abortion.

Chalmers was the only hospital in New Brunswick that provided provincially funded abortions. Last year, Chalmers performed 400 of the 404 Medicare abortions in New Brunswick, while the Morgentaler Clinic performed approximately 600.

"Anytime a hospital stops providing abortions it's a victory," said Pete Ryan, executive director of the New Brunswick Right to Life Association.

The provincial government says two hospitals will step in to provide the services, but they haven't yet said where.

"There will be no interruption in service," said Johanne Leblanc, spokesperson for the department of health. "For safety reasons, physicians, and even I myself, don't know where it will be taking place."

"How are people suppose to get to the hospital if no one knows where they are taking place?" wonders Michelle LeBlanc, a New Brunswick feminist and graduate engineering student.

The fact that physicians providing legal government-funded services are forced into secrecy is worrisome for many New Brunswickers. But fear of anti-abortion extremists is only one of the impediments to proper abortion access in N.B.

The New Brunswick government currently refuses to fund abortions unless they are deemed "medically necessary" by two physicians and performed in a hospital by a gynecologist.

"The government makes it extremely hard to get access to abortions paid for under the Canada Health Act," said Fredericton women's rights activist Jennifer Carkner.

In 1970, a group of women set off from Vancouver to Ottawa on what would be dubbed the 'abortion caravan.' They stopped in communities along the way performing guerrilla theatre presentations portraying back-street abortions.

Upon arriving in Ottawa, 300 women and men marched on Parliament Hill, demanding a meeting with government. None of the politicians would talk to them. In response, 30 women chained themselves to their chairs in the House of Commons gallery. This helped kick-start a long-term struggle for open access and full legalization of abortions.

On January 28, 1988, after years of protests and legal battles, the Supreme Court handed down a ground-breaking ruling: "The right to liberty...guarantees a degree of personal autonomy over important decisions intimately affecting his or her private life," said one of the Justices. "The decision whether or not to terminate a pregnancy is essentially a moral decision and in a free and democratic society, the conscience of the individual must be paramount to that of the state."

"N.B. rules are archaic. A woman shouldn't need two doctors' permission to have an abortion," said Leibovitch.

Along with being 'archaic', current policies aren't cost-effective, say critics. Bringing a patient into a hospital operating room costs far more than using a clinic; gynecologists are more expensive than doctors who can perform the procedure just as easily.

"I think it would be really smart if the government funded this (Morgentaler clinic) so women don't have to pay," said Leibovitch, who has been working at the clinic for a year.

"We have the set up and staff here, where it's a lot more economically sensible than using up O.R. [Operating Room] time in the hospital."

Before being partially legalized in 1969, abortions were a leading cause of emergency room visits for young women, as they were often botched.

Gaining access to publicly funded abortions in New Brunswick has never been easy. Chris Arsenault discovers it's now more difficult than ever.