The Dominion - 66

Murders in Mining Country

hillarybain — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 06:24:46 +0000

Canadian mining companies at the scene of the crimes

San Cristobal de Las Casas, MEXICO—The mood was celebratory the weekend of August 29, 2009.

Activist and community leader Mariano Abarca Roblero had just been released after eight days in jail for alleged anti-mining activity.

In the town of Chicomuselo, near the Guatemalan border, people gathered for a weekend conference organized by the Mexican Network of People Affected by Mining (REMA) to discuss the effects of mining and how best to oppose local projects. Besides helping organize the event, Mariano—who had been fighting against a barite mine near his home operated by Canadian company Blackfire Exploration Ltd.—was treated like the guest of honour.

As the weekend came to a close, Mariano’s four adult children and his wife gathered around him as people attending the conference asked to have their photos taken with him. He was a hero for having survived several days in jail for his anti-mining stance. On top of everything, he said he was as determined as ever to keep fighting.

But less than three months later, Mariano was dead, shot in the neck and chest outside his home in Chicomuselo.

Three people arrested in connection with the murder all have ties to Blackfire as current or former employees. Blackfire has said they had nothing to do with the killing and they have no control over their employees outside of work hours.

Mariano’s death came after he had reported death threats by Blackfire employees to the police.

“A few weeks after my father made a report against [two Blackfire employees] one of them came to the house and said he was going kill my father,” Mariano’s son Jose Luis said.

“They completed their objective. At 8 p.m. that same day I got the news that my father was dead.”

Sadly, Mariano’s death is but one in a spate of recent killings in Mexico and Central America that have targeted locals who were known for their opposition to mining projects in their communities.

As Bill C-300—proposed legislation that would hold Canadian mining companies more accountable for their activities in developing countries—is debated back home, the practices of Canadian mining companies are yet again being questioned.

“The image that the [Mexican] population has of Canadian mines is that they’re murderers, and that’s throughout the region,” said Gustavo Castro, a close friend and colleague of Mariano’s who works for Chiapas NGO Otros Mundos.

“People have seen lives lost, dead livestock, waterways contaminated—that’s what they’ve seen of Canadian mining… And there’s a resistance movement that’s getting stronger all the time.”

It’s not that Canadian mines are necessarily worse than the mines of other countries—it’s that there are so many more of them.

“The Americans and the Brits and the Chinese and the Australians are no better, and if anything some are worse,” said Jamie Kneen, Communications Coordinator for MiningWatch Canada. “But because Canada is so dominant in the industry the odds are that if there’s a problem it’s going to be a Canadian one.”

There’s no doubt Canada is a global leader when it comes to the mining industry. According to an article written by Michel Bourassa, coordinator of the Global Mining Group at law firm Fasken Martineau, “As of 2008, over three quarters of the world’s exploration and mining companies called Canada home.” Extractive industries account for five per cent of Canada’s GDP.

A recent report released by the Latin American Observatory for Environmental Conflicts stated there are currently 118 mining conflicts in 15 countries in Latin America. By my own count, a total of 33, or 28 per cent, involve Canadian mining companies.

Kneen believes the increased violence is partly due to the mining industry's push into "more remote and sensitive areas."

“The more they have to go off into new places the more they are running into conflict, and the conflict turns deadly sometimes.”

El Salvador has seen the worst death toll with three activists killed. Each was opposed to Pacific Rim’s proposed El Dorado mine.

In an October interview, Pacific Rim CEO Tom Shrake denied the company had anything to do with anti-mining activist Marcelo Rivera’s murder in June. In a follow-up email interview in January, he said the same with regards to anti-mining activists Ramiro Rivera and Dora Sorto’s murders, accusing the media of pointing to the mining issue with no factual basis.

“These most recent murders are in the area of our now inactive Santa Rita Project, not El Dorado,” Shrake said. “They have been reported by the police to be related to a family feud. We have no presence in the area and have not since 2008. There are no mining or exploration activities in the area. Hooded armed gunmen who—according to the locals in the area—came from another town ran us off the site. Certain outlets continue to point to the mining issue as the motivation for the murders, without factual basis. We would hope they are not purposely using this feud as a tool to generate opposition and worse yet, violence.”

However activists on the ground say the violence is being generated by Pacific Rim’s presence.

“We think there’s a link between the company and the violence in our country associated with this struggle [against mining]” Roberto Calles of the Mesa Nacional frente a la Mineria Metálica said.

“The company had pitted communities and people against one another,” Calles said, noting deep divisions exist between family members who are for and against the mine. Calles said local politicians have received benefits from mining companies in exchange for their support and have been known to turn against their anti-mining constituents, generating more conflict.

“Even if the company is not directly killing people, the result is related to them and their actions,” he said.

In Guatemala, a country that has a long history of struggle against Canadian mines, two lives were lost in mining related violence in September 2009. Kneen said he’s heard of travellers in Guatemala being warned not to identify themselves as Canadian for fear of being attacked.

According to Uriel Abarca Roblero, brother of murdered Mexican anti-mining activist Mariano Abarca Roblero, Canadians are getting a tarnished reputation in Chiapas as well.

“The people of Chicomuselo [near where the mine is], the newspapers, the family… all say Canadians—not the company—are the murderers because they came from another country and killed us,” he said. “That’s what everyone thinks. I know it’s not true but people really feel that way.”

Blackfire admitted they paid off the mayor to control opposition in Chicomuselo. These recent admissions of corruption have done nothing to quell people’s anger.

The government authorities in Chiapas shut down the Blackfire mine near Chicomuselo in early December, citing environmental concerns. Mariano’s son Jose Luis wants the company gone altogether.

“We don’t want that company in our town, in Chiapas, or in our country. They have divided us, threatened us, damaged the environment and brought nothing but tragedy to our community.”

* Anti-Mining Activists Murdered

The following is a list of people who have died in mining related conflict in Mexico, Guatemala and El Salvador since June 2009.

· Marcelo Rivera—El Salvador—opposed the El Dorado mining project headed by Canadian firm Pacific Rim. Tortured and killed. Disappeared June 18, 2009, body was found 12 days later.

· Adolfo Ich—Guatemala—opposed HudBay nickel mining project. Allegedly shot by security guards hired by the mine on September 27, 2009.

· Martin Choc—Guatemala—shot and killed when men opened fire on a minivan he was traveling in September 28, 2009.

· Mariano Abarca Roblero—Mexico—opposed mine operated by Canadian firm Blackfire. Shot outside his home on November 27, 2009.

· Ramiro Rivera Gomez—El Salvador—opposed the El Dorado mining project. Despite 24 hour police protection shot and killed when the car he was driving in was ambushed, December 20, 2009.

· Dora Alicia Sorto Recinos—El Salvador—opposed El Dorado and was the wife of a man who had lost two fingers due to opposition to the mine. Murdered while eight months pregnant, December 26, 2009.

** Bill C-300, the Conservatives and Corporate Responsibility

Liberal MP John McKay introduced Bill C-300, also known as An Act Respecting Corporate Accountability for Mining, Oil and Gas Corporations in Developing Countries, to the House of Commons in February 2009.

The Bill seeks to “promote responsible environmental practices and international human rights standards on the part of Canadian mining, oil and gas corporations in developing countries.” It proposes to do this by withholding taxpayer and political support and creating a complaints mechanism with the Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. Companies that have received investment from government pension funds could see that funding withdrawn if it is proven they are violating international standards for corporate accountability.

Bill C-300 would not affect all mining companies. Blackfire Mining Exploration—the firm implicated in the murder of Mariano Abarca Roblero—would likely not be affected because it is private. But public companies like Goldcorp, which has stakes in Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras “would have a lot to lose politically and financially,” according to MiningWatch’s Jamie Kneen.

While Bill C-300 has received widespread support from Canadian NGOs, the mining industry has predictably denounced the Bill. The Conservative government is also against the Bill, with Minister Peter Kent calling it a “poorly written piece of legislation which addresses some issues that are already part and parcel of our government’s policies abroad.”

Bill C-300 has been on shaky ground since it was first introduced and getting it through the Conservative-heavy Senate will be extremely difficult. The Bill barely made it to 2nd reading in April 2009, squeaking through with a vote of 137 to 133. It had most recently been debated in Committee hearings, with various interest groups presenting briefs before the Christmas break.

Surprisingly, according to John McKay, Stephen Harper’s decision to prorogue Parliament may actually prove to be an advantage for the Bill.

“With proroguing we have an extra 60 days to study the Bill,” he said, adding that he’s not “overly fussed” about having the extra time.

A Facebook group for supporters of Bill C-300 has been created and McKay suggests those who support the Bill contact local Conservative MPs to express their support.

“Just make the lives of Conservative MPs as hard as possible. That seems to be about the only thing that works,” he said.

Dominique Jarry-Shore is a freelance journalist based in Chiapas, Mexico. This work was carried out with the aid of a grant from the International Development Research Center in Ottawa.

Gustavo Castro

Flag

Under Pressure

Moira Peters — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 06:28:59 +0000

Meek.Under Pressure.jpg

In an interview on CBC's As It Happens in January, Federal Minister of Public Safety Peter Van Loan agreed that Ashley's case was an example of the failure of the health care and justice systems. More recently, Van Loan was moved out of that portfolio when Harper shuffled his cabinet, making a federal inquiry less likely.

Host First Nations Bite the Olympic Hand

Tim McSorley — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 06:51:31 +0000

Will the government meet its funding obligations before the Games?

VANCOUVER—It looked like the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Committee had everything sewn up tight: new venues built to order, ads from corporate sponsors, bylaws against ambush marketing, and smiling Indigenous people welcoming the world.

Now, the committee must be wondering whether it misjudged its First Nations "partners."

Hard on the heels of Indigenous protests during the Olympic Torch Relay, the Four Host First Nations (FHFN) surprised the province and its international partners with an announcement in January. Chief Bill Williams, chair of the FHFN, declared they will use the power of international media to shame the province into honouring its commitments to economic development.

Thomas Leonard, president of the BC First Nations Forestry Council, fired the first shot. In a letter to BC Forests Minister Pat Bell last December, he wrote, "The fact that your government and its federal partner are spending $3 billion to stage the Winter Olympics is merely exacerbating the frustration and anger felt by our communities as they continue to be told that there is no money in the pot to address their situations, which, as you are fully aware, are of a most desperate nature."

Williams explained the consequences for ignoring the FHFN's ultimatum. "There's going to be some 14,000 media people running around [at the Olympics]," he told the Globe and Mail. "Some of them are already contacting us. They want to know, ‘What's it like to be an Indian in today's world? How do you live?' We are going to start letting those reporters know the reality of the poverty we face."

The host nations—the Squamish, Musqueam, Tsleil Waututh, and Lil'Wat Nation bands—signed partnership agreements with VANOC years ago, and until now, they've submitted to the demands of the international committee on everything from cutting old-growth forests to wearing faux regalia. Some, like Kwakwaka'wakw activist Gord Hill, have accused the FHFN of selling out, and cheaply.

Raising the price at this late date doesn't make it right, and Hill calls the latest move an "attempted cash grab" by "native sell-outs."

"What is truly hypocritical is for Williams to now raise the issue of Native poverty, or to express concerns about the social conditions for Native people, after several years collaborating with VANOC and the 2010 Olympics," Hill told The Dominion.

Indeed, with the Olympic spectacle upon us, Indigenous leaders have upped the ante. Thomas said, "Our communities are tired of being told there is no new funding available—and that they might have to make do with even less than they already have—and at the same time being told they should be excited about the 2010 Winter Olympics."

Thomas asked the province for an urgent meeting to resolve the issue, and said if steps aren't taken, "The FNFC and its member first nations will reluctantly, but without hesitation, take advantage of the intense international media interest that will be focused on BC before and during the Winter Olympics."

Along with his position as chair of the FHFN, Williams is vice-president of the BC First Nations Forestry Council. He said the province is overdue in funding $6.2 million for developing aboriginal forestry businesses. According to a press statement, similar commitments from Ottawa for $135 million for mountain pine beetle salvage and recovery were pledged years ago but never materialized. A second letter to Federal International Trade Minister Stockwell Day requested a meeting to discuss the long-overdue funding from Ottawa.

Hundreds of reserves across Canada are mired in abject poverty, and thousands make do without safe drinking water, housing, health care, employment and education. Conditions for Indigenous people have only deteriorated since Vancouver and Whistler won the Olympic bid, Hill said. "During this period, hundreds of Natives have been made homeless in Vancouver, subject to police violence and harassment; yet where were Mr. Williams, the Four Host First Nations and their Olympic toad Tewanee Joseph? Kissing the ass of corporations, government and Olympic officials," he charged.

Investing in forestry is a delicate issue for the Squamish and other First Nations who have fought to preserve the forests of their traditional territory from industrial clearcutting. But in many parts of the coast, unprecedented liquidation of old-growth and second-growth forests is underway, and raw log exports are at an all-time high. Meanwhile, unsettled Indigenous land claims languish in limbo.

Growing nations are desperate for jobs and economic development, and this is the trade-off they face. The Olympics represent development, but at the expense of traditional lands, foods, and wildlife.

Today, neither the province nor the chiefs are speaking to the media—likely because they are attempting to negotiate a truce. The chiefs are certainly aware that when provincial and federal governments are confronted by intractable First Nations threatening action, they often give in to the demands. That's how Indigenous activists have won substantial concessions in the past.

In this case, the FHFN demands are dwarfed by the scale of the Olympic money-pit. The province's $6.2 million debt to First Nations forestry amounts to one-tenth of one per cent of Olympic spending. Ottawa's contribution to pine-beetle salvage in First Nations communities would be a little over two per cent of the budget for the Games. Clearly, the host nations have the position and the leverage to negotiate sweeping changes. But what they stand to win by what some have called "selling out" appears to only be crumbs from the master's table.

Zoe Blunt is a journalism school dropout on Vancouver Island.

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

Chief Bill Williams

Issue #66

dru — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 21:07:28 +0000

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Common Snapping Turtle

Cameron Fenton — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 05:22:01 +0000

Ograbme!

One of the largest freshwater turtles in North America, the common snapping turtle—a member of the Chelydridae family—can trace its roots to the Late Cretaceous period, over 70 million years ago.

Chelydra serpentina, named for its powerful jaws and the snake-like appearance of its neck and head, can be found all across central Canada, the United States and as far south as Ecuador. Typically living in shallow water, the common snapping turtle can be a prickly customer on land, with a reputation of being unfriendly to wayward fingers.

Snapping turtles’ snorkel-like nostrils lie on the very tip of their snouts, allowing them to remain in shallow water and mud for long periods of time.

Efficient aquatic scavengers, the omnivorous snapping turtle has a varied diet of plant and animal matter. Snappers are also known to hunt on occasion, eating small fish, rodents, reptiles and even unsuspecting birds.

Human interest in the snapping turtle has typically been for making soup, with hunting still practiced in most of North America. In Ontario, they have been labeled a species of special concern—a species with characteristics that make it sensitive to human activities and natural events.

Known in North American folklore as the “Ograbme” (embargo spelled backwards) the snapping turtle earned a place in the history of our southern neighbours, becoming a feature in political cartoons commenting on the 1807 Jeffersonian embargo act which banned trade between the United States and other nations.

Snapping Turtle

Collapse in Copenhagen

Moira Peters — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 06:17:02 +0000

Negotiations, uninvitations, and what the Accord really means

OTTAWA—Unless you’ve developed a habit of only reading government press releases, you’ve probably gotten the idea by now that Copenhagen was more like Flopenhagen.

After negotiations spilled a day over the planned two weeks, countries failed to reach any sort of final deal and the proclaimed Copenhagen Accord failed to reach consensus, winding up as a reference document.

What went wrong?

The proffered reasons are nearly as abundant as the puns on Copenhagen (Brokenhagen, Nopenhagen, Jokenhagen—you get the idea).

In the weeks leading up to it, there was no shortage of chatter over the importance of Copenhagen’s Climate Conference, formally the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP15) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). In the end, over 46,000 delegates would show up to the meeting, including over a hundred Heads of State.

The first cracks in a deal came during the first week of the talks, as countries from the G77-plus-China group (actually made up of over one hundred "developing" countries) forced some of the negotiations to stop until their concerns were heard. Then, the much-reported “Danish Text” was leaked to journalists and civil society members, spurring outrage from developing countries that documents were being written in secret by select countries.

The conference also saw unprecedented attendance from civil society, which comprised 24,000 of the total 46,000 participants. This number only included accredited participants permitted inside Bella Center, the negotiations venue. A number of simultaneous fora were organized, the biggest being the Klimaforum, co-ordinated by Danish civil society and open to everyone. At Klimaforum, several thousand individuals and representatives of interest groups from the world over participated in dozens of workshops and discussions, finalizing a People's Declaration that focused solely on climate solutions.

On Saturday, December 12, mid-way through the talks, an estimated 100,000 people took to the streets of Copenhagen. Carrying banners proclaiming, “There is no Planet B,” “Climate Justice Now!” and “Tar Sands Oil is Blood Oil,” Indigenous Peoples from around the world led the march.

Despite the non-violence of the event, 1,000 arbitrary, “preventative” arrests were made. Only about five marchers would eventually be charged, but the bitter smell of the security state was already in the air. Human rights organizations denounced the police’s “kettling” of protesters as illegal and the tactic continued throughout the week.

The UNFCCC Secretariat failed to adequately forecast the inability of 46,000 people to fit into a space with a capacity of 15,000. This meant that only 7,000 civilians were able to get into Bella Center on the second Tuesday and Wednesday of the conference.

During the final days of the conference, hundreds, sometimes thousands, of accredited participants would wait outside the doors of Bella Center for seven or eight hours. Many had travelled from tropical countries and found the freezing temperatures unbearable, compounding their existing frustrations about having to line up for an event they expected to attend. Some would be unable to get into the building at all.

In a sudden and surprising move, Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC, Yvo de Boer, convened a meeting Wednesday night to announce that for Thursday and Friday, only 300 of the 24,000 members of accredited civil society would be allowed to participate in the formal negotiations. Environmental organizations, Indigenous groups and farmers were distraught that one per cent of their representatives would be allowed into one of the most important meetings ever held.

The Secretariat seemed to be reacting to a number of protests and specific incidents inside Bella Center. Some have speculated that it was simply an attempt to stifle public involvement. Regardless of its intention, this was the effect.

Thousands of stakeholders in climate justice who had come from around the world were now left to follow the negotiations from TVs and the internet in other parts of Copenhagen. In the eyes of many delegates, negotiations already in a state of free-fall were now doomed. No longer would they have an opportunity to hold negotiators accountable face-to-face, provide them with suggestions and feedback, communicate the proceedings to others, or even give the talks the legitimacy of public involvement.

The prime security concern on Thursday and Friday was the number of Presidents, Prime Ministers and Princes who arrived, joining ministers for the so-called High Level Segment. They gave flowery and sometimes impassioned speeches, as negotiations continued behind closed doors, and protests and vigils continued outside.

****

Over the last two years, countries have been negotiating on a process known as the Bali Roadmap. The Copenhagen meeting was meant to finalize these proceedings. Many agreements had been worked along specific negotiations tracks, which included themes such as adaptation (to change climate conditions by infrastructure and building renovations, increase the flood plain, reforestation/revegetation, population relocation, higher dykes), technology transfer (of clean development technology or adaptation technology—green energy, and carbon capture and storage respectively—from countries that have it to countries that don't), and finance (or control of the capital invested by polluters to offset their emissions, via mechanisms such as the carbon market).

They were often imperfect agreements, but they reflected the voices of all countries, and were forged through a consensus process. In the eyes of most developing countries, they were meant to expand upon the binding Kyoto Protocol.

Indigenous people had been following the negotiations, often concerned for their very survival. Indigenous rights had become a battleground in the talks, with years of work securing minimal references to and rights for Indigenous Peoples, despite the efforts of many colonial countries to keep such pesky restrictions out of formal considerations.

****

The United States ensured everyone was awake Friday morning as Obama delivered a speech reminiscent of Bush’s “You’re either with us or against us” rhetoric to a plenary hall of world leaders. He then assembled leaders of China, India, Brazil and South Africa (known as the BASIC Group) to hash out an agreement among some of the world’s biggest polluters in secret.

After hours of wrangling among the BASIC Group, these talks expanded to include 26 countries already selected by the Prime Minister of Denmark, Lars Lokke Rasmussen, and a new document emerged: the so-called Copenhagen Accord. That it was negotiated in secret, behind doors closed to most countries, was seen by many as an obvious attempt to circumvent the democratic and multilateral nature of the talks up to that point.

While some in the media and NGO community managed to score leaked drafts of the Accord, many government delegates from Southern countries didn’t even see the “agreement.” Such was the absurd situation where the few remaining civil participants found themselves making photocopies of and explaining the document to delegates, in all its shortcomings.

Rasmussen convened countries around 1:00am Saturday, after Obama had already given a press conference to announce a done deal and hopped on a plane back to Washington. A number of countries rebelled in the final negotiating session of the conference after the three-page Accord was dropped like a bomb into the plenary room.

The Prime Minister tried to present the document and give delegates an hour to think it over, but countries were immediately furious. More than 14 hours later, it became clear there was no consensus on the Copenhagen Accord, with the largest resistance coming from developing and small island states. Finally, delegates agreed to “take note” of the Accord, leaving off negotiations until next year’s meeting in Mexico.

The blame game began immediately, with the US and European countries pointing fingers at China and other developing countries for holding back negotiations.

As Martin Kohr of the Third World Network made clear in a letter to The Guardian, “The unwise attempt by the Danish presidency to impose a non-legitimate meeting to override the legitimate multilateral process was the reason why Copenhagen will be considered a disaster.” International climate negotiations have taken on an air of exclusivity and distrust usually reserved for World Trade Organization (WTO) talks.

****

The Accord itself seeks to collect non-legally binding pledges from developed countries. Even though it pushes for a global warming limit of two degrees Celcius, the UN’s own leaked research shows it would likely cause at least three degrees' warming.

One of the centrepieces of the Accord is the pledge that developed countries will “mobilize” $100 billion by 2020 for developing countries' adaptation and mitigation, though it acknowledges this could come from private and “alternative” sources, letting states off the hook, and limiting the direction of these resources to developing countries that sign the Accord, and not necessarily those that need it most.

However, the document can’t be simply dismissed as a collection of hot air about climate change. The risk remains that the Copenhagen Accord may be used to circumvent the UN process, which, while flawed, is the only truly democratic, transparent and fully multilateral process in the works.

According to Reede Stockton of Global Exchange, “The Copenhagen Accord really isn't a whole lot more than an aspirational G20 agreement. Given the method by which the agreement was reached, it really constitutes a cynical conversion of a UN process that gives significant weight to the voices of relatively powerless countries into one that completely disempowers them.”

Soon after the snow had settled on the Copenhagen Accord, the US was already pushing for a more limited role of the UN in further climate talks, and more decisions to be made by the world’s top polluters. Bolivia’s ambassador reacted swiftly, stating “The US admission that it wants to exclude the vast majority of the planet from decisions about climate change is deeply offensive, when the climate crisis will fall first on those who are most vulnerable.”

These are not idle threats. The G8 and G20 are coming to Canada in June, and climate change will be one of the biggest issues on the table. This means that Canada, as convener of the talks, could push for stronger climate action. This will not happen. More likely, efforts will be made to undermine the United Nations and block the path of progress toward climate justice, and Harper will try to drive the issue off the table altogether.

****

The little good news to report out of Copenhagen comes from the empowerment and connections formed among the hundreds of groups and thousands of people who participated in the talks, and their renewed commitment to pushing for climate justice at home.

According to Clayton Thomas-Muller of the Indigenous Environmental Network, “The main good thing to come out of Copenhagen was the massive solidarity, which came out in the movements formed against the tar sands, with Indigenous Peoples leading many actions, and the convergence of people-power to confront the co-ordinated corporate efforts.”

“Massive solidarity” included almost daily actions by Canadian youth, environmental and Indigenous groups targeting Canada’s shameful behaviour in the negotiations, especially taking the tar sands to task. Canada’s maneuvres earned it the Colossal Fossil non-award, given to the country most responsible for disrupting negotiations.

Canada was roundly criticized for coming to Copenhagen with nothing to offer, and for being unwilling to co-operate with other nations accepting more ambitious targets. Canada was also one of the few nations which opposed protection of Indigenous rights. Ben Wikler, climate campaigner for Avaaz, noted, “This government thinks there’s a choice between environment and economy, and for them, tar sands beats climate every time.”

Maryam Adrangi, a Canadian Youth Delegate from Vancouver, sees the beginning of a Canadian movement for climate justice.

“Canada’s role was definitely disappointing at the talks, but there was also lots of anger and energy to build a movement at home with real representation of the voices not [previously] being heard, the people whose lives and cultures are actually threatened. There’s a serious need for activism, because our so-called leaders haven’t been listening or leading.”

This follows the six climate justice sit-ins by young people across Canada, occupying the offices of federal ministers and MPs, and the Power Shift Conference, which saw nearly 1,000 youth converge on Ottawa for a four-day conference focused on climate activism. Recent campaigns against the tar sands have also picked up and plans are under way around climate camps and actions at the G8/G20 meeting in Toronto in June.

If the climate talks fail this year in Mexico, or if some countries get in the way of progress, the UN process could be sidelined. This could lead to non-binding, weak and unjust agreements signed between select groups of countries, or the collapse of talks completely, as has already befallen the WTO talks.

Without a determined grassroots movement in Canada, our government will continue to be a barrier to progress, misrepresenting Canadians. Our country will be responsible for untold suffering around the world. There is little time to build this movement, for Canadians to make a last stand for climate justice.

Ben Powless is a student at Carleton University in Ottawa, and works as a climate justice campaigner with the Indigenous Environmental Network in Ottawa.

Copenhagen Evo Morales

Copenhagen Tar Sands Block

Copenhagen Indigenous Block

Copenhagen Reclaim Power

Torch Sparks Action Nationwide

Moira Peters — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 06:12:27 +0000

A review of the 2010 torch trajectory

MONTREAL—On October 30, 2009, the Olympic Torch was ignited in Canada and set out on its 106-day relay. A “unique moment in Canadian history” when people can “feel the Olympic Spirit and reach for gold,” according to major Olympic-backer Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), the cross-country tour has aimed to build hype for the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.

But the torch was not the only thing to be sparked and hype was not the only thing to be built in the months leading up to the Games.

The trajectory of the Torch Relay, set to finish on February 12 in Vancouver, will have brought the torch to 1,000 communities throughout the part of Turtle Island now known as Canada. The Relay events feature flashy setups, local artists and promotional trucks for Coca-Cola and RBC, two of the Relay’s major sponsors.

Police have accompanied the torch throughout, with a resulting $4 million security budget.

True to form, many people have been swept up in Olympic hype and have waited in crowds and on roadsides with children in tow, anxious for an Olympic moment of their own. Hidden beneath the Relay’s messages of inspiration, however, is a harsher reality that demonstrators coast-to-coast have attempted to display in nearly 20 cities so far.

People have greeted the torch along its route with their own messages, including the theft of Indigenous land, corporate profit grabbing, ecological destruction, militarization and migrant exploitation, all directly associated with the Olympics. Some have also used the Relay to bring forward issues of sovereignty, lack of justice for hundreds of missing and murdered Native women and opposition to the seal hunt.

As the Torch Relay has moved from community to community, it has been a magnet for opposition to the Olympics and has simultaneously stirred assertions of sovereignty in First Nations communities along its route.

At the Torch Relay kickoff event in Victoria, 400 people held a zombie march and took part in an anti-Torch Relay festival. At one point, the protest jammed the street and forced the torch to be extinguished and re-routed. In the week before the event, at least 25 people were visited by Integrated Security Unit and asked questions about the torch, according to an article on anarchistnews.org.

From there, the torch traveled north across the Yukon and the Northwest Territories, bypassed the Alberta tar sands, circled up to the northern tip of Nunavut and back down again to the Atlantic Provinces where it would once again meet opposition.

It saw dissidents with banners in Halifax, followed by more in Quebec City. Five days later, residents of Kahnawake saw to it that the RCMP would not enter their territory; local Mohawk Peacekeepers accompanied the torch instead.

Montreal’s sizeable opposition came next, with 200 people blocking the stage set up for the occasion and delaying the fanfare for almost an hour. “We are here today to express our solidarity and our resistance with people in British Colombia and all across Turtle Island who are resisting these disgusting Olympics that are being built on stolen Native land, which are causing displacement all over downtown Vancouver [and] all over the interior of so-called British Columbia,” announced demonstrator Aaron Lakoff through a megaphone. Police in riot gear eventually arrived on the scene and heavy-handedly shoved the demonstration out of the way.

Five days later a small but respectable troupe leafleted in Peterborough, and in downtown Toronto, a demonstration of over 250 people arrived to stand in opposition to the torch. Speakers and a march were followed up with a banner reading “No Olympics on Stolen Native Land” in the Anishinaabemowin language, which was unfurled over the torch relay’s stage. Two people were arrested, both charged with mischief and one with assault.

Ian Robertson, a journalist working for The Toronto Sun, was shoved to the ground by a police officer during the Relay, suffering a concussion. Constable Mandy Edwards, spokeswoman for the Vancouver 2010 Integrated Security Unit, described the situation as being handled in an “appropriate manner,” and explained to the Canadian Press that Robertson was shoved only after already being told twice that he was getting too close to the torch bearer.

"This is an Olympic Torch Relay. It's a feel-good event. It's the last place where you would find heavy-handed, police-state, goon tactics," Robertson told The Canadian Press.

After Toronto, at the scheduled stop in Six Nations, in anticipation of the Torch, the Onkwehonwe were engaging their own struggle for sovereignty. The Canada-imposed band council had agreed to host the torch, despite opposition from community members. “In 2009, there was a town meeting where 90 per cent of the people in attendance opposed the torch,” Lindsey Bomberry of the Onondaga nation explained to The Dominion.

A declaration from the Onkwehonwe of the Grand River read, “This land is not conquered. We are not Canadian... We hereby affirm our peaceful opposition to the entry and progression of the 2010 Olympic torch into and through our territory.” People created a blockade to stop the flame from going over the Grand River or down Highway 54 into the heart of the Six Nations territory. As a result, the torch was re-routed and festivities were held at another location on the Six Nations Reserve.

“This was very significant,” says Melissa Elliott, a founding member of Young Onkwehonwe United (YOU), and member of the Tuscarora Nation. “Six Nations was the first community to have the torch rerouted. [The demonstration at Six Nations] was held entirely by Onkewonkwe people, and so it had our issues at the forefront: issues like sovereignty, like our territory and our land.”

“The Olympics is not just about sport. It is political, and it is colonial and it is imperial, and the Torch carries this symbolism. When we heard that it was coming through our community, there was strong opposition since we have already been facing what the torch stands for,” adds Bomberry.

The following day, people in Oneida succeeded in repelling the Torch Relay entirely using a blockade and a pledge to keep the torch from entering Oneida.

Two days later was Christmas Eve, and London folks served a holiday meal “to anyone who thought free food was a better deal than an overpriced flame,” according to an article posted on no2010.com. Around 40 people joined in.

In Kitchener, over 150 people marched with banners denouncing colonialism on Turtle Island. Banners were draped from RBC buildings, where “the government of Canada and the RBC were publicly shamed for their role in the ongoing genocide of Indigenous people and their support for the criminal developments of Alberta's tar sands,” according to an article on peaceculture.org.

According to Alex Hundert of Anti-War At Laurier (AW@L), the RCMP intervened in the demonstration as it was winding down, formed a “hard line,” and pushed some demonstrators in the process. “There were people who were voicing the perspective that if the police were violating the family-friendly protest, then it was time to take the gloves off and all bets were off,” he says. “And it was in response to that that the local police called the RCMP off.”

Then came Guelph, where a small demonstration of 20 to 30 people made headlines when a torch-bearer was knocked over during a skirmish with police. Witnesses say she tripped over a police officer’s leg. Two protesters were charged with assault, but the charges were later dropped.

There was leafleting in Sudbury and then Nairn Centre, where an attempt at a highway blockade and banner drop opposing the Olympics was thwarted by police. A group made up primarily of Indigenous people arrived and were stopped almost immediately. “People were arrested before everybody was out of the van,” says Hundert, who was nearby.

Some days later in Roseau River First Nations, Manitoba, people held signs and photographs showing some of the over 500 missing and murdered women in Canada as the torch went by. Former head of the Assembly of First Nations Phil Fontaine criticized the event for “tarnishing the image of Canada.”

"The fact that there is a list of over 500 murdered and missing native women is what tarnishes the image of Canada," Chief Terrence Nelson, one of the organizers of the event, rebuked.

In Winnipeg people dressed as Olympic rings each representing a particular issue: homelessness and the criminalization of the poor, massive police spending and the outlawing of dissent, environmental destruction, missing and murdered women, and the theft of Native land. Upon taking the street, demonstrators were pushed out by Winnipeg police. The torch was extinguished and transported forward in a truck.

Later was Saskatoon and then Calgary, where over 500 brochures were handed out. Teri, who helped to organize the leafleting, told The Dominion two people were ticketed for littering—apparently for a brochure that a police officer dropped.

The final stop will be in Vancouver on February 12, in the midst of the NO2010 Convergence, where people are anticipating a festival involving days of actions and protests against police brutality and calling for justice for missing and murdered women.

Over the past four months, the torch has been moving from North to South to East to West and back, draping the Canadian flag and littering miniature Coca-Cola bottles all across the country.

This, however, will not be the only legacy of the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.

“I think the torch relay is a major step where various forms of anti-colonial and anti-capital resistance that were rooted in very different places and different issues along those common themes had come together physically in several places,” explains Hundert. “One of the things that is going to be really interesting to see is the way momentum does get carried into Toronto and the G20.”

Shailagh Keaney is a writer based in occupied Atikameksheng Anishnawbek territory.

Torch Angel

Bitter Sweet or Toxic?

hillarybain — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 06:37:27 +0000

Indigenous people, diabetes and the burden of pollution

WINNIPEG—Diabetes is now widely regarded as the 21st century epidemic. With some 284 million people currently diagnosed with the disease, it’s certainly no exaggeration—least of all for Indigenous people.

According to the State of the World's Indigenous Peoples Report by the United Nations, more than 50 per cent of Indigenous adults over the age of 35 have Type 2 Diabetes, “and these numbers are predicted to rise.”

Diabetes is referred to as a "lifestyle disease," its rampant spread believed to be caused by obesity due to our increased reliance on the western diet (also known as the "meat-sweet" diet) and our avoidance of regular exercise.

While these may certainly be contributing factors, there is growing evidence that diabetes is closely linked with our environment. More than a dozen studies have been published that show a connection between Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) including polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs); carcinogenic hydrocarbons known as Dioxins; and the "violently deadly" synthetic pesticide, DDT and higher rates of the disease.

“If it is the POPs, not the obesity that causes diabetes, this is really striking if true,” says Dr. David O. Carpenter, director of the Institute for Health and the Environment at the University of Albany.

One out of four Indigenous adults living on reserves in Canada have been diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes, the most common form of diabetes. The prevalence of the disease appears to be so great that the number of new cases being diagnosed in Canada may exceed the growth of the Indigenous population. It’s no longer uncommon to find children as young as three with the disease. According to government statistics, 27 per cent of all Indigenous people in Canada will have Type 2 Diabetes in the next ten years.

Sandy Lake First Nation, in the Sioux Lookout Zone of northern Ontario, has all but met the mark. A March 2009 study co-authored by Dr. Stewart Harris found that 26 per cent of the community has the disease, the highest recorded rate of diabetes in Canada. With a population of 2,500, the northern Cree community was recently described as an “epicentre” of the epidemic.

There has been little research on the levels of persistent organic pollutants in Sandy Lake; however, according to the First Nations Environmental Health Innovation Network, several neighboring communities who also have high rates of diabetes, like Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug First Nation, are known to have elevated levels of PCBs in their blood.

The Mohawk community of Akwesasne has its own conflict with diabetes and exposure to POPs. Located across the New York-Ontario-Quebec borders along the St. Lawrence River, three aluminum foundries upriver from the reserve dumped PCBs into the river for decades, contaminating the water, soil, and vegetation.

For many years, Dr. Carpenter has been involved in the study of Adult Mohawks at Akwesasne. Most recently, in 2007, he took part in a study to examine the diabetes/pollution link in the community. “Our study of adult Mohawks showed a striking elevation in rates of diabetes in relation to blood levels of three persistent organic pollutants, DDE, the metabolite of DDT, hexachlorobenzene and PCBs,” Dr. Carpenter explains. “Our results are quite compatible with those of Lee et al.”

In 2006, Dr. Dae-Hee Lee and her colleagues showed that people with the highest rate of exposure to POPs were roughly 38 times more likely to have diabetes than those with the lowest rate of exposure. Further, “they showed that people who were obese but did not have high levels of POPs were not at increased risk of developing diabetes,” continues Dr. Carpenter. “Probably the reason most people get obese is that they eat too many animal fats, and this is where the POPs are.”

The dietary source of POPs was confirmed by the US Environmental Protection Agency in their Draft 1994 Dioxin Reassessment, which has never been formally released to the public. According to the Draft Reassessment, 93 per cent of our exposure to Dioxin comes from the consumption of beef, dairy, milk, chicken, pork, fish, and eggs; in other words, the western diet.

A May 2001 study published in the Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health drew similar conclusions to the EPA Reassessment. In addition, the study found that “nursing infants have a far higher intake of dioxins relative to body weight than do all older age groups,” and that human breast milk was twice as toxic as dairy milk. It also found that vegans had the overall lowest rate of POPs in their bodies.

According to an October 2009 paper by the Research Centre for Environmental Chemistry and Ecotoxicology at Masaryk University, another major source of POPs, specifically DDT, is the world’s oceans. The paper also found that despite restrictions placed on the use of DDT more than 30 years ago, concentrations of the toxin are on the rise.

Indigenous people carry an unequally high proportion of this global toxic burden. For instance, according to Environment Canada’s National Pollutant Release Inventory (NPRI) there are 212 Indigenous communities in Canada living near or downstream from pulp mills and other facilities that produce dioxins and furans. One striking example is the old Dryden pulp mill near Grassy Narrows which, according to the Grassy Narrows and Islington Bands Mercury Disability Board, dumped tonnes of dioxin-laced mercury wastewater into the English-Wabigoon River system from 1962-70.

Forty years later, the poisonous waste continues to pose a “serious health threat” to Grassy Narrows and the Wabaseemoong First Nations, says the Disability Board. No formal steps have been taken toward remediation by federal or provincial governments.

The Tohono O’odham Nation's experience bears a close resemblance to Grassy Narrows: the world’s highest rate of diabetes can be found in southwest Arizona nation. According to Tribal health officials, nearly 70 per cent of the population of 28,000 has been diagnosed with the illness. The O’odham People make up the second largest Indigenous Nation in the United States.

Lori Riddle is a member of Aquimel O’odham Community and founder of the Gila River Alliance for a Clean Environment (GRACE).

GRACE was instrumental in the 10 year struggle against a hazardous waste recycling plant that operated without full permits on O’odham land for decades. Owned by Romic Environmental Technologies Corporation, the plant continuously spewed effluents into the air until it was finally shut down in 2007.

The Romic plant was not the first contributor to the O’odham’s toxic burden, explained Riddle. Looking back to her childhood, she recalled: “For nearly a year, [when] a plane would go over our heads, you could see the mist. We never thought to cover our water. The chemicals just took over and they became a part of us.”

From the early 1950s until the late 60s, cotton farmers in the Gila River watershed routinely sprayed DDT onto their crops to protect them from bollworms. According to the Agency of Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), each and every year the farmers used roughly twenty-three pounds of DDT per acre.

In 1969, the State of Arizona banned the use of DDT; by this time the river was gravely contaminated. According to the ATSDR, farmers then switched to Toxaphene, a substitute for DDT—until it was banned by the US government in 1990.

Because of these chemicals, Riddle explains, the O’odham were forced to abandon their traditional foods and adopt a western diet. Farms also went into a recession, forcing many families to leave their communities. Companies, such as Romic, began moving on to their territory, exasperating the situation. “It’s taken a toll on our quality of life,” she says. “I’ve cried myself to sleep.”

The O’odham are dealing with what Riddle terms “cluster symptoms,” including miscarriages, arthritis in the spine, breathing problems, unexplainable skin rashes and problems regenerating blood cells. This is in addition to diabetes, which frequently leads to renal failure, blindness, heart disease, and amputations.

More and more studies are showing the link between diabetes and persistent organic pollutants like DDT—stemming from the landmark Ranch Hand study. In 1998, the study found a 166 per cent increase in diabetes (requiring insulin control) in US Air Force personnel who were sprayed with the herbicide and defoliant Agent Orange during the Vietnam War. The study also found that as dioxin levels increased so did the presence and severity of Type 2 Diabetes, and the time to onset declined following a similar trend.

However, Dr. Carpenter notes that because of the widely-endorsed belief that diabetes is a life-style disease related to diet and exercise, the link is gaining little attention by governments, news agencies, or by any of the hundreds of non-profit diabetes foundations around the world. “[It] hasn’t even made it into the medical community at this point,” Dr. Carpenter adds. “It takes a long time to change both medical and public opinion.”

“Clearly one thing everyone can do is to eat less animal fats,” suggests Dr. Carpenter. Several Indigenous communities in northern Manitoba and British Columbia have begun to do this, planting their own gardens and building greenhouses; returning, in a traditional sense, to some of the foods that sustained them for millennia. Others are turning to exercise, which plays a vital role not just in the prevention of diabetes, but in their overall health.

"Also, we must find ways of getting the POPs out of the animals that we eat. That is not going to be easy, given how contaminated we have made the world,” adds Dr. Carpenter. For this, Lori Riddle, who is herself a diabetic, points to the Tribal Council and the Federal Government.

John Schertow is an Indigenous rights advocate and author of the blog Intercontinental Cry.

POPs

Connecting the Dots with Jason Kenney

Moira Peters — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 06:46:14 +0000

Why food sovereignty can solve the climate crisis and how Canada's immigration policy serves our free trade interests

VANCOUVER—After the Copenhagen Climate Conference failed to produce a legally-binding agreement, Kim Carstensen, Leader of the World Wildlife Fund's Global Climate Initiative, stated in a press release that the Copenhagen Accord translates into “three degrees Celsius of warming or more.” Those three degrees could trigger the migration of millions of impoverished agriculturalists around the globe.

The direction of climate change negotiations concerned 150 small-scale farmers of NGO La Via Campesina for a different reason. “Our farms are not for sale on the climate market,” they protested in Copenhagen on December 15.

Negotiations at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change favoured agro-fuels on large-scale farms as a means of climate change mitigation. However, an underreported result of industrial farming is the millions of poor, landless migrants who are losing their land to large-scale farms.

The international peasant movement La Via Campesina (literally, "the way of the farmer") represents millions of small farmers, landless peoples, and rural men and women from around the world. The group calls for radical changes to the global food system.

“To really change the food system, it is important that all sectors of society work together,” says Josie Riffaud of La Via Campesina.

Food sovereignty, or “the peoples' right to define agricultural and food policy,” is a proposed solution to climate change’s drastic effects on farmers. Via Campensina, which coined the term “food sovereignty,” claim that these radical changes have the potential to achieve reductions of between 50-75 per cent of current global emissions simply by returning organic matter to the soil, developing local markets and reversing intensive livestock production.

A food sovereignty system requires the re-localization of food production, and, perhaps, the re-localization of migrant workers. These farmers are not begging for carbon credits or other trade-based solutions; rather, they are offering a solution to the current crisis: a diverse food system that supports local markets and promotes local labor.

Moreover, food sovereignty is not a new idea; societies have been food-sovereign for most of human history. Only in the last 100 years has industry taken over food production. This de-localization of food supply and labor has contributed to climate change.

****

In Vancouver, No One is Illegal (NOII), a grassroots anti-colonial immigrant and refugee rights collective, aligns its goals with those of La Via Campesina.

Immigration is not a topic often associated with the food system, but Harjap Grewal of NOII says immigration and the food system are “very much linked.” He sees immigration as “the human impact of free trade policy, [and therefore] the reason why [farmers are] migrating.”

Immigration is a growing issue in Canadian politics in the past decade, stemming from an increase in the number of people seeking refugee or migrant worker status in Canada. “We've actually made the politically difficult decision to maintain historically high levels of immigration,” Jason Kenney, Minister of Immigration, said to the Calgary Sun.

On the surface, Kenney seems to be making it easier for migrant workers to stay in Canada. Kenney said migrants are “doing work Canadians are unwilling to perform,” and that his government, despite the recession and rising unemployment, will maintain its practice of encouraging immigration and foreign labour. Tarina White of the Calgary Sun reported, “Calgary newcomers will have access to more language training (to the tune of) almost $9.5 million in funding. ... Kenney said he hopes the investment will boost the percentage of immigrants enrolling in language programs each year, which currently sits at 25 per cent.” According to Bill Kaufman of the Sun, Kenney said his government is stepping up its monitoring of foreign workers' treatment while making it easier for the newcomers to become permanent residents and citizens.

However, a closer look reveals a different agenda. Documented by NOII, Kenney “oversaw the largest immigration raid in recent Canadian history, which went largely unreported. In an illegal move, 41 [migrants] were tricked into signing waivers that removed their right to a hearing and many have now been deported.”

White reported that Alberta Federation of Labour President Gil McGowan blames international free trade agreements for “setting up foreign workers to be exploited.” McGowan accuses Kenney's ministry of “washing its hands” of temporary foreign workers once they arrive only for them to be routinely abused by their employers. He noted, “Only three per cent of migrant workers are eligible for permanent residency.”

“We're the ones who set up an advocacy office to help workers who are exploited; we're the ones picking up the pieces. ... I find it galling [that] Kenney's trying to wrap himself in the cloak of virtue.”

****

“How can a self-proclaimed bigot responsibly manage Canada's immigration policy?” This question by a concerned citizen during a Q&A session with Kenney at UBC in November was seen by those overseeing the event as “too impassioned,” and the individual was later detained by UBC campus police.

A similar event had panned out differently at McGill. There, 50 people confronted the minister outside the Arts building, briefly denying him access. The event was canceled. When questioned about his immigration policy, he responded, “I plead guilty, I’m a racist,” with a “hint of sarcasm,” according to NOII Montréal.

Kenney's subsequent visit to UBC was greeted with less animosity, and a police presence.

Campus Conservatives President Robert Sroka, organizer of the UBC event, said, “[It was] an opportunity for anyone who wanted to respectfully participate in interaction between students and government.” But, he admitted, “It's a contentious issue and there is always going to be someone unhappy.”

Fathima Cader, a participant at the UBC event, confirmed the negative reception of the controversial MP. “A majority of the questions were highly critical of the MP's immigration policy, to which he mainly responded by talking around the question,” which, she believes, is because Kenney is aware of the real reason immigration in Canada is increasing.

“The increasing number of migrants and refugees around the world is due to the effects of capitalist exploitation that Canada is complicit in,” says Grewal. A report by the United Nations Development Programme Human Development Report of 2005 states, “Unfair trade policies continue to deny millions of people in the world’s poorest countries an escape route from poverty, and perpetuates obscene inequalities.” In other words, international trade policies result in poverty abroad, thus creating the incentive for foreigners to partake in the jobs that Canadians are “unwilling to perform.”

The rise of capitalist culture has changed the ecology-based farming tactics of farmers in both North and South America. The majority of North America’s arable farmland grows non-diverse industrial crops. In much of South and Latin America, 20 per cent of the population owns 80 per cent of the land. The result of this imbalance—both ecological and economic—is migrant workers: seasonal agricultural employees who are overworked and underpaid. Our culture of respect for farmers as public servants is gone. The industrial food model has degraded our ideas about food.

***

“When culture breaks down, you'll find addictions,” SFU Professor Bruce Alexander recently said at the Four Pillars Drug Strategy Conference in Vancouver.

Culture in Latin and South America has changed drastically since the rise of industrial farming. Subsistence growers are bought off their land by powerful and wealthy people who create industrial farms. The tradition of local, organic and subsistence growing has been nearly wiped out. To cope with this loss, people turn to drugs. Drug addiction is connected to gang activity, causing people to fear for their lives and apply for refugee asylum overseas.

One of the major points of contention during Kenney's visit to Vancouver was that of a particular immigration case. A Mexican woman applied twice for refugee asylum in Canada due to death threats by gangs in the state of Jalisco. Canada denied her asylum twice, and flew her home. She is now dead.

****

In our quest for cheap food, Canadians buy into the industrial farming model every day at the grocery store by purchasing subsidized food from monoculture farms far away. BC residents now pay a lower percentage of their income on food than ever before.

On 31 October 2008, Harold Steves, Chair of Agriculture for Metro Vancouver, said, “California is running out of food. California and Mexico is where we get much of our food supply. It's not a matter of if the trucks stop running but when.” If left alone, the food supply in BC would last three days.

Decreasing subsidies on large-scale farms now and providing incentives for local production is in our best interest. Any catastrophe, such as climate change-related disasters, could leave millions hungry in Metro Vancouver. In addition, a shift toward local food production—food sovereignty—would likely decrease the influx of migrant field laborers to Canada, encouraging sustainability locally and abroad.

Ben Amundson is an undergraduate in Human Ecology at UBC.

Food sovereignty in Cape Breton

January Books

Kyle Hodnett — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 06:00:00 +0000

New works by Nickerson and Bolano, and a collaborative effort by Campbell, Boyd, and Culbert

McPoems
Billeh Nickerson
Arsenal Pulp Press: Vancouver, 2009.

Sometimes I feel I’ve missed out by never working at a fast-food chain. Apart from the drudgery, exploitative wages, and perilous working conditions, these restaurants are so geared for mass appeal that they become rare meeting points for a wide range of characters and classes. With a quick eye for anthropological observation, Billeh Nickerson recalls his years as a McWorker in this short poetry collection. Cleverly divided into thematic sections reflecting the questionable quality, service, cleanliness, and value of his employer, Nickerson recounts the mixture of mundane and surreal moments at McDonald’s like a clean-mouthed Charles Bukowski. Characters almost unbelievably bizarre such as “the unicorn”—a customer who orders soft-serve cones to stick on his forehead, or the woman who eats lunch then purges in the parking lot show a grim side of the restaurant and the world it inhabits.

Accumulated anecdotes form a bleak picture, but Nickerson delivers observations with humour that sustained during his time in the trenches. "Daylight Savings Diptych" passes on a Zen-like maxim that when the clocks change in spring and fall customers will yell at you because they arrive too late for breakfast or too early for lunch. McPoems offers a smart and witty insiders view over the counter for those of us who’ve never asked, “Would you like fries with that?”

—Shane Patrick Murphy

The Last Interview and Other Conversations
Roverto Bolaño
Melville House Publishing: Brooklyn, 2009.

Despite dying nearly seven years ago, each posthumous Bolaño release further cements his reputation as a literary icon of the twenty-first century. Brooklyn-based Melville House Publishing gets in on the action with this collection of interviews Bolaño gave as he rose to fame in Spanish-speaking populations. These interviews attempt to contextualize the ongoing debate over Bolaño’s acceptance by North American audiences. Is it his romantic left-leaning idealism that strikes a chord, or do his stories play into preconceived North American perceptions of a Latin America preoccupied with sex, violence, and obscure literary movements? While these interviews provide depth to his character and motivation to write, they offer only a glimpse into Bolaño’s perception of his own fame. The most in-depth interview in the collection is taken from the Mexican edition of Playboy, and depicts Bolaño as jokey and self-deprecating to a fault. Interesting to ravenous Bolaño fans, the uninitiated would do better reading The Savage Detectives or Nazi Literature in the Americas—his fictitious encyclopedia of the right-wing literati.

—Shane Patrick Murphy

A Thousand Dreams: Vancouver’s downtown eastside and the fight for its future
Larry Campbell, Neil Boyd and Lori Culbert
Greystone Books: Vancouver, 2009.

A Thousand Dreams tells grim stories of missing women, sardine and cat food diets, epidemic illness and the crippled support systems that struggle to manage the situation that is life, and survival, on Vancouver’s downtown eastside.

Although they never lived in the neighbourhood of which they write, the book’s authors spent much of their professional lives in its streets, meeting its residents and uncovering its secrets. The team, consisting of a journalist, a coroner-cum-politician and a criminologist document work being done in the east end community. Careful not to overlook the positive, the book shines a light on successes like harm reduction and InSite, the supvised injection site that won a recent constitutional challenge over the Harper Government. However,the battles depicted here are largely bureaucratic, and power is accessed through political clout.

Much of A Thousand Dreams details the health and social services available in the community, yet it is not for residents of the neighbourhood, it’s an introduction for outsiders. Compelling to read but not comprehensive; the book uses case studies to illustrate how an individual navigates the system, telling stories of a few as seen through the eyes of community organizers attempting to support them.

Outside of these studies the vast majority of the east end’s poor, drug-dependant, mentally ill and desperate appear faceless in the book, shifting indistinguishably like clouds overhead. No doubt, an impression not intended, but A Thousand Dreams focuses on challenges understood by most Canadians—ineffective RCMP funding, back-room maneuvering, high-rise developments, Da Vinci’s Inquest—not cat food for dinner, a dirty needle for dessert or a damp parking garage for a bed. The remarkable stories are about the activists, writers, organizers and health professionals who fight for the future of Vancouver’s downtown eastside

—Megan Stewart

Megan Stewart is an independent journalist in Vancouver, where she is completing her graduate degree at the University of British Columbia.

Shane Patrick Murphy is the former executive editor of the McGill Law Journal. He is slowly getting around to writing his first novel, Still I Dream of Grandeur.

Canada in Haiti, Haiti in Canada

Moira Peters — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 13:15:13 +0000

Earthquake does little to shake Canada's stance on Haiti

MONTREAL—One week after the 7.0 magnitude earthquake flattened Port-au-Prince on January 12, NGOs urged Jason Kenney—Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism—to adopt a series of extraordinary measures to facilitate the coming of Haitians to Canada.

The first concern was to broaden the family reunification program, so that brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, nieces and nephews could join their relatives in Canada, rather than only reuniting parents and children.

Kenney made it clear on January 18 that there would be no special considerations for Haitians; that immigration rules would remain the same for everyone. However, he said, pending cases would be dealt with more quickly.

He also said that students, tourists or workers already in Canada under a temporary visa would be allowed to stay longer.

But that’s about it. Extended stays and the promise to expedite pending applications was all Ottawa had to offer the Haitian community.

According to Stephan Reichhold, director of the Roundtable of Service Organizations for Refugee and Immigrant People (Table de concertation des organismes au service des personnes réfugiées et immigrantes), Ottawa has been less generous so far with Haitians than with populations hit by the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, or victims of the civil conflict in Sri Lanka last year.

In January 2005, a week after the December 26 Indian Ocean tsunami, Canada opened its doors “on a case-by-case basis, other close family members [than the ones usually eligible] of Canadian citizens and permanent residents who have been and continue to be seriously and personally affected by the disaster.” Additionally, application processing fees were suspended for victims of the tsunami.

It is simply not true, as Kenney claimed, that immigration rules can never be modified, said Reichhold, who added that Canada broadened its definition of the family in 1999, during the civil war in Kosovo.

“Kenney has the power to change the rules temporarily and make an exception if he wishes,” said Reichhold.

When reminded that Canada had special ties with Haiti, Kenney replied that Canada had ties with many countries.

Reichhold believes Canada’s current electoral mapping might play a role here.

“There are not even 1,000 Haitians living in Toronto,” he said. “Most Haitians live in Quebec. I think that making an exception for Haitians is not politically profitable to this government, which has already put a cross on Quebec,” he said.

A Leger Marketing-Le Devoir survey showed last Tuesday that 75 per cent of Quebecois are “unsatisfied” with the Harper administration, and 43 per cent are “very unsatisfied.”

The Conservative Party only gets 18 per cent of Quebec voters’ intentions.

According to Statistics Canada, of the 82,000 Haitians who immigrated in Canada, about 75,000—90 per cent—have settled in Quebec. The province’s Haitian community is now 130,000 strong.

In comparison, only eight per cent live in Ontario, and only one per cent in both Alberta and BC.

Implementing special measures would thus mean the federal government spending a lot of money on a community mostly concentrated in Quebec. The bills could prove to be unpopular to the rest of the country.

That might be why Kenney was so quick to welcome Quebec’s decision to use its prerogative and allow Haitians in Canada to sponsor members of their extended family. The province—not Ottawa—would assume the bills.

That does not mean that Canada does not want to be involved at all. But it seems that, rather than having Haitians come to Canada, Canada will go to the Haitians. As hundreds of additional Canadian troops are expected to join relief efforts in Jacmel and Leogane in the coming days, it is obvious that Canada is determined to play in the opening act in helping Haiti to get back on its feet.

Canadian involvement in Haiti is not new. In fact, in the last decade, both Canada and the US have played a critical role in Haitian politics.

CBC news reported that Canada is among 19 of the world’s major lenders that have promised to cancel Haiti’s foreign debt obligations. Last year, Canada canceled the $2.3 million debt owed by Haiti. As of September, 2008, Haiti’s total foreign debt was estimated by the International Monetary Fund to be US$1.8 billion.

According to the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) website, Canada has contributed $135 million so far towards the relief effort in Haiti, including $60 million directed towards UN agencies.

In comparison, the Canadian government donated a total of $425 million, to the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. Of the $425 million, CIDA contributed a total of $383 million until March 2009, which went to projects such as building permanent housing for families in affected tsunami areas, supporting vocational and business training programs, and strengthening local NGOs and local and national governments.

On paper, it seems Canada is doing a lot for Haiti and its people, but many believe the country has the potential to do more.

The indispensable help Canada and the US are bringing today to UN operations in Haiti—refurbishing the airports and ports, clearing debris and erecting tents—must not overshadow its numerous, and often appalling, interferences in Haitian affairs in the last decade.

In May, 2000, the populist leftist Famni Lavalas party won the legislative elections, though many irregularities were reported by the Organization of American States (OAS) electoral observation mission. Opposition parties accused the government party of fraud and the US suspended aid to Haiti.

Canada and the European nations followed suit by suspending assistance to the newly-elected government.

In November, 2000, opposition parties boycotted the Presidential election and Jean-Bertrand Aristide was easily elected.

Though Canada cut its aid to Haiti after the 2000 elections, it continued to send money to anti-Aristide NGOs in Haiti, with the effect of destabilizing the government. According to Yves Engler, author of Canada in Haiti: Waging War on the Poor Majority, Canada used its contributions to local NGOs as a political tool.

At the beginning of 2003, Canada organized a secret conference about the future of Haiti’s government. No Haitian officials were invited. According to Engler, during this secret meeting—held under the government of Jean Chretien—both the 2004 Haitian rebellion and the subsequent coup were planned.

According to journalist Michel Vastel, the removal of Aristide from office and the reintegration of the Haitian Army—abolished in 1995 by Aristide—were considered by Canadian and French officials during the conference. Also discussed was the option of putting the country under trusteeship.

On February 29, 2004, after a three-week rebellion allegedly supported by the US, Aristide was flown on a US airplane to Central Africa Republic.

When interim president Boniface Alexandre asked the UN Security Council for a peacekeeping force, the US sent 1,000 Marines the same day, followed by 550 Canadian troops.

In June, 2004, the Canadian, US and Chilean troops deployed to Haiti passed under the control of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), led by the Brazilian Army.

During the two-year interim government of Alexandre, the US and Canada secured their hold on Haiti—more specifically, on the Ministry of Justice, headed by Bernard Gousse, a USAID employee; the Deputy Minister of Justice, Philippe Vixamar, was a CIDA employee.

Since then, Canada has been responsible for the formation of the Haitian National Police (HNP). About 100 RCMP officers have been in Haiti since 2004 to oversee CIVPOL, the UN mission that integrates the military dismissed by Aristide into the new police corp.

Two of these RCMP officers were killed by the earthquake.

During the February, 2006, election, René Préval, of the Lespwa coalition, was elected President.

Préval has been backing the UN mission in Haiti, unlike Aristide and many Lavalas members who accused MINUSTAH of leading repressive actions against their supporters, refering to the July 6, 2005, and December 22, 2006, MINUSTAH incursions in the shantytown of Cite-Soleil, where dozens of civilians were killed—respectively 23 and 12, according to Engler.

Préval also supports US involvement in Haiti, while many still condemn it, suggesting the US prioritizes military rule over helping the people of Haiti.

Canada Haiti Action Network (CHAN) has expressed its concerns about the militarization of relief efforts in Haiti. CHAN spokesperson Roger Annis stated in the release, “Earthquake victims need food, water, medical treatment and shelter, not more guns pointed at them.”

Haitian expat photojournalist, Wadner Pierre, also pointed out in his blog
that the people of Haiti can work together to help each other, but with so many organizations involved in the relief effort, the voice of the Haitians is being silenced.

Rather than taking over, Pierre recommends the US and Canada work collectively with the people of Haiti for the country to move forward to rebuild.

“The help of Canada is greatly welcome, but we cannot forget that Canada contributes to put Haiti in this situation that it is today, for Canada did not support democracy in Haiti,” he said.

There are reasons to believe history will not repeat itself. Unlike what happened during the unpopular 2003 Ottawa Initiative, where three countries discussed the future of a country without it being represented by its own government, Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive is expected to attend the January 25 donors meeting in Montreal.

Kriya Govender is a journalism intern with The Dominion.

Antoine Dion-Ortega is a journalism student at Concordia University and an intern with The Dominion.

Photographs by Jean Ristil, independent photojournalist living in Port-au-Prince. Ristil lost two children, and his mother, in the earthquake last Tuesday.

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2010 Rings Hollow

Van Ferrier — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 06:10:14 +0000

Video on the housing legacy of the Vancouver Olympics

This documentary feature examines the history of housing in Vancouver and the impact of the 2010 Olympic Games on the city's homelessness and poverty.

The film features interviews with legal experts, activists, and people affected by the housing crisis, with particular focus on hotel closures, evictions and the criminalization of dissent.

2010 Rings Hollow provides important insight on discussions surrounding Canada's social and economic priorities.

2010 Rings Hollow from Dave Ron on Vimeo.

Dave Ron is a filmmaker, media developer and graphic artist living in Montreal.

Visit www.dominionpaper.ca/video to watch more Dominion video news and videos from around the web related to coverage in the Dominion. For more information on the 2010 Olympics and their effects in Vancouver, visit the Vancouver Media Co-op

2010 Rings Hollow

Audio Vision

hillarybain — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 06:07:26 +0000

Campus and community stations transform to accommodate people with disabilities

HALIFAX—Every Monday, listeners tune into CKDU 88.1FM to hear host Adam Noble count down Halifax’s top 30 albums on the popular chart show Radio Numerica. They would never know that Noble is blind.

“I hope to help more people who are blind or visually impaired become involved in radio and to get their voices heard,” says Noble.

Like many people living with disabilities, Noble encounters societal barriers in activities that others may take for granted, like hosting a radio show. He and his allies at campus and community stations aim to change this, by giving support to the voices of people with disabilities and making radio stations more accommodating to their needs.

With the help of Noble and other disability-conscious radio volunteers, the National Campus and Community Radio Association (NCRA) is compiling a guidebook and accompanying audio disc to distribute to its 74 campus and community member stations across the country. The handbook is scheduled to be complete by spring. The authors hope it will increase radio programming on disability issues, as well as to encourage stations to analyze accessibility in their own spaces and ultimately promote an accommodating environment for people with disabilities.

“Ideally,” says NCRA Membership Coordinator Shelley Robinson, “All people [will] have full access to our stations and our processes so they can suggest and make the changes themselves, from the inside.”

That’s exactly what Noble did when he began volunteering in the campus and community radio field in 1998 at CHSR 97.9FM in Fredericton, New Brunswick before joining the CKDU team in 2008.

Noble was initially drawn to campus and community radio by his love for music, but was also intrigued by an atmosphere that welcomed a diversity of individuals. “The staff and volunteers have been very helpful to me,” he says. “Each Monday when I host Radio Numerica, CKDU’s music director makes sure I have the CDs I need and that the top 30 chart is accessible for me.”

“I used to be an extremely shy person and was afraid to ask for help if I needed it,” says Noble. “Once I moved out on my own I soon realized that I needed to overcome [shyness] or I wouldn’t make it by myself.”

Many community spaces fail to accommodate a wide scope of physical and mental disabilities. Accessibility is a common obstacle within public spaces: buildings often lack wide corridors for walkers and wheelchairs, and few public places are functional for the visually impaired. Noble gives the example of “walking into an office building and trying to find a certain floor in an elevator but there isn’t any Braille on the keypad.”

André St. Jacques, a volunteer at CHUO 89.1FM in Ottawa, faces similar constraints in his wheelchair.

CHUO is located in the sub-basement of the Morrisset library at the University of Ottawa campus. St. Jacques’ mobility limitations force him to depend on elevator service. On Thursday evenings he must be at the radio station one hour before his midnight show since the facilities department turn off the elevators at eleven o’clock. “I was constantly being locked out if I did not arrive on time, and then it was always a struggle to get out of the building once the show was over,” says St. Jacques. “The station manager fought with the school administration and now the University is more aware of the challenges.”

Cooperation between staff and volunteers at CHUO played a significant role in St. Jacques’ radio experience. “No one has made me feel like I don’t have a voice,” he says. Alongside hosting and co-hosting three French programs on the airwaves, St. Jacques is a member of the station’s Board of Directors and speaks up on behalf of disability needs.

Staff support was crucial in enabling Noble to establish CHSR as a functional space for the Blind. “When I started at CHSR the staff and volunteers were very excited to work on making the station accessible,” he says. “The first job was to put Braille labels on all of the equipment in the master control room as well as the production studio.”

Making a space accessible for disabled persons also involves educating the able-bodied people who share the space. For instance, there are programmers who peel away at the Braille labels—an anxious habit while hosting on air—and eventually remove the labels unknowingly.

Pierre Loiselle worked alongside Noble during the construction of a disability-conscious space at CHSR in Fredericton. “Challenges [from a staff perspective] included mobilizing the membership to be considerate to the needs of people with varying abilities,” says Loiselle, “[such as] getting the membership aware that they had to place their bags on a chair as opposed to the floor, not move the furniture around, and if any temporary changes were made, things had to be put back in their place immediately afterward.”

However, supportive staff and Braille labeling alone do not make a space accessible for the Blind. Specialized equipment for the visually impaired is also required, but the equipment is costly and these purchases are expensive for radio stations with small budgets. For instance, Job Access With Speech (JAWS) is a screen-reading software program that reads aloud everything on the computer screen. Noble has been using JAWS for twelve years but he had to spend $1,000 out-of-pocket.

“Once you are finished school there is no funding that I know of that will help buy equipment for persons with disabilities,” he says. “There are definitely some challenges [associated with having a disability] but with new technology that’s available, slowly it gets easier.”

In order to mobilize awareness for a Blind-functional radio station in Halifax, staff members at CKDU are seeking funding from the federal government for a contract position for Noble. The goal of the short-term contract will be to make the studios at CKDU more accessible by installing screen-reading software, offering training for Blind programmers, addressing disability awareness in general volunteer orientation, and communicating with the membership about the technological and physical features of the space.

Whilst the campus and community radio handbook will initiate conversation regarding disability issues, stations across the country have a long way to go to being accessible. When speculating about the number of disability-conscious community radio stations in Canada, Robinson states: “[T]o be honest, I have no idea how many [stations] have volunteers with disabilities or can accommodate people with disabilities, especially since there are so many [disabilities] to consider.”

There is still a long way to go, but Noble has helped make CKDU a more accessible space for blind programmers so others like him may have the opportunity to work in radio. “I’ve had an extremely positive experience in radio. I remember my first time on the air I was scared to death. With lots of practice eventually I began to relax and have a lot of fun.”

“I always tell people to never be afraid to ask me questions about my disability. I would rather people ask me stuff than assume things. People need to understand that just because I’m blind I can do just as much as someone who is sighted.”

Radio Numerica broadcasts Mondays 1:30-3:30AT on CKDU 88.1FM or www.ckdu.ca.

Gianna Lauren is a radio enthusiast, vegan baker, musician and writer. She hosts a weekly female-focused news and music program on CKDU called Third Wave Radio.

Adam Noble 1

Adam Noble 2

Sickly Sweet Censorship

Tim McSorley — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 06:19:47 +0000

Despite legal threats, screenings of Coke-critical film continue

MONTREAL—Coca-Cola may be one of the world’s most visible brands, but there's one part of their operations they don't want you to see.

Early this week, organizers with the Cinema Politica documentary screening network received a letter from lawyers representing the $20-billion US multinational. The letter threatens action if Cinema Politica screens The Coca-Cola Case, a newly released film critical of the company’s labour practices. Cinema Politica is set to kick off an international tour of the film tomorrow with a screening in Montreal.

In the letter, the lawyer claims the film is defamatory and statements by certain characters violate a confidentiality agreement surrounding the mediated outcome of the court case. The film's co-directors maintain all the information and statements in the film—while not necessarily easy to find—are publicly available and therefore fair game. German Gutierrez, who co-directed the film with Carmen Garcia, says although Coke had already attempted to block the film, the directors believed they had reached an agreement with the company.

"During the shoot they approached one of the main characters to ask us to cut two scenes from the film. We decided not to [because] the information is all publicly available," he explains. "Then we reached an agreement that [the company would not interfere with screenings] on two conditions. One is that Coke's lawyers can attend all screenings. [Two], that we inform Coke of all screenings all over the planet. So now, with this letter to Cinema Politica, we are surprised."

Coca-Cola's legal counsel did not respond to a request for an interview about why they sent the letter now. The film has already screened in Canada—including an extended run last fall at a Montreal documentary film festival—and around the world, without objection from the company.

"[Coke is] trying to use this momentum to...censor the documentary, because they see Cinema Politica for what we are: a student-run, grassroots organization," says Ezra Winton, programing director for the group. "Lawyers think it would be easier to censor the film in the hands of a grassroots organization. They also see that the film didn't quietly run the festival circuit and then disappear; it's still screening in over two dozen Cinema Politica locales in Canada and overseas."

While Winton says they are taking the precaution of consulting a lawyer, Cinema Politica plans to go ahead with their screenings in over a dozen cities in Canada and a half-dozen internationally.

"It's kind of Orwellian to think that lawyers could censor a film that documents one group's struggle for basic labour rights and accountability from their employer. It says that large corporations are beyond criticism in documentary films and elsewhere and that's a dangerous precedent," says Winton. "We need more [criticism] through popular media like film so [corporations] can be held accountable for their practices when it comes to labour rights and water issues."

The Coca-Cola Case, co-produced by Argus Films and the National Film Board of Canada, follows American lawyers Daniel Kovalik and Terry Collingsworth, along with activist Ray Rogers, as they pursue Coke through the law—over charges of murder, torture and kidnapping in Colombia and Guatemala—and through public opinion—with the international "Killer Coke" campaign.

Colombia has the highest rate of violence against union organizers in the world and workers who attempt to organize unions in Coca-Cola bottling plants are no exception. Violence towards these workers, including the murder of organizer Isidor Gil, prompted Kovalik and Collingsworth to launch a suit under the US Alien Tort Rights Act, allowing US companies to be pursued for crimes committed outside the US. Gutierrez and Garcia were inspired by this attempt to hold Coke accountable.

"Coke is a successful company: they've made money for past 100 years; they are an icon all over the world. Why doesn't Coke split the cake a little bit more with its workers? It isn't going to change [the company's] life," says Gutierrez.

Beyond the company's alleged human rights abuses, both Gutierrez and Winton say there are important reasons for this film to screen at universities and colleges. Coke, they point out, has been heavily criticized for its attempts to gain exclusivity contracts on campuses, effectively banning any other company's beverages—including beverages they don't produce, such as soy milk. In two instances, at the Universities of British Columbia and Calgary, Coke attempted to ban new drinking fountains because they competed with bottled water sales on campus, according to Winton.

"They're strong-arming students to block access to drinking water and force them to buy bottled water," he says. “That's problematic and, for very good reasons, students across the country aren't happy with this situation.”

Film-goers will get the chance to voice those opinions. In keeping with Cinema Politica's focus on fostering debate, discussions will follow all Canadian screening dates, some with the directors and "Killer Coke" organizer Ray Rogers.

Winton admits it isn't easy dealing with some of the controversy and legal threats that come with screening political documentaries—this isn't the first time they've been pressured to cancel screenings—but feels it vindicates the work of the filmmakers and Cinema Politica.

"For one of the world's most successful corporations to put in the effort to shut down this tour illustrates that the filmmakers are doing something right," he says, "and that we are doing something right, by circulating and screening the film."

The Coca-Cola Case screening series launches January 18 at 7:30pm at Concordia University in Montreal, followed by a Q&A with Ray Rogers, German Gutierrez and Carmen Garcia. Find the full schedule, watch the trailer and interviews, and find out more, including dates for planned theatrical releases.

This article was originally published by the Media Co-op.

Tim McSorley is Media Analysis editor with The Dominion.

Coke bottling

Coke.Hope

January In Review, Part I

Tim McSorley — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 09:04:27 +0000

Ludwig arrested and released, Sea Shepherds hit and sunk, Haiti shaken and eyed

Convicted oil-patch saboteur Wiebo Ludwig was arrested on January 11 in connection to an RCMP investigation into six bombings of an EnCana sour gas development near Dawson Creek, BC. He was released without charges, prompting concerns the RCMP is manoeuvring to look tough on so-called "domestic terrorism" in the lead-up to the Olympic Games.

A new poll revealed Canadians believe climate change is a greater threat than terrorism, with about half of respondents fearing changes in the weather and about a quarter pre-occupied by terrorist attacks.

Following the recent defeat of two security certificates in Canadian courts, the Canadian government announced it will use a little-known immigration law to present secret evidence against 25 Tamil refugee claimants who are currently being detained under suspicion of belonging to the Tamil Tigers. Neither the claimants nor their lawyers will be allowed to be in the court room, see the evidence or respond to accusations.

Canada's 100 highest paid CEOs pocketed an average compensation of $7.4 million in 2008, in the middle of a worlwide economic recession. The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) revealed that the top CEOs were paid 174 times the Canadian average income. The CCPA estimates that the top CEOs' income increased by 70 per cent between 1998 and 2008, with the inflation taken into account. During the same decade, the Canadian workers' income decreased by six per cent.

New Brunswick announced it will increase the provincial minimum wage from $8.25 to $10 an hour over the next two years, in line with a recently adopted anti-poverty action plan.

Haiti was shattered by a 7.3 magnitude earthquake, burying the capital city Port-au-Prince in rubble and leading to widespread damage across the country. Death tolls are estimated at over 100,000. Canada pledged to give $5 million and match donations up to $50 million and deployed the DART quick-response team. Aid organisations began a widespread disaster relief campaign. The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank in the United States involved in the Hurricane Katrina relief effort, is eyeing the disaster as a way for American interest to expand in the nation.

Political sparring over Stephen Harper's decision to prorogue parliament continued, with the Liberals rolling out a new ad campaign. A grassroots movement against the suspension of parliament has also gained some steam, promising actions across Canada on January 23.

Intrawest, the resort company that owns and runs the Whistler-Blackcomb ski resort that will host the 2010 Winter Olympics, was unable to continue payment on its $524 millon debt, raising concerns that the Canadian goverment will need to bail it out.

Homeless people were displaced from Whistler as more areas become locked down for the Olympics. Social wokers reported that homeless people were being provided round-trip bus tickets to Squamish, the community with the nearest 24-hour emergency shelter.

Vancouver officials backtracked on plans to sell Olympic housing as low-income units after the Games because of cost over-runs, with many favouring renting the condos out at market value.

Mercenary company Blackwater, now known as Xe, has settled seven lawsuits out of court that allege operatives engaged in illegal activities causing death during their time in Iraq. Representatives of Xe were "pleased" with the result. In related news, two former Blackwater employees have been arrested and are facing charges related to the killing of two Afghan civilians in 2009.

The US lifted its HIV/AIDS travel ban. The ban, which had been in place since 1987, prevented travellers with the virus from visiting the country. Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese welcomed the change, stating, "Today, a sad chapter in our nation's response to people with HIV and AIDS has finally come to a close and we are a better nation for it.”

Japanese whalers collided with an anti-whaling ship from the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society on January 6, sinking the $1.37 million dollar lightweight speedboat Adyl Gyl. All six crew members aboard the vessel were safely rescued. This is the first incident of a boat being sunk in the six years of conflicts between Sea Shepherd and the Japanese.

In Bolivia, President Evo Morales called for an Alternative Climate Meeting, inviting Indigenous peoples, social movements, environmentalists, scientists and governments to a summit in April 2010. The goal would be, among other things, to come to an agreement over climate debt and discuss establishing an international tribunal to hear cases of environmental crimes.

A new study linked Monsanto-produced genetically modified corn to organ failure in mammals. The various types of corn have already been approved by US, European and other countries' food safety agencies. Researchers at the University of Guelph found traces of DNA from GMO plants, such as Monsanto's RoundUp Ready corn, in ground animals including worms, proving that transgenic, or GMO, DNA does not significantly degrade and can persist in the environment.

Haiti after earthquake

Sea Shepherds