The Dominion - 73

Squirreling the Days Away

Maya Rolbin-Ghanie — Sun, 26 Dec 2010 04:33:21 +0000

The life of the eastern gray squirrel

Resilient, sturdy and fast, the first-ever squirrels date back about forty million years ago and continue to evade the threat of extinction today. This tiny, twitching critter got its name from the Greek "skiouros," meaning shadow-tailed.

Apart from having large incisors that never stop growing and which they continually sharpen on branches and even power lines (causing many a power outage), squirrels also possess the unique superpower of being one of very few mammals that are capable of climbing down a tree head-first, due to their strong and limber claws that lend them incomparable skill in the world of grasping woody surfaces.

These little mammals are at their most active in late winter at the start of their mating games. The males chase both the females and their suitors through the trees at unfathomable speeds, all the while performing stunts that even the most fearless of stuntmen would dare not attempt. The female will usually choose the strongest male available to her, but this is a one-off; the next time she mates it will be with a different partner. Some say this is nature's way of preserving the genetic strength of the species, and may be why squirrels continue to survive and thrive.

A mother squirrel usually gives birth to one or two litters of about four baby squirrels each year, all of which are born completely bald, toothless, blind, and dependent on her for guidance for many weeks. But they grow up strong and they grow up fast—these well-adapted creatures not only live to enjoy excellent vision with their large, incessantly searching eyes, but they are also sexually mature and ready to carry on a legacy that would make Darwin proud only one year into their scuttling, scrambling lives.

Baby Squirrel

Issue #73

Tim McSorley — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 19:16:48 +0000

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Ecuador's Fickle Friend

Martin Lukacs — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 05:25:52 +0000

Canada waffles in its support for Latin American democracies

CUENCA, ECUADOR—Ecuador awoke on September 30, 2010 to police protests. Across several highland and coastal cities, police burned tires, shut down access routes and neglected their posts. They said they were protesting the Public Service Law passed the night before, which would affect economic bonuses based on promotion.

By midday, however, efforts to destabilize the Ecuadorian administration became evident. The security detail at the National Assembly closed various entries to the legislature, while a small contingent from the air force shut down the Quito airport.

The focal point of international attention, however, was on President Rafael Correa, holed up for more than twelve hours in a police hospital after personally confronting police in the capital city of Quito. Police shot tear gas at and roughed up the President who, recovering from recent knee surgery, was escorted to the nearby hospital. Rebel police surrounded the building, at which point the president reported that he was under threat and sounded the alarm on an attempted coup.

With memories of the 2009 Honduran coup fresh in collective memory, Spain, France, more than 10 Latin American countries and several regional organizations were quick to issue declarations of support for the small Andean nation's democratically-elected president, and its constitutional order. Spain, a key investor in Ecuador and home to hundreds of thousands of Ecuadorian immigrants, gave further assurance through its foreign affairs minister that it “would mobilize all of its diplomatic arsenal...so that this revolt stops.”

Canada—another top investor in Ecuador, frequently having high level meetings with the Correa government—responded differently. Canada co-sponsored a mid-afternoon resolution at the Organization of American States (OAS). But it was only after the Ecuadorian military joint command declared its loyalty to Correa, the US State Department issued its own statement of support for the President, and just over an hour before a special military and police operation rescued Correa, that Canadian Minister of State of Foreign Affairs for the Americas Peter Kent circulated an independent statement.

“Canada is concerned about the growing unrest in Ecuador and is monitoring the situation closely,” the statement read. “We call on all parties to refrain from violence and any other actions that could imperil the rule of law and the country’s democratic institutions.”

Critics of Canadian foreign policy see Canada's delayed response as a sign of uneasy relations. Despite Correa's public support for Canadian economic interests in recent years, they suggest Canada's backing is by no means guaranteed. They pinpoint geopolitical and economic concerns as potential culprits.

As Latin America has become a foreign policy priority, Canada has shown conditional support for constitutional democracy and national sovereignty in left-leaning countries aspiring to even moderate change. The Canadian government's hand in facilitating a coup against the popularly elected government of President Jean Bertrand Aristide in Haiti in 2004, and its failure to push for the return of President Manuel Zelaya to Honduras in 2009, are notable examples.

Todd Gordon, Associate Professor in Political Science at York University and author of the forthcoming book Imperial Canada, sees parallels between Canada's response to the coup d'etat in Honduras and the statement regarding Ecuador. Canada's statement on the Honduran coup came fairly late the same day, after other countries and bodies had responded, he notes. Despite largely peaceful protests by the coup opposition, Canada in effect laid some blame on Zelaya and his supporters.

“From the time that [then Honduran President] Zelaya [was] deposed until Lobo [was] elected, Canada consistently [called] on all parties, not just the government and the coup plotters [that were the principle source of aggression and human rights violations], to avoid violence and remain peaceful,” Gordon said.

Gordon points to similar language in Canada's statement on Ecuador when it called “on all parties” to show restraint, not specifying that police were the main aggressors.

“They don't want to come out and say we're pro-coup, but Canada's response is a diplomatic way, I think, to say they're not actually that excited about the government that's being threatened,” he said.

Gordon questions if Ecuador's participation in efforts for more independent regional integration, such as the Bolivarian Alternative for Latin America and the Caribbean (ALBA), unsettles Canada.

Department of Foreign Affairs Spokesperson Priya Sinha, however, says Canada's statement should be interpreted as unequivocal support for Correa and says its position at the OAS backs this up.

“  Canada reacted swiftly and strongly in support of the legitimate government of the Republic of Ecuador when it co-sponsored a resolution at the OAS on the afternoon of September 30th,” stated Sinha by email to The Dominion.

The OAS resolution “repudiated” any attempt to oust the Correa administration and called on governments and multilateral institutions in the region to "stop the coup d'etat from becoming a reality.”

On the national front in Ecuador, Canada wields economic clout. But despite the headway that Canada's corporate and diplomatic lobby appeared to be making to secure investments in mining, oil and infrastructure during Correa's administration, Jeffrey Webber, a researcher and lecturer at Queen Mary University of London, believes Correa has never been Canada's ideal option.

“Correa was not the preferred candidate of the Canadian state,” Webber said. “Canada has been happy to see Correa's trajectory to the right, but is nonetheless concerned about his vulnerability to the bases that put him into office.”

Correa was elected on his promise to bring an end to Ecuador's “long neoliberal night.” With regard to mining, a key sector for Canadian investment, pre-existing disputes with affected communities gave rise to a national movement urging Correa's administration to look at alternatives to gold and copper extraction. At the time, no large-scale project had reached production.

After 40 years of oil production that left in its wake environmental destruction and social upheaval, Indigenous and non-Indigenous organizations demanded their country be off-limits to mostly Canadian companies dominating the nascent sector—companies that arrived in Ecuador under favourable conditions created by earlier World Bank-sponsored reforms.

In April 2008, Ecuador's National Constituent Assembly, which was rewriting the country's constitution, decreed that all large-scale mining be suspended and that most mineral concessions be revoked without compensation, because they overlapped with water supplies and protected areas, and because companies failed to consult with affected communities.

The decision represented an important—albeit short-lived—victory for the anti-mining social movement.

Canadian companies fought back with a well-financed public relations campaign in which they promised Ecuadorians “a fair deal.”

According to one company executive, companies also received “tireless” support from the Canadian Embassy to arrange high-level meetings and influence the new mining law. As large scale mining was suspended, President Correa granted Canadian businessmen a privileged seat during mining law negotiations. The mining mandate was not applied to key holdings of many Canadian companies.

Correa, who has made it clear that he intends to make metal mining a source of future state revenue through bolstered state participation, also abruptly distanced himself from Indigenous, campesino (peasant) and environmental groups critical of such policies. He called them infantile, foolish and the greatest threat to his political project, and helped foment rumours about links between such organizations and imperial interests.

This delegitimization campaign, however, did not quash local resistance. Important mobilizations against mining have taken place over the last year in areas where companies such as Toronto-based Iamgold and Kinross Gold are exploring.

But Priya Sinha says Canada looks favourably upon recent mining reforms and makes no mention of social tensions.

“Canada is encouraged by improvements in the environment for mining investments in Ecuador,” the Foreign Affairs representative stated.

Sinha did add that companies want to know how the government will apply new tax rules.

“Clarity in the tax regime with regard to future investments would allow companies to assess the tax implications for their projects and determine whether they remain economically viable,” he stated.

The new mining law restored royalty payments on mining to a minimum of five percent and established a windfall tax of seventy percent on profits made above a base price.

Canadian diplomats have also indicated concern regarding the future of Canada's bilateral investment agreement with Ecuador.

Reforms passed in Ecuador's 2008 constitution mandate that the government will not enter into agreements that defer to international arbitration, unless the arbitration body is in Latin America. In 2009, Canada's bilateral agreement came up for review.

Canada's Ambassador to Ecuador, Andrew Shisko, indicated that this did not sit well with Ottawa. Revision of Canada's bilateral investment agreement “is causing profound concern in Canada. A stable and transparent investment environment is fundamental for the success of Canadian investment in Ecuador,” he stated in a written message to the Ecuadorian-Canadian Chamber of Commerce in Guayaquil.

This could still be a concern. During an in-person meeting in Quito in August, Ecuadorian Foreign Affairs Minister Ricardo Patino told Foreign Affairs Minister for the Americas Peter Kent that “Ecuador will not maintain bilateral investment treaties.”

The National Assembly voted in September to denounce similar pacts with the UK and Germany for not being in line with the new constitution.

Challenges for Canadian interests on the domestic front, together with Ecuador's commitment to more independent regional integration efforts, lead Webber to believe that Canada would not be upset to see different leadership in Ecuador.

“Correa has aligned himself with very fickle friends, who are going to abandon him at the first turn because he's not the preferred candidate of transnational capital,” said Webber.

Any potential destabilization on September 30th was averted. But as political tensions persist in Ecuador, it remains to be seen how the uncertain relations will unfold.

From 2007 to 2010, Jennifer Moore reported from Ecuador as a freelance print and broadcast journalist.

Correa and Harper

Teenage Punk-Rock Vampire Novel & Prose Poetry on Plays

hillarybain — Fri, 03 Dec 2010 05:16:10 +0000

New works by Krilanovich, Ball

The Orange Eats Creeps
Grace Krilanovich
Two Dollar Radio, 2010.

The minute you tell someone you’re reading a novel about teenage vampires these days, you’ve got a lot of assumptions to recover from. Tell them it’s a teenage punk-rock vampire novel full of “narcissistic gypsy-slut shitheads” and “slutty teenage hobo vampire junkies,” and then they might get an idea of what The Orange Eats Creeps reads like. This novel is like notorious punk-rocker GG Allin showing up at a Green Day concert. And that’s not to say Grace Krilanovich is simply out to shock, although she shocks in almost every paragraph she writes. The shock comes in equal doses of blood, sadness and Robitussin, as she chronicles a crew of vagrant vampire punks that kill, steal and fuck their way around the northwestern United States.

All this overlapping blood, sex and death becomes both unsettling and normal as you get fired through this short novel. The evocative prose keeps the gore constantly in focus, yet the teenage narrator emerges as a reflective traveler lost in her own thoughts, in her own flesh. Then, every few pages, she is almost irrevocably lost in someone else’s flesh: either devouring or being devoured, and finding affirmations of life somewhere below the skin. The vampire motif is a perfectly morbid metaphor.

Although it sounds like an elaborate teen-angst allegory, the endless creepy details of bodily destruction in The Orange Eats Creeps act as a warning against literary deconstruction. This is a vampire novel: an unapologetic, bloody and brutal vampire novel. But somehow it doesn’t matter if these kids are supposed to be real vampires, or if their death-obsession is a nightmarish reflection of their crumbling insides. The novel is also a well-crafted memoir of a punk scene that has never quite found a literary voice. Anyone who even vaguely encountered the punk scene rooted in Washington and Oregon in the 1990s will chuckle as Krilanovich recounts the unintentional hilarity of interwoven Krishna Punks, Rockabillies, and riot grrrls. The vampire punks are just another clan of kids heading to Oregon to find death or life or whatever they can find.

Krilanovich draws from these scenes to build characters that most other first-time novelists wouldn’t dare attempt, and she writes it all in unrestrained profane language that you wouldn’t expect from someone garnering serious mainstream praise. This nervy novel is emblematic of the work coming from the excellent Ohio-based publisher Two Dollar Radio. This is fiction defined by its distaste for moderation. It is also fiction that’s guaranteed to offend and alienate many readers, but I’m sure Krilanovich would be happy to lose those readers to an entirely different kind of popular vampire novel.

—Shane Patrick Murphy

Clockfire
Jonathan Ball
Coach House, 2010

The actors reveal, for a small audience, the significant world events of the next fifty years. The audience listens, absorbs everything. When the play ends, all return home, silent. Now it is the audience's turn to act.

An exercise in formal cross-pollination, Jonathan Ball’s excellent new book of prose poetry describes a series of plays, theatrical experiences, and surreal art happenings that never (and in many cases, could never) occur in reality.

Written in weighty but never overly serious free verse, the book often induces a feeling of darkness and horror (“The play hollows them. What they once were bleeds out.”), and reads with a pleasingly antiquated tone, like a collection of literary feuilletons by Robert Walser or Peter Altenberg. The pieces are organized one per page, and the quickly shifting focal point of each poem—the audience itself, the strange happenings on stage, the effect produced afterward—is as stimulating as it is unsettling. If art is the result of the imagination’s confrontation with a series of material restrictions, what happens when those restrictions are lifted?

The actors improvise a scene. Then they improvise another. Until nothing is left to improvise. All possibilities are exhausted, put to bed.

Like the film Synecdoche, New York, in which a theatre project grows so large that its rehearsal period threatens to exceed the lifespan of its author, the poems in Clockfire find meaning in the gap between the practical realities of stagecraft and the infinite scope of what can be dreamed up on the page. Ball’s voice—peculiar, dark, and cultivated—is a welcome one.

—Robert Kotyk

Robert Kotyk reads and writes in Montreal. Shane Patrick Murphy co-edits The Dominion's Literature & Ideas section.

The Orange Eats Creep

Clockfire2

Sharing Wheels

Moira Peters — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 05:43:38 +0000

Vancouver car sharing co-op’s success spurs private competition

VANCOUVER—I fired up my 1994 Volkswagen Golf. After two weeks of sitting idle, the decrepit car filled my East Vancouver cul-de-sac with thick blue exhaust. At the time—last year—I lived on East 10th Avenue, which is practically a highway for cyclists. I hung my head in shame as I pulled away and some poor biker disappeared, hacking in the toxic plume.

It was time for that horrible car to go.

In British Columbia you can trade in your crappy car for bus passes, bike discounts or a car sharing membership. This is how I discovered the Co-operative Auto Network (CAN). Formed in Vancouver in 1996 as part of a university project, the network has since expanded from a two-car, 16-member operation to one with 240 cars and more than 7,000 members. The network has also seen the rise of Zipcar, a competing car sharing organization that operates under a traditional business model.

Tanya Paz, client relations and development director of CAN, sees a couple of advantages of running car sharing as a co-op instead of as a for-profit enterprise. Besides the availability of seed funding from local credit unions, “people feel like they have more of a sense of ownership,” which motivates members to respect the cars, according to Paz.

In the beginning, 28-year-old Tracey Axelson, CAN’s founder, struggled to have her vision taken seriously—by insurance companies, the city and financiers—as she lacked business experience. . Car sharing organizations already existed in Germany, Switzerland and Montreal, but Paz recalls critics telling the organizers of the fledgling network that on “the West Coast, people will never give up their cars.”

Car sharing works best, according to Paz, in areas where there is a combination of easy, pleasant walking, safe cycling and frequent transit. The costs are worthwhile if somebody doesn’t need to drive every day and only takes short trips. For out-of-town trips, the per-kilometre rate charged by the co-op is often more expensive than renting.

“The car co-op program has taught me that I probably need a car in the future,” said Brandy Trudeau, a former Zipcar member and current CAN member, “because of my mobility issues and the fact that there isn’t a car right outside my door.” Trudeau has arthritis and found Zipcars were not easily accessible in her neighborhood. She is content with her CAN membership for now. “I actually like being able to try different cars,” she said. “The variety of vehicles is kind of fun.”

Currently, CAN’s roaming agreements with other car sharing organizations allow members access to cars in Victoria, San Francisco and Halifax, and Paz says CAN is working on expanding to other cities.

CAN has consulted for other car sharing start-ups around the world, but staff did not expect a private car sharing organization they consulted for to become competition. Zipcar launched about 10 years ago in Cambridge, Massachusetts and has spread to 94 American cities as well as to London, Toronto and Vancouver. Zipcar now has more than 400,000 members.

“Of course we never expected them to go to Toronto or come here,” said Paz. “But I would say that they made us grow smarter, and the amount of money that they spend on advertising has really brought a lot of members to us.”

CAN was already established in Vancouver when Zipcar arrived, so Zipcar employed a different growth strategy in the West Coast city. Paz is critical. “They don’t grow in a very sustainable manner and some of their business decisions don’t make much sense to me,” she said. Zipcar launched its Vancouver operation in 2007 with 100 cars and the expectation of expansion, but wound up culling the fleet to 80.

Whether co-operative or private, car sharing networks can boast that they help reduce carbon emissions—over three quarters of a ton per household per year, according to a June, 2010 study by the Mineta Institute at the San Jose State University.

The study acknowledges that at an individual level, emissions can increase. “There are times when it’s really nice to have a car and previously I would just suck it up or take a cab,” said Trudeau. “Now I find that instead I’m booking a car for a day and going and doing all the things I want to do. I find that I’m spending a little bit more money.”

Running a co-operative can be a challenge because it is subject to the whims of its ever-changing democratically elected board of volunteers, said Paz. Members do not necessarily have business experience. The board might request that staff use cheques instead of credit cards for business expenses, for example. “The reality of doing business today is that [using cheques] is quite a delay,” said Paz. “There are times that I’m sure the founder thinks, ‘Why didn’t I just own this myself?'”

Paz is passionate about the co-operative business model because it fosters a co-operative economy as a whole.

“It’s basically a different way of doing business, of thinking about things,” said Paz. “[Co-ops] have the heart of an NGO and the mind of a business. So you’re working for the best interests of the members, but also for the benefit of your society around you as a whole.”

Erin Empey is a Vancouver-based writer.

Car share

Resistance Floats

Martin Lukacs — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 05:28:14 +0000

Canadian boat to break the blockade on Gaza

MONTREAL—Just months after the Israeli Defense Forces raided a humanitarian flotilla headed to Gaza and killed nine international activists on the Mavi Marmara, a team of Canadians is gathering funds and passengers for their own Gaza-bound boat, departing from the Mediterranean as soon as December.

Composed of 40 activists from across the country, this would be the first Canadian group to participate in the international effort.

“Over the past two years, many boats tried to break the Israeli siege over Gaza,” said Ehab Lotayef, part of the Canadian boat organizing group. “The Canadian presence in these efforts was nearly non-existent. Canada at the same time is, as a government, one of the strongest supporters of Israel. It stays silent when Israel violates international law or commits atrocities against the Palestinian people, and in most cases, even supports Israel in doing that.”

Sending a boat of humanitarian aid to Gaza requires a minimum of $300,000, mainly for the purchase of a boat and medicines. Organizers say they have reached a third of this goal and have received the endorsement of approximately 100 organizations.

The Canadian boat is a partner of the Free Gaza Movement, which has sailed ten humanitarian flotillas to Gaza since 2008. Two of their ships successfully reached Gaza that year, but all others since have been interrupted by Israel.

Lotayef insists the team is not perturbed by this reality.

“We are there to challenge the Israeli blockade in a passive-resistance manner,” he said. “We don’t want anybody to get harmed, we are not an army to go stand against the Israeli army, but we refuse in principle to get towed to Ashdod or redirected to Egypt.”

The boat project is virtually unprecedented in Canadian history, says Yves Engler, author of Canada and Israel: Building Apartheid and The Black Book of Canadian Foreign Policy.

“There aren’t many examples in the history of Canadian international solidarity that are being taken on the same scale as Canadian boat to Gaza...as mass opposition to a policy that the Canadian government is supporting abroad,” he said.

He cited the 1981 campaign “Tools for Peace,” which brought “people-to-people” aid to Nicaragua, as another example of Canadians providing concrete aid while broadly critiquing their government's actions.

“I think the boat to Gaza is similar to that,” he said.

While the mission aims to deliver humanitarian aid, it doubles as an attempt to attract international attention in order to pressure Israel into lifting the blockade.

“I would be surprised if they managed to reach Gaza, that’s one thing for sure,” said Michel Lambert, executive director and co-founder of Alternatives, the key sponsor and financial manager of the Canadian boat.

“But I think that politically speaking, the fact that there will be Canadian citizens on that boat will of course put the state of Israel in a difficult position.”

The Harper government has made the Canadian government one of Israel’s strongest allies in the international community. Canada was the first country to cut funding to the Palestinian Authority in 2006 and the only country to vote against the 2008 United Nations Human Rights Council resolution to call for an end to the siege of Gaza. In addition, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lawrence Cannon defended Israel’s 22-day campaign “Operation Cast Lead,” which left over 1,200 Palestinians dead in January 2009, taking the position that Israel acted in self-defense.

Pierre Florea, spokesperson for the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT), refused to comment on the specifics of a governmental response to the launch of the Canadian boat or any potential attacks by Israel.

“We will not speculate on hypothetical scenarios,” he said. He added that DFAIT calls on all parties to deliver aid by official channels and that “Canada recognizes Israel's legitimate security concerns and its right to protect itself and its residents from Hamas and other terrorist attacks.”

Despite holding back on public comments to the media, the government is closely monitoring Canada Boat to Gaza organizers. Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS) agents visited Lotayef’s home twice in August in
an attempt to talk about the project and his “safety,” but have not contacted him since.

“I told them that if I feel that the work I’m doing is being infiltrated or that I’m in danger from any group, I will contact the police,” said Lotayef, who knows each of the 40 working group members individually.

Lambert is not surprised at the reaction of the government.

“We’ve seen attempts last year to criminalize even informal informational activities in Canada, like the Israeli Apartheid Week,” he said. “We’ve seen people in parliament discussing the possibility of making this a crime...to say 'Israel' and 'apartheid' in the same sentence.”

The fatal attack on the Mavi Marmara in May proved to be successful in forcing Israel to weaken the embargo it has been imposing on Gaza since June 2007. After international condemnation of the raid, Israel announced on June 17 that it would “liberalize” the blockade for civilian goods.

According to the Fourth Geneva Convention, food, medicine and other aid cannot be restricted as a result of a blockade, nor can civilians be prevented from leaving the war zone. The United Nations fact-finding mission led by Richard Goldstone concluded that Israel's blockade violated international law, calling it “collective punishment of the civilian population of the Gaza Strip.”

Israel's announcement of a “loosened” blockade has caused some, like Rabbi Reuben Poupko of the Quebec-Israel Committee, to see future flotillas aimed at breaking the siege as “misguided.”

“It’s a little after the fact,” said Poupko. “I don’t really understand why anyone feels it’s necessary. The crisis according to all objective observers is pretty much over, if there was a crisis beforehand. The border crossing is now letting in a lot more stuff and the alleged siege—the inspection protocol which Egypt and Israel had imposed upon Gaza—has been loosened dramatically. I’m not sure why it would be necessary.”

But recent news reports say that Israel’s continued restriction on allowing construction materials into the Gaza strip is barely making a dent in alleviating the housing shortage caused by Operation Cast Lead almost two
years ago. According to Israeli human rights group Gisha, only about 60 trucks of cement, steel and gravel have come in each month for the past three months, compared to 5,000 a month before the blockade.

Access to medicine and outside medical treatment has also remained a serious problem, with 70 per cent of medicines donated to Gaza expiring before they make it across the border, according to the Gaza health ministry.

The United Nations Relief and Work Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA)—an agency responsible for helping 4.7 million Palestinian refugees access health care and education—is experiencing a $90-million shortfall this year.

Canada had been supplying aid to UNRWA since 1950, but announced this January that it would stop giving core monetary support to the agency because of concerns about its “values.”

A CIDA report in 2009 stated that UNRWA represented a “low risk” for funding terrorist groups.

According to Engler, loosening the blockade has not changed daily life for those in Gaza.

“Israel still controls the waterways, the airspace, and just the fact that they can decide to lessen or strengthen their blockade is indicative that they have overwhelming control over Palestinian lives in Gaza,” he said.

The Canadian boat project has also been criticized by Montreal Muslim Council president Salam Elmenyawi, who said the money should be used for aid rather than “controversy.”

Lotayef has a difference of opinion.

“Breaking of the siege is more important in the long run than just giving people food,” he said. “The long-term interest should be above short term need.”

Both Lotayef and Lambert agree that the flotilla is not the only way to help Palestinians in Gaza and influence Israeli policy, citing it as one tactic among others—like the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign and the World Education Forum in Palestine—to effectively oppose the Israeli occupation.

“I think that all together—this and other initiatives—is the best way to confront the state of Israel and its policies,” said Lambert. “It needs to be as diversified as they are because the state of Israel is quite diversified in its own ways of implementing the occupation. So you need to be in every sphere to eventually be capable to have an impact on their policies.”

Just as combating South African apartheid took a variety of social and political movements, so too will the Palestinian liberation movement, said Lotayef.

“The important thing is at the end of the day we have to voice our objection to the siege of Gaza, the blockade, and we also have to challenge our own government [and say] that this compliance and this silence is not acceptable.”

Meagan Wohlberg is a journalism student and community organizer living in Montreal. For more information about the Canadian boat: http://canadaboatgaza.org.

Breaking the blockade

Greenwashing Hate

hillarybain — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 05:50:18 +0000

Immigrants scapegoated for environmental degradation

MONTREAL—The Centre for Immigration Policy Reform (CIPR), a recently launched immigration reform lobby group based in Ottawa, is using environmental arguments and “green” rhetoric to push for more restrictive immigration policies in Canada.

“High immigration levels make it more difficult to achieve Canada’s environmental objectives and inhibit efforts to reduce the extraordinary size of our ecological footprint,” according to the front page of the CIPR website. Critics say this is painting a green veneer on an old picture.

The “greening of hate” is a phrase coined by Betsy Hartmann, director of the US-based Population and Development Program. In her 2010 essay, "The Greening of Hate: An Environmentalist's Essay," she writes about the anti-immigration lobby's growing tendency toward “the scapegoating of immigrants for environmental degradation.”

Environmental arguments can lend respectability to arguments in favour of restrictive immigration policies, says Ian Angus, editor of the website Climate & Capitalism and the book The Global Fight for Climate Justice. "It is harder today than it was forty years ago for someone to stand up and say, ‘Canada should be a haven for white people who speak English,' but you can say, ‘We want to protect Canada’s environment, so let's keep our population down.’”

Canada is both a major greenhouse gas emitter and and a major recipient nation of immigrants, facts that—until recently—were rarely discussed in the same sentence.

“Most immigrants [to Canada] come from developing countries, and their ecological footprint is somewhere between four and ten times larger in Canada than in their own country," says Martin Collacott, Secretary of the Board of Directors and a spokesperson for the CIPR. He argues that limiting immigration would thus decrease global greenhouse gas emissions and help Canada cap its own emissions.

“[The argument] that, because Canada has such a rotten record on greenhouse gas emissions, we should prevent people from Third World countries from coming here is outrageous” says Angus. In his eyes, Collacott's argument scapegoats immigrants for problems they have little or nothing to do with. Canada's carbon footprint is a result of unsustainable production, consumption and trade driven by corporate-led globalization—and not immigration, according to many climate experts.

Angus adds that the CIPR's argument is deeply hypocritical, "given that so much of [Canada's] affluence is the result of ripping off those countries [where immigrants often come from].” Historically, Canada’s support for and direct involvement in trade programs, military operations and political manoeuvring in the Global South have been of great financial benefit to the North and of great detriment to people in the South.

Collacott's argument is flawed in a number of other ways, continues Angus. He points out that Collacott's claim that immigrants generate huge quantities of greenhouse gas emissions upon arriving in Canada is based on per capita emissions. Per capita calculations, which average 16 tonnes per person per year in Canada, include industrial and transport emissions—the largest emitters in Canad—yet fail to attribute them to their source. In fact, the average person living in Canada emits roughly five tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions per year; the Alberta tar sands emit 27,000,000 tonnes in the same period.

“This twisted logic would suggest that we should deport all the poor people from around the world to 'developing' nations while allowing the rich to live together with their greenhouse-gas-intensive life styles,” says Harjap Grewal, an organizer with No One Is Illegal Vancouver.

“Forward-thinking climate activists know that now is a critical time to ensure that the precedent for immigration policy protects human rights because immigration is going to get a lot more common,” says Joshua Kahn Russell, a trainer with the Ruckus Society, a network of environmental and social-justice organizers.

Fifty million people will have been displaced by the end of 2010 due to climate change and related impacts, rising to between 200 million and one billion displaced people by mid-century, according to Mesa 6, the migration working group of the Cochabamba People's Summit on Climate Change.

This has led many people to argue that climate debt—the concept that historically polluting nations bear a financial responsibility to those nations with the least culpability for climate change—needs to extend beyond simple financial reparations to include political and social obligations. The final text from the Cochabamba People's Summit includes a call for a global human rights treaty to ensure the freedom of movement of climate-displaced people. It also proposes structures to hold major polluting nations accountable for the physical, emotional and cultural trauma caused by mass internal and external displacement, both within and from nations in the Global South.

Currently, Citizenship and Immigration Canada “does not recognize persons displaced by environmental change or disaster as refugees.” Immigration policy has strict definitions for people allowed access to Canada—definitions that limit access to Canada to persons facing danger imposed by state, military and other external human forces.

Karen Shadd, a spokesperson for Citizenship and Immigration Canada, told The Dominion, “There are no plans to amend these definitions.”

“It makes no sense to say that we should fill up Canada with people from poorer countries," says Callicott. "I think we can do more by keeping our country in good shape and helping those countries in other ways, through aid and trade arrangements.”

Syed Hussan, an organizer with No One Is Illegal Toronto, points out that “aid and development projects that follow [climate disasters] result in further dislocation and economic disadvantages.” The scope and distribution of aid projects often leave frontline communities confronting more obstacles. Examples of this include the challenges faced by some residents of New Orleans attempting to return to their homes after Hurricane Katrina, or the current struggles for community reconstruction efforts in Haiti.

Groups working to further limit and control immigration to Canada are nothing new, but the political clout of an organization like the CIPR, along with anti-immigration precedents being set around the world, has Angus worried.

"[The CIPR] are people with a substantial amount of influence in the Conservative party in particular,” says Angus.

The board and advisory council of the CIPR are made up of a number of prominent figures of the Canadian right, including James Bissett, the former director general of the Canadian Immigration Service, and Peter White, former executive of Conrad Black’s Hollinger newspaper group. Derek Burney is a member of the CIPR's advisory board. He played a key role in brokering the 1988 Canada-US Free Trade Agreement, and currently sits on the board of media conglomerates CanWest and Quebecor as well as energy giants Shell Canada and TransCanada Inc. He is also a long-standing advisor to the Conservative party, having worked as Chief of Staff to Brian Mulroney and as head of the Conservative Transition Team following the 2006 federal election. He was recently appointed as Chair of the Selection Committee for the current government’s Canada Excellence Research Chairs program.

Citizenship and Immigration Canada has identified the CIPR as “among the range of stakeholder groups that [they] deal with.” Citizenship and Immigration Canada has never considered community organizations and immigrant justice groups as "stakeholders."

Governments around the world have already begun to take steps to limit immigration based on “green” arguments.

This summer, Britain announced it would be implementing an “Immigration Cap,” citing environmental reasons as a major influence behind the decision. Australia renamed the position of Minister of Population to Minister for Sustainable Population, appointing Tony Burke to oversee potential immigration policy reforms to protect the Australian environment. The emergence of a powerful group like the CIPR in Canada has organizers worried that the type of anti-immigration sentiment and legislation appearing in other nations is coming to Canada.

“[Anti-immigrant think tanks] are very dangerous," says Hussan. "They produce ideas of hatred couched in reason which they push into university research programs and into government policy.”

“The fight for free and just movement of people is the fight to end war and occupation, the fight to end ecological destruction,” Hussan explains. “Environmental justice movements need to challenge the racist rhetoric of organizations like the CIPR with facts, with stories, with creative and direct actions—as organizers, it is critical that we anticipate and win the battle of hearts and ideas.”

Cameron Fenton is a former intern and Membership Coordinator with The Dominion and a community organizer in Montreal.

Greenwashing Hate

Who's an Artist?

Moira Peters — Sun, 14 Nov 2010 05:15:54 +0000

Heather Meek.Who's An Artist.Levels.jpg

Riding Out the G20 Judicial Roller-Coaster

Moira Peters — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 05:56:41 +0000

Hundert threatened with solitary, Rainville released, Ichim's charges dropped

MONTREAL—The fence has come down, the police have returned to their respective cities and the G20 leaders have gone home, but the saga of arrestees continues. While charges in some of the most spectacular arrests have now been dropped, others are just beginning to face the repercussions of the G20 convergence in Toronto.

In the latest arrest on October 14, Montrealer Youri Couture turned himself in to Toronto police. He faces several charges, including mischief over $5,000 and disguise with intent.

Ryan Rainville, a young Indigenous rights advocate from the Sakimay Nation, was released from prison yesterday after spending nearly three months in jail. In early August, while out on bail for other G20-related charges for which he had spent six days in jail in June, he was re-arrested for allegedly causing mischief over $5,000, assaulting a police officer, intimidating a justice system participant by violence and breaching his bail conditions.

Rainville was released on non-association bail conditions which block him from contacting some other G20 defendants and community organizers. He will go to trial in early 2011. A week prior to his release, Rainville was offered release and a reduced sentence if he co-operated with G20 Integrated Security Unit officers in identifying individuals in photographs. He refused.

G20 defendant Alex Hundert was arrested for a third time, this time for allegedly attempting to intimidate a member of the judicial system. Hundert was arrested four days after he filed an application for a review of his most recent bail conditions, which included “no expressing of views on a political issue.”

After initially refusing the “no expressing of views” bail condition, Hundert was coerced by the security manager of the Toronto East Detention Centre into agreeing to it.

“They said that they would keep him [in solitary confinement] until he was eventually released from prison if he didn’t sign his bail conditions right away. He was not allowed to make a phone call,” said Jonah Hundert, Alex’s brother, in an interview with CBC.

Alex Hundert had been found by a Scarborough Justice of the Peace to have breached his "no-demonstration" bail condition on October 8, 2010, by speaking as an invited panelist at two university events.

Gary McCullough was arrested June 24, 2010, after police pulled him over and found a crossbow, a chainsaw and other outdoor equipment in his vehicle.

McCullough’s home in Haliburton County, Ontario, had burnt down, and his remaining possessions were in his car when he drove to Toronto to get his car window fixed. McCullough has spent most of the last three and a half months in solitary confinement before being assessed as unfit to stand trial, and now awaits transfer from prison to a psychiatric hospital.

Byron Sonne, a computer security expert who had created a G20 counter-surveillance “how-to” guide, was arrested on June 22, 2010, on a slew of charges, including possession of an explosive. There is a publication ban on his case, and it is unknown why he was denied bail on July 20, 2010. Sonne remains behind bars.

Toronto-based organizer Syed Hussan, an alleged co-conspirator, has been unable to get his work permit to Canada renewed and is facing inadmissibility proceedings, which may lead to his deportation. Hussan was arrested after being swarmed by plainclothes officers and thrown into an unmarked van the morning of June 26, 2010.

“I think it’s rare for this much resources and energy to be put into so vehemently going after people who are allegedly guilty of nothing more than vandalism,” said Jonah Hundert.

Indeed, it seems that many of the charges are not holding up in court. Conspiracy charges against nearly 100 protesters of the G20 who were arrested in the widely publicized and violent 9am raid of a gymnasium at the University of Toronto (U of T) were dropped due to lack of evidence. Charges against three members of Montreal’s Anti-Capitalist Convergence (ACC) who were “preventatively” arrested on the morning of June 26, 2010, were also dropped.

“A lot of [the U of T arrestees] are more radical now, [they’ve] seen you can be arrested for your political beliefs,” said Blandine Juchs, a member of the ACC.

Leah Henderson, another accused of conspiracy successfully challenged her non-association bail conditions on October 20, 2010.

"[Superior Court Justice Todd] Ducharme said it was a nebulous condition, it was setting someone up to breach, essentially, because it just wasn’t defined,” Henderson told the Vancouver Media Co-op in a phone interview.

Anti-poverty activist Julian Ichim had his charge of counseling to commit mischief dropped by the crown on November 1, 2010. He appeared in court with eight of the 19 alleged co-conspirators, all of whom still face charges.

Following the same hearing, Peter Rosenthal, lawyer for Montreal-based organizer Jaggi Singh, argued for more disclosure regarding the case against his client. He told reporters after Singh's hearing that many of the accused still have not received full disclosure of the evidence being used against them.

Such judicial harassment is only strengthening the conviction of those resisting G20 policies. Before Alex Hundert was banned from speaking to the media, he urged people to continue organizing. "The way to assert our right to resist is to resist."

“If they’re trying to break [Alex] down with these sorts of things, it’s certainly not working,” affirms Jonah Hundert.

Nat Gray is a poet, an activist and an intern at The Dominion.

G20 UofT Press Scrum

Outside Edge

Tim McSorley — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 05:44:22 +0000

Angela James carved out her own path into the Hockey Hall of Fame

MONTREAL—Angela James walks through the side door of the Brampton arena before an afternoon hockey game begins, strolling at an easy pace, saluting players and hangers-on in the lobby with a friendly nod. Within minutes she’s approached by a shy, wide-eyed boy who wants her autograph.

Being female, mixed race and gay don’t often combine into a winning formula in sport, but today, 46-year-old Angela James will become the first woman inducted to the Hockey Hall of Fame in its 65-year history.

It’s hard to overstate the importance of the event, in which former team USA captain Cammi Granato will also be inducted in a highly anticipated weekend of Canuck pomp and circumstance that will include celebratory rings, speeches, jackets, box seats to an NHL game, parties—all capped off by a ceremony broadcast live on TSN.

Although James' advocates have lobbied for years to allow non-NHL players (namely women) to enter the Hall, it wasn’t until 2009 that the Hockey Hall of Fame opened its doors to women. While a few pundits had their hockey garters in a twist about the change, most saw it as an important stride forward for the sport.

“I’m not at all ready, and I haven’t even thought [of my speech],” laughs James, adding that her close-knit family will attend the inauguration. As if it weren’t enough to break hockey’s gender barrier, James will also be the first lesbian mom among the NHL legends.

“[People] know what I am, who I’m with and about my family—I’m open,” she says. “But I don’t discuss my personal life. I’d rather know the score of last night’s game.”

James grew up in the mid-'60s, playing ball hockey and shinny on the outdoor public rink with the boys in Flemingdon Park, one of Toronto’s poorest neighbourhoods. Girls didn’t play hockey at the time, which meant she had everything to prove and nothing to lose.

Out on the open ice, James exorcised frustrations, set free (and later focused) her boundless energy, and forged her toughness. Excelling early, she picked up all the best moves from the guys, learning to skate, deke, throw a hit and deliver a deadly slapshot.

Raised by a single mom, James was by all accounts the spoiled baby of five loving siblings. Her father ran a nightclub in Mississauga and sired other offspring as well (including Edmonton Oilers defenseman Theo Peckham.)

Even though money was tight, James credits the fierce loyalty and support of her immediate family, especially her tenacious mother, for her success. When James turned eight, her mother registered her in minor boys’ hockey at the local municipal rink (now named the Angela James Flemingdon Park Arena). That same year, 1973, James was the league's highest scorer and won the MVP award. “They kicked me out because I was a girl,” says James flatly. “They didn’t like that I won all the awards!”

There wasn’t much to do in the newly built Flemingdon Park development where James grew up in the early '70s—its reputation as a low-income neighbourhood with crime problems pervades even today, and the community still doesn’t have a local grocery store or bank.

“I would probably be in jail right now without hockey,” says James, for whom academics was never encouraged as a priority. “I’m not sure what my life would be like without sport. I’m sure I wouldn’t have played hockey without the municipal rink.”

By age 15, James was playing in the top senior women’s leagues under the umbrella of the Central Ontario Women’s Hockey League where, despite her youth, she quickly became a force, leading her team to numerous league and provincial championships, and earning the title of leading scorer in eight seasons and most valuable player in six.

“No player wanted to go into the corners with her, because they knew they weren’t coming out with the puck,” laughs Maria Quinto, James’ general manager and long-time friend.

Early in James’ career, the national women’s team program didn’t exist, nor was there a world championship or plum scholarships to play US college hockey. Grassroots girls’ development and female championship showcases weren’t priorities for federal sporting bodies like the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association (CAHA). Although women played hockey all over the world, the mere idea of an Olympic showcase was pie in the sky. Even in Canada, where hockey was supposedly “our” sport, elite women players had to fight for respect and the right to play.

Wherever she played, James turned heads and challenged perceptions. “James was fearless, and she engendered fear in other people,” says writer and producer Elizabeth Etue, describing James’ physical prowess and self-assuredness both on and off the ice.

At 160 pounds, she was a powerful skater, physically strong, with an incredibly focused drive. “She played with the best women players, and even though these players were older, she could control a game with this incredible power, energy and tenacity. And she had a hard slapshot,” recounts Etue.

In 1990, James was selected for the first ever Team Canada, which was to play at the inaugural women’s championship in Ottawa. The team was outfitted in hot pink and white jerseys instead of the traditional red, as a way to “sell” the “novelty factor” of the female game. This marketing ploy stole the focus from the talent on display, and was roundly criticized by both critics and players.

“I remember her performance in the 1994 World Championships in particular,” adds Etue of the scoring ace. “I was watching James take the puck up the ice and she just got around everyone. She was like a freight train going up the ice, and in some ways, it was an old style of playing because she was so used to not having a support group—she was always the best on her team.”

James led the national team to the gold medal in 1994 or with 11 goals in five games. She would win gold medals in three other world championships.

Women’s ice hockey was finally added to the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, but James was cut from the team. It proved to be a major controversy. After all, from 1987 on, James had been Canada’s most consistent scoring threat no matter where she played. James appealed the decision to not include her on that team, but during the appeal process, both Hockey Canada and the media latched on to salacious rumours about a lesbian relationship between the captain and coach. “Homophobia ruined my appeal because something got all blown up and the direction went there, instead of towards my appeal," says James. "They were all freaking out. You know, every female sport goes through it.”

At the heart of the matter was how Hockey Canada viewed the women’s game on the global scene, where business stakes were high. Before the Olympic exposure, hockey’s power brokers had only ever cared about boys and men in the game, but in 1998 the national team program became serious business, with corporate sponsorships and a leadership role (and reputation) to safeguard in international circles.

With more eyes on the women’s game, the team’s coaching staff started to develop the program more than ever before, introducing new systems and set plays and seeking out complete, team-oriented players among a growing legion of top-level athletes. James was an independent spirit, and a veteran, who had rarely had to tow any line.

At the Olympics tryout camp, James also suffered from what doctors later diagnosed as a thyroid problem, at the time manifesting itself as fatigue and low energy, though, in hard-nosed fashion true to character, she’s never mentioned those health challenges to the press, preferring to focus on the positive. “I had a great era of wearing the Team Canada jersey and playing the game I loved,” she says. “I concentrate on what good I got out of hockey and do the same with my kids now. I say ‘You’ve told me all the reasons why you can’t do something, now tell me why you can.’ I have to practice what I preach!”

After James was cut, Quinto welcomed her back to the Toronto Aeros in the senior women’s league, where she continued to set scoring records. “In that era, players expected nothing and gave everything, they paid to play at the elite level,” says Quinto. “I remember one game I went into the dressing room and noticed Angela’s hockey garter-belt was so old it was in tatters. I told her we would supply her with one. You know what she replied? ‘No thanks, I want to keep this one so I remember where I came from.’”

James' return to the Canadian Women’s Hockey League to coach Brampton this season is a boon for elite women’s hockey in Canada. It also means she’s now coaching current Olympians who, as kids, looked up to her as an idol.

Her team’s roster is also stacked with some of the finest players in today’s international game, including Team Canada legends Jayna Hefford, Lori Dupuis, Gillian Apps and US Olympian Molly Engstrom.

“James is the face of women’s hockey. She brings a new level of professionalism to our league,” insists Quinto. “She’s also a different person now as a coach. She’s direct, laid-back and open to new ideas. As a player she was very focused, and could even have blinders on. Now she’s more mature and diplomatic.”

“I gained leadership skills through sport, which helped with my work,” says James, who has spent much of the past decade as the Director of Athletics for Seneca College and has served as a referee, coach and advocate for youth hockey.

James has returned to Flemingdon Park to help out with a free hockey program sponsored by the local police department. The program introduces the neighbourhood's kids—today, largely Muslim immigrants—to the sport. She’s also outspoken about the increasing cost of ice rentals, and the expensive—often exclusive—nature of the game. She strongly believes that to grow, Canadian hockey needs to get back to the basics: participation, fun and skill development.

Like most former hockey players, James isn’t an activist or political, and hates to talk about herself. She’s unlikely to become the poster girl for gay rights, or a spokesperson for any particular cause, though she does have something to say about homosexuality in hockey.

“I am who I am. I’m proud of my partner and family and the more people that can say that, the better. If people have an issue with this, then too bad. Today, male coaches and [general managers] have gay sons and daughters and when they are very open and supportive, it helps. [But] it doesn’t matter if I’m gay, straight, black, yellow, pink, polka-dot or blue, I’m still the same person every day. I respect people for who they are.”

Ever the sharp shooter and straight talker, James found success in hockey by expressing her own special swagger. She’s earned the respect of teammates, family, friends and fans because of it. “James is both energetic and as informal as her nickname, ‘AJ,’ but there's a relentless drive in there,” says Etue, explaining James’ notorious appeal. “She’s a force, with energy for all sorts of people.”

More than one hundred years after women first took to the ice, Angela James’ entry into Canada’s Hockey Hall of Fame stands as more than simple ceremony. It’s a public validation that everyone should have a fair shot at making it in the game.

Meg Hewings is an editor at Montreal's alternative weekly Hour, a blogger/videographer and hockey organizer who does outreach for the Montreal Stars in the Canadian Women's Hockey League, founded The Lovely Hockey League and plays for the Ninja Tune Wicked Deadly Karate Chop in the Good Times Hockey League of the Arts.

Angela James

Dressing Up

hillarybain — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 05:06:53 +0000

Kids shake it up in Halifax's North End

HALIFAX—Eleven-year-old Craig Cain eagerly shakes bottles of Hope Blooms salad dressing and pours them into dishes for a potential customer to taste. He tells the customer his favourite flavour is Creamy Dill and Garlic, and smiles widely when a purchase is made. It is 7:45 on a Saturday morning. At one point, when offered a $20 bill for a $6 bottle of salad dressing, he pauses and asks, without guile, “Do you need change for that?” He is eager. So eager, he happily got up two hours earlier that morning to volunteer to sell salad dressing.

Cain is one of almost 40 kids who work on a youth project at the North End Community Garden in Halifax, and who, with the help of sponsors and the program’s organizers, have started a registered charity and a business: Hope Blooms. The majority of the money from the business goes into a scholarship fund for the young people; the rest goes to a community charity.

“First we pick the stuff from the garden, then we take it in, then we clean it, then we spin it, then we cut it, then we put it in the blender with the other ingredients and then we pour it into the bottles.” Cain has been working in the garden for two years. He has learned how to grow plants and how to make salad dressing. He says it’s a lot of fun.

Eleven-year-old Karen Chen says she and her colleagues have to pay attention to how many vegetables they grow, and that relates to how much salad dressing they can make and sell. Each bottle of salad dressing contains a half-cup of herbs. “It’s a lot. We need a lot each time,” says Chen. “Some people just come to our garden and take our stuff and smash it. It’s bad. I think that each plant has its own life,” says Chen, “It makes us really, really angry.”

Vandalism of the garden is only one of the challenges the kids in the area are facing. “The community has its challenges, as do all marginalized communities, as it relates to crime and poverty,” says Cheyanne Gorman-Tolliver. Gorman-Tolliver works with the Black Business Institute (BBI), which is working closely with Hope Blooms. “But the people are strong and they make a way.”

“Sometimes we have to start over again [after the garden is vandalized],” says eight-year-old Folayemi Boboye. “We may have to make more compost and start growing again.” Boboye has a unique view on the garden: she says it is patient.

“I think it’s the kids who are patient,” counters Chen. “We have to have patience and help the garden.” They agree, however, that, like all of us, the garden needs to take time to grow. It needs someone to take good care of it.

Jillian Martin, who works at the North End Community Health Centre, has noticed a difference in the young people’s commitment to taking care of their garden and their business. Each year, their willingness to show up and work hard improves. “Now that they know what it’s all about,...as soon as they get there, they’re ready to work,” says Martin, who describes her role with the garden as a manager of operations.

She says it was a real learning process and that it took a long time to get the business started and on track. With help from the BBI, they came up with a business plan and learned about things such as a financial forecast—“terms we’d never heard of,” says Martin. The Centre for Women and Business at Mount Saint Vincent also provided a lot of assistance. “We’re good at using our resources and asking for help because we recognize that we don’t really know what we’re doing when it comes to business, but the spirit is there and the dream is there so we just have to kind of go with the flow. It’s not hard to keep going because there’s just so much inspiration and the kids love it.”

The kids also love the business camp BBI hosts each year. At the camp, the children learn important points of running a business. They learn “entrepreneurship...and the value of making a product, selling it, and feeling proud of yourself for doing your own thing” says Martin. Cain says he is learning how to count change, how to sell, and that sometimes it’s important to get up really early.

Cain wants to start his own line of salad dressing when he grows up. He wants to be a business man.

The program has the kids seriously considering their futures. “They actually take the time to think, ‘what do I want to be when I grow up, and how do I get there?’” says Martin. A few weeks ago, one young girl asked Martin what community college was about and whether she could use the money from the scholarships for college rather than university. Martin says, “They’ve been starting to ask [these kinds of] questions, realizing, 'I do have a prospect of education, I do have this money coming when I graduate, what should I do with it?'”

Jessie Jollymore, Martin’s colleague at the Health Centre, is the woman whose vision was to develop the garden. She says that when she has taken the young people to various events and presentations, she has them speak about their dreams for the future. The children talk about wanting to be teachers, doctors, marine biologists: at this point, says Jollymore, the room goes silent. She says people are surprised to hear that these kids from low-income, disadvantaged communities have dreams. “They shouldn’t be [surprised],” she says, “Everyone has dreams.”

Chen wants to be a chef when she grows up. “Getting people to eat nutritious food is the biggest challenge,” she says. “Some people don’t like vegetables and eat unhealthy things.” After displaying her knowledge of the various nutrients and vitamins found in fruits and vegetables, she continues, “I never really liked cucumbers, but after I started working in the garden I took a bite of cucumber and felt like I wanted to go outside and yell, ‘Delicious!’”

Boboye eats a lot of vegetables now too. She takes what she grows home to her mother. “My mom always makes some salads and they’re really good.” She says she has learned that it’s important to eat good, healthy food.

“The moms have really taken an interest,” says Martin. “I think they really enjoy coming to a place where they can see their kids flourishing.”

Last year, the youth shared their proceeds with ARK, a shelter for street-involved and homeless youths. “They’ve been developing a sense of making money, and giving it back to the community.” This year, they will choose another organization with whom to share their proceeds.

Chen says, “We’re helping a lot of people by selling what we make.”

“It means a lot to me to see positivity coming into the neighbourhood...the community gets a really negative rap sometimes from the media,” says Martin.

Jollymore says that the whole project is about the kids having a sense of empowerment regarding their futures. It’s also about spreading that sense of empowerment throughout the community. Cain wants to see more people from his school come to the garden and help out. “They don’t get paid to come here, they don’t get paid to make [the salad dressing],” says Martin, but they come anyway.

A greenhouse is in the process of being built so herbs for the salad dressing can be grown all winter long. It looks like the business will keep flourishing. So far, Hope Blooms has sold out every week they've set up shop at the market.

Charlene is a freelancer and a recent graduate of Journalism at King's. She holds a BA and MA in English literature. She works as a Junior Program Officer at Imhotep Legacy Academy.

Craig Cain

Greenhouse

World Bank Darling Promotes Privatization of Reserves

Moira Peters — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 05:32:29 +0000

Critics say fee-simple title on reserves could further erode Indigenous land base

VANCOUVER—Peruvian economist and World Bank poster child Hernando de Soto visited Vancouver earlier this month to speak in favour of the establishment of individual property ownership (“fee simple”) on First Nations reserves in Canada.

The First Nations Property Ownership (FNPO) conference—hosted by the First Nations Tax Commission—paired de Soto with a select roster of Indigenous leaders, lawyers, economists and scholars from across British Columbia and Canada to promote a proposal that would allow fee simple title on reserves.

Instead of collective title to reserve land held by bands, the proposal aims to give individuals living on reserve access to the same legal private property rights that exists in the rest of the country. Currently, collective title is bound by section 91(24) of the Constitution Act, 1867 (a guiding provision of the Indian Act), which allocates legislative jurisdiction to the federal government over “Indians and lands reserved for the Indians,” constitutionally protecting existing Indigenous title.

“What [the proposal is] doing is putting a damper on 91(24) lands,” said Harley Chingee of the First Nations Lands Advisory Board. “There’s no internal controls once you take 91(24) out of it. Because then the provinces—and Canada, for that matter—can have control.”

The proposal is championed by conference organizer C.T. (Manny) Jules, Chief Commissioner of the First Nation Tax Commission, former Chief of the Kamloops Indian Band and one of Canada’s foremost proponents of private property ownership on reserves.

The conference came at the crest of an increasingly aggressive effort throughout recent months to generate support for the controversial proposal—a charge led by Jules alongside conservative political scientist Tom Flanagan. Flanagan—a former campaign manager for Stephen Harper—has published a number of contentious books and articles prescribing solutions to First Nations economic development and land management. He most recently co-authored Beyond the Indian Act, which argues for federal legislation that would make way for fee simple on reserves.

In response to this effort, a growing group of Indigenous people and chiefs have been speaking out against the Jules/Flanagan proposal, arguing that fee simple property ownership will leave collective Indigenous title and rights and reserve lands—which are affirmed in section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982—vulnerable to encroachment by developers, corporate interests, and federal and provincial control. Chingee has been open in his rejection of the fee simple proposal, as has Arthur Manuel, spokesperson for the Indigenous Network on Economies and Trade.

De Soto, president of the Institute for Liberty and Democracy (ILD), is notorious for advocating fee simple property ownership and market-led agrarian reform among Latin America’s campesinos. His ideas are promoted by international financial institutions like the World Bank, as well as the US international development organization USAID, which uses his theory to back their own market-driven development projects throughout Latin America.

He’s also been assailed with criticism from popular and grassroots organizations such as Via Campesina—a global peasant movement—which maintains that the ramifications of de Soto’s economic agenda are the global phenomena of dispossession of Indigenous people and intensified economic stratification.

Like de Soto’s proposal for Latin America, which aims to convert latent or “dead” assets into market capital, Jules and Flanagan aim to transform collective rights into individual titles, which can be openly traded on the market. In Canada, collective land title is understood to be the inherent right of Indigenous peoples.

In a letter against the fee simple proposal published in the First Nations Strategic Bulletin, Manuel asserts the power and protection of collective title. “No single individual can give up or extinguish our Aboriginal title and Indigenous rights. It would be suicide or extinguishment for our future generations to accept fee simple in exchange for our collective title,” he wrote.

Chingee’s response to the proposal warns of the damaging impact of privatizing reserve land. “The change would undermine signed treaties across Canada, undermine our political autonomy, restrict our creativity and innovation and place us in a dangerous position where any short-term financial difficulty may result in the wholesale liquidation of our reserve lands, or the creation of a patchwork quilt of reserve lands, like Oka,” he wrote.

The fee simple proposal has come under further fire for implying that individual property ownership is the sole recourse for economic prosperity on reserves. De Soto’s frequent reference to reserve lands as “dead capital” was wholeheartedly adopted by the conference organizers, who littered promotional material with the promise to unleash this untapped asset.

A recent article by Dan Cayo in The Vancouver Sun explains that a common approach taken by individuals on reserve is to find substitutes for individual property ownership, such as long-term leasing and “certificates of possession,” which are enough to provide sufficient collateral to qualify for business loans.

“Certainly you don’t need fee simple standards to prosper. People have an illusion that’s totally false,” says Chingee, citing examples of First Nations that have achieved economic success without fee simple ownership. “You just have to look at Westbank First Nation out in Kelowna. And there’s countless others, like Squamish Nation in Vancouver, for example, Macleod Lake Indian Band, up north of Prince George, that are prosperous 91(24) lands."

Ironically, the fee simple advocates tried to use Westbank’s economic success to their advantage, adding former Chief Ron Derrickson’s name to the conference’s list of speakers and promotional material without his consent or support.

Derrickson—known as one of the most successful Indigenous developers in the country—was alerted by Manuel to this name-borrowing. Once alerted, Derrickson voiced his disproval of the fee simple proposal and his name was removed from the list.

The FNPO website uses the Switsemalph 7 reserve near Salmon Arm as an example of a community with untapped development potential.

“Actually if you cut out the environmentally sensitive areas you come up with a picture that has a lot of development,” says Dave Nordquist from Adams Lake, refuting the FNPO’s claims about Switsemalph 7. The environmentally sensitive area is part of the Salmon River Delta, an area unsuitable for any land development.

Though Tom Flanagan is not a listed speaker at the conference, and is rarely named on the FNPO website, his presence is discernable. The cover image from Beyond the Indian Act graces the front page of the site, and his co-author, Andre Le Dressay, was a speaker during the Vancouver conference.

Beyond the Indian Act bears the subtitle “Restoring Aboriginal Property Rights,” implying that fee simple property ownership is a traditional right among Indigenous people in Canada. This message is reiterated in the forward and in a recent Globe and Mail editorial—both written by Jules, who evokes early Indigenous civilizations across the Americas to make the case that individual property rights and free market trade are fundamental to Indigenous peoples, and have been obscured and impeded upon by colonial legislation.

Nevertheless, the fee simple proposal also names the Torrens title system as a source of inspiration—a colonial model which hinges on the creation of an individual title registry. Its name pays tribute to Sir Robert Torrens, a colonial premier who introduced the title system to South Australia in the mid-19th century.

Though proponents claim that the right to fee simple title is inherent, the proposal is curiously lacking in popular Indigenous endorsement. Whether or not de Soto will be able to drum up support for the proposal remains to be seen.

Emma Feltes is a writer, researcher and activist based in Halifax and south interior British Columbia. Her work centers on First Nations-State relations, cultural heritage and intellectual property, and urban issues. Neskie Manuel is Secwepemc from the interior of British Columbia. He likes cycling and speaking Secwepemctsin. This article was originally published by the Vancouver Media Co-op.

de Soto

October in Review, Part II

Tim McSorley — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 23:42:12 +0000

Mining bill defeated, Khadr sentenced, prison costs rise, Air Force office blockaded

Legislation that would revoke public funding from Canadian mining companies that abuse human rights and the environment in their overseas operations was narrowly defeated in its third reading, with 13 Liberals, including Michael Ignatieff, four Bloc and four NDP parliamentarians skipping the vote. Bill C-300, a Liberal private member's bill, built unprecedented support among social justice advocates and mining watch-dog groups around the world.

A military jury at Guantanamo Bay sentenced Canadian citizen Omar Khadr to 40 years in prison for the killing of a US soldier in Afghanistan, though prosecutors had only asked for a maximum 25 year sentence. Before the sentence was delivered, Khadr had already agreed to a plea-deal where, by pleading guilty, he would receive a sentence of eight years. New memos also revealed that the Canadian government has been in talks with US officials about the possibility of Khadr serving his sentence in Canada. Khadr, 24, was 15 when arrested in Afghanistan, and his detainment and trial has been widely criticized for violating rules on the treatment of child soldiers.

Hector Berrios became the fourth anti-mining activist to be denied a travel visa to the United States this month. Berrios was to testify before the Inter-American Human Rights Commission about mining-related violence in El Salvador.

The Wixarika Indigenous people of Mexico demanded the cancellation of 22 mining concessions granted to Canadian mining company Majestic Silver. The concessions cover a semi-arid desert region known as Real de Catorce, considered by many to be one of the most important sites of Indigenous prayer in Mexico.

The Union of BC Chiefs called for the resignation of Junior Minister of State for Mining Randy Hawes, who rejected a recent study of mining impacts on Indigenous people as "hogwash" and "completely flawed," adding that "some First Nations reject mining for a more traditional lifestyle—those ways are linked to lower birth weights, higher birth rate deaths and lower life spans. Improving these outcomes requires sharing the wealth and jobs that come from mining."

Climate Justice Montreal set up a hydraulic fracturing ("fracking") site outside the Quebec Association of Oil and Gas Producers annual conference in Montreal, in protest of the extraction method. Fracking uses over 596 chemicals—many of which are known carcinogens and poisons—mixed with hundreds of litres of water and sand, the majority of which ends up in groundwater, soil and the air. A group of public personalities in Quebec demanded an immediate moratorium on fracking in the province.

Cape Bretoners opposed fracking in meetings about a proposed mine site in Lake Ainslie.

New Brunswick's Department of the Environment recommended new regulations for companies engaged in fracking in the province.

Access-to-information requests revealed that a 2009 internal memo to CIDA minister Bev Oda was tampered with. While the memo endorsed Canadian human rights organization KAIROS and cited numerous Canadian officials recommending the reinstatement of its $7.1 million CIDA funding, a hand-written note at the memo's end inserted the word "NOT," turning the concluding statement into a negative: "That you [Minister Oda] sign below to indicate you NOT approve the contribution of $7,098,758." CIDA's funding to KAIROS was eliminated in November 2009.

Protests in France kept up against pension reform, including a bill to raise the retirement age from 60 to 62, while police unleashed tear gas and rubber bullets and arrested hundreds. Strikes at petrol refineries caused country-wide petrol shortages. France's parliament eventually approved the bill after weeks of protest, but electoral support for President Sarkozy has steeply declined.

First Nations leadership in central and eastern Canada criticized a meeting to discuss the implementation of the Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement (CBFA). The environmental organizations and forestry companies who signed the CBFA are courting Indigenous approval for the agreement.

Palestine solidarity activists crossed from Egypt into Israeli-blockaded Gaza, bringing $5 million in humanitarian aid in more than 100 vehicles.

Canadians organizing the country's first Boat to Gaza raised a third of their $300,000 budget, and plan to set sail in the spring 2011.

The Canadian government said the fake lake built for international media at the G20 summit in Toronto "was a wild success."

Rob Ford, who ran on a platform of cutting wasteful spending at city hall, was elected mayor of Toronto with 47 per cent of the vote. While voter turnout jumped from under 40 per cent in 2006 to 53.2 per cent, the total votes for Ford amounted to only around 15 per cent of Toronto's population. That, and examples of councilors winning seats with only 19 per cent of popular vote, led to calls to reform the "first-past-the-post" system. Ford has come under criticism for comments he has made about the homeless, immigrants and homosexuals, but pundits credited his tough-on-financial-waste platform for getting him elected.

About 80 people completed a four-day paddle down the Fraser River to raise awareness about the impact of fish farms in the Fraser River, ending on the day the Cohen Commission began to investigate and report on the decline of sockeye salmon.

A new report found that BC has twice as many jail and police-involved deaths than Ontario, despite the fact that Ontario's population is three times as large.

A new study revealed the costs to maintain the federal prison system increased three times faster than inflation between 2008 and 2009. The daily cost per federal inmate rose to $323 per day, double the amount in provincial prisons. Earlier this year, the federal government announced an additional $9 billion in funding for the federal prison system to handle an increase in the inmate population once new "tough on crime" legislation is enacted.

US scientists blamed the dispersants used by BP in the clean-up of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico for increases in illnesses among the region's residents, including severe respiratory and sinus infections, vomiting and fevers.

A study by the Climate Action Network Europe revealed major European polluters (including BP) have donated over $240,000 to candidates running in the US midterm elections, 80 per cent of which has gone to candidates who deny climate change and oppose energy policy reform.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration warned Arctic warming is continuing, with a four-degree upward trend in northern Canada’s air temperature in the first half of 2010. The warming is causing irreversible changes to northern regions and causing severe changes in weather systems further south, the report found.

The Canadian Armed Forces announced that 600 soldiers who served in Afghanistan will participate in the country's first major Arctic military exercise this winter after returning from the Central Asian country. An official said the exercise was meant to boost morale and provide training, and that it is not tied to the Conservative government's pledge to exert Canadian sovereignty over Arctic regions.

A crowd of 450 people, many of them homeless or poorly housed, blockaded the entrance to a Canadian Air Force building in Ottawa. The demonstrators were protesting the government's decision to cut $1 billion from social housing programs while spending more than $15 billion on new F-35 fighter jets and their upkeep.

The federal Environment Minister pledged to ensure that companies working in the Albertan tar sands meet their greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction targets, but did not specify how. Tar sands production is slated to triple by 2025, and estimates are that it will produce nearly as much GHG emissions as New York City by 2020.

Oil company Syncrude was ordered to pay $3 million in damages for the death of 1,600 birds that landed on its toxic tailings ponds in northern Alberta. Less than a week later, 230 birds were euthanized after landing on another Syncrude tailings pond. While Syncrude officials said freezing rain caused the birds to land, others pointed out the tailings ponds lie directly in the birds' migratory paths.

Ryan Rainville, an Indigenous activist, remained in prison on charges related to the G20 protests in Toronto in late June 2010. Rainville's supporters accused the court of ignoring "Gladue factors, which force the judicial system to consider the systemic marginalization and over-incarceration of Indigenous people as a result of colonialism and poverty." He has been in prison since August 5 and will appear again in court on November 5.

Alex Hundert, another G20 detainee accused of conspiracy, was re-arrested on charges of attempting to intimidate a member of the judicial system for statements he allegedly made towards crown attorneys during a court hearing. It is the third time Hundert was arrested in five months and came less than 10 days after he had strict restrictions, including not expressing political views publicly, imposed as part of his bail conditions.

France general strike

Fracking in Quebec

Leak reveals push to win over First Nations on controversial boreal forest pact

Moira Peters — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 05:42:54 +0000

Environmental organizations and forestry companies seeking buy-in on CBFA as First Nations opposition grows

MONTREAL—A leaked document and email obtained by the Montreal Media Co-op shows major environmental organizations engaging in damage control while speedily attempting to court First Nations' support for the Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement (CBFA). The revelation comes amidst mounting opposition to the agreement from aboriginal organizations, many of which are decrying it as fundamentally flawed. The much-hyped pact between major forestry companies and environmental organizations claimed to suspend logging on 29 million hectares of boreal forest and caribou habitat for three years in exchange for an end to the environmentalists' global boycott campaigns against the industry.

The email—sent at the end of a meeting with some First Nations groups last week in Prince George, British Columbia—was written by Larry Innes, Director of the Canadian Boreal Initiative, and Faisal Moola of the David Suzuki Foundation. It describes a forthcoming First Nations “Declaration on the Boreal” and a letter of understanding (LOU) that lays the groundwork for First Nations cooperation with the CBFA.

In the email, Innes and Moola stress, in bold, that they “strongly urge all ENGO organizations to support [the LOU], as it will provide positive evidence of a positive relationship being established with [First Nations] towards realizing the vision and goals of the CBFA.”

Environmental organizations and forestry companies excluded First Nations during negotiations of the CBFA, despite the fact that most of the lands bargained over were First Nations' traditional territories.

The organizer of the Prince George meeting, the Carrier Sekani Tribal Council, revealed in a press release that David Suzuki and Innes had met with them and apologized. Apologies, however, haven't sufficed for a growing number of First Nations, including leadership from Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec, who issued a statement last Wednesday saying the agreement was better left behind.

“The CBFA disrespects our rights and was developed without our consent," said Grand Chief Stan Beardy of the Nishnawbi Aski Nation (NAN), which represents 49 First Nations in Northern Ontario. "The meeting this week in Prince George, BC, is a backdoor approach to coming up with a national First Nations strategy regarding the CBFA as there was no consensus that the meeting was a good idea. If we are going to be discussing our role in the management and protection of the Boreal region, it will be outside any agreements such as the CBFA."

Innes and Moola lament in the email that “as a 'national' meeting it failed to materialize” but they indicated that they are targeting those regions where Indigenous criticism of the agreement is mounting.

“We'll be circling back to Assembly of First Nations to try to get the National Chief to take a more active hand going forward, and continuing our outreach work in MB, ON and QC,” they write. They also indicated that “there are good prospects for a similar outcome [to the Prince George meeting] in Alberta.”

NAN called on the Assembly of First Nations to hold "a national meeting on the future of our forests." NAN was joined in their criticisms the CBFA by the Algonquin Nation Secretariat, which represents two bands in Quebec, and the Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak (MKO), which represents 30 in Manitoba.

In late September, the Assembly of First Nations of Quebec and Labrador (AFNQL), which represents Quebec First Nations, passed a resolution to boycott any meetings on the CBFA until the organization has conducted a legal and technical review of the agreement.

Rather than address the public criticisms of the regional aboriginal organizations, Innes and Moola pinned blame for mounting First Nations dissent on an independent policy analyst and anonymous individuals.

The AFNQL resolution, and a few withdrawals from the Prince George conference, they write, “created an ideal opportunity for the 'Scrap the CBFA' campaign being undertaken by Russell Diabo and some of our other 'friends' to drive wedges between [First Nations] in the East and West.”

Diabo is a policy consultant who works for the Algonquin Nation Secretariat, but has no affiliation with the Manitoba and Ontario bands that also criticized the agreement.

Avrum Lazar of the Forest Products Association of Canada, the grouping of 21 corporate signatories to the CBFA, also attended the Prince George meetings and told the Globe & Mail that First Nations support for the CBFA is “being courted.”

He also made it clear that industry representatives had deliberately excluded First Nations from the original CBFA negotiations.

“If there was a way to involve all those chiefs and set up some sort of national framework, we would have done it,” he said.

The letter obtained by the Montreal Media Co-op did not include recipient email addresses.

Martin Lukacs is a member of the Dominion editorial collective and the Montreal Media Co-op. This article was originally published by the Montreal Media Co-op.

CBFA leak

Haiti Nine Months On

Martin Lukacs — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 05:18:24 +0000

Donor money spent on a road map no-one can read

PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI—“Nothing! Nothing! We’ve seen nothing!” chanted the crowd of internally displaced people (IDP) in Port-au-Prince on October 6. They were pursuing former US president Bill Clinton after his photo-op in their squalid camp. Clinton was on his way to the third Interim Haiti Reconstruction Commission (IHRC) meeting in downtown Port-au-Prince. Ironically, the camp is considered one of the capital's best, thanks to the attention brought to it by actor Sean Penn.

Similar chants were echoed at a demonstration of about 200 IDPs on October 12 in front of Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive’s offices, where the IHRC is based. At that action, called exactly nine months after the quake, protesters delivered a letter demanding respect for their Constitutionally guaranteed right to housing, a moratorium on forced expulsions and an end to the “masquerade aid” of non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

The IHRC, co-chaired by Clinton and Bellerive, is the body that decides how to spend money donated to rebuilding Haiti after the January 12, 2010, earthquake. This month’s meeting took place by teleconference, and journalists were invited to follow it by calling a US-based number. This immediately excluded any Haitian who could not afford the three-hour-long international call.

Some journalists crowded into the PM’s press room to listen to the meeting over a small pod-like speaker that looked like an oversized video game joystick. The teleconference’s sound quality was poor, static-filled and at times unintelligible. I was sitting closest to the speaker and straining to make out what was being said. All seven of the foreign white journalists in the room were seated around the conference table where the mini-speaker sat. Only three of approximately 20 Haitians present were seated around the table; the rest were in chairs along the walls of the room, out of earshot of the muffled voices deciding their country’s fate.

As if to underscore this irony, most of the conference was conducted in English. French statements were translated into English, but not vice versa. Nothing was presented in or translated into Kreyol, the national language, making it even more difficult for Haitians to know where the millions of dollars are going. The whole exercise felt amateurish. The conference call plodded along, casual and faltering. The IHRC board did not seem bothered by frequent interruptions and confusion, as though voting on the investment of millions of dollars was a banal hobby.

Reginald Boulos, an industrialist from one of Haiti's most powerful families and a staunch backer of the 2004 coup d'etat against President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, insisted that meetings should begin with a progress update on projects to ensure transparency and accountability, implying that even IHRC board members have little information on the whereabouts of previously approved money. His minor reservations and criticisms were later trumpeted by Clinton as "fierce debate and vigorous participation on the part of the Haitian members of the board."

The session took place during Haiti’s “back-to-school” week, and at the subsequent press conference Clinton claimed that 80 per cent of children who were in school before the earthquake are now back in class. It was unclear how he obtained that figure two days into the new term, and many schools didn’t resume class until the following week.

At its last meeting in August, the IHRC approved $94 million—a much needed investment— to prepare schools for the new academic year. Haiti ranks alongside Somalia and Eritrea as one of the worst places on the planet to be a schoolchild. Only half of Haiti’s children attended (mostly private) schools before January 12; the quake destroyed about 90 per cent of those schools. Only $26 million of the $94 million has been funded. Fewer kids are in class than ever before, and Haiti’s Ministry of Education says it still hasn’t seen any of the money allocated to schools.

The press release given to journalists after the IHRC meeting stated that UNICEF gave $100 million to “support the Haitian government and civil society in the fight against gender-based violence.” But during the meeting, there was no mention of the UNICEF money, only concerns that a $10.6 million UN population fund for women and girls’ “gender equality impact is not yet approved,” according to one of the board members.

It is unclear where UNICEF’s $100 million has gone. Merina Zuluanie of FAVILEK (Women Victims Stand Up), a grassroots organization that has been providing medical, legal, and moral support for women and children victims of sexual abuse and violence for over 15 years, said her group has not received any IHRC or UNICEF funding.

I spoke with Malia Villard Appolon, the coordinator of KOFAVIV (Commission of Women Victims for Victims), a coalition of raped women. KOFAVIV members have taken charge of their own security in camps—organizing escorts to protect women going to the toilets, handing out whistles to women at risk, raising awareness of women's vulnerability and organizing groups of men to take shifts patrolling their areas of residence. Before the earthquake, KOFAVIV had an office with a clinic, doctor, nurse, psychologist, laboratory and everything in place to accommodate rape victims. That was all destroyed on January 12 but since then, Malia says, “we have received nothing from UNICEF.”

None of this might may come as a surprise, nine months on, if you consider that Haiti’s main national hospital in downtown Port-au-Prince looks much like it did in the aftermath of the quake: hallways and pharmacies full of rubble; people waiting outside for treatment; operations being conducted in tents; the pediatrics unit damaged beyond repair. Dr. Claude Surena, the head of the Haitian Medical Association, and regional health director, said he has an 18-month strategy to get the health sector back on its feet, but he can’t move ahead with anything until donor funds arrive. According to the IHRC website, $17 million was approved and funded on August 17. So why is the place still in shambles?

“I think we’re making progress with the road reconstruction and agriculture sectors,” said Clinton, without going into specifics. The IHRC website says $464.8 million in road construction and rehabilitation projects were funded back in August for some 389 kilometres of road. The site's sections on “Job Creation” and “Institutional” assessment of public buildings, indicate $0 funding has been provided. "Housing" has received $13.4 million and "Education," $26 million.

As a recent study by Oxfam (or a visit to any market) shows, Clinton has taken no measures to lobby for a reversal of his administration’s trade policies—policies for which he took personal responsibility back in March—which decimated Haiti’s rice crops by flooding the market with heavily subsidized Arkansas rice.

The Haitian elite on the IHRC has funded itself (thanks to the Inter-American Development Bank and World Bank) with $24.5 million of $35 million over five years to “establish a partial credit guarantee fund for enterprise development,” according to the IHRC website. Meanwhile, the same IHRC board has released no funding for the $65 million earmarked over the next 12 months to “create 300,000 temporary jobs across the country, focusing on populations touched by the earthquake.” Neither has the project to “assess public buildings in the 10 departments”—$1 million over five months—been funded. A mere $13.4 million has been provided for housing, Haiti’s most critical need.

At the post-meeting press conference, when asked “what of the IHRC funding is being given to help people in the camps,” Clinton interrupted the journalist, dodged the question, and spoke of the need to implement a mortgage system. This exchange reveals why Clinton heads the IHRC. His priorities are to facilitate banks providing mortgages, the wealthy elite finding credit, and businesses having roads to bus in their workers and ship out their sweatshop assembled garments and electronics. Job-creation and housing for Haiti’s 1.5 million homeless people suffering in squalid camps will just have to wait.

Isabeau Doucet is an independent journalist, story-teller and artist based in Haiti. This article was originally published by Haiti Liberte.

Clinton in Port-au-Prince