The Dominion - 75

The "River Horse" Rides Again

Tim McSorley — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 06:30:29 +0000

Hippos keep on hippoing

For such a large and immovable animal, the hippopotamus plays a constantly shifting role in our popular imagination. A symbol of the god of virility in ancient Egypt, it was also brought to the Colosseum of Rome to fight gladiators. The hippo has inspired names for everything from children's games, to polkas and chess openings.

The fourth largest creature in the world, the hippopotamus naturally inhabits parts of north-eastern Africa, but populations extend west to Ghana and south into central and southern Africa. Once known to Greeks and Romans as the "Beast of the Nile," it no longer inhabits its historic habitat.

Weighing up to 4,000 pounds, the "river horse" is often considered to be a relative of the pig, but is actually part of the porpoise family.

While the hippo is reputed to have a temper, it is only territorial over small parts of the Nile, about 250 meters long. Most of a hippo's life will be spent in that tract of water, but in the evening it will wander as far as eight kilometres inland to graze on grass. Natural herbivores, hippos have only been known to eat meat in times of nutritional distress. And while they give off the appearance of lazy immobility, hippos can run at a speed of up to 30 kilometres per hour. Their girth also allows them to sink to the bottom of rivers and walk or run along the river bed.

Not very social animals, hippos will still live in pod groupings. Social attachment only seems to develop between mothers and daughters, if at all. At the same time, hippos will lay close together when on land, although the reason for this is unclear.

Like their disappearance from the shores of the Nile in Egypt, the hippopotamus' population in general is diminishing. The largest decrease has been in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where, since the 1970s, populations have dropped from some 29,000 to a maximum of 800. Worldwide, the population is placed at a maximum of 150,000 as of 2006, a decrease of up to 20 per cent from the last count in 1996, prompting the UN to place it on its vulnerable species list.

But there may be hope for re-population: Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar kept hippos at an estate east of Medellin in Colombia. When he died, the hippos were left on the estate, too difficult to seize. As of 2007, they have reproduced, from the existing four to 16. It is still unknown what impact they may have on the Colombian ecosystem.

Baby animals. Because a serious world needs serious cuteness.

Hippos

More hippos

Relative

Moira Peters — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 06:46:11 +0000

Heather Meek.Relative.layers adjusted.jpg

Issue #75

Tim McSorley — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 23:10:57 +0000

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Sinixt in Vancouver Courts

Tim McSorley — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 06:14:57 +0000

"Extinct" nation defends traditional territory

VANCOUVER—Throughout January and early February 2011, members of the Sinixt Nation were in Vancouver attending a BC Supreme Court case resulting from their three-week-long anti-logging blockade in October 2010. In this case, Sunshine Logging Ltd., as well as the Attorney-General and Ministry of Forests, are respondents to the Sinixt injunction that was obtained at that time (and which granted a temporary halt to logging operations).

The territory of the Sinixt is located in the south-east region of the province in the Slocan Valley area between the Columbia and Kootenay Rivers (including the Upper and Lower Arrow Lakes, for which the Sinixt are also named). They began the blockade in October 2010 to protect Perry Ridge, the site of proposed logging. According to the Sinixt, Perry Ridge is an important archeological site as well as some of the last remaining untouched wilderness in their territory.

The Sinixt are an interior Salish people that were declared extinct by the federal government in 1956, effectively eliminating Sinixt from any benefits under the Indian Act, including a land base (i.e., a reserve). Their traditional territory spans the US–Canada border, which was established in 1846. Many Sinixt gravitated towards the Colville Indian Reservation in Washington State (which had several different tribal groups concentrated there, including Okanagan and Nez Perce). Some 80 per cent of Sinixt territory, however, is north of the border.

The Sinixt territory has been devastated by a century of industrial mining, logging and dams. Fifteen dams have been built in the region, centred around the Columbia River Basin. In fact, just one year after Canada declared the Sinixt extinct, the US–Canada Columbia River Treaty was signed (in 1957), granting the US access to vast amounts of water and hydroelectric energy from this dam system.

The dams, which have destroyed salmon habitat (a primary food source for the Columbia River peoples), are used to supply power to numerous metal smelters, including aluminum, zinc, and lead. Corporations such as Cominco (now owned by Teck Resources Ltd.) have dumped millions of tons of toxic pollutants into the Columbia River.

For the past 25 years, members of the Sinixt Nation have campaigned for recognition of their sovereignty and in defence of their land. Some also demand that the federal government re-establish the Arrow Lakes Indian Band and reserve.

Since 1989, the Sinixt have maintained a presence at Vallican along the Slocan River. The camp was established to protect burial grounds and archeological sites unearthed by road construction in 1987. At that time, the Ministry of Highways (which builds the roads and bridges for logging companies) made no effort to contact any Sinixt and instead deposited skeletal remains and archeological objects into museums.

In 1997, the Sinixt, along with local residents and environmentalists, blocked road construction on Perry Ridge. As many as 300 people participated. In 2000, non-Native residents of the area protested clear-cut logging by blockading the logging road. Most recently, on October 26, 2010, the Sinixt Nation asserted their sovereignty by initiating the Sinixt Slhu7kin' (Perry Ridge) Protection Camp on their ancestral lands.

In addition to government bureaucracy and intransigence, the Sinixt also face obstacles from neighbouring Indian Act band councils, including those of the Okanagon National Alliance and the Lower Kootenay Band, both of which claim Sinixt land as part of their traditional territories. In Washington state, the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation has asserted itself as the sole representative of Sinixt in both the US and Canada.

Hearings into the case concluded on February 4, and, according to the Nelson Star, a decision could be rendered within the month. For updates, visit http://mediacoop.ca.

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

Gord Hill is from the Kwakwaka'wakw Nation and has been active in Indigenous and anti-capitalist movements for many years, including writing and graphic arts under the pseudonym Zig Zag.

Sinixt in court

Grounds for Disruption

Moira Peters — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 06:58:17 +0000

Tent cities evolve to bring politics out of—and permanence into—the housing debate

VANCOUVER—On the anniversary of the 2010 Olympics, a second tent city will disrupt Vancouver. Like the Olympic Tent Village that occupied 58 West Hastings in the Downtown East Side one year ago, this incarnation may only last a few weeks. However, discussions have been initiated within Vancouver Action (VANACT), the primary group organizing the tent city, about evolving this tent city into a more permanent project, mirroring such tent cities as those in and around Seattle, Washington State.

"[Last year] we thought it would last a week, but by the end of the week there was a community meeting where individuals decided to stay until people got housing,” said Tristan Markle of VANACT. Markle was involved in last year’s tent village, and hopes to carry those lessons into this year’s project.

“Learning from that experience, we have to be prepared and anticipate that the people who need a liberated space might want to stay as long as necessary,” he said. Those who stayed and squatted 58 West Hastings eventually helped secure low-income housing for 35 residents of Olympic Tent Village.

When it was occupied one year ago, 58 West Hastings was an empty lot that the Vancouver Olympic Committee (VANOC) had leased from condo developer Concord Pacific with the intention of using the space for Olympics-related parking. This year’s tent village is expected to occupy a space in the now desolate and bankrupt Olympic Village, which has come to symbolize both the misplaced financial extravagance of the Games, and the city’s failure to follow through with its Olympic promise of more low-income homes.

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Across the border in Seattle, one finds a history of tent cities that have survived in various forms for over a decade. In the late 1990s, Tent City 1, and then Tent City 2, were created illegally to address the growing numbers of homeless people in the King County region of Washington State. Both were opposed by local government and eventually shut down, but the dire need for such an establishment had been made visible.

Tent City 3 was created in 2000, but it was not until March of 2002 that its legality was made clear following a court ordered “Consent Degree” between the organizers and the city attorney. This “Consent Degree” established basic rules and a system of temporary locations on offered private land. Tent City 3 continues to provide shelter for approximately 100 people.

Partly in response to some of the limitations of this legal yet controlled encampment, Tent City 4 was created in May of 2004, with the intent of defying the “Consent Decree” by occupying public spaces and using public resources. It eventually transitioned from using public spaces into a system of staying on properties owned by faith-based organizations, such as parking lots. This project also continues to operate, with a population fluctuating between 50 to 100 people.

More recently, a separate project to provide shelter for the growing numbers of homeless people was created in the University District of Seattle. It was coined “Nickelsville” in response to then-Mayor Greg Nickel’s use of police to clear out homeless encampments, and specifically an edict issued by the mayor on April 4, 2008, that outlawed setting up shelter on city property such as overpasses, greenways and parks. The original location of Nickelsville was at 7115 West Marginal Way SW in Seattle, and was built in the early morning of September 22, 2008. This encampment only lasted four days, until police entered, arresting 23 people and removing the installed shelters.

Nickelsville stumbled through a few more locations before it found a more stable home in the private parking lot of the University Christian Church in the University District, a space made more secure due in part to great support by the local faith-based communities. This began a string of temporary locations for Nickelsville, sometimes moving to areas of King County outside Seattle.

Nickelsville built a list of rules that are largely self-enforced. No drugs, alcohol or criminal activity is tolerated within the tent city; any offenders risk immediate eviction. The entry point to the tent city is carefully monitored with an official check-in table. Many tenants take on roles such as security and “moving boss” to help ensure respect for the rules and oversee getting everyone packed between locations.

By August 2010, Nickelsville was back in the space it had occupied nearly two years prior, at the University Congregational United Church of Christ. While some locals were happy to have the tent city back, others recalled increased break-ins and other associated criminal activity. Church groups intended to mitigate the motivations for increased local crime by helping provide Nickelsville tenants with access to bathrooms, showers and other facilities. Nevertheless, wherever the tent city went, there was often local resistance to Nickelsville sharing the neighbourhood. The neighbourhood agitation, combined with a growing need for shelter, contributed to the push by organizers to re-envision Nickelsville as a more stable project with a permanent location.

Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn formed a citizen review panel in October 2010 to explore solutions to the growing problem of homelessness. It recommended the creation of a permanent tent city location. Such an initiative has been strongly supported by the organizers and tenants of Nickelsville, and is listed as a demand in a recent declaration endorsed by several of the organizations deeply involved with the tent city. Nickelsville presently occupies an old Lake City Fire Station, north of the University District—a location that provides warmth during the winter months. While this site continues to provide shelter for approximately 100 people, the community hopes a permanent location could accommodate up to 1,000 tenants.

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The size of Nickelsville, and its long history, can be attributed to both Seattle’s large homeless population and also a well-organized network of citizen support.

A homelessness count performed in Seattle in the early hours of January 28, 2011, found 1,753 people in Seattle and 2,442 people in the greater King County area on the streets between 2:00 am and 5:00 am, while more than 6,000 others took advantage of available emergency shelters and other accommodation. Currently, Seattle has nearly 2,000 shelter beds and more than 3,000 in the King County region in total.

In contrast, Vancouver’s 2010 count found 811 people on the street and an additional 765 in shelters. Both Seattle and Vancouver are faced with dramatically increasing rates of homelessness.

“One study shows Vancouver to be the most unaffordable city in the world,” said Markle. “And one year after the Olympics, homelessness has tripled.”

Similar stories are told in Seattle. On January 10, 2011, at a community meeting on homelessness, Ruth Blaw, director of the Orion youth shelter, which is run under the umbrella organization Youthcare, explained that the organization had seen the use of its services double in the past 18 months, and they are no longer able to provide beds to meet demand.

The meeting was part of the University District Conversation on Homelessness, which convenes monthly at a local church or faith-based community center. Updates are provided on the most recent political news affecting homeless individuals, and representatives from local churches, synagogues, mosques and other groups meet to help form a unified face in tackling ongoing issues around homelessness.

The tent cities in King County have been able to depend on the support of such groups for logistics. The groups also play a crucial role in pushing back against government reluctance to make serious commitments. In 2007, under the pressure of these groups, the state government introduced Bill HB 2244, which prevented city governments from stopping churches from hosting tent cities, or setting a time limit of less than 90 days on the stay of individuals within the encampments.

A younger initiative, Vancouver’s tent city movement has involvement from its own faith-based community. One of the major support pillars of the Olympic Tent Village was Streams of Justice, a Christian social justice movement.

Dave Diewert of Streams of Justice offered a lucid description of the social mechanics behind the Olympic Tent Village in the second edition of Village Voice, the newsletter of the tent city. He explained that the political component of the Olympic tent village was a kind of “eruption,” a disruption of the status quo. This eruption “crosses lines of legality and illegality of who owns this space and who occupies this space...eruptions of those structures become opportunities to say something strong. The point is for this action to bring into light in a powerful way...the reality of homelessness, gentrification, and the criminalization of poverty.”

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Markle sees the upcoming tent city as a similar eruption, explaining that one of its most direct intentions is “to bring the issues out into the open, rather than having them brushed under the carpet or hidden out of sight, so that people are forced to confront the issues.”

A similar phenomena was taking place in the early tent cities of Seattle, with illegal occupations in response to an acute housing crisis. However, Seattle’s tent cit[ies] gradually evolved, accruing stability. Nickelsville’s goal of providing shelter for 1,000 people demonstrates how the focus has shifted to providing a steady base for a many homeless people as possible.

The example of Nickelsville reveals an inverse relationship between permanence and visibility with respect to the issue of homelessness: as permanent shelter needs are met, political visibility goes down.

On the one end, tent cities that mark a large public event—such as the Olympic Tent Village and the tent city created in Allen Gardens during the G20 summit in Toronto, which lasted for just one night—act, according to Markle, as “political manifestation[s] that bring the politics [of homelessness] into the open.”

In the middle, more permanent establishments such as Tent City 1 and Tent City 2 in Seattle, while being illegal “eruptions,” also provide longer-term shelter. The state sanctions, or at least tolerates, tent cities that shift from one site to another approximately every three months, but their continual change of location, and all of the associated hurdles, help maintain public awareness of the ongoing need for housing solutions.

At the other end of the spectrum, tent cities with a permanent location and properly established facilities begin to blur the line between quasi-legal occupations and traditional homeless shelters. As Markle explained, forcing people into small shelters or scattered spaces throughout a city means that the problem of homelessness “doesn’t appear to be a political issue.” Similarly, once a tent city is located in a more permanent location, often in a low-income area far from an urban centre, it is effectively “out of sight and out of mind” for many city dwellers. However, Markle is clear to point out that “shelters are [important] emergency stop gap measures until real housing [can be acquired].”

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The eruptive tent city is also “an affirmation of community” which may carry though to later incarnations, according to Diewert. The establishment of a tent city represents a refusal of citizens to “sit around and wait for the state, nor to give it opportunities to act and set the framework within which...action can take place, but rather for the community to say ‘we can do this’ and to take initiative.”

This perspective is echoed in the opinions of others. “The main point of a tent city is an exercise in self sustainability, self-organization, and community-building,” said Yifan Li of VANACT, who also helped build last year’s Olympic Tent Village. In a similar vein, Markle said the “hope is that the tent city is a solidarity action between folks who live in the inner city and allies city-wide.”

The strength of this solidarity will perhaps dictate the resilience and longevity of Vancouver’s newest tent city.

“Once a space is liberated...people will take advantage of that liberated space and create a community there, but one has to be prepared to support it as long as possible,” said Markle.

Whether Vancouver's upcoming tent city is the starting point of such a venture will depend on what unfolds in the ensuing weeks.

Zander Winther is a recent graduate of the Philosophy MA program at the University of Waterloo, and currently feels at home in both Vancouver and Seattle.

Tent City Crowd

Tent City Tents

Into the Fire

Martin Lukacs — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 06:18:32 +0000

Deportation ends Salvadoran family's long wait for asylum in Canada

MONTREAL—Ever since Canada deported her family to El Salvador in December 2010, Jessica Vides says she fears for her life—and the lives of her young children.

“I am afraid to leave the house. The children can't go to school,” said the mother of three, two of whom are Canadian citizens, in a telephone interview from San Salvador, El Salvador's capital.

She and her husband, Eduardo Vides, fled their native country of El Salvador five years ago, she said, due to death threats from one of the country's notorious street gangs. Now that the family is back in San Salvador, she says the death threats have returned with a vengeance.

Two weeks after they were deported, Jessica Vides said the family received a menacing visit from men they suspect are gang members, who threatened to kill them if they failed to pay thousands of dollars.

“We all hid in a room at the back of the house,” she told The Dominion.

Such threats are exactly why she says the family left their home in San Salvador in the first place, and sought refuge in Canada.

But the peaceful refuge they’d dreamed of turned into a nightmare five years after they settled in Montreal. The family’s plight in the hands of Canadian immigration authorities raises serious concerns about Canada’s refugee policy. The Vides family accuses authorities of injuring their child while she clung to her dad as he was being carted off to an immigrant detention centre.

Eduardo Vides’s difficulties began when, as a passerby, he randomly witnessed the assassination of a woman on the street in San Salvador five years ago. Men he suspected were gang members soon started following him, he said in an interview with The Dominion.

Then the death threats started. He was warned that if he did not pay thousands of dollars, his whole family would be killed.

“I didn’t have the money,” he said. And so the family fled, escaping to Guatemala, and from there, to several US cities. In Buffalo, New York, with the help of a nonprofit group called Vive el Casa, they came to Canada as refugee claimants, according to Jessica Vides.

When they arrived in Canada, their first-born child, Eduarda, was just one year old. While awaiting a final decision on their asylum claim and subsequent judicial review of the decision, years passed. While they waited, Jessica and her husband established a home on Crevier Street in Montreal's Ville St. Laurent neighbourhood, where they had two more children: Andrea, now aged five, and Gustavo, now aged two. Originally trained as a pilot, Eduardo Vides found industrial maintenance work through an agency.

But their asylum claim was eventually rejected. Canada has in the past accepted Salvadoran refugees fleeing gang violence. However, given that asylum claims are heard before a single member of the Immigration and Refugee Board, it is, to some extent, the “luck of the draw,” according to Janet Dench, the executive director of the Canadian Council for Refugees (CCR).

The Vides family went to Federal Court for a judicial review, but after a long wait, they learned that the verdict on that too was negative.

At a November 23, 2010, meeting at Citizenship and Immigration Canada's offices in downtown Montreal, Eduardo Vides was informed that the family was slated to be deported three weeks later. Vides said he pleaded at the meeting for the government to allow the family to stay until his daughter had completed her school year. Eduarda Vides, who is now seven years old, was enrolled as a first-grade student at Ville St. Laurent's Bois Franc-Aquarelle elementary school, and her dad had been working for more than a year at job repairing boilers, when the government ordered the family's deportation.

According to Vides, they responded by arresting him on the spot.

Three weeks later, in an interview with The Dominion, it was still difficult for Eduardo Vides to speak about the events of that fateful day. The slim man with gentle mannerisms spoke with a shaky voice about how his seven-year-old daughter, who was present at the meeting and witnessed the emotional exchange between her father and the Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) agents, had thrown her arms around him. He recalled with a pained expression, “She hugged me, [and] I hugged her back.”

According to Vides, two male immigration agents grabbed him—from either side, an officer clamped onto his arms.

A third, female, officer grabbed the frightened first-grader. The girl “held on hard with her arms,” her father recounted.

Vides claims that the female officer injured his daughter as she wrestled the seven-year-old girl off of him. She had “wounds all over her back, stomach, and also scars on her leg,” he said. “She couldn't walk.”

Meanwhile, Canadian immigration agents hauled Eduardo Vides off to the CBSA's Laval detention center.

Reached by telephone for comment, Dominique McNealy, a CBSA agent at the centre, clarified that immigrants are detained primarily because authorities are not sure of the immigrant's identity, or in cases in which the immigrant poses a “flight risk” or a menace to Canada. However, he would not comment on why the authorities decided to incarcerate Vides, who had declared his identity to the authorities, and, as an employed worker concerned with the continuation of his daughter's schooling, seemed to pose little risk of either flight or danger to the public.

Immigration attorney Jared Will observed in a telephone interview that, “Immigration officers have a great amount of power over people's lives. Yet there’s no accountability process that is comparable to even something police officers have.”

While Will noted that it is possible to file complaints against immigration officers, “In terms of holding them accountable, there’s no process that has any teeth.”

Locked up in the immigrant prison in Laval, Eduardo Vides took matters into his own hands. He began a hunger strike in protest of his family’s treatment.

CBSA put him in his own private “room” (like the term “prisoner,” the word “cell” is avoided in the parlance of the immigrant detention system), isolating him from the general population.

Meanwhile, Jessica Vides was desperately seeking medical treatment for her eldest daughter, who she said had still not recovered from the injuries suffered in the hands of the immigration officer three weeks prior. Upon the advice of a local nonprofit, she brought Eduarda to Montreal’s principal francophone children’s hospital, St. Justine. However, staff there refused to examine the girl upon hearing that her injuries had stemmed from a confrontation with immigration authorities, according to Eduarda’s parents.

The St. Justine ombudsperson failed to respond to a request for comment for this article.

In a telephone interview on December 13, Jessica Vides said that the pain in the seven-year-old's stomach had not improved, and she also had a fever.

When The Dominion called Jessica Vides two days later, the mother-of-three’s number had been disconnected.

On December 15, the day the government had ordered that the family be deported, the Vides’s first grader still had a fever and pain in her stomach, according to her mother. Local solidarity activists had urged her to bring the child to a sympathetic Montreal doctor. But the family’s lawyer, Stephane Dulude, told Jessica Vides to go instead to the airport, as ordered by CBSA. Upon this advice, Jessica arrived at the airport with her three children, and presented herself to the immigration authorities. She appealed on her daughter's behalf for medical attention.

Reached by telephone, CBSA spokesperson Stephane Malepart said that, “we make sure that everybody's in good health to travel. If that person has to go to the hospital before travelling, we'll then we take them to the hospital and that's it.”

However, Jessica Vides told The Dominion that the immigration agent she appealed to responded by asking whether the girl was a Canadian citizen. Vides says she was told, “If not, it doesn’t matter. She has to leave.” The seven-year-old was thus refused treatment again. And then she, her little brother and sister (both Canadian citizens), and their mom, were all immediately deported.

The Vides family’s deportation was executed on day 22 of Eduardo's hunger strike.

Two days later, The Dominion, accompanied by Sarita Ahooja, an organizer with No One Is Illegal and Solidarity Across Borders, visited Eduardo in the Laval detention centre.

An activist with long experience working with immigrants in detention, Ahooja expressed surprise when the CBSA guards led us to a private office-style room equipped with office chairs, a desk, and a computer to wait for Eduardo Vides. (She pointed out the usual meeting room as we exited: a sparse common room with plastic chairs.)

Ahooja commented that she had never seen such measures taken in the Laval detention centre. Eduardo was being kept in isolation “to avoid the possibility that his resolve would spread and inspire others to defy an unjust and repressive system,” she later explained in an email to The Dominion, adding that this was not just her analysis but also Eduardo Vides’s.

When asked about CBSA’s response to the hunger strike, Malepart said the agency takes such actions very “seriously.” In fact, they had even put off Vides’s deportation, originally scheduled for December 15.

But upon hearing about his wife and kids’ deportation, the Salvadoran man broke his hunger strike. He wished to be with his family, even despite the threats on his life in El Salvador, he explained.

Late on the afternoon of the following Friday, CBSA informed him that he would be deported very late that Sunday night—a timing Vides found “suspicious,” given that it left very little time for legal recourse.

In the 2008–2009 fiscal year, the last year for which figures are available on the CBSA’s website, 13,249 people were deported from Canada—an increase of well over 50 per cent since 1999. Of those deported, 9,672 were, like the Vides family, asylum seekers whose claims had been turned down by the Canadian government. And, since last summer’s passage of a new refugee reform bill, this trend seems to be on the rise, as the government shifts ever greater resources into what CBSA euphemistically refers to as “removals.”

Bill C-11, which will go into effect over the next year, is, amongst other things, supposed to eliminate the excessively long delays that families like the Videses have faced in waiting for a final decision on their asylum claims. “It was a fact that many people had been waiting for years” for final decisions on their refugee claims, according to Dench. This problem has been made worse in recent years by the federal Conservatives’ failure to fill dozens of vacancies on the Immigration and Refugee Board.

Moreover, the lack of a refugee appeals process in the current system means that asylum seekers whose claims are rejected are forced to go through a lengthy judicial review by the Federal Court. These delays have serious consequences for asylum seekers, making it very likely that families like the Videses will settle in Canada over the course of the excessive waits they are forced to undergo, and then face undue hardships if their refugee claims are turned down and they are forced to leave the country.

Bill C-11 is supposed to address these problems by shortening the timelines for asylum decisions, and creating a new refugee appeals process that will expedite the processing of asylum seekers whose claims are rejected. According to the Canadian government’s backgrounder on the bill, the new system also entails “hiring more officers to expedite removals.”

Groups like the CCR assess the new legislation as a positive development overall, although they express concerns that the new timelines may not allow sufficient time for all asylum seekers to prepare claims, and they are critical of the way the new system creates a discriminatory two-tier system based on asylum seekers’ country of origin. As well, given that many families like the Videses have already built lives for themselves in Canada due to the excessive delays of the old system, the new emphasis on “removals” raises serious concerns.

Already, there seem to be changes in how immigration authorities are dealing with outstanding deportation orders, according to Will. “There are situations where before they would have waited, and now they’re just plowing ahead as quickly as possible,” the Montreal-based immigration lawyer observed. “There’s definitely been a very obvious hardening in carrying out deportations in situations in which there may have been more leeway in the recent past,” he added.

As the country lurches from the old dysfunctional system in which thousands of asylum seekers spent years waiting for a decision, to a renewed emphasis on deportations, one can only guess how many families will suffer the consequences.

Back in San Salvador, Jessica Vides is worried about how her family will survive. If they pay the money to the gangs, “how will we feed the kids?” she asked, adding that with the threats to their lives, “Eduardo can’t go to work.” The family cannot possibly stay in El Salvador, she said.

More than a month after his family’s deportation, the young father who had defied CBSA with his hunger strike sounded tired, and sad.

“I don’t know what we’re going to do here right now. We’re in a very hard situation,” he said.

The family yearns to return home—to Canada.

Brought to Canada when she was just one year old, it is the only country Eduarda Vida has ever known. “She tells me that she misses her country,” Jessica Vides told The Dominion. The seven-year-old girl’s mom says she corrects her daughter’s “mistake.” For as CBSA has made painfully clear to both of Eduarda’s parents, Canada is not their country.

But for the girl who was abruptly yanked out of her first grade year at Montreal’s Bois Franc-Aquarelle elementary school in December, this is no easy lesson.

“I miss my friends,” the seven-year old told The Dominion mournfully, in a telephone from San Salvador more than a month after her family’s deportation. She also misses the snow, and her school, she said.

“I don’t have school here,” she added, explaining, “we can’t leave the house.”

Isabel Macdonald is a Montreal-based journalist and media scholar who has written for The Nation, The Guardian and The Toronto Star, amongst other publications.

Canada cuts refugees loose

February in Review, Part 1

Tim McSorley — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 10:45:33 +0000

Streets and squares taken back, G20 cops given flack

Two thousand people marched through Vancouver's Downtown East Side in the 20th annual Women's Memorial March. The annual Valentine's Day march commemorates the 3,000 women who have gone missing or been murdered in Canada since the 1970s. Hundreds more people took part in solidarity marches across the country, including in Montreal and Ottawa.

Vancouver police warned the public about Martin Tremblay and released a photo of the man, who was sentenced to 11 months in prison on drug charges. Tremblay was convicted in 2003 of five counts of sexual assault, and was released less than a year later. It is widely believed that he is responsible for the sexual assault and murder of at least two Aboriginal teenage girls, leading to rallies in support of keeping him in jail. Several young girls and neighbourhood residents of Vancouver's Downtown East Side have publicly come forth, denouncing Tremblay for drugging and sexually assaulting them since his previous release from jail.

Nova Scotia's NDP government announced it would cut its school board costs by two per cent and university funding by four per cent, and asked hospital administrators to work through a planning exercise to cut health care costs.

Students took the streets of Halifax, Wolfville and Pointe de l'Église to protest rising tuition fees in Nova Scotia. The average student debt after graduating from an undergraduate program in the province is $31,000.

Of the 73 recommended changes to the Northwest Territories' (NWT) Child and Family Services Act to come out of public hearings, only 22 were accepted by the NWT Health and Social Services Department. Most of the suggested changes concerned the child protection system, and included creating child and family services committees in every community, better addictions services for parents and assisting extended family in keeping children at home.

A BC addictions counselor criticized the Yukon government's addictions services for young people as having no intensive or long-term programs.

In a rally in support of affordable housing in Vancouver, 150 people snake-marched from the site of last year's Olympic Tent Village to last year's unprofitable Olympic Athletes Village, crashing an Olympics anniversary celebration. The rally was in solidarity with the Ten Sites Campaign, a call to the City of Vancouver to identify 10 affordable housing sites before the next municipal election, and in support of Vancouver's upcoming tent village.

The 2010 Olympic Winter Games had negative effects on young people in Vancouver, according to an ongoing study by a Carleton University researcher. Her findings report that marginalized youth are further pushed to away from safe and supportive environments by police and host cities, both before and during Olympic Games.

Activists stormed a budget meeting at Toronto City Hall to protest proposed cuts to social services and community programs. Two people were arrested. Mayor Rob Ford's brother was caught on tape telling protesters to "get a job."

Thousands marched in Hamilton in solidarity with the 900 steelworkers who have been locked out by US Steel, and 9,000 pensioners whose incomes are in jeopardy.

A medical audit into the health impact of silica dust at the Iron Ore Company of Canada facilities in western Labrador was delayed after union leaders voiced concerns about a possible conflict of interest for the company selected to do the study. The company provides employee assistance program services to Wabush Mines.

The Saskatchewan College of Physicians and Surgeons revised its guidelines to require doctors who are anti-abortion to inform their patients of their position from the outset, and provide a referral to another physician.

The Winnipeg Regional Health Authority refused to release the internal review of the death of Brian Sinclair, a homeless man who died after waiting 34 hours for care in a hospital emergency room. Sinclair's family was refused access to hospital videotapes of the death.

New Brunswick's Finance Minister Blaine Higgs announced his government is considering a five per cent salary cut for civil servants.

Quebec government lawyers went on strike, demanding a 40 per cent pay increase. Quebec prosecutors' salaries top out at $102,000 per year, making them the lowest paid in Canada.

Stephen Harper urged Barack Obama to approve a $7 billion pipeline which would run from Hardisty, Alberta to the Gulf Coast of Texas, and which would double the amount of tar sands crude exported to refineries in the United States.

The Canadian Diabetes Association predicted that one in four Manitobans will be living with either diabetes or prediabetes by 2020.

Saskatchewan's Justice Ministry announced that charges against SaskEnergy will not be pursued in relation to a gas explosion that killed two men in Nipawin in 2008. Charges will go ahead against the backhoe driver who pierced a gas line that caused the explosion.

Shell Canada is under investigation after workers in Peace River found an oil tank venting sour gas, after residents 40 kilometres northeast of the town reported smelling rotten egg.

Renowned anti-nuclear activist and physician Dr. Helen Caldicott was banned from Port Hope after advocating the evacuation of the citizens due to radioactive waste.

The Forest Practices Board called on foresters and land managers to get "creative" about conserving exceptional trees after logging company Teal-Jones cut down trees in Port Renfrew, BC, which were between 500 and 1,000 years old.

The Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) denied Mohamed Harkat's request to attend a dinner held in his honour at a Montreal conference on national security, because it would violate his condition of non-association. Harkat has spent eight years fighting deportation based on secret accusations.

A federal study revealed that the CBSA spent more than $45 million on jailing refugees in 2008-09.

In a bid to serve his sentence in Canada, Omar Khadr sent a prisoner transfer application to the Canadian government.

The Quebec National Assembly voted unanimously to ban the kirpan, an unsharpened ceremonial dagger worn by Sikhs, from the Assembly. In January 2011, four Sikhs were turned away from the provincial legislature because they were wearing kirpans.

The lawyer for Montreal police officer Jean-loup Lapointe, who shot and killed unarmed teenager Fredy Villanueva in 2008, argued that racial profiling, and how police killings are investigated, should not be considered in the ongoing inquest into the young man's death.

A Prince Edward Island RCMP officer received a suspended sentence and remains on desk duty after being charged with assault for the second time. The RCMP's internal investigation continues, but the results, as per RCMP policy, will not be released to the public.

An Edmonton police officer shot and killed a 17-year-old in a restaurant parking lot when investigating an armed robbery. The victim allegedly ran at the officer with a bat and knife. The officer fired three times.

A federal court stayed Montreal's Victor Morales' deportation order. Morales has lived in Montreal for 32 years, is the father of three Canadian kids and is the primary caregiver for his terminally ill Canadian mother.

Members of the Toronto Police Board were shocked to find out the Toronto Police Department (TPD) unilaterally decided to keep Long Range Acoustical Devices, commonly known as sounds cannons, which were acquired for use during the June 2010 G20 meetings. Board members expected that Board approval would be needed for the police department to keep the controversial machines.

Toronto Police Constable Babak Andalib-Goortani was charged with assault for a second time in relation to his conduct during the G20 protests. Originally charged in December for assaulting Adam Nobody, he is now accused of assaulting a Toronto blogger.

The two lawyers for Montrealer Natalie Gray, who was shot twice with rubber bullets at the G20 protests leaving considerable bruising on her elbow and sternum, called for a criminal inquiry into her arrest. Gray's charges were dropped after the arrest. Photographic evidence has identified three officers involved in her arrest, but the TPD has not revealed their names.

Hosni Mubarak resigned as president of Egypt after 18 straight days of protest, during which two million Egyptians took to the streets across the country in opposition to Mubarak's 30-year dictatorship. Mubarak was replaced by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces. While the military called for all protests to end and for Tahrir Square—the epicentre of the protests—to be cleared, many protesters vowed to continue until Mubarak's entire cabinet is removed and the 30-year-old emergency measures laws used by Muabarak to stay in power are rescinded.

The impact of Mubarak's resignation reverberated across the Middle East and North Africa, with thousands taking to the streets in Yemen , Algeria, Bahrain and Iran, calling for open and democratic elections.

Thousands of people in Canada held rallies across the country in support of the Egyptian pro-democracy movement in the lead-up to Mubarak's resignation and also participated in celebrations following his ouster.

World food prices hit an all time high in January 2011. The Food and Agriculture Organization Food Price Index hit 231, the highest since the previous peak of 224.1 in June 2008. Extreme weather conditions, including droughts and heavy rains, are blamed for causing supply shortages and the rise in prices. Nine hundred twenty-five million people around the world are either malnourished or underfed—55 million more people than in 2008. Food shortages are also blamed for civil unrest in places such as Tunisia and Egypt.

Prince Edward Island's potato exports grew 90 per cent this year, due to a drought in Russia and poor weather conditions in Idaho.

Former Haitian president Jean Bertrand Aristide was granted a diplomatic passport by the Haitian government, allowing him to return to the country at any time, although he has not said when he plans on returning. Aristide has been in exile in South Africa since he was ousted in 2004 through a coup allegedly organized by the United States, France and Canada.

Fourteen Kentuckians occupied the state governor's office for four days in protest of mountain top removal mining. Upon leaving the office, they joined more than 1,000 protesters outside for the annual "I Love Mountains" march. Author Wendell Berry took part in the occupation. "We came because the land, its forests, and its streams are being destroyed by the surface mining of coal, because the people are suffering intolerable harms to their homes, their health, and their communities," he said.

Memorial march for missing and murdered women

Canadians rally for Egypt

You've Got Bail! (But No Freedom)

Moira Peters — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 13:11:46 +0000

Ryan Rainville, and the letter of G20 law

TORONTO—The men’s shelter doesn’t look like a prison. There are no bars on the windows, no sign announcing the building’s institutional status. The walls are decorated with posters about Indigenous pride and occasionally the air is tinged with the sweet smell of burning sage.

For Ryan Rainville however, it is a prison. He is not allowed to leave the shelter except to see his lawyer and for occasional group activities. There is a long list of people—some of whom he has never met—whom the courts have ordered him not to contact. Because of these conditions he can’t work or go to school.

"I went from being able to actually work and come up with my own money to not being able to work...It's driving me nuts that I can't go out there and look for work because I want to help my mom, and her partner," said Rainville, whose mother was recently diagnosed with cancer. "That poor guy is working double shifts so that he can keep up with the [medical] bills."

Rainville is charged with crimes related to alleged participation in the Black Bloc during the G20 protests. He was arrested August 5, 2010. His original bail was denied and he spent three months in pre-trial detention in prisons in the Toronto area before finally being granted bail on November 9, 2010.

During the G20 protests in Toronto in June 2010, more than 1,100 people were arrested in the largest mass arrest in Canadian history. Many more were detained or trapped in the rainy streets for hours between lines of riot police using a tactic called "kettling."

The now-infamous Public Works Protection Act, a Second World War-era law that was secretly re-enacted by the province—and which the Ontario Ombudsman called "illegal" and "likely unconstitutional" in a report released in December 2010—was used for arrests across a broad swath of downtown Toronto, even though the act was supposed to apply to the area inside the G20 security fence. In a video posted on YouTube, police officers were quoted as saying, "This ain't Canada right now; you're in G20 land." Only one man—environmental justice activist Dave Vasey—was formally charged under the Public Works Protection Act, but when he arrived at his court date, he found the charges had been "lost."

Many who were released from the temporary detention centre on Eastern Avenue allege beatings by police, threats of rape, strip searches of young women by male officers and widespread denial of the right to call a lawyer after arrest. Due cause was thin on the ground, and in many cases, passers-by were arrested. A Toronto Transit Commission worker in full uniform was arrested while walking between job sites. By the time of the first mass court date for G20 defendants in August 2010, only 300 people faced charges, 100 of which were dropped that day at the courthouse for lack of evidence, and 100 more which were dropped October 14, 2010.

Since the G20, police have engaged in what critics are calling a witchhunt against activists, arresting 11 from Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP) during a small demonstration outside Liberal Party headquarters in downtown Toronto. Authorities appear to be targeting particular kinds of activists on thin pretenses. Indigenous activist Jaroslava Avila was arrested after speaking at a health-related event on September 29, 2010, at the University of Toronto, only to have charges dropped for lack of evidence on December 20, 2010, after her name was released to the press and she had spent months living with restrictive bail conditions.

Rainville, 23, is active in Indigenous and working-class organizing. Friends describe him as a tireless activist, always ready with a joke or an insightful observation. He is of Cree background, but notes that he appears White, and therefore escapes the worst racial prejudice.

He is fluent in Spanish—his stepfather is from El Salvador and he taught himself the language while spending time in the country. Self-educated, Rainville is reading through a huge stack of books—political literature, texts on Indigenous land claims and Foucault’s Discipline and Punish. He was working on his high school diploma through an academic upgrading course at George Brown before he was forced to drop out due to post-G20 legal harassment. Prior to his current bail conditions, he supported himself through work as a factory laborer and as a baker.

Despite having no criminal record, Rainville was initially denied bail, and had to wait in jail for three months until his appeal was heard. Most other G20 defendants in this situation were released within days or weeks. Rainville attributes this disparity in treatment to poverty.

“My father is dirt-poor and works for just above minimum wage as a truck driver, and my mother lives in the US right now, and is also dirt-poor,” he said. “She was working in a factory for $7.25 per hour until she contracted breast cancer, for which she just had surgery today.”

Because of economic insecurity, he explained, his family has been forced to disperse from Toronto. This makes it difficult to get bail, as he would be unable to live with family if released. Neither can his family post up large amounts of money, nor purchase a plane ticket to Toronto to testify in court on his behalf. Each of these elements of a disadvantaged economic situation work against someone going through the court system.

“If you have a lot of money you are going to get more justice in this system,“ said lawyer Davin Charney, who is familiar with Rainville's case and is defending other G20 arrestees. “This doesn’t apply just to Ryan; this applies to people of the working class and impoverished people.” Charney said many people in economic difficulty find it hard to access bail, not only because they have trouble raising the large sums of money required, but also because they have trouble finding someone who will be respected by the court, and who has space to put them up if the court requires a residential surety—someone who can vouch for them. Homeless people, for example, do not have an address—a requirement to be granted bail.

Gary McCullough, who was arrested for driving near the G20 zone with most of his possessions in his car, experienced the judicial disadvantage of poverty that Charney cited. According to the Toronto Star, McCullogh was kept in prison with minimal health care and suffered a jailhouse beating, exacerbating his mental illness. He was initially denied bail because his elderly parents are unable to supervise him. He was only released December 6, 2010.

“People charged with what would be essentially the same crime are being treated very differently [than non-G20 related offenders],” said Charney. “For example, in my practice when people are charged with mischief it’s seen as a less serious offence, but for some reason because of the context of the G20 there is all this hysteria…They are pulling officers who would normally be on the homicide squad, or the sexual assault squad, and putting them to investigate these ‘mischief makers,’ which I find really upsetting. It’s a political decision on the part of the police.”

Byron Sonne, charged with computer crimes, has been incarcerated without bail since his arrest on June 22, 2010, before the G20 even started.

Activist Alex Hundert was preemptively arrested in the early morning on June 26, 2010, released on bail, then re-arrested. Police interpreted his speaking with several professors at an indoor panel at Ryerson University on September 17, 2010, as violating a bail condition about speaking at public demonstrations. He was released after the legality of this was challenged and after being forced under duress on October 13 to sign what he called “draconian” conditions. Ten days later, Hundert was re-arrested under the pretense of another alleged bail violation; he was recently released after taking a plea bargain with the crown.

Rainville was eventually released to a Native bail program at his hearing on November 10, 2010, with his father and two professors as sureties. But, contrary to normal procedure, Ryan’s bail conditions prevent him from leaving the shelter at all, even accompanied by his sureties. He also has a no-alcohol condition which he attributes to anti-Indigenous targeting. “Despite the fact that I’ve grown up with white-skinned privilege—and I do look like a settler—they are targeting me based on my Cree background with this whole alcohol issue.”

“Out” on bail, Rainville is technically free, but his is a pitiful freedom. Time spent confined at the shelter will not count toward Rainville’s time served if he is convicted at his trial, scheduled to take place in April. This situation was made worse by the fact that his mother was diagnosed with cancer, and he could only communicate with her by phone. The day he was interviewed at the shelter, she was having surgery. “They’re telling me that I’m free. But if I were free I’d be holding my mom’s hand next to her hospital bed right now in Louisiana.”

More recent tests found his mother to now be free of cancer.

Rainville can leave the shelter for medical and legal appointments and on group field trips with the shelter staff.

“Aside from that I’m forcibly confined...I basically feel like I’m in jail still, minus the fact my mail is not being torn through and I can read whatever literature I want, and I can have visitors not through a glass window. But aside from that I’m forcibly confined.” The front door of the shelter visibly bothers Ryan; he says he effectively acts as his own jailer.

“I’m doing it to myself, it’s basically out of this want to not end up in jail again,” he said. “I go crazy in this place sometimes. I have to stick to doing jumping jacks and push-ups in my room because I feel like a trapped animal.”

In spite of blatant denial of individuals’ civil rights by the Canadian state, G20 arrestees have been first to encourage Canadians to keep their arrests and detentions in perspective.

“It’s a hugely intrusive imposition,” said Hundert of bail conditions before he was placed on conditions which restricted his ability to talk to media, ”I think it’s supposed to disrupt the communities in which we organize and to be punitive despite the fact that we haven’t been convicted of anything.”

Rainville agrees. “Forget about this,” he said. “Forget about me having a little bit of privilege stripped away from me...This whole thing is a walk in the park compared to what they are doing to people like Omar Khadr.“

Megan Kinch is an activist and journalist in Toronto.

Ryan Rainville

Murky Waters

Moira Peters — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 10:02:19 +0000

Contentious mink farm development given green light

YARMOUTH COUNTY, NS—A proposed mink ranch development on Sloans Lake appears to be moving forward, much to the consternation of area residents who had been under the impression that the development application had been rejected under a municipal land-use bylaw.

“The health of the Wentworth-Carleton watershed is already seriously strained by high-density fur farming at its headwaters,” says Debbie Hall, an area resident. “It’s very depressing. Sloans Lake is one of the last clean lakes in the watershed.”

On October 28, 2009, following years of worsening lake conditions and the continuing proliferation of blue-green algae blooms, the Municipality of the District of Yarmouth (MODY) voted to amend a municipal land-use bylaw, increasing, from 328 to 500 feet, the required minimum setback distance from lakes and rivers for buildings, manure storage facilities, and burial sites for the disposal of dead animals used in conjunction with fur ranches and hog and fowl farms.

An application submitted by R&N Farms Limited for a mink ranch development on Sloans Lake, roughly 20 kilometres north of Yarmouth, was initially denied because the development proposal did not meet the new setback criteria. But R&N revised its application to meet the demands of the revised bylaw and has since been granted 14 building permits for the same location.

MODY Development Officer John Sullivan confirmed that the project is moving forward but could not give specific details.

“It looks like we won the battle but lost the war,” rues Hall. “The community had hoped that the bylaw amendment would curtail the development altogether.”

There has been much discussion over the last several years as to the source(s) of the excess nutrients that have caused blue-green algae t overrun several Yarmouth and Digby County lakes. Possible contributing factors include faulty lakeside septic systems and run-off containing agro-industrial fertilizers, but many residents of southwestern Nova Scotia believe under-regulated mink ranching practices are to blame, and the primary causal source to be improperly disposed carcasses, manure, urine and waste feed from mink ranches located near the Wentworth-Carleton headwaters in neighbouring Digby County.

A report released in October 2010 by the Water and Wastewater Branch of Nova Scotia Environment (NSE) confirmed that several lakes in the region are showing increasing nutrient levels and deteriorating water quality due, at least in part, to nutrient inputs from human activities such as mink farming.

The blue-green algae, or cyanobacteria, that are thriving in many Yarmouth and Digby County lakes is a toxin-generating microscopic plant that flourishes in water containing high levels of phosphorus and nitrogen. The algae's prevalence has raised concerns about health and safety, reduced property values, damage to local ecologies and the proper regulation of industry.

“It’s clear to the people who live in this area and are directly affected by the water pollution that the problem is getting worse as the mink farming industry expands,” says Debbie Boudreau of the Tri-County Watershed Protection Association, a nascent Yarmouth-based community group devoted to bringing relief to the affected lakes. “Our environment is suffering under the weight of 1.8 million mink; what will happen as the industry continues to expand?”

The 2010 NSE report, entitled A Water Quality Survey of Ten Lakes in the Carleton River Watershed Area [of] Yarmouth and Digby Counties, lists mink farms, a mink food processing plant and an aquaculture operation as “three large nutrient sources which could potentially be stimulating algal production in [the headwater] lakes.”

According to data cited by the Tri-County Watershed Protection Association, there is a pollution problem when total phosphorous levels in a lake have reached 50 micrograms per litre. A 2008 NSE water quality survey found total phosphorous levels in Placides Lake—a headwater in the Wentworth-Carleton watershed—to be 740 micrograms per litre at surface and 5200 at a depth of seven metres.

“Our lakes are seriously polluted,” affirms Boudreau. “The situation is dire.”

On April 29, 2010, Nova Scotia Agriculture Minister John MacDonell introduced Bill 53, a legislative measure proposing more stringent governmental regulation of the province’s fur industry. The bill was passed the following week; draft regulations being developed under The Fur Industry Act are scheduled for completion in the latter half of 2011.

Though acknowledging that The Fur Industry Act could be a step in the right direction, Hall remains skeptical.

“There hasn’t been any apparent consultation with non-governmental environmental groups, the public, nor with water quality or nutrient pollution experts external to the government,” said Hall, referring to the content and thrust of Bill 53, and the process of drafting the regulations that are to comprise the Act.

“The only consultation was with the Nova Scotia Mink Breeders Association, the entity that needs to be regulated,” says Boudreau. “It seems a conflict of interest. The Department of Agriculture—both supporter and regulator of the fur industry—shacking up with that same industry to mutually formulate the regulations that, ostensibly, will govern it.”

According to the province, the Nova Scotia mink industry generated roughly $80 million in export sales in 2009. One and a half million minks are raised in Nova Scotia each year on almost 80 mink farms, according to the CBC. Roughly 85 per cent of provincial production occurs in Digby and Yarmouth Counties.

Steven is a writer from Harmony, NS. This article was originally published by the Halifax Media Co-op.

Murky Waters

Canada Gets Cuddly with Mining Companies

Moira Peters — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 10:28:38 +0000

Unconditional love for extractive industry costs taxpayers, say C-300 supporters

HALIFAX—Despite the death of Bill C-300, which would have introduced accountability for Canadian mining, oil or gas corporations operating in developing countries, watchdog groups are sounding the alarm louder than ever over what they see as a conflict of interest in the government. Not only is there a refusal to regulate these industries, they say, but government agencies are providing direct and indirect support for their practices.

“They are aiding and abetting, essentially,” said Catherine Coumans.

Coumans is the research coordinator for MiningWatch Canada. The group's raison d'etre is to be a watchdog in the extractive sector, drawing attention to human rights and environmental abuses perpetrated by Canadian companies. MiningWatch also lobbies MPs to promote sustainable mining practices and policies, such as Bill C-300, which would have disqualified any corporation implicated in unethical operations from receiving government funds.

In a report commissioned by the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada in 2007, Canadian companies were singled out as perpetrating almost half of documented misconduct around the world, including causing community conflict, engaging in environmentally unsound practices and violating human rights. The report went unreleased until it was leaked by MiningWatch in 2010.

Bill C-300 gained broad support—from a coalition of NGOs and activists to the Globe & Mail and the Toronto Star,—yet was defeated by six votes in its final reading in the House of Commons. Despite their initial support for the bill, the Bloc Quebecois, Liberals and NDP were instrumental in its defeat, as a handful of their members missed the vote, including Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff.

Mining companies and the Conservative government vehemently opposed the bill. They argued that if regulations were imposed on the industry, companies would pack up shop and find headquarters outside Canada. They also said it jeopardizes development projects in the countries of the Global South, as well as jobs in Canada. Industry lobbyists, including former Liberal cabinet minister Don Boudria, met with MPs on the issue nearly 100 times in October 2010 alone.

These corporate interests can't be allowed to trump human rights, says Ian Thomson, Program Coordinator for Corporate Accountability with ecumenical justice group KAIROS.

“Whenever we went to Guatemala, we met with Canadian officials in the embassies and it's very obvious where their loyalties lay,” said Linda Scherzinger, a volunteer with KAIROS. The group is committed to advocating and acting on issues of climate and social justice in Canada and overseas.

The Harper government committed in 2009 to re-focus its aid to Latin America, adding five countries from the region to its list of 20 countries targeted by a $1.5 billion bilateral aid fund. The list included mineral-rich countries such as Colombia, Bolivia and Peru.

In November 2009, CIDA unexpectedly announced that KAIROS would no longer receive funding from the public agency. The sudden move raised eyebrows, especially after freelancer Kim Mackrael obtained through a freedom of information request the department memo responding to KAIROS's funding proposal, and published the story with Canadian Press. The memo read, “RECOMMENDATION—That you sign below to indicate you (not) approve a contribution of $7,098,758 over four years...” The word “not” was hand written above by an unknown person and was signed by International Co-operation Minister Bev Oda. Oda denied altering the application in front of a parliamentary committee, but has since admitted she edited the document.

In La Libertad, Peru, CIDA is spearheading a $500,000 reforestation project. Coumans says the project sounds good, but if this project is reforesting its mine site, that should be the responsibility of Barrick Gold. Coumans argues that Canadian taxpayers should not be footing the bill to fix Barrick's environmental impact, especially not under the auspices of “development.”

The La Libertad project is essentially a facade, says Emilie Lemieux, winner of the 2009 Gordon Global Fellowship, an annual award given to a progressive Canadian committed to sustainable international development. In a scathing report based on her experience in the region, she writes, “This project seems to fulfill the basic social needs the company is looking to address, as well as the Canadian embassy’s interest to work in [Corporate Social Responsibility], rather than the needs of the local population.” She goes on to say that CIDA's involvement exists simply to put a good face on Barrick's work, and that locals had no engagement in the projects.

In rhetoric and in cash, the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT) also backs the Canadian extractive sector abroad. Centerra Gold, a Toronto-based company that operates the Boroo mine in Mongolia, received $270,000 in funding this September as part of a direct investment program that totals $601 million. The company's mine had lain dormant, as months earlier workers picketed the site, demanding higher wages and severance pay. The Mongolian government had also suspended the mine's license, citing, among other things, improper operating procedures.

Centerra also operates the Kumtor mine across the border in Kyrgyzstan. The operation was sharply criticized for being a dangerous work environment after one worker was crushed by a pit wall in 2002. Before that, the mine had been the site of two large chemical spills—the first in 1998 and the second in 2000—that caused four deaths and 2,500 illnesses. In 1998, the company failed to notify residents until a Russian border guard discovered the spill; in 2000 they improved their record and only waited a day to make public the news that 1.5 tonnes of explosive material had spilled near the town.

The Kumtor mine is also the recipient of $35 million from the Canadian Pension Plan investment board and $50 million in political risk insurance from Export Development Canada (EDC). Political risk insurance covers 90 per cent of a company's investment in a “developing” country against events such as government nationalization or political turmoil. The stipulations for receiving the insurance revolve around EDC's corporate social responsibility policies. According to one representative for EDC, “We're not going to support something that the Canadian government doesn't support.”

EDC's support is worth a lot. The Financial Post has estimated that the crown corporation gives the extractive industry $20 billion in subsidies and insurance, including $1.3 billion in political risk insurance.

Despite DFAIT's role in lending support to these companies, it also houses the offices that purport to keep them in check. The office of Corporate Social Responsibility Counsellor, headed by commissioner Marketa Evans, was created in 2009 to create a partnership between the Canadian extractive industry and those who reside near their projects overseas. The move has been largely panned by watchdog groups as being an ineffective half-measure that does more to serve mining companies than impacted communities. The office has an “avenue of recourse for mining, oil and gas companies who feel they've been unfairly targeted,” said Erica Bach, senior adviser in the office of Corporate Social Responsibility, who lauded the mechanism as being unique worldwide. The office's CSR strategy revolves around encouraging dialogue rather than regulating or imposing sanctions against companies who have been the subjects of complaints. To date, the office has not received any requests to review allegations against any Canadian mining companies.

Even CIDA's Indigenous Peoples Partnership Program (IPPP) is little more than a $10 million, taxpayer-funded lobby group for the mining industry, according to one source who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The agency employs Indigenous representatives such as Chief Glenn Nolan and Chief Jerry Asp.

Nolan serves as first vice president of the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada and on the board of Noront Resources Ltd. Asp is vice president of the Canadian Aboriginal Minerals Association, and made news in 2005 after 35 elders occupied his office in protest of his involvement with the mining companies. The elders demanded that Asp step down, saying he was in a conflict of interest, having simultaneously acted as Indian Act chief and Chief Operations Officer of the Tahltan Nation Development Corporation, which is responsible for bidding on mining contracts for companies such as NovaGold, which operates one of the world's largest gold mines in Alaska with partner company Barrick Gold.

According to CIDA, IPPP exists to encourage the “sustainable development of Indigenous peoples in the [Latin American and Caribbean] region through an exchange of knowledge, experience, expertise, and existing models.” Those Indigenous people who met with Nolan and Asp were not informed of their mining connections, the source said, and were outraged when they learned of their involvement in the sector.

While Bill C-300 may be dead, an alternative bill is lying stagnant on the floor of the House of Commons. Bill C-354 would empower non-Canadian citizens who claim to be affected by Canadian mining companies to sue those companies. While opinion on the bill is mixed, those who supported C-300 are desperate for federal regulation of Canadian-owned mines.

Justin Ling is an activist and a journalist based in Halifax.

Tunnel of Love

The Silence Was Deafening

Moira Peters — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 09:35:46 +0000

BC's Missing Women Commission of Inquiry hears from Downtown East Side

VANCOUVER—Passionate criticism and painful stories rang out at two Community Engagement Forums held at the end of January in Vancouver and Prince George, BC, leading up to this year's Missing Women Commission of Inquiry. Indigenous women spoke up to demand justice for their beloved family members and friends who have been disappeared or murdered.

More than 100 people gathered in a large hall at the Japanese Language School in Vancouver's Downtown East Side (DTES) on January 19, 2011. The Commission's process, content and the naming of Wally Oppal as Commissioner were subject to passionate criticism and scrutiny by those who have been demanding justice for their relatives, friends and colleagues for over 30 years.

"Mr. Oppal, this has been a long journey for a lot of us women," said Walk4Justice co-founder Bernie Williams.

The Commission was set in motion in September 2010 by an Order in Council by the BC Lieutenant Governor in Council. The terms of reference instruct the Commission to inquire into the investigations by police forces into the disappearances of women from the DTES between certain dates, inquire into the Criminal Justice Branch's 1998 stay of proceedings on charges against Robert Pickton, recommend changes concerning investigations into cases of missing women and suspected multiple homicides in BC and recommend changes concerning homicide investigations and inter-agency co-operation.

"Why did it take 69 women [in BC], and over 4,000 women nationally [for this to get started]?" asked Williams.

Sold into the sex trade in Prince Rupert as a child, Williams' mother was murdered in 1977. Two of her older sisters were murdered in the 1980s. Williams and other relatives of missing and murdered women out west and across the country have been organizing for decades, demanding justice and, among other things, a public inquiry concerning all missing and murdered women since the 1970s.

"I don't trust this whole Commission. I don't trust it," added Williams, to loud applause by those in attendance.

Many women regretted the choice of date and time for the community engagement forum. It was originally postponed, but then scheduled for one of the worst days possible: Wednesday, January 19, 2011 was a welfare payment day, complicating many local residents' and others' availability to participate.

The terms of reference of the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry were repeatedly called into question.

The inquiry into the way investigations of disappearances of women in the DTES were handled by police forces deals with investigations specifically between January 23, 1997 and February 5, 2002. This narrow window excludes dozens of women who have been murdered or gone missing both before and after the chosen dates. Furthermore, the infamous Highway of Tears—Highway 16 running east-west in northern BC—is not mentioned by name in the terms of reference, despite the fact that young women, almost all of them First Nations, have been going missing along that highway for decades.

"I started a movement in northern BC. My niece went missing on the Highway of Tears," began Walk4Justice co-founder Gladys Radek.

"Our people, our families, they need to know what happened," said Radek, echoing the voices of so many relatives of missing and murdered women. "The system is failing."

"I got home at 1:30 am last night and I checked my email, and there was a 'missing' poster. That missing poster was the mother of someone who went missing on the Highway of Tears five years ago," she continued, choking back tears.

Radek went to school with Maggie Layton, the woman whose photograph appeared on the missing poster in question. The two women walked alongside each other during a previous Walk4Justice—Layton, to demand justice for her missing daughter, and Radek, for her niece Tamara Chipman, and for all of the missing women and their families.

At the Community Engagement Forum in Prince George on January 21, 100 people gathered to speak out about their experiences, stories and their missing and murdered daughters, sisters, mothers, nieces and others. The Commission, and particularly Oppal, was urged to visit the communities along the Highway of Tears. A few speakers at the Vancouver forum echoed the request for the series of cases in northern BC to be dealt with thoroughly, and not simply as an aside to the inquiry into what occurred in the DTES.

"The women of the Highway of Tears need their own inquiry," asserted Alice Kendall of the DTES Women's Centre.

"There is poverty across Canada. There is racism across Canada," she said, but adding that "something happened in this specific neighbourhood [the DTES]."

In large part, the Commission of Inquiry arose out of the explosion of media attention concerning missing and murdered women during Robert Pickton's arrest, the high-profile forensic investigation of his pig farm in Port Coquitlam and his subsequent trial and conviction for the murders of six women. As does the Inquiry, media attention focused on a few sensational cases and issues, ignoring the vast majority of others.

The facts are undeniable. The overwhelming majority of missing and murdered women in BC are Indigenous women. As has often been the case with media coverage and investigations, the terms of reference offer no mention, analysis or instructions reflecting that reality.

With the exception of the sensationalist coverage of the Pickton case, the near complete failure of the police, media and government to take reports of missing and murdered women seriously, or to do anything about them, has continued for decades. Many women denounced the institutional racism of police forces and other institutions, which have resulted in the abuse and derision of families who report their daughters, mothers, sisters and others missing.

"The silence was definitely deafening. We could hear it," said Dianne George.

"How did the Commission of Inquiry come up with the dates of January 23, 1997 and February 5, 2002?" she asked.

The terms of reference arise from the principal goal of the Commission of Inquiry: to recommend changes to improve the investigations of police forces and the judicial system, as well as inter-institutional co-operation in the future. It reflects the Pickton case, but excludes many other women, families, perpetrators and systemic problems. The Missing Women Commission of Inquiry has in fact been dubbed the "Pickton Inquiry" by the media.

Several women came forward at the Community Engagement Forum to speak about their own experiences with Robert Pickton and other suspected perpetrators. They told harrowing stories of their interactions with Pickton and others, their sisters' and friends' visits to the infamous pig farm, and their treatment by the police when they came forward.

"I was treated as though I was making stuff up, as though I was delusional," recalled Terry Williams, adding that one police officer once told her that if she kept reporting information, she would be committed to a psychiatric institution.

The stories shared included experiences and incredibly detailed information, including the license plate of the van used by Pickton and others to abduct women, an Oregon license plate of another van seen abducting women and the location of Pickton's pig farm. Almost invariably, the response women and family members received echoed a comment made by Williams: when she had a license plate number of a van and a description of the man that she had seen abducting a woman from the DTES, "The cops would not take the information."

The history and experiences do not all relate to Robert Pickton. They do not all relate to the years between 1997 and 2002. Most of the women who spoke at the Community Engagement Forum expressed their frustration or anger at the exclusion of so many missing and murdered women, but also at their own exclusion from the process itself.

"What I think everyone here is saying is that those terms of reference are too narrow," reiterated Beverley Jacobs, emphasizing that she was not speaking as legal counsel for the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs (UBCIC), but as an Aboriginal woman.

"You have the authority, Commissioner Oppal, to change...those terms of reference," added Jacobs.

"We understand the dissatisfaction that has been shown here today," said Commissioner Wally Oppal, speaking on behalf of the Commission of Inquiry. "We want to see constructive changes made."

As the Community Engagement Forum came to a close, it was clear that relatives, friends, colleagues and neighbours of the missing and murdered women in Vancouver's Downtown East Side have been proposing constructive changes for years. Beyond their critiques and proposals for the official Commission of Inquiry, which is set to begin within a few months, they continue to organize and mobilize in the DTES, in northern BC and across the country.

The 20th annual Women's Memorial March for Missing and Murdered Women will be held again this year on February 14, 2011—Valentine's Day—in Vancouver's Downtown East Side. Everyone, of any gender, is invited to gather at the Carnegie Community Centre Theatre at Main and Hastings at 12:00pm, where relatives of missing and murdered will speak before the march begins at 1:00 pm. Two weeks of commemorative events began last week, on January 30, 2011.

Other Women's Memorial Marches, Sisters in Spirit vigils and rallies for justice will take place on February 14 in Edmonton, Winnipeg, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal and dozens of other communities across the country.

Relatives and supporters will be joining the Walk4Justice once again this summer, walking across Canada to honour the missing and murdered Indigenous women from coast to coast, to raise awareness, and to demand justice. The Walk4Justice will reach Ottawa on September 19, 2011.

Sandra Cuffe is a contributing member of the Vancouver Media Co-op and based in Vancouver, in unceded Coast Salish territory. This article was originally published by the Vancouver Media Co-op.

Deafening Silence.Presentation

Deafening Silence: Crowd

January in Review, Part II

Moira Peters — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 05:37:54 +0000

Egypt curfew broken, BC salmon smokin', "organic" just a token

"People fight and die for things like that. They go to war for things like that. We are Dene. We are not warriors. We are not pacifists. We are Dene. Being Dene means standing on your own land," said Jonas Antoine of the Liidlii Kue First Nation, at a rally in Yellowknife. Protesters were speaking out against the Northwest Territories government's "devolution" plan, which would transfer land from Canada to the government of the Northwest Territories. Leaders and members from several First Nations compared the negotiations to extinguishment, denouncing both the process and its objective.

Hundreds of thousands of Egyptians marched in opposition to the continued rule of Hosni Mubarak, who has been president of that country since 1981. By taking to the streets, protesters defied a curfew and violent repression. More than 100 people have died as a result. The minimum wage in Egypt is currently $30 per month, which is half of the World Bank's official minimum wage for the country.

In Canada, hundreds of people gathered in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver to show their support for Egyptian demonstrators.

Mubarak's regime has been a key Middle East ally of the United States and Israel. In an interview with the Montreal Media Co-op, Montreal organizer Mostafa Henaway said that without the curent regime in Egypt, "there would be no siege in Gaza, you wouldn't have support for the occupation of Iraq, and for the other dictatorships in the region." The United States sent $1.3 billion in military aid to Egypt in 2011. According to reports in Israeli daily Ha'aretz, Israeli diplomats attempted this week to gather support for Mubarak's regime, arguing that his continued rule is in the interests of western countries.

Egyptians have been demonstrating against the current regime for at least three years. However, the massive scale of demonstrations was attributed to the success of similar protests in Tunisia, where mass mobilizations calling for "work, freedom, bread" ended the brutal 23-year rule of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, who fled the country mid-month. Demonstrations in Tunisia are ongoing, with thousands calling for all members of Ben Ali's government to leave.

Leading Haitian human rights lawyer Mario Joseph and women's rights and education advocate Rea Dol called on the Canadian government to withdraw its support of the November 28, 2010, elections; Joseph slammed the Canadian government for being no friend to Haiti. Both criticized relief agencies that have done little to help Haitians following last year's earthquake, particularly pointing to the massive increase in rape and sexual assault against women in the country over the past year.

Former Haitian dictator Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier returned to the Caribbean nation for the first time in 25 years, since his ouster in 1986. He said he returned to help the Haitian people one year after the massive earthquake of January 2010, but others believe he did so to gain access to some $6 million stowed in foreign bank accounts. The Haitian government quickly charged him with embezzlement of public funds. Human rights organizations launched an appeal for him to be charged with crimes against humanity, and undertook fresh investigations of political assassinations and ruthless murders by the Tontons Macoutes secret police during his reign.

Jude Celestin, the presidential candidate backed by Haiti's ruling Unity Party, withdrew his name from the upcoming election run-off, under domestic and international criticism that his second-place finish in the November 28 vote was due to electoral fraud.

In a move towards US-style broadcasting law, the Canadian Radio-Television Telecommunications Commission proposed relaxing rules on "any news that the licensee knows is false or misleading"—a month and a half before right-leaning Sun TV News is to be launched in Canada.

Stephen Harper spoke of accountability at a UN meeting about the implementation of a $40 billion program for child and maternal health in developing nations, a plan that was widely criticized for excluding access to contraception and family planning. In Canada, Harper has systematically increased gender inequality.

Two "Community Engagement Forums" in BC—in Vancouver's Downtown East Side (DTES) and in Prince George—led up to this year's Missing Women Commission of Inquiry. The process, content and naming of a Commissioner were subject to passionate criticism by activists and family members, who were concerned about mass omissions. The Commission of Inquiry's terms of reference do not explicitly mention the Highway of Tears, nor do they reflect that the majority of missing and murdered women in the province are Indigenous.

KNL Developments moved tree cutting equipment into Beaver Pond—just outside Ottawa—and has begun logging one of the last old-growth forests in the region after receiving city approval to build a housing development on the land. Members of local Algonquin communities have called on the city to halt the development until a comprehensive archaeological assessment can be done. Algonquin Daniel Bernard “Amikwabe” set up a camp on the land to stoke a sacred fire "to denounce the massacre of the wildlife and this sacred forest."

The Sinixt Nation appeared in BC Supreme Court again in late January for the First Nation's legal case against Sunshine Logging Ltd, the provincial Attorney General and the BC Ministry of Forests, concerning the logging of Slu7kin/Perry Ridge in the interior of BC.

American Indian Movement (AIM) activist John Graham was sentenced to life in prison for the 1975 kidnapping and murder of fellow AIM activist Anna Mae Aquash, a Mi'kmaq from Nova Scotia. "The truth hasn't come out here," Graham, a member of the Champagne First Nation in the Yukon, told Aquash's daughters in court, upon hearing his sentence. Canadian organizations, politicians and unions have written letters of support for Graham, particularly opposing Canada's 2007 extradition of Graham in light of false evidence provided by the FBI to Canada for the 1976 extradition of AIM activist Leonard Peltier. The Aquash investigation remains open.

Students, workers and faculty at the University of Toronto (U of T) came together to form the U of T General Assembly, demanding the university administration stand with them, rather than with corporations, private donors and a provincial government that fail to adequately support higher education.

More than 100 activists and students rallied outside a Simon Fraser University Board of Governors' meeting in downtown Vancouver to protest the university's use of "dirty money" from mining corporation Goldcorp. The board adjourned its meeting early and left the building amid calls from the crowd to listen to their concerns.

A new Canada-US study found that one in 10 post-secondary students recently thought about suicide, and one in four is depressed.

The Nova Scotia Post-Secondary Education Coalition announced the results of a public opinion poll that shows 83 per cent of Nova Scotians want tuition fees reduced. The Nova Scotia government is considering recommendations from former Bank of Montreal Executive Vice-President Tim O’Neill to allow tuition fees to increase, and lift the ceiling on how much debt a student can access from government financial aid. Students are planning a province-wide day of action February 2.

A proposed mink ranch development in Yarmouth, NS, was given the green light, despite the community's concern that mink ranches in the area are contributing to the proliferation of blue-green algae in the lakes.

Agrimarine Holdings Inc completed primary construction of the world's first marine closed-containment salmon farm in Middle Bay, BC.

The BC-based Global Alliance Against Industrial Aquaculture launched its "smoking hot" campaign against "Big Aquaculture" to draw attention to the health and environmental dangers of salmon farming. The campaign uses similar imagery to "smoking kills" campaigns used against Big Tobacco.

In an email to its customers, Whole Foods Market, the largest "natural and organic" market in the world, advocated for "conditional deregulation" of Monsanto's genetically engineered (GMO), herbicide-resistant alfalfa. The Organic Consumer's Association called the email "profoundly misleading," representing surrender by the "organic elite" to Monsanto, whose Roundup Ready alfalfa will now be mass-planted with the blessing of Whole Foods, Stonyfield Farm and Organic Valley, effectively allowing the GMO crop to contaminate products labeled "organic."

In rural BC, unpaid tree-planters from Africa were fed rotten food, left to sleep in shipping containers and subjected to violence and sexual harassment.

Walmart announced plans to open 40 supercentres across Canada.

Members of the Synergy Credit Union in Saskatchewan, concerned about the increase in size of their bank, voted against a merger with two other credit unions.

Two supporters of Bradley Manning, the army private suspected of leaking confidential documents to WikiLeaks, were stopped and held for two hours for traffic violations by military police at Virginia's Quantico Marine Corp. The pair was attempting to visit Manning and deliver a petition with 42,000 signatures that protested Manning's treatment. As a result, Manning missed out on his once-weekly respite from solitary confinement.

An Ottawa man accused of terrorism was served a formal notice of deportation to Algeria, where he faces risk of torture.

Alex Hundert took a plea bargain with the Crown and was released from jail. The community organizer was arrested pre-G20 in Toronto, charged with conspiracy and spent five months in prison, including in solitary confinement.

The Halifax Peace Coalition celebrated Martin Luther King Jr Day by picketting outside the Canadian Forces Stadacona Base, protesting Canada's decision to buy 65 F-35 fighter jets. The jets will cost at least $16 billion, and the deal—the largest military procurement in Canadian history—with weapons giant Lockheed Martin guarantees no jobs in Canada.

Two hundred people, many holding babies or pushing strollers, rallied in downtown Halifax to demand better access to midwifery services. Currently, only four midwives are legally employed in the entire province of Nova Scotia.

With the slogan "Fight the Height," housing activists and residents in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside continued to organize against the city's plans to develop condos in the neighbourhood.

According to a study from the Quebec Institue for Public Health, Quebecers over the age of 65 have been committing suicide at an increasing rate since 1981, reaching an all-time high in 2010. Quebec announced it will create a three-year grant of $750,000 to counter the rising rate.

Prairie Artists Against Enbridge delivered a letter to the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, protesting Enbridge Pipeline’s sponsorship of the centre's upcoming Prairie Scene Festival, due to the company's "disastrous environmental record."

In a Dutch Parliamentary hearing, Shell was accused of human rights abuses, failing to clean up oil spills and continuing the hazardous practice of flaring gas in Nigeria.

Russia's upper house of parliament unanimously voted to ratify the New START nuclear arms reduction treaty, which will see Russia and the US each slash their nuclear arsenals by about 30 per cent.

A mine explosion in northeastern Colombia killed 20 coal miners, injured six and trapped 30 more underground.

Three Indonesian soldiers who tortured two Papuan farmers for three days were found guilty of "insubordination," a much lesser charge than rights groups were advocating.

Philippine rebels killed five police officers, the first major assault since the Philippine government and communist rebels agreed to restart peace talks.

Floods and landslides in Brazil killed 800 people. Four hundred others are missing.

Verizon Communications Inc filed a legal challenge against the new "net neutrality" rules which prohibit providers from interfering with Internet traffic flowing over their networks.

Have you heard the one about Ben Ali? You haven't heard it? ...So Zine El Abidine Ben Ali goes to buy new boots. As soon as he enters the shop, the Tunisian salesman hands him a pair. “How did you know my size?” asks Ben Ali. The answer: “You’ve stomped on us for 23 years, how can we not?”

Tunisian Kids

smoking salmon

Figuring Out Fair Use

Tim McSorley — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 05:06:52 +0000

As Canada updates its copyright laws, a new clause is stirring debate among creators

SYDNEY, NS—A House of Commons committee will resume hearings this month to consider Canada's copyright fate as laid out in Bill C-32, the Copyright Modernization Act. While public discussion of this bill—and of copyright in general—often centres around on-line and digital rights, many are concerned about the bill's impact on written material.

“If Bill C-32 passes, I stand to lose 85 per cent of my income,” says Douglas Arthur Brown. Brown has published five books, and is one of the 140,000 creators in Canada’s $46 billion arts and cultural industry.

Bill C-32 is a sweeping attempt to bring Canada’s copyright act up-to-date, touching on everything from performance art to digital music to photography.

If passed, Bill C-32 will legitimize that little red "record" button on VCRs tucked away in people’s attics and in electronic recycle heaps across the nation. As it stands, it's still illegal for Canadians to record TV shows. C-32 will also give legal permission to those folks already on the other end of the technological spectrum who use DVR televisions to digitally record television content.

Overall, it would bring Canada’s copyright regulations up-to-date on many aspects of day-to-day life. But the bill includes elements that some feel aren't favourable to all Canadians.

Brown says that a new phrase included in the update to the copyright act will lead many authors to lose part of their income, some significantly. Bill C-32 includes "education" as a clause for “fair dealing” purposes.

Fair dealing means it's not an infringement of copyright to use work for fair purposes. Until now this has included using materials for work related to research, private study, criticism, review or news reporting; the changes would add educational uses to this list.

Brown argues that he and many others in the creative community (the changes would apply just as much to filmmakers, musicians and visual artists as it would to writers) fear the implications of such an exemption, mainly because "education" is undefined in the bill.

“Our issue is simply just putting the word "education" there—what does that mean?” says Executive Director of Access Copyright, Maureen Caven.

Access Copyright is a collective agency representing individual writers, playwrights and composers whose works have been copyrighted. Educational institutions purchase licenses from Access Copyright authorizing the copying of a specified amount of printed copyrighted material.

Likened to the way musicians receive a cheque each time their music is played on the radio from the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada (better known as SOCAN), Access Copyright collects license fees from educational institutions and then pays this revenue back to writers—and this can amount to substantial income. In the case of Brown, these payments total the 85 per cent in revenue he fears he will lose.

With these licenses, educational institutions are allowed to copy a section of a novel—say, a chapter—so long as the chapter is less than 20 per cent of the completed work.

Caven says including education as fair dealing will mean there are no parametres around what and where the term "education" applies.

“Is it restricted to classrooms?" he says. "What about training in other areas, training within corporations, educating clients?”

The inclusion of education in the fair dealing clause would not eliminate the fee payments educational institutions make to Access Copyright. However, Caven says the fear is the specified amount covered by the license will be ignored because the term "education" is ambiguous.

Some industry watchers say Caven's fears are unfounded. David Fewer, a lawyer who has written and taught about copyright law for many years, says there is no way educational institutions would have carte blanche to photocopy however much they want merely because of the clause “fair dealing for education” is included.

“If you tell a story and it sounds unfair, then it probably is unfair,” says Fewer, who is also the director of the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic. “Copying entire copies of books? How is that fair? It’s not fair, so it wouldn’t be allowed.”

Fewer says this new provision will allow students to make legal use of others' content. He says he’s in favor of students using pre-existing work to create new videos or stories—commonly known as mash-ups. Fewer says encouraging students to create mash-ups might work in authors’ favor, as students will then be able to bring writers into the curriculum who might not have been there otherwise.

The Canadian School Boards Association (CSBA) has long lobbied for education to be considered fair dealing. Their website states, “These proposed amendments would provide a legal framework for students and for teachers regarding the use of freely-available Internet materials for educational purposes without fear of infringing copyright.”

The CSBA further adds that it would balance the rights of educational users of copyrighted material with that of the creators.

Brown holds firm, however, that, since the phrase itself is undefined, writers cannot be assured that excessive and uncompensated copying won’t happen. Only the Supreme Court of Canada can decide if something is fair dealing, and each incident is decided on a case-by-case basis. Brown says writers don’t have the resources if they needed to take a case to court.

This is the third time the Conservative government has attempted to pass a bill to update Canada’s copyright rules. The first attempt died on the table when an election was called in 2005; the second when Harper’s proroguing of parliament dissolved all bills under consideration in 2008.

Bill C-32 has already passed Second Reading. It now sits at the legislative committee level. Comprised of 12 members of parliament, these individuals will hear from more than 400 witnesses over the next few months. No new elements can be added to the bill; amendments alone are permitted.

Brown was among the first individuals to present to the committee in mid-December. “They asked me if there was anything in the bill that I as a creator could support, and I told them no.”

Brown told the committee that, if passed, the bill would mean far more copying by teachers, while publishers and writers produce less work for schools. “You will be making my life’s work much more difficult to sustain.”

Fewer doesn't agree creators will lose any compensation with this provision. “It streamlines the process of getting content into the classroom,” he says. “It doesn’t let you get away with content without paying for it. However, it lets you get the best use of content you have paid for.”

He says writers should be more concerned about other aspects of Bill C-32, including digital locks being placed on their on-line work and ensuring they receive fair rates from publishers for on-line rights.

Fewer will be among at least 400 witnesses set to testify before the legislative committee considering Bill C-32. Amendments will be suggested and drafted during that time.

Maureen Caven of Access Copyright maintains that the bill cannot be passed without a clearer explanation of how the term fair dealing relates to education.

“A definition would be nice,” says Caven. “That’s the amendment that would be nice.”

Back home in Cape Breton after presenting in Ottawa, Brown says he doesn’t plan to stay quiet. “I’ll continue to get the word out there, because not being compensated for my copyrighted work is anything but fair.”

Norma Jean MacPhee lives in Sydney, Cape Breton where she continues her journey as a freelance writer and broadcaster.

Fair use in flight

Honouring Unfree Friends

Martin Lukacs — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 05:31:11 +0000

Prison solidarity for man charged in RBC arson

TORONTO—It’s two days before Christmas, and it's Matthew Morgan-Brown’s birthday. It’s hard for him to celebrate, however; his friend, Roger Clement, is being transferred to Millhaven Institution, where he will begin serving the rest of his three-year, six-month sentence for the firebombing of a Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) branch in Ottawa in May 2010. No one has heard from Clement for over a week, which isn’t unusual during transfers, but that doesn’t make it any easier for Morgan-Brown.

“It’s that time of year,” Morgan-Brown says. “It’s difficult to be separated from family and friends.”

Clement, a 58-year-old retired civil service employee, is well known to local activists from years of social justice organizing. He was sentenced on December 7, 2010, having pled guilty to the RBC arson, as well as breaking windows and ATMs at a different branch in February 2010. It’s an unusually harsh sentence for property damage crimes, given that both the defense and Crown attorneys acknowledged he took great care to eliminate any possible injury to people.

Morgan-Brown’s own arson and mischief charges in the May 18 RBC firebombing were stayed due to lack of evidence. He is now taking an active role in Ottawa Movement Defense (OMD), a group originally formed to support the three people arrested on June 18: himself, Joseph Roger Clement, and Claude Haridge. Haridge, who was never charged with arson but with careless storage and handling of ammunition, had his final day in court postponed in December 2010.

In addition to returning to his job at Ontario Public Interest Research Group (OPIRG)-Ottawa and devoting his spare time to OMD, Morgan-Brown says he is grappling with the psychological scars of the arrest and months of uncertainty. “I often put my emotions on hold, and then try to find time to deal with them later,” he says. “It’s just not a skill that I have. I don’t know how to deal with what happened. I know that it was a traumatic experience.

“It was also a learning experience. It was the first time I’d ever been in prison...other than two or three days when I challenged some conditions I’d been given. That was scary in itself, not knowing what was going on, what it would be like. I’d be a lot more prepared if I had to go to prison again.”

Morgan-Brown spent two months inside, including the addition of a 20-day sentence for participating in a Barriere Lake First Nation blockade on Highway 117 in 2008. Algonquins from that impoverished community in north-western Quebec are struggling to protect their land and environmental resources.

Morgan-Brown has long been an active member of Indigenous Peoples Solidarity Movement (IPSM)-Ottawa, a grassroots organization that directly supports Indigenous peoples in diverse struggles for justice. “Not being able to organize was really shitty. It’s very important to me,” says Morgan-Brown, who had limited communications with colleagues due to his bail conditions. “The day they lifted my conditions I started organizing again.”

His number one priority these days is supporting his friend Roger Clement. Morgan-Brown encourages activists to write to Clement and connect with him, as a way of showing support. “[Clement is] quite limited about what he can say,” he says. “I expect that he feels he can’t comment about his politics, which I know are super-important to him.”

One way to honour Clement, Morgan-Brown says, is to learn about and discuss subjects that are important to him. As a communist, he is passionate about the Cuban revolution. “I know that he’d like to see people becoming engaged, learning about different issues,” says Morgan-Brown. “He’d be happy if people were finding out about what’s going on in Cuba now and how to support [the Cuban people].” In this way, supporters can keep Clement involved in everyday organizing and dialogue.

As with writing to any prisoners, it’s extremely important not to speculate about illegal activities, or to act on behalf of a prisoner without their guidance. “He’s got a parole board hearing coming up,” Morgan-Brown cautions.

Complicating matters, the issue of police infiltration in Ottawa activist groups has been a source of rampant rumours. "As far as we know from the disclosure the lawyer saw, and from what we heard in [our] bail hearing, there’s no evidence he was involved in either of the actions Roger pled guilty to,” says Morgan-Brown.

Meanwhile, Morgan-Brown still finds it challenging to speak freely, although a publication ban on the case has finally been lifted. He’s on a relatively short leash, as his charges have only been stayed, not dismissed; the Crown still has a year in which it can reinstate them. “It’s definitely something I’m more mindful of than I usually am,” he says. “Hopefully I can find something positive in it, step back in certain situations where I would usually step forward, and encourage people to take on roles that I enjoy.” An avid public speaker, he is working to help other group members develop those skills.

Morgan-Brown was already familiar with prison issues through his activist work, but witnessing first-hand the ways in which imprisonment is so blatantly tied to race and class, he says, was eye-opening. “So many guys were in there just because they didn’t have the resources to get bail.”

Moving forward, Morgan-Brown aims to link his Indigenous solidarity and prisoner justice work more closely, starting with support for people arrested from Barriere Lake. “There are so many Indigenous people in the criminal justice system, and so many people being arrested for resistance,” he says. “I feel more emotionally connected to prisoners than I did [before], and I hope that Ottawa Movement Defense will find a way of connecting with other people who are supporting political prisoners, and the G8/G20 defendants.”

Sara Falconer is a Toronto-based journalist. She helps publish Certain Days: Freedom for Political Prisoners Calendar and is a member of Toronto Anarchist Black Cross, which produces www.4strugglemag.org, a zine of analysis by and for political prisoners.

For more information about supporting Clement and Haridge, visit http://www.exilebooks.org/en/links/ottawa-movement-defense.

Solidarity for friends

January in Review, Part I

Martin Lukacs — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 06:49:37 +0000

Prisons protested, shale gas wells leaked, CEOs profited

2011 was ushered in by Anti-Prison Noise Demonstrations in several Canadian cities. Outside Vancouver, 25 protesters set off fireworks, chanted and blasted hip hop in front of Fraser Regional Correctional Centre on New Year's Eve. North Montreal's demo took place at Bordeaux Prison, where anarchists and other activists "staged a boisterous march," according to J Stevens reporting for the Media Co-op. Protesters in Hamilton made noise and held a banner in front of Barton Jail with a mailing address, inviting prisoners to correspond with them.

More than 100 supporters of detained high school student Daniel Garcia gathered in downtown Toronto on New Year's Eve to demand that Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism Jason Kenney halt Garcia's deportation. At 8:30 am on January 1, Garcia was forcibly boarded on a plane back to his home country, Mexico, where he and his sister face ongoing homophobic threats and violence.

Alberta dropped homosexuality from its diagnostic guide to mental disorders, 35 years after the psychiatric profession did so. Quebec hasn't yet dropped the diagnosis.

Nepal added a third gender for trans- people to its census.

Saskatchewan Justice Minister Don Morgan announced the provincial government may accommodate the religious beliefs of marriage commissioners who refuse to perform same-sex unions, despite a unanimous Court of Appeals decision ruling the refusal unconstitutional.

An ad-hoc coalition of unions and activists held a candlelight vigil in Toronto to protest an alliance between the right-wing English Defense League (EDL) and the Jewish Defense League (JDL). The vigil was joined by Anti-Racist Action Toronto (ARAT), who blockaded the street where the EDL and JDL were meeting. Police charged ARAT with horses, arresting four protesters and severely beating one.

Residents of Vancouver's Downtown East Side took to the streets to demand social housing, arguing that the development of expensive condos in the 100-block neighbourhood will displace residents by upscaling three major low-income hotels. A few days earlier, more than 100 people attended a CityHallWatch forum on tall buildings, sharing Downtown East Side residents' own vision of community development.

Supporters of Transit City planned their fight against Rob Ford's war on public transportation in Toronto.

The municipality of Oka, Quebec, announced it will pay Norfolk Financial $300,000 to purchase property subject to negotiations between the federal government and the Kanehsatake Mohawk First Nation. The property is across the road from land at the centre of the 1990 "Oka Crisis" when the town tried to expand a golf course over a Mohawk cemetery.

A report from the Quebec environmental assessment agency indicates that 19 shale gas fracturing, or "fracking," wells in the province are leaking natural gas.

2010 was Canada's hottest year on record, with the national average temperature three degrees above previous average levels.

The Royal Bank of Canada's (RBC) announcement of a new Policy on Environmental and Social Risk Management for Capital Markets was applauded by the Rainforest Action Network, but the Carrier Sekani Tribal Council responded critically. “Unless RBC and other banks suspend financing to Enbridge and other companies that fail to earn consent from communities impacted by their destructive projects, their promises will ring hollow,” said Vice Tribal Chief Terry Teegee.

A group of doctors asked Quebec’s College of Physicians to take a stand on mining and exporting asbestos to developing countries. The College's secretary refused, saying the College does not exist to take sides on a debate, but "to defend the practice of medicine." Exposure to asbestos causes 100,000-140,000 deaths per year. Canada is a world leader in asbestos production.

The Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives' study on Executive Compensation revealed Canada’s best paid 100 CEOs earned 155 times that of the average income earner.

Two Toronto police officers accused of beating G20 protester Adam Nobody were accused of another assault in a non-G20-related incident.

Thousands of Tunisians faced off against police, taking over government infrastructure in the capital and demanding the resignation of long-time President Zine El Abedine Ben Ali, who fled to Saudi Arabia. More than 60 people have been killed since December 2010, including more than 40 prisoners in two mass breakouts, during popular unrest against the dictator. The food shortage and unemployment riots, which culminated in a demand for democracy and an end to government corruption, were sparked by the suicide by fire of a 26-year-old graduate who was prevented from selling fruit and vegetables to make a living.

A study examining the effectiveness of freedom of information laws in Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, the United Kingdom and Canada ranked Canada dead last. About 16 per cent of the 35,000 requests filed last year resulted in the full disclosure of information.

A US federal appeals court rejected filmmaker Joe Berlinger's argument that as an independent journalist, he should not be ordered to turn over all footage from his 2009 film "Crude" to Chevron.

US drone strikes killed 2,043 people in Pakistan in the last five years, with 2010 being the deadliest, according to an annual report released by the Conflict Monitering Centre.

Mexico's government reported that drug wars killed 34,612 people in the last four years, with 15,273 drug-related murders in 2010 alone.

Reports of mass deaths of wildlife all over the world continued into the new year. Birds, fish, and now crabs have been dying en masse in Arkansas, Louisiana, Brazil, Maryland, New Zealand, Italy, England and several other places.

As a hunter in Belarus tried to kill a fox, the wounded animal reportedly pulled the trigger of the hunter's rifle with its paw during its struggle to escape. The hunter was admitted to hospital with a leg wound. The fox escaped (as foxes do).

Daniel Garcia