The Dominion - police

A Call to Fight Feminicide, in Juarez and Beyond

Tim McSorley — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 09:27:27 +0000

Laval author puts a structural lens on the killings of women and girls

MONTREAL—Ciudad Juarez. The name conjures up images of violence, maquiladoras, drug traffickers, kidnappings, military interventions, and dead women—too many dead women—in the city's streets.

In her book, Féminicides et impunité: Le cas de Ciudad Juarez (Feminicide and Impunity: The case of Ciudad Juarez, Les Éditions Écosociété: 2012), Marie France Labrecque explores in detail how (and why) women have been special targets, going beyond the usual explanations (organized crime, battles for turf among narco-traffickers, the documented inhumane conditions of maquiladora work, etc.) to relate these deaths to what she calls “feminicides” (féminicides).

Feminicide refers to a system of violence that results from state policies that create social, cultural, economic, and political inequalities and inequities for women and girls. It encompasses more than does the word femicide, the killing, rape, and violence against women and girls because they are women. Making this distinction lets Marie France Labrecque clarify how the ongoing murders of women are embedded in multiple structures of patriarchy found in the family, in society, and in state policies.

Labrecque, a professor emeritus at the University of Laval specializing in Mexico and political economy, argues convincingly that without a deep understanding of feminicide, the political changes needed to end the killings in Ciudad Juarez—and elsewhere—won't be possible. She supports her arguments with quantitative and qualitative data, all horrific and sometimes too much to digest in a single reading.

These details give insights into what needs to be changed to end the murders, punish those who are responsible, and begin to build a more just and equitable society. But they also suggest that making change will not be easy. In fact, women’s rights activists who traveled to Mexico in January 2012 actually found a continuing overall increase in deaths of women and girls since 2006, especially in the border state of Chihuahua where Ciudad Juarez is located, with this happening despite special agencies and programs set up by the Mexican government allegedly to address violence against women.

During the spring presidential election campaign in Mexico, students and others demonstrated against the complicity of the government and its contributions to crime and corruption. Their protests continue, and it is to be hoped that Enrique Peña Nieto, the newly-elected president who begins his term this winter, will listen to their calls and establish the conditions in which full human rights are guaranteed for women and all citizens.

However, it already seems more likely that Peña Nieto's administration will only perpetuate the practices of past governments and do little to end the violence and murders of women. Fears are that he will continue past policies and privilege the militarization of the fight against drug cartels, fail to stop and punish the corruption within the army and police, and do nothing substantive to end the killings of women and girls.

If that is the case, women will remain oppressed and all that Labrecque relates in her powerful book will continue—including the complicity of the USA and Canadian governments in these practices. Therefore, it's important for feminists and others to keep pressing for change and an end to impunity, not only in Ciudad Juarez, but also here in Quebec and Canada where there is need for more and strengthened solidarity with Indigenous women whose lives and rights have not been protected by past and current governments.

The conditions underlying femicide and feminicide are not just over “there”: they are impediments to full justice for all women and girls here, too.

Abby Lippman is a community activist/feminist/researcher-writer in Montreal. An abridged version of this review, translated to French, has been published in aBabord magazine (October/November issue).

Feminicide and Impunity cover

Canada's Punishment Agenda

dawn — Fri, 03 Aug 2012 18:52:00 +0000

Omnibus crime bill will mean more prisons and more prisoners

MONTREAL—If you grow pot at home for personal use, here’s a tip: keep it to five plants or fewer.

Come November, getting caught growing between six and 200 marijuana plants deemed to have been produced for the purpose of trafficking will trigger a mandatory minimum of six months in jail. The maximum sentence for growing upwards of five plants will also double, to 14 years in prison.

These are just a couple of examples from a gamut of changes to Canada’s Criminal Code under Bill C-10, which the feds have dubbed the “Safe Streets and Communities Act,” commonly known as the Omnibus Crime Bill.

“Bill C-10 will require new prisons; mandate incarceration for minor, non-violent offences; justify poor treatment of inmates and make their reintegration into society more difficult,” reads a critique of the legislation prepared by the Canadian Bar Association, which represents more than 37,000 jurists in Canada. “Texas and California, among other jurisdictions, have already started down this road before changing course, realizing it cost too much and made their justice system worse.”

Bill C-10, which the lawyers' group says will change Canada’s entire approach to crime at every stage of the justice system, was approved in March. From policing to wait periods between parole applications, changes linked to C-10 are being phased in through to the end of 2012. The bill also gives border guards discretion in the granting of work permits to migrants they deem to be "vulnerable to abuse or exploitation."

“The government keeps talking about how this is an agenda to address victimization,” said Justin Piche, an Assistant Professor in Criminology at the University of Ottawa. “In my view this is a punishment agenda, and should be viewed accordingly."

Piche’s research focuses on prisons and prison construction in Canada, and he predicts C-10 could trigger a new wave of prison construction in Canada.

“In the Canadian context, the provinces and territories have built or are in the process of building 22 new prisons and 17 additions to existing facilities since 2008 that added over 6,000 new prison beds at a construction cost of nearly $3 billion,” Piche told The Dominion. “These prisons were built in a context where provincial and territorial governments were trying to largely address the remand demand, the surge in the proportion of remand prisoners that they were housing in the last decade and a half.”

The majority of the 24,000 adults who are in prison on a given day in Canada are remanded prisoners, meaning that even though they haven't been convicted, the courts have ordered that they be held in jail while awaiting a court appearance. The number of adults in remand has been steadily climbing since the 1980s. “In 2009/2010, adults in remand accounted for 58 per cent of the custodial population while those in sentenced custody comprised the remaining 42 per cent. Ten years ago, the proportions were reversed, at 40 per cent and 60 per cent, respectively,” reads a document prepared last year by Statistics Canada.

The rise in people held under remand is connected to the current wave of prison construction and expansion, but new moves to implement mandatory minimums could lead to filling up the very provincial and territorial prisons built supposedly to prevent overcrowding because of remanding.

“What we’re seeing in terms of the mandatory minimums, more of them being introduced, particularly in C-10, [is that] a lot of them are going to have an impact on the provincial and territorial prisons, which may trigger a new subsequent wave of prison construction,” said Piche.

Mandatory minimum sentences for narcotics possession is one of the most controversial elements of the Conservatives’ Crime Bill, because it copies similar legislation in some US states that has been shown to increase the amount of prisoners without decreasing the supply of drugs.

“Bill C-10 is solidifying trends over the past decades with CSC [Correctional Services Canada], and will result in more people being imprisoned for more time,” according to Marie Dennis*, a prisoner solidarity activist based out of Montreal. “At the end of the day Bill C-10 doesn’t change that much for people in terms of people who are already inside, especially with life sentences, but what it does is solidify into law certain practices that have already been in place, which makes it harder for those practices to change at all if you have a slightly liberal warden or something like that.”

However, there are still a few important ways C-10 will impact people who are currently imprisoned, as well as those who are on parole. Waiting periods for people denied parole to re-apply will jump from six months to one year, ensuring more people will spend a longer time in jail.

“One thing that does change that hasn’t been in the law before is that now if you are on parole, the government can put electronic bracelet on you, in terms of tracking where you’re going and trying to figure out exactly where you’ve been,” Dennis told The Dominion. “That wasn’t something they were able to do before, [something] that has been written into Bill C-10, that a lot of people don’t know about.”

*Marie's name has been changed at her request. Dawn Paley is a freelance journalist and co-founder of the Vancouver Media Co-op.

Prison Print

Canada's International Cop Out

dawn — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 19:28:20 +0000

Former head of Ontario Provincial Police named Minister of International Co-operation

MONTREAL—On July 4, Prime Minister Stephen Harper appointed Julian Fantino, the former head of the Ontario Provincial Police, as his new Minister of International Cooperation. The arrival of an ex-cop at the top of Canada's international development portfolio seems like a fitting symbol for the overall direction of Canadian foreign policy during the Harper government's reign.

A policeman for more than 40 years, Fantino rose steadily through the ranks, serving first as chief of police in London, Ontario, then the former York Region, and later Toronto, before being named as the Ontario Provincial Police Commissioner in 2006. Fantino's career then went political, and he was elected the Member of Parliament for Vaughn in November, 2010, and was re-elected in May, 2011.

Throughout his career, Fantino has been involved in a considerable number of controversies. Perhaps most famously, Fantino oversaw the harsh repression of Toronto residents and anti-G20 protesters in the Ontario capital city in June of 2010.

Enzo DiMatteo, associate news editor at Now Magazine, covered Fantino's career for over more than 20 years, and coined the term "the OPP's top dick" to describe the province's former head cop.

"When you think of Julian Fantino you have to understand that there wasn't a microphone that he didn't like. He was constantly in the spotlight," DiMatteo told The Dominion. "He was very much his own man, very much did his own thing, very much didn't really care about civilian oversight… He was viewed as a bit of a cop's cop, but I think he was just a stubborn fellow who really didn't have much time for anybody's point of view, other than his own, quite frankly."

The new International Cooperation minister hasn't always placed cooperation at the forefront, especially when it pertains to cops killing civilians. Fantino's name is on the docket of a case expected to appear before the Supreme Court of Canada in 2013, regarding how police take notes at crime scenes. The families of Levi Shaeffer and Douglas Minty, both of whom were killed by officers during Fantino's days as top dick at the OPP, have used the courts to try and prevent police from having their crime scene notes vetted by lawyers before they're written.

Rachelle Sauve, from the Coalition Justice for Levi campaign, agrees with DiMatteo's description.

"The modus operandi of a man who is very much a police officer, and who...has gotten very comfortable with a certain level of impunity that he still gets to act out [in] moving away from that old role, leaves me in a very uncomfortable feeling position regarding what sort of aid and development we are going to bring through CIDA while he is in office," Sauve told The Dominion.

Nation-to-nation relations have not been Fantino's strongest suit. Fantino's fame as a bully exploded with the release of wiretapped conversations between himself and Mohawk activist Shawn Brant in 2007.

In the spring and summer of that year, when Mohawks at Tyendinaga repeatedly blocked CN Rail lines, Fantino called Brant to let him know what his future would hold if he continued to work with his community to defend the land.

"And you know what I don’t wanna I don’t wanna get on your bad side but you’re gonna force me to do everything I can within your community and everywhere else to destroy your reputation," Fantino told Brant in a phone conversation which was illegally recorded by the OPP. Fantino later claimed he was unaware the line was tapped. Their conversation, which was later published by the CBC, continued:

Julian Fantino: You know if you pull this off I’m liable to say that your your issues are are are are critical and they’re important and and I’ll speak to that but uh if you don’t then I’m gonna go the other way and I’m gonna say that you’re just destroying and you’re abusing you’re using the people and you’re you’re actually being a mercenary about it using the suicide of children and all those those legitimate uh issues and you don’t want that because I think I can I can I can play the media routine like you do

Shawn Brant: Hey Mister Fantino uh

Julian Fantino: Right

Shawn Brant: I I put two of my own babies in the ground um

Julian Fantino: I’m sorry

Far from his checkered past of politicized police raids in poor communities, and threats of ruining the reputation of activists, Fantino's first statement as Minister of International Cooperation aimed for a kinder, gentler message.

"I look forward to continuing the good work already done by CIDA around the world," said the newly-appointed minister. "In particular the efforts to save the lives of mothers, children, and newborns as part of Canada's Muskoka Initiative."

The first male to hold the position since Don Boudria left his post in 1997, Fantino will oversee an international cooperation ministry with a growing emphasis on policing and police training.

"Maybe it's fitting that we have a police officer—a former police officer—running the aid agency now, kind of playing the good cop to the military's bad cop as far as global order is concerned," said Nik Barry-Shaw, who co-authored a recent book on Canadian non-governmental organizations titled Paved with Good Intentions. "One of the kind of rough titles that we had for the book was...Good Cops of Global Capitalism. That's kind of the role, putting the human face on things that are fundamentally pretty ugly."

Canada is deeply involved with police training around the world, but it is the RCMP's ongoing role in training Haitian police forces has come under perhaps the most intense public scrutiny.

"A large part of what was...listed as aid to Haiti was in fact funding for police training in Haiti, and that was done with RCMP officers who were down there to train their Haitian counterparts in the arts of close quarter combats," Barry-Shaw told The Dominion.

RCMP training of Haitian police was happening at a time when there were regular raids of neighbourhoods that supported deposed president Jean Bertrand Aristide. Some of these raids ended in civilian massacres carried out by police. More recently, the RCMP have become involved in training Mexican police.

Fantino's appointment followed the announcement of former Minister of International Cooperation Bev Oda's resignation. Oda will leave her post as MP of Durham, Ontario, on July 31.

Dawn Paley is a freelance journalist. Follow her on Twitter @dawn_.

Fantino

Canada Boosts Police Power in Mexico

Tim McSorley — Wed, 04 Jul 2012 10:45:35 +0000

Ottawa's role in the permanent war against the people of Mexico

CIUDAD JUAREZ, MEXICO—The music is loud and the bar is well stocked. I sit timidly with a can of beer, eyes on the entrance. This was a happening nightclub before Juarez was transformed into a war zone. My companion, Julian Cardona, who used to shoot photos for the society pages of a local newspaper, describes what it used to be like here: Hummers triple-parked on the sidewalk, hundred-dollar tips, well-dressed Texans waiting behind velvet ropes to get in. Not anymore. The night I visited, the place was near empty, waitresses busy with their iPhones, a wandering cigarette vendor calling out to make a sale.

It was Cardona's idea to go to the nightclub; he said it would help me understand the city better. His career has taken an unexpected turn because of the violence: these days, instead of shooting for the society pages, he shoots crime scenes in one of the world’s most violent cities.

Ciudad Juarez, a city that boomed with the introduction of maquiladoras, has long been a city with high levels of violence. The murders of women through the 1990s gained international attention. For each dead woman, there were nine murdered men.

But when Juarez transformed into the focal point of Mexico’s war against drug traffickers, things in the city began to change beyond recognition. President Felipe Calderon launched a militarized war on drug traffickers at the beginning of his term in December 2006. At the end of March 2008, thousands of soldiers and federal police officers arrived in Ciudad Juarez as part of a surge against drug traffickers. After the police and troops arrived, the murder rate skyrocketed, violence increased, and kidnappings spiked. Ciudad Juarez became synonymous with everything that is wrong in Mexico.

But what’s happening in Mexico and in Juarez isn’t happening in isolation. On the one hand, drug consumption in Canada and the US fuels much of the demand that keeps the cartels in business. On the other, Canada and the US have increased their support for the Mexican police and army, even as their role in cities like Juarez is coming under intense criticism. This relationship was highlighted in March when defence ministers from all three countries held trilateral meetings for the first time.

"What we've seen here in [Ciudad Juarez] is that the city was militarized on the last day of March of 2008, when federal forces arrived here, thousands of troops from the army and the federal police," said Carlos Yeffim Fong, an activist and student who lives in Ciudad Juarez. At the peak of the militarization of Juarez, between 2009 and 2010, 5,000 federal police and 5,000 soldiers were in the city.

"Generally, before the soldiers came, there was an average of two murders a day, and when the soldiers arrived, that number began to rise, to five, and later to 10," recounted Fong on a cool November afternoon at the campus of the state-funded Autonomous University of Ciudad Juarez (UACJ). "We've seen various cases where the army and federal police killed minors, as well as police and soldiers directly involved in robbery."

Locals also link federal police, known in Mexico as Federales, to kidnapping.

"When the wave of kidnappings grew, it was because of the arrival of the federal police," said Leobardo Alvarado, who runs the alternative news outlet JuarezDialoga. "Of course, it hasn't been proven that it has to do with that, but yes there are many documented cases where there were people linked to the federal police who committed these crimes."

The involvement of police in illegal activities is nothing new. "Mexican police, indeed, are widely reported to be involved in the trade of drugs, actively through assistance or passively through corruption," wrote Mathieu Deflem, a professor at the University of South Carolina, in 2001. But over the past ten years, the level of police involvement in the drug trade has deepened.

"There's always been a really close line, or, well, they're the same," said Cardona, who has lived in Juarez for over 30 years. "The police and the entire state apparatus, all of the institutions of the state, have always been the guarantors of the drug trade."

I interviewed Cardona on the patio of a Starbucks, the only establishment in Juarez that still dares to open its outdoor seating area. Our table faced a Wal-Mart, built over top of what was once a bullfighting arena. Every so often, we'd see a police car make a slow loop through the parking lot, lights flashing.

Police involvement in the drug trade intensified with the growth of Mexico's internal drug market, whose expansion has to do in part with increased border controls introduced after September 11, 2001. "Just 10 years ago, there was a lot of narcotrafico in Mexico but Mexicans themselves weren’t consuming the drugs," said Dr William I Robinson, professor and author of A Theory of Global Capitalism. "Now there’s millions of Mexicans that are addicted to drugs, and that are consumers of drugs also, and that’s because of those changes at the border and the changes in the velocity of drugs moving through Mexico."

As local drug markets grew, according to Cardona, police began to move drugs themselves, to execute people and even to move bodies in patrol cars, all of which meant they earned more money. Instead of wiping out these behaviors, the militarization of the city seems to have exacerbated them. "What happens is that when the Federales arrive in Juarez, and the army, is that they basically displace local state or municipal police from their markets," said Cardona.

Not everyone agrees on what exactly pushed Ciudad Juarez onto the map as a city with one of the highest murder rates in the world. The mainstream media claimed the violence stemmed from a turf war between the Sinaloa Cartel and La Linea, the armed wing of the Juarez Cartel, which they claim police and soldiers helped to quell. Upon careful examination, this narrative is constructed in the media using official sources such as unnamed officials and the US Drug Enforcement Administration. The residents of Juarez I spoke to, however, place the blame squarely at the hands of the police and the army.

According to Molly Molloy, a librarian at New Mexico State University who tracks the violence in Mexico, close to 95,000 people have been murdered in the country since the beginning of Calderon's term. In Juarez alone, more than 10,000 people have been murdered since 2008. Officials often state the dead were involved in the drug trade, but murders are rarely investigated.

"Most of the killings are between people, well, the people who died were unarmed," said Dr. Hector Padilla, a professor at the UACJ, with a dry chuckle. "The majority are people who were in transit, or who were working, or in their homes and someone arrives and pluck," he said, making a gun with his fingers and pulling the trigger.

The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre puts the number of internally displaced people at 160,000, though other studies show the number could be much higher. In addition, more than 5,000 people have been disappeared since 2006, and the number of federal prisoners has quintupled to more than 18,000, 40 per cent of whom are in pre-trial detention.

Images of gun-fighting, seized drugs and arrests are regularly reported on the evening news, while blogs disseminate torture-kill videos and grisly images of massacres and corpses cut into pieces.

Since the war on drugs was declared, police and policing have been a key component of the Merida Initiative, a US-Mexico strategy that aims to disrupt drug traffickers. In 2010, there were an estimated 409,536 police in Mexico, according to Insyde, a non-profit organization involved in US-funded police training. Federal police, of which there are more than 30,000, all receive in-country military training.

Before the US announced the Merida Initiative in 2007, Canada had already begun to increase security co-operation with Mexico.

Under the rubric of the Security and Prosperity Partnership, then-Minister of Public Safety Stockwell Day and his Mexican counterpart agreed to create a working group focused on bilateral security co-operation in early 2007. Two years later, RCMP officers were training Mexican Federal police.

"The Royal Canadian Mounted Police, along with trainers from the United States and other international partners, are providing basic training to Mexican Federal Police recruits," said Stephen Harper during a stop in Guadalajara in 2009. In addition to training 1,500 low-level Federales, the RCMP trained 300 mid-level Mexican officers, and 32 Mexican police commanders received training at the Canadian Police College.

There is no transparency from the RCMP regarding which Mexican officers have attended training in Canada, and thus far no way to verify whether or not Canadian-trained officers have been directly involved in criminal acts. "For security reasons we cannot give you the names of the Officials that attended training at our Canadian Police College," wrote RCMP media liaison Greg Cox in an email to The Dominion.

By late 2011, US funding had been used to "train over 55,000 law enforcement and justice sector officials, including 7,200 Federal police officers," according to the US State Department.

The New York Times reported that this training involved "conducting wiretaps, running informants and interrogating suspects."

Regardless of the stated efforts of international police forces, corruption among Mexican police has not diminished. "We do not want to overstate this finding: We see no evidence that police corruption is actually falling," reads a 2011 report prepared by the right-wing Rand Corporation.

RCMP and US training of Mexican police is taking place alongside officers from Israel, Colombia, France, Spain, El Salvador, Holland, and the Czech Republic. Maribel Cervantes Guerrero, the highest ranking federal police officer in Mexico, was trained in the US, Israel and Spain.

International co-operation in matters of security creates spaces where "bureaucrats and military elites actively study and borrow each other’s techniques and advise one another on effective ruling practices," according to Laleh Khalili, a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Politics and International Studies at the University of London.

Renewed international interest on the part of Canada, the US and others in training Mexican police comes despite the fact that there is no proof that such training improves security or democracy.

"There is no evidence that almost a century of US assistance to foreign police has improved either the security of the people in recipient countries or the democratic practices of their police and security forces," points out Dr Martha Huggins, who has written extensively on US training of Latin American police. Instead, she says, "the outcome of such training may suggest that the training of Latin American police has deliberately been used to increase US control over recipient countries and those governments' undemocratic control over their populations."

But this isn't just about the US training Mexican cops. The RCMP’s training of Mexico’s police indicates that Ottawa is interested in developing a stronger influence over Mexico’s internal security matters.

In addition to police training, Canada and Mexico hold annual political, military and inter-army talks, and work together with the US and other nations through the Florida-based, anti-drugs Joint Interagency Task Force South. Mexico is also a member state of Canada's Directorate of Military Training and Co-operation, an organization the Department of National Defence says is designed to "enhance bilateral defence relationships with countries of strategic interest to Canada."

From March 26 to 27, 2012, defence ministers from Canada, the US and Mexico held their first trilateral meeting, promising to increase defence co-operation in the fight against drug cartels, as well as protecting trade. "By virtue of our geography, our peoples, and our trading relationship, our three nations share many defence interests,” reads a joint statement by defence ministers.

With bilateral merchandise trade at $21.3 billion and Canadian foreign direct investment at $4.9 billion in 2009, the government of Canada considers Mexico "one of Canada’s most important trading partners in the world."

By 2011 there were more than 2,500 Canadian companies operating in Mexico. Canada's presence is especially strong in the mining and aerospace sector; Goldcorp and Bombardier have made major investments over the past two years.

Canada's growing corporate presence in Mexico may in part explain the increasingly close military and police co-operation. "If it’s a problem for Mexico, it’s a problem for Canada," said Defence Minister Peter MacKay in a statement to the media after the March meeting.

The fact that policing is the central focus of Canada’s security engagement with Mexico is in line with current military strategy, which advocates local police taking a key role over the long term.

"In the simplest of terms, the aim of military intervention is to restore the situation to the point at which the host nation police and security forces are able to maintain law and order," reads Canada's Counterinsurgency Operations Manual.

Indeed, getting the army off the streets of Juarez and the rest of Mexico is also a stated goal of the US State Department. "The Ambassador emphasized that the Mexican military needed an exit strategy," reads a State Department cable released by Wikileaks. "Mexico must build up its civil police and prosecutorial forces to fill much of the space currently occupied by the military."

Though homicide rates have begun to drop in Ciudad Juarez, there continues to be far more murders in the city than there were prior to 2008. Federal police still patrol Juarez, usually masked, often in the back of a pick-up truck with semi-automatic AR-15 rifles across their chests. Residents indicate that simply being out on the street is enough to provoke search and detention by police, likening the situation to an unofficial curfew under which the poorest are regular targets for police abuse.

Far from improving security for residents of Mexican cities and towns, the replacement of soldiers with an expanded, internationally trained, militarized police force is tantamount to the extension of war, by another name.

Dawn Paley is a freelance journalist and co-founder of the Vancouver Media Co-op.

Mexico outlines

Sonic Weapon Rushed Through for G20

stephlaw — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 10:48:09 +0000

Calling LRAD ‘communications device’ allowed cops to skirt rules

TORONTO—The police have tried to convince the public that its Long Range Acoustic Devices (LRAD), purchased for the G8 and G20 summits, were strictly communications devices—that they weren’t to be used as weapons. But internal police intelligence reports suggest otherwise.

Outside of public messaging, the police have in fact referred to the devices as weapons, according to documents obtained by The Dominion.

“Whether you call it a weapon or a communications device, it can be used in situations where it can cause people significant hearing loss, significant pain,” said Abby Deshman, a Program Director with the Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA).“They can be used as weapons; they have been used as weapons in the past.”

The CCLA believes that the government should have properly tested and regulated the LRAD before putting it into use—and this would have happened if the LRAD had been designated a weapon.

The CCLA is now calling on the government to institute stronger rules on their use based on testing conducted since the summits.

Manufactured by LRAD Corporation, the devices can play recorded MP3s or be spoken into through a microphone, and they also have a built-in alert function that emits high-pitched tones.

“This non-lethal weapon can produce permanent ear damage,” reads a May 31, 2010 intelligence brief created by the G20 Joint Intelligence Group (JIG). This group consisted of the Toronto Police, Ontario Provincial Police, RCMP and Peel Region police. JIG intelligence reports were sent to various security partners, government departments and, in some cases, international and corporate partners.

A week later, the JIG issued a correction, inline with the official police messaging, stating that the LRAD “is in fact a communications device.”

Toronto Police did not respond to a request for comment on the difference between the internal documents and the public messaging about the LRAD.

A 2010 briefing note created prior to the G20 by a media relations officer with the Toronto Police detailed the police’s official position. According to the note, the LRAD is a “tool to send emergency notifications, directions for evacuations, etc.” It added that the tool will “allow police to communicate to large crowds in various languages.”

This note described the LRAD very differently from a JIG report created shortly after the September 2009 Pittsburg G20 summit.

The older report described the devices as “sound cannons” to “engage unlawful protestors,” originally developed for military purposes and was “employed against Iraqi insurgents and Somali pirates.”

The Pittsburg G20 summit was the first place these devices were used by the police, rather than by the military. “Police used the device to emit a high-pitch sound that forced demonstrators to cover their ears and withdraw,” reads the report.

“There were no reports of demonstrators attending the hospital,” the report also noted.

Despite this claim, a bystander alleging permanent hearing damage due to the LRAD is suing the city of Pittsburgh, according to a press release from the American Civil Liberties Union dated September 21, 2011.
Karen Piper, the plaintiff in this suit, was subjected to the high pitch sound of a nearby LRAD for several minutes during the protest. She got no warning before the alert started, according to the release.

“Piper immediately suffered intense pain as mucus discharged from her ear. She became nauseous and dizzy and developed a severe headache,” read the press release. “Since then, Piper has suffered from tinnitus (ringing of the ears), barotrauma, left ear pain and fluid drainage, dizziness and nausea. She still suffers from permanent nerve damage.”

Concerned about how the LRAD would be used at Toronto’s G20 Summit, the CCLA took the matter to court. A ruling was made on June 23, 2010. No injunction on the use of LRADs was granted, but a judge did order greater restriction on their use.

“Part of the reason that the LRADs were bought or deployed in a hurry was that one-time funding was available from the federal government in order to police for the G20,” said Deshman.

Using federal funds, the Toronto Police acquired four LRADs in preparation for the G8 and G20 summits. Three were the portable “100X” model and one was a larger “300X” model, which can be mounted on a vehicle or boat. On top of that, the OPP also acquired three LRADs of their own.

Alphonse MacNeil, the RCMP officer in charge of all G20 policing, approved the purchase of these LRADs. However, when it was revealed by the Globe and Mail that the RCMP does not approve of the LRAD being used for crowd control or in urban settings, pressure was placed on MacNeil by the Ministry of Public Safety to justify his actions.

“Public Safety are on me about why I supported the purchase of the LRAD for TPS and OPP,” wrote MacNeil in an internal email.

In response, MacNeil received a briefing note on the LRAD, which said that the Toronto Police Service had developed a set of guidelines for appropriate use, and that the force had already used the tool to execute a warrant. It also pointed to the Pittsburg G20 and the Vancouver Olympics as examples of other events where the LRAD had been used.

The document explained that in addition to delivering audio recordings the “alert functions can be used if necessary.” It noted that the manufacturer recommends never using it for more than two-to-five seconds. It also explained that in order to use the LRAD, police commanders on the ground would need permission from an off-site Incident Commander.

CCLA’s Deshman said the police and other law enforcement officers have to be “extremely careful” about using new technologies like the LRAD.

“We can’t just take manufacturers’ assertions about when a device is appropriate and when it should be used, because they have an interest in selling the device,” Deshman said. “What we need is our government to strongly and independently test these things.”

While the LRAD was used by Toronto Police to amplify an eviction notice at Occupy Toronto in November 2011, it wasn’t used during the G20 protests, despite the chaos on the streets of Toronto.

The CCLA was still concerned and, after the summit, pressed to have the LRAD

regulated as a weapon. The province undertook a study on the matter and a report was issued in November 2011.
The report was based on a review of literature and field tests of the device. It established the disagreement on whether the LRAD is a weapon but did not take a definitive stance on the matter. It did, however, recommend changes that could be made in how the LRAD is regulated.

The report also noted that police operating the device may also be at risk of ear damage, recommending that operators of the 300X model stand at least two meteres behind the device.

“The report indicated that the existing limits on when LRAD can be used need to be updated,” said Deshman, “so we called on the government to implement that immediately. We haven’t yet received a response.”

In recent years, police forces in Canada have been acquiring another new device, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). These miniature robotic helicopters can fit in the trunk of a car and be flown by remote control to conduct aerial surveillance. They have been deployed to assist in homicide investigations, search and rescue and to view traffic accidents from above.

The RCMP, OPP and several local police forces across Canada have acquired these devices from Canadian companies that manufacture them: Waterloo-based Aeryon and Saskatoon-based DraganFly. In August 2011, the New York Times reported that an Aeryon’s Scout model UAV was donated to Libyan rebels by an anonymous donor.

A more advanced UAV, the Predator Drone, was used by a local sheriff in North Dakota. The aircraft is normally used to patrol the US-Canada border, but in this instance was used to assist the sheriff to spy on a family and their land.

A version of the Predator Drone armed with missiles is used by both the US Air Force and the CIA. These drones are reportedly used to carry out targeted assassinations in countries such as Yemen, Iraq, Somalia, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

“We are increasingly seeing police interest in purchasing new technologies, technologies that often have been developed in context such as military use,” said Deshman. “I think this is a trend we will continue to see as technology develops.”

Deshman points to the Taser as an example of a device that was introduced without sufficient regulations or testing. There were 26 taser-related deaths in Canada between 2003 and 2008, including the high-profile death of Robert Dziekanski. National attention on Tasers, particularly after police Tasered and killed Dziekanski at the Vancouver International Airport in 2007, led to deeper scrutiny of the device and its regulation.

Deshman said Canada should learn from this lesson.

“It was probably the worst possible way for them to introduce a new technology,” said Deshman. “What we should be doing is having a lot of public discussion about new technologies, about the benefits and drawbacks.”

Tim Groves is a freelance journalist and investigative researcher based in Toronto.

LRAD - Sonic weapon

Occupy Toronto survives Eviction Day

Tim McSorley — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 10:37:44 +0000

Occupiers, city, to present arguments in court today

TORONTO—November 15 was a whirlwind day for Occupy Toronto. Residents woke to the news that an eviction order had been issued for midnight that night. At the same time, word arrived that New York's Occupy Wall Street, the heart of the Occupy Movement, was being evicted from Zuccotti park. A morning march in solidarity with protesters in New York resulted in two arrests.

Bylaw officers soon entered the park, tagging tents and other structures with eviction notices. Camp organizers met with clergy from St. James Cathedral, which technically owns a portion of the land the camp is situated on, and a General Assembly convened to discuss potential responses. The camp buzzed with nervous energy as people prepared for an eviction and the possibility of police violence. A surge of support for Occupy Toronto became evident as the day wore on, with large numbers of people streaming into St. James, and prominent support coming from unions and even some celebrities, including renowned folk singer Gordon Lightfoot.

Sid Ryan, president of the Ontario Federation of Labour, released an "Open Letter to Rob Ford": "Please take this letter as formal notice that I will be personally joining the occupiers in St. James Park tonight, along with many other labour activists and community leaders, to link arms with the Occupy Movement. We are all part of the 99 per cent. [We] have a long and proud history of support for civil disobedience. It represents the finest instincts of citizens in a democracy to correct the actions of their governments...without it, there would have been no Civil Rights, women’s rights, environmental or other seminal movements that have changed the course of history."

The eviction order, signed by City Manager Joe Pennachetti, states that protesters are being evicted due to business complaints and the need to winterize the park. While media have highlighted several complaints from business owners, the Toronto Media Co-op has reported on several business owners in the area who are supportive of or benign to the Occupy site.

Julie, a City Liaison from Occupy Toronto, said that occupiers were more than willing to help with the process of winterizing the park. “Of course we care about the park, we live in it,” she told the Media Co-op. “I contacted five people at the Parks and Rec department. The only one I could get on the phone told me that he had been instructed not to speak with people from Occupy. I left very polite messages on Thursday the 10th and Monday the 14th with four other city workers indicating our willingness to cooperate with them, and received no reply.” Lana Goldberg, another protester living at the camp, says the city has not approached Occupy Toronto regarding winterizing the park. “We would obviously be willing to work with them on doing so,” she said.

Late in the day, the tide had shifted. As a result of negotiations through the church, police had promised not to follow through with a midnight raid, and a ruling on an injunction filed by several camp members against the eviction came down. Lawyers from Green and Chercover successfully argued for a stay against the eviction until a full hearing could be held to determine its legality. The injunction was granted at 5:30pm November 15, giving the camp a temporary reprieve. The legal teams are scheduled to debate the ruling in court today, Friday, November 18, with a final decision from the judge on Monday, November 23. The lawyers for the occupiers are expected to argue that Charter of Rights and Freedoms, namely freedom of expression and freedom of assembly, protect protestors from any action against the camp.

“I think this case is about whether city by-laws trump Charter rights, which is pretty incredible if you think about it,” said Dave Vasey, an occupier living at the camp who sits on a number of committees. Meanwhile, 11 city councilors have signed a letter calling on the mayor to stop the eviction.

Some activists were unhappy with attempts to call off a planned rally in solidarity with Occupy Toronto, and with the injunction itself. Bruce Darden said “I think it's irresponsible for anyone to ever demobilize people, to thwart community members' desires or will to action...The effect [it will have] is that people will continue to look to the institutions of the one per cent, that of the courts, to solve our problems instead of trying to act together and to deal with our issue in collective spaces like the park.” In spite of this development, a large crowd gathered in St. James for a General Assembly, which went late into the night.

Protestors have vowed to stay and continue to fight the eviction.

Justin Saunders is an information technologist and journalist based in Toronto. Megan Kinch is an activist and journalist in Toronto.

Eviction night in Toronto

Political policing in Montreal

Tim McSorley — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 11:59:57 +0000

Human rights complaints filed against Montreal police’s GAMMA squad

MONTREAL—The creation of a new police squad meant to monitor anarchist and marginal political groups is raising serious questions about the politicization of the police in Montreal. At least four organizations have objected to the formation of the unit dubbed GAMMA, and two have filed official complaints with human rights and ethics commissions since the public became aware of the unit in May.

“This squad is really a new kind of political police to fight against social movements,” said Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, a spokesperson for the Association for Student Union Solidarity (ASSE). The student coalition, one of the groups filing complaints, saw three of its executive members and one other student member arrested by the GAMMA squad this summer.

The GAMMA unit was formed in January 2011 as an adjunct to the Montreal Police Force's Organized Crime Unit. According to their website, the unit uses tactics developed to monitor mafia and street gangs in order to keep tabs on political activists.

GAMMA's existence came to light last spring in an article published in the Journal de Montreal following the arrest of several activists in their homes in relation to two separate incidents. In response, two groups, the ASSE and the Coalition against Repression and Police Brutality (CRAP), filed complaints with the Quebec Human Rights Commission.

The complainants allege that GAMMA’s mandate contravenes Section 10 of the Quebec Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which protects the right to peaceful demonstration, without distinction based on race, religion or political conviction. In response to the complaints, the Montreal Police Service (SPVM) issued a statement proclaiming “full and unconditional support” for the Quebec and Canadian charters of rights and freedoms, but maintained police must act to prevent crime and maintain public order.

Last March, members of ASSE participated in an occupation of the offices of Quebec Minister of Finance Raymond Bachand in opposition to tuition fee hikes. It wasn't until July that the GAMMA squad proceeded to arrest four people for their involvement. Three ASSE executives are facing charges of mischief, aggression, and break and enter. “There is nothing criminal in our intentions or actions,” said Nadeau-Dubois, who maintains that the arrests were politically motivated.

In a separate case, the GAMMA squad arrested four demonstrators in late June, this time in relation to a confrontation between police and protesters at an anti-capitalist march on May 1. Accounts differ as to what actually happened at the march. Police claim they were attacked by a group of 15 protesters with wooden and metal sticks, and pelted with projectiles. Demonstrators say police on horseback charged a crowd of parents and children who were there in the hopes of limiting police aggression. Approximately ten minutes after splitting the march in two, police proceeded to snatch Patrice Legendre, a photographer for the communist newspaper Partisan, from the crowd. According to eyewitnesses, a group of protesters pulled him back and a struggle ensued, until police discharged a canister of tear gas and the march continued.

Legendre and three others were arrested at their homes on June 29. It was the first public operation by the GAMMA squad. Nearly 30 officers made the arrests, and the four activists were charged with offenses including assaulting a police officer, assault with a weapon and obstruction of justice. Under their bail conditions they cannot participate in any "non-peaceful" demonstration, carry flags or placards, wear a scarf or carry a backpack at any demonstration.

According to the Partisan, police began monitoring the Maison Norman Bethune bookstore run by the Revolutionary Communist Party following the May 1 march. The interrogations of arrestees were monitored by an investigator from the Integrated National Security Enforcement Team (INSET), an inter-jurisdictional anti-terrorism group that allows collaboration between CSIS, Canadian Border Security, RCMP, and municipal police. This police intelligence organization was formed as recently as 2010. Attempts were made to link the accused marchers to the detonation of an explosive device outside a Canadian Forces recruitment centre in Trois Rivières, a town 140 kilometres north-east of Montreal, last year, but witnesses failed to identify the accused from photos.

Although no one from the Coalition Against Police Repression has been specifically targeted by the GAMMA squad, the group has filed complaints with both the Human Rights Commission and the police ethics commission. In an interview, Alexandre Popovic, spokesperson for the group, objected to a statement made by Deputy Chief Robinette to the Montreal Gazette, that, "[Anarchists] are using various protests, like those about [police shooting victim] Fredy Villanueva, tuition fee hikes and even St-Jean Baptiste—as a pretext to vandalize, throw projectiles and assault police officers."

“This is just slander,” said Popovic. CRAP has organized several demonstrations in Montreal North for Fredy Vilanueva, a youth killed by police in 2008. "All were peaceful, calm, and no police were ever attacked. So calling them [anarchists] violent did make me angry, because it’s simply not true.” If the GAMMA unit was created to police vandalism at demonstrations as the SPVM has stated, "then why does the acronym translate to ‘Monitor Activities of Marginal Movements and Anarchists?'" he asks.

“CRAP is not a specifically anarchist group, but we do participate in anarchist organized events like lectures and book fairs," said Popovic. "Why should we have to worry that we are being spied on by police, while an extreme right wing organization doesn’t?”

The Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA) has also weighed in on the activities of the GAMMA squad. In August they sent a letter to the SPVM expressing concern and asking for several clarifications about GAMMA's actions and mandate. “In a democracy, there is no justification for police to target 'anarchists' who commit violence or property damage any more than liberals, conservatives, or socialists,” wrote CCLA counsel general Natalie Desrosiers.

When asked if he were optimistic about whether the Quebec Human Rights Commission or the police ethics commissioner would rule the GAMMA squad to be a violation of the Quebec charter, Popovic was ambivalent. “Police often believe that they can get away with anything, but once in a while the courts will recognize police abuse. Sometimes they get a surprise, ‘Oh shit, I’m guilty.’ So people shouldn’t hesitate to file complaints when they violate our rights.”

Christian MacDonald is a full time cook, a part time writer, and an ideological freelancer. He’s from Cape Breton, and currently lives in Montreal.

Montreal riot cops

Every Mohawk a Suspect

Martin Lukacs — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 06:08:35 +0000

Why drugs raids in Kanehsatake feel like police invasions

KANEHSATAKE—“You didn’t see anything?” my neighbour asks.

Apparently, another big police raid is taking place. We stop to listen for a second but hear nothing. Nobody phoned. I hadn’t listened to the radio all morning. I’ve been mowing the lawn. I haven’t seen or heard anything unusual. I haven’t seen a single police car.

Looking up, we hear a helicopter. It doesn’t sound like a police chopper. We’ve learned to distinguish the sounds of military, police and civilian helicopters.

“It looks more like a news chopper,” I say.

My neighbour says news reports estimated that a combined force of 500 police officers were raiding Kanehsatake. We agree that a drug raid is long overdue, but we question the numbers and the need for such massive raids. The numbers imply a ratio of about one cop for every three Mohawks—man, woman and child—living at Kanehsatake.

My neighbour tells me the police hit a well-known drug joint in the Pines. “Lots of people go in and out of that place all the time,” she says, “and everyone knows why.”

That phrase gets lots of mileage at Kanehsatake. Everyone knows who’s into cocaine, and who’s dealing oxycontin to kids at the high school in full sight of the band office. Everyone knows who’s selling weapons, booze, and pills. Everyone knows where the pushers of hard drugs live. Everyone knows but few do or say anything until it affects them or their immediate family. Otherwise, most people mumble and complain.

The police arrest eight people at Kanehsatake this time, including an elderly mother. She had the bad luck of being at her son’s house when the police came to arrest him. The police, though, give reporters the name of only one of the arrested: 43-year-old Tyrone Canatoguin.

Because "everyone knows," everyone also has suspicions about this raid. Rumour has it that someone flipped. Everyone knows there’s competition between a few individuals, and possibly their families, over drug dealing. Rumour has it someone, perhaps someone facing jail time, cut a deal in exchange for reduced charges. Rumour also has it that the raid presented a chance for this individual to use the police to take out the competition.

None of that is reported by the news media for several reasons. First, rumours are almost impossible to verify. Second, most Mohawks won’t go on the record, especially to the Montreal-based media. They blame reporters for demonizing their community with sensational, superficial and negative coverage. Third, most reporters don’t look beyond “officials” for comment, as though average Mohawks have nothing relevant to say. Most reporters are fixated on confrontations between the Mohawk and police and everything else gets in the way of “the story”—a story that Mohawks feel has already been written.

Reporters don’t look for other stories or spend much time at Kanehsatake. They arrive when the police raids happen, and leave after they get the story they want. Reporters may not have the time to look deeper into the story. Certainly, most newsrooms are understaffed and reporters stretched too thin. They may also lack basic journalistic curiosity or interest in Indigenous issues, or maybe they’re satisfied to confirm Mohawks as fundamentally criminal, and to reinforce those stereotypes. Harsh? Not really, given the stories I read after a raid.

Newscasts on the morning of June 14 put 500 police at Kanehsatake even though there are raids taking place at Akwesasne, Oka and villages in the southern Laurentians. The numbers just don’t add up. The next day many news-sites, newscasts, and newspapers still put 500 police at Kanehsatake. It takes a small community paper, L’Echo de St. Eustache, to ask a simple question and get a more realistic number: 200. This helps explain why some people hardly noticed the June 14 raid at Kanehsatake.

Almost no context accompanies the stories after the raid. Reporters re-jig Surete du Quebec (SQ) handouts, quote police spokespeople and "balance" those with quotes from Mohawk band councillors. Police are portrayed as wary but professional, putting on brave faces while enduring insults. Reporters portray themselves in much the same way, especially after a La Presse reporter is spit on. Not a single story, however, questions the methods, the cost, the effectiveness or the impact of the raid on ordinary people living at Kanehsatake.

Do such raids instill confidence or fear in the police? Consider how police conduct drug raids elsewhere. They obtain warrants naming specific individuals. They isolate the address specified in the warrant. They execute the warrant with a minimum of inconvenience to the neighbourhood. Even during raids in a small village similar in population to Kanehsatake, police are careful not to disrupt daily life in the community. Often, the police alert the media beforehand so they can transmit the proper message: crime doesn’t pay.

A raid at Kanehsatake is different. The whole community—on every junction of every road—has a police roadblock. All Mohawks are considered suspect and potentially dangerous. This explains why the police presence is massive. There may be helicopters with snipers hovering overhead. The disruption to the community is huge.

Maybe the police get a kick out of these raids—the big operation, the cute title and all the big shiny toys they can muster. It may make them feel a lot safer. But imagine what it’s like from the inside when hundreds of heavily-armed people in uniforms move into your community and treat you like an inmate in a penal colony. The fact is that the majority of people at Kanehsatake don’t commit crimes, don’t own weapons, don’t do drugs. They might go a little over the speed limit every now and then, but they don’t deserve to be treated like criminals.

May of 2009 was the last “raid” in Kanehsatake. It was more like an invasion. It stretched over several days and involved a combined force of about 300 SQ and RCMP officers, dozens of squad cars and large SUVs speeding up and down the territory. A helicopter provided air cover while a police boat patrolled the Ottawa River. An armoured personnel carrier was on hand. Police arrested 12 Mohawks that time, although one escaped from the back seat of a police car, barefoot and handcuffed.

I described that drug raid as an “invasion”—a hugely expensive and wasteful farce. After several days, numerous searches and what must have cost several hundreds of thousands of dollars per day, the police confiscated about 100 tomato plants. Reporters came for the first day but decided there wasn’t anything newsworthy in the days after. Not a single mainstream reporter questioned the conduct of that raid—then, or since.

One woman felt her house shudder from a low-flying helicopter. Looking out a window, she saw a police chopper hovering above roof-level with snipers hanging out the side hatches, weapons pointed at her home and others nearby. Luckily, her children were at school. A few other people reported similar experiences. It made people wonder how the police get their information, what judges require from the police to obtain warrants for raids at Kanehsatake, whether the warrants are executed properly and if civil and human rights are different when it comes to Mohawks.

Plausible rumours after each raid have a long shelf life and wide distribution on the Rez. There’s also little effort to dispel rumours because there aren’t many credible or reliable sources of information at Kanehsatake. There are no local newspapers or other forms of independent journalism. People have few chances to meet, discuss or debate local issues. So the community lives on rumours.

Official sources of information, such as the police, governments, and Montreal newspapers, have little credibility among Mohawks. The police and governments play up their seeming infallibility while depending upon ugly attitudes about Indians in general and Mohawks specifically to justify their actions. To them, this is a problem community that they wish would just go away. As a result, they don’t get involved in working with the community toward long-term solutions, and instead use short-term thinking and flashy, expensive, and ultimately useless raids over and over again. It’s progress in reverse.

The mainstream media seem to share the attitudes of governments and police about Mohawks at Kanehsatake. So they don’t waste a lot of time questioning authorities about strategy or tactics. One can almost hear the sighs from newsrooms and the plaintive whine from reporters begging not to be sent on this never-ending story. As a result, little is done to offset sensational and superficial media coverage often driven by and reinforcing negative Mohawk stereotypes.

Of course, stereotypes go both ways. Mohawks don’t trust, like or respect the SQ or the RCMP because of past confrontations. Police are not seen as people trying to help but uniforms with weapons. On the other hand, the police haven’t tried much to build trust. Stories abound on the Rez about the SQ laughing at Mohawks trying to file complaints for assault or attacks on property, only to be told much later that their complaints don’t exist or are missing.

Mohawks at Kanehsatake may trust the Aboriginal Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit even less. The A-CFSEU is a collection of native constables drafted from reserve police forces across the province. The federal and provincial governments first tried this type of combined native force at Kanehsatake in 2004. It didn’t work.

Former chief councillor James Gabriel fired his own Mohawk police force and dismantled the community police board. He didn’t trust his own cops to "weed out the organized crime that has infiltrated our community." Gabriel then hired about 40 Native constables from across Quebec and brought back a former chief of police that the community despised.

In a 2004 Maclean’s magazine article, Gabriel explained his reasoning.

After 1990, he claims, some Mohawks turned the political and legal vacuum to their advantage. "They got organized during the cigarette contraband era," Gabriel says, referring to the period when name-brand Canadian cigarettes exported to the US were brought clandestinely back and sold tax-free in Mohawk villages. "They developed trade routes, evasion tactics," Gabriel charges. "When tax rollbacks killed the cigarette trade, they recycled into booze, drugs, weapons, illegal immigrants, anything with a cash value."

Given Gabriel's statement, it’s understandable why many people on the Rez became convinced that Gabriel wanted to eliminate all of the smoke shacks at Kanehsatake. Such statements might have played well with outside governments, police and media but it set off alarms inside Kanehsatake. People feared Gabriel intended to use this private army to attack not only crime and dope dealers but his personal and political opponents as well.

The tobacco shacks that lined Route 344 just west of Oka were an economic shot in the arm where there had been almost no growth for decades despite a booming population. The shacks brought in money and created jobs. For many owners of those shacks, it meant new homes, a new car, a chance to pay bills or set up a small business. For those they hired to work in the shacks, it meant a job at home with decent pay instead of commuting or moving to Montreal. There were political implications too because, for the first time in a long time, a growing part of the community was no longer dependent upon, and dictated by, the band council.

Some of the money generated by the tobacco trade began to stick around Kanehsatake. In the past, money—usually in federal grants—would flow through the band office and almost immediately to outside businesses such as those in Oka. Now, there was a growing economy in Kanehsatake. Outside governments and police might not have liked it, they may have even wanted to eliminate the tobacco trade altogether, but they would have had to acknowledge that the entrepreneurial smoke shacks were creating a local economy where none existed before.

There were downsides too. Some parents worried that their children were quitting school to work at these shacks—not exactly a stable career choice. Other parents worried that sitting behind a counter all day didn’t instill in children the same work ethic as their ancestors had. Many parents recognized to some extent that the tobacco trade might end someday if the police and governments had their way.

People also began hearing rumours that some shacks were dealing drugs, weapons and booze. Parents worried that their children might be involved. Sadly, some other parents even encouraged their children to participate and take advantage of the “legal vacuum” that James Gabriel described.

At least that’s what everyone says because everyone knows.

Gabriel’s hired guns drove into the Kanehsatake police station in early January 2004. The reaction to the sudden arrival of foreign cops—Algonquin, Cree, Innu and Mi’kmaq—was swift and angry. They were quickly hemmed in by dozens of angry Mohawks. After a few days, they had to be rescued by Kahnawake’s Mohawk Peacekeepers. An angry mob then marched to Gabriel’s house, burned it down and drove him into exile. Gabriel’s force of Native constables spent the next few months collecting salaries doing nothing, sitting in their vehicles outside the territory.

Safety and security within the community went downhill ever since, coming to a head in 2009. Several people had nearly been killed in a series of violent incidents involving a specific group of men and women. People started calling them a gang. People began to organize their own self-defense groups and community meetings. At these meetings, people condemned police inaction and the band council’s willful blindness to this group’s violence. They began to demand the option of banishment. The band council was forced to meet with the community.

At a meeting in January 2010, the band council said it was working with the SQ to gather complaints including assault, arson and dope dealing. The council assured people they could lodge charges “anonymously” with the band council, which would then file them with the SQ. Of course, that wasn’t possible—legally—but no-one challenged the chief councillor, Paul Nicholas.
The band council also promised to seek legal opinions on banishment, safety and security and formation of its own police force. It promised to report its findings and decisions to the community within a month. Three months later, at a second community meeting, the band council said it was still studying these issues and would convene a meeting “within three weeks.” Since then, more than a year later, not a peep from the band council about any of these topics has been heard. It’s something the present band council hopes people forget as the community heads into elections this summer to choose a new council.

By now, you’ve figured out that Kanehsatake is a community going nowhere fast. Things are put off by the band council either because it’s incompetent and unable to deal with the issues, or it’s handcuffed by government policies and unable to do anything to effect change. Either way, nothing gets done.

The massive raids are merely a symptom of more fundamental problems that don’t or shouldn’t involve the police except as a partner with Mohawks in the community. Policing that doesn’t involve the community, that doesn’t reflect the will of the majority of people, just won’t work. It never has and never will—anywhere.

But giving Mohawks control over policing will take a leap of faith by all parties: the federal and provincial governments, the SQ and RCMP, and most importantly, the Mohawks at Kanehsatake. Individual Mohawks are frustrated that they’ve expressed over and over a wish to be involved. Federal and provincial officials have attended community meetings where speaker after speaker demanded to know why their governments were prepared to spend millions treating them like criminals but nothing to identify and address the root issues that provide the perfect environment for such behaviour.

For a long time, people in the community have been asking—demanding—change, and for some body to act. The band council is useless. Government bureaucrats listen but do nothing. Police seem to like the big show of strength. And the mainstream media puts out the same-old instead of trying to understand why Kanehsatake is in a downward spiral.

Somebody, I fear, is going to get killed, but that won't spark change or interest. I suspect it'll be seen as yet more evidence that Kanehsatake is a basket case and that Mohawks are destined to be hoodlums. In short, a painful reminder that Kanehsatake deserves nothing but the status quo.

Dan David is a printer, inker, drinker, stinker. He is Mohawk from Kanehsatake, and has been a journalist for more than 30 years.

SQ in Kanehsatake

Convicted by the Media, Sentenced by the Courts

hillarybain — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 05:52:51 +0000

Supporters of Nicole Kish say she is innocent and the media is guilty

HAMILTON—Nicole Kish feels like she’s “living in a bad John Grisham novel.”

Kish was convicted of second-degree murder on March 1, 2011, and sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 12 years. An activist, artist and a singer-songwriter with no criminal record, Kish has maintained her innocence since the 2007 death of Ross Hammond, which occurred after a large street brawl near the Toronto intersection of Queen and Bathurst.

Friends and supporters of Kish argue the media storm around the so-called "panhandler killer" was partially responsible for her unfair trial and wrongful conviction, and they are fighting for her release.

The physical altercation that resulted in one man’s death, first described by Detective Sgt. Gary Giroux—and then reiterated by both local and national media—as being between “street kids” and “jocks,” began when a woman identified as Faith Watts allegedly asked for money from George Dranichak and Ross Hammond. On the stand at the preliminary hearings and at the trial, Dranichak testified that he and Hammond, who died of a stab wound that night, responded to Watts with sexually derogatory remarks, such as telling her to perform sexual acts if she wanted money. While on the stand, Dranichak went on to acknowledge that their persistence had fuelled the confrontation.

Nicole Kish had been walking down Queen Street that night with a large number of people celebrating her 21st birthday. She had been in Toronto only for a day prior to the altercation.

Out of the 20 witnesses to testify at the trial, not one identified Kish or saw anyone stabbed that night. In rendering his verdict, Justice Nordheimer addressed this as being inconsequential, saying, “In this case we are not dealing with direct identification but rather with circumstantial identification.”

Two witnesses did testify to seeing a woman in possession of a knife. Kish’s former co-accused, Faith Watts, testified to having pulled out a knife during the altercation and said she had done so out fear for her life and the life of her boyfriend, who witnesses testify was beaten unconscious. Additionally, a substantial amount of DNA was found on Watts’s clothing. However, Nordheimer attributed the DNA findings as being the “limitations of physical evidence,” and while he acknowledged that the knife belonged to Watts, he goes so far as to suggest the knife may have changed hands three times before its fatal use. Stating his case for conviction, he focused on Kish being stabbed, saying that since Kish had been stabbed, there’s an “irresistible inference” that she must have killed Hammond.

Several surveillance cameras were recording that night; two, however, were inexplicably lost while in police custody: the footage on one was recorded over, and the other was “lost”. The explanation Detective Giroux had provided to the courts was that the video was placed in the evidence box but by the time it came into his possession, the video was simply no longer there. Citing previous case law (R. v. La), Nordhiemer attributed the loss of that video to the “frailties of human nature.”

“It’s dumbfounding,” says Kish via telephone from the women’s prison in Kitchener, Ontario. Reflecting on her conviction and the lack of evidence to substantiate it, she emphasizes that she is not alone, saying, “To one end, I understand oppression. I understand humanity’s long history of abuse; I understand I am not the first, nor will I be the last, to be convicted of a crime I did not commit. I just don't understand why.”

“This was not a fair and impartial trial, but a politically-motivated attempt to vilify a young activist, justify draconian ‘Safe Streets’ legislation and further criminalize and marginalize youth and poor people,” says Kevin MacKay, a Professor at Mohawk College and the Executive Director of the Sky Dragon Community Development Centre in Hamilton. MacKay first met Kish when she asked if she could use the centre as a drop off location for Books to Bars, a non-profit organization she founded in Southern Ontario which donates reading and educational material to over a dozen correctional facilities. Describing Kish as being “hard-working and passionate,” MacKay grew to know her through their joint organizing of the G20 Hamilton Primer and her stage performances at the Sky Dragon. MacKay describes Kish’s trial as revealing “a desire on behalf of the police to force a conviction against massive contrary evidence,” in order to obtain the conviction that, from the very beginning, the Toronto Police had promised to the media and the public.

Furthermore, MacKay blames the mainstream media for showing an “equally disturbing level of bias and corruption” in what he describes as “erroneous reports” such as the Toronto Sun claiming Kish was identified at trial as having the knife clenched in her mouth (which she wasn’t), or the media labeling her “the panhandler killer” despite the fact that no evidence indicated that Kish had been panhandling.

Many of Kish’s supporters share this criticism of the media. Within hours of the altercation, the case was highly publicized as the “panhandler stabbing,” causing an extraordinary amount of public outcry against the city’s perceived leniency towards panhandling and the homeless. Top city and provincial officials as well as columnists and talk show hosts weighed in on the incident, calling for panhandling to be made illegal in the city. The media storm began before much was known about the case except what was included in press releases from the Toronto Police, which Kish’s mother Christine Bivens said the media treated “as gospel.”

“One of the ways they [the media] shaped the case [is that] Nicole was always referred to as the panhandler despite the fact there was absolutely no testimony that she was a panhandler,” said Bivens. “Contrast this with the portrayal of George Dranichak, purveyor of porn, and his business associate Ross Hammond, whom the media referred to as internet marketers.”

George Dranichak is an owner of a multi-level porn marketing company, which manages such sites as Uncaged Marketing and Guerrilla Traffic. Also, it came to light during the trial that while attending school in Kentucky, Dranichak settled out of court after violently assaulting an individual after forcing his way into the person's dorm. Being someone who runs a pornography marketing company and has a history of violence carries entirely different implications than being an “internet marketer,” and might have provided a very different narrative to the public discourse. However, these elements of Dranichak’s character were left out of media coverage.

When Kish was out on bail she was under a stringent publication ban that prohibited her and her family from speaking publicly about the case. Her grandmother Val Lewis says the ban affected the outcome of the case. She feels this way especially in regards to Kish’s character, saying that Kish “would fight for a cause up to but excluding violence. Violence has never been a part of her makeup. But drawing attention to wrongs always has.”

Despite the media coverage, Kish’s conviction sparked immediate backlash and a grassroots campaign to advocate for her release. Weeks after her conviction, supporters organized a show to raise awareness and funds for her appeal. They held a rally outside the courthouse immediately following Kish’s sentencing on April 4, 2011, which heard the courtroom erupt in chants of “Free Nyki!”

When asked what’s next for the Free Nyki Campaign, Bivens believes that the courts will “overturn Nicole’s conviction if [they find] it wasn’t properly based on points of law.” If this happens, it will make Kish eligible for bail pending a second trial, which is a priority for Kish’s family and supporters.

Eugene is a writer and activist living in Hamilton Ontario. He came to know Nicole Kish through both their participation in the arts and in community organizing. He currently supports the campaign to free Nyki.

Free Nyki

Victoria Bivens

Infographic: Threatening Ideologies

Moira Peters — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 05:36:25 +0000

tim-infog.11X17.new_.jpg

Tim Groves is an independent researcher and journalist in Toronto.

Questions Persist about Provocateurs at SPP Summit

Moira Peters — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 09:33:30 +0000

As protester is acquitted of charges from 2007 Montebello protest, questions resurface about police-incited violence

TORONTO—A Quebec court ruling in January 2011 found police acted illegally in trying to shut down a protest in Montebello, Quebec, in 2007, when they arrested two women on a downtown street. This ruling has led to renewed calls for an inquiry into another police action—one now well-known, thanks to Youtube—at that same protest: the alleged use of undercover officers to incite violence.

On August 20, 2007, the heads of state of Canada, Mexico and the US met at a summit in Montebello to discuss the proposed Security Prosperity Partnership (SPP), an agreement that would have harmonized trade and security measures between the three countries. A protest against the meeting took place throughout the day.

Late in the afternoon, when the number of demonstrators had dwindled, a line of riot police attempted to disperse those who remained on the streets. While most of the protesters were pushed backwards by police, activist Leila Martin and another person sat on the ground, clinging to each other, as the police swept over them. They were arrested for obstructing police, who were carrying out orders to shut down the demonstration.

Martin was offered a discharge if she pleaded guilty to the charge, whereby she would not receive any fine, jail time, or a criminal record. She was advised to take the deal by her court-appointed lawyer. She told him, “I don't actually think I am guilty and I think my freedom of assembly was violated.”

Her lawyer told her that if she pleaded not guilty he would refuse to represent her.

“You won't represent me then,” she told him.

Martin then went about the work of learning how to prepare her own defense, reading all the court cases she could find which involved charter challenges. She made sure that her charter challenge emphasized why she was protesting the SPP.

Martin did most of the research around presenting her case, and eventually acquired a lawyer, Denis Barrette, who helped her finish writing her charter challenge and represented her in court.

Martin told The Dominion that with support, it is possible to prepare one’s own charter challenge. (She said she would encourage anyone in a similar position to write to her, "and I would help them do it.")

When the matter eventually went to court, Judge Lapointe ruled the Charter of Rights and Freedoms had indeed been violated.

“The approach [of the] RCMP against the two women arrested, including the accused, is incomprehensible,” said Quebec Court Judge Real Lapointe in his January ruling, acquitting the charge brought against activist Martin.

“Police decided to end the demonstration. We will not know why. In itself it is surprising, in the presence of a largely peaceful and festive crowd who met...to express opinions and positions. This expression of their deepest beliefs is a right guaranteed by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms of this country and gives the rally itself a special character and importance.”

The RCMP and Surete du Quebec (SQ—Quebec police) chose not to comment on the ruling.

Judge Lapointe said another factor that supported the argument of the defense was testimony that during the protest police used agents provocateurs—a term used to describe the use of undercover officers to try and provoke activists into committing illegal acts.

Lapointe was referring to an incident earlier in the protest. Dave Coles, President of the Communication, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada (CEP), confronted three undercover police officers dressed in black and wearing masks over their faces. The officers were posing as Black Bloc, and one of them, who would later be identified as Sergent Jean-Francois Boucher, held a large stone in his hand. The event was caught on video.

“These three guys are cops, everybody; put the rock down, cop,” said Coles on the video. As Coles confronted the three undercover officers, Boucher shoved him. The officers also swore at Coles, and continued to push him and others gathered at the scene.

Coles and others activists, including some dressed in Black Bloc, continued to yell at the undercover officers and tried to remove their masks. Eventually the three jumped into the line of riot police, where they were handcuffed and led away.

“They are trying to create a riot so they can suck us all in to get beat up,” said Coles on the video, which went viral on Youtube and has been watched more than a half-million times.

At first the RCMP and SQ denied allegations that the men were in fact police officers. But three days after the incident, on August 23, 2007, the SQ released a statement explaining the men were indeed undercover members of their force, but denying that the officers had committed an illegal act.

The three officers, Sergeants Boucher, Joey Laflamme and Patrick Tremblay were part of an undercover team code-named “flagrant delit,” which roughly translates to “caught red-handed.” The team’s official role, according to a report by the Quebec Police Ethics Committee, was to “melt into the crowd to identify the perpetrators of crime and stop them.”

“It is wrong for a state to use its own security forces, police, provocateurs, undercover agents, to evoke violence. That's not democratic. We have a voice, we had a right to [speak], and we had a right to assemble,” Coles told The Dominion in a telephone interview.

Coles began asking for a public inquiry into the event. He wanted to know who gave the orders to use agents provocateurs. Instead of being granted an inquiry, the channel offered to him was to bring a complaint before the official body for dealing with police wrongdoing in Quebec, the Police Ethics Committee.

On May 19, 2009, the Commissioner of the Committee dismissed six of the eight complaints brought forward by the CEP. Five months later, on October 19, 2009, the Committee overturned the Commissioner’s ruling and started a new investigation, stating, “If the infiltration of police officers to stop the authors of criminal acts is acceptable, not all acts committed by [police] to this end are legitimate just because the original goal is desirable.”

The Committee released its final report on March 14th, 2011, finding that Boucher had breached the police code of conduct by swearing at and pushing Coles, but dismissed charges of inciting violence and abusing his authority. The charges against the other two officers were all dismissed.

Coles does not think the Committee was asking the right questions. He wanted to know who gave orders for undercover police to incite protesters in Montebello in 2007.

“They were able to box us into a corner,” said Coles about the way his complaint was handled by the Committee. “It was all about the conduct of three policemen rather than who gave the political orders for agent provocateurs to go in and disrupt the assembly.”

Coles said he felt encouraged by Judge Lapointe’s ruling, and he has renewed his call for an inquiry into the actions of police at Montebello—especially the use of agents provocateurs.

“What is happening more and more and more in Canada, as witnessed through the G8/G20, is that the state thinks that if they don't like what you have to say, they will go in and mess it up so that the message isn't clear,” said Coles.

No clear evidence has emerged that agent provocateurs were used at the G20 protests. However, some activists like Coles still have their suspicions.

A week after the G20 protests, on July 2, 2010, Le Devoir, a Quebec daily newspaper, ran a story entitled, “G20: la police aurait utilise des agents provocateurs”—“G20: The police reportedly used agents provocateurs.”

The article refers to a video in which “plainclothes police, disguised as protesters, some armed with batons and sticks, took cover behind a cordon of police. One of them dressed all in black with a hood over his head, as [in the style of] Black Bloc.”

However there is no indication in this video that the alleged plainclothed officers were provoking or inciting activists.

"As far as [using] officers dressed as Black Bloc, I will not say we didn't. I will not speak to our techniques," said Sergeant Michele Paradis, an RCMP spokesperson, when asked about police tactics during the G20. "I won't speak to the manners we will use to keep the community and the [G20] delegates safe."

Meaghan Gray, spokesperson for the Toronto Police Service, had a less ambiguous answer, saying in an email that undercover officers did not dress as Black Bloc.

In response to an access-to-information request on the "use of so-called agent provocateurs or undercover Black Bloc infiltration policies" at the G20, nine pages were released by the RCMP and made available to The Dominion. These documents mostly deal with the structure of undercover operations. In addition to these nine pages, another four pages were redacted in their entirety.

Only one page—a set of media talking points—speaks about agents provocateurs. It reads, “None of the Integrated Security Unit partners use so-called agents provocateurs,” and, “In fact, the role of police is to de-escalate tension and preserve the peace.”

“I don’t believe that. In fact, there is just no evidence that the police were trying to diffuse anything,” said Coles.

Coles said many wrongdoings at the G20 have already been exposed, but he expects many more will be revealed.

“A lot of this stuff is going to be uncovered a lot more [easily] than it was for us at Montebello,” he said. He believes the number of photos and videos taken in Toronto is what will make a difference. “I think social media is going to help us to uncover the facts and force an inquiry.”

His union, the CEP, is one of many groups, including the Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA), the National Union of Public and General Employees (NUPGE), the federal New Democratic Party and Amnesty International, calling for a public inquiry into police actions at the G20.

"The suggestion that police informants may have endorsed or supported the commission of acts of vandalism is particularly concerning," said NUPGE and the CCLA in a recent report on police actions during the G20. They "believe an independent inquiry into this aspect of G20 policing is necessary to investigate the extent of undercover operations and address the limits on what police infiltrators can and cannot do while on assignment."

Tim Groves is an investigative researcher and journalist based in Toronto. He twitters @timymit.

molatov provocateur

Revolving Door

Moira Peters — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 13:52:36 +0000

Sex offender who targets Aboriginal girls should not be released, say Vancouver residents

VANCOUVER—A growing number of Aboriginal teenage girls are speaking out about their survival of drugging and sexual assault by Martin Tremblay. On February 3, 2011, relatives and friends once again rallied in support outside the Vancouver Provincial Court at Main and Hastings Streets in Vancouver.

"I hope our message gets through to the federal government and the provincial government to tell them the people are now finally speaking up instead of sitting back, hoping for the worst," explained Hank Bee, who had come to the rally from the BC interior to represent the family of his niece Kayla Lalonde, who was murdered last year.

Tremblay is in custody and facing drug charges. His bail hearing was postponed again and is now scheduled for February 16. Tremblay was arrested along with several others in a January 2011 sweep by the Vancouver Police Department's (VDP) "Project Rescue."

Both Project Rescue and "Project Tyrant" targeted some of the city's most predatory and violent drug dealers. While the VPD reports that the arrests are the outcome of their outreach with some Downtown East Side organizations, the police and courts face ongoing criticism for their failure to protect Aboriginal girls and women from sexual and physical violence.

"This place is bullshit; [it's a] revolving door. He'll probably get out within the next couple of months, 'cause that's the way it is," said Bee in an interview with the Vancouver Media Co-op outside the Vancouver Provincial Court at 222 Main Street.

In December 2003, Tremblay was convicted for five counts of sexual assault against Aboriginal teenage girls. However, he was released from custody the following year, after serving only a fraction of his three-and-a-half-year sentence.

Several Aboriginal teenage girls have spoken out to police and media over the past year, denouncing Tremblay for drugging and sexually assaulting them since his previous release.

A white francophone man in his mid-40s, Tremblay is known by youth as "Uncle Martin," "Frenchie" and "Dad." According to the girls and women in the DTES who have been speaking out about Tremblay, he has been preying on young Aboriginal teenage girls in East Vancouver for years, luring them to his home with promises of free alcohol and drugs.

Finally, on February 11, 2011, the VPD released to the public a photo of Tremblay. "We believe it’s necessary to put out his picture because he goes by different names. He has used 'Daniel Simard' and changed his name from Martin Tremblay to Joseph Walter Martin Tremblay," said Inspector Dean Robinson in a public statement from the VPD.

“Extraordinary situations call for extraordinary measures,” said Chief Constable Jim Chu, of the unusual step of releasing a photo of a suspect of a continuing investigation.

Those seeking justice for girls assaulted and killed feel police response to those crimes is still lacking. "How many girls do they need to keep him behind bars? A hundred? You want a hundred dead? You know, like, isn't one assaulted good enough? Isn't one dead good enough?" said Aboriginal Front Door volunteer Bobbi O'Shea after the rally on February 3, 2011.

Statements by young girls reveal detailed accounts of Kayla Lalonde and Martha Hernandez's "visits" to Tremblay's residence.

In 2009, Lalonde survived a sexual assault by Tremblay while she was unconscious and woke up naked at a bus stop downtown. Details of this incident were publicly revealed to the media by another 17-year-old Aboriginal teen, who also shared details of her own survival of a sexual assault by Tremblay.

On March 2, 2010, 17-year-old Martha Hernandez died from a lethal dose of drugs and alcohol inside Tremblay's home in Richmond. That morning, 16-year-old Kayla Lalonde's body was discovered on a street in Burnaby. Forensic evidence determined her cause of death to be a similar lethal dose of drugs and alcohol.

"I don't know why we haven't heard that, you know, he's up on any charges [related to the sexual assaults or deaths] yet," said O'Shea, who also told the Vancouver Media Co-op that she personally knows nine Aboriginal teenage girls who have been sexually assaulted by Tremblay.

"I feel failed by the system," continued O'Shea. "If it was a white person from the West Side, and a Native person who victimized them—one person!—[the Native] would have been locked up, closed, case closed. But because it was on the other foot, it's like, 'Who cares?'"

According to a Justice for Girls press release on the day of his sentencing on December 4, 2003, Tremblay had originally been charged with 18 counts of sexual assault and administering a noxious substance to five Aboriginal girls between the ages of 13 and 15. Then 38, Tremblay admitted to sexually assaulting and videotaping the girls while they were unconscious in his home. He was sentenced to three-and-a-half years in custody and 18 months probation.

"We are disappointed with the sentence but not surprised by it because the courts rarely treat violence against Aboriginal teenage girls seriously," said Justice for Girls advocate Annabel Webb in the December 2003 press release.

"What is shocking however is the degree of racism and sexism that is tolerated in the defence of men who commit sexual offences against Aboriginal girls," continued the statement.

Media reports indicate that Tremblay did not in fact serve his entire sentence, and that he was released in 2004. Although Justice for Girls advocated for his sentence to include restrictions against contact with minors, their motion was not accepted. Police refused to issue a warning upon his release, and Tremblay has not been included in the Sex Offender Registry in Canada.

Media reports also indicate that between his release in 2004 and his arrest on drug charges in 2011, Aboriginal teenage girls in the legal custody of the BC Ministry of Children and Family Development were living with Tremblay in a house on Pender Island. Not long before his 2011 arrest, a Richmond housemate told CTV that Tremblay was planning to move to Montreal.

"Two girls are dead," said O'Shea, her voice shaking with rage and grief. "It's very sad. I'm a parent. When you look at another parent who's Aboriginal, and their child is dead because of this man, and he's going to get out of jail... It's despicable. It's disgusting. I don't know what to say to them but to cry, because it's so heartbreaking," said O'Shea, tears sliding down her cheeks and mixing with the rain on Main Street.

"At first the police thought they were dealing with two separate cases, but it turned out to be the same case. And, at the time, one of the girls was actually my girlfriend," said Steven, a young Aboriginal who lives in Vancouver and who only wanted to give his first name, to the Vancouver Media Co-op after the rally.

"When this guy gets prosecuted to the full extent of the law, that's when we know our girls will be safe again. That's when we'll know it'll be just this much safer, just to get that one guy off the streets again. That's what I look forward to here," he said. The young man is still hoping for justice almost a year after the murder of his girlfriend and their friend.

The statements of relatives and friends of the young women reportedly sexually assaulted and murdered by Tremblay echo the voices of many others from Vancouver's Aboriginal community, First Nations around the province and Downtown East Side women's organizations.

The inaction of police forces and government agencies in the face of startling numbers of missing and murdered women in British Columbia and across the country is highlighted in the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry this year. Commemorative events are ongoing around the city, leading up to today's 20th annual Women's Memorial March in the DTES.

"March 2 will be one year [since the murder of Kayla Lalonde and Martha Jackson Hernandez], and that's when we'll have our very first celebration; [that's] when I come out of mourning for the first time. It's a long process," explained Bee.

"Keep him in jail forever, because that door does stop eventually," said Bee.

"It has to stop. Now." said O'Shea, as the rain continued to fall in Vancouver's Downtown East Side. "You have to show these youth, these Native youth, that they mean something, that they're not throwaways. And that their people didn't die and nothing happened."

Sandra Cuffe is a contributing member of the Vancouver Media Co-op (VMC) who lives in the Hastings Sunrise neighbourhood, in unceded Coast Salish territory.

This article was originally published by the VMC. A video of the interviews conducted February 3, edited by VMC contributing member Masrour Zoghi, can be viewed on the VMC website. Catch VMC coverage of events related to the BC Missing Women Commission of Inquiry and today's 20th annual Women's Memorial March in Vancouver. Background information on many issues addressed in this article is available from the Vancouver Media Co-op, and from groups such as Sisters in Spirit, Aboriginal Front Door and Justice for Girls.

Tremblay.Streets Safe

Tremblay

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

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

Blockade in Grassy Narrows over Policing Concerns

Tim McSorley — Wed, 19 May 2010 18:46:08 +0000

Slow response times, alleged intimidation lead residents to call for new peacekeeper services

Disillusioned with the service of Treaty Three Police Service, a group of demonstrators blockaded the road to Asubpeeschoseewagong (Grassy Narrows) First Nation on Tuesday afternoon.

“There are a lot of complaints from the community members about how the police do their service around the community. There’s really slow response time,” said Chrissy Swain, who was one of the leaders of the community's logging blockade that began in 2002. “Some calls they don’t even respond to. There are complaints about intimidation and the way they handle situations when they do answer calls. I guess it’s mainly safety issues for our community.”

Swain began a dialogue with the police two years ago to address how police respond to calls from the community over 60 kilometres from the Northwestern Ontario city of Kenora. Swain said she has seen no progress.

“Treaty Three says there’s not enough funding. They don’t have enough police officers—stuff like that. There’s always something and nothing’s being done,” she said. “It’s getting pretty sickening just sitting back, waiting for something to happen.”

Councillor Randy Turtle said sometimes it can take up to half a day for the police to respond to an emergency call. He has been in discussions with Treaty Three Police regarding the issue as recently as two weeks ago.

“I have spoken to the sergeant before and the chief of police before and told him we’re not happy with the response time and the service we’re getting for our community. The explanation has always been that there’s a lack of manpower to adequately serve our community. Hopefully with this, we’re hoping that the federal government will give us more money so we can have the manpower to have more police in the community so we can have service for our people.”

Councillor Darryl Fobister expressed interest in seeing a unit stationed in the community.

“Apparently, they don’t want to stay in our community and that’s kind of odd,” he said. “It would be nice if we had officers that got to know the people and we got to know them as well so that there’s less of a chance of anything really violent happening because it’s more of a one-to-one basis.”

Ultimately, Swain is proposing a volunteer force of peacekeepers to respond to safety concerns in the community.

“The bigger picture is I want to see our own people taking care of our own people as peacekeepers so we can enforce our own laws,” she said, adding Treaty Three doesn’t enforce traditional laws or community bylaws.

Last year, a Safety Committee was established in Asubpeeschoseewagong, which councillors on the site of the blockade felt could complement a police presence as its mandate grows.

Blockade leaders are meeting with Treaty Three Police Deputy Chief Louie Napish Wednesday to hand over concerns they have compiled.

Originally printed in the Kenora Daily Miner and News. Jon Thompson is an award-winning journalist and author based in Northwestern Ontario.

Blockade about police in Grassy Narrows