Monthly Archives: August 2015

democracy, Politics

It’s official: Jason Kenney is just making stuff up about the economy

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Photo: Power & Politics.

reposted from PressProgress, Aug 31, 2015

Here we go again!

Last week, Conservative candidate Jason Kenney boasted Canada is “the only country in the world” to eliminate its deficit. It turns out that statement was entirely false.

Now this week, Kenney is going on TV and insisting that the gradual shrinking of the Canadian economy over the last several months is hardly a “recession” – rather, in Kenney’s words, it is merely a “discrete sectoral downturn.”

“Most economists define a recession as a widespread downturn in the economy,” Kenney said Sunday in an interview with the CBC. “What we know is we have a clear sectoral downturn in oil and gas.”

“Other sectors of the Canadian economy, other regions continue to grow,” Kenney added.

Statistics Canada will let us know on Tuesday if Canada’s in a recession or not, but we already know Kenney’s suggestion that only the oil and gas sector is down while other sectors “continue to grow” is completely false:

statcan-sectors-gdp.jpg
“The decline in May was mostly a result of contractions in manufacturing, mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction as well as wholesale trade,” says Statistics Canada’s latest GDP report released at the end of July.

Even economists affiliated with right-wing think tanks acknowledge “manufacturers have compounded rather than offset the weakness in the oilpatch, cutting production 3.7 per cent so far this year.”

But in fairness to Kenney, he isn’t the first to advance this factually incorrect storyline.

During this month’s leaders debate, Conservative leader Stephen Harper falsely statedthat the “contraction” of the economy is “exclusively” or “almost exclusively in the energy sector” and “the rest of the economy is growing.”

harper-contraction-economy.jpg
Similarly, Harper also recently claimed “80 per cent of the economy is healthy and growing,” a claim the Canadian Press found to be full of “a lot of baloney.”

CP points out Harper’s claim can be traced back to a chart found in a recent Bank of Canada report that does “not go into detail about other sectors and their growth.”

Instead, CP notes that “Statistics Canada’s GDP analysis shows unequivocally that there is hardship in the industrial and manufacturing sectors – above and beyond the contraction of the energy sector.” SOURCE

 

democracy, Ecocide ALert, Fascism/Corporatism, Politics, Preventing Ecocide

In British Columbia, indigenous group blocks pipeline development

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Gate at Unist’ot’en camp, photo: Al Jazeera.

by Michael Toledano, reposted from Al Jazeera, Aug 20, 2015

To stop oil projects from moving forward, the Unist’ot’en have set up an encampment on traditional territory

This is the second in a two-part series on Canadian government monitoring of First Nations groups over land and environmental issues. Read the first part here.

HOUSTON, British Columbia — In a remote mountain pass connecting the Pacific Coast to the interior of British Columbia, a region brimming with wild berries and populated by grouse and grizzly bears, felled and painted trees have been laid across a logging road to form an enormous message. Directed at air traffic, it reads “No pipelines! No entry!” The warning marks off land where the government of Canada and a First Nations clan hold irreconcilable views of what should happen to a 435-square-mile area each claims as its own.

Starting in 2009, the government of Canada began to issue permits for a pipeline corridor to link British Columbia’s fracking fields and Alberta’s tar sands with export facilities and tankers on the Pacific coast. Seeking to become a global energy superpower, Canada staked its economic future and legislative agenda on the rapid expansion of its resource and fossil fuel sectors, envisioning pipelines as the arteries of trillion-dollar hydraulically fractured gas and bitumen industries.

That year the Unist’ot’en clan of the Wet’suwet’en nation began to establish a permanent community directly in the path of three approved projects — Enbridge’s $6.1 billion Northern Gateway, Chevron’s $1.15 billion Pacific Trail Pipeline and TransCanada’s $3.7 billion Coastal GasLink. These pipelines were to run through land that Unist’ot’en were forced from in the early 1900s, and after reoccupying the territories, the clan banned all pipelines under a hereditary governance system that predates Canada.

Although the Unist’ot’en clan, along with most other First Nations peoples in British Columbia, never relinquished its territories to Canada by way of treaty, land sale or surrender, the provincial and federal governments assert jurisdiction over these lands and have authorized widespread development. While the government maintains that First Nations must be consulted about development — though they ultimately lack veto power — by controlling access to their traditional territories, the Unist’ot’en clan is attempting to require that the government gain “consent for any activities and development that take place,” as the clan put it in an Aug. 6, 2015, declaration.

“The Unist’ot’en do not recognize or honor any permits by provincial or federal regulatory or governing bodies related to our unceded traditional territories,” read a letter sent by the clan to pipeline giant TransCanada. “We honor only our traditional law and are guided by our ancestors’ direction to protect our territories from destruction.”

Since June, the hereditary chiefs of the Unist’ot’en clan and dozens of supporters have physically impeded the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and TransCanada and Chevron pipeline work crews from entering the territory. Although the pipeline companies have modified their projects to skirt the Unist’ot’en’s main encampment, they remain intent on building through land traditionally used by the clan.

Rejecting this prospect, the Unist’ot’en have fortified their perimeter. With heavy chains, a pickup truck, a newly installed plywood and barbed wire gate, spotlights and an emergency siren, the clan transformed a bridge to their traditional territory into an international border, monitored by a fluctuating crew of volunteer guards.

Holding their ground

Freda Huson, Unist’ot’en, pipeline development, British Columbia
Freda Huson confronts RCMP oficers on the bridge to traditional Unist’ot’en territory. Michael Toledano

In the past three months, a series of encounters with pipeline companies and law enforcement officials have occurred at checkpoints on logging roads that lead to the clan’s traditional territories. To access these roads, visitors are required to answer five questions posed by a clan representative: “Who are you?” “Where are you from?” “Do you work for industry or government that’s destroying our land?” “What skills do you bring?” and “How will your visit benefit the Unist’ot’en?” The protocol is inspired by the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and by the clan’s history of monitoring its territorial boundaries and enforcing trespass laws.

Though loggers, tree planters and a guide outfitter have been granted access to the territory since the clan instituted this protocol, pipeline contractors have been turned away. Throughout June, safety officers and TransCanada crew members, some wearing body cameras, repeatedly approached the boundary and asked camp supporters their names and if crews would be in danger if they entered the territory. Clan members believe that energy companies are gathering information to obtain a court injunction, which would oblige police to force the roads open in order to ensure that pipeline crews can work unimpeded.

On two occasions, helicopters carrying TransCanada crews were found entering the traditional territory without permission. The first crew was confronted by Unist’ot’en supporters and immediately complied when asked to leave. The second crew, escorted by an ex-military pilot and security staff, completed a day of work before volunteers grounded their helicopter by staging a sit-in beneath its rotor blades.

At the end of July, representatives of the Chevron-backed Pacific Trail Pipeline arrived at the Unist’ot’en boundary. “We’re here to talk to you about doing work on your land and are requesting access onto your territory,” said pipeline vice president Rod Maier.

“We’ve already written you letters saying that you guys don’t have our consent,” Freda Huson, a spokeswoman for the clan, replied. “We’re not letting the last stitch of our land be taken over so we can’t hunt, fish and trap or teach our young ones who they are and where they belong.”

Huson’s home, a cabin built five years ago in the path of Enbridge and Chevron’s projects, has transformed into a base of operations for the northwestern anti-pipeline movement. Pipeline maps sprawl across her living room table, two-way radios and scanners bleat updates from remote outposts throughout the territory, and quarters of bear meat are canned in her kitchen. Her front door swings open and shut as a steady stream of activists from across North America and beyond rush in and out to grab supplies.

Outside the cabin, a community thrives in the pipelines’ paths. A permaculture garden, a solar-powered electric grid, a bunkhouse, elders’ trailers, campgrounds, a root cellar, a traditional Wet’suwet’en pithouse and a two-story healing center with an industrial kitchen and counseling space have all been built with crowd-sourced funds and volunteer labor.

Zeroing in

As pipeline crews have increased their presence throughout the region, so too have the RCMP. In late June, police initiated what the clan called “a campaign of harassment and intimidation on and around Unist’ot’en territory.” Two police checkpoints were established on roads used by the Unist’ot’en under the pretense of ensuring safety.

For approximately two weeks, officers asked drivers and passengers traveling in the region for identification and information about their travel plans. The driver of a vehicle associated with the Unist’ot’en was stopped and questioned in a nearby town.

Some American tourists visiting the Unist’ot’en reported that they were stopped four times by RCMP officers and warned that they could be criminally charged, deported and banned from Canada if their vehicle was found impeding road access. The British Columbia Civil Liberties Association expressed concern in a letter to police that “the sudden and repeated presence of mandatory checkpoints at this location has the appearance of targeting people who are lawfully traveling to and from the camp.”

 

‘This is Unist’ot’en territory. It’s not Canada. It’s not [British Columbia]. We make our own laws here.’
Freda Huson
Unist’ot’en spokeswoman

Brett Rhyno, a longtime supporter of the clan, was stopped three times by police in two hours.

In the first stop, an officer rested his hands in the vehicle and indicated that he had prior intelligence on Rhyno. At the next, officers pointed a camera into the vehicle and photographed me in the backseat. I was asked to identify myself but declined, in compliance with Canadian law. At the final stop, officers asked me to identify myself again. When I remained silent, officers identified me by name, without having been provided my personal information.

“They were using scare tactics to try and scare our supporters away,” Huson said. “It worked a bit.”

Several weeks later, two officers of the RCMP attempted to cross into Unist’ot’en territory and were stopped by clan supporters. Blocked by a volunteer who repeated, “You do not have jurisdiction to walk through here,” Sgt. Steve Rose of the Houston RCMP insisted, “Yes, I do,” and threatened to make arrests. “The RCMP have access to all of Canada to enforce the laws of Canada,” he told Huson.

“This is Unist’ot’en territory. It’s not Canada. It’s not B.C.,” Huson replied. “We make our own laws here.”

Surveilling First Nations

Unist'ot'en, British Columbia, pipeline development
On Unist’ot’en territory, a large sign made of wood warns aircraft, “No pipelines, no entry.” Michael Toledano

On Aug. 7, a suspicious person was removed from the Unist’ot’en encampment for taking photos and video without permission — the third time that the clan has suspected a police infiltrator among their supporters.

Police attention to the community dates back to at least 2010, when direct action workshops held by the clan were subject to RCMP surveillance. An RCMP intelligence report from September 2011 devotes a section to the Unist’ot’en.

More broadly, the RCMP has monitored First Nations and environmental groups at hundreds of protests, on the Web, with drones and through the use of field agents or spies. Police investigated a 71-year-old woman as a terrorist threat after she took photos of a petroleum storage facility in Vancouver. They violently dismantled an indigenous anti-fracking blockade in Elsipogtog, New Brunswick. And last year they made over 100 arrests on Burnaby Mountain, where members of the public used civil disobedience to resist the construction of a tar sands pipeline.

RCMP officials have held regular meetings with energy corporations and granted industry representatives security clearance and access to classified information. A report prepared for the petroleum industry by the RCMP’s critical infrastructure intelligence team, deemed activists with “anti-petroleum ideology” a “realistic criminal threat to Canada’s petroleum industry, its workers and assets and to first responders.”

In the report’s appendix, an article on the Unist’ot’en published in British Columbia’s Georgia Strait is reproduced in full. Summarizing threats to the Enbridge Northern Gateway, a project that the Unist’ot’en community obstructs, the report reads, “The [second] most urgent anti-petroleum threat of violent criminal activity is in northern British Columbia, where there is a coalition of like-minded violent extremists who are planning criminal actions to prevent the construction of the pipeline.”

“They’re trying to categorize us as violent extremists so they can legitimize what they’re doing, so they can try and force their projects through here,” Huson argued. “The RCMP are there to enforce the government’s permits, even though they’re illegal.”

Since the clan issued a call for support on July 19, reinforcements and supplies have arrived daily. Helicopters and low-flying planes have conspicuously circled the camp and photographed its occupants. In Toronto,Montreal, Vancouver, Victoria and Seattle, activists have dropped banners, occupied investors’ offices and held rallies in solidarity with the Unist’ot’en. At a Montreal rally, police arrested one protester and fined eight others for obstructing a roadway.

Despite being on high alert, over a long weekend in honor of British Columbia, the Unist’ot’en and their supporters sang and danced to celebrate Knedebeas Day — a holiday named for a clan head chief who instructed her grandchildren, “Let no man take this land.”

They ate wild salmon pizza from a wood-fired oven and drank river water as kids played on a teeter-totter made of 2-by-4s. Elders cleaned buckets of huckleberries, and a warrior sat by the campfire sharing stories fromKanehsatake and Gustafsen Lake — armed standoffs in which Canada used military force against indigenous activists asserting their sovereignty.

On the other side of the border, Chevron crews and security teams move closer to the Unist’ot’en every day as they conduct studies and survey for a pipeline right of way. Yet, aside from the distant whir of helicopters and the occasional siren of an emergency preparedness drill, the community lives quietly, in peace. SOURCE

 

Ecocide ALert, Politics, Preventing Ecocide

Why the Earth Is Heating So Fast

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Notes on the dangerous difference between science and political science

Walruses, hauling themselves ashore by the tens of thousands off Alaska’s Chukchi Sea, because there’s no ice.

By Bill McKibben, reposted from Medium.com, Aug 30, 2015

President Obama is visiting Alaska this week — a territory changing as rapidly as any on earth thanks to global warming. He’s talking constantly about the danger that climate change poses to the planet (a welcome development given that he managed to go through virtually the entire 2012 election without even mentioning it). And everything he’s saying is right: we are a nation, and a planet, beset by fire, flood, drought. It’s the hottest year in earth’s recorded history. July was the hottest month ever measured on planet earth.

But of course the alarm he’s sounding is muffled by the fact that earlier this year he gave Shell Oil a permit to go drill in the Arctic, potentially opening up a giant new pool of oil.

It’s as if the health teacher giving the anti-smoking talk to junior-high assembly had a Marlboro dangling from her lip.

To most of us this seems like a contradiction. But to the political mind it doesn’t, not really. In fact, here’s how David Balton, the State Department’s diplomat for ocean issues, explained it. On the one hand, he said, the idea that we should stop all Arctic drilling was “held by a lot of Americans. It’s not a radical view.” On the other hand, “there are plenty of people on the other side unhappy that areas of the Arctic, and areas on land, have been closed to hydrocarbon development by the very same president.”

So — and here’s the money quote — “Maybe that means we’re in the right place, given that people on both sides are unhappy with us.”

Maybe. But probably not. Because here’s the thing: Climate change is not like most of the issues politicians deal with, the ones where compromise makes complete sense.

Down the hall from Balton’s office at the State Department, he has some colleague negotiating the Iran nuclear deal. By its very nature, a deal has two sides and you meet somewhere in the middle — to insist that Iran get nothing in return for giving up their nukes would be to kill the very idea of negotiations. That’s true in most encounters. If I want $30 an hour to work for your fast food restaurant, and you’d just as soon use slaves, then $15 an hour represents a workable compromise. We can come back in 5 years and negotiate some more. Be reasonable. One step at a time. Zealots make bad policy.

But climate change isn’t like that. Balton — and Obama, and almost everyone else in power — makes the same simple-but-deadly category mistake. They think the relevant negotiation is between the people who want to drill and the people who don’t. But actually, this negotiation is between People and physics. And therefore it’s not really a negotiation.

Because physics doesn’t negotiate. Physics just does.

Earlier this year, before Obama made his decision to let Shell go a’drilling, a team of scientists published a key paper in one of the planet’s most rigorous scientific journals, Nature. After extensive calculation of the atmosphere’s carbon concentration, these scientists listed the deposits of coal, oil and gas we had to leave alone if we wanted to keep climate change from going past the 2 degree Celsius red line set by the planet’s nations, a target solemnly agreed to by…President Obama at the climate talks in Copenhagen in 2009. Here’s what those scientists said: “development of resources in the Arctic and any increase in unconventional oil production are incommensurate with efforts to limit average global warming to 2 °C.”

In this case, the scientists are serving as proxies for physics. They’re not expressing an opinion; they’re reporting on the world’s actual limits. It’s as if physics is saying, “I’m unhappy with this situation.” Or…not unhappy.

Because physics doesn’t even care. Physics just does.

Now, presidents can’t do everything physics demands on climate change. For one thing, Republicans get in the way. And for another we obviously can’t shut down all use of fossil fuels overnight, though in terms of climate change that would be smart. All we can do is move as quickly as possible towards a renewable future. Which is precisely why we shouldn’t even consider opening up a vast new pool of oil, one that we won’t even be able to tap for 10 or 20 years. When you’re in a hole the first rule is stop digging — and yet we’ve just given Shell a giant shovel.

It’s like announcing you’re going on the wagon and celebrating with a trip to a brewpub.

The point is, we’ve got to stop pretending. The idea that you’re doing the right thing when you meet in the middle is, in this case, a dangerous delusion. It’s as if King Solomon had really wanted to cut the baby in half; some things simply can’t be split down the middle.

Which is why the rest of us need to join the scientists. Lots of people are trying. Here are some kayaktivists in Seattle in June, trying to block Shell’s big drilling rig

But you don’t need a kayak to participate. If you wanted to do something right now, you could add your name here. Or you could send the president a note here. Maybe you could just sign it, “Sincerely, Physics.”

SOURCE

Politics

Country bracing for ‘made in Canada’ recession: former chief statistician

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Former chief statistician of Canada Munir Sheikh discusses borrowing for investments and running a deficit with Canada’s debt to GDP ratio.

By Michelle Zilio, CTV Question Period, reposted from CTVNews.ca, Aug 27, 2015

As Canada braces for the anticipated confirmation next week that it’s in a recession, a former chief statistician says the country has no one else to blame but itself.

Munir Sheikh told CTV’s Power Play on Thursday that the country is likely headed into a “made in Canada recession,” especially given recent news that the U.S. economy grew 3.7 per cent in the last quarter.

“Obviously we are doing something in this country, given that three quarters of our exports go to the U.S., which will make the economy pretty weak. So to some extent, our recession is a made in Canada recession.”

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Statistics Canada will release its gross domestic product figures for June next Tuesday, which will show whether Canada had two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth and, thus, met the technical definition of a recession. Canada has seen five consecutive months of economic decline.

All the money talk comes as the federal leaders spar over how they would handle the country’s economy if elected.

Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau announced Thursday that, if elected, his government would run modest, short-term deficits until 2019 in order to boost the economy. Conservative Leader Stephen Harper slammed the Liberal plan, saying Trudeau’s small deficits would turn into large ones leading to high taxes and program cuts.

Reacting to Trudeau’s plan, Sheikh says it is a good time to run deficits, given the state of the Canadian economy.

“The choice for you (as a leader) is whether that money should be borrowed by governments to do useful things or should that money flow to households,” said Sheikh. “I think a senseful thing to do is for the government to be doing useful things in bad economic times.”

But the Conservatives do not agree with Sheikh. Conservative candidate for Calgary Nose Hill, Michelle Rempel, told Power Play that huge deficit spending is not the way to go – and the Liberals don’t understand that.

“It creates increases in taxes and it creates a downgrading in credit rating,” said Rempel. “The Liberals, once they figured out that budgets don’t balance themselves, they just gave up.”

The NDP also criticized the Liberals, saying that a balanced budget is achievable if a government sets its priorities straight.

“We’re going to have a fully costed platform and the point is we don’t actually need to go to into deficit to honour the commitments we’re making,” said NDP candidate for Halifax, Megan Leslie. “It is really about priorities and making those choices.”

Liberal Rodger Cuzner, who is running for re-election in Cape Breton-Canso, said he stands by his leader’s economic plan.

“It should get us through the hump period here with the downturn in the oil,” said Cuzner.

A recent Nanos Research poll shows that a majority of Canadians — 54 per cent -support deficit spending, while 36 per cent oppose it and 10 per cent said they were unsure.

With files from the Canadian Press

SOURCE

Politics, Transportation

Nunavut’s food crisis is becoming an election issue

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(The Canadian Press)

reposted from CBC Radio, Aug 28, 2015

With sky-high grocery prices and increasing costs associated with hunting, it’s not uncommon to hear stories of Nunavummiut concerned about their next meal. There are even accounts of people foraging in local landfills for food. Consider this: two litres of orange juice can cost $26. 5 kilograms of flour? $25. And a case of bottled water can be over $100. To put that into context, the median income for the Inuit in Nunavut was just under $20,000 last year.

It costs a lot to transport food to northern communities which is a big factor in grocery store prices. In 2011, the Conservative Government brought in the Nutrition North program to help offset these costs. Retailers are subsidized and are expected to pass on the savings to consumers. But last year, the Auditor General released a critical report outlining issues with the program including a lack of transparency, it wasn’t clear if the savings were actually being passed on to residents.

Putting food on the table has become a big election issue in Nunvaut. We asked the federal candidates to weigh in:

Liberal candidate Hunter Tootoo

“Under the Trudeau government, the Liberal government and myself will work in partnership with communities to address the food security crisis. We know and acknowledge that Northerners know what the problems are, know how to fix it, they just need to be listened to. And that’s something that’s not happening right now under the Stephen Harper and Leona Aglukkaq Conservative government.

I’ve heard people saying that, under this Nutrition North program, the federal government is taking away people’s choices in what they want to buy and what they consider healthy food. They have taken away the right for them to be able to get it on their own, and under a Liberal government we will commit to expanding the program. That’s another thing that we hear up here - we need to simplify the program so that families can actually take advantage of it for themselves and are not held hostage to shop at the two main retailers up here because they are the only ones that are receiving the subsidy.

I think we should take a look at what the program has actually cost the government in the past and ensure that there’s an adequate amount of money in the program to service the people that need it. What can we do right away to make sure that the subsidy and the program is available to all the people and the families that need it? I don’t believe it would be very hard to change some of the regulations in the program to be able to address those issues, and I think that it’s something that could be done fairly quickly.​”

NDP Candidate Jack Anawak

“First of all, the NDP put forward a motion in the House of Commons in June on Nutrition North and the need to improve the program. So what I have been doing is focusing on working with the government of Nunavut and companies to come up with a program that will benefit the people and lower the high cost of food in the north. We would look at how we can lower the cost of the cargo rates that make food so expensive to deliver and initiate a comprehensive review of the Nutrition North program with Northerners as full partners to determine ways of directly providing the subsidy.

And secondly, we would work to improve how people can get access to more traditional food because right now it costs a tremendous amount of money, at least $50,000, If you want to go hunting so that you can have traditional foods. You have to buy snowmobiles, you have to buy motor boats and ammunition and clothing. The cost is too high for a lot of people up north to go out hunting so they can have traditional foods.

But also it’s creating a credible program with legitimate criteria for Northerners based on their real circumstances. In addition, providing sufficient funding to meet the needs of all northerners is essential. I think the first thing we would do is a comprehensive review of that program and, as soon as possible, put into place measures that would immediately have an impact on the high food costs up north.”

Green Party Candidate Spencer Rocchi

“We will work towards eliminating poverty in Canada by implementing a Guaranteed Livable Income GLI for everyone. The use of the GLI could eliminate poverty and allow social services to concentrate on problems such as lack of money for food, lack of money for mental health, and support for the people who have disabilities and mental illnesses. The level of payment will be regionally set, so that means that we will be communicating with the leaders and elders within each community in Nunavut, but at a bare level to encourage additional income generation. Through Party coherence with the leaders of Nunavut, we think that significant savings could be realized while simultaneously reversing the negatives of a shame-based system that perpetuates poverty.”

Conservative Candidate and incumbent Leona Aglukkaq (written statement)

“Our Government wants all Nunavummiut to have access to quality, nutritious food at an affordable price. That’s why we have increased funding to the Nutrition North program this year by more than $11 million to ensure the program improves food affordability. Surprisingly, both the NDP and Liberals voted against this $11 million increase of funding to the Nutrition North program while supporting a carbon tax that would increase the cost of food for all Nunavummiut.

Our Government is also moving forward with important reforms to increase the transparency of the program, including point-of-sale-initiatives, to ensure families can see how retailers are passing on the subsidy. As I have said before, the Nutrition North Program can always improve, and that is why we appointed a board of Northerners from across Canada to work with communities and be a direct voice in improving the program.

To further support Nunavummiut, our Government has lowered taxes and introduced the new and enhanced Universal Child Care Benefit (UCCB) to put more money back in the pockets of families. This means that every single family with a child under the age of 6 will receive up to $1,920 per child each year. Additionally, families would receive $720 per year for each child aged 6-17.

Unfortunately, the Liberals and the NDP have vowed to take this money away from Nunavummiut, raise taxes and impose carbon taxes and schemes that will increase the cost of gas, groceries and electricity throughout the Territory.

Our Government will keep taxes low and maintain the benefits that Northern families rely on.”

We spoke with ​Iqaluit resident and mother of five, Leesee Papatsie who ignited a movement with her now 24,000+ member-strong Facebook campaign “Feeding My Family.”

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Brent Bambury: We’ll get to the candidates in just a minute, but first, what was happening in your life and in your community that made you start the Feeding My Family Facebook site?

Leesee Papatsie: A couple of reasons. Growing up we weren’t starving, but there were definite times when we were hungry. And I knew we couldn’t afford food. There were times when we used to go out and pick through people’s garbage for food. And there were a couple of planned protests, and I really wanted to help them and to raise awareness. You know what, this is happening in Canada. There are people hungry, there are kids going to bed hungry. That are lots of families that are like that. Some people are not working, and there are low income situations where they literally worry about the next meal or having a meal for that day. We’ve heard from a lot of mothers who say they don’t eat so their kids can eat. A lot of mothers don’t send their kids to school because they haven’t eaten anything that day.

BB: Earlier you told me about having to go through the garbage when you were growing up. Now, you’re a mother of five. Is it getting worse now, or is it staying the same?

LP: I think it’s a little bit worse than it was before, because food prices are really high and in some communities there are no jobs and no way to earn an income. People struggle to put food on the table.

BB: You work and have a steady job. How much do you spend on groceries a week?

LP: Anywhere from $500 to $600 per week. We do buy extra food for the families we meet who don’t have any food. We’ll give them cereal, bread, maybe used powder, stuff like that.

BB: But $500 to $600 a week, that’s an enormous grocery bill. How many people are in your household?

LP: Right now there’s just three of us, but sometimes four.

BB: And is your food budget supplemented by hunting?

LP: It is. Right now I do a lot of fishing.

BB: And that’s still a source of food for many Inuit households I would guess?

LP: Yes, and I totally believe that there’s no starvation in the North because of country food.

BB: If you were to open a typical refrigerator in Nunavut, what would you see?

LP: For the lower incomes, hardly anything. Maybe butter, and if they are lucky eggs. It’s empty usually.

BB: So you started the Feeding My Family site three years ago, and you wanted to raise awareness. You wanted to get people to demonstrate against the high cost of food in Nunavut. And there was an article in The Globe And Mail that quoted you saying that protesting was against your culture, but you did it anyway. Was it difficult for you to do?

LP: Yeah it was. The first one was very difficult. And we heard from a lot of Inuit communities that protesting is not the Inuit way - why are you doing it? But something needed to be done, so I said I will just do it.

BB: Well now food is clearly an election issue in Nunavut, and you’ve heard from the candidates in your riding. Is any one of them on the right track when it comes to the food crisis?

LP: I like what Jack Anawak said about improving traditional food and culture because that will support our culture. It will support who we are, what we eat and our main diet. Country food is considered one of the most healthy food choices. It’s what we have to work with.

BB: Pretty much all of the candidates mentioned Nutrition North. What is the general feeling about Nutrition North in your community?

LP: I’ll try to explain this nicely - it’s one of those head shakers. It’s a program that’s not working, and the federal government keeps saying well let’s improve it. But they are completely missing the issue.

BB: How are they missing the issue? What’s the part of the issue they don’t see?

LP: First of all, they’re giving funding to the stores that have been ripping off the Northerners for years. Now they say it’s going to show on your receipt when you buy something and at the bottom it’s going to say how much you saved under the Nutrition North program. They want us to believe that. To me it’s really disrespectful.

BB: Is there anything that you feel the candidates missed out on or wish they’d said about the food crisis in Nunavut?

LP: They talked about the program and how it needs to be improved. Well maybe they should just axe the program and do a new program - one that supports Inuit culture. It’s the Inuit that are suffering the most with these food prices. Finding out what our resources are would also be good. I would like to see something that’s already there instead of reinventing the wheel and work with that.

BB: How hopeful are you that a solution will come up in this election? Do you think that this election might be able to, in some way or some small way, solve this food problem in Nunavut?

LP: Well it’s going to take years and years and years to solve it as it is now because there’s so many factors. At least to put some sort of dent in it. I’m hoping to see at least someone trying, at least trying to help. With Leona, it’s obvious that she’s not there. I want to see someone at least try.

BB: Leesee Papatsie thank you for being with us.

LP: Thank you.

 

democracy, Politics

Conservatives dismantling social programs built over generations

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A Toronto Star analysis has for the first time pulled together a detailed account of the range of recent cuts seen under Stephen Harper’s government.

Nathaniel Parent, 21, cleans offices for $11 an hour while he awaits a chance to acquire better job skills. The former foster care ward says he often has to choose between making student loan payments and buying food. While he pays into employment insurance, he doesn’t expect to benefit from the system if he loses his job. DAVE CHAN FOR THE TORONTO STAR

By: , reposted from the Toronto Star, Dec 9, 2013

OTTAWA—Nathaniel Parent has known hunger on and off for most of his life.

Now cleaning offices for $11 an hour while he awaits a chance to acquire better job skills, the 21-year-old former foster care ward from Midland, Ont., finds himself choosing between student loan payments and food.

“For the most part, I don’t eat very often,” Parent says. Sometimes when his debt has to be paid, he says, “I do choose to pay it and it’ll be like, OK, I’ll just wait to eat or maybe have something at a friend’s house.”

Parent, who says he often went without food as a child before being placed in foster care, adds that it’s a struggle for many of his acquaintances to keep from winding up on the street.

He currently pays employment insurance premiums but, Parent says, like most people he knows, he wouldn’t expect to see any of that money if he lost his job. “I have no faith in that system,” he says in an interview.

From the unemployed to low-income families and poor seniors, more people than ever are struggling with grim choices as they try to cope in the leaner, meaner Canada presided over by Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

Since winning power eight years ago next month, the federal Conservatives have chipped away at programs that helped define the compassionate, caring Canada built over the course of several generations.

“It is changing Canada,” former Saskatchewan premier Roy Romanow says of the current federal approach to social and economic policy.

“Unchecked, if we continue down this path, the big danger is a more regionalized and more unequal nation,” Romanow, who headed a royal commission on the future of health care in 2002, told the Star.

Social programs long valued by Canadians are in the Conservatives’ crosshairs.

Federal health-care spending is to be reined in. Canadians in future will have to work two years longer before receiving old age security — a measure Harper said was meant to address Canadians’ disproportionate focus on “our services and entitlements.”

And at a time when 1.3 million are without jobs, the federal government has toughened the criteria that employment insurance recipients must meet to hang on to their benefits. In all, only 37 per cent of jobless Canadians are eligible for EI benefits.

Dozens of groups dedicated to improving human rights or the well-being of the most vulnerable citizens have also seen their funding reduced or eliminated as Ottawa redraws its priorities and budget allocations.

At least 10 aboriginal organizations and more than a dozen environmental groups, including the Experimental Lakes Area research site and the Hazardous Materials Information Review Commission, were hit. Groups working on child care, rights advocates, health-care researchers, numerous immigrant support organizations and women’s groups — including the National Association of Women and the Law as well as the National Network on Environments and Women’s Health — received less support from Ottawa. The list goes on and on.

Many believe the Harper agenda is turning Canada into a more unjust society where free-market, business-driven values trump a commitment to fairness, equal opportunity and community-building.

NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair said the government is reducing “services that Canadians rely on” — from health care and pensions to basic municipal infrastructure — to pay for across-the-board corporate income tax breaks, a practice he says started with previous Liberal governments.

“Families are getting hit three times at once,” Mulcair said. “They’re getting fewer services. They’re paying a bigger share of the tax bill. And while incomes have increased for the top 20 per cent of families, the bottom 80 per cent of families have seen their incomes decline.

“In short, we’re becoming the first generation in our country’s history to leave our children and grandchildren with a lower quality of life than we inherited from our parents,” Mulcair said.

The government does not provide a comprehensive list showing all the federal programs that have been cut or eliminated, or naming the non-government groups that have seen part or all of their funding axed by Ottawa. A Star analysis has for the first time pulled together a detailed account of the full range of recent cuts.

In 2006, in their first year as a minority government, the Conservatives unexpectedly began chiselling away at programs and spending on the same day Finance Minister Jim Flaherty announced a $13-billion budget surplus from the previous fiscal year.

Acting on long-held Tory objections to what was considered unneeded spending by the previous Liberal government, Flaherty eliminated $1 billion in spending. Gone were the Court Challenges Program, which had funded legal actions by gays and rights activists, and the Law Commission of Canada, a respected federal law reform agency. At the same time, the Conservatives took aim at Status of Women Canada, closing regional offices and barring the federal organization from funding women’s groups involved in advocacy and research.

Also among Harper’s first moves was cancellation of the $5-billion, five-year national child care program set up by the Liberals. It was replaced by a program that provides $100 a month to parents for each young child. Debate over whether the Conservative plan — which has now cost $17 billion — has really helped parents, particularly when the majority of mothers with young children are working, has raged ever since.

During the 2008-09 global recession, the Harper government spent heavily to prop up the economy. But by 2010 the Conservatives had resumed their efforts to reduce Ottawa’s spending. The 2012 budget — coming less than a year after the Tories won a majority government — carried the full imprint of Harper’s thinking.

It laid out plans for billions in annual spending cuts by government departments, including a reduction of the federal workforce by 19,000 over three years. An analysis by then parliamentary budget officer Kevin Page said $783 million, or 15 per cent, of that year’s cuts came out of social programs.

The pivotal budget axed the renowned Katimavik youth program; cut the Canadian International Development Agency’s budget by $319 million; trimmed spending in the Aboriginal Affairs Department by $165 million and reduced Environment Canada’s budget by $88 million. It also scrapped the independent National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy that had been created in 1988 by the Mulroney government, and it informed everyone younger than 54 that they would have to work to the age of 67 — not 65 — to receive old age security.

The budget legislation overhauled environmental protections established over many years, weakened equal pay rules meant to protect women, aboriginals and others working for federal government contractors, and launched a crackdown on charities, including environmental groups, suspected of doing too much political advocacy.

Overall, it is estimated that by 2017 Ottawa will have reduced spending by a cumulative total of $13.6 billion since 2010.

But it was changes to the EI system that sparked some of the angriest responses to the Conservative agenda. The new rules require laid-off workers to take jobs they might previously have considered unsuitable, possibly with up to 30 per cent less pay. If not, they could lose their EI benefits.

Labour organizations see the new approach as unfair, particularly because it comes when shifts in the job market are forcing more workers into part-time or contract employment that doesn’t make workers eligible for benefits.

“It’s a downward spiral that this government is putting us in and they need to seriously look at what they’re doing to Canadians,” said Tracey Newman, a special needs educational assistant who joined a recent protest against the EI changes in Toronto. “The Harper government has made changes to our employment insurance system that puts workers like me at risk. The changes have been made without a mandate at election to do so and they have been made without consultation with the public.”

But the government says the vast majority of workers who pay into EI and leave work through no fault of their own receive benefits. Employment and Social Development Minister Jason Kenney said the EI changes are meant to ensure unemployment payments are not a “disincentive” to job seeking. He said the initial indications are that more people are working year-round in high-unemployment regions as a result of the reforms.

As for fewer people having the kind of permanent, full-time jobs that lead to EI benefits, Kenney said the trend toward self-employment and contract work has been building for decades and “is just a reality.”

Overall, say anti-poverty activists, Harper’s policies have contributed to a glaring social deficit. Food bank usage in Toronto is still higher than before the recession began in 2008. The number of children living in poverty is down 200,000 since the Tories came to power, but it still totals 967,000 — or one in every seven children, according to Campaign 2000, a national coalition of social organizations. The Canada Child Tax Benefit, the main federal tool for combating family poverty, needs substantially more funding, the group says.

An estimated 30,000 people are homeless every night in Canada, and federally subsidized housing units have been on the decline for years. While the 2013 budget earmarked $1.25 billion for affordable housing, that’s seen as not nearly enough to deal with a housing situation that is getting worse as a result of skyrocketing shelter costs across the country. Some 72,000 households are stuck on the waiting list for social housing in Toronto alone, according to the Ontario Non-Profit Housing Association.

More needs to be done to address income equality, opposition MPs say. A recent study by Statistics Canada said the top 1 per cent of Canada’s tax filers accounted for 10.6 per cent of the nation’s total income in 2010, up from 7 per cent in the early 1980s.

With wages stagnant, the middle class is falling deeper into debt, says Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau. “Canadians are struggling at a time when our economy is supposedly doing well, and people I meet across the country have a lot of questions as to why their government hasn’t been able to help them through these difficult times,” he commented.

There are also calls for Ottawa to take the lead to head off what many call an impending crisis of inadequate pensions. The current lack of action is “an outrage” and is giving people “very little hope,” said Susan Eng, vice-president of advocacy for CARP, the seniors group.

And the government’s critics say the Conservatives’ policies are not dictated by a lack of money, since they have forgone an estimated $23 billion a year with cuts to the GST and business tax breaks.

In an interview, Kenney rejected the notion that the Conservatives are undercutting social programs. “This is a government that has been far more humane in its approach to balance the budget and fiscal discipline” than the Liberals in the 1990s, he said. Unlike the Liberals, the government has chosen not to attack the budget deficit by reducing transfers of federal money to persons or transfers to the provinces. Instead, he said, the Conservatives are finding efficiencies in internal government operations.

As for cutbacks to immigrant settlement agencies, he said funding has been increased but shifted away from some groups to others because of changes in the pattern of where people settle. Kenney added that changes had to be made to old age security eligibility and health-care transfers to the provinces in future to ensure they are financially sustainable.

And he made no apology for the Conservatives’ decision to bar funding for non-governmental groups engaged in advocacy, saying it was a deliberate policy to favour “programs that help real people.” SOURCE

 

Activism, Politics, Preventing Ecocide

Massive Anti-War Rally in Japan – Over 100k Oppose ‘War Law’

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People hold placards and shout slogans as they gather to protest against Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's security bill outside the parliament in Tokyo, in this photo taken by Kyodo August 30, 2015. REUTERS/Kyodo
People hold placards and shout slogans as they gather to protest against Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s security bill outside the parliament in Tokyo, in this photo taken by Kyodo August 30, 2015. REUTERS/Kyodo

BY , reposted from Revolution News, Aug 30, 2015

Tokyo – Anti-war protesters rally outside parliament to oppose new laws that could see Japanese troops engaged in combat overseas for the first time since WWII. In one of the largest postwar demonstrations in Japan, protesters swarmed in front of the Diet (parliament) building in Tokyo to oppose the current administration’s contentious security legislation.

The legislation, which is now under debate in the Upper House, is aimed at allowing the Japanese Self-Defense Forces to fight with allies overseas. The upper house is currently debating the bills and is expected to pass them by late September, making it law.

The bills represent a landmark change in Japan’s defense policy in the postwar era since the previous governments adhered to the stance that the SDF’s role is basically limited to the nation’s defense in accordance with the war-renouncing Constitution.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has championed the bills for many years, saying the SDF taking up a greater role overseas would contribute to Japan’s defense. The legislation was rammed through the Lower House last month. MORE