Monthly Archives: October 2015

Ecocide, Ecocide ALert, Politics

A tidal wave of climate refugees is coming, where will they go?

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By Fram Dinshaw, reposted from the National Observer, Oct 31, 2015

This drone footage filmed near the Croatian border shows thousands of migrants and refugees crossing through farmland on foot.

They stream down a European freeway by the thousands, fleeing a homeland torn apart by conflict—plodding miserably across the fields of a continent currently gripped by the worst refugee crisis since World War II.

Yet for documentary filmmaker and immigration expert Sheila Murray, the Syrian refugee crisis is only a prelude.

Her film on international refugee law, No Place to Go, was made for Amnesty International Canada’s refugee program.

In a 2010 report in Refuge magazine, Murray predicted that by 2050, the world could see a mass exodus of 200 million environmental refugees fleeing homelands rendered uninhabitable by extreme weather, rising sea levels, and mega-droughts.

Is Canada ready to absorb the new climate exodus?

Refugees pictured at the Keleti Train Station in Budapest (Wikimedia).

“The Canadian government doesn’t recognize those [refugees] at all. It has made great efforts to avoid its responsibility,” said Murray, who explored the subject of climate refugees for her Master’s thesis just months before war broke out in Syria.

“Canada will become a manifestly desirable destination for a large diversity of people from around the globe,” she said.

Green Party Leader Elizabeth May agrees. “This is just a sneak preview of the conflicts we can expect to see if the climate crisis is allowed to worsen and we fail to reduce greenhouse gas emissions globally.”

Currently, refugees come to Canada in one of two ways. Either they are selected abroad to receive a permanent resident visa that allows them to enter the country, or they arrive on their own and claim protection once here.

Those chosen abroad by Canadian officials must have a well-founded fear of persecution for reasons of race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group.

For those refugees who make their own way to Canada and claim protection after they arrive, leave to remain is granted if they face torture, execution or death, or ‘cruel and unusual punishment’ by returning to their home country.

Syrians fleeing civil war are technically covered under both categories. But neither category recognizes people who have fled their homeland for environmental reasons.

Future refugees directly affected by climate change, as opposed to climate-induced conflict, could be admitted to Canada relatively easily, however, if the federal government chose to act.

“The lack of provision in Canada’s current immigration system for the admission of people displaced for reasons directly related to climate change is consistent with international law, which does not recognize such people as refugees,” states a 2013 Library of Parliament report. “However, if Canada decided to extend refugee-type protection to climate migrants, legislative changes would not necessarily be required. Regulatory changes or policy direction alone could suffice.”

New class of refugee for hot future?

Elizabeth May is pushing for the creation of a new class of climate refugee to be included in Canada’s asylum policy.

“We have to think about the number of people who need a safe place to go from rising sea levels and other events,” said May.

Such climate events may include extreme heat waves ravaging the Persian Gulf region by the late 21st century, with temperatures of up to 60° Celsius predicted, ironically in the traditional heartland of fossil fuel extraction that is a key driver of global warming.

Satellite image of the Persian Gulf region (via Wikimedia Commons).

According to the UK Guardian, no human body can cool itself by sweating above a ‘wet bulb’ temperature - a combined measure of heat and humidity - of 35° C. Anyone caught unprotected in such extreme heat will die of heatstroke within six hours. The 35° limit was already reached in the Iranian port city of Bandar Mahshahr last July, when the mercury recorded a temperature of 46° with 50 per cent humidity.

However, it is climate-related floods and droughts that are the most immediate threats— as rising sea levels are already forcing people from their homes, and parched fields are helping to trigger wars that are now ripping apart the Middle East. SOURCE

IN DEPTH:

See the National Observer site for the following chapters

      • Chapter 1 Rising waters, rising numbers of refugees
      • Chapter 2 Pressure for action will grow
      • Chapter 3 Canaries in the coalmine
      • Chapter 4 Cascade into darkness
      • Chapter 5 Seeds of hope

RELATED:

Climate change is forcing people to migrate and the world doesn’t have a plan to handle it

 

Cultural Ecocide, Cultural Genocide, Fascism/Corporatism, Politics, racism

Tar Sands Producers Keep Drawing Water as Athabasca River Runs Dry

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Photos by Guy Thacker

by Meagan Wohlberg, reposted from Vice, Oct 26, 2015

Tar sands mining companies have continued to withdraw water from the Athabasca River in northeastern Alberta despite low flows that have made navigation difficult for river users downstream and left Fort Chipewyan’s harbour dry.

Boats docked on Lake Athabasca in Fort Chipewyan have been sitting on sand for the last month as water levels have dropped lower than many residents can remember, thanks to a series of droughts felt over the last few years.

According to the Keepers of the Athabasca, an alliance of Indigenous and non-Indigenous residents working to protect the watershed, low water has meant the fall moose hunt for First Nations has taken a blow this year.

“You can’t get a canoe out there because it’s so dangerous. There’s so much mud you can’t walk out,” Jesse Cardinal, Keepers coordinator, told VICE. “Navigation is at a standstill, and this is prime time for fall harvest. People are out harvesting fish, moose, wild game. Everybody is wanting to go out hunting to try to fill their freezers, so it’s really important for their treaty rights, for the ability to hunt and fish and trap and access their cabins.”

Alberta Environment and Parks spokesperson Lisa Glover confirmed that levels near Fort Chipewyan were below average and that Lake Athabasca was lower than in previous years.

But while First Nations harvesters have had their navigation throughout the delta impeded by low water levels, oil companies have seen no restrictions to the amount of water they are allowed to withdraw from the river.

River users were already complaining of extremely low levels by the end of May. Barging operator Guy Thacker, who ships goods between Fort Chipewyan and Fort McMurray via the Athabasca, reported on June 1 that the river was “30 percent islands, 60 percent sandbars and 10 percent water,” making navigation a challenge.

Responding to a low flow advisory for the Upper Athabasca on July 24, the government suspended Temporary Diversion Licences (TDLs) and notified water users that no new applications would be accepted.

But according to the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER), the body responsible for implementing the province’s Surface Water Quantity Framework, limits were only placed on industry upstream of the town of Athabasca and not in the Lower Athabasca area that supplies the tar sands.

“Alberta Environment and Parks did not place restrictions on the Lower Athabasca Basin, downstream of the Town of Athabasca,” AER spokesperson Jordan Fitzgerald noted.

Five TDLs were suspended on Aug. 6, but lifted again on Aug. 25. Since then, 14 TDLs have been issued to divert water from the Athabasca.

Oil companies are the largest water user on the Athabasca River. A 2007 report by the University of Alberta said the tar sands industry requires the same volume of water as a city of two million each year to produce one million barrels of oil per day. Total production (mined and in situ) reached about 2.3 million barrels per day in 2014, according to Alberta Energy.

While the Alberta government maintains oil companies are using just one percent of water from the Athabasca annually, Cardinal said that’s not true in the case of the extreme drought experienced this year in Alberta—the same conditions that resulted in record wildfires across the province.

“Giving companies first rights to water, over long-standing Indigenous treaties or any other recognized water licences holders is clearly a human rights issue,” Cardinal said. “There are still reports coming into the Keepers of the Athabasca that the Athabasca River is still extremely low. Why has the water restriction been lifted? At a time when communities downstream depend on healthy water levels for fall harvesting, and daily use, such as drinking water?”

Existing regulations set limits on water withdrawals by oil companies from the Lower Athabasca each week of the year based on average flow conditions, which determine if management actions are required.

Those limits are considered outdated by the province and are in the process of being updated, with a new management framework for water quantity promised to come into effect by Oct. 29.

The new framework will include new limits, requiring the majority of existing companies to stop water withdrawals during low-flow periods, and establish weekly triggers based on predicted future flow conditions that take into consideration a range of climate change scenarios, to ensure there is adequate water quantity for Aboriginal land users.

But Cardinal has doubts about the new framework, which she said was developed with minimal input from First Nations. The framework is part of the province’s Lower Athabasca Regional Plan (LARP), a land use plan hotly contested by First Nations. Five have pulled out of the process based on complaints around a lack of consultation and accommodation.

Furthermore, the new limits are inconsistent among oil companies. While most oil companies could be prohibited from withdrawing water during times of low flow (87 m3/second), Shell’s Muskeg River and Canadian Natural Resource Ltd.’s Horizon project will be able to continue drawing a limited amount (0.2 m3/second), while Syncrude and Suncor will be able to withdraw even more (2 m3/second).

Alberta Environment blames the variance on “infrastructure challenges” that necessitate a bare minimum withdrawal during low flow periods to prevent freezing at some tar sands facilities.

Cardinal said the Alberta government needs to enter into a co-management regime with First Nations on the Athabasca River that would incorporate community-based monitoring into the management framework and fully consider the concerns of indigenous peoples in setting these kinds of limits.

Alberta Environment said working more closely with First Nations partners is the eventual plan.

“Alberta Environment and Parks did commit to community based monitoring, particularly in the context of navigation,” Environment and Parks spokesperson Glover said. “This is still in development.”

Follow Meagan Wohlberg on Twitter.

SOURCE

Ecocide, Politics, Video

Ecocide: The ‘could-have-been-but-never-was’ international crime

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Stop Ecocide Manifestation. Image: Backbone Campaign via Flickr (Unmodified). License: CC BY 2.0.
Stop Ecocide Manifestation. Image: Backbone Campaign via Flickr (Unmodified). License: CC BY 2.0.

By Koldo Casla, reposted from NBXMain.com, Oct 27, 2015

Genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity are international crimes and, since 2002, the International Criminal Court (ICC) can investigate individuals accused of having committed acts of that nature. From 2017, under certain circumstances the ICC will also have jurisdiction in relation to the crime of aggression. These are the four international crimes recognised in the Statute of the ICC. There was a time, however, when scholars, international bodies and even some government officials spoke about a possible fifth international crime: Ecocide.

Ecocide was a crazy idea promoted by a bunch of visionary/loony academics of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Aware of the fact that human action was causing irreparable damage to the ecosystem, they argued that humanity as a whole could be considered be the victim of premeditated forms of aggression against the environment.

The idea could have remained an exercise of academic engineering had it not resonated, even if mildly, in international political discourse. Most famously, the then Prime Minister of Sweden, Olaf Palme, said in his opening address of the 1972 Stockholm Conference on Environment:

The immense destruction brought about by indiscriminate bombing, by large scale use of bulldozers and herbicides is an outrage sometimes described as ecocide, which requires urgent international attention.

In the 1970s, the environment became part of the ongoing conversations held at the International Law Commission (ILC) in relation to the Code of Crimes Against Peace and Security of Mankind. Yet, mysteriously ecocide was dropped from the agenda in the mid-1990s.1

It cannot be by chance that this happened precisely when deliberations on the Statute of the ICC were coming to an end (they were completed in 1998). States were only willing to let the ILC play with the notion of ecocide to the extent that enforceability remained weak. Governments were not ready to eliminate safe havens and to let independent bodies judge individuals for the commission of crimes against the environment.

As it stands now, international law sanctions the intentional damage of the environment in wartime situations, and trans-boundary ecological damage can be a source of state responsibility. However, partly due to its blurry definition but especially because of the lack of support from key international actors (mostly Western European states), ecocide never got to the point of development of the prohibition of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Ecocide disappeared from the policy and legal agenda nearly two decades ago. For now, it still is the international crime that could have been but never quite was.

In recent years, there have been attempts to resuscitate ecocide under new frames, connected to indigenous struggles and climate change. Time will tell if, as a normative project, ecocide performs better in this second life. However, considering the failure of the first attempt, and the growing mistrust on the ICC and international justice in general, one must remain cautious. Unless sudden changes revolutionise international politics, the Earth will remain unprotected in international criminal law in the foreseeable future.

SOURCE

Koldo Casla is a human rights advocate and researcher. He holds and LLB in International and European Law from the University of the Basque Country (Spain), an MA in Theory and Practice of Human Rights from the University of Essex (UK), a Fulbright MA in International Studies from the University of Denver (USA) and is currently a PhD candidate at King’s College London.

Fascism/Corporatism, Politics

5 reasons the privatization of Hydro One is a really, really bad idea

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reposted from PressProgress, Oct 29, 2015

Talk about selling off the family silver for no good reason…

On Thursday, Ontario’s Financial Accountability Office, an independent financial watchdog, released a report detailing the costs of the Ontario government’s proposed sale of 60% of shares in the publicly owned Hydro One.

Its conclusion? Liberal Premier Kathleen Wynne pressing ahead with the sale is a bad idea — and a lose-lose for Ontarians.

Here are five reasons why:

1. It’s short-sighted and will actually add to Ontario’s debt in the long-term

The Financial Accountability Office predicts that the first stage of the sale will reduce both Ontario’s deficit and debt in the short term.

But in the longer term, according to the FAO, “the Province’s budget balance would be worse than it would have been without the sale” and its debt load higher.

That’s because Hydro One actually makes a substantial profit — a whopping $750 million every year — much of which would be lost in the event of the sale. According to the FAO, the loss of revenue will be between $300-500 million every year.

In other words, up to half a billion dollars less that could be invested in schools, hospitals, roads and other infrastructure every year.

2. It may be a coup for Bay Street, but for Main Street? Not so much…

And where exactly would that $750 million a year go? Into the pockets of private investors and shareholders on Bay Street, of course.

After the government released its “preliminary prospectus” telling the stock market everything it wanted to know in September, it was clear that Bay Street could hardly wait for a piece of the action.

The 300-page report detailed the vast “return on equity” (or, in layperson’s terms, “profit”) that investors on Bay Street could expect from the privatization: around 7% to 9% every year.

While Wynne has talked about “broadening the ownership” rather than “privatization,” this definition is far from accurate. As the CBC’s Mike Crawley has observed, the ownership of Hydro One is already pretty darn broad as it is.

Now owned publicly by 13.7 million Ontarians, the sale would reduce the ownership to a tiny group of investors making a tidy private profit.

3. Hydro bills could go through the roof

As economist Sheila Block explains, the sale is likely to make hydro in Ontario a whole lot more expensive.

That’s because the private purchase of Hydro One shares will probably be financed by borrowing. Since private investors have a bottom line, namely profit, it’s likely that they’ll pass on this expense to consumers in the form of higher rates.

Nova Scotia, which privatized its electricity system, now has the highest rates in Canada.

According to polling, nearly 80% of Ontarians believe their bills will go up if the privatization goes forward.

4. The privatization of public utilities already has a long (and disastrous) history

Since the 1980s, right-wing governments and fellow travellers across the world have overseen a bonanza of privatizations - with notably disastrous consequences.

In fact, Ontario’s own privatization scandals like ORNGE, E-Health and Highway 407 only add to a very long list of privatization debacles in North America and Europe over the past two decades. Public goods like transport, energy, hospitals, and schools have been sold or outsourced, often at a net loss to the taxpayer.

As economist Mariana Mazzucato explains, privatized utilities lose their public nature in favour of shareholders’ bottom lines and often become more expensive in the process. When unable to turn a profit, private companies in the United Kingdom, for example, have even turned to the government for billions in subsidies.

In other words, the quality of valuable public services declines, they become more expensive, and the government is still footed with the bill for keeping them afloat.

Having praised Mazzucato for here defence of a progressive role for government, Wynne might want to consider following her own advice…

5. Ontarians don’t want it (and didn’t vote for it)

While they may be happy about the prospect of beer hitting the supermarket shelves, Ontarians are a lot less enthusiastic about the sale of Hydro One (which was not part of the Liberal campaign platform).

According to one of the government’s own polls, 73% of Ontarians believe Hydro One should definitely or probably be owned by the province. SOURCE

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ALGONQUIN FIRST NATIONS CALL TO SUPPORT PROTECTION OF SACRED WATERFALLS AREA

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Press Release by , , and , reposted from IC Magazine, Oct 30, 2015

Dear Friends and Supporters;

We are calling for your support to help us stop a high intensity urban development project within Akikodjiwan: a sacred Algonquin waterfalls area on the Ottawa River between the cities of Ottawa, Ontario and Gatineau, Quebec.

Since the early 19th century our sacred waterfalls area has been overrun by early colonial settlement on both northern and southern waterfronts, followed by log driving and then it was dammed for hydroelectric power to supply papermills that deforested our Algonquin homelands. Despite all of this Akikodjiwan remains a sacred waterfalls area for the Algonquin Peoples!

Recently, Windmill Development Inc. purchased the Chaudiere and Albert Islands from the logging company Domtar Inc. the lands border parcels of land owned by Hydro Quebec, the National Capital Commission, Public Works and the cities of Ottawa and Gatineau.

Our Algonquin First Nations were not legally or meaningfully consulted or accommodated on this matter as per the directions of the Supreme Court of Canada in the Haida, Delgamuukw or Tsilhqot’in decisions. Moreover, we are calling on all parties to respect the Articles of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples’, in this case Article 11, among others, clearly applies:

Indigenous peoples have the right to practise and revitalize their cultural traditions and customs. This includes the right to maintain, protect and develop the past, present and future manifestations of their cultures, such as archaeological and historical sites.

We do not agree with re-zoning the lands near our sacred area Akikodjiwan Kichi Zibi from parks and open space to mixed-use for the proposed Windmill Development. We also do not believe it is anyone’s interest to privatize those lands. We understand that an agreement between Domtar and the National Capital Commission to purchase those lands fell through several years ago.

The federal and Ontario governments should purchase those lands for return to an Algonquin controlled institution set up by legitimate Algonquin First Nations.

Moreover, we have just learned that the City of Ottawa’s Hydro Ottawa Inc. and its subsidiary Energy Ottawa has started construction on a new 29 megawatt hydroelectricity plant to replace the two existing generator stations at our sacred water falls, AKIKODJ IWAN KICHIZIBI (Chaudiere Falls, Ottawa River). Again, our Algonquin First Nations have never been consulted on this project. We strongly object to this project proceeding without our Algonquin First Nations first being consulted about this project.

We are calling for those islands and waterfront to be designated an Algonquin Cultural Park and Historic Commemorative Site and we are actively seeking national support for our Algonquin land use vision as a step towards reconciliation with our legitimate Algonquin First Nations, which we believe is consistent with the vision of the late Kitigan Zibi Elder, William Commanda who advocated for the return of this Algonquin sacred waterfalls area, including the Chaudiere, Albert and Victoria Islands.

Our request is in line with the following recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission:

Canadian Governments and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People43. We call upon federal, provincial, territorial, and municipal governments to fully adopt and implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as the framework for reconciliation.

44. We call upon the Government of Canada to develop a national action plan, strategies, and other concrete measures to achieve the goals of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

47. We call upon federal, provincial, territorial, and municipal governments to repudiate concepts used to justify European sovereignty over Indigenous peoples and lands, such as the Doctrine of Discovery and terra nullius, and to reform those laws, government policies, and litigation strategies that continue to rely on such concepts.

68. We call upon the federal government, in collaboration with Aboriginal peoples, and the Canadian Museums Association to mark the 150th anniversary of Canadian Confederation in 2017 by establishing a dedicated national funding program for commemoration projects on the theme of reconciliation.

79. We call upon the federal government, in collaboration with Survivors, Aboriginal organizations, and the arts community, to develop a reconciliation framework for Canadian heritage and commemoration. This would include, but not be limited to:

i. Amending the Historic Sites and Monuments Act to include First Nations, Inuit, and Métis representation on the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada and its Secretariat.ii. Revising the policies, criteria, and practices of the National Program of Historical Commemoration to integrate Indigenous history, heritage values, and memory practices into Canada’s national heritage and history.

Further to the above cited TRC recommendations, our four Algonquin First Nations are looking for individuals, groups and organizations to ENDORSE OUR LIST OF DEMANDS in order to build pressure on the federal, provincial, municipal governments and corporations, particularly the Windmill Development Group.

Please send letters or resolutions of support to:Prime Minister Justin Trudeau - Fax: 613-941-6900 Premier Kathleen Wynn, Government of Ontario: [email protected] Premier Phillippe Couilllard, Government of Quebec – FAX: 418 643-3924 Mr. Russell Andrew Mills, Chair, National Capital Commission: [email protected]. Jim Watson, Mayor of Ottawa - J [email protected] Mr. Maxime Pedneaud-J obin, Mayor of Gatineau: [email protected] Mr. Jonathan Westeinde, Windmill Development Group: [email protected]

For more information please view the attached Backgrounder.

Please send copies of all support letters or resolutions to Ms. Brenda St. Denis at [email protected]

PLEASE SUPPORT OUR DEMANDS:

1. The federal and Ontario governments should purchase the lands within our Algonquin Sacred Area for return to an Algonquin controlled institution set up by legitimate Algonquin First Nations.

2. The Algonquin Sacred Waterfalls Area Akikodjiwan must be protected in perpetuity and recognized within the National Capital Region as an Algonquin Nation Cultural Park and Historic Commemoration Site under an Algonquin controlled institution to be established by the legitimate Algonquin First Nations.

3. The governments of Canada, Quebec, Ontario, the National Capital Commission and the municipalities of Gatineau and Ottawa must contact the duly elected Algonquin Chiefs and Councils to negotiate the establishment of a proposed Algonquin Nation Cultural Park and Historic Commemoration Site under an Algonquin controlled institution to be established by the legitimate Algonquin First Nations.

ISSUED ON OCTOBER 30, 2015, UNDER THE AUTHORITY OF:

Chief Harry St. Denis Office: (819) 627-9161
Wolf Lake First Nation

Chief Terence McBride Office: (819) 723-2370
Timiskaming First Nation

Chief Lance Haymond Office: (819) 627-3455
Eagle Village First Nation

Chief Casey Ratt Office: (819) 435-2181
Algonquins of Barriere Lake

SOURCE

Report on Violence Against Indigenous Peoples in Brazil sml

BACKGROUNDER

PROTECTION OF AKIKODJIWAN: OUR ALGONQUIN SACRED WATERFALLS AREA (PDF)

democracy, Politics

As Canadian Police Demand Journalists’ Material, the Law Offers Limited Protection

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By Justin Ling, reposted from Vice, Oct 30, 2015

More than five years after a landmark case decided that Canadian journalists have no blanket protections from having police seize their notes to protect their work or their confidential sources, little movement has been made to ensure that media can adequately protect their informants, notes, or confidential information.

While the outgoing Conservative government maintained an animus towards the domestic media, the incoming Liberals have struck a more cooperative tone with the Canadian press. But, until this point, there still has been no mention — from any major political party — about giving journalists protections from police investigations and court subpoenas..

The issue has become increasingly relevant in recent months, as investigators around the world have begun knocking on reporters’ doors to get information about Westerners heading to the Islamic State (IS) to fight on behalf of the terrorist organization.

In the United Kingdom, police used that country’s Terrorism Act to seize BBC journalist Secunder Kermani’s laptop after he produced a series of reports on British-born militants.

In February, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) served VICE offices in Toronto and Montreal with production orders for “any notes and all records of communications” between reporter Ben Makuch and Canadian-born Mohamed Shirdon, who claims to be a member of IS.

While VICE News did not turn over any documents — and is fighting the order in court — the RCMP eventually made a high-profile, mid-election announcement that it would be charging Shirdon with various terrorism offences in absentia. The materials the RCMP are seeking from VICE do not involve a confidential source.

Related: VICE News Battles Canadian Police Over Right to Protect Journalist’s Material

Worldwide, most Western nations have, to varying degrees, protections that would prevent, or at least discourage, the police from serving journalists with production orders or search warrants.

In 48 states, American journalists enjoy differing degrees of privilege that protects them from having to out confidential sources and information. Attempts to provide a federal ‘shield law’ — which codifies that legal privilege — have, thus far, failed.

The UK has laws that prevent the court system from forcing journalists to disclose their confidential sources, unless it deems it necessary for public safety. But, as the Independent newspaper noted regarding the seizure of Kermani’s laptop, that defense “carries little weight with Terrorism Act orders.”

New Zealand recently determined that journalists, even bloggers, are protected by a national shield law. Australian law looks similar, although protections can vary from province-to-province.

In Canada, no such laws exist.

That became very clear in 2010, when the Supreme Court of Canada concluded, in a pair of decisions, that journalists in Canada do not have those broad protections. Instead, they have to prove it to the court on a case-by-case basis.

One case involved reporter Andrew McIntosh, working for the National Post, who broke a story that implicated then-Prime Minister Jean Chretien in a funding scandal concerning a hotel in which he had a financial stake. The second case centered around the Globe and Mail’s reporting on the sponsorship scandal, in which journalist Daniel Leblanc raised the possibility that federal money was disproportionately helpingcompanies linked to the then-governing Liberal Party.

Both reporters used sources in their reporting who only spoke on the condition that their identity would be kept confidential. In both cases, for differing reasons, the courts tried to pierce the reporters’ privilege.

Those decisions clearly defined the law in Canada: reporters do not enjoy blanket protections, and instead must defend their privilege on a case-by-case basis.

“Following the National Post and Globe and Mail decisions, Canadian law inadequately protects the journalist-source relationship,” says Jamie Cameron, a professor at Osgoode Law School. “In my view there’s a real need for statutory provisions that provide that legal protection.”

Cameron intervened before the Supreme Court in both cases on behalf of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, and specializes on freedom of the press.

The Supreme Court, in the Globe and Mail case, wrote that “the burden of persuasion remains on the media to show that the public interest in protecting a secret source outweighs the public interest in criminal investigations.”

In other words: police in Canada can issue production orders and search warrants to media organizations in order to discover their confidential sources, and it’s up to the reporters to explain why unmasking their contacts would be bad.

While it does not appear to be common for police to try and seize journalists’ notes and materials, it’s not unprecedented. A 2014 case in Newfoundland saw local police demand one newspaper reporter’s interview tapes.

Related: Whistleblowers in Peril as Government Policies Shaft Press Freedoms

“Police seizures of notes and tapes compiled by reporters is a practice which must be stopped,” said the Canadian Association of Journalists in a statement regarding the case.

“This kind of thing is increasingly becoming a problem, as police use journalists to do their investigative work for them,” the association’s vice chairman Charles Bury said in the statement. “They should spend less time going after journalists and more time doing what they’re supposed to do.”

Cameron says that a law protecting journalists’ confidential sources from the get-go would send a signal to the courts that the police must prove that the benefit of breaking that confidentiality is worth impugning the freedom of the press. She says she prefers that “upfront protection.

“I am very much of the view that the burden should be on anyone, including the police, who want to violate that confidential relationship,” she says.

There has been some effort to do exactly that.

Serge Ménard, a member of parliament with the Bloc Quebecois, introduced a bill in 2007 that would update the law to add that “no journalist shall be compelled to disclose the source of any information that the journalist has gathered, written, produced or disseminated for the public through any media or to disclose any information or record that could identify the source.”

While the bill added exemptions where the journalists’ sources could be disclosed, it also added procedures to ensure that as few eyes as possible would see the sensitive information.

The bill passed its first vote, but never became law. SOURCE

democracy, Politics, Video

Group threatens Liberals with new legal challenge over sex work law

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Photo: WWAV

By Laura Stone, reposted from Global News, Oct 30, 2015

WATCH ABOVE: Vancouver lawyer Brenda Belak talks about why the Liberal government should repeal the law governing sex work in Canada and why her group, Pivot Legal Society, will bring about another legal challenge if they don’t follow through.

Brenda Belak, a lawyer at Pivot Legal Society in Vancouver, says her group is prepared to go to court if the Liberals don’t repeal the new law crafted by the Conservative government after the Supreme Court struck down the previous laws prohibiting prostitution as unconstitutional in December 2013.

“There’s no reason to wait on repealing the law,” Belak said.

“We had a very clear message from the Supreme Court of Canada that the old laws were unconstitutional. The new laws do the same things that the old laws did. There’s no reason to wait in order to bring in alternative legislation. The government can move now to repeal the law and that’s a fairly simple procedure. That’s what we’d like to see done.”

But it remains unclear when or if such a move would take place.

Although the Liberals opposed the Conservatives’ Bill C-36, it is not known if they would refer the Harper law to the Supreme Court for guidance, or repeal the law and replace it with something else. A spokesman did not immediately respond to request for comment.

The Liberal party has previously said the new law, which passed last fall, is likely unconstitutional. Former justice minister Peter MacKay defended the bill as necessary to protect exploited people, and an Ontario review of the legislation upheld it.

OTTAWA – A legal group that helped fight for sex workers’ rights at the Supreme Court of Canada will launch another Constitutional challenge if the Liberal government does not repeal the resulting law “immediately,” its lawyer says.

Watch: Sex worker advocates protest against Harper government’s prostitution bill

“I am not at all convinced that this bill would protect the women and men who are engaged in sex work,” Charlottetown Liberal MP Sean Casey, who was re-elected, told the House of Commons in June 2014. “I would also suggest that Bill C-36, in all likelihood, violates the charter with respect to section 7, on life, liberty, and security of the person.”

Casey, a lawyer who was the party’s justice critic, is considered a contender to be the new justice minister when Justin Trudeau’s cabinet is sworn in next week.

The new law regulating sex work in Canada was crafted in response to a Supreme Court challenge from sex workers Terri-Jean Bedford, Amy Lebovitch and Valerie Scott. Pivot was an intervener in the case.

The Supreme Court struck down the old laws relating to “bawdy” houses and living off the avails of prostitution as unconstitutional. But many experts believe the Conservatives’ replacement legislation, which criminalizes communicating and advertising about sex work as well as prevents workers from banding together, is also unconstitutional and further pushes prostitution underground, thus making it more dangerous.

Defence lawyer Michael Spratt says the issue is a good example “of the conundrum that the Liberals are going to find themselves in” when it comes to the Harper government’s justice agenda.

“There are numerous pieces of legislation that the Liberals strongly opposed, in my view rightly so, but were passed into law.”

Spratt says these changes will not come quickly.

“A new challenge launched to Bill C-36 would take months and years to wind its way through the court,” he said. “Legislative changes will obviously take time to make their way through Parliament. So I think no matter what happens there’s going to be some lag time before these issues are fixed.”

But Belak believes the Liberals can move quickly to at least repeal the Harper government’s laws.

“It’s something that we’d like to see done immediately,” she said.

“Sex workers fought for basically seven years to get the old laws revoked, and during that time many people were put in danger, many people were forced to work under risky circumstances, and there’s no reason to continue to subject sex workers to those conditions.”

© Shaw Media, 2015

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