Daily Archives: April 1, 2016

racism

Racist landlords are making Toronto’s housing crisis worse

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Indigenous tenants tell stories of discrimination and prejudice

Ontario’s human rights code says everyone has a right to seek housing without discrimination. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images/Files

By Kelly Rose Pflug-Back, reposted from Ricochet, Mar 30, 2016

From budget cuts to gentrification to a dismally inadequate shelter system that leaves many homeless people exposed to fatal temperatures in the winter months, Toronto’s housing market is in crisis.

Deeply entrenched systems of discrimination make the search for housing much more difficult for many marginalized groups including people with disabilities, people who are low income or receive social assistance, single parents, new immigrants, members of LGBTQ2 communities, people with criminal records, and people transitioning out of homelessness or incarceration. The pressure is also felt racialized people, even middle-class and professional workers.

Studies have shown that along with new immigrants and people of African decent, Indigenous people experience particularly high rates of housing discrimination in Canada, a country built on dispossession of land through violence and fraudulent treaty processes.

According to the Toronto’s Housing and Homelessness Services, while only 1 per cent of Toronto’s population self-identifies as Indigenous, Indigenous people make up 33 per cent of the outdoor homeless population. This number may even be deceptively low due to the difficulty of collecting reliable census data on homeless populations.

Illegal deposits

Giibwanisii and Shagii, a young couple who work in construction, and Lindsay, a young mother who works in youth services, are Indigenous people who have experienced rejection in Toronto’s housing market. Their last names have been withheld due to their concerns about personal repercussions for speaking out.

According to Giibwanisii and Shagii, landlords commonly require extensive credit checks, exorbitant deposits, bank statements, and proof that Giibwanisii owns the construction company that they both work for.

When one landlord requested four months’ rent in advance, the couple agreed to pay the $6,000 out of desperation. Yet their application for tenancy was rejected the next day.

After consulting with a lawyer from the Centre for Equality Rights in Accommodation, Giibwanisii and Shagii were informed that it is illegal for landlords to ask for any security deposit greater than the amount of the last month’s rent. They asked some of their white friends if they had experienced this kind of treatment when seeking housing in Toronto — the answer was a resounding no.

“They would ask me, ‘Indigenous? You mean like Indian?’”

According to the Ontario Human Rights Commission, demands for unrealistic and illegal deposits, extensive background checks, and written references are common forms of discrimination directed at Indigenous renters.

“What I see this trending towards is this movement of young white rich professionals moving into downtown Toronto, then all the brown people just have to be in Scarborough and Brampton,” said Giibwanisii.

The couple also described landlords acting polite on the phone, sometimes over numerous conversations, before sharply changing their behaviour after learning that the couple is Indigenous.

After four months of couch surfing, Giibwanisii and Shagii finally found an apartment. The owners of a coffee shop near their present job site overheard them chatting and asked if they would be interested in a renovation job. They exchanged phone numbers, and Shagii jokingly asked whether they also happened to be renting an apartment. After hearing about the couple’s experiences, the coffee shop owners were appalled and connected them with a man renting a space above a nearby storefront.

Prejudice against single mothers

Lindsay works for an Indigenous organization, and she said that once she discloses that information, landlords typically become rude or evasive.

“They would ask me, ‘Indigenous? You mean like Indian?’ I’ll never forget this one woman. We already had a relationship and had been communicating before we met. She asked where my daughter went to school, so I said the First Nations school. She was like, ‘You mean, Indian?’ Then she started asking if we were clean, if we had bugs. Things like that happened three or four times.”

Like Giibwanisii and Shagii, Lindsay and her daughter spent months without proper housing, steadily losing hope as the rejections piled up.

“I had to sleep on couches. My daughter had to stay with my parents. I had to settle for slumlords, places that smelled like rat piss,” she said. Widespread prejudice against single mothers had further complicated the situation, she said, with landlords asking prying questions, lecturing her, and questioning her parenting ability and why she was not looking for a larger unit for herself and her daughter.

Lindsay’s housing struggles didn’t end after she found an apartment. She said the couple who owned the building were friendly with her at first, even inviting her into their home for a meal. Then things took a turn for the worse after they learned she was Indigenous. When she told them that the unit was infested with cockroaches and had flooded on multiple occasions with brown sewage water, meaning that she had to pay to have some of her possessions cleaned, they agreed to rent her a new unit.

When they arrived to meet with her, however, she saw them sizing up her interior decor. “I thought you said you were Italian,” the woman had snapped, eyeing her dream catchers. Lindsay, who does have Italian heritage, began emphasizing it with landlords after multiple experiences of racism.

It’s a strategy that other Indigenous people use as well. Shagii explained she also resorted to hiding her Indigenous ancestry, despite the discomfort she felt at having to hide something of which she has always been proud.

The promise of a new unit for Lindsay soon vanished into thin air, and she was blamed for her unit’s infestation. She said she had become almost obsessive about cleanliness due to the stress of the situation, only buying enough food for one day at a time to deter cockroaches.

Hard to track discrimination

According to the Ontario Human Rights Commission, it is common practice for landlords to deny proper maintenance and repairs to Indigenous tenants. Harassment of Indigenous tenants, particularly Indigenous women, occurs in the form of “racist remarks, stereotyping and sexual harassment by the landlord or neighbours.”

Housing discrimination can be difficult to track, as landlords usually know enough not to openly admit to racism. Indeed, those who wish to discriminate are more likely to do so underhandedly or in situations where there are no witnesses. Some studies on housing discrimination have gathered data by sending researchers in pairs — one black and one white, or one Indigenous and one non-Indigenous — to record whether landlords act differently towards people according to race.

While litigation is one option for people who have faced housing discrimination, human rights tribunals generally require time and money, which the people hit hardest by Toronto’s housing crisis are unlikely to be able to access. Social housing has been highlighted as a remedy for discrimination in some studies, whereas others argue that social housing further ghettoizes racialized people.

According to Denis Rancourt of the Ontario Civil Liberties Association, tenants can take steps to protect themselves by keeping documentation of altercations or instances of neglect or harassment by landlords. Taking notes of conversations, saving emails, and photo-documenting and dating building maintenance problems can function as a record and timeline of the abuse, which helps if tenants pursue litigation or access advocacy through groups such as the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty or the Centre for Equality Rights in Accommodation. Sometimes, just knowing that repercussions are a possibility is enough to deter landlords from continuing their discriminatory behaviour.

According to a study conducted by the University of Toronto in 2002, many new immigrants and other people experiencing racial discrimination prefer to rely on social networks or their own ethnic communities to find housing in a market where the odds are otherwise stacked against them.

“At my work, we deal with bringing newcomer youth together with Indigenous people,” said Lindsay. “We go through so many similar things. I never realized before.”

Indeed, in a city which seems to have no qualms about abandoning poor and marginalized people, building ties of community and solidarity may be the only tangible solution. SOURCE

democracy, Politics

Can a New ‘Brand’ Rescue the NDP?

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‘Brand Command’ author Alex Marland recommends a name change… and a new colour.

NDP orange and purple shirts

By Jeremy J. Nuttall, reposted from TheTyee.ca, Mar 31, 2016

If the New Democrats ever want to form Canada’s government, the party needs to undertake a complete re branding, argues a political scientist and author.

Memorial University professor Alex Marland’s new book Brand Command examines the strategies and effects of political branding against the backdrop of Canada’s parliamentary system.

Political branding refers to a party’s efforts to have voters associate it with certain ways of thinking or policy.

In his book, Marland argues that party concerns about staying “on brand” — and exerting strong discipline on candidates and MPs to stay “on message” — have muted Canada’s parliamentary system by taking away sitting members’ rights to level even slight criticism at their own party’s policies.

The trend contributes to centralizing too much power at the top of the nation’s political organizations, he asserts.

In the book, Marland also explores how such brand control is used to successfully court voters.

Some parties do it better than others, he said. And one in particular needs a lot of work. The New Democratic Party, Marland said, has to do more than just tweak its image and pick a new leader.

Last October the NDP lost its status as official opposition to the Tories after holding a lead in the polls earlier in the year. The party’s chances vanished over the course of the campaign when it lost the battle for the political centre to the Liberals.

Part of the loss, Marland said, was a result of mixed messages from the NDP on where the party stands.

“It’s not even about a leader; it’s much bigger than that,” he said. “They need to be very clear on what they stand for.”

Since Tom Mulcair took over the party leadership in 2011, some have taken swipes at his centrist moves, such as uncritical support for Israel and the decision last year to campaign on the promise of a balanced budget.

Dissent has boiled over in some pockets, including in Mulcair’s home province. Earlier this month a gaggle of Montreal party organizers, former MPs, and members signed an open letter calling on the party to change direction.

Burnaby MP Peter Julian is among others who have proclaimed unwavering support for Mulcair when he faces a leadership review at the party’s convention next month.

A ‘terrible’ name

Such turmoil makes it hard for voters to trust the party, Marland said. “You’re still dealing with a brand that doesn’t really know what it’s doing.”

It’s not enough for the NDP just to solidify its positions on the political spectrum and find a balance between being able to draw people from the centre and keeping those on the left — a frequently offered prescription.

If it wants to win, Marland said, the NDP needs a top-to-toe refit — and maybe a new name.

“New Democratic Party is a terrible brand name,” he said. “It’s existed since 1961, I’m not even sure what’s new about it now.”

Avoiding acronyms is important in party branding, according to Marland, and the NDP’s acronym is even worse because in French it becomes the NPD. Inconsistency hurts the brand, he said.

He suggests the party simply become “the Democrats,” to make it snappier and show it’s a party championing democratic values.

The party of purple?

The colour orange has to go too. Of course, red, blue and green are all already taken. What’s left?

“I think the NDP would be a lot smarter to go with the colour purple,” Marland said. “Purple is a colour that has often been used by progressives.” He offered examples on the municipal scene, such as Olivia Chow and Nasheed Nenshi who both used the colour.

Nik Nanos, president and CEO of polling company Nanos Research, agrees the NDP needs to better define its brand with voters to have any hope of winning, though he stopped short of agreeing it needs to go as far as a name change and new colour rinse.

Nanos said Canadians have ingrained opinions on what their established parties stand for, and whenever a party has strayed from voters’ expectations, it pays — the NDP particularly.

“The New Democrats have always been punished when they deviate from their brand,” he said. “Tom Mulcair announced he was going to balance the budget and still have a significant childcare spend. That was not consistent with their brand.”

Polarizing political brands are often successful because people know what to expect, according to Nanos.

As well, he said the Liberal party won October’s election not by reinventing itself, but by going back to its traditional role as a big-tent, inclusive party that isn’t afraid to run deficits.

In Nanos’ view, for the NDP to win, not only has it got to do a good job in opposition, it also needs the Liberals to have a tough time governing, in order to send progressives looking for an alternative.

In the meantime, if Mulcair remains as leader after the convention, Nanos’ advice for New Democrats is to highlight his experience and the party’s strong showing on provincial levels.

But getting the NDP to heed such advice could be difficult, said Marland, because the party typically does not like change.

Recalling the so-called ‘orange wave’ when Jack Layton was party leader, he said it happened during a time when the NDP was marketing and branding more than in the past, but that it was a new development.

It’s a reluctance the party needs to overcome, he said.

“They don’t tend to think about the marketing side of things,” he said. “But where they are (now), I’m not so sure staying the course is the right way.”

That thought will likely be on many members’ minds as the clock ticks down to next month’s convention.

SOURCE

 

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Activism, Fascism/Corporatism, Politics, solutions

B.C. businesses call on Clark to lift carbon tax freeze, introduce annual hikes

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BC Premier Christy Clark announcing a carbon tax freeze in 2015
Premier Christy Clark announced a freeze on the BC carbon tax in April, 2015. Photo by The Canadian Press.

By The Canadian Press, reposted from Vancouver Observer, Mar 30, 2016

VICTORIA — A group of British Columbia businesses is calling on Premier Christy Clark to raise the carbon tax to help the economy.

The open letter to Clark signed by more than 130 businesses comes in the final days of a provincewide climate consultation process aimed at setting government goals to cut greenhouse gas emissions and boost the green economy.

The letter calls on Clark to announce her government will lift its four-year freeze on the carbon tax at $30 per tonne and introduce annual increases of $10 per tonne, starting in July 2018.

Businesses signing the letter include B.C.-based renewable energy companies, clean-technology innovators and outdoor recreation operators.

Matt Horne of the Pembina Institute, an environmental policy research group, says more than 68,000 British Columbians work in clean-economy jobs, an increase of more than 12 per cent between 2010 and 2014.

He says if Clark approves annual increases, the carbon tax will be $350 a tonne in 2050, the same year B.C. has targeted to cut its green house gas emissions to 80 per cent below 2007 levels.

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biodiversity, conservation, Ecocide ALert, Fascism/Corporatism, Politics, Preventing Ecocide

A Canadian mine threatens the ‘heart and soul’ of an Alaskan community

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Haines, Alaska. Photo from VisitHaines.com

By Charles Mandel , reposted from the NationalObserver, Mar 30, 2016

Awestruck by the glacier-streaked mountains jutting from the ground and the powerful flowing Chilkat River slicing through the deep valley, Joe Ordonez moved to Haines, Alaska in 1987.

Now, 29 years later, Ordonez is fighting to preserve that same natural grandeur - which includes a world-renowned bald eagle preserve - from a proposed copper, zinc, silver and gold mine upstream.

“It’s a terrible location for a mine,” says Ordonez, who previously worked as a naturalist on cruise ships, work which took him from the Amazon to Antarctica, and who today operates a tour guide company in the region.

“I’ve worked in all seven continents. I’ve seen the most amazing places in the world and here’s one of them right where I live in Haines, Alaska. It’s just not worth the risk. “

Joe Ordonez (waving). Photo from Joe Ordonez

Where many see an unspoiled paradise brimming with wildlife, others see money and minerals.

Constantine Metal Resources, a mineral exploration company based in Vancouver, British Columbia, believes the proposed mine location - known as the Palmer Project - is rich in copper and zinc as well as gold and silver.

Backing the penny stock company is Japan’s Dowa Metals and Mining Co, a multinational that is providing Constantine with $22-million in exploration funding over four years in return for a 49 per cent interest in the project.

Executives from Constantine did not return calls from National Observer.

If developed, the mine would sit approximately 60 kilometres upstream from Haines, adjacent to the Klehini River. The Klenhini is a major tributary of the Chilkat.

Not far from the Palmer Project the two rivers merge and at the confluence sits the ancient Tlingit community of Klukwan, whose name translates to mean eternal village.

Ordonez describes the village as one of the longest continually inhabited places in the Americas. “The people there today still catch fish right off their back door and live on it.”

The wild salmon running through the Chilkat don’t just feed the folks in Klukwan and Haines. A combination of natural forces near Klukwan leaves the water ice-free in the winter months, allowing chum salmon to spawn late in the year.

In turn the salmon attract thousands of eagles to feed. The natural phenomenon led to the creation in 1982 of the 48,000 acre Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve. During the winter over 3,500 bald eagles flock there from as far away as British Columbia, the Yukon and Oregon.

It’s not unusual for tourists to the area to see up to 1,000 eagles at a time.

Ordonez points out that the leading cause of eagle mortality is winter starvation. “So this is a critical area of survival for bald eagles.”

Eagles on the Chilkat River. Photo from Joe Ordonez

But that could all change if the mine moves ahead.

Ordonez frets that a catastrophic failure, such as that which took place at Mount Polley, might occur.

Described as the worst environmental mining disaster in Canadian history, an estimated 24 million cubic metres of mining waste and water broke free of the Mount Polley mine tailings pond on August 4, 2014.

The mix of toxic metals and water flowed into Hazeltine Creek and then Quesnel Lake, a critical salmon watershed.

The Palmer Project would require a similar kind of tailings pond.

Another concerned area resident is Gershon Cohen. Originally from Philadelphia, Cohen arrived in Alaska in 1983 after seeing it for the first time the previous year. “I just fell in love with the place and came back the next year,” he says

The Chilkat River runs right past Cohen’s front door. Across the way he can hear the roar of the 1,000 foot waterfall that plunges off the glacier on the mountains. “The place is alive with salmon, eagles, bears and moose,” Cohen says.

“The Chilkat River is the heart and soul of this community.”

But Cohen views the mine as a threat to this unspoiled region. “Once they build the tailings pond and they’ve got millions of gallons of waste water held behind an earthen dam, there’s basically a sword hanging over the heads of the community forever, because that tailings pond will have to be maintained in perpetuity.”

Cohen has a Ph.d in environmental policy and specializes in water pollution issues. He points out that it doesn’t even necessarily take a catastrophic spill to end the salmon run.

If any minerals should leach into the Klehini from the mine site and then into the Chilkat, they could cause the salmon to become disoriented and leave them unable to determine where they should properly lay their eggs.

“Then that’s the end of the run,” Cohen says.

“It’s a very fragile system and we’re very concerned that having a large-scale mine in the area would threaten that for many, many years to come.”

Map showing relation of the proposed mine to the eagle preserve. Image from Joe Ordonez

For its part, on its website Constantine says, “Not only is protecting the environment, fishery, fauna, and water quality extremely important to Constantine, it is the law.”

The company says it has used a third party since 2008 to collect water quality data in order to establish baseline environmental conditions.

Beyond that, Constantine notes that before it can successfully establish a fully operational mine, “lengthy and detailed studies” will be required on everything from air and water quality to wetlands and wildlife.

They also promise community consultation and socioeconomic studies before the mine gains its permits and begins construction.

The Village of Klukwan isn’t waiting and taking any chances. With help from Gershon, the community has applied to the state to have the Chilkat declared an Outstanding Natural Resource Water, which would give the river protected status.

But the process in Alaska to have a river made into an Outstanding Natural Resource Water doesn’t exist and is holding up the nomination while the state legislature debates how to move ahead.

The nomination has polarized people in Haines, a town of 2,500 containing a mix of fishers, tourism operators, telecommuters, retirees, as well as a number of mine employees and contractors and suppliers.

A Haines Chamber of Commerce survey found that roughly half the chamber’s members oppose the designation.

Constantine notes that it paid out $198,848 in payroll in 2013 to its 10 employees and another $276,110 to contractors and suppliers. And in 2014, the Palmer Project provided nearly $3-million of direct economic benefit to the Alaska economy, including $1.47 million to Haines.

Chilkat Mountains outside of Haines. Photo from Joe Ordonez

None of that deters either Gershon and Ordonez, who are determined to spread the word of the threat to their beloved wilderness region.

In fact, Gershon calls Constantine’s contributions to the economy “a farce.

“We have an exploratory company based in Canada coming to a small Alaskan town, throwing money at civic causes, showing up at fundraisers, hiring a few locals to do construction and core drilling jobs in the summer and working the PR angles hard to convince people they care about our community.”

Gershon calls the company’s promises and assurances meaningless. He points out that as an exploratory company Constantine will likely have nothing to do with the design and operation of the mine. “They will be off looking for another ore body to develop.”

Gershon says he’s not opposed to mining, but doesn’t believe in placing one in critical fisheries habit.

There’s very few places left in the world that have wild salmon and we’re lucky enough to be one of them.”

Eagles battle over fish. Photo from Joe Ordonez

Similarly, Ordonez recalls living in Bellingham, Washington where he heard stories about how people “could walk across the river on the backs of the salmon in the old days.”

Now he says the state spends millions just to rehabilitate a stream.

“Here we’ve got a place where we don’t have to bring things back because the salmon are there right now.”

Ordonez even wrote a book last year titled Where Eagles Gather in order to bring attention to the eagle preserve and the threat it faces. According to Ordonez, eagles are a symbol of wilderness.

“They are a symbol of something that’s disappearing. We need to gather together and fight this and protect it.”

SOURCE

Activism, Ecocide, Fascism/Corporatism, Politics, Remediation and Restitution

In Key Setback, Chevron Abandons Last Legitimate Legal Claim in Ecuador Against $10B Pollution Judgment

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Press Release: Amazon Defense Coalition (ADC), Mar 31, 2016

QUITO, Ecuador, Mar. 31 /CSRwire/ - Chevron has decided to abandon the last legitimate legal challenge to its $10 billion pollution liability in Ecuador, dealing yet another blow to the company’s strategy to evade a clean-up of billions of gallons of toxic waste that courts found were deliberately dumped into the country’s rainforest.

Chevron CEO John Watson’s decision to give up a critical Ecuadorian law claim – available under the country’s Collusion Prosecution Act (CPA) — follows a series of devastating legal setbacks for Chevron, including defeats before 18 separate appellate judges in Ecuador and Canada. It also represents a major step forward for rainforest villagers as they try to seize Chevron’s assets in Canada and Brazil to pay for a clean-up of toxic waste discharged by the company into the rivers and streams of their ancestral lands, decimating indigenous groups and causing an outbreak of cancer.

Leaders of the affected communities, who have fought Chevron’s scorched-earth litigation strategy for two decades, assert the company abandoned the CPA claim because it knew it would lose on the merits. “This is another example of Chevron bailing out of any court where it knows its incredibly weak evidence will not carry the day,” said Luis Yanza, Goldman Prize winner and the representative of the Amazon Defense Coalition, the group representing the 80 indigenous and farmer communities who won the judgment.

Paul Paz y Miño, a director with the environmental group Amazon Watch, characterized Chevron’s decision as a major victory for the affected communities.

“It is obvious that Chevron believes that its legal position in the Ecuador case is weakening,” said Paz y Miño, who works with the rainforest communities to hold Chevron accountable. “Watson needs to stop the greenwashing and comply with the law so vulnerable indigenous communities can receive immediate relief to stave off more cancer deaths and possible extinction.”

Although Chevron’s abandoned legal claim is technical in nature, it is hugely significant in terms of the overall dynamics of the case.

Lawyers for the company recently let lapse a five-year deadline that allows the losing party in an Ecuadorian civil case to use the CPA to file a separate lawsuit to reverse a judgment on the grounds that it was obtained illegally. The CPA allows a collateral claim similar to a habeas corpus proceeding in the United States for a person trying to overturn a conviction. Experts believe the CPA is tailor-made for procedural claims like those Chevron has made against the environmental judgment; a win by Chevron on the CPA claim in theory would erase all of the company’s liability.

Chevron’s abandonment of the CPA claim follows the almost total collapse in recent months of its evidence and the disclosure of an internal whistleblower video showing company technicians hatching an elaborate plot to try to hide oil field pollution from Ecuador’s courts.

Chevron’s star witness, Alberto Guerra, admitted under oath earlier this year that he lied about key evidence and testified falsely in a U.S. federal court after being coached for 53 days by company lawyers. Separately, a forensic computer analysis demanded by Chevron ended up destroying the company’s claim the judgment was “ghostwritten” by the plaintiffs and led to charges the company falsified evidence before a U.S. federal judge. (The forensic report proved the trial judge wrote the judgment on his computer, saving it in a Word document 484 times.)

In Canada, where courts are considering the seizure of Chevron’s assets, the abandonment of the CPA claim likely will be viewed with disfavor and will prompt more scrutiny of the company’s flawed evidence, said Aaron Page, a U.S.-based lawyer for the villagers. “Chevron’s failure to pursue the CPA claim is surely to be seen by enforcement courts as another flagrant example of the company’s bad faith,” said Page.

In a separate international arbitration action brought by Chevron against Ecuador’s government – an attempt by the company to obtain a taxpayer-funded bailout in Ecuador of its pollution liability — the failure to file the CPA claim could in effect nullify the oil giant’s entire case. In that matter, a panel of private lawyers recently rejected Chevron’s main defense that a remediation agreement in the 1990s absolved it of responsibility for the clean-up.

Under international law governing the arbitration proceeding, the party bringing the claim (Chevron) is required to exhaust all local remedies in Ecuador – including use of the CPA — before being allowed to obtain relief. Chevron’s decision therefore could be fatal to its plan to shift the pollution liability to Ecuador’s government.

“Chevron’s failure to exhaust the remedies available to it … renders its denial of justice claim deficient as a matter of international law,” said Ecuador’s government in a recent submission to the arbitrators. (For detailed background on how Chevron is faltering in the arbitration, see this legal brief.)

Chevron has had a terrible run of late in the case, which the villagers filed in U.S. federal court in 1993. At the time, Chevron praised Ecuador’s judicial system and agreed to accept jurisdiction in the South American nation. It also promised to abide by any adverse judgment that might issue. As a result of Chevron’s commitments, a U.S. judge sent the case to Ecuador for trial in 2001.

As the scientific evidence against Chevron mounted in the ensuing trial, the company stripped its remaining assets from Ecuador in anticipation of losing the case. Chevron later was found liable at the trial level and before two separate appellate courts, including the country’s highest court. In all, 24 separate appellate judges in Ecuador, Canada, and the United States have issued unanimous opinions against Chevron in the last few years.

Those rulings include a 5-0 decision in 2013 by Ecuador’s Supreme Court affirming the environmental judgment and a 7-0 decision in 2015 by Canada’s Supreme Court denying Chevron’s attempt to block the collection action. Three other intermediate appellate panels – one in Canada, one in New York, and one in Ecuador — each ruled unanimously in favor of the villagers. In the meantime, interest is running on the judgment at an estimated $275 million annually.

The Canada Supreme Court decision – in a country where Chevron has an estimated $15 billion worth of assets – has created enormous difficulties for the oil giant. Chevron and its Canadian subsidiary have hired four law firms to defend the asset collection action and overall the company has used at least 60 law firms worldwide on the case, considered by many to be one of the most significant corporate accountability battles ever.

Chevron has openly engaged in an abusive strategy of “perpetual litigation” against the villagers, trying to inundate courts with frivolous motions and at one point threatening a trial judge in Ecuador with jail time if he did not throw out the case. CEO Watson’s legal team has repeatedly promised that Chevron will fight the case “until hell freezes over, and then fight it out on the ice.”

Chevron’s decision to abandon the CPA claim is not the first time the company has used the trick of bailing out of a court case at the last minute to avoid an embarrassing loss.

In 2007, after years of litigation, Chevron suddenly withdrew a key argument it was using in U.S. federal court over a purported remediation in Ecuador after the judge (Leonard B. Sand) indicated that he thought the company’s position was meritless. Chevron later rolled out the same discredited argument the U.S. judge found unconvincing to fuel years of additional litigation in the aforementioned international arbitration dispute, whose panel also ultimately rejected the same argument. That process forced Ecuador’s government to spend years of effort and tens of millions of dollars in legal fees.

In 2013, Chevron suddenly abandoned a $60 billion money damages claim against the villagers on the eve of its retaliatory civil “racketeering” trial when it concluded a jury of impartial fact finders might rule against it. The dropping of the damages claim allowed the company’s favored U.S. judge (Lewis A. Kaplan) to decide the case alone. Kaplan refused to admit any evidence of Chevron’s wrongdoing in Ecuador, repeatedly disparaged the villagers and their counsel in open court, and failed to disclose that he held personal investments in Chevron. Chevron later falsified evidence in that case, according to court filings.

Kaplan’s decision in favor of Chevron resulted from a “farcicial” proceeding and has no impact on any of the enforcement actions, said Page. It is currently under appeal before the same federal court in New York where Chevron unanimously lost a similar appeal in 2011.

SOURCE

Activism, biodiversity, conservation, democracy, Fascism/Corporatism, Politics

Nunavut Inuit group wants to hear more about expired oil leases

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QIA looks forward to seeing Greenpeace documents

A map of the Qikiqtani Inuit Association’s preferred boundary for the Lancaster Sound marine conservation area showing Shell’s oil leases in cross-hatched pink. (MAP COURTESY QIA)

By STEVE DUCHARME, reposted from NunatsiaqOnline, Mar 31, 2016

The Qikiqtani Inuit Association is looking forward to discussions with Greenpeace after it was revealed earlier this week that oil permits granted to Shell Canada in the seventies might have expireddecades ago.

“I don’t think we’ve had communications with them yet, but its important that we do,” said QIA board member-at-large, Olayuk Akesuk, from his home in Cape Dorset March 29.

Akesuk has been in charge of the QIA’s Lancaster Sound file for five years, as well as the organization’s efforts — alongside Parks Canada — to establish a national marine conservation area (NMCA) at the northern tip of Baffin Island.

“I think it’s important that people who do oil exploration in the area understand where we are and what we’re concerned about. Hopefully they understand what we’re trying to do to protect the area,” he said.

According to federal documents obtained by Greenpeace through freedom of information requests, 30 permits issued to Shell Canada by the federal government to explore oil resources in Lancaster Sound have not been officially renewed since 1978.

But that didn’t stopped Shell from using the permits in 2014 as leverage to request permission to conduct seismic testing in the area before they’d consider relinquishing their supposed claims.

There is currently an injunction against seismic testing there, obtained by the QIA.

Greenpeace is hoping the documents will cause the new federal government, under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, to reevaluate the NMCA border proposed by the former Conservative Government that worked around the permit zone.

But the first priority for the QIA, says Akesuk, will be to continue a feasibility study in the region.

That’s scheduled to be completed this summer.

“It’s important to have something in place to defend that area with our very best knowledge,” he said.

To that end, the QIA is gathering knowledge from the affected communities: Grise Fiord, Resolute Bay, Clyde River, Arctic Bay and Pond Inlet.

Lancaster Sound, including the areas currently permitted to Shell Canada, is vital to the sustainability of neighboring communities, and Nunavut as a whole, Akesuk said.

“[They] need to have that, not only up there but the whole territory depends on animals that migrate through that area.”

That includes narwhal, beluga, walrus, seal, turbot and many other species that supplement the expensive cost of living in the High Arctic.

Companies also do commercial fishing is in the area, Akesuk said.

The QIA says it will continue protecting Nunavut waters from seismic testing, which uses high-powered sound waves to penetrate the ocean floor in search of seabed hydrocarbon reserves.

The procedure is considered by many to be highly invasive for aquatic life, and was the catalyst for acourt injunction won by QIA in 2010 that effectively enacted moratorium on seismic testing in waters that fall within the Nunavut Land Claim Agreement.

Another longstanding legal battle, lead by former Clyde River mayor Jerry Natanine, seeks to prevent a five-year seismic testing project from going forward in Baffin Bay and Davis Strait, areas outside the land claim area.

The Supreme Court of Canada agreed on March 10 to hear that case but no date has been set yet for the hearing.

“We’ve been supporting the people of Clyde River for the court case, we just can’t back off to anything that is trying to do that [seismic testing],” Akesuk said.

“Its important that all documents are completed before anyone starts drilling or doing anything in the waters because that’s the main source that we hunt for our people.”

Any decision to work with Greenpeace on the issue, Akesuk said, will have to come from QIA executives.

“We’ll have to work on how we can work with them [Greenpeace]. It’s up to the board and the executive committee.”

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Activism, democracy, Politics, racism, reconciliation

Feathers of Hope Justice and Juries report released

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By Rick Garrick, reposted from Wawatay News, Apr 1, 2016

Nishnawbe Aski Nation is calling for increased funding for the Nishnawbe-Aski Police Service after the Feathers of Hope Justice and Juries report was released on March 7.

“We all know that Nishnawbe-Aski Police Service and Treaty Three Police are all underfunded,” says Deputy Grand Chief Anna Betty Achneepineskum. “And that is the main (reason) why they are unable to provide adequate services. They don’t have the budget to provide services in the way they should be.”

The first recommendation in the Feathers of Hope, Justice and Juries: A First Nations Youth Action Plan for Justice called for Aboriginal police services to be improved and strengthened by bringing their investigative powers and resources, training and systems of accountability in line with non-Aboriginal police services.

The second recommendation called for mandatory police college level training specific to the history of Aboriginal people and the legacy issues that increase their risk of coming into contact with the law.

The third recommendation called for police officers to focus on building positive working relationships with all community members as part of their duties.

“Much of the report is things that were quite obvious to us,” Achneepineskum says. “We hope the report will make an impression on the policing and the court system because the Provincial Advocate’s office does have a high profile.”

The fourth recommendation called for government to work with Aboriginal leadership, band councils and educators to develop legal rights education courses for Aboriginal youth at the primary, intermediate and senior high school levels.

“We’re trying to find ways to introduce this to our chiefs,” Achneepineskum says. “We have an Aboriginal Child and Youth Strategy Chiefs Committee, who are meeting in (May), so this is part of what we are going to be talking about.”

The Justice and Juries report was released by the Office of the Provincial Advocate for Children and Youth at Queen’s Park in Toronto and Parliament Hill in Ottawa.

“From an early age, many Aboriginal youth view the justice system as a system that punishes and shames individuals, apprehends a disproportionately high number of children into care, and fails to protect those in need, especially Aboriginal women,” says Irwin Elman, Ontario’s provincial advocate for Children and Youth. “Unless fundamental changes are made to create a more inclusive and fair justice system we will continue to alienate future generations of Aboriginal people.”

The report captured the voices of more than 150 Aboriginal youth from across Ontario who participated in the Feathers of Hope: Justice and Juries youth forum, held Nov. 17-20, 2014 in Thunder Bay. The report is available online at:https://provincialadvocate.on.ca/documents/en/JJ_En.pdf.

“As a champion, I’ve seen young people transform into leaders who are speaking openly and courageously on the changes needed for the justice system and how to build stronger ties with Aboriginal people,” says Celina Reitberger, executive director of Nishnawbe-Aski Legal Services Corporation and Feathers of Hope champion. “I commend them on their hard work and for staying true to reflecting the voices of youth who attended the Feathers of Hope forum.”
The youth forum was held at the request of former Supreme Court of Canada Justice Frank Iacobucci, who authored a report on the under-representation of First Nations people on jury panels.

“The Aboriginal youth who participated in the forum and development of the report personified the seven Grandfather Teachings of wisdom, love, respect, bravery, honesty, humility and truth,” says Mandy Wesley, an Aboriginal lawyer and Feathers of Hope champion. “It was upon this foundation that they collectively developed an action plan that fosters reconciliation and serves to advance access to justice for Aboriginal peoples.”

OPACY previously released the Feathers of Hope: A First Nations Youth Action Plan in 2014.

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