Daily Archives: April 15, 2016

Activism, Cultural Genocide, democracy, Politics, racism

Aboriginal protesters occupy federal offices across Canada, demanding Trudeau visit Attawapiskat

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By Victor Ferreira, reposted from the National Post, Apr 14, 2016

TORONTO — Several groups of indigenous activists have occupied the offices of Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada in Toronto and staged a sit-in in Winnipeg, demanding that Justin Trudeau visits a northern Ontario community struggling with a recent spate of suicide attempts.

A group of about 30 people first occupied the Toronto building around 10 a.m. on Wednesday morning, police said. More than 30 hours into the protest, it continues to be peaceful, police said. A second group of activists staged a sit-in in the Winnipeg INAC office Thursday evening.

Maanii Oakes, a protester in the group occupying the office said the group is disappointed to not have received a response from the federal government.

“We thought this was going to be a one-hour action,” Oakes said. “Unfortunately by the response we got that Prime Minister (Justin) Trudeau would not be there…it seemed as if INAC was not the best option for First Nations people and we needed to be here to pressure him to come to Attawapiskat.”

Kevin Connor/Toronto Sun/Postmedia Network
Kevin Connor/Toronto Sun/Postmedia NetworkIdle No More Toronto occupied the offices of Indian Northern Affairs Canada on 25 St. Clair East, 8th floor in Toronto in solidarity with Attawapiskat on Wednesday April 13, 2016.

Trudeau was visiting Fanshawe College in London, Ont., and Polycon Industries, a automotive parts manufacturer in Guelph, Ont., Thursday.

In Toronto, the protesters are demanding that Trudeau address the crisis in Attawapiskat, a First Nations community dealing with the aftermath of a large number of suicide attempts over the weekend. The group is also calling for a list of more than 20 demands to improve the community, including a youth centre, elder camp, emergency mental health responders, firefighters and libraries, to be met.

Protesters staged a “die-in” in the INAC office and hung up Attawapiskat First Nation and Mohawk Warrior Society banners on Wednesday. The group has been cut off from washrooms and have been forced to use buckets instead. Oakes said the group was told that if they leave the building, they will not be allowed to re-enter. Deliveries of food, water and toilet paper from other activists outside the building have been allowed, but on an inconsistent basis. At least one young child and several senior citizens are among the protesters occupying the building’s 8th floor office.

When the group first occupied the office Wednesday, Oakes said there were a handful of INAC staff workers inside. On Thursday, Oakes said the activists hadn’t seen any workers inside the office.

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A group of activists has entered WInnipeg’s INAC building in protest to the lack of response to the Attawapiskat crisis. Facebook

The Attawapiskat community declared a state of emergency Saturday after reports of 11 suicide attempts taking place in one day. On Monday, police thwarted a suicide pact between 13 young people in the community, including a nine-year-old.

Melisse (Coyote) Watson, another protester occupying the Toronto INAC office, said the group needed to raise attention for Attawapiskat because “people have gotten used to the way indigenous people on this land have been living.”

“It’s had to go beyond a reasonable point for people to start noticing and I think it just goes to show how normalized the conditions on reserves (have become),” she said.

Both Oakes and Watson said the group has not been yet been contacted by the provincial or federal government. But Ontario Health Minister Eric Hoskins and Children and Youth Services Minister Tracy MacCharles visited the community Wednesday, pledging $2 million in mental health support. On Tuesday, the House of Commons held an emergency debate on the future of the community.

ATTAWAPISKAT VIDEO

Health Canada also dispatched 18 health workers, mental health workers and police to help support the Attawapiskat community.

But aboriginal activists don’t think that’s enough, Oakes said, spurring action in Toronto and Winnipeg.

Winnipeg police Const. Robert Carver confirmed that protesters had entered the city’s INAC offices, but avoided using the term “occupied” because he said staff are allowing the group of 20 activists to be inside the building.

“An occupation is where they’re no longer welcome and they’re not leaving,” Carver said. “They are currently being allowed to smudge by the INAC staff.”

Kevin Connor/Toronto Sun/Postmedia Network
Access to the building’s front entrance has been cut off by security officers who are only allowing people with keycards through the front door. In Toronto, building security has made the same decision. Kevin Connor/Toronto Sun/Postmedia Network
Kevin Connor/Toronto Sun/Postmedia Network

Access to the building’s front entrance has been cut off by security officers who are only allowing people with keycards through the front door. In Toronto, building security has made the same decision.

Toronto police said their role in such protests is “neutral” and have no plans as of Thursday morning to forcibly remove the protesters from the building. Several officers are currently in the office’s lobby to ensure the protest remains peaceful.

A smaller group of activists remain at their posts outside the Toronto building’s front door, gathering supplies and raising awareness for the protesters and the crisis in Attawapiskat. Some burned sage and wafted the fumes towards their faces in a ceremony meant to cleanse their souls. Others held hands and formed a circle to pray for the well-being of the protesters inside and the citizens of Attawakpiskat.

Multiple posters laying out the group’s demands and support for the embattled community clung to the exterior walls, drawing the attention and questions of curious Torontonians passing by.

Oakes said the group inside the building and another one outside are ready to continue their protests if their demands aren’t met.

“We’ve got buckets, we’ve got medicine, we’ve got water, we’ve got food,” Oakes said. “I think we’re more than enough prepared to make sure the youth in Attawapiskat gets the justice they deserve.”

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democracy, Fascism/Corporatism, Politics, Preventing Ecocide

CETA: a terrible deal for Canadians

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By PSAC, reposted from PSACUnion.ca, Apr 11, 2016

Canadian unions affiliated to Public Services International, the global union that represents 20 million public sector workers world-wide, say their strong objection to the Canada-EU Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement (CETA) stands despite recent backroom changes to the investment provisions in the trade deal.

CETA was a key agenda item at the recent meeting of the North American PSI affiliates, hosted by the PSAC March 3- 4 in Ottawa.

“We want to make sure that European parliamentarians and unions understand it is our position that CETA remains a terrible deal that gives foreign corporations the power to sidestep domestic courts and sue governments if they think a public policy decision could interfere with their profit-making,” said Robyn Benson, PSAC National President.

“PSAC will also continue to work with other Canadian public sector unions to sensitize Canadians and mobilize against the dangerous provisions in CETA as it will most likely pave the way for other agreements such as the TTIP and TPP,” she added.

Co-chaired by PSAC National President Robyn Benson, the meeting heard reports of PSI North American affiliates and some public service sectors. Presentations were made on important issues such as organizing, labour rights, and privatization.

Problems with CETA

  • Foreign corporations would have unprecedented power to sidestep domestic courts and sue our government if a public policy decision is deemed to prevent future profit
  • Cost of pharmaceuticals would increase by 1 billion per year
  • It would be harder to reverse failed privatizations in sectors such as healthcare, water or energy, or to expand public services in the future
  • The rights of provinces, municipalities, schools and hospitals would be limited to get the most out of their procurement spending by favoring local goods and services

Background

  • Canada is the most-sued developed country under existing investor rights rules in NAFTA.
  • Canada has already paid more than $200 million to corporations

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democracy, Politics

SCC says two tough-on-crime laws are unconstitutional

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Supreme Court of Canada

By The Canadian Press, reposted from CTVNews, Apr 15, 2016

OTTAWA - The Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that two federal laws from the previous Conservative government’s tough-on-crime agenda are unconstitutional.

In a 6-3 vote, the high court says a mandatory, one-year minimum sentence for a drug crime when the offender has a similar charge on the record constitutes cruel and unusual punishment, a violation of section 12 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The case came about after Joseph Ryan Lloyd was convicted in September 2014 of three counts of possessing crack, methamphetamine and heroin for the purpose of trafficking in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.

He also had a 2012 trafficking charge.

The provincial court ruled that while the appropriate sentence for Lloyd was one year, the mandatory minimum sentence constituted cruel and unusual punishment and violated the charter.

The Supreme Court also says that provisions passed in 2009 which prohibit a trial judge from giving more than one-for-one credit for pre-trial detention if a justice of the peace denies bail to the person because of a previous conviction are unconstitutional.

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Cultural Genocide, democracy, Politics

Supreme Court of Canada rules that Métis and non-status Indians are “Indians” under section 91(24) of the Constitution Act, 1867

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Vindication for the late Harry Daniels.

By Rebecca Hansen, Meaghan Conroy, MacPherson Leslie & Tyerman LLP, reposted from Lexology, Apr 14, 2016

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Cultural Genocide, democracy, Politics

Canada Extends Benefits to People of Mixed Aboriginal and European Ancestry

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Hundreds of protesters march in Montreal demanding attention from the political parties during the Canadian election campaign in October 2015. Photograph: Cristian Mijea/Demotix/Corbis

By Ian Austin, reposted from the New York Times, Apr 14, 2016

OTTAWA — A unanimous ruling released Thursday by the Supreme Court of Canada opened up a wide range of benefits and rights to about 600,000 Canadians of mixed aboriginal and European ancestry, ending a dispute that stretches back to the country’s founding.

The court ruled that the federal government has the same obligation to the Métis, people of mixed Indian and European ancestry, and nonstatus Indians, those of aboriginal or mixed ancestry who are living in communities not recognized by the government, as to any other aboriginal group in Canada.

The decision will allow those groups to negotiate land claims with the federal government, and individuals to receivebenefits, including access to health and education programs, as well as hunting and fishing rights, long limited to other aboriginal people. Moreover, the groups’ leaders will no longer be excluded from talks between the government and aboriginal groups.

Cheers erupted in the court’s lobby as leaders from the groups descended a staircase holding copies of the Supreme Court decision above their heads.

“As a leader in aboriginal politics for the past 37 years, I have learned to be modest when it comes to predicting the future,” Dwight Dorey, the national chief of the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples, who was among the plaintiffs in a 1999 case that led to the decision, told reporters. “But I can say with confidence that today’s decision bodes well for the future of hundreds of thousands of disenfranchised Métis and nonstatus Indians.”

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, speaking at a news conference in London, Ontario, said the court’s decision was “a landmark ruling that will have broad consequences.”

Mr. Trudeau pledged that his government would work with the groups affected by the ruling on “the path forward.”

In its decision, the Supreme Court found that Métis and nonstatus Indians had found themselves in a “jurisdictional tug of war” between the federal government and provinces in which neither side wanted to take responsibility.

It also noted that while the federal government denied the two groups benefits, many of their children were forced into a long-running boarding school program that was declared a form of “cultural genocide” by an investigative commission last year.

This week’s state of emergency declaration by an aboriginal community in northern Ontario overwhelmed by a wave of suicide attempts highlighted the inadequacy of the government programs for native communities. Mr. Trudeau’s government has pledged to increase spending on aboriginal communities. But before the court’s ruling, Métis and nonstatus Indians had not been eligible for even that support.

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democracy, Politics

Supreme Court to grapple with expat voting ban

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Supreme Court of Canada
view shows the Supreme Court of Canada in Ottawa, in this file photo taken April 24, 2014. (REUTERS/Chris Wattie/Files)

By Colin Perkel, The Canadian Press, reposted from DurhamRegion, Apr 14, 2016

TORONTO — Long-term expats denied the right to vote in federal elections expressed delight Thursday after the Supreme Court of Canada said it would take on their case.

At issue is part of the Canada Elections Act that disenfranchises citizens who have lived abroad for longer than five years.

“The time has come to restore expats’ right to vote from abroad,” said Jamie Duong, one of the plaintiffs in the case.

Duong and Gillian Frank, both of whom live in the United States, challenged the constitutionality of the legislation, enforced only under the previous Conservative government of Stephen Harper.

They initially won before the Ontario Superior Court of Justice in 2014, but the government appealed and the province’s top court overturned the ruling in a split decision last July, prompting the plaintiffs to turn to Supreme Court.

During the election campaign last fall, the Liberals under Justin Trudeau indicated they would take another look at the ban, citing a goal of encouraging more voting rather than less.

Frank said he hoped the government would not oppose their Supreme Court appeal by defending the legislation.

“We call upon Prime Minister Trudeau and Minister of Justice Jodie Wilson-Raybould to honour the Liberal party’s election promise to support the voting rights of Canadians everywhere,” Frank said Thursday.

In a letter last October, the Liberal party called the Canadian expatriate community “essential” to the country’s economic and cultural success.

“We believe that all Canadians should have a right to vote, no matter where they live, and we are committed to ensuring that this is the case,” party president Anna Gainey said in the letter to expats.

“The Conservative government’s misguided attempts to strip Canadian expatriates of their voting rights is yet another example of their devaluing of Canadian citizenship.”

Gainey rejected Conservative assertions of “vote shopping” or other systemic violations by those living abroad.

During the last election, expats such as actor Donald Sutherland and Canadian business groups abroad mounted a determined lobby effort to highlight their displeasure at the ban.

Frank, of Toronto, has lived in the United States since 2001 and teaches at Princeton University. Duong, who left Montreal for high school in Vermont, works at Cornell University. They are among as many as 1.4 million Canadians living abroad barred from voting under the current rules, initially enacted in 1993 but only enforced post-2007.

In upholding the ban, the Ontario Court of Appeal said it would unfair to people living in Canada to extend the vote to the long-term expats. In a dissenting opinion, Justice John Laskin said he found no good reason for limiting voting rights.

Fascism/Corporatism, Politics

We can kiss Canada’s human rights credibility goodbye

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Cesar Jaramillo is executive director of Project Ploughshares, an anti-war group that tracks arms sales.
Cesar Jaramillo is executive director of Project Ploughshares, an anti-war group that tracks arms sales.

by CESAR JARAMILLO, reposted from the Globe and Mail, Apr 14, 2016

Damning revelations about Ottawa’s handling of the controversial $15-billion arms deal with human-rights pariah Saudi Arabia have confirmed that the Liberal government authorized the bulk of this contract even after having repeatedly claimed that it had already been approved by the previous government.

Both the Harper Conservatives and the Trudeau Liberals have argued that failing to fulfill the deal would damage Canada’s international reputation. But it is the reputation cost of actually fulfilling this dubious contract that all Canadians should be most concerned about.

Any Canadian attempt to speak out on international efforts to protect human rights will soon be met with skepticism and disdain. One can almost hear it: “Ha! … Says the country that is arming one of the most repressive regimes on Earth.”

Canada takes public pride in valuing the protection of human rights and in maintaining stringent military export controls. But its voice in the arena of human rights will be utterly diminished, if not silenced, as Ottawa ploughs ahead with the implementation of this deal. And it could take decades to repair the damage.

Did Ottawa adequately consider the high cost of this diplomatic handicap?

The Canadian government has argued that if Canada does not sell weapons to Saudi Arabia, someone else will. Not surprisingly, the ethical flaws in this argument have been noted by a growing number of observers. Former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and former Supreme Court of Canada Justice Louise Arbour dryly noted, “This argument that if we don’t do it somebody else will do it I find, frankly, the least convincing. It is not infused with moral, ethical values.”

Saudi Arabia’s record clearly shows that it cannot satisfy human-rights safeguards that require that “no reasonable risk” exists that Canadian-made military goods will be used against civilians. Thus export permits should not have been issued, and the deal should not proceed. Yet proceed it will.

A necessary implication of Ottawa’s approval of the export permits is that it sees no reasonable risk in shipping military equipment to a regime notorious for violating the human rights of its citizens (and, of late, citizens of neighbouring countries). If it intends to stand by this position, the Canadian public deserves to know – in detail – how this determination was reached.

Canada’s concerns about its ability to conduct business internationally had Saudi Arabia been deemed ineligible to receive military exports cannot be reasonably justified. The argument that an arms deal cannot proceed because it has not met domestic export controls is surely compelling. Which prospective trading partner would find it unreasonable for Canada to make export authorizations contingent upon full compliance with domestic regulations?

Strict adherence to export controls should not only be the norm when selling military goods, but should be seen as a badge of honour.

There are still options to review the deal, at least in theory. If, going forward¸ the government acknowledges the existence of a reasonable risk, even after having granted export permits, then every effort must be made to revisit the decision to authorize it. That much has been conceded by Global Affairs Canada, which acknowledged in January that the department could consider suspending or cancelling existing permits, should relevant reports emerge. Given Saudi Arabia’s worsening human-rights record, such reports are likely to emerge regularly.

In a peculiar twist, the Conservatives are now chastising Trudeau’s Liberals for their intention to fulfill the deal and for the secrecy surrounding its authorization. Conservative foreign affairs critic Tony Clement even suggested that the deal be scrapped, pointing to changing “realities on the ground” in regards to the Saudi involvement with the ongoing conflict in Yemen.

A cat can only be skinned so many ways, and Ottawa clearly exhausted its attempts to rationalize the Saudi arms deal. But it still had the audacity to grant the requisite permits. Even so, questions about the compatibility of the Saudi arms deal with existing export controls can and should continue to be raised, as they remain essentially unanswered.

The credibility of Canada’s voice on human rights has taken a big hit. And if Ottawa still refuses to acknowledge the flagrant inconsistencies in its position, it might at least want to drop the line about Canada’s export controls being “some of the strongest in the world.”

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Cesar Jaramillo is executive director of Project Ploughshares, an anti-war group that tracks arms sales.

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