Reflections on the Shafia murder trial

TORONTO—Somewhere in the calm setting of an Islamic cemetery in Laval, Quebec, lie four headstones belonging to four women; all members of a single family. Neatly arranged next to each other, they share similar color, style and design. A Farsi gender-specific religious title for the deceased (Marhoome) is prefixed to their names. One verse of Koran, in Arabic, decorates all four gravestones: “Yea, enter thou My Heaven!” But it was their mortal lives, the very hellish existence that they had to endure, which is more telling. Who were these people? And how did they, all originally from Afghanistan, end up buried, thousands of kilometers away, in the serene surroundings of a town in Quebec?

The primary details of the case were always clear from the outset. In Summer 2009, three sisters aged 13, 17, 19, and their 52-year old stepmother, were found drowned in a car in the depths of the Rideau Canal. It was always unlikely that it was an accident that had led them.

Now, we know much more. The police investigation led to the largest trial in Kingston's history; it took over three months, was conducted in English, French and Persian, and involved summoning 58 witnesses. The accused were the parents and brother of the three murdered sisters. Over the course of the trial, those in the courtoom were able to form a picture not only of the gruesome murder, but of the real lives of Geeti, Sahar, Zainab and Rona.

In the last days of January 2012, the jury returned a guilty verdict for all three accused on four counts of first-degree murder. Police uncovered damning statements, primarily from Mohammad Shafia, the patriarch and murderer-in-chief of this plot, which recorded no sorrow.

But as Shafia’s statements fill the newspapers, what we don't hear is the story of the four victims. Shafia said that they had to be murdered because of their "treason" in supposedly violating his "honor", and that of Islam. What he saw as betrayal, however, was a brilliant story of resistance and expression.

A breathtaking exhibit in this trial was a journal kept by Rona Mohammad Amir, 52, the first wife of Shafia, who was discarded for her infertility and later murdered along with the three children of the second wife. Written in a beautiful Persian prose, it describes an educated woman, who was just 20 when the 1979 revolution signaled an era in which a proliferation of woman's rights, and other social progressive policies, took place in Afghanistan. The Kabul in which she spent her youth was called "Paris of the East", a city with a young female population, known both for their university degrees and liberal fashion sensibilities. Her own polygamous father, a retired colonel, had welcomed the waves of modernization. Rona could wear whatever she wanted and was fond of cheering for her favorite basketball teams in the stadiums. Those days ended in 1981 with an arranged marriage to a young man from a rich family, who gave her an extravagant wedding ceremony at Kabul's Intercontinental Hotel.

One would need a novel to delve more into the story of how this ‘family’ found new members; how it traveled around the world to Pakistan, India, the UAE, Australia and finally Canada; how the very-rich Shafia (whose business included buying a shopping centre in Montreal for two million dollars) decided to run his family according to his own sick notion of “Islam,” a notion that (as Kurdish-Iranian Feminist scholar, Shahrzad Mojab testified) is discarded by millions of Muslims around the world as a backward tribal code that has nothing to do with the religion.

Never resting, the eldest girl Zainab, 19, made recurring attempts to escape with a Pakistani boy whom she loved were not tolerated. Sahar, 17, loved nothing like taking cellphone pictures of herself and her large beautiful eyes. And Geeti, 13, never got a chance to go beyond her first teen year.

These voices of resistance are the true honorable voices in this story, a story which, when finally told, will defy all clichés about Afghan women. Both those that the patriarch Shafia had in mind, and those apparent in the sensationalized racist accounts that have filled the newspapers in this country.

Arash Azizi has spent countless hours covering the Shafia case for Shahrvand, a Toronto-based Persian publication.

This article was originally published by the Toronto Media Co-op.

Shafia

"Radicals" surged, gold mine suspended, CSIS rejected

Members of the Pictou Landing First Nation voted 119 to 20 to reject Nova Scotia's offer of $3 million in exchange for icing their lawsuit against the province for a minimum of 2 years. The band, in serious financial difficulties, has turned to the court system after the province repeatedly reneged on promises to stop allowing pulp and paper effluent dumping in Boat Harbour, and to begin cleaning up the environmental disaster.

The Canadian Auto Workers union continued strike action against employer Caterpillar at Canada's only locomotive plant, in London, ON. Caterpillar has offered workers a drastic cut in salaries and a gutting of their pension funds. ""Its frustrating that this government keeps giving handouts to corporations and in return these corporations just slam workers [...] and shut the doors and lock out workers when they have made them so profitable." said Nancy Hutchinson, from the Ontario Federation of Labour.

The Argentinian province of La Rioja suspended Vancouver-based mining company Osisko's license for the Famatina gold mine project following protests by thousands of residents in the area. “There’ll be no further activity ... as long as people oppose [the project]", said the provincial governor.

Protestors in Toronto clashed with riot squads in front of city hall. With cuts to core services looming in the proposed municipal budget, hundreds gathered inside, and outside, city hall, as part of the Stop the Cuts campaign. Aiden Hennings from Stop the Cuts described the scene: “I was at the front, trying to get into City Hall. [The police] started grabbing people outside the barricades. I was grabbed by my hair and they tried to drag me through their lines, but other people took me back. About five minutes later I was pepper sprayed from a foot away – the officer smiled while he did it, and my two little sisters were punched in the face by police as well.”

American pharmaceutical giant Merck announced it has earmarked between $21 and $36.8 million in compensation for Canadians involved in legal action against the company over harm caused by taking Vioxx. Vioxx, once considered a "super aspirin," was taken off the market in 2004 after it was found to cause cardiac problems, and death.

Nova Scotia power monopoly Emera announced it is once again delaying the massive Muskrat Falls project, estimated to cost $6.2 billion. The feasibility of the project, which stands to bring hydroelectric power from Labrador, via undersea cable to Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, and the Eastern seabord of the United States, has of late been brought into doubt. This is the third delay for the multi-thousand megawatt project. Many wonder whether the project is necessary, since Hydro Quebec is willing to sell energy for cheap and the link up between Quebec and the Canadian Maritimes would be significantly cheaper.

As of noon on Jan. 2, the 100 richest CEOs in Canada had already made the salary of an average Canadian worker, according to the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. The same report showed that in 2010, the top CEOs in Canada made 189 times more than the average Canadian worker, raking in an $8.38-million versus $44,366.

Consultations into Enbridge Inc.'s Northern Gateway oil pipeline began in northern British Columbia. Over 4,000 people have signed up to intervene at the consultations, which are now expected to last two full years. Minister of Natural Resources Joe Oliver released an open letter the day before the consultation process began, warning against the influence of foreign money and radicals in the process. Prime Minister Stephen Harper repeated that the pipeline, which would transport oil from the Alberta tar sands to a port in BC for export to Asian markets, is in Canada's national interest.

Since Minister of Natural Resources Joe Oliver's statement, environmental organizations opposing the pipeline have reported tens of thousands of dollars in new donations and an equal surge in people signing onto campaigns and petitions against the pipeline.

Newly uncovered documents revealed that the Canadian government sees environmental and Indigenous groups as adversaries in the development of the tar sands industry, and the department of Aboriginal Affairs and the National Energy Board, which is overseeing the consultation, as allies.

The First Nations alliance against the Gateway pipeline grew to over 100 nations when Indigenous communities from Alberta and the Northwest Territories signed on to the Save The Fraser declaration in January.

Nova Scotians rallied in Halifax and Cape Breton against hydraulic fraction to extract natural gas in the province. Opponents to fracking, as the process is commonly known, point to its link to incidents of well-water and soil contamination as reasons the provincial government should put a stop to the controversial practice. One speaker said that in an area of Nova Scotia, up to 60 homes had lost their well water following the start of seismic testing for natural gas.

Mexican journalist and government whistleblower Karla Berenice García Ramírez filed a final request for refugee status in Canada. The writer and her family have faced death threats after she leaked thousands of pages documenting corruption and graft at Mexico's National Council for Culture and Arts. In rejecting her previous requests for refugee status, the Canadian government stated that Mexico is safe and democratic, reducing the need to grant refugee status to their citizens.

“Crackdown was the word of the year in 2011," said Reporters Without Borders as it released its 2011/12 Press Freedom Index, pointing to 12 months that saw journalists pitted against government and police forces throughout the uprisings in the Middle East and protest camps in Europe and North America. The report singled out Honduras, Mexico, Pakistan, Iran and Iraq for violence against journalists, and impunity for perpetrators.

Montreal police shot and killed Iranian-Kurdish refugee Farshad Mohammadi following an altercation with police. Mohammadi, who was homeless, allegedly cut a police officer with a utility knife. He had put the knife in his pocket and was walking away when police shot him from behind. It was the second time the police have shot and killed a homeless man in Montreal in the past seven months, leading to renewed calls for better services for the city's street-involved population and for an independent review commission to investigate police violence. Currently, such investigations are assigned to other police forces.

Lawyers for the Ontario Provincial Police filed an appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada over a ruling that officers, in the event of a fatal shooting of a suspect, cannot have their notes vetted by a lawyer before they are turned over to investigators . The OPP's lawyers claim the ruling, which was made in a legal battle led by the mother of Levi Shaffer, who was killed by OPP officers, violates officers' fundamental legal rights.

Mining company Vale suspended activity at its five mines in the Sudbury region of Northern Ontario following the death of mine worker Stephen Perry, 47. Perry died in a mine while loading a rock face with explosives, and investigations are ongoing. This is the fourth fatality of a Canadian Vale employee in the past seven months.

Diamond mining company De Beers lobbied government officials to allow them to drain a lake in the Northwest Territories, decimating local fish habitat, in order to move forward with its Gahcho Kue diamond mine.

The chief of the First Nation community of Attawapiskat, which is facing a severe housing crisis, called for revenue sharing from the nearby De Beers diamond mine, near James Bay in Ontario. While the community does receive fixed payments from the company, "Great riches are being taken from our land for the benefit of a few... Our lands have been stripped from us and yet development on our land area in timber, hydro and mining have created unlimited wealth for non-native people and their governments," said Chief Theresa Spence.

About 50 anti-racist protesters rallied outside of a Vancouver court house during the hearing of neo-Nazi Shawn MacDonald, a member of the Blood and Honour white supremacist organization. MacDonald is facing charges for attacks between 2008 and 2010 on an aboriginal woman, an Hispanic man and a black man. Other members of Blood and Honor are also being charged with the 2009 assault of a Filipino man who was set on fire while he was sleeping outside on a couch.

US President Barack Obama blocked the Keystone XL pipeline, which would have transported tar sands oil from northern Alberta through the US to refineries in Texas. Obama said that the decision was not based on the environmental impact of the pipeline but rather due to the Republican-controlled House of Representatives forcing the government, in late December, to produce a decision on the pipeline within 60 days.

Newly released documents revealed that then-industry minister Tony Clement played a role in selecting which projects were granted money via the 2010 G8 Legacy Fund. The fund provided money for construction projects to be built in the lead up to the G8 meetings held in the Muskoka region. Clement, who is the MP for the region and now Secretary of the Treasury Board, claims his office had nothing to do with the decisions, but critics have accused his office of using the money to gain political favor among constituents.

Mandy Hiscocks and Leah Henderson, two of the six co-accused who accepted plea deals in November to end the so-called G20 Conspiracy trial, were sentenced to 16 months and 10 months of prison, respectively. None of the six people who accepted plea deals were convicted on conspiracy charges, and their 11 other co-accused saw all charges dropped. "I want to tell you that I was arrested because I am seen as a threat. I want to tell you that you might be too," wrote Henderson in an open letter before being sentenced.

In Montreal, the People's Commission Network announced that 68 organizations across Canada have signed on to a campaign of non-co-operation with CSIS, Canada's federal spy agency. “[CSIS' actions] creates a climate of fear and insecurity, so people stop wanting to get involved in community organizing of any kind because they feel it will attract unnecessary attention,” said a representative of the South Asian Women's Community Centre, which has joined the coalition.

Notice of Termination

Dozens of groups launch campaign to not co-operate with Canadian spy agency

MONREAL—Nearly 70 groups across Canada have joined a campaign to no longer co-operate with the work of Canada's national spy agency, and are calling on others to join them.

The organizations represent a broad swath of society, covering such a diversity of issues as migrant rights, anti-war organizing, women's rights, social welfare, international solidarity groups, unions and community media organizations. As representatives from several organizations laid out at a press conference in Montreal on Sunday, they share the belief that the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS) targets political organizations in Canada and sows fear and suspicion each time they knock on someone's door.

Coalition groups are urging that their members not interact with CSIS agents should they be approached. This includes answering questions or even listening to what the agents have to say. Legally, Canadian citizens can refuse to speak or even listen to CSIS agents; for others, the coalition suggests only interacting with CSIS with a lawyer present.

"Visits [by CSIS] are meant to create psychological profiles, to instill distrust and to create tensions within groups and communities,” said Marie-Ève Lamy, a spokesperson for the People's Commission Network, which has spearheaded this campaign. Lamy added that the coalition believes visits from CSIS agents also aim to aggravate divisions among groups and individuals, discourage participation in social movement, isolate individual activists or community members – actions that do not actually make people any safer.

The idea for the coalition came about when members of the People's Commission Network (PCN), which organizes around questions of abuse in Canada's anti-terror laws, began hearing a growing number of accounts of unannounced visits by CSIS agents to people's homes in the lead-up to the Vancouver Olympics and the G20 meeting in Toronto, both held in 2010.

While the PCN and other organizations were already familiar with CSIS' tactics—visits from the spy agency were nothing new—the renewed and more widespread visits caused concern, especially since stories were surfacing of CSIS agents appearing at people's workplaces, and questioning family members and neighbours of people involved in anti-Olympic and anti-G20 organizing.

Such visits can be destabilizing and frightening, said Lamy. "People don't know their rights towards secret services, given that all their activities are secret. From that came the idea of a community notice suggesting complete non-collaboration if visited by CSIS."

Now two years later, while the visits have diminished in frequency, their impacts remain. Representatives from Montreal's South Asian Women's Community Centre (SAWCC), migrant rights group Solidarity Across Borders, Tadamon! (which focuses on international solidarity in the Middle East, particularly with Palestinians), and the Central Committee of Metropolitan Montreal of the Confédération des Syndicats Nationaux, the largest regional council of Quebec's second largest union, all spoke about how they are advising members to no longer collaborate with CSIS agents.

"We feel that CSIS is preying on our community's insecurities, vulnerabilities,” said Dolores Chew, of the SAWCC. “The countries we come from already have a tradition where people feel they have no other option but to comply with police and the authorities. and we know from our experience that CSIS uses fear, sowing seeds of mistrust, turning people one against the other."

That history of sowing divisions has been apparent for decades in the labor movement, according to Francis Lagacé of the CSN. Canadian security agencies have had a history of infiltrating labor and social movements, he said, pointing to Marc-André Boivin who infiltrated and spied on the CSN for 15 years for the RCMP and CSIS, as well as the spy agency's targeting of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers in the lead up to the 1991 postal workers strike.

Most concerning, said Legacé, is the agency's history of making something out of nothing:

"They don't know the difference between organizing and conspiring. [...] [CSIS officers] collect info, and once they hear our answers, imagine that we know 'something,' something on we-don't-know-what. They imagine that it's useful info, they create plot, they continue to interview more and more people and they create a climate of fear and suspicion between people."

CSIS was involved in gathering information on protests, along with the RCMP and other law enforcement agencies, in the lead-up to the Toronto G20 meetings and protests. Of the 17 people eventually charged with conspiracy following those investigations, 11 saw their charges dropped, and of the six facing jail-time, none were found guilty of the original conspiracy charges.

Concerns about CSIS' actions are not confined to Canada's borders either. Singh, Chew and Amy Darwish of Tadamon! all warned that the spy agency's actions abroad should make Canadians think twice about cooperating with them.

“It's important to recognize that CSIS is not our friend,” said Signh. “We can look to renditions to torture, through cases like Abdullah Almalki or Maher Arar [or] the treatment of Omar Khadr at Guantanamo, where he was interrogated by CSIS, and they we complicit in his torture there.”

Almalki and Arar both faced rendition, detention and torture in Syria based on suspect information gathered by CSIS and provided to the Syrian government. Khadr was arrested at age 15 by US soldiers in Afghanistan in 2001 and has been detained in the Guantanamo Bay prison ever since. There are allegations he has been tortured while in custody, and human rights groups say that as a minor he should have been treated as a child soldier under the Geneva Convention.

Despite these incidents, information sharing between CSIS and international intelligence agencies known or suspected to use torture continues.

“It maintains intelligence sharing agreements with 147 other agencies, including not only Israel's Mossad, but also the Mukhabarats or secret police of Egypt, Syria and Morocco,” Darwish explained. “This can not only cause complications for people when they travel overseas, but can also put community members and their families at risk.”

The result of CSIS' actions, the coalition alleges, is a chilling effect on anyone who considers joining a social movement, getting involved in community organizing, or speaking out publicly on issues contrary to the federal government's concerns.

“[CSIS' actions] creates a climate of fear and insecurity, so people stop wanting to get involved in community organizing of any kind because they feel it will attract unnecessary attention; it creates a chilling effect,” said Chew who added that the impact doesn't just stop with the peopel who receive visits. "There are many people who would like to be here from my community but who won't come forward. You don't speak out for your rights generally; it creates fear, intimidation.”

CSIS has defended it's actions in the past, saying that their investigations are necessary to ensure the safety of the Canadian public and for our national security and interests. CSIS, though, is not charged with setting those interests, leading some to question to what degree changes in the political wind can impact their investigations.

According to Darwish, the fact that CSIS is mandated to collect information about the influence of foreign interests on domestic activities in Canada provides a pretext for unfairly targeting groups, particularly those who support “national liberation struggles or anti-colonial movements abroad.”

She characterized CSIS' definition of what constitutes Canadian interests and what poses a national security risk as “very narrow” and “influenced by political priorities and interests.”

“In fact, even the Security Intelligence and Review Committee, which is CSIS' own oversight body, has claimed that CSIS has a regrettable attitude that supporting Arab causes can be suspicious,” she said.

Domestic activities also raise questions of the agency's impartiality and whether its actions can be seen as separate from political priorities, said Singh.

“The surveillance of Indigenous communities is one example among many showing that CSIS does not play a neutral role. [...] It's highly politicized and the state determines who the enemies are,” he said. “And historically, the very origins of policing in Canada, the Northwest Mounted Police and eventually the RCMP, was to quell native rebellions and was in the service of Canadian colonialism.”

Echoes of this can be seen today, panelists said, in the government's use of terms like “enemy of the government” in internal documents, publicly characterizing environmental groups as “radicals,” as Natural Resource Minister Joe Oliver recently did, or dividing society into sectors such as government “allies” and “adversaries,” as revealed in recent government documents.

Such heavy-handedness and political labeling may come to backfire, though, said Lamy. She said the Conservative government's continued attempts to equate dissent with criminality will lead to the label of “radical” being applied to a growing number of groups from wide range of society. The result, she believes, will be that “the feeling of solidarity will grow larger and larger, because the label [of “radical”] will be stuck to more than anarchists or anti-capitalists or Indigenous movements, but will be applied to a variety of groups that work on questions of social aid, welfare, even women.”

The ultimate goal of this new coalition, and the ongoing campaign against cooperating with CSIS, the speakers said, is to build a greater capacity for self-defense within communities when faced with harassment or interrogation from the spy agency. “[This campaign] is done in the spirit of support and understanding and dialogue,” said Singh. “It's trying to build community-based trust between our different groups and it's there that we can provide proper security versus any kind of threat.”

To that end, the coalition will continue to approach groups across Canada to join the campaign against cooperating with CSIS, as well as share information on what people should do if they or others in their community are approached by the service. Lamy also said that an annual march against what is seen as CSIS' myriad abuses could be in the works for the future.

“[We want to make] sure this gets out across the country and that there are clusters and nodes in every city and town that are getting endorsements and breaking that fear of CSIS,” said Singh.

Tim McSorley is a Dominion editor and member of the Montreal Media Co-op.

Disclosure: The Dominion editorial collective has endorsed the PCN's non-cooperation campaign.

CSIS non-compliance posters CSIS non-cooperation campaign panel

Nova Scotia environmentalists say government must revise lease of public lands to private corporations

HALIFAX—“In 1961 we leveraged a tremendous amount of Crown Land to get a company to come to Nova Scotia,” says Matt Miller, Forestry Program Coordinator at the Ecology Action Centre (EAC) in Halifax. “The focus was only on jobs and wood supply, and we gave them complete and utter control of 40 per cent of the Crown Land in the province, one in nine acres.”

The company in question, Finland-based Stora Enso, has been gone from Nova Scotia for five years, though, having sold its key asset, the Point Tupper pulp and paper mill near Port Hawkesbury, in Cape Breton, to Ohio-based Newpage in 2007. At the time, Newpage inherited the Crown Land along with the mill purchase. Amidst slumping sales and escalating power bills, the mill went into receivership in 2011.

Enter Vancouver-based Stern Partners. Headed by multimillionaire paper mogul Ron Stern, the company is the buyer of choice for the shuttered mill. Details of the purchase are yet to emerge, but Stern has let it be known that the workforce, which at the time of Newpage's demise stood at about 600, stands to be halved. Stern will enter into negotiations with the province to hammer out the purchase, and one of the key items on the table will be the 1961 Crown Land lease, which actually expired in 2011. Many independent woodlot owners, including Miller (who is also an award-winning independent woodlot owner), would like to see the deal revisited in order to better reflect 2012 conditions.

“We are expecting this government to negotiate a new agreement that doesn't sell the whole farm,” says Miller. “That means that one company doesn't have full control over [the crown land].” It would also mean that the company takes on more responsibilities than simply managing wood supplies and creating jobs, he says. Rather, the company would need to uphold the spirit of the Natural Resources Strategy by managing Crown lands to the highest standards possible, and consulting the public on how the land is managed, argues Miller.

Phase 1 of the Natural Resource Strategy (NRS), in 2009, was the last example of public consultation, and the only one ever undertaken by the Dexter government. Many blame this recoil from a decades-old tradition of government-public interaction on the fact that when the Nova Scotia public spoke up—which they did in the thousands in the case of the NRS—they demanded something the Dexter government didn't want to hear: stewardship and accountability of the province's forests, and public involvement in the process. If there were a time to make amends with the original intent of the NRS, Dexter might seize the day and revisit the land lease that now needs their attention.

“The logic of ever-shrinking workforce, ever-expanding, ever-increasing harvesting [suggests that] the government should tear up that old lease, and develop one that's modern and based on current conditions,” including the public's expectations that Crown Land should be managed to the highest level, says Miller's co-worker, EAC Wilderness Coordinator Ray Plourde. “We should not have to compensate any new owner that's going to scoop up that mill for pennies on the dollar in a bankruptcy fire sale.”

Fire sale aside, the provincial government has committed to earmarking 12 per cent of Nova Scotia land, by 2015, as protected areas, under the provincial Environmental Goals and Sustainable Prosperity Act of 2007. This puts the government in a difficult position: if the lease is not revised, the push to protect 12 per cent of the land could end up in direct conflict with Stern's stake, meaning the government would need to compensate the company for the property it would lose. Miller and Plourde agree that protected areas need to be exempted from the land lease before the deal with Stern is finalized.

As well, with the current state of Nova Scotia's “big three” pulp mills, one being in receivership (Newpage), one being responsible for one of Canada's worst environmental disasters (Northern Pulp and Boat Harbour), and one having just seen workers forced to give up many concessions, while CEOs walked away with 8 million in payoffs and the company given tens of millions in taxpayer bailout money (Bowater), it may well be time to give the smaller players in the forestry business a chance at bidding for Crown Land, according to Miller.

“There's already some existing manufacturing infrastructure in Eastern Nova Scotia. There's a series of value-added hardwood mills,” he says. “They've traditionally been shut out of any allocation of wood from Crown Land. This is a perfect opportunity for them to have access to that wood.”

“Smaller lease arrangements could be made for those local industry players that already exist,” says Plourde. “Hardwood mills that are making things like fine flooring, door and wall moldings, wainscoting, trim, and so on and so forth. They employ more people per unit of wood harvested, and they make a value-added product, so it's economically much better for the province. It would also allow for new enterprises to emerge, because they'd have some wood to access.”

Dexter actions have made it clear that the "big three" won't fail. The future of forestry in Nova Scotia suggests that now is the time to set the conditions for "small successes" that don't involve either extreme environmental degradation or a steady, continuous, flow of taxpayer bailouts.

Miles Howe is an editor with the Media Co-op and a member of the Halifax Media Co-op. This article was originally published by the HMC.

NS Jack Pine

Analysts say "bracket creep" much less of a concern than stagnant wages

HALIFAX—Nova Scotians are going to feel their belts get a little bit tighter this year. And according to some experts, stagnant wages—and not tax increases—are to blame.

“[P]eople can't make ends meet because wages are too low in this province,” said Christine Saulnier, the Nova Scotia director at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA).

Saulnier pointed to a recent study released by the Atlantic Provinces Economic Council that showed that Atlantic Canada created four times as many low-wage jobs (defined as jobs paying less than $40,000 a year) than high-wage jobs in the past decade.

Saulnier also noted that Canadians’ real purchasing power is down—average yearly wages increased by 2.7 per cent in the past year, which was slightly less than the inflation rate of three per cent.

The plunge in real purchasing power was worse for Nova Scotians than the average Canadian. Their wages increased by just 0.4 per cent, while inflation was four per cent—meaning that buying power actually fell 3.6 per cent, points out Larry Haiven, professor of management at St. Mary’s University.

“The average Canadian earned 15.8 per cent more than the average Bluenoser,” Haiven said.

Some groups, including the Nova Scotia Chambers of Commerce, have been calling for tax cuts to make the province "more competitive" for businesses.

But Saulnier disagrees.

“Cutting taxes by adjusting for inflation or raising the personal exemption or otherwise tinkering with the progressive tax system (making it less progressive), is not the answer,” she said.

Saulnier was responding to recent comments from anti-tax activists like Kevin Lacey of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation about “bracket creep,” the phenomenon whereby workers receive wage increases tied to inflation, but then enter a higher income tax bracket as a result.

“Any such initiatives that are across the board benefit the wealthiest the most,” Saulnier said. “Adjusting for inflation would not benefit those who are far under the bottom tax rate—the same people who need it the most and those who are the most likely to spend it, thus stimulating the economy.”

At a recent public lecture organized by the CCPA, tax specialist Neil Brooks of Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto noted that Nova Scotia currently has the most progressive income tax system in Canada, meaning that the highest-income earners are taxed at a higher rate.

Low wages, and consequent low tax revenues, are also a reason why “the government struggles to pay for needed services” in Nova Scotia, Saulnier said.

“Plus, given how little workers have actually seen their wages increase, I am not sure who we are worried about moving into a higher tax bracket,” he added.

Professor Larry Haiven acknowledged that “as real earnings drop, a cut in taxes starts to look good.”

But tax reductions are a low-hanging fruit that fails to get to the crux of the problem, he said.

“[P]eople don’t immediately think ‘what services will I lose?’”

Haiven co-authored a 2008 study that suggests rising inequality should be of far greater concern than tax increases to Nova Scotians struggling to make ends meet.

Governments “have been cutting taxes frenetically, frantically, for the past 25 years. Governments across Canada are taking in about $250 billion less than they did 15 years ago,” Haiven told the Media Co-op in 2009.

And while Nova Scotia’s economy grew by 62 per cent between 1981 and 2006, according to the report, average weekly earnings actually declined five per cent.

“Where is that money going? It’s obviously going into the hands of a few,” Haiven said.

The CCPA’s national office recently released its annual report on compensation of the 100 richest CEOs in Canada, who last year saw a 27 per cent increase in their average earnings from the previous year. The report notes that this means Canada’s top CEOs made 189 times more than the average worker, and by noon on January 3 that year, had earned as much as the average worker’s annual salary.

This article was originally published by the Halifax Media Co-op.

Ben Sichel is a teacher and a writer and editor with the Halifax Media Co-op.

Empty wallet

Canada's shift towards becoming a tax haven

MONTREAL—While it did garner some national attention, it would appear no Canadian dailies have grasped the full measure of the news. It therefore went virtually unnoticed when the TMX Group Inc., which manages the Toronto/Montreal stock exchange and is at the heart of the process turning Canadian legislation into a regulatory and financial haven for the global extraction industry, became one of the principal shareholders of the Bermuda Stock Exchange (BSX), a well-known, and highly controversial, tax shelter.

The announcement revealed the contemporary tendency towards integration between so-called democratic political regimes and “states of convenience,” nations whose banking and fiscal regulations are linked to the process of global money laundering.

By acquiring 16 per cent of shares in the Bermuda exchange on December 21, 2011, “TMX Group is now one of the largest shareholders of the BSX, and Tom Kloet, CEO, TMX Group, will be joining the BSX board of directors,” according to a news release on the TMX website. This highly problematic alliance between Canada, which still prides itself as being governed by the rule of law, and one of the most criminally-appealing states of convenience in the world, is rooted in, according to TMX's own news release, agreement between the two states to share tax information. “The BSX gained recognition as a Designated Stock Exchange under Canada’s Income Tax Act, effective October 31, 2011,” adds the TMX release.

Double-edged Agreements

There are several elements of this agreement that should be unravelled. The Harper government, in 2011, announced several “tax information exchange agreements” (TIEA) with tax haven states. These agreements, signed in the maelstrom of steps taken towards international “cooperation” supported by the OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development), purport to tame the secret banking practices of these states of convenience, who welcome fraudulent types of every ilk.

But, all pretensions aside, these agreements actually blindly favour the function and development of offshore tax havens. They do so by allowing, among other things, for wealthy Canadians or Canadian corporations to register their assets and activities in any of these offshore signatory countries, and then return their assets to Canada without needing to pay taxes. Funds from Canadian business can now be rerouted to Bermuda, where they can stop-over and tie themselves into tax-evasion and avoidance strategies, like transfer pricing and mis-pricing.

It is now easier, and “legal,” for billions of dollars generated by the Canadian economy to hide behind these laws. The use of tax havens allows the financial class to avoid taxation, taxes which finance the very public institutions and services from which they benefit.

Skirting the Public Regulations

The TMX states that it is the Canadian Income Tax Act itself that recognizes the Bermuda Stock Exchange. Gregoire Duhamel, author and financial consultant, notes in his guide Les paradis fiscaux, “Bermuda's very advantageous fiscal policy allows non-resident investors to trade shares and form investment funds, without needing to pay any tax.” To some this does not appear to be a problem.

In addition, the Bermuda Stock Exchange is not responsible to any public institution, except perhaps the ludicrous Bermuda Monetary Authority (BMA) which, on its Internet site, appears more preoccupied with vaunting the merits of the different business entities that can be created within its tax haven than it is with explaining how it prevents possible misuse of its laws.

It is worth noting that it is the kind of liberal creation of investment funds and hedge funds which is allowed by the Bermuda exchange that helped provoke the economic crisis of 2008. So with these new agreements, the Canadian government recognizes an institution that is in fact dedicated to circumventing the very rules that the Canadian government itself put in place.

From Halifax to Bermuda

By considering both aspects from which the Toronto Stock Exchange stands to benefit from this context, we come to understand that the officers of the TSX, read:TMX,the principal centre of Canadian trade, will have every latitude to facilitate Canadian financial activity in the Bermudan tax haven.

There will be no financial framework to hamper investments or stock speculations, only the knowledge that those Canadians financially able to participate in this merry-go-round of investment and speculation will be able to repatriate their funds back to Canada at any time, tax free.

Perhaps the most glaring example of doing business in Canada while benefiting from the lax regulations of Bermuda comes from the government of Nova Scotia.

By handing over management responsibilities of its own agency, Nova Scotia Business Inc., exclusively to the private sector, the government of Nova Scotia has actually allowed for the creation of a satellite accounting agency with a direct link to Bermuda. Hedge funds and insurance companies are managed in Halifax, but are created and based out of Bermuda, and thus are able to circumvent Canadian laws and institutions.

Whitewashed Money

The pseudo “Tax Information Exchange Agreements” (TIEA) were signed in principle to allow Canadian political authorities to collect data from so-called "secret Bermudan banks" in the case where a Canadian is suspected of fraud. In reality, they do not risk upsetting to any degree the massive money laundering operations made possible by the existing opaque financial liaisons.

According to a report submitted to the Dutch Minister of Finance by Brigitte Unger from the Utrecht School of Economics, in 2006 Bermuda was the second most popular money laundering destination for funds coming from illicit or criminal activities. In the fight against money laundering, the Canadian government demonstrated in 2010 that its politics were nothing more than complicit, when it signed, on the sly, a free-trade agreement with Panama. Panama is the most important money laundering destination for drug money in the world.

By radically integrating its own politics and financial institutions with those of tax shelter states, Canada has transformed itself, without ambiguity, into a tax haven. France-Offshore.fr, a website for financial consultants who specialize in “creating offshore corporations,” ranks Canada among its “offshore jurisdictions.” The site also notes that “Canada is not an offshore country, but we know how to turn a corporation created in Canada into an offshore one.”

This is how.

***

Alain Deneault is the author of Offshore, Tax Havens and the Rule of Global Crime (New York : The New Press, 2011) and Faire l'économie de la haine (Écosociété, 2011) and a member of “Québec d'Attac” and the “Réseau international pour la justice fiscale”. Translation from the French by Miles Howe.

Toronto Stock Exchange

Groups condemn police actions, call for independent inquiry and better resources for city's homeless

MONTREAL—The first fatal police shooting of the year in Montreal is raising serious questions and criticisms about how the incident is being investigated, the training afforded to police officers in dealing with homeless people, and the amount of services provided for people living on the streets or in transition—especially those with mental health or substance abuse issues.

Farshad Mohammadi, a 34-year-old homeless man who immigrated to Canada from Iran, was shot by a Montreal police officer at the downtown Bonaventure metro station on the afternoon of Friday, Jan. 6. He died en route to hospital.

The investigation into Mohammadi's death has been turned over to the provincial Sureté Québec police force. The SQ is refusing to comment on the investigation, including whether either of the officers involved in the shooting have been interrogated yet.

Preliminary reports are that Mohammadi had been sleeping at the metro station when he was approached by two police officers. It is unclear what happened next, but one of the officers suffered cuts to his face, neck and torso, allegedly from Mohammadi, who was carrying a utility knife. Mohammadi had put his knife back in his pocket and was walking away—ignoring police orders to stop—when the officer who had been cut shot Mohammadi. Eyewitnesses said that Mohammadi was not threatening any others in the metro and appeared calm as he walked towards the metro exit.

Mohammadi is the second homeless Montrealer to be killed by police in the past seven months. Last summer, police shot and killed Mario Hamel, who was cutting open garbage bags with a knife on St-Denis street and allegedly acting aggressively, as well as hospital employee Patrick Limoges, who was killed by a stray bullet when he was biking nearby.

The Howl Arts Collective organized a memorial for Mohammadi in Bonaventure metro, which drew around 100 people and featured speeches, poetry and music.

Critics of police abuse, and several representatives of Montreal's organizations serving the city's street-involved population, have pointed out that Mohammadi's death fits into a disturbing history of unanswered police killings and insufficient resources for the homeless. Front and centre has been the practice of assigning one police force to investigate another.

“The fact that, once again, the police are investigating the police leaves no doubt as to the outcome of this investigation: no charges will be brought against the police officers involved,” Alex Popovic, a spokesperson for the Coalition contre la répression et les abus policiers (CRAP), told the Media Co-op via email.

CRAP has been vocal in its criticisms of police misconduct and the apparent lack of repercussions. They are not alone. French daily La Presse reported that Pierre Gaudreau, coordinator of the Réseau d'aide aux personnes seules et itinérantes de Montréal (RAPSIM), one of the main aid agencies for homeless and street-involved people in Montreal, was outraged to hear that the SQ was handed the investigation.

“[Quebec Public Security Minister Robert] Dutil added insult to injury by once again confiding the investigation to the SQ. We don't assign any credibility to police investigating the police,” Gaudreau told the paper.

Popovic also questioned the fact that police officers involved in shootings often aren't interrogated for several days after the incident, often, he says, due to medical reasons:

“The fact that police officers who fire on someone systematically fall into “nervous shock” allows them the following advantage: they obtain a medical holiday that results in the investigating officers have to take their sickness into account before interrogating the police-shooter.”

All these questions raise concerns about a lack of true independence when police forces investigate each other—especially since the Montreal police investigate the SQ when similar events arise with the provincial force.

Many have pointed to Ontario's Special Investigation Unit (SIU) as an example to follow. The SIU is a civilian oversight body that investigates police abuses, including shootings, and has often been hailed as the premier body of its kind in Canada. Even the SIU has been questioned, though, with the Ontario Ombudsman in December finding that the provincial government has been systematically undermining the body. Last Spring, CTV's W5 broadcast a special report calling the SIU a “toothless tiger.”

Quebec Public Security Minister Dutil introduced Bill 46 in late 2011, which he said would answer concerns about investigations of police. The bill, if passed, would allow for some civilian oversight, but goes nowhere near as far as even the SIU. The investigation of police actions would still be carried out by other police forces, but with an independent civilian body that could also examine the crime scene and read reports. The reports of such investigations will not necessarily be made public. This has led critics to say that the legislation does not go far enough. Dutil has dismissed naysayers, saying that only police officers are sufficiently trained to carry out such investigations.

In the days since his death, details about Mohammadi have surfaced that raise questions beyond how investigations of the police are carried out.

Mohammadi was part of the Kurdish rebellion in Iran before fleeing in fear of his life to Canada. He frequented at least three of Montreal's homeless shelters and was living with both mental health and substance abuse issues, which a friend attributed to coping with the trauma of his past in Iran. Mohammadi had a reputation for being quiet, keeping to himself and at times volunteering at the shelters where he stayed, raising all the more questions about what led to his death. He was also apparently fighting a recent deportation order, following a conviction on break and enter in 2008.

Activists and politicians alike have said they will follow the investigation of Mohammadi's death closely and continue to raise these questions. But with the SQ investigation the SPVM, the question of what really happened that afternoon at Bonaventure metro may never be truly clear.

Tim McSorley is an editor with The Dominion and a member of the Montreal Media Co-op.

An earlier version of this piece appeared on the Montreal Media Co-op website.

Mohammadi vigil

A first person account

HALIFAX—I’m fixing dinner on another damp Halifax evening and enjoying the momentary peace in my large kitchen.

Behind me, a middle-aged mom is trying to persuade her two-year-old that milk tastes better than juice and, not surprisingly, losing that argument for the moment. To my left, a younger woman is perched on a stool, engrossed in a third-year university chemistry text—heck, at Dalhousie University, I never made it past the first page of that book, which is why I promptly switched back to psychology. From the living room, I hear laughter about some of the latest signs to appear in our home:

Please do not dry cigarettes in the Microwave. Thank you, Staff

Please do not open window – it will fall out. Thank you, Staff

Squash stew for breakfast – enjoy! - Your Staff

Welcome to my new home. Welcome to a Halifax Shelter for Homeless Women.

Hannah, making dinner for her daughter, has been unable to find affordable rental accommodation that also accepts children in Halifax, which is where she moved after she lost her job in Cape Breton. “I borrowed the money to take a bus here, just because we figured there were more jobs in the Halifax,” Hannah explains. She had not expected that when she arrived, she would be unable to find housing that she could afford, with or without her child. And she still can’t.

Hannah has now become a member of an exclusive club, which, for want of a better label, might be called the CAE Club—the “Chicken and Egg” Club, where I too am now an unwilling member.

You may be part of the CAE Club because you need housing to get a job—a place to get dressed, receive mail, communicate with employers, store your belongings, do laundry, have meals. But you need a job in order to get that place and pay for that home. That job will provide the rent to get a place to live, or to satisfy a landlord that you are working and can afford your rent. For many of us at a shelter, the question of getting a job, or getting a home first, no longer makes any difference. We currently no longer have resources to make either happen.

In 1998, the Big City Mayors Caucus of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) declared homelessness in Canada a national disaster.

That was thirteen years ago.

By conservative estimates, there are over 200,000 people in Canada who are homeless today, according to organizers of November’s Housing and Homeless Conference in Halifax. Women, youth, and families are the fastest growing groups in the homeless and at-risk populations.

In the kitchen on this rainy night, my chemistry-text-loving friend, Denise, and I are now looking for the best place to put her cane so I don’t keep tripping over it. Denise represents another audience needing shelters; she has a health issue. In her case, a stroke that she suffered a year ago. Denise’s subsequent inability to walk unaided was something that her new husband could not cope with. In spite of some great health care agencies which worked with the couple to create Denise’s successful transition from a wheelchair to her cane, “he just didn’t expect to be looking after me,” says Denise of her husband. He kicked her out of a home where her name was not on the rental agreement. Her husband since left the province, along with their car and bankbook.

I remember Lenore, another health “victim” at another Halifax shelter with a similar story, but she faced even greater problems—she not only could not walk properly, but a stroke had affected her speech. Lenore’s move to a shelter came after she discovered that the mortgage for the home she shared with her partner of 20 years did not include her name, and he “no longer wanted me anyway,” she says. She could not afford to hire a lawyer or use Legal Aid options, none of which she qualified for. Lenore did, however, qualify for her current shelter residence which is where I got to know her, and where I finally discovered someone who could beat me at a game I had ruled all my life: I am no longer the Maritime Scrabble Queen.

I asked Stephanie, a staff member at a Halifax shelter, what the hardest part of her job was: “The hardest part of my job is telling a homeless woman who is already facing the worst day of her life, that she has to move, whether she has a place to go or not. Her time to use a shelter for a roof over her head has run out. Whether she has a place to go or not, there is someone who also now needs that her space.” There is no longer a "room at the inn."

I continue to be amazed at how “up” most residents are in these situations which are so often just unbearable: no home, sometimes limited food, cramped surroundings. It seemed to go without saying that residents usually give incredible support to others also living at the shelter. A house-mate will offer an exhausted young mom some down time from her cranky baby. Today, one the residents who has stayed at the shelter the longest dropped a pile of books off by my bed after a great discussion about best authors; she had seen how much I enjoy a good read. This weekend, I also received an unsolicited Tim Hortons’ gift card when another housemate passed along the card which had been given to her to share.

There are, of course, downsides to living at a shelter and, for me, noise is my greatest challenge. I am used to a pretty quiet life, but that does not necessarily fit with the in-the-gene-pool gift of gab we Maritimers are inevitably born with. Nor is waiting to do laundry, or the other rules that can come with communal living. Still, there are success stories celebrated at women’s shelters every day—and celebrate we do.

A former shelter roommate, Barb, has just been accepted into a community college chef program and her application for financial support, allowing her to move forward with her life, was also approved. The mother sharing the kitchen with me, Hannah, thinks she has found an apartment where children are allowed, although she will need another roommate to help with the rent.

I’m about to take this evening’s dinner to the living room and join in a twelve-woman, lively discussion about the Grey Cup game and the Lions’ victory. Yes, this is a women’s shelter. And yes, a sports-focused conversation about football may not be what one expects in a place for homeless women. But surprises are definitely part of my current life. I am just looking forward to the happy surprise of having a new home again, but I am so glad I have this shelter, and the amazing company of these new friends, until that home finally happens. And it will. To date, staff tell me, no one has ever been here forever.

*The author's name has been changed.

L.D. Steeves is currently living in a shelter for women in Halifax.

This article was originally published by the Halifax Media Co-op.

Gottingen St Affordable Houing

650 workers on the picket line 6648772819_f941e3b787_b.jpg

In this video from the Occupy London Ontario Media Team, they continue their coverage of the lockout of 650 workers at the local Caterpillar plant. On December 30, the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW), which represents the production and skilled workers at Canada's only locomotive plant, voted to strike if necessary, as attempts to reach a collective agreement had stagnated.

The CAW notes that Caterpillar is trying to slash workers' wages (by 50 per cent), significantly reduce benefits to workers, and eliminate workers' pension plan. It's an offer, in effect, that Caterpillar knows can never be accepted by the workers. With the recent purchase of three plants in Mexico, the US, and Brazil, Caterpillar seems to be planning to outsource the London plant to take advantage of non-unionized workers abroad. A major rally is planned in London for January 21.

In this video Tim Carry from Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) and Nancy Hutchison from Ontario Federation of Labour (OFL) visit the lines outside the Caterpillar plant.

"It's frustrating that this government keeps giving handouts to corporations and in return these corporations just slam workers one by one by one and shut the doors and lock-out workers when they have made them so profitable," says Hutchison

read more

Legal battles and jail time continue months after the showdown in Toronto

GUELPH, ON—Though the G20 summit in Toronto is long over, communities organizing against austerity continue to feel the sting of state repression. Of the over 1,100 people arrested in conjunction with protests against the G20 meetings in Toronto, 66 still face legal battles, house arrest and jail time.

On November 22, 11 of the 17 people facing a complex set of conspiracy charges had their charges dropped. As part of a plea bargain, the other six will serve more jail time.

Leah Henderson, Peter Hopperton, Erik Lankin, and Adam Lewis are in the course of serving their sentences of 10 months, five-and-a-half months, three months, and three-and-a-half months, respectively. These sentences are being served in addition to time spent in pre-trial detention—a period of as much as 70 days in the case of Lankin. Henderson is in Vanier prison in Milton, Ontario, while the other three are at Penetanguishene Central North Correctional Centre.

“Let people know that I’m not being wrecked by prison,” Lankin told The Dominion from jail. “It’s something to get through and I’m looking forward to continuing to organize when I get out.”

Also as part of the group plea deal, Mandy Hiscocks—who is being sentenced today—is expecting to serve 16 months and Alex Hundert is expecting to serve an additional 13.5 months.

“To those in jail or still on charges from the anti-G20 protests, to political prisoners and prisoners in struggle, we are still with you,” reads a statement put out by the 17 co-accused in late November.

In addition to this “main conspiracy group,” others are still facing G20-related charges and possible jail time, including George Horton, Ryan Rainville, Kelly Pflug-Back, Greg Rowley, Emomotimi Azorbo, Julian Ichim, Dan Kellar and Byron Sonne, among others.

Horton, from Peterborough, faces “a string of charges including three counts of mischief over [$5,000], assaulting a police officer, disguise with intent, possession of stolen property under [$5,000]” and possession of a dangerous weapon, a support call-out for Horton reads.

“Since the charging of six community organizers and eleven dropped charges, [Horton] and others being charged with ‘on-the-ground’ offenses such as mischief and assault, face an even heavier likelihood of being scapegoated by the court, in an effort to justify the billion dollar G20 budget and the ensuing violence of police,” reads Horton’s support statement. The Dominion was unable to reach Horton or his support team before this article went to print.

Ryan Rainville was charged with “on-the-ground” offences and plead to three counts of mischief over $5,000 in early December.

In his statement to the court, Rainville insisted on his rejection of the colonial, racist court system. “I have plead guilty to the destruction of state property, and while awaiting trial and sentencing I have spent more than three months in jail, nine months on house arrest, and two months living under strict bail conditions,” he told the court. “I have been beaten and condemned for my political beliefs, and I have served enough time in punishment for the damage that I have accepted responsibility for. It is time now for the state to set me free,” he said.

Rainville was sentenced to four months of house arrest at the Sagatay Toronto men’s shelter, on top of the time that he has already served. The Crown is currently appealing his sentence.

“I know at the core of my gut that I didn’t do anything wrong,” Rainville told The Dominion. “This is how the state is going to react,” he added. “We need to band together and stay solid, even in the face of it.”

Still ongoing is the trial of Kelly Pflug-Back, whose original charges included assaulting police with a weapon and conspiracy, though these charges have been dropped.

“There was nothing to suggest that I assaulted a police officer with a weapon,” Pflug-Back told The Dominion. “They just wanted to slap that on to my case as a way to really crack down on me and keep me on house arrest.” She continues to face charges of mischief, which she is still waiting to have resolved.

While serving more than a month in pre-trial detention, Pflug-Back was denied medical treatment for her chronic polyautoimmune disorders, which include thyroid disease and fibromyalgia. “They violated my right to access medical care. They violated my right to freedom of movement,” she told The Dominion.

Following her detention, Pflug-Back was put under stringent house arrest and was forced to be under the direct supervision of her parents while outside of the home. Once again, this made access to medical treatment nearly impossible. “They violated my right to not be subject to arbitrary detention,” said Pflug-Back. “I was basically under the same kind of conditions as someone accused of manslaughter.”

According to Pflug-Back, a plainclothes homicide detective made an appearance at each of her court dates. “The police were really taking [my case] personally. They had bought into this portrayal of me as being this rabid cop hater. It hurt their feelings, you know? You have to have a little compassion.”

Greg Rowley is also charged with “on the ground” offenses, but could not be reached by The Dominion before this article went to print.

Emomotimi Azorbo, who is described as an “apolitical person,” was confronted by police at the G20 as he was crossing the street. Azorbo, who is deaf, did not hear the police were shouting at him. He was then targeted by police for noncompliance. “There was a bit of resistance when police handcuffed him because he didn’t know what was happening,” Azorbo’s lawyer Howard Morton said in an article published in The Lawyers Weekly.

Azorbo was denied an unbiased, non-police sign language translator while in custody. Despite his treatment in detention, the charges of assaulting a police officer and resisting arrest are being pursued against him—charges that Morton resolves will “embarrass” the Ontario government.

On December 13, Sterling Stutz, who had her charges withdrawn as part of the “main conspiracy group”, stood in front of Old City Hall in Toronto at a support rally and media event for defendant Julian Ichim. “The police spent over a billion dollars on policing for the G20, they arrested over a thousand people, and what they got was a handful of charges,” Stutz told the crowd that had gathered for the rally. “These arrests were basically bought with that money.”

Stutz was among those attending court in support of Ichim, who is facing charges on three counts of disobeying a court order for having posted his personal account of interactions with an undercover police officer.

The officer operated under the alias “Khalid Mohammad” (the officer’s real name is Bindo Schowan) as a participant in social justice groups for more than a year in advance of the G20. Ichim posted his account of Schowan’s impacts of the community during the publication ban that forbade the publishing of identifying information relating to undercover officers.

In his blog, Ichim describes his story of befriending the undercover, referring to Schowan only by his pseudonym. Two days after publishing the blog post, Ontario Provincial Police officers arrived at Ichim’s house with an order that he withdraw his post. Ichim refused. “I wasn’t caught at a protest for causing trouble, but was sitting home quietly telling my story on the internet,” he told the crowd at the rally.

Dan Kellar is in a similar situation as Ichim. He faces charges after publishing a blog post on www.peaceculture.org. He is facing two counts of criminal defamation and one count of counsel to assault, also stemming from a blog post about G20-related incidents. The charge of counsel to assault relates to one particular line in the post that reads “spit in [the undercover’s] footsteps and scoff at his existence if you see him.”

Kellar is still awaiting the resolution of his charges.

Byron Sonne faces charges of possessing explosive substances. The security consultant denies having malicious intent. Sonne first appeared on the police radar for photographing the G20 security perimeter. The support team for Sonne declined a interview request with The Dominion, explaining that it's proving risky for them to speak publicly at this juncture in the trial.

According to numbers released by the Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General in December, of the over 1,100 people arrested at the G20, 330 people appeared before the court. Of them, 201 had their charges dismissed or withdrawn. In all, 32 people have plead guilty, 39 people have seen resolution through diversion programs, and 34 are still awaiting resolution to their charges.

Shailagh Keaney is a writer and community organizer currently based in occupied Neutral territory in Southern Ontario.

Justice for our Communities March, G-20

Subhead:  January/February 2012 Cover Image:  issue_80_cover_web.jpg Body: 

Download Issue #80 (Jan/Feb 2012) [5 MB, PDF]

To read articles from this issue on the web, visit this page.

Issue #80 is formatted as 24 pages of letter sized paper (8.5x11).

(You need Acrobat Reader or an application that reads pdf files to view the print version of this issue.)

Distribution rights:

You are free (and encouraged) to download, print, and distribute as many copies of the Dominion as you like, with the following restrictions:

• the content of the paper will not be modified
• no advertising or additional content will be attached to the paper
• 15% of any profits derived from the sale or distribution of the Dominion will be paid to the Dominion
• We ask regular readers for a voluntary contribution of between $2 and $10 per issue. See our donation page for details.

Exceptions to any of these restrictions may be granted on a case by case basis. Contact us with any questions.

Public involvement in diamond venture ends once gems are found

MONTREAL—Since the mid 1900s, every man, woman and child living in Quebec has donated the equivalent of $20 towards exploration costs for the province's first diamond mine project. But when a mine was finally discovered and the promised rewards for years of the province's investment began to be realized, the Quebec government sold the project to a private company. Not only that, but Quebeckers can expect to shell out even more as the now privately owned mine moves towards production.

According to documents obtained by The Dominion, all that’s left for the public after they invested over $157 million in the Renard Diamond Project is a 37 per cent stake in a private company, and token public representation on the company’s board of directors.

The diamond mine is today being hailed as a model operation by the Quebec government. But a deeper look into what this model would mean for Quebeckers casts a long shadow over the government’s economic policies.

For the last seven years, the sun has been shining over Quebec’s mining sector. Between 2009 and 2010, total mining investments in Quebec increased by almost 43 per cent, totaling $2.9 billion. Over the past six months, things have gotten so hot that the skin has started to peel off the hands of boardroom executives, geologists and international investors. The key moment came in May 2011 when Quebec Premier Jean Charest announced his now-famous legacy project, the Plan Nord.

The good times in the mining industry could last for the next 25 years, if Charest is to have his way. “The Plan Nord will lead to over $80 billion in investments... and create or consolidate, on average, 20,000 jobs a year,” reads the Plan Nord website. The idea behind the plan is to "stimulate" the energy, mineral resources, forest and wildlife sectors, as well as those of tourism and "bio-food" production.

The Renard Diamond Project is one of 11 mega-mining projects proposed as part of the Plan Nord. Unlike most of the other mining projects, the $675 million Renard project is the only mine venture whose development involved a serious public partnership approach—the rest of the projects are private sector initiatives.

The Renard Diamond Project got its start in 1996 in the Nord-du-Quebec region, about 600 kilometres north of the great Lac-St-Jean, as a 50-50 joint-venture between Diaquem—a wholly-owned subsidiary of crown corporation Quebec Society for Mining Exploration (SOQUEM)—and Ashton Mining of Canada Inc—a wholly-owned subsidiary of Rio Tinto plc.

Founded in 1965, SOQUEM is a holdover from the “maitres chez nous” (masters in our own house) economic doctrine which saw the creation of many Quebec-owned corporations. At one point, SOQUEM was an exploration powerhouse, employing more than 1,500 people and at the forefront of geologic mapping.

After 45 years in the business, SOQUEM’s mandate has shrunk to supporting specific projects only. In the first quarter of 2011, SOQUEM—now a 50-employee entity—was swallowed up by the mammoth Investissement Quebec (IQ), the Quebec government's investment arm.

Fifteen years down the risky road of exploration, the Renard Diamond Project promoters discovered a field of kimberlite intrusions—volcanic rock known to contain diamonds—with a mineral reserve of 18 million carats. Exploration risks stem from the fact that anomalistic (diamond containing) geological formations are hard to find, and expensive to analyze.

Ashton Mining was bought out and the Renard Project is now under the Stornoway Diamond Corporation flag. “Excluding potential deposits, we evaluate the life duration of the project at at least 25 years,” Ghislain Poirier, Vice President Public Affairs at Stornoway told a local newspaper last winter. The plan for the mine includes two 100-meter-deep open pit mines, one 600-meter-deep open pit mine and several underground mines. The Renard mine would be Quebec’s first diamond mine.

Stornoway released its conclusive feasibility study in November 2011. According to the company, the mine will begin commercial production by 2016. Mine permits, community hearings and negotiations with the Cree Nation and other local communities have yet to be completed.

Public money for a private mine

Beyond the celebratory press releases, the course of events in the boardrooms and corporate headquarters linked to the deal has been anything but usual. In December 2010, a sudden and unexpected transaction occurred. Just as the public finally stood to make a return on the $57 million it invested in exploration, IQ sold its stake in the Renard project to Stornoway.

The transaction left IQ with a minority share of Stornoway, and a meager two per cent revenue royalty on net smelter returns on future production. Three senior IQ administrators joined Stornoway’s 11-member board. IQ also agreed to provide Stornoway with an additional $100 million to fund mine construction.

“They're just being nice to the company,” said MiningWatch Canada’s Jamie Kneen.

IQ spokesperson Chantal Corbeil refused to comment on the rationale behind this divestment.

“They are not allowed to reveal what's being discussed on the board, not even to Cabinet,” said Kneen of the three IQ board members now serving Stornoway. “The public is not represented in this mining project,” he said.

Before the Renard mines produce a single diamond, the people of Quebec have already spent $157 million, and been left without representation that will guarantee a return on their investments in the actual mine development. But according to IQ’s Corbeil, the good news is that IQ owns 37 per cent of Stornoway, and if the company is successful, the government will cash in royalties and taxes. Royalties of two per cent on net returns amount to very little. Had the royalty been applied to both net returns and extracted value, it could have amounted to a more significant sum.

Without diving too deep into economic detail, it's worth noting that 100 per cent of exploration costs are tax deductible in Quebec, and a significant portion of them are reimbursable. In other words, beyond the $157 million already committed, additional fiscal incentives are handed to Stornoway through tax credits and exploration reimbursements.

Diamonds will come out of the ground at the Renard mine site until the company signs an agreement with the Cree of the Otish region. Stornoway is currently negotiating an Impact and Benefits Agreement (IBA) with the Cree Nation of Mistissini and the Grand Council of the Crees.

“The Cree Nation has adopted a mining policy,” said Cree negotiator Abel Bosum. “This policy makes clear what our conditions are for supporting a mining project on Cree land. It also sets out who needs to be part of negotiations to make a mining project work: The Cree Nation, the local Cree community and/or the Cree users of the land.”

In addition, Route 167 will need to be extended 243 kilometers, from the town of Mistissini to the Otish Mountains. Finally, a 165-kilometre Hydro-Quebec transmission line will also have to be built, connecting the Nikamo sub-station to the future Renard sub-station.

Premier Charest has already made an infrastructure announcement through which Plan Nord is to pump $287.6 million into Route 167. Stornoway is expected to put $44 million into the pavement effort.

Proponents of this infrastructure spending argue that these expenses will also benefit a conservation megaproject, carried out by the Ministry of Sustainable Development, Environment and Parks (MDDEP) in collaboration with the Mistissini Cree Nation, which plans to establish the 11,000 square kilometre Albanel-Temiscamie-Otish National Park, at the end of Route 167.

This major northern infrastructure spending bumps public expenditures to $444.6 million.

Figures for the cost of setting the electricity line to power the Renard project are not yet public, as Hydro-Quebec is still in the process of completing its pre-project study. Details of preferential electricity rates—a standard Hydro-Quebec practice—are not available yet either. It is expected, as announced in the Plan Nord, that Hydro-Quebec will pay the bill. The exact corridor and final design of the 165-kilometre line, should be ready by the fall of 2012, as confirmed on the phone by Richard Simard, manager of community relations at Hydro-Quebec.

“I can't tell you the cost, I don't have the cost,” the Hydro-Quebec manager told The Dominion, when pressed for an estimate of total expenditures. “But one thing's for sure,” Simard said.

“As far as I can remember, this is the first time that we build such a long line.”

Old Rules for a New Game

The Renard mine site is just one project encompassed by the ambitious Plan Nord, which covers a territory of 1.2 million square kilometers, encompassing crown, Cree, Innu, Inuit and Naskapi lands.

“The Cree support the Plan Nord for now,” said Abel Bosum. But even the largest official Cree organization is not giving the government a blank check on Plan Nord.

“We support it, [on] the condition that we can conclude a reasonable and fair settlement on governance issues, that the Cree vision of the Plan Nord in different sectors—even beyond mining—be taken into account and that we participate in its planning and development in the respect of the Cree way of life,” Bosum told The Dominion by phone. Bosum invoked section 22 of the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement to underline the fact that his nation, like other northern First Nations, has the right to a review process on major projects, and expects proper consultation.

The scope of Plan Nord and its potential impacts on rural and Indigenous communities is mind-boggling, as is the money to be made: its release is timed with growing demand and higher prices for precious metals. What may come as a surprise, however, is that the laws and regulations that will guide mining activities under Plan Nord are more than 140 years old.

The Mining Act of Quebec, first minted in 1880—and almost untouched since—prioritizes mining activity over other types of land use.

“The law is wrong because it has priority over many other laws on land development,” said Ugo Lapointe of the Coalition for Better Mining in Quebec. “What we denounce are the great powers that are given to mining corporations, compared to the power of municipalities, First Nations and citizens."

Quebec’s mining law is currently under review. A new Quebec-wide standard known as Bill 14 is about to be adopted though it satisfies neither opposition parties nor civil society groups.

If the rules of the game seem old fashioned, consider the royalty regime. The government recently increased the royalty rate from 12 per cent to 16 per cent of net profit on a mine-by-mine basis: an improvement, it may seem, but only on the surface, since net profits are lowered with accounting tricks, as the Auditor General of Quebec revealed in 2009.

Building an economic strategy as big as Plan Nord around antiquated rules of the game has led some to speculate that the Quebec government is stuck in a colonial model of development.

“Mining in 2011 continues to be a colonial development, like in 1870,” said Martine Ouellet, Parti Quebecois spokesperson and Official Opposition critic on mining and shale gas. “It's pitiful to watch the Liberal Party [of Quebec] perpetuate this colonial development to the advantage of foreign multinationals, instead of to the benefit of the Quebecois.”

The mass transfer of funds from public to private hands isn’t unique to the Renard Diamond Project. Plan Nord's first action, which covers the years from 2011 to 2016, proposes making $2.1 billion in investments. Of the total, $500 million will be taken from the pockets of IQ and dumped into private sector projects.

The next months will reveal how much more money will be pumped into the Renard Diamond Project, further calling into question the economic strategies behind Plan Nord.

Frederic Dubois is a reporter and interactive documentary maker. Questions? Comments? Drop us a line: info@mediacoop.ca.

Renard Project Renard Project Map

Food consciousness coalesces at ACORN conference

HALIFAX—“Farmers need a shitload of support,” says Amy Lounder, an organic farmer who runs Avon River CSA (community-shared, or community-supported, agriculture) in Centre Burlington, NS. “And not just financial support but support in a lot of different ways, like support in information, of learning how to problem-solve.”

The support network of farmers has been continually diminished over the last several decades by the harsh realities of an industrial food system: a depopulated countryside devoid of tightly-knit agricultural communities; a greatly reduced number of public agricultural research stations; and a capitalistic mechanism that encourages competition over collaboration.

The annual Atlantic Canadian Organic Regional Network (ACORN) organic farming conference and trade show, which took place in Dartmouth on November 11–13, aimed to support organic farmers and farming by providing a forum for knowledge-sharing. The conference offered over 40 workshops on topics ranging from pastured pork, permaculture and post-harvest vegetable handling to urban beekeeping, pasture renovation, direct marketing and soil health. The conference brought together a broad range of farmers representing diverse agricultural communities.

“We have more young folks here this year than ever before,” says Lucia Stephen, ACORN conference coordinator. “It’s nice to see a more well-rounded demographic since a new generation of farmers is needed in the Maritimes.”

Statistics Canada data tell us that the average farmer in Nova Scotia in 2006 was 53.2 years old, which is also a rough national average.

The event showcased some of the innovative methods by which a new generation of Atlantic Canadian farmers and organic food producers are bypassing the industrial food system and supplying high-quality products to their communities.

Lounder apprenticed in CSAs in Ontario and New York before returning to her native Nova Scotia, where she has been running her CSA for two years. She has taken an unconventional path to growing that tailors her winter CSA on the Noel Shore to suit her diversified lifestyle. “Distribution starts in the middle of October and runs until the middle of February, so, unlike the classic market garden, I’ve broken up my work,” explains Lounder. “I grow in the spring and summer, harvest in the fall and do distribution in the winter.”

Lounder, who spoke at the conference, is a musician and a civil servant in addition to being a farmer, so finding a balance has been imperative. “Being able to split up my workload has been really beneficial to me. I started my seedlings in March in my backyard in the city...I was able to go to work, come home, check on my guys, water them, and kind of maintain both lives.”

The CSA model, explains Lounder, brings the consumer and grower together, and yields benefits to both parties. “In this type of vegetable system, the consumer invests at the beginning of the season their full dollar amount, regardless of what’s going to happen actually in the season. The grower therefore has so much more support and security; and there’s a social support, people know and they care about the farm and about the farmer.”

“I really think there’s a renewed energy and I think some of the more senior people within the food movement are realizing that maybe we’re getting to a point where we can really start creating some change,” says Av Singh, Organics and Rural Infrastructure specialist at Agrapoint. Singh has attended several ACORN conferences in the past and usually knows most of the people attending; this year he recognized roughly half of the attendees. “The turnout, the energy, it’s helping break that mindset where oftentimes our more experienced farmers are saying ‘Hey, we tried that, it doesn’t work.’”

It’s been working for Jessica Ross, who runs both a bread and preserves CSA in Halifax.

She rents a space from a bakery and bakes in the commercial operation’s downtime—thereby avoiding the need to own her own kitchen and equipment—and delivers her product via bicycle to between forty and sixty homes. She also has a table at the Historic Farmers’ Market.

“I generate about 30 hours per week of bread work for most of the year between the delivery and Farmers’ Market. I’ve avoided having to invest a lot in equipment and infrastructure through sharing and renting; and the bicycle delivery means I don’t have to rely on a storefront or commercial space,” Ross explains.

Ross has also been running a preserves CSA, or CSP, for the past two years with Katherine Marsters, co-founder of the Halifax Honey Bee Society. “We decided to use the CSA model and ask people to pay us $300 and receive in exchange a winter’s worth of preserves come November.”

They collect half the money in July, which constitutes their canning budget for the season; in November each shareholder receives 60 jars of goods, including stewed tomatoes, jams, pickles, fruits in honey syrup, and salsa. They supplied 20 families this year, canning over 1000 jars of preserves made from local fruits and vegetables.

“It’s been a great way to have a food business without having a conventional path, which is, as I mentioned, to have a storefront and a lot of commitments financially.”

Sandie Troop believes the CSA model can significantly lessen food waste. She and her husband Danny run Bruce Family Farm, a beef CSA, in Annapolis County. Through direct marketing and allowing their customers to tweak their monthly boxes, the shareholders receive an amount of product suited to their eating habits.

Food waste is a telltale illustration of our culture’s detachment from our food and farmers. A 2010 study by the George Morris Centre, a not-for-profit agricultural research group based in Guelph, Ontario, estimated that Canadians could be wasting up to $27 billion worth of food per year.

“When we get a new member we try to talk to them and get an eater’s profile—how big is their family and what do they normally eat. Some months we have a couple members that’ll just want six pounds of hamburger [the standard is ten per month] for that month, and I feel we’re better off selling you a bag of what you’re going to eat than a bag of what I want to sell you,” relates Sandie.

The Troops have also introduced a trading system into their CSA that allows members to trade box items to suit their particular tastes or food needs at a given juncture. “If you want four T-Bone steaks but don’t want your four pound roast, you can trade one for the other; four T-Bone steaks don’t weigh four pounds but the value is about the same. We try really hard to work with the members of our CSA to find out the kinds of meat they want to eat and to help them find ways of getting what they like to have.”

The conference, aptly themed Farms and Communities Growing Together, addressed this need for communication between farmers and the communities they serve.

“We’ve seen for the past few decades now that the industrial food system doesn’t work,” posits Singh, who is devoted to revivifying rural communities through championing community-oriented small-scale farming.

“If we continue to use the old models, we’ll continue to see rural exodus. I think we have to start looking at more creative ways of creating different models of retention. So, whether that’s more ownership over farms by community members, or communities taking a more active role, where community members are saying ‘here’s what we value and here’s how we’re going to support you.’ That allows for young farmers to say ‘it’s worth it for me to stay here.’”

“And Nova Scotia is in a good position for small-scale community agriculture because we don’t have a lot of big farms,” he adds.

But we need more farmers.

According to Statistics Canada, farmers constitute less than two percent of the country’s population.

“A food-secure vision, both locally and globally, may require food producers to represent ten or more percent of the population. In some countries, governments are quickly realizing that a cheap urban labour force from a depopulated rural landscape is not as ‘cheap’ as once thought and are now looking at incentives for having rural citizens return to once again produce food,” explains Singh.

Steven Wendland is from Harmony, Nova Scotia. He likes pie.

This article was originally published by the Halifax Media Co-op

Amy Lounder Beets

Climate fossil awarded, Canadian weapons built, Manning on trial

The United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) announced that it will launch a formal inquiry into the conduct of the Canadian government and federal and provincial agencies concerning the murders and disappearances of more than 600 women across Canada in the past several decades. A disproportionately high number of the victims are of Indigenous heritage. The only other formal, in-country investigation undertaken by CEDAW since its creation in 1982 occurred in Mexico in 2003-2004, in response to the murders of women in the state of Chihuahua. The Union of BC Indian Chiefs and the BC Civil Liberties Association applauded the decision, but no official response has been issued by the federal government.

The Harper government added more hardware to its trophy case, earning its fifth consecutive Fossil of the Year award for its prehistoric performance at the Durban climate conference. “The Canadian Government’s inaction has led to it being constantly singled out as a laggard and even a pariah in these negotiations,” said Chris Bisson, Canadian Youth Delegate to the Durban negotiations.

The Harper Government appointed a third-party manager to oversee finances for the community of Attawapiskat. The Attawapiskat First Nation was meant to pay upwards of $1,300 per day for this service. The Cree community of about 1,800 people made international headlines and attracted the attention of the United Nations after a YouTube video showed families living in tents and shacks with no running water or insulation. Aboriginal People's Television Network (APTN) obtained documents, including an engineering report, that validate years-old claims by residents that sewage backups caused by international diamond company DeBeers are at least partly responsible for the history of housing crises in Attawapiskat. Manitoba Treaty Relations Comissioner James Wilson of Opaskwayak Cree Nation said the situation in Attawapiskat is "symbolic of mistrust and trouble in the relationship between First Nations and the Crown" where "government on the top, First Nations on the bottom dependency is...based on the Indian Act" and "First Nations communities...can't do anything without the approval of the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada."

Amidst the holiday spending frenzy, and the sobering days thereafter, the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation issued a report noting that Canadians took on record debt, and currently owe about $1.50 for every dollar they earn.

L-3 Electronic Systems, with 170 employees in Nova Scotia, has teamed up with Elbit Systems Land on a bid to bring two military contracts to Nova Scotia. The first bid is for the weapons system for Canada's new design of armoured land attack vehicles. Elbit is Israel's top weapons manufacturer, responsible for such atrocities as the Palestinian Separation Wall and the Hermes 450 drone, which is responsible for much of the carnage of the 2008-09 siege on Gaza.

Sales of Canadian-made surveillance drones to Libyan rebel forces may have violated UN arms embargoes. The government has called on the RCMP to look into the matter, although it is not clear what the RCMP is being asked to investigate.

More than 5,600 people were arrested across North America in relation to the Occupy movement, and physical occupation spaces were wiped out of major cities. On the West Coast, a powerful “Occupy the Ports” movement blocked port traffic on December 12 in Oakland, Los Angeles, Tacoma, Seattle, San Diego and Vancouver. Elsewhere, an “Occupy Foreclosed Homes” movement emerged in major American cities, where occupiers assisted former home owners in at least temporarily reclaiming their living spaces.

Tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets in Russia as independent monitors roundly criticized the national elections—which saw Vladmir Putin re-elected as President—as being rigged. Mikhail Gorbachev, former leader of the Soviet Union, called for the election results to be declared void. Alexei Navalny, the anti-corruption blogger who spent most of early December in a Russian jail, is being proclaimed one of Russia's promising new potential leaders.

Nine million dollars was slated to be spent on permanent barricades at Parliament Hill in 2012.

The pre-trial of Bradley Manning, the man suspected of leaking the US diplomatic cables and the Iraq war logs released by Wikileaks, wrapped up in a makeshift military court at Fort Meade army base in Maryland. Manning has been held in solitary confinement since July 2010. The US Army's legal team argued that Manning's behaviour has damaged American national security, that he should face a court martial, and that there is enough evidence to now force the extradition of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. David Coombs, Manning's lawyer, argued that the US government is greatly overreacting in trying his client, and that Manning has brought no harm to national security. "The sky has not fallen, is not falling, and will not fall," said Coombs during the trial.

The state of Pennsylvania announced that it will not pursue the death penalty against Mumia Abu-Jamal, convicted of the 1981 murder of police officer James Faulkner. Instead, Abu-Jamal will receive a life sentence without the possibility of parole.

Three-quarters of voters within the Tunisian Parliament opted to elect as president formerly-exiled activist Moncef Marzouki. Among parliamentarians, a strong minority left their ballots blank in protest. “We wanted a strong president—not laws that overly favor the prime minister and give the position tremendous powers. We refuse to vote for a president without a limited mandate,” said Samir Bettaib, one of several members of the assembly who were skeptical of how temporary the interim government really is.

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released a report concluding that natural gas wells controlled by Calgary-based natural gas giant Encana were responsible for contaminating drinking water in Wyoming. Encana, a major player in hydraulic fracturing, publicly denouncing the EPA's findings, and the methods by which they were reached. The EPA refused to back away from its findings. Encana's stocks tumbled throughout the course of the month.

December 2011 saw the US finally “withdraw” its forces from Iraq. Some see this as a sign of American weakness. Others read this as a precursor to further Middle East power moves. The eight-year war has cost billions of dollars, tens of thousands of lives, and has contributed to crippling the American economy.

American Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited Myanmar, also known as Burma. It was the first visit to Burma by such a high-ranking member of the American cabinet in over 50 years. In mid-October, more than 200 Burmese political prisoners were freed, which has led to a “flicker of hope” that the US might relax sanctions against Myanmar. Amnesty International notes that Myanmar still holds 1-2,000 political prisoners, who should be released immediately, according to the international human rights watchdog organization, and not as part of a "process."

North Korea's “Great Leader,” Kim Jong-Il, died. American food aid to the country was put on hold, despite pleas from North Korean officials, as the exact make-up of a successor regime was solidified. Kim Jong-Un, Jong-Il's youngest son, was later proclaimed Supreme Leader of North Korea. The country's New Year's resolution was to become a "powerful and prosperous" nation in 2012.

Bradley Manning Tar Sands Suits

Security and community in St. James Park

This article was published by the Toronto Media Co-op prior to the eviction of Occupy Toronto from St. James Park on November 23.

TORONTO—How does a non-hierarchical movement deal with the safety of its participants? “Occupy” encampments in many countries have been struggling with this question, and Toronto’s “Occupy” is no exception. Located in the downtown east side, St. James Park has been a refuge to many homeless people, and drinking and drug use have always been present. Dick Johnson, who has been helping de-escalate problems, told me that it was important to be sensitive to the needs of long-term park residents: “We have to remember that they were here first and a lot of the problems are with people who were here before us. The longest resident has been living here for 10 years.”

A team of marshals is trained and on call to de-escalate problems. “The issue is that we are dealing with the acts that go on in the park whether we are here or not,” one member of the Marshal Team said. “We have had to evict several people from the park in a non-violent way. There have been a few instances of extremely disruptive people who we were able to deal with in a non-violent and loving way and who were then able to be extremely productive members of this community. We need to publicize the idea about crisis prevention and de-escalation. What we are doing here is very different from the way society at large deals with conflict. There is a lot to learn for everyone.”

General Assemblies (GAs) in particular have been a site of significant disruption. In the most serious incident, a man showed his penis to the crowd during the meeting. But occupiers are taking steps to deal with these problems. A policy on drugs and alcohol (they are banned) has been passed through the GA.

“Marshals never quit,” said Johnson, one of the marshals. “There have been a lot of proactive solutions happening.”

“Security in the park should be all of our responsibility,” Johnson said. “We should not let either paranoia or apathy get to us—we also should not be vigilantes. Sometimes the best thing to do is to ask someone one else to help deal with the situation.”

There has also been an education in dealing with mental illnesses and police; people are realizing that it's not appropriate to call the police for mental illness or intoxication and that the paramedics and crisis intervention teams are better for situations that have become too out of hand for the park community to deal with.

Mental health and nursing professionals have started volunteering for the medic committee to help deal with these sorts of issues. There has been a general agreement only to involve the police in serious incidents of assault, and only when the survivor wants to go that route.

Taylor Flook is an experienced environmental activist who has been a key member of many committees at Occupy Toronto that deal with safety in the park. She says that at first people were reluctant to deal with problems out of a misplaced liberal social-ideology where people didn’t want to interfere with anyone else. “And we’re now…ending our third week—we are at a point when I mention that a sexual assault has happened again and that we liaised with the police and had them assist in the apprehension of the perpetrator, people clapped. It was very bizarre [to see such a change in attitudes]. So, we’re seeing that people are getting it. I hope that people are getting it fast enough to mitigate any further trauma upon an individual while people suss out their ideologies of how to deal with things.”

There have been several incidents in which occupiers reluctantly felt they had to involve the official justice system. In the first week, a man was stealing from tents and sexually assaulting people by touching their feet—occupiers caught him, took him to the edge of the park, and turned him over to the police. This week, a team of marshals searched for another man who allegedly sexually assaulted someone and turned him over to police, as the victim wanted to file charges. There was also a citizen’s arrest made of a Sun TV reporter who was pursuing people so aggressively they were being hit with the TV cameras. While the Sun TV reporter was banned from the park, other reporters from the Sun newspaper respectfully camped out for several days without any incident.

Flook regrets that the camp still doesn’t have a firm process for restorative justice and as a result still has to deal with police regarding serious incidents: “…we don’t have elders or first nations people or anyone with a restorative justice process to actually play that out and show what healing is like, what atoning for your actions is like in a community.”

She says that marshals are a good first step (she’d rather they were called “mediators”). She told Toronto Media Co-op: “Marshals are just a bunch of people who were willing to volunteer; brave individuals who were trying to be the piece that is missing in our greater society. The police have, depending on your experience, failed at the ability to mediate conflict, they actually help escalate conflict…instead of that, what we’re trying to do is create community.”

Megan Kinch is an activist and journalist in Toronto.

Questions? Comments? Drop us a line: info@mediacoop.ca.

St James Park

Extreme extraction could prove to be the meaning of GCC membership for Morocco and Jordan

AMMAN, Jordan—The Arab Spring sent shockwaves through the regimes of the Middle East and North Africa, and in the face of demands for popular accountability alongside bread and butter issues, states throughout the region have devised strategies to try and avert popular upheaval.

If one were asked to list the most powerful players from the Arab world, it is likely that neither Morocco nor Jordan would head that list. Both are relatively poor countries, and neither is classically known as being resource-rich. Morocco occupies the edge of Western Africa, geographically distant from richer Arab countries such as Kuwait or the United Arab Emirates. Jordan has high energy demands, and thus has long been reliant on imports. The steady backing of the United States, in exchange for Jordan's relative complicity in American policy, has also somewhat isolated Jordan in the Arab world.

Regardless of their outsider status, the kingdoms of Morocco and Jordan have recently been invited to join the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC). On the surface, inviting in Jordan—and even more so the non-Gulf nation of Morocco—appears to be a puzzle.

Similarities between the newly-invited monarchies and other GCC countries are not completely lost, at least not with their reigning pro-American kings: Mohammed VI of Morocco, and King Abdullah II of Jordan. Despite some limited political reforms, both monarchs have spent a dozen years on their thrones with static regimes and unregulated, free market economies. Both reflect the deires of other regimes in the region to avoid the uprisings that have swept rulers from some Arab states in recent months. Jordan and Morocco also share in high unemployment and poverty rates, and both countries have seen street protests in recent months.

Recent promises from King Mohammed VI for "meaningful reform" included a recent referendum on constitutional amendments, to which it was reported that the general population of Morocco responded 98 per cent in favour. Moroccan protesters have since called the poll fraudulent and the newly-drafted constitution insufficient. Likewise, in an attempt to placate protests, King Abdullah has re-shuffled the Jordanian parliament. Critics, however, perceive the changes in both kingdoms to be little more than cosmetic.

The GCC, which is now courting Morocco and Jordan, was founded in 1981 by Saudi Arabia, Oman, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait. “It's not as far advanced as the European Union but in many ways is similar to the European Union regional integration project,” says Adam Hanieh of the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London.

“This was partly a security agreement that was established with the support of the United States, but then beyond that it has evolved in the last few decades—particularly the last ten or so years—to be focused very much on the economic integration of these six countries in the Gulf,” explains Hanieh.

“These countries all have strong oil and gas supplies, they have similar political structures and through economic integration they have been promoting common trade, free movement of capital and goods, pretty much across the borders, and also the movement of citizens,” he says.

During the Arab Spring, Jordan and Morocco experienced street protests in their capital cities, and elsewhere. Neither have had movements that called for the end of their respective monarchies or the establishment of republics. However, in terms of reshaping the economy and landscape, both nation states have been looking to convert oil shale rock into synthetic petroleum, which has implications for the GCC.

Within OPEC, GCC states have consistently called for production targets that are more in line with most Western countries like the U.S. and France—seeking to heighten targets and lower global market prices. Nation states such as Venezuela or Iran seek lower production targets as a way of generating higher prices for crude on the world market.

In recent years, the way that global petroleum reserves are measured by country has changed so as to be able to include bitumen from the Canadian tar sands. This is a result of Canada proving the “commercial viability” of its mock oil development, which has been expanding at a breathtaking pace. Similar dynamics could immediately take root in both Morocco and Jordan if their planned oil shale ventures go into production. Integrating these new huge reserves into the GCC would guarantee both investments and a market for mock crude from the new member states.

The terms of the invitation to the GCC have yet to be spelled out, but there is good reason to assume some conditions may apply.

“If countries like Jordan and Morocco were to join, I don't think they would join as full members or with the same type of integration as the existing GCC states have,” says Hanieh. “I don't think you would see for example, the ability of people to move freely to the GCC states from Jordan and Morocco.”

This may leave GCC membership for newcomers to look more like the North American Free Trade Agreement than the European Union: de-regulation and neoliberal re-regulation, freer movement of capital, no new movement (or rights) for labour.

“In all of the GCC countries, citizenship is restricted to a minority of the population,” says Hanieh. “The bulk of the people living in these countries are migrant workers who don't have citizenship rights.”

GCC countries, however, have long been the favoured states of Washington in the Arab world for other reasons as well. Even before the 2011 uprisings began, the GCC states were allied with many American ventures, such as the two wars of aggression against Iraq.

“They have become a close adjunct of the U.S. foreign policy in the region. The one thing about the GCC states—with the exception to a certain extent of Saudi Arabia as you saw in the case of Bahrain—is in general, their military capability is very weak and they act under a U.S. military umbrella,” explains Hanieh. Qatar in particular has been exposed recently, having aligned militarily with NATO countries in their air and ground war against the Qaddafi government in Libya.

The short and long term development of the large oil shale deposits in the Kingdoms of Morocco and Jordan have similar plots. Both countries are poor and reliant on imports for energy. Both have large oil shale potential despite serious water shortages, and both also have (among others) development plans that stem from a partnership between Brazil’s state-owned Petrobras and French energy giant Total to strip mine and convert kerogen rock into mock oil, perhaps allowing the integration into economic and trade matters for the rest of the GCC states.

Of course, there is also the issue of Israel.

While publicly critical of Israel, GCC states have accommodated Tel Aviv to varying degrees. Normalization with Jordan in 1994 allowed for Israeli-Jordanian trade. Jordan joining the GCC may provide another means of trade with Israel for Arab states that are still officially part of the general Israeli boycott.

“It's clear that over the last decade, the United States has really been pushing increased regional integration in the Middle East and particularly trying to break the boycott of Israel, and increase the normalization. This has had some success in the case of the GCC. For example, in the case of Qatar, there was a trade office that was opened for many years, I'm not sure if it still operates but it probably operates unofficially,” says Hanieh.

In Jordan, collaboration with Israel functions at an official capacity. However, if Jordan's industrial plans were to go ahead, closer ties between the two nations might emerge. Already on the table is a major nuclear facility within Jordan, and the so-called “Red-Dead” canal.

The Gulf Co-operation Council has set itself up as a localized combination of NATO and EU in terms of policy. There is little doubt that given the events of the Arab Spring so far the GCC has adjusted itself to a combination of counter-revolutionary politics, mixed together with a promotion of western (oil) interests, ranging from Saudi Arabia leading the occupation of Bahrain, to Qatar flying sorties and providing ground troops during the recolonization of Libya.

Jordan and Morocco both maintain Kingdoms that straddle the so-called fence. They choose to deal with Israel, align with the Saudis and other oil-producing monarchies, all the while adding their own plans to become extreme extractors. The Gulf Co-operation Council is the agent to integration of the same ideology, regardless of territorial ambiguity.

Jordan and Morocco both possess reserves of oil shale that, if counted by the International Energy Agency and OPEC as oil, would outstrip other members of the GCC. The spread and influence of pro-USA, pro-Israel, GCC politics into Morocco and Jordan could have an important social, political, and environmental impact on the entire region.

This article is the fourth in a four part series examining unconventional oil deposits in the Middle East and North Africa. The series was originally published by the Media Co-op. Questions? Comments? Drop us a line: info@mediacoop.ca.

Shale Oil Basins in Israel and Jordan

Tory government pulls controversial online security bills, but concerns remain

VICTORIA—It won’t be long before Canadian privacy laws regarding telecommunications come under attack again. These laws apply to technologies everyone relies on—from cell phones to the Internet. And as seen before, the federal government is likely to soon change them in a push towards facilitating online surveillance of individuals’ lives. If the government succeeds, it would mean online monitoring could be done without a warrant and other impingements on Canadians’ rights to privacy.

When parliament started with a Conservative majority in fall 2011, many privacy rights experts and advocated worried that the Conservative were going to push for “Lawful Access” measures in the Omnibus Crime Bill C-10. These measures, which failed to pass the last parliament, would change the rules around what the state can and cannot monitor. They’re designed to expedite the passing of a variety of laws, from raising mandatory minimum sentences, to harsher sentencing for young offenders, and even providing victims of terrorism the right to sue for compensation.

Canada’s Federal Privacy Commissioner, Jennifer Stoddart, supported by many Provincial Privacy Commissioners opposed the “Lawful Access” measures in an open letter, dated October 26, 2011, to the Deputy Minister of Public Safety, Mr. William V. Baker. After outlining how the new laws would “make it easier for the state to subject more individuals to surveillance and scrutiny,” Stoddart went on to point out that there is a lack of evidence to support those measures.

“At no time have Canadian authorities provided the public with any evidence or reasoning to suggest that CSIS or any other Canadian law enforcement agencies have been frustrated in the performance of their duties as a result of shortcomings attributable to current law, [telecommunications service providers] or the manner in which they operate,” she wrote.

Stoddart wasn’t alone in the mobilization against “Lawful Access”. Many NDP government critics penned letters condemning the proposed laws, and grassroots groups such as Openmedia.ca opened a petition, “Stop Online Spying”, that was signed by more than 70,000 Canadians.

The “Lawful Access” provisions, however, were in the end removed from the omnibus crime bill before it was formally tabled in September. But even though they aren’t currently up for consideration, many critics believe they will undoubtedly return to the table. Whether they are to be reintroduced with or without changes remains uncertain.

The “Lawful Access” measures were first introduced in the 40th parliament in November 2010 via three complimentary internet crime bills, designed to tighten governance of Canada’s cyberspace: Bill C-50, Improving Access to Investigative Tools for Serious Crimes Act; Bill C-51 Investigative Powers for the 21st Century Act; and Bill C-52, Investigating and Preventing Criminal Electronic Communications Act.

Looking at the bigger picture, the government was presenting each new item of Internet law as a stand-alone policy necessary to “modernize” telecommunications (ie, the Internet) in a bid to hide the interlocking nature of what is emerging: each new law, once passed, sets the stage for the next, facilitating unprecedented powers to implement mass online surveillance.

To begin, let’s look at some of the “modernization” items included in Bill C-51, The Investigative Powers for the 21st Century Act. Firstly, the bill has been crafted to take advantage of technological developments in order to extend surveillance powers. For example, if a warrant to secretly install a tracking device is obtained, this legislation “upgrades” its use to permit an officer to take advantage of the tracking capabilities installed in some cell phones and vehicles by allowing their remote activation. Then, there are changes in terminology within existing laws, such as the replacement of out-dated vocabulary like “telephone” and “pager” with an umbrella term, “telecommunication device.” The new term is intended to be vague enough to include current and future technological developments, covering all possibilities of surveillance in ways never imagined before the technology came along and anticipating the seamless integration of ever newer and more robust capabilities.

Reflecting the desire of authorities to have the ability to track and contain information in a timely fashion, C-51 also includes new data retention and retrieval powers in the form of Preservation Demands and Preservation Orders directed at Telecommunications Service Providers (TSPs). Preservation Demands may be made by police officers, and judges authorize Preservation Orders. The purpose of both Preservation Demands and Orders is temporary: to preserve data on file to ensure it is not deleted or altered while waiting for a search warrant or a Production Order, which is yet another new tool.

Production Orders are like search warrants, but instead of requiring officers to physically search and seize equipment and data, the individual or business entity on the receiving end of a Production Order must obtain and deliver the requested information to the authorities. The information obtained in a Production Order, is historical, which includes anything the TSP has available in data storage at the time. However, requests for “real-time” data, in other words, information that can be captured or recorded as events unfold, do require a warrant. Furthermore, in an aside comment in the legislative summary, Production Orders are viewed as tools specifically designed to obtain information from other countries, which indicates reciprocal agreements between countries are in effect.

Moving on, one of the main concerns around Bill C-52 is the legitimization of warrantless wiretapping. This is the concern of Bill C-52, which concentrates on TSPs obligations to upgrade and retrofit infrastructure to enable data reporting to policing authorities. The bill provides extensive lists of fines and punishments if TSPs do not comply. The most invasive point of compliance in the proposed legislation is the creation of a new class of authorities, to whom the TSPs must supply information. The Commissioner of the RCMP, the Director of CISIS, the Commissioner of Competition, and any head of a police force constituted under the laws of a province may appoint such individuals who are “designated” to ask for such information, but the number of officers authorized with these new powers cannot total more than 5% of a policing agency. Interestingly, C-52 also establishes a new class of administrator whose role is to verify whether the TSPs have complied with the Act: they can test, investigate, search, examine, and print or reproduce any information at any telecommunications facility, all without a warrant, except when the facility is located in a personal residence.

If Bill C-52 becomes legal reality, TSPs have 18 months to fulfill their obligations and install the appropriate software to facilitate these measures and must submit a status report outlining their progress within the first 30 days. Smaller service providers (less than 100,000 subscribers) need only provide a physical access point to conduct interceptions. In the past, opponents to “Lawful Access,” speculated costly upgrades Canadian TSPs will have to undergo to enable their transformation into surveillance state tools might derail the legislation, but Bill C-52 stipulates government assistance will be provided to help integrate surveillance technology for newly “deputized” TSPs.

In anticipation of the government’s current move, Canadian TSPs actually began writing into their service agreements the right to disclose customer information, should they be required by law to do so, as early as 2006. Indeed, elements of “Lawful Access-like” cyber-legislation already exist in current copyright and privacy bills.

Recently, at a September 2011 press conference announcing Bill C-11 (previously Bill C-32), The Copyright Modernization Act, evidence of the current capacity to retain users’ data and identify content was offered by Bell Canada representatives, who discussed past incidents of having to turn over some of their customers’ IP addresses to investigators.

In the same month, Bell Canada, Videotron, and Cogeco were hit with a court order to provide the IP addresses of customers who had violated copyright by downloading pirated copies of The Hurt Locker. The movie was released a year ago, in October 2010, and the first American copyright court cases emerged last May, with Canadian court orders served in September. Whether Bell is capable of retaining its users’ data for the entire year the movie was available, or if limited storage capacities affected the amount of data they have on their users, is unclear. What is certain is that changes to Canada’s copyright laws will undoubtedly benefit from the pending expansion of online investigative capacities.

Another “Lawful Access” puzzle piece has recently turned up in the form of an amendment to a law originally written to protect the online privacy of business transactions, The Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA), passed in 2000. The proposed amendment has been compared to the U.S. Patriot Act. It allows companies, of their own volition, to hand over personal files to the authorities without a warrant and, if the authorities deem it necessary, they may also be required to sign a non-disclosure agreement to keep the individual in question in the dark.The specific circumstances under which some companies may consider it necessary to hand over personal information is unclear, but presumptions of illegal behaviour are undoubtedly a factor.

The range of bills by which personal information can be disclosed without judicial oversight demonstrates an alarming trend in the government’s disrespect for privacy standards. Critics need to expand the parameters of analysis to reveal the larger pattern, but targeting the re-introduction of Bills C-51 and 52 is a start. As Lindsay Pinto, spokesperson with Openmedia.ca reflects, “Public pressure knocked online spying out of the omnibus though, and it seems to be delaying the release of the bills—we at OpenMedia.ca are still confident that Canadians can convince [Public Safety Minister] Toews to do the right thing and adjust the legislation to include comprehensive internal controls, clear oversight from the courts, meaningful deterrents, and a system of enforcement.”

Kimberly Croswell is a freelancer who lives on
traditional Lekwungen Territory in in Victoria, BC. Questions? Comments? Drop us a line: info@mediacoop.ca.

online spying

Oil production plans could reshape Morocco's economy and environment

RABAT, MOROCCO—Many well-known voices trying to address the global climate crisis have posited that less-developed countries—those without a full-blown industrial base—can skip industrialization all together and transition away from fossil fuels. If that is achieved, development in those countries would ideally result in the construction of infrastructure suitable for a post-fossil fuel society.

But if Morocco is any indication, the opposite scenario appears more likely to happen. Instead of proceeding with climate-friendly energy developments, Morocco is poised to begin extracting crude oil from unconventional deposits—the dirtiest fuel available. Mining rock for oil in Morocco would leave massive craters in post-fossil, green energy hopes.

Morocco, like Jordan and Israel, is moving towards using the most carbon intensive fuel base on earth. This move is supported by present, and projected, oil prices that make synthetic crude from oil shale profitable on a near permanent basis. Technology has become cheaper while the price of oil has gone up dramatically. Recent industry estimates indicate that oil can now be extracted from shale for approximately US$40 per barrel, while the average price at an American pump is US$94 per barrel.

With global oil demand slated to grow, Morocco is set to become an unconventional oil producer through mining oil shale and converting it to mock crude oil in a fashion similar to Canadian tar sands development, but borrowing on shale technology from Brazil. Morocco also has contracts to use Estonian technology to mine and burn oil shale directly for domestic electricity.

Estonia is one of a few countries in the world that has ongoing oil shale currently in operation. The Tangier deposit of oil shale in the north of Morocco is likely to see Eesti Energy-owned Enefit of Estonia work to mine this shale directly for domestic electricity generation, which would treat the kerogen shale more like a cousin of coal rather than an ancestor of oil.

Petrobras, the Brazilian state-owned oil company, has developed a technique of extracting oil as well as gas from oil shale, and has been involved in this process commercially since the early 1980s. A partnership between Petrobras and TOTAL energy of France has been developing towards shale-to-oil mining at the Timahdit deposit, a deposit much larger than Tangier, approximately 240 kilometres southeast of Rabat, Morocco’s capital. Petrobras would be the main operator of the Timahdit mine, but both world energy majors will share the costs and profits.

However, there is one persistent problem for both these projects: water. Even without proposed oil shale mining and in-situ developments, Morocco has a serious potable water problem.

To operationalize oil shale in Morocco, water would need to be sourced from nearby the Timahdit deposit. Throughout the country, waterways are already becoming silt-ridden as erosion slowly manifests as a result of another ecological tragedy in the area: illegal timber harvests.

Some environmental journalists, like Mohammed Attaoui, have recently landed directly in the crosshairs of the Moroccan Kingdom. Attaoui was imprisoned by the Moroccan government after he investigated ongoing illegal timber marketing and exporting. Although Attaoui was officially charged and convicted in March 2010 for the extortion of 1,000 dirham (approximately US$120), critics maintain Attaoui was set up in a ploy timed immediately after his research into the country's “cedar mafia” had been published. He was handed a two-year sentence for his alleged crime.

Deforestation, destructive in its own right, is without doubt one of the major factors furthering the water crises of Morocco. But if the water needs for running a major mining operation are appended onto the existing crisis, the prognosis for the country's environmental health gets ever bleaker. The proposed mine at Timahdit happens to be in the same region as two national parks: the Ifrane National Park, which is already under threat from the illegal timber harvest, and Haut Atlas Oriental, which is home to tens of thousands of small farmers who rely on the area and its habitat for agriculture and subsistence.

The illegal timber harvest is the primary threat to the macaques, the last remaining large population of monkeys in northern Africa. Primarily living in the Ifrane National Park, macaques used to be common throughout the Mahgreb but are now endangered by loss of habitat elsewhere and by the shrinking forest. The only place outside Morocco where they live is in the small and shrinking Djebel Babor Nature Reserve on Algeria's coast. According to The Morocco Board News Service, the region is also home to more than 200 forms of plant life not found anywhere else.

Oil extraction is but another burden in a region defined by an already fragile environment. Between the three proposed sites for shale oil development in Morocco, early projections indicate that 50,000 barrels per day of mock oil could be produced for conversion into various fuels within a few years. (This figure does not include electricity generation where shale is burned in a similar fashion to a coal fired plant.)

That estimate includes the Tarfaya deposit near Morocco's border with the nominally independent Western Sahara, which is still occupied by Moroccan forces. Tarfaya has also just seen the completion of an in-situ pilot project constructed by San Leon Energy of Ireland, a smaller player with some operations in the continental United States. Building up Tarfaya has already meant the construction of major highways in less populated parts of southern Morocco to allow for the transport of supplies and materials for the project.

Morocco is on its way to becoming a testing ground for unprecedented oil shale extraction. “The environmental issues in places such as Colorado are not an issue in Morocco,” John Buggenhagen, San Leon Energy’s vice-president of exploration, told Petroleum Economist.

This article is the third in a four-part series examining unconventional oil deposits in the Middle East and North Africa. The series was originally published on the Media Co-op.

Questions? Comments? Email us at info@mediacoop.ca.

Morroco map shale oil

CIDA teams up with NGOs to do development work at mine sites

MONTREAL—As excavators, heavy haulers and chemical treatment plants dig made-in-Canada mines around the world, Ottawa has taken new steps to ease growing criticism of Canada’s extractive sector.

The Harper government recently announced a publicly funded agreement between three of Canada’s mining giants and three of Canada’s leading non-governmental organizations (NGOs). The agreement, which marks a significant shift in how mining and politics mix, elicited little more than a yawn from the media. But a closer look reveals this partnership is transforming Canada’s aid landscape—with disturbing implications.

“The Canadian government is using aid to support the expansion of Canadian mining...[and] to determine development paths inside countries according to the logic of mining companies,” Yao Graham of Third World Network Africa, a research and advocacy organization based in Ghana, told The Dominion. Graham has seen many communities in Africa ravaged by the exploitative labour practices and lax environmental practices that often accompany mining megaprojects.

In the first phase of this new program, the World University Service of Canada (WUSC) has partnered Rio Tinto Alcan; Plan Canada is paired up with IAMGOLD; and World Vision Canada has joined forces with Barrick Gold. This new funding approach raises some serious ethical and political questions about the role of NGOs, and constitutes a veritable PR coup for a mining industry that has racked up quite the rap sheet of environmental and human rights abuses.

Critics argue that under this new dispensation, industry can counter resistance to its activities by claiming that its presence has brought development to impoverished communities. Cash-strapped NGOs, in an era of shrinking government funding for international development, have found a funding niche. Last but not least, the Canadian government is able to deflect demands for more stringent—and potentially profit-damaging—controls over one of its most lucrative industries.

In the past, while NGOs were bound by financial ties to the state, they still had some nominal autonomy to bear witness to that abuse. Now, they are increasingly tied to government funds earmarked to further Canada’s mining interests, topped up by money from the mining industry itself.

“When a mine goes in, there is a development deficit created immediately because there are impacts that can last literally thousands of years on water, on land, on the air,” said Catherine Coumans of MiningWatch Canada. “And these impacts can be devastating. It can mean that people literally have to leave that area and live somewhere else because they can’t live there anymore.”

Coumans, who has kept a watchful eye on this evolving relationship, argues that whatever project an NGO gets up and running in one of these mining communities cannot even begin to redress the damage caused by the mining company’s presence there. She calls the NGO presence at mining sites “a Band-Aid on a gaping wound.”

Chris Eaton, the Executive Director of WUSC, sees things differently. He argues that this closer working relationship between NGOs and the mining sector will be an opportunity for organizations like WUSC to “nudge along good practice.” He is confident that WUSC’s role in building the capacity of local government to engage with mining companies will reap greater benefits for local people.

Plan Canada, another beneficiary under the new government initiative, could not find anyone to respond to our questions before this story went to print. Plan Canada will receive $5.7 million from the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) to fund activities relating to IAMGOLD’s mining activities in 13 communities in Burkina Faso.

While Plan Canada’s project is nowhere close to any of IAMGOLD’s operations, it has partnered with a mining company that has been mired in labour strife at at least one of its mines.* Last May, IAMGOLD had to close down operations at its Essakane mine in Burkina Faso due to labour unrest. The company’s CEO, Steve Letwin, warned that he would not tolerate an ‘illegal’ strike ‘and as they will find out, will not tolerate anything that has a negative impact on our stakeholders.’

Given Plan Canada’s stated commitment to ‘work in the best interests of children and the communities in which we work,’ would they be prepared to risk their multi-million dollar funding to speak out against any violations of labour or human rights in the communities in which their partner works?

For the Canadian government, this new troika is simply the latest step in a long process of prying open the door on the planet’s mineral wealth to the benefit of the extractive industry. The last decade saw the Canadian government provide technical and financial support to create industry-friendly mining codes around the world. The Canadian Network on Corporate Accountability documented how government initiatives in Colombia and Tanzania have translated into weaker environmental and social safeguards, reduced royalties for the host countries and new tax holidays.

Canadian cash, technocrats and know-how have also been involved in rewriting mining codes in Malawi, Ghana, Mali and the Democratic Republic of Congo (with, in this last case, civil war as a backdrop). All this has led to rising profits for Canadian companies and dwindling revenues for host countries.

Now that many official hurdles to access to overseas mineral wealth have come down, the government has turned its attention to partnering NGOs with mining firms. At the local level, this kind of agreement is cause for suspicion.

The Canadian government is turning its back on a deeper examination of the structural problems in the relationship between First World mining firms and Third World resources, says Third World Network’s Graham, instead opting for what he calls a “palliative” approach. “It’s a way of sidestepping the need for companies to pay more revenue because they can say, ‘We are doing so much for the community. Why do we have to put more into the central treasury?’”

The mining industry’s dismal reputation is its Achilles heel. Concern about its poor track record overseas is growing—even the mainstream is starting to take note.

Despite the clarion call from Canadians to put guidelines and mechanisms in place to keep the industry in check, the government has opted for optics instead. “The Canadian government is very anxious about the reputation of mining companies and instead of accountability, it is putting money into projects that show that mining leads to development,” said Coumans. In her view, it is now taxpayers that are footing the bill to polish a tarnished corporate image.

“CIDA has always worked government-to-government,” said Coumans. “Now what CIDA is doing is channelling Canadian taxpayer money directly to the mine site and basically paying for corporate social responsibility projects, and that is very bizarre.”

MONEY IN MINING

WUSC-Rio Tinto Alcan project
Total budget: $928,000 over 3 years
CIDA: $500,000
WUSC/Rio Tinto Alcan: $428,000
Rio Tinto net profit in 2010: $726,000,000

Plan Canada-IAMGOLD project
Total budget: $7.6 million over 5.5 years
CIDA: $5.7 million
Plan Canada: $0.9 million
IAMGOLD: $1 million
IAMGOLD gross profit in 2010: $597,000,000

World Vision-Barrick Gold project
Total budget: $1 million over 3.5 years
CIDA: $500,000
World Vision/Barrick Gold: $500,000
Barrick Gold net profit in 2010: $3,279,000,000

Source: Canadian International Development Agency, Sedar.com

Eaton insists that WUSC’s work is about community empowerment, not corporate social responsibility (CSR) projects. “I don’t think the government should be funding NGOs to do the CSR of mining firms, and I don’t see ourselves doing that in the context of this initiative,” he said.

In the swirl of controversy around this corporate shift in government aid policy, one thing is clear: the Canadian mining sector has emerged the big winner.

Last year the Canadian mining sector led a successful lobby effort to defeat Bill C-300, the Bill that would have seen the introduction of minor controls on the unregulated overseas activities of Canada’s mining industry.

Now, this same powerful sector has access to even more government funds as well as NGO know-how to help revamp its public image. Little wonder the Mining Association of Canada recently issued a press release encouraging the federal government to continue its support for Canada’s CSR Strategy. It knows a good thing when it sees it.

*The original version of this article incorrectly implied that the joint project by Plan Canada and IAMGOLD would be taking place in a mining community. In fact, Plan Canada’s work will not be carried out at any of IAMGOLD's mine sites. The version above has been changed to correct the error.

Roberto Nieto is a Montreal-based independent journalist and activist who has worked for unions, and as an organizer in support of migrant workers. He is a regular contributor to Amandla!, Canada’s longest running African current affairs radio show. Gwendolyn Schulman is co-founder and co-host of Amandla! Questions? Comments? Drop us a line: info@mediacoop.ca..

Foreign Aid to Mining Firms.Image Foreign Aid to Mining Firms.Image

Grassroots Australian activist warns against jailing refugees

VANCOUVER—Refugees who flee persecution and look for safety might want to think twice before coming to Canada through smuggling operations—at least that’s the message the Conservative majority government seems to be sending.

The federal parliament is set to pass Bill C-4 (formerly Bill C-49 and commonly known as the “anti-smuggling bill”), which would impose a mandatory one-year detention on any person who arrives in Canada via unconventional means. This could mean imprisonment of men, women and children who, facing desperate situations, failed to apply for and obtain refugee status before escaping their home countries for Canada.

The bill has received little support outside of the Conservative Party. Canada's three other political parties in the House of Commons, as well as human rights advocates and critics, are hoping to fight it off.

The Conservative Party has repeatedly said the bill is meant to protect Canadians and criminalize smugglers and smuggling operations, not to demonize refugees.

Critics of the bill, including Canadian Civil Liberties Association and Amnesty International Canada, disagree. Amnesty International says that the bill “will in reality punish people seeking protection in Canada.”

Before the bill comes into effect, concrete evidence is scarce as to whether the proposed legislation would protect or punish refugees.

Australia provides a relevant example. Since 1992, the country has practised mandatory detention of asylum seekers who arrive by unconventional means. In fact, the Canadian government has consulted over the years with Australia to learn from their anti-smuggling legislation. Bill C-4 is modelled loosely on its Australian equivalent.

The Dominion recently spoke to Mark Goudkamp to find out how the Australian legislation is affecting refugees. Goudkamp is the co-founder of Refugee Action Coalition in Australia, a grassroots organization that has campaigned against mandatory detention of refugees since 2000.

Excerpts from the conversation follow:

On how the anti-smuggling policy works in Australia:

“The Australian policy makes it illegal to bring in asylum seekers. It imposes jail sentences of up to ten years for people who organize the trips and it even criminalizes anyone who might spend money to help someone get on the boats. The government uses the rhetoric of human smugglers constantly, without asking the question of who these people being detained are.

“As an example, say there was an Afghan or Tamil family here in our community and they raise money for someone stranded in Malaysia or Indonesia, which is the main transit point for refugees to come to Australia. They spend money on these people so that they can use the money to pay for a smuggler. But then they could also be charged for helping these people, who are desperate.

“Not only that, there are hundreds of Indonesian boat crew members who are offered work as cooks or general hands on these smuggling boats. And they accept those jobs because there’s no more work left in their dying fishing industry. Many of these people are now in maximum-security jails in Australia.”

On whether there’s evidence that mandatory detention in Australia has deterred smuggling operations:

"The argument the government uses is that mandatory detention deters people from getting into boats, which is rubbish. People leave because they're fleeing persecution. And no matter how hard the policy is, they're going to do that.

“In fact, Australia’s human rights commissioner has just condemned one of the detention centres in Western Australia. She said many of the asylum seekers are dying from the inside out. She released a report talking about the number of self-harm incidents, suicide attempts and hunger strikes in the centre. She was basically trying to say that the mandatory detention centre isn’t deterring people from seeking asylum, but is harming them.

“There are also increasing mainstream voices, like the Australian Medical Association, that have come out against mandatory detention. Even the head of immigration, who has been a supporter of government policy historically, just a few weeks ago raised the question as to whether mandatory detention was working from the government’s perspective.”

On the lives of refugees who live in Australian detention centres:

“They can watch TV and access the internet, but they can’t go outside when they want. They can’t shop. They can’t contact people. They can’t go and get jobs or use the skills they have. They can’t gain new skills. They can’t send money back to their families at home. They know the Australian community sees them as a drain on society’s resources, and this kills their soul.

“The actual physical conditions, well, it’s not like a slum that’s infested with cockroaches and rats, it’s not. But it’s more the psychological impact of being in there that’s harmful.

“I mean, there are now 872 children in detention as of July 31; those are the most recent statistics. I saw a couple of kids at my last visit to a detention centre, and one of them was a seven-year-old girl. During the school year, she goes to an immigrant primary school everyday and comes back to the centre everyday. But besides that, she and others can’t come and go as they please. Now that the school holiday has started, she was asking her mother, 'Mom, why can’t we got out and go do this? Are we bad people?'

“So, you know, people shouldn't be in that situation. Not to mention that she also has a one-year-old brother who was born in the detention centre. Sadly, their parents recently received a negative security assessment from the Australian Security Intelligence Organization and can’t be accepted into the country for reasons unknown to the family or me. But the irony is that they did receive refugee status from immigration officials, which says they face persecution at home. So, since they can’t go home, they’re left with two choices: 1) find a third country to go to; or 2) stay in detention forever.

“Unless our campaign can overthrow these policies and get a more humanitarian perspective, they're going to be condemned for many, many years in this situation.

“Every individual story is moving. Once people hear the stories of these humans who the government tries to demonize, well, it becomes a lot harder for them to believe all the government’s bullshit.”

On why mandatory detention still exists in Australia:

“I actually think that the policy of mandatory detention is just as much about a feeling of insecurity and hysteria in the general Australian population, as it is about punishing foreigners. If people are jailed like this, it sends a message to the public that: a) they’re undesirable; b) they’ve done something wrong; and c) they can be used to divert people’s anger against things happening in Australian society, such as cuts to working conditions and cuts to public services, and so people have a useful scapegoat and a useful target for their anger and their grieving for why their lives are shit.”

On the Canadian government’s choice of Australia as a role model:

"Word of warning for the Canadian government. No policy, no matter how harsh, is going to stop people fleeing persecution from trying to seek asylum—all it does is create animosity in society and create more distress for people already traumatized.

“Refugees could be aware that there’s a detention system in Australia, and they know it’s not going to be nice. But that concern is far outweighed by the need to get into a country that’s a signatory of the Refugee Convention. The short-term pain of being on a boat where you risk your life, and to spend a year or two in detention, is far preferable to rotting in a country, being absolutely terrified in their country of origin, being killed, and having absolutely zero prospect of a future for you and your family.”

Stephanie Law is a journalist based in Vancouver, unceded Coast Salish Territories. Questions? Comments? Drop us a line: info@mediacoop.ca.

Freedom for Migrants