Our communities must rally against the police execution of youth and demand accountability!

Alwy Al-Nadhir: a young high-school student, 18-years of age, admired by his friends, loved by his family, a good student, unknown to the law. These were the things that were said about the young man at a vigil held in his name exactly a week after he was shot dead in Riverdale Park by Toronto police on October 31, Halloween night.

On November 7, a week later, a couple hundred people gathered in Riverdale Park to attend a vigil organized by a local middle-class white woman who met Alwy only minutes before he was shot. Laurel McCorriston spoke to the crowd about how Alwy went out of his way to caution her and her dog about some broken glass that was on the ground. A few minutes later Alwy was shot by the police.

This story is highly contradicted by the ‘official’ story, which is that the ‘two officers interrupted a pair of teenagers attempting to rob two or three other youths’, the Toronto Star reported. In the official story, the mainstream media reported that ‘a replica gun was seized at the scene’. But the police have provided no evidence of this.

In an interview with Basics, Muna Al-Nadhir, Alwy’s mother said, “He was a wonderful boy…I don’t know what to say…he was very nice to his elders, to his sisters…it was such a shock! Every time I walk by his bedroom now, I must close my eyes”. This sentiment has been repeatedly echoed by his sisters and those who knew him.

Alwy’s cousin Fahmy commented: “One thing I remember about Alwy is his smile”. Alwy’s aunt Shuffe, who has sons who are close to Alwy’s age, told Basics that “I’m not even his mother, and all we talk and think about in our house is Alwy. During Eid [the Muslim Holy Day in December], when we were supposed to be celebrating, everyone was crying. Now I have to fear every time my children go outside.”

Alwy’s friends went on to say how decent Alwy was, and why a young guy who occupied his time with school, his family, and his part-time job at the spaghetti factory would be killed by the police. Alwy’s friend Preston told Basics, “he was just such a funny guy – I want to make sure Alwy gets justice”.

But that Alwy was such a wonderful person is really not the point. The police should not have the license to do this to nobody, no matter what the record or character of the person in question.

When the Filipino teenager Jeffrey Reodica was shot in the back three times and killed by two unidentified plainclothes police officers back in May 2004, the ‘official story’ said that he had a knife on him. The Special Investigations Unit (SIU) backed up the police version of the story, and so the officers went free.

Thanks to a large scale mobilization of the community around the execution of Jeffrey, a Coroners’ Inquest was eventually established which clearly established that Jeffrey did not have a weapon when he was shot in the back three times. But the Inquest did not have the authority to overrule the SIU’s decision to exonerate the police officers.
Currently, the family is awaiting the SIU report as to what really happened that night.
But Alwy’s family and his friends know that justice will only be achieved building awareness and organization. Communities affected by police brutality need to learn the lessons from the Jeffrey Reodica case, and create a broad-based movement to end racist police brutality all together. Racist cops can not continue to have a license to kill our youth with impunity. They must be brought to justice!

If you’re sick of being the victim of police brutality and ‘racial profiling’, or seeing your kids face this kind of victimization, don’t mourn, organize! To oppose police brutality join the Justice for Alwy campaign and organize your school or neighbourhood. For more information contact the campaign at [email protected].

Community Lawyers, BASICS, and OCAP to Set Up Free Legal Clinic to Help Tenants Force TCHC Repairs

On Sunday, December 9, Lawrence Heights residents attended an event held by Basics Community Newsletter at the Lawrence Heights Community Centre. One of the main topics discussed at the event was the lack of maintenance in TCHC units and the ways in which TCHC residents can use grass-roots organizing as a way to challenge the illegal, substandard conditions of social housing.

One of the guest lawyers at the event, Sarah Shartal, spoke to the current lawsuit that her firm has filed against TCHC on behalf of several thousand tenants. The suit is seeking to remedy all TCHC tenants who have waited more than two weeks for repairs with a payment of $1000, and also to force TCHC to carry out the backlog of repairs which is estimated at $300 million.
However, Shartal argued, the lawsuit is going to take three to five years to complete, and TCHC residents shouldn’t have to suffer in the meantime in their sub-standard, dilapidated units. As an alternative in the short term, Shartal told residents about other means that could be individually applied to force TCHC to get repairs done immediately. There are two forms available at the Landlord and Tenant Board that tenants can fill out to challenge substandard living conditions.

The T2 form, called the “Application About Tenant Rights”, applies to tenants facing situations where “the landlord…interfered with your reasonable enjoyment of the rental unit”, which can apply to any tenant suffering from poor maintenance, and in cases where “the landlord…withheld or interfered with vital services”, such as “hot or cold water, and the provision of heat from September 1st to June 15.”

The T6 Form, “Tenant Application About Maintenance”, determines whether the “landlord failed to repair or maintain the rental unit or complex or failed to comply with health, safety, housing or maintenance standards.” Both the T2 and T6 processes have their own provisions for forcing the landlord to recompensate the tenant or carry out repairs.

Unfortunately, Shartal noted, the T6 form requires a $45 deposit (which is returned if your case is successful), and also direct photographic evidence of the maintenance issue. Shartal asserted that if evidence is submitted to the Housing Tribunal proving the validity of the maintenance issue, and if the tenant wins the case, TCHC is forced to carry out repairs within two weeks.

However, the T2 and the T6 forms are very tricky to fill out and many peoples’ applications are denied for very minor errors. To ensure residents aren’t manipulated and abused by the system any further in filling out these forms, Basics Community Newsletter, the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP) and the Roach, Schwartz, and Associates law firm are teaming up to hold a free Legal Clinic to help residents fill them out (see ad below). If you are a tenant who needs someone to come out to your unit and take pictures of maintenance problems, OCAP has agreed do so. In addition to submitting these pictures as evidence to the Housing Tribunal, OCAP will later be using the best (i.e. worst) of these images to do a photo exhibit at City Hall to show the representatives of the rich what working people’s living conditions are really like. To set up an appointment with OCAP, call 416-925-6939 or email them at [email protected].

The struggle for better housing and a strong, united community is now underway. TCHC is talking about demolishing our communities with “revitalization” because social housing is in such disrepair. But it’s TCHC’s fault that housing is so bad. Residents must struggle to force TCHC to carry out repairs now – it’s a just fight for their legal right! Come out to February 16 to unite with your community and stand up for what is rightfully yours: Decent social housing for all working people now!

1pm – 4pm, Saturday, Feb 16
Lawrence Heights Community Centre
Learn how to fill out applications to the Landlord and Tenant Board to force TCHC to carry out repairs! Use the law to fight the slumlords!
Need pictures of problems in your unit?
Call OCAP at 416-925-6939 or email: [email protected].
Other questions about this campaign?
Call Basics at 416-800-0823 or [email protected]

TCHC put on the defensive as community fights back against parking fee rip-off.

Since October 2007, TCHC and the City have been trying to unilaterally enforce their new parking regulations. In October and November TCHC held ‘consultations’ to ‘discuss’ their plans. These so-called ‘consultations’ ended up being a big sham with TCHC already decided on how they could steal yet more money from working people. The community had already dismissed these weak efforts disguised as ‘consultations,’ knowing that TCHC and the City did not have their interests in mind.
Instead, because of wider community pressure and because TCHC saw the community coming together to demand their rights at the November 21st meeting, they backed off of charging those with detached units $45/month for parking. They will still charge other tenants $45/month for parking as well as $5 a night for visitors. In addition, TCHC revealed that they will no longer allow school buses to be parked on TCHC property. They will only be allowed in school parking lots. The fact that many women in the community drive school buses and that schools are not in close proximity to all of the TCHC units in Lawrence Heights have raised great concern. If this is enforced, these women will have to wake up in the middle of the night in order to warm up their buses and pick up the children on time to go to school.
Residents were not satisfied with this weak attempt of TCHC to appease what they saw as a bunch of angry tenants. Contrary to this image, since November, residents and their supporters have been circulating a petition that calls for:
• unlimited visitor parking passes for all tenants,
• monthly rent to include parking as with other TCHC communities,
• 0% displacement of the community under whatever circumstances,
• TCHC to stop breaking the law and carry out repairs now,
• hydro to be included in the monthly rent.
Since the petition has been circulating, residents have researched the issue of parking in TCHC communities and have found out that there is a North York bylaw prohibiting apartment building owners from charging for visitor parking. Toronto’s Licensing and Standards Committee has informed Toronto Police Services that officers should not enforce paid-parking violations on apartment lots.
Join residents in their efforts to know and enforce their rights. Sign the petition when it comes to your door and tell your neighbours about it!?

$5 million to be saved by pushing people out of free programming in low income areas.

This past fall, City politicians tried closing community centres in order to deal with the City’s financial problem created by previous City and Provincial governments. This January, City Hall is once again considering a move that would put free programming for low-income neighborhoods at risk – and this time, it could be permanent.
City politicians are looking to stop all free programming in 21 ‘Priority Centres” (ie. Centres in low-income communities) and replacing it with a model that will shift the onus on people to ‘prove’ that they are poor. The so-called ‘Everyone gets to play’ policy will increase fees for programs in Centre’s where people have to pay already, and will also force low-income people to submit documentation proving that they are poor in order to get free recreation programs. All registrants will remain on a City database as participants in this program.
Among the 21 ‘Priority Centres’ that would have all their free programs stopped include Lawrence Heights, Rockcliffe, Driftwood, Flemingdon Park, Regent Park (North and South), Oakdale and Scadding Court amongst others.
City staff expect that the implementation of this system will raise some $5 million dollars for the City. While City bureaucrats and politicians are defending the policy by saying that money will be re-invested in programs, they admit that the money made in at least the first year will be used to pay the Parks deficit.
“This is a clear example of working people being stomped on first as a way to save the City money” said Steve D of Basics, who have been organizing in low income neighborhoods to fight for our communities and services. “With ¼ of the City’s budget going to Police, to start cutbacks by taking services from the people who need them the most shows that working people are not a priority for City politicians”.
City staff have also not addressed how this program will effectively include the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy that the City instituted that makes it so that City staff are not allowed to either ask about or report on someone’s status in Canada. If the policy goes through, undocumented workers and their families will not be able to access these programs because they wont be able to provide the City the information required to use them.
Going after free programs in low-income areas and trying to call this is a good thing for people shows how out of touch politicians are with the conditions of working people in Toronto . None of the sham ‘consultations’ they have scheduled with 1 week’s notice are taking place in the community centres most affected.
While Police budgets and salaries keep growing, programs for youth only get attention when there are shootings. Ironically, when the programs start to work is when they get cut – until the next rash of guns that bring the politicians for ‘photo ops’.
It was the widespread anger from communities over the community centre closures in the fall that gave politicians the necessary push to make them reverse their positions. If working people come together to demand that the free programs in communities such as Lawrence Heights, Pelham and Regent Park stay free then we can win!

Engineers at Ohio University have discovered a way to use algae – simple, plant-like organizims – to absorb carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from power plants and industrial production. Rather than going into the atmosphere and causing global warming, CO2 emmissions could be channeled into a bioreactor made up of algae grown on verticle screens. The algae dissolve the CO2 into the surrounding water and emit only oxygen and nitrogen. The algae can then be harvested to be used as animal feeds and biofuel. The first such facility of 1.25 million square meters of algae screens could be up and running by 2010. This shows that we have the human know-how to stop climate change – we only need a government willing to lead the way.

In the space of just over two weeks there have been two fatal fires in TCHC units. On December 22nd 2007, a mother and her two children perished when their townhouse near Keele St. and Sheppherd Ave. burnt to the ground. The Ontario fire marshall said that there were two fire alarms in the unit. According to TCHC, the alarms had recently passed an inspection and they were programmed to notify TCHC if they were not working. This obviously did not happen. On January 7th 2008, in the same area in another TCHC building, a 74-year old man died and 5 others were treated for smoke inhalation after a 3-alarm fire broke out in his 1st floor unit. The Ontario fire marshall said that if sprinklers were installed in both cases, the fires could have been prevented.

Residents of New Orleans are fighting a plan approved by New Orleans City Council to demolish 4,500 public housing units. Going along with the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, the City is arguing that it wants to replace units damaged by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 with new mixed-income housing.
Critics of the plan have argued it would further restrict the stock of affordable housing, especially in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina
“It is beyond callous, and can only be seen as malicious discrimination,” said Kali Akuno of the Coalition to Stop the Demolition. “It is an unabashed attempt to eliminate the black population of New Orleans.”
In December, police used pepper spray and stun guns on workers and residents who came to City Hall to protest the proposal to destroy housing. Several people were treated for the effects of the pepper spray.
Politicians and supporters of the planned demolition argue developers will take advantage of tax breaks and build new neighbourhoods with portions of low-income housing. These arguments were similar to those used at Regent Park, where demolition has started in order to make way for ‘mixed income’ housing which will have some 400-500 less subsidized rental units.

A recent study has shown that US drug companies spend almost twice as much on advertising as on research and development. The authors of the study say this confirms “the public image of a marketing-driven industry.” While Canadian companies spend less on advertising than their US counterparts, they still spend little on research, so the ratio is roughly the same. This is one of the big reason for the high cost of prescription drugs.

On December 19, 2007 the Lakotah Sioux Indians broke of all of their treaties with the Government of the United States and declared the independent Republic of Lakotah, which encompasses territory from Nebraska, Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota.

A four-member delegation of the Lakotah Sioux Indians visited Washington, D.C. to formally submit their withdrawal from their treaties with the American government. The Lakotah Sioux’s legal basis for the move is based on the U.S. Constitution itself, which indicates that treaties are the highest law of the land. One of the delegates, Phyllis Young, a former indigenous representative to the United Nations, stated that “We have 33 treaties with the United States that they have not lived by. They continue to take our land, our water, our children.’’

The Lakotah Sioux have suffered greatly under the rule of the U.S., with a life-expectancy of 44-years for men, one of the lowest in the world, and with an infant mortality rate five times that of the average American. Read more…