While many families are busy preparing for Christmas, three migrant workers known as Three Amigos (or the Three Fathers) are busy preparing their documents for their immigration hearing and steeling themselves for the worse possible scenario, which could be  deportation orders.

In the past weeks, the Canadian public has heard and read about the plight of Antonio Laroya, Arnisito Gaviola and Ermie Zotomayor. The three migrant workers from the Philippines who came to Canada under the Temporary Foreign Workers Program were arrested for violation of work permit restrictions. The news of the decision to remove them from Canada saddens the three fathers, as well as the community and migrant advocates who have indefatigably worked to ask the Minister of Immigration, Citizenship and Multiculturalism Jason Kenney that they be allowed to stay in Canada.

Migrante Canada, a Canada-wide alliance of 16 migrant organizations from British Columbia to the Atlantic Region, expresses its support and sympathy to Antonio, Arnisito and Ermie and their respective families. We know that they want to stay here and be allowed to work so they can provide for their families back home. Their struggle to stay is similar to the struggle of numerous migrant workers who have no pathway to become permanent residents in Canada. Under the present immigration system, there is no available recourse for these three men but to appeal to Immigration Minister Kenney and hope they be allowed to stay under humanitarian and compassionate grounds. Their lawyer, Nobel Peace Price nominee David Matas, has told them to apply for “restoration of status” and “temporary residence” permits that would allow them to work in Canada. Migrante Canada hopes that this option is seriously considered and given to the three migrant workers. Read more…

by Noaman G. Ali

Noaman Ali is the Assistant Editor / Vice Chairperson of BASICS Community News Service. This article was written directly from Nepal, on the second day of the 18^th National Convention of the All Nepal National Independent Students’ Union (Revolutionary).

“No, we do not accept that,” says Prabha Kini, lecturer of sociology at Tribhuvan University. She is referring to an academic article that argues that the Nepali Congress and Communist Party of Nepal (United Marxist-Leninist) or, UML, relied upon the heavy-handed oppression of landlords to gain votes.

These two parties are considered to be the leading status quoist parties in Nepal, in opposition to the revolutionary Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist). Read more…

By R. Sanchez – basicsnews ONLINE – December 2010

The world was forced to take notice of the plight Central and South American migrants must face as they travel through Mexico, when a massacre of 72 people by narco-trafficing gangs was brought to light by some of the few survivors. Sadly, this is but one example of the hundreds, if not thousands, of deaths of migrants making their way to North America, not to mention the assaults, kidnapping, rape, and forced labour they must also endure. Read more…

by Tyler Shipley

A facebook posting reposted with permission from author.

Fuck Don Cherry.  Not on behalf of Adam Vaughn or any of the other city counsellors who felt so affronted by his latest tirade that they – in keeping with the pomposity and arrogance that gives Cherry his pulpit – turned their backs while he spoke and told the media they were shocked by such personal attacks.  These same city counsellors quietly pursue an almost identical agenda to Rob Ford, tempered only by a veneer of liberalism that comes off as false as it is, making hay for those who accuse they of being ‘phonies.’  Adam Vaughn; the hip, bespectacled liberal who refused to listen to Cherry’s ‘speech’ is quoted in the news of the same day defending the Toronto Police for their behaviour during the G20, in which they pulled off the largest mass arrest and suspension of civil liberties in recent history.  Don Cherry would be proud.

No, there is nothing to be gained in defending Don Cherry’s easy targets amongst Toronto’s vapid and hypocritical liberal set.  Cherry, like Ford, cultivates his personal appeal by the appearance of a “no-nonsense” populist plainspeak approach.  As one of his Toronto Sun cheerleaders put it, “his brash, no-BS style…has made him a Canadian icon.”  So rather than coming to the defence of Cherry’s straw-people in city council, maybe it is time to simply call Don Cherry on his own BS. Read more…

by Kabir Joshi-Vijayan – BASICS Issue #23 (Nov/Dec 2010)

The G20 debacle will be remembered, above all else, because for thousands of student organizers, social justice activists, journalists and onlookers, it was their first experience with savage, un-restrained police terror.

Even the most liberal observer could not simply dismiss what happened at the G20 Summit: The images of protestors being pepper sprayed and clubbed by fully armored thugs, grabbed off the street and thrown into unmarked vans; the testimony of people having their basic constitutional rights suspended; the largest mass arrests in Canadian history; the crude and illegal violence enacted against an entirely non-violent group of demonstrators.

It made clear for many the lengths to which the Canadian state would go to eliminate and repress a perceived threat. Read more…

by Shafiqullah Aziz – BASICS Issue #23 (Nov/Dec 2010)

On October 28, the revolutionary hip hop group, Dead Prez, brought the house down at the Great Hall in Toronto. It was the first time since 1996 that both M-1 and Stic Man had performed together in Toronto. They have been going strong for more than a decade now, with two commercially released albums and four mixtapes available for free to download at deadprez.com. Read more…

by C. Meda & M. Cook – BASICS Issue #23 (Nov/Dec 2010)

On November 7, 2010 five attackers broke into the Devine home in Calgary, Alberta and savagely beat Jason Devine and a friend, Jonathan Trautman.

The attackers fractured several of Jason Devine’s ribs and gave Jonathan two skull fractures and a broken arm. Luckily both individuals survived this ordeal.

The police originally reported that the incident had been “a home invasion and robbery,” said Jason Devine, even though “nothing was stolen.”

Shortly after, as a result of “the outcry of the people within the city and across Canada, who have been helping us bring this issue forward, the police [were] compelled to say that it wasn’t a robbery” and that the Devine family had been “targeted for their activism,” said Jason. Read more…

Wikileaks pulls the curtain on U.S. empire / Aide to Harper calls for Julian Assange’s assassination

Nov. 28: State officials and corporate media from all around the world worked frantically to deflect attention from the damning information contained in the hundreds of thousands of secret diplomatic cables leaked by Wikileaks on November 28, 2010.

Top Canadian aide to Stephen Harper Tom Flanagan called for the assassination of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange on CBC Television on December 1, 2010, while U.S. politicians called for Assange to be treated like an Al Qaida terrorist, INTERPOL has listed Assange on their world’s most wanted list, and Sweden is alleging Assange to be guilty of sex-related criminal acts. Read more…

by M. Cook – BASICS Issue #23 (Nov / Dec 2010)

From October 28 to November 4, the Toronto Star ran several articles criticizing the different standards of justice for police officers.

The Star reporters primarily criticized the Special Investigations Unit (SIU), the provincial agency responsible for investigating serious injuries and deaths resulting from interactions between police and the public.

“In its 20-year history, the SIU has conducted at least 3,400 investigations and laid criminal charges after only 95 of them…only 16 officers have been convicted of a crime. Only three have seen the inside of a jail – as inmates,” wrote David Bruser and Michele Henry of the Toronto Star. Read more…

Noaman G. Ali – BASICS Issue #23 (Nov/Dec 2010)

Working-class youth from Esplanade Community Organization and  progressive group Fightback have recently taken the leadership role in the Toronto Young New Democrats (TYND). Because their message is one of a proper working-class platform, the party brass is unhappy.

So the Ontario New Democratic Youth (ONDY) Executive de-chartered TYND from the provincial group in October. Read more…