For our feature interview, we talk to Arthur Manuel, a member of the Secwepemc Nation, in the South-Central Interior of British Columbia, Canada, who served as Chief of the Neskonlith Indian Band for eight years and the Chairperson for the Shuswap Nation Tribal Council for seven years. Manuel also headed the Interior Alliance and currently serves as volunteer Chairperson for the Indigenous Network on Economies and Trade (INET), and is part of the Defenders of the Land network.

We talked to Arthur Manuel about the results of the First Nations-Crown Summit on January 25, 2012, a dissect the Conservative govt’s claims that First Nations will be given greater autonomy, which will actually amount to the liquidation of the land base of First Nations communities through municipalization and privatization of land through the ‘fee simple’ process.

Click here to link to podcast or listen to the interview directly from the Mp3 player at the bottom of your BASICSnews.ca window.

[Editor's note: BASICS has joined the campaign of non-cooperation with CSIS and encourages other peoples' organizations to join in this important endeavour]

“For far too long we have tolerated the unacceptable activities of CSIS, whether through a false sense of loyalty or fear. We are here today to say that we will no longer voluntarily cooperate with CSIS when its agents come knocking on our doors or show up unannounced at our workplaces. We will not put ourselves, our neighbours, our friends, our families here or overseas, our organizations and our work for justice at risk by speaking with or listening to CSIS agents. We will say no to CSIS and yes to freedom from fear and political control,” said Marie-Eve Lamy, active in the People’s Commission Network.

Over the last decade, CSIS’s budget has increased by 140%, reaching $430 million in 2009. In 2010, the agency maintained almost 3000 employees. It also had information-sharing agreement with 147 countries. CSIS has been heavily involved in several Canadian cases of rendition to torture but has emerged from these and other scandals unscathed, protected by a broad mandate, laws assuring the secrecy of its operations, and lack of any real accountability.

“By questioning Arabs about their political views and about each other, and by implying that pro-Palestinian and anti-colonial perspectives are suspect, CSIS has in the past succeeded in sowing fear and silencing support for justice and freedom in the Middle East,” said Amy Darwish, an organizer with Tadamon! Montreal, which works for justice in the Middle East.

“Intelligence agencies have a tendency to view union activists as subversives; we cannot encourage informing, nor passing on information that could be used against people whose only fault is to want to have their rights recognized,” said Francis Lagacé, second vice-President of the Conseil central du Montréal métropolitain de la CSN.
“CSIS tactics create fear and isolation in our communities, particularly immigrant communities. In the face of their intimidation and racial profiling, migrant justice groups are responding with weapons of solidarity and support, aiming to render CSIS ineffective with a campaign of non-collaboration, while also supporting individuals pressured by CSIS during the immigration process,” said Jaggi Singh, a member of Solidarity Across Borders.

“Migrants, refugees, women in crisis are already insecure. CSIS exploits them, preying on their vulnerability. With this campaign of non-collaboration, we convey to them they are not alone; there are many of us working in solidarity to protect our communities; to protect one another,” said Dolores Chew, on behalf of the South Asian Women’s Community Centre.

The People’s Commission and its allies will be carrying out a series of activities over the next months to shine a spotlight on CSIS abuse and break the fear and isolation among those targetted by CSIS.

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Media Contacts
514 222 0205 (english)
438-838-8498 (french)

Source
People’s Commission Network
www.peoplescommission.org
commissionpopulaire@gmail.com

The following groups have endorsed the People Commission Network’s Community Advisory concerning non-collaboration with the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS):

Alliance of Concerned Jewish Canadians
Apatrides anonymes
Association facultaire étudiante des sciences humaines de l’UQAM (AFESH-UQAM)
Quebec Trans Health Action (ASTT(e)Q)
Barriere Lake Solidarity Collective
Base de Paix de Montréal
Campaign to Stop Secret Trials in Canada
Canadian Arab Federation
Centre communautaire des Punjabis du Québec
Centre de ressources éducatives et communautaires pour adultes (CRÉCA)
Centre for Philippine Concerns
Centre Québécois de Formation pour les jeunes en matière de droits humains
Certain Days Political Prisoner Calendar Committee
CKUT Steering Committee
Collective against police brutality (COBP)
Comité des sans-emploi Montréal-Centre
Comité pour les droits humains en Amérique latine (CDHAL)
Community Coalition Against Racism (Hamilton, Ontario)
Convergence des luttes anti-capitalistes (CLAC)
Coalition contre la répression et les abus policiers
Conseil central du Montréal Métropolitain – CSN
Canadian Council of Muslim Women – Ottawa Chapter
Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW)
CUTV
Dignidad Migrante
DIRA Bibiothèque Anarchiste
El-Hidaya Association
Fédération nationale des enseignantes et enseignants du Québec (FNEEQ-CSN)
Front d’action populaire en réaménagement urbain (FRAPRU)
Haiti Action Montreal
Halifax Peace Coalition
Hamilton Coalition to Stop the War
Immigrant Workers Centre (IWC)
Independent Jewish Voices
Indigeous Solidarity Committee (Montreal)
l’Union communiste libertaire (UCL)
La Pointe Libertaire
Latin American Canadian Solidarity Association (London, Ontario)
Le Mouvement RebELLEs
Mouvement Action-Chômage de Montréal
No One Is illegal Montreal
No One Is Illegal Ottawa
No One Is Illegal Toronto
No One Is illegal Vancouver
NOWAR-PAIX (Ottawa, Ontario)
Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP)
Organisation populaire des droits sociaux de la région de Montréal (OPDS-RM)
Ottawa Muslim Women’s Organization (OMWO)
Palestinian and Jewish Unity (PAJU)
Parti communiste revolutionnaire (PCR)
People for Peace, London
People’s Commission Network
Project X
Projet Accompaniment Solidarité Colombie (PASC)
QPIRG Concordia
QPIRG McGill
Queer McGill Political Action Working Group
Société Bolivarienne du Québec/Hands Off Venezuela
Solidarity Across Borders
South Asian Women’s Community Centre (SAWCC)
Sudbury Against War and Occupation
Tadamon! Montreal
The Dominion
Toronto Action for Social Change
Vancouver Media Co-op (Editorial Collective)
Yeni Hayat
8th March Committee of Women of Diverse Origins
2110 Centre

A critical take on the Conservative ‘tough-on-crime’ agenda

by Natasha Brien & Sasha Carty – BASICS Issue #27 (Dec 2011 / Jan 2012)

Now that the Conservatives have their majority government, they will be forging ahead with the so-called ‘tough-on-crime’ agenda they’ve been pushing for five years. One of the first changes came earlier this year with the repeal of accelerated parole (previously available to first-time, non-violent, federal prisoners after serving 1/6^th of their sentences). The basis for eliminating this law was the case of Mr. Earl Jones and Mr. Leon Kordzian – two men convicted of extorting large amounts of money from primarily affluent people.

What is striking is that the repeal of accelerated parole was applied retroactively. Unless prisoners had an acceptance letter in hand or were already out in the community, they were immediately denied accelerated parole, creating a backlog in the system. This was clearly one strategic move to ensure more bodies remain within Canadian prisons.

Building upon this is the omnibus crime bill, which Harper publically promised to pass within 100 sitting days of being re-elected. Many people have jumped on board with the bills, blinded by the fallacy that tougher laws and longer sentences will ultimately reduce the crime rate (a rate that has been decreasing prior to harsher crime bills) and in return create a safer society. Read more…

by Kelsey Mowatt – OpenMedia.ca

While the Conservative government may have shelved its Internet surveillance legislation for the time-being – thanks in no small part to the 75,000 folks who have signed OpenMedia.ca’s StopOnlineSpying petition – it’s important for Canadians to stay on top of this issue. The legislation received little to no democratic feedback or committee oversight to begin with, and Public Safety Minister Vic Toews has gone on record stating that the “legislation will come.” In other dramatic and often stated words, the battle has been won, but the war has just begun….

Despite repeated claims from the government that their proposed “Lawful Access” legislation does not infringe on the privacy rights of Canadians, all of Canada’s Privacy Commissioners, including Federal Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart, oppose the agenda. In October, Ontario’s Information and Privacy Commissioner Ann Cavoukian wrote an openletter to Toews himself, and compared the government’s legislation to “enacting a highly intrusive surveillance regime.”

The Conservative government’s online spying agenda would grant authorities warrantless access to Canadians’ personal information, including address, phone number, e-mail address, Internet protocol address, and device identification numbers.

While on the surface this may seem innocent enough, many privacy and surveillance experts have warned that authorities could use this information to compile an extensive and invasive record of anyone’s online activities without judicial oversight. In addition, this aggregated data would reflect any and all Internet activity that is tied to these numbers and addresses, meaning the privacy invasion may extend to people who authorities don’t even seek to watch.

Now if you, your friend, or co-worker, isn’t worried about things like online privacy, the security of your personal and or financial information, then you might be asking, “what’s really the big deal?” After all, if you have “nothing to hide”, then what’s the problem right?

Well, aside from the issue of your civil liberties, there is the problem of what the government’s proposed Internet surveillance will cost you the consumer.

Several Internet experts and civil rights advocates, like the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, have publicly acknowledged that the implementation of such legislation will likely cost millions of dollars. Will the cost of enacting and purchasing this online spying technology fall on the public purse? Or will it be passed on to ISPs themselves, which in turn, will be shifted on to you to take yet another bite out of your bank account? And all this during less-than-certain economic times…

What will be the financial impact of government-mandated Internet surveillance on smaller ISPs? These are additional costs that, as Tom Copeland, head of chair of the Canadian Association of Internet Providers (CAIP) has gone onrecord saying, could potentially put some smaller ISPs out of business.  Canadian consumers need more competition for Big Telecom, not less.

While the Conservative government has put its online spying agenda on the back burner for now, OpenMedia.ca needs your continued support to make sure this legislation doesn’t rear its invasive and costly head again.

Kelsey Mowatt is a researcher with OpenMedia.ca

GROUP STATEMENT BY 17 PEOPLE CHARGED WITH CONSPIRACY DURING THE G20 REGARDING A PLEA DEAL

Pat Cadorette, Erik Lankin, Paul Sauder, Meghan Lankin, Bill Vandreil, Joanna Adamiak, Julia Kerr, David Prychitka, Alex Hundert, Monica Peters, Sterling Stutz, Leah Henderson, Adam Lewis, Mandy Hiscocks, Peter Hopperton, SK Hussan, Terrance Luscombe

Individual statements by all 17 will soon appear on the website conspiretoresist.ca. If you would like to issue a solidarity statement in support, please email toronto.g20resist@gmail.com.

November 22, 2011 — As people across Turtle Island look towards the global wave of protests against the austerity agenda, the memory of the 2010 G20 protests in Toronto looms large as both inspiration and caution. We are seventeen people accused by the state of planning to disrupt the leaders summit – the prosecutors call us the G20 Main Conspiracy Group.

This alleged conspiracy is absurd. We were never all part of any one group, we didn’t all organize together, and our political backgrounds are all different. Some of us met for the first time in jail. What we do have in common is that we, like many others, are passionate about creating communities of resistance.

Separately and together, we work with movements against colonialism, capitalism, borders, patriarchy, white supremacy, ableism, hetero/cis-normativity, and environmental destruction. These are movements for radical change, and they represent real alternatives to existing power structures. It is for this reason that we were targeted by the state.

Although these conspiracy charges have been a big part of our daily reality for the past year and a half, we have been slow in speaking out collectively. This is partly because of the restrictive bail conditions that were placed on us, including non-association with our co-accused and many of our close allies. In addition, those of us who did speak out have been subjected to a campaign of intimidation and harassment by the police and prosecutors.  We are writing now because we have negotiated a plea deal to resolve our charges and to bring this spectacle to an end.

The state’s strategy after the G20 has been to cast a wide net over those who mobilized against the summit (over 1, 000 detained and over 300 charged) and then to single out those they perceived to be leaders. Being accused of conspiracy is a surreal, bureaucratic nightmare that few political organizers have experienced in this country, but unfortunately it is becoming more common. We can’t say with any certainty if what we did was in fact an illegal conspiracy. Ultimately though, whether or not our organizing fits into the hypocritical and oppressive confines of the law isn’t what’s important. This is a political prosecution. The government made a political decision to spend millions of dollars to surveil and infiltrate anarchist, Indigenous solidarity, and migrant justice organizing over several years. After that kind of investment, what sort of justice are we to expect?

We have not been powerless in this process; however any leverage we’ve had has not come from the legal system, but from making decisions collectively. This has been a priority throughout, particularly in the last several months, as the preliminary inquiry gradually took a back seat to negotiations for a deal to end it. The consensus process has been at times a heart-wrenching, thoughtful, gruelling, disappointing, and inspiring experience, and in the end, we got through it together.

Of the seventeen of us, six will be pleading and the eleven others will have their charges withdrawn. Alex Hundert, and Mandy Hiscocks are each pleading to one count of counselling mischief over $5,000 and one count of counselling to obstruct police, and Leah Henderson, Peter Hopperton, Erik Lankin, and Adam Lewis are each pleading to a single count of counselling mischief over $5,000. We are expecting sentences to range between 6 and 24 months, and all will get some credit for time already served in jail and on house arrest.

Three defendants in this case had their charges withdrawn earlier and one has already taken a plea to counselling mischief over $5,000 that involved no further jail time. This means that out of twenty-one people in the supposed G20 Main Conspiracy Group, only seven were convicted of anything, and none were convicted of conspiracy. The total of fourteen withdrawals demonstrates the tenuous nature of the charges.

This system targets many groups of people including racialized, impoverished and Indigenous communities, those with precarious immigration status, and those dealing with mental health and addiction.  The kinds of violence that we have experienced, such as the pre-dawn raids, the strip-searches, the surveillance, and pre-sentence incarceration happen all the time.  The seventeen of us have moved through the legal system with a lot of privilege and support.  This includes greater access to
“acceptable” sureties, and the financial means to support ourselves and our case.  While the use of conspiracy charges against such a large group of political organizers is noteworthy, these tactics of repression are used against other targeted communities every day.

There is no victory in the courts. The legal system is and always has been a political tool used against groups deemed undesirable or who refuse to co-operate with the state. It exists to protect Canada’s colonial and capitalist social structure. It is also deeply individualistic and expensive. This system is designed to break up communities and turn
friends against each other.

Within this winless situation, we decided that the best course of action was to clearly identify our goals and needs and then to explore our options. Within our group, we faced different levels of risk if convicted, and so we began with the agreement that our top priority was to avoid any deportations. Other key goals we reached were to minimize the number of convictions, to honour people’s individual needs, and to be mindful of how our decisions affect our broader movements. Although we are giving up some important things by not going to trial, this deal achieves specific goals that we weren’t willing to gamble.

Our conversations have always been advised by concern for the broader political impacts of our choices. One noteworthy outcome is that there are no conspiracy convictions emerging from this case, thus avoiding the creation of a dangerous legal precedent that would in effect criminalize routine tasks like facilitation. Taking this deal also frees up community resources that have been embroiled in this legal process.

We emerge from this united and in solidarity.

To those who took us in while on house arrest, to those who raised money for our legal and living expenses, to those who cooked food, wrote letters, offered rides and supported us politically and emotionally throughout, thank you.

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.

To communities and neighbourhoods fighting back from Cairo to London, from Greece to Chile, in Occupied Turtle Island and beyond, see you in the streets.

Montreal | BASICS – 11 September 2011

by Steve da Silva

The death of some three thousand civilians ten years ago can no longer be claimed by the imperialists as a pretext for their endless War on Terror’.  Ten years on, the world is no safer from terror – certainly not the state-sponsored terror.  Not only have the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya claimed 100 times the lives of the September 11 attack, but the NATO imperialists’ shameless war in Libya – in which they helped usher into power al-Qaida elements (Libyan Islamic Fighting Group) and other unscrupulous paramilitary forces – reveals that Islamic terror groups are not the true targets of the imperialist wars of the last decade.

Here in Canada today, this was the message of anti-imperialist forces who rallied to register their dissent to the role of Canadian imperialism in the US-led global war.  In Montreal, the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP) organized a demonstration downtown to protest Canada’s role in the wars in Afghanistan, Libya, and its shameless support for Israeli state-terror against the Palestinians.

"Strugggle against war, crisis, and terrror: Down with imperialism!"

Beginning at Cabot Square, the march was attended by some 150 people, weaving north-east through Rue Sainte Catherine and René-Lévesque passing the U.S. Consulate and Canadian Federal Government Guy Favreau Building, burning U.S. and Canadian flags along the way.

While mourning the victims of 9/11, the anti-imperialist coalition ILPS-Canada issued a statement today that also opposed Canada’s role in the War on Terror and the rampant militarism it has unleashed since then: “With U.S. forces overstretched in Iraq, Afghanistan and other such areas, the Canadian government and ruling elite have been stepping in to take up the slack. Billions of our dollars is being spent on military armaments, fighter planes, and new troops instead of schools, health care and job creation at home. The Canadian military is now planning to set up permanent military presence in up to seven countries including Senegal, South Korea, Kenya, Singapore and Kuwait, along with Germany and Jamaica.”

Chilean national heroes Salvador Allende and folk singer Victor Jara in line with images of a small fraction of the thousands of disappeared and executed under the US-backed Pinochet military dictatorship. -Parc Jeanne-Mance, Montreal | Sep 11, 2011

A couple hours earlier, some 50 Chileans and other supporters rallied at Parc Jeanne-Mance in the Plateau area of Montréal to commemorate another grave act of terror carried out on September 11…1973: The US-sponsored coup d’etat in Chile.  Chilean-Quebecers rallied to mourn the torture, disappearance and execution of the thousands in Chile after the 1973 coup, which is the event that triggered the large exodus of Chilean refugees to Canada and elsewhere in the world.

Barriere Lake Algonquins say “No” to mining exploration on their land, Cree workers agree to leave site

RAPID LAKE, QC – Last week, Barriere Lake community members discovered that Val D’Or based Cartier Resources has begun line-cutting in preparation for mining exploration on their unceded Aboriginal lands. According to their website, the mining company claims that their “100% owned” land base of 439 square kilometers boasts rich copper deposits ripe for exploitation.

The so-called “Rivière Doré Project” was undertaken without obtaining the community’s free, prior, and informed consent – the minimum standards set out in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People (UNDRIP), which Canada has endorsed in words but not in action. The mining project also violates the community’s own environmental protection regime, the Trilateral Agreement, which was signed in 1991 by Barriere Lake, Quebec, and Canada and has yet to be honoured.

The workers on site, predominantly Crees from the Mistassini and Oujebougamou First Nations, agreed to leave when the Algonquins traveled to the proposed mine location and explained their opposition to the development. The larger battle with the Cartier Resources, however, looms ahead.

Barriere Lake community members will return to maintain a presence at the proposed mining site and stop all further developments. Please stay tuned for further developments and action call-outs.

REPORT ON THE ACTIVITIES OF THE INDIAN ACT BAND COUNCIL

The community remains largely in the dark concerning the activities of the band council. Illegitimate in the eyes of most people in the community, this band council rose to power through the imposition of an Indian Act provision (Section 74) that gives the Minister of Indian Affairs discretion to overthrow Indigenous customary government systems.

One thing is clear, though: Barriere Lake is open for business now. Mining companies, logging companies, and costly Hydro electrification and reserve housing development have all been green-lighted by the band council.

While investments in reserve infrastructure are badly needed, they are coming at the price of burying the larger issue of land management of the whole territory.

By Jessica Ponting

Every year, people from nearly 100 countries around the world stand together on April 28 to mourn and demand justice for those who were killed or injured as a result of their labour. This April 28, there are many to mourn and there is much to fight for.

Hundreds attended a candlelight vigil for four migrant construction workers killed Christmas Eve in a suspended scaffolding accident

Still fresh in many people’s memories are the deaths of Alexander Bondorev, Aleksey Blumberg, Fayzullo Fazilov and Vladimir Korostin, the migrant workers who were killed when the scaffolding they were working on collapsed on Christmas Eve 2009. Their deaths sparked demands from community members to ensure full immigration status, workplace protections, health benefits and just workers’ compensation for all workers, particularly those without full status.

Paul Roach and Ralston White will also be remembered. On September 10, 2010 the two workers died working at a farm near Owen Sound. One worker was repairing a broken pump in a cider tank and was overwhelmed by the fumes. The second worker tried to save his comrade, but he too was overwhelmed by the fumes. Both men died before they could be rescued.

Roach and White had been coming to rural Ontario from Jamaica annually as part of the federal government’s Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program (SAWP). The program has been widely criticized for preventing labour mobility through employer-specific work permits and because the employer is able to threaten workers with deportation. Despite numerous requests following the deaths of White and Roach, there has been no indication that the government will do a coroner’s inquest and no changes have been made to the migration program that contributed to their deaths. Read more…

By Louise Jones

As the election nears, Canada’s three major parties all claim they’ll take action that will help workers and their families. But the track record of these parties tells a drastically different story.

The Conservative Party

One of the first things the Harper minority government did when it came to power in 2006 was to withdraw billions of dollars from Aboriginal communities, even though the Kelowna agreement guaranteed these funds. His government also eliminated the Status of Women Canada, a federal agency focused on promoting women’s equality, illegally defunded KAIROS, a faith-based charity organization critical of Israeli policies in the West Bank and Gaza and spent more than one billion dollars to violently quash dissent in Toronto during the G20 protests. And that’s just to name a few of the current government’s memorable moments.

These symbolic manoeuvres fall in line with the larger conservative policy trend to divert taxpayers money away from social programs. This money is instead spent on security at home, to better protect the political and economic elite, and abroad, where a handful of corporations make a literal killing from imperialist occupations. The current conservative government allocates $30 billion for fighter jets and $13 billion for what mainstream media have termed “US-style mega prisons.”

While it was a Liberal government that first sent troops to Afghanistan in 2001, the Conservatives extended the mission two times, most recently saying Canadian soldiers will remain in the country in a “training capacity” until 2014. Testimony from Afghani people and Wikileaks documents revealed that NATO forces fund warlords and even the Taliban themselves as they attempt to establish a west-friendly regime in a land rich with minerals. Read more…