For our second interview, we talk to York U PhD candidate Justin Panos on the recently released Drummond Report. Panos discusses how privatization is to blame for rising health care costs, not an aging population.

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

Wednesday Feb 29th
Shooting & Technical Skills
5:30 PM- 8:30 PM OISE

Saturday March 3rd
Practical exercises: gather interviews and footage from the International Women’s Day Rally/Fair/March
Time and Location TBA

Sunday March 4th
Final Cut, Story line & Editing footage
9:30 AM-1:30 PM OISE

INSTRUCTOR: Alex Felipe

MATERIALS: Bring a digital recording device (CAMERA, CAMCORDER, EVEN CELLPHONE)*

WORKSHOPS: Try to attend all three workshops (28th, 29th & 4th) if you are interested in being able to properly record, edit and upload video interviews and reports. March 3rd will be spent applying the skills from the first two workshops, and get usuable footage that can be put up on basicsnews.ca by the end of the workshop series.

ATTENDANCE: PLEASE RSVP WITH BASICS IF YOU PLAN ON ATTENDING…SEND OUT TO ANY CONTACTS THAT WOULD BE INTERESTED

*At least two Canon T2is, and one Canon Vixia Camcorder will be BASICS-owned equipment by next week; available for any member to use to record interviews, rallies, events etc. We we all take turns on the T2is & Vixia during the workshops, but Alex recommended each person attending still bring a recording devide to practice on while they are waiting.

Under the aegis of GABRIELA Philippines, our name stands for General Assembly Binding Women for Reforms, Integrity, Equality, Leadership and Action. The organization’s name and its very spirit draw inspiration from one of our many Philippine heroines, Gabriela Silang, who was one of the respected generals in the more than three centuries of resistance and uprisings against the Spanish colonizers. Without doubt, Gabriela has become a lasting symbol for justice and action in the minds of Filipino women.

GABRIELA-Ontario believes that any and all Filipino women in Canada – despite their status as migrant, immigrant, descendant, citizen, or person of mixed heritage – can be part of the organization. Over the last three years, we have been advocating for the rights and welfare of the women in our community awareness-raising campaigns on the oppression and struggles of Filipino women in the Philippines as well as for those of migrants/immigrants in Canada. We also have been addressing issues of oppression and have been improving women’s conditions through education and training programs aimed at skills building and self-empowerment. We are also part of the Migrante-Canada network, the Toronto-based Migrant Women’s Coordinating Body and the recently launched International Women’s Alliance.

The general assembly will take place at Wellesley Community Centre at 495 Sherbourne Street near Sherbourne and Wellesley from 1-5 pm. We will share with you the history of the formation of the group in the last three years and also publicly discuss our constitution and bylaws, and, as well, our program of action. We will then elect our officers. We envision the launch as one that will definitively formalize and solidify our unity as women in the community as we continue to move forward on our struggle in the social, economic and political sphere. Through the well-tested principles of GABRIELA – educating, organizing and mobilizing our members, family and friends – we will build firm foundations for better conditions among our women, alongside the rest of the Filipino people here in Canada and in the Philippines.

Women, our place is in the best of struggles!

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.

[Caution: strong language.]

By Corrie Sakaluk

Obviously, the best way for the matter of Rob Ford’s speech and conduct during his unnecessary calls to emergency services when This Hour Has 22 Minutes comedian Mary Walsh approached him outside his home on October 24, 2011, would be to release the tapes. If there is nothing to be covered up or untoward about Ford’s comments during the calls, then the tapes would reveal and prove this once and for all.

Instead, Chief Bill Blair referred the tapes to OPP Commissioner Chris D. Lewis in order to be reviewed and to have his accounts publicly validated. In an extremely brief letter to Blair on Jan. 20 the Commissioner stated that he could “confirm that the statement you made in a public release on October 28, 2011, is an accurate interpretation of the content of the tapes”.

Great. If that’s the case, then simply release them. It is only a matter of personal request on behalf of the Mayor that the tapes of his 9-1-1 calls have been kept private. He has also already admitted to using the word “fuck” during his call, and to behaving “inappropriately”.

I want to commend CBC ombudsman Kirk LaPointe who reported on January 5 that CBC would stand by their stories and pointed out that Chief Blair’s account of the tapes could not be trusted because his budget was controlled by Mayor Rob Ford. As far as I am aware LaPointe has not retracted or changed his mind, despite having taken flack from Blair spokesperson Mark Pugash, who has called it “offensive” that he would suggest that budget concerns would at all influence Chief Blair.

Is Pugash serious? Is the public really expected to believe that the allocation of money for the police force by Mayor Ford, and thereby Blair’s reputation amongst his colleagues and police officers, as well as their morale, would not be a motivating factor for his actions?

Blair himself is reported as asking for a review of Ford’s comments by the OPP Commissioner “in order to assist the CBC ombudsman in doing his job”. I am personally sceptical that Kirk LaPointe needs or should ever receive police assistance in doing his job as ombudsman at the CBC. In fact I would prefer that he operate independently, free from coercion and police pressure.

Frankly, I find the entire situation with Rob Ford, Mary Walsh and 9-1-1 hilarious. When Rob Ford got elected, I couldn’t have imagined (even in my wildest imaginings) that he would do so many absolutely ridiculous things to make himself such an easy target for political comedians and pundits.

What Rob Ford said or didn’t say during his 9-1-1 call is not even not of huge concern to me. The Mayor called the police on a sketch comedian because he felt truly at risk! The more extreme and frantic he was during the calls is actually the more uproariously side-splitting the story gets.

The broader issue is that even in a situation with so little at stake (i.e. the reputation of a Mayor who is so clearly a buffoon), the police force continues to act as a brotherhood where loyalty and protecting each others’ reputation is a number one priority, regardless of damage done to regular civilians or principles of public disclosure.

This time its whether or not Rob Ford said the word “bitches” or referred to himself as “Rob fucking Ford…the mayor of this city!”

Other times its cover-ups or acquittals when cold-blooded murder is perpetrated by police officers on Toronto streets. The collusion between city police and provincial and federal forces in developing and enforcing secret laws and covering up police violence was nowhere more obvious than in the G20 debacle of summer 2010.

Any attempts to hold police accountable through civilian organizations, such as the Special Investigations Unit (SIU) created in the 1990 Police Services act, have been completely undermined. After decades of civilian activism around police brutality against the Black community in Toronto, the SIU was originally set up to be comprised of civilians instead of police homicide investigators. However it has only been staffed only by retired police officers seen by the force as the only “civilians” qualified enough to conduct investigations of incidents.

Not surprisingly, the SIU has cleared police officers of any wrongdoing in the police murders of several Toronto youth since 2008, including 18-year-old Alwy al-Nadhir and 28-year-old Byron Debassige, leaving their families even more heartbroken and disillusioned.

In the 2010 police murder of 18-year-old Junior Alexander Manon, the SIU interpreted the cause of Junior’s death as a heart attack. They told police that their autopsy found “no broken bones and no anatomical reasons for the death of this 18-year-old”.

The only reason the Toronto-OPP cover up of Rob Ford’s true comments to 9-1-1 staff in October 2011 is of concern is because it points to the bigger problem of lack of police accountability overall. Whether or not he swore or spoke in an arrogant way is not the point.

“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.

-30-

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

“We said we would be willing—and this was just dialogue, wasn’t offers passed back and forth—that we’d take this,” Bob Kinnear makes a zero with his fingers, “provided that the Toronto Transit Commission maintains the level of service.”

But according to Kinnear, president of the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 113 (ATU 113), which represents over 10,000 TTC workers, the City’s negotiators rejected the proposition during bargaining last year.

“You know why? Because for Mayor Ford it’s all about an ideology that they have.” Rob Ford and his crew would rather give a pay increase, so that in the end they can blame tax increases on the workers.

BASICS caught up with Bob Kinnear for an interview at a community event organized by Ward 9 councillor Maria Augimeri to discuss Mayor Rob Ford’s imposition of cuts to city services.

Ford administration's cuts to TTC mean more crowding. (Ian Freimuth/Flickr)

Despite the highest ridership figures ever, the TTC recently announced major service cuts to dozens of routes, and also jacked up fares from $2.50 a token to $2.60, and from $121 for a Metropass to $126. That’s increasing fees despite cutting services. Kinnear says the union is absolutely opposed to fare hikes and service reductions.

A one-percent increase in wages for TTC workers translates to $10 million a year. At two-percent per year over three years, that’s at least $60 million the City could’ve saved.

“The service cuts being proposed [this year] are $14 million. Not only could they maintain service levels with no reductions, they could even add $6 million in improvements,” had they accepted the wage freeze, Kinnear notes.

The offer to take a wage freeze in return for maintaining service levels resembles the recent bargaining offer made by City workers to freeze wages in return for maintaining services slated for cutting by Ford’s administration.

But as Kinnear points out, these were simply moves made to gain public sympathy against a hostile employer, but workers’ pay is not actually the problem. “The problem with transit that needs to be addressed to maintain the costs, at the very least, if not reduce them, is provincial funding.

“The TTC currently receives about 28% to subsidize transit costs. Every other transit system in North America is subsidized much more. In Chicago, you’re talking 45%, New York City, 50%, both the federal and state level governments make contributions. In Toronto we’re collecting 72% out of the fare box, there’s not another transit system anywhere that does that.”

The other problem is the ideology that sees investments in our society as costs to be avoided.

“There’s a difference between a cost and an investment,” Kinnear says. “You don’t say fixing the roof is a cost, so to save money we’re not going to do it. Eventually that’s going to leak into your walls and the cost to repair that will be tenfold.

“That’s just ass-backward thinking. But it doesn’t surprise me coming from an ass like Ford.”

Ford’s worldview is different from Kinnear’s because their worlds are very different. Where Ford grew up rich and comfortable, Kinnear points to his own upbringing by a single mother and the importance that public transit and social services played.

“My mom didn’t have no money. If the community centre cost me money to go, I wasn’t going. I learned to swim at a young age. I grew up in Cabbagetown, and at the youth centre, played basketball, even got a t-shirt for my team, made me feel part of it. Had to pay nothing for it.”

He was never very good at basketball, but those kinds of social services kept him away from less savoury activities. But now, every use of city pools will cost people $2, and many other user fees are planned.

“The only car we had was the streetcar on Queen Street. It’s important socially to the city that people have the ability to move around the city, whether it’s to see my grandmother or other relatives, there’s a social value to ensuring that all people can move around the city efficiently.

“It pisses me off that politicians, particularly the right-winger and conservative politicians, don’t recognize that or talk about it in that framework. It’s an asset to the city and not a liability, and they’re treating it like a liability.”

He also notes that putting money in policing as opposed to social services is not good policy.

“I grew up in an underprivileged community. What Councillor Adam Vaughan was saying about [the choice between] community centres or police stations—I’ve experienced both. The cost of having me in a police station and all of that was much more than six months in the community centre. Again, it’s an investment not a cost.”

Rob Ford and right-wing politicians don't see the social value of transit and community services, Kinnear says. (Mick Sweetman/Flickr)

Kinnear hopes to see the people of the city and its workers working together to build a better future. “What I would like to see is more involvement from the community. Come down to the Commission meeting. Meet us, we’re not those bad people that the Toronto Sun writes about.”

Together, Kinnear says, we have to fight the cuts. “Anybody can tear down the city, that’s easy, but we need to continue to build and invest, particularly in our children and the services that affect our children.”

For our second feature interview, we talk with Canadian Auto Workers Local 27 President Tim Carrie about the situation of locked-out Caterpillar workers in London, Ontario.Featuring music from the Consumer Goods – ‘Hockey Night in Afghanada’ off their 2008 album, The Anti-imperial Cabaret.  

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

Diabo talks to us about the struggle of indigenous peoples against the Indian Act, lands claims processes, and the puppet governments.

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

On December 17, 2011, BASICS Community News Service held its second Annual General Meeting (AGM), just a little over a year after launched as a formal mass organization with a constitution in 2010.

The main tasks of the AGM included reviewing the successes of the past year, putting forward suggestions for the upcoming year, and electing a new executive.

In the realm of media work, highlights from the past year include:

• Maintaining our weekly radio show on CHRY 105.5FM, producing over 40+ radio shows
• Producing 5 print editions (Issues 23-27) with a total print run of over 30,000 copies
• Launching a new website
• Beginning to make regular use of Facebook and Twitter for the organization
• Building up a public list-serv to almost 1500 subscribers, and circulating a regular online newsletter

Rebel Diaz live in Toronto

We continued to advance our alliance work as well by participating in International Women’s Day organizing, advancing May Day organizing in the May 1st Movement and playing a leading role in the founding of the Canadian Chapter of the International League of People’s Struggles. We also sent three delegates to ILPS 4th International Assembly in the Philippines, and reported from there.

At our December 2011 AGM, the results for the elections to the Executive Committee were as follows: Martin Cook (Editor) and Shafiqullah Aziz (Social and Cultural Officer) were re-elected to their positions; J.D. Benjamin (Assistant Editor) and Pragash Pio (Finance Officer) were elected to new posts; and Marianne Lau (Education Officer) and Louisa Worrell (Secretary) are newly elected members to the Executive Committee.  BASICS thanks its outgoing Executive Committee members, Greg D. (Distribution Officer), Steve da Silva (Education Officer), and Noaman Ali (Assistant Editor) for all their efforts in 2011, who did not stand in elections in order to play more active roles at the base of the organization.  The Distribution Officer was not contested at the AGM, but was later filled by Kabir Joshi-Vijayan.In the upcoming year, in addition to continuing our strong community journalism we will be ramping up our School of People’s Journalism into a series of people’s journalism modules to be deployed across multiple working class neighbourhoods in Toronto.  We hope that the SPJ will allow us to continue improving the relevancy of our content; expanding to new mediums (such as video podcasts); and increasing the number of people our news reaches (both in print and online formats). We are committed to increasing our membership and also ensuring that our membership becomes increasingly based in the working class communities that we ground our work and content in.

Any one or organization interested in joining the BASICS news team or in the School of People’s Journalism may contact us at basics.canada@gmail.com.