Police are taking lessons from the British occupation of Northern Ireland, and applying them to poor communities in Southern Ontario. This is the chilling conclusion of BASICS Kitchener-Waterloo’s research into the new PAVIS (Provincial Anti-Violence Strategy) model being deployed in Kitchener.
PAVIS supposedly focuses on crime prevention and building relationships with youth and mobilizing communities, however, it is actually about using counter-insurgency tactics to police communities in Canada.
In November, Kitchener community activist Julian Ichim attended a conference held by the Office of the Independent Police Review Director (OIPRD)—a body which is supposed to investigate complaints about police. Yet, the main purpose of the meeting was for OIPRD to promote a community policing model based on counter-insurgency techniques. Expert speaker, Dr. Webb, claimed that this model of policing is effective in Northern Ireland.
At a conference that was supposed to ‘consult’ with the community, Ichim says “Half the delegates walked out in disgust at their voices being silenced.”
The OIPRD is an allegedly independent body from the police force. But the board doesn’t seem to have much independence: “It’s funded by the government, and one out of every two people who works there is an ex-cop,” Ichim said.
Kitchener’s PAVIS is basically the same as Toronto’s Anti-Violence Intervention Strategy (TAVIS). This is a model of intensive police repression on targetted poor and racialized communities which has been used for the past few years in Toronto. It also resembles the model of counter-insurgency policing that Dr. Webb was referring to at the OIPRD conference.
Last year, a Toronto a police superintendent attended a Jane and Finch Crisis Support Network meeting to intimidate the community. The group’s purpose is to discuss police brutality and safety in Jane and Finch—a working-class area in Toronto and designated TAVIS area. At the meeting, the police officer verbally attacked the group’s chair, Sabrina ‘Butterfly’ Gopaul, and many community members were forced to leave the meeting visibly upset.
Similar encounters have started to occur during meetings on police brutality in Kitchener. Dianne, an activist, recounted: “We had a call-out for people to go to the Queen Street Commons [generally a safe haven for organisers] for people to talk about their experience with police brutality. The Police came right in, tried to chat people up, and took our fliers.”
Kitchener-Waterloo is not taking PAVIS laying down: fighting back is the priority for this year’s annual day against police brutality.
Joey, a coordinator of the March Against Police Brutality, said, “Our focus this year is to release a People’s Report in response to the OIPRD report.”
The people’s report will be a consultation not run by OIPRD police sympathizers. The community is also planning a protest on March 15—the 16th annual International Day Against Police Brutality.
“Our main mission is to raise awareness of how much police brutality there is and how very little is done about it,” Dianne, one of the coordinators said.
At last year’s anti-police brutality demonstration in Kitchener, police used horses to push the crowd, including young children, off the public road.
Kitchener-Waterloo’s 3rd annual March Against Police Brutality will take place on March 15, 5pm at City Hall. All are welcome.
by Laura Lepper
For information about the March 19 court support for Francine “Flower” Doxtator click this link.
In March and July 2013, two Six Nations women Francine “Flower” Doxtator and Theresa “Toad” Jamieson will be dragged through the Canadian courts once again for their defense of their nations’ lands. These women, along with other Six Nations land defenders, have consistently maintained that the Canadian courts do not have jurisdiction over Haudenosaunee peoples.
As these Haudenosaunee land defenders face the courts, they assert that the courts violates both the Two Row Wampum treaty and the rightful law – the Great Law of Peace – of the stolen land on which the courthouse stands. Toad stressed on December 12th, 2012 to the courts: “I don’t accept your law…See this Two Row wampum flag? There’s supposed to be separate ruling.”
The charges against Flower and Toad stem from the provocations of anti-Native rights activist Gary McHale and the Ontario Provincial Police on the reclaimed land of Kanonhstaton located just outside of Caledonia, Ontario. Kanonhstaton means “the protected place” in Kanienkehaka, the Mohawk nation’s language.
In 2006, Haudenosaunee people of Six Nations of the Grand River Territory reclaimed land in “dispute” for more than 150 years in order to stop development of a Caledonia subdivision on stolen land.
In reaction to the reclamation, Gary McHale and his followers, under the name of “Canadian Advocates for Charter Equality” (CANACE) set about a political movement against “native lawlessness,” “land claim terrorism,” and “race-based policing.” CANACE played a leading role in trying to establish a “Caledonia Militia” to stop land defenders.
Throughout the past year, several land defenders have faced charges and legal restrictions that have kept them from the reclaimed land of Kanonhstaton. Several of these charges have come as a result of provocations stemming from McHale’s incursion into Kanonhstaton. On February 18th, 2012, escorted by OPP officers, McHale instigated conflict by marching towards the house on the reclaimed land; and on July 7th, McHale tried to grab onto land defender Sean Toulouse to place him under “citizen’s arrest.” As Toulouse pulled back, McHale called for the OPP to charge Toulouse with assault, which the OPP did. This whole act can be seen on a YouTube video posted by McHale’s organization.
Throughout September 2012, McHale and his followers repeated this charade in order to criminalize more land defenders. Gary McHale was recently nominated by the Canadian Taxpayer’s Federation and awarded a Queen’s Jubilee Medal.
As part of a campaign to resist the racist criminalization of land defenders and the fight for Indigenous land rights and sovereignty as asserted by the Two Row Wampum, the CUPE 3903 First Nations Solidarity Working Group (Toronto), the Two Row Society (Toronto), Friends of Kanonhstaton (Niagara) and Grand River Indigenous Solidarity (Kitchener-Waterloo) organize a strong supportive presence each time that Flower and Toad face the courts.
Criminalizing land defenders, disobeying treaties and violating Indigenous land rights is essential to the vested interests of the Canadian state to remove all obstacles to the exploitation of Mother Earth and her people. McHale’s actions attempt to further pave the way towards this goal.
Uniting our struggles in defense of Indigenous land rights and the Two Row treaty builds powerful resistance to this goal of capitalist exploitation. Building a supportive force at each court date is one part of the relationship building, education and actions of resistance necessary to build the movement.
Join us for a rally, round dance and court support for Flower on March 19th at the Cayuga courthouse, and later in July 2013 for Toad.
About the Author: Laura Lepper is a non-Indigenous member of the Two Row Society, based on Haudenosaunee territory in Brantford, Ontario.
by Jesse M. Zimmerman
Successive Conservative governments led by Prime Minister Stephen Harper have moved to make Canada an “energy superpower.” As a result, Alberta’s tar sands have become central to Canada’s economy.
The tar sands are a massive patch of submerged oil, totaling 140,800 square kilometers. Extracting petroleum from the tar sands requires a lengthy and expensive process that uses a large amount of fresh water and ejects an enormous amount of greenhouse gases.
Needless to say, the tar sands can cause irreversible damage to the planet. Indeed, as Dr. James Hansen, a NASA scientist, said last year: “If Canada proceeds, and we do nothing, it will be game over for the climate.” Yet, the government is currently planning to expand the tar sands project by building pipelines across Canada in order to export the petroleum to international markets.
One of the proposed pipelines is the “Northern Gateway,” which runs from Northern Alberta to the Pacific Coast of Kitimat in British Columbia. Many organizations and First Nations communities have opposed this pipelines for many reasons, including: the possibility of oil tankers capsizing near the fragile eco-system of the Pacific Coast; the possibility of pipe leaks; and that the pipe route is located on indigenous territory. It does not help that Enbridge—the company that would be developing the Northern Gateway—has had a history of major oil spills. In 2010, Enbridge spilled a total of 34,122 barrels of oil, forcing entire communities to evacuate.
The opposition to the Northern Gateway has been fierce, and the pipeline has now become a hard sell for both Enbridge and the Harper government. However, rather than abandon the project, another route is being sought — one that is much closer to home.
Since 1976, a pipeline called “Line 9,” has transported oil through Southern Ontario. Initially, Line 9 carried crude oil from Sarnia, through Ontario, and into Quebec. In the 1990s however, the flow was reversed so that oil flowed from Montreal to Sarnia. Now, Enbridge is proposing to reverse the flow once again, but this time to carry tar sands oil instead of crude oil.
The larger plan is to have Line 9 connect to other pipeline infrastructure from the West, and to carry the tar sands oil to Montreal and further on to Portland, Maine in the United States. The ultimate goal is to pump tar sands oil from Alberta to the Atlantic coast in order to bring tar sands oil to international markets.
The National Energy Board has approved the reversal of one part of the existing Line 9 infrastructures—the flow from Sarnia, Ontario to Hanover, Ontario. Enbridge is now seeking approval for the rest of the line to be reversed.
Enbridge’s Line 9 plan presents a huge threat to the communities that live alongside the route—that’s 9.1 million people who live within 50 kilometers of it. Indeed, Line 9 was originally created to transport conventional crude oil—not tar sands oil, which is a far more corrosive and acidic type of petroleum. There is no telling of what tar sands oil could do to the aging pipe.
Further, the pipe runs through many water sources, including both the Humber and the Don River in Toronto—the city’s primary drinking sources. The pipe also runs through many waterways near major city centers, including Kingston, Hamilton, Burlington, Ajax, and London; as well as eighteen First Nations territories. And—when we consider Enbridge’s track record—there is also the catastrophic risk to those communities in the event of a spill.
Communities that live along Line 9 have started to mobilize against Enbridge’s proposal. Considering that we live in the days of superstorms and unprecedented heat waves, mobilization may be the only way we can get out of the bind we now find ourselves in. The past few years, with the Occupy movement and Idle No More, have given us examples of how to mobilize and resist callous and short-sighted policies—examples of how people-power from the grassroots is a potent force to be reckoned with!
On December 30th of 2012, members of both the Onkwehonwe [First Peoples] of the Haudenosaunee 6′Nations Confederacy and the Canadian Tamil community met in Scarborough. This event fulfilled an invitation extended to Tamil activists and their community in 2010 by the Men’s Fire of 6′Nations, when 6′Nations activists became aware of the Tamil community’s historic protests trying to raise awareness of the Sri Lankan state’s genocide of the Tamil people and nation.
The Onkwehonwe participants shared with the Tamil community the principles of The Great Law of Peace, The Two-Row Wampum, the traditional stories, treaties, culture and language that could be the basis of new relationship between all racialized immigrant-settlers and Onkwehonwe of Turtle Island [First People of North America]. Tamil activists connected the struggle for Tamil Eelam with the struggle of Onkwehonwe nations, especially the struggle to resist the colonialism and imperialism the Canadian state propagates locally and internationally.
Participants pointed to similarities between how the Canadian state used the residential school system to destroy Onkwehonwe spiritualities, languages and cultures, European colonial and missionary education during the colonization of Ceylon which continues as Sri Lanka’s use of internationally-funded Sinhalese-medium Buddhist schools to destroy Tamils’ traditional language and cultures. Omnibus Bill C-45 (which would simultaneously abolish fundamental Onkwehonwe treaty rights, attack the rights of refugees and new immigrants, and remove environmental protections in favour of polluting development of thousands of essential rivers and lands in Onkwehonwe territory), has both given rise to the Idle No More Movement, and shown the need for practical forms of solidarity and joint struggle between racialized peoples and Onkwehonwe peoples and nations. Participants of the event, therefore, outlined four commitments and demands that should be taken up by all principled members of the Tamil community. It is our assertion that adopting these principles is crucial to both the struggle for Tamil liberation, and the liberation of indigenous peoples globally and particularly on occupied Turtle Island:
Conclusion
While the Tamil participants, who came from a varied and representative cross-section of the community, came up with these four principles/demands cooperatively, several practical concerns remained. One issue was whether the Tamil community has the legitimacy or power to call for Indigenous sovereignty while being a newly arrived immigrant community with many members holding precarious residency status. The Onkwehonwe speakers pointed out that while deportation of individuals was a possibility, that the Canadian state could only threaten individuals; it couldn’t deport the thousands a mass movement would involve. Furthermore, while Bill C-45 is already establishing laws that would restrict the most precarious migrants of the Tamil community, The Great Law of Peace that underwrites Onkwehonwe sovereignty would confront such xenophobia and further de-legitimize such attacks because the Canadian state acts illegitimately and illegally as a colonial occupier. Finally the issue of the Tamil communities’ historic ‘silence’ on indigenous issues was also raised by Tamil activists. Further discussion highlighted the fact that the Tamil community in Toronto, as a relatively young immigrant community, hasn’t had much experience with or information about Onkwehonwe people and nations of this land, besides the colonial education system of the Canadian state. The importance of a program of education and cultural exchange became paramount. This program of education must be taken up by Tamil community members to the best of its capacity, as this first event was not the conclusion of such a process, but the first important step in establishing a growing and reciprocal relationship. Acknowledging this urgent need, and the literal fashion in which Bill C-45 has tied our communities struggles together, we ask these four principles and their endorsement by Tamil community organizations be taken up as a struggle to educate, decolonize and build true and lasting relationships between Onkwehonwe Nations and the Tamil Nation.
January 14, 2013 on Radio Basics: Zig Zag on Idle No More / Toronto High school teacher Luis Filipe on teachers rank-n-file resistance to Bill 115
Click here to download Mp3 or stream.
Feature interviews on today’s show with Zig Zag (warriorpublications.wordpress.com) on the “snakes in the grassroots” of #IdleNoMore and his analysis of the role of AFN Chiefs in the rising movement of grassroots Indigenous peoples; and Toronto high school teacher Luis Filipe, (a union executive member of the OSSTF local brank at Parkdale C.I. and member of Rank-n-File Education Workers of Toronto – REWT) on the ongoing resistance of teachers to Bill 115 and other attacks on the education sector.
Zig Zag interview begins 16:25.
Luis Filipe interview begins 42:10.
Six Nations hip-hop from Henny Jack, Tru Rez, Kardboard Kid, Pete Nyce & MC Sage. Filipino hip-hop from L.A., Power Struggle.
by Jordy Cummings
Across Ontario, teachers have been mounting resistance to the newly enacted provincial bill 115, which effectively removes the right of collective bargaining and the right to strike of all public sector workers. The Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario (ETFO) are in a legal strike position and as of Monday Dec. 10, are staging rolling one day strikes, while the (Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation (OSSTF) have launched a coordinated work-to-rule campaign, cutting extra-curricular activities as well as any voluntary work.
In response, media coverage has been mixed. The worst has been 680 News, a radio station marketed towards the working class, as it spreads outright misinformation to affected communities. Their report on December 10 portrayed the various high school student walk-outs across the province as “neutral” and a protest against “both sides”, when in reality the high school students were standing with their teachers against the aggression of the McGuinty government. The portrayed high school students as the “silent majority” being held hostage by greedy teachers and government bureaucrats. Poorly edited and likely out of context soundbites included one student who claimed to be “caught in the middle” and another complaining that no one was “putting students first”. This is a common move to turn public sector service recipients against public sector service providers and their unions. Recent examples include the drawn-out lockout of education workers by York University in the winter of 2008, that ended with the increasingly common tactic of back-to-work legislation.
When the state can use back-to-work legislation at a moment’s notice this greatly weakens labour’s side at the bargaining table and makes the strike tactic a risky one, given the huge fines that a labour union can be charged with for wildcat action. To add to their dishonesty, 680 News has been portraying itself as a resource for parents and families, even publishing a FAQ file on their website. While again feigning neutrality, the file is designed to portray this as essentially a struggle between union leaders and education bureaucrats. (http://www.680news.com/news/local/article/428317–faq-bill-115-teachers-job-action-explained
Sadly, there is a certain truth to this. Given the unprecedented measures outlined in bill 115, it is nothing short of remarkable that the public sector unions of Ontario have only now just begun – particularly within CUPE –attempting to develop a fightback for their basic rights. Contrast this with Wisconsin, where similar legislation provoked an immediate occupation of the state capital, first by publicly paid teaching assistants, then by others. As labour writer Doug Nesbitt points out, the entire strategy of the union leadership is to wait on a court challenge to Bill 115, rather than organize their members to engage in struggle. Thus a lot of the campaign rhetoric is focusing on how this is a violation of charter rights. Yet, as has been shown by the BC nurses charter challenge, an individual judge finding that back to work legislation violates the charter has not stopped the state, from legislating both public and private sector workers back to work. Depending entirely on a legal strategy is misguided at best.
The small but feisty band of teacher-activists attempting to radicalize this struggle, as well as those in the broader public sector (from community centres to universities), have to unite and fight Bill 115. It is not merely “undemocratic” in the narrow technical sense of parliament, but if overturned and discredited would be a victory that will strengthen workers’ and community capacities to defend against the austerity onslaught, and, one hopes, move from defensive struggles to keep what little services we have, to offensive struggles to build something better. After all, we have a world to win.
On October 26th, Walton Development attempted to file an injuction against Mohawk workers and Six Nations people, who have been protesting against future housing development at Tutela Heights, in Brantford, Ontario.
Tutela Heights is part of the Haldimand Tract and contains Tutelo burial grounds. The site was unlawfully taken by the Crown in 1835. It was reclaimed by the Mohawk workers on September 19th, 2012.
by Laura Lepper
You have probably never heard of a small, rural town in Southgate Township called Dundalk. But its location is significant.
The town is situated at the highest elevation in Ontario, the headwaters of both the Grand and Saugeen rivers, and sits on land deeded to the Six Nations through the Haldimand Proclamation of 1763.
Despite the ecological importance of the region and the outstanding land claim, the Southgate municipal council and Lystek International Inc. are attempting to secretly force through a plan to build a “bio-solids” processing facility just a stone’s throw from the town.
The process and product are banned in much of Europe.
This project would involve trucking Toronto’s sludge – including everything flushed down sewers, toilets, and sinks in homes, hospitals and industry – up to Dundalk to be turned into a “fertilizer”.
This sludge plant is set to be built on land that is practically sitting on water surrounded by wetland.
The sludge would then be spread on farm fields – meaning our food, water and land would be poisoned by sludge.
“Three applications of these biosolids on the land and it’s dead,” says Doyle Prier who lives on a nearby farm.
Lystek and the town council’s plans have been met with powerful resistance from local residents and Six Nations community members alike.
After exhausting the official government channels, concerned Dundalk residents approached Six Nations for assistance in their opposition to the sludge.
Southgate township resident Lori Prier remarks “We hadn’t heard of our council consulting Six Nations … and I became very concerned … because it’s their land.”
Dundalk sits at the very top of the Haldimand Tract, the territory stretching six miles on either side of the entire Grand River, recognized by the British Crown in 1784 as a territory which was specifically granted to the Mohawks and other members of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy in return for losses suffered for supporting the British side in the war of American Independence.
Sharing concern for the land, the health of their communities and future generations, members of Six Nations have been working together with Dundalk residents to stop construction of the sludge plant.
Because Six Nations people drew a line in the sand saying the construction could not continue on their lands, Dundalk residents were given Haudenosaunee flags to fly on the frontlines of their resistance.
For about 100 days, they held a blockade in the name of Six Nations land rights where they stopped all construction on Lystek. Several organizers are now fighting lawsuits and an injunction.
“As we work to protect the land, in many ways we have a common struggle with Six Nations,” states Dundalk resident Mike Roth.
Echoing many other Dundalk residents, Paul Chatterbull stresses that, “if we don’t work with Six Nations, we have no hope whatsoever.”
This struggle is not only important to support because of the disastrous effect on communities’ health, water and food security this project would have; it is also a living example of the concrete links that are possible between environmental justice and Six Nations land rights, between people seeking justice for non-native and native working class people through the advocacy of Indigenous sovereignty.
Concerned Torontonians should also pay attention because it is our waste products that are planned to be dumped in Dundalk, requiring pending approval of the Toronto Works committee.
Our water and our food will be affected.
Furthermore, this environmentally destructive project would violate both the spirit and the letter of the treaties which allow non-native people to be on this land.
For information on how to get involved with either Six Nations solidarity activities, contact the Toronto First Nations Solidarity Working Group. Email april28info (at) gmail (dot) com. Find out more info at april28.net. Follow @TorontoFNSWG on Twitter.
Julian Ichim is facing a possible prison sentence for political writings published on his blog.
by Julian Ichim
Since I was charged last year for refusing to take down my blog post regarding the piece of shit infiltrator who goes by the name Khalid Mohamed I have decided to do several things with my defense that have irritated some of my close friends. I have chosen to fight these charges on a political basis as opposed to play within the framework of a system designed from the outset to criminalize political people and normalize and justify their repression. Many liberal organizations that work with me on a variety of issues were surprised that I refused to take character references to talk about how much good work I do in the community on the basis that unless they support an end to political persecution of activists they are useless to me.
The reality of the situation is that these charges that I am facing are due to the fact that I chose to write a blog based on my personal experience of being targeted for surveillance and infiltration based on the fact that my ideology is deemed “criminal” by the state because I am a proud Marxist Leninist. Everything that followed afterwards stems from this fact. To play into their game and deal with this as a criminal matter only goes to justify the narrative put forward by the crown, the OPP, CSIS, RCMP and various other police and intelligence services that make up the SIU, a police body who monitored, criminalized, and tried to contain any who chose to dissent against the 2010 Olympics taking place on stolen native land and those who chose to oppose the agenda of the G20 taking place in Toronto.
To fight this on their level means that I must accept the idea that to be political makes one a criminal, and public political people get seen as persons of interests or suspects, something I can’t accept.
To me the issue of refusing to take down my blog was a political decision based on the fact that others were intimidate by the state to shut up and not discuss what happened with the covert ops launched by the state to target, imprison and silence dissent vis a vis the g20. The reason that the state wanted to silence this has nothing to do with the safety of their operatives who testified in open court, but rather so that the people living in this territory would be unaware of the extent in which dirty tricks against political people are the norm, creating the space in which they can continue these attacks.
Every decision on dealing with this case therefore must achieve two things:
1. To expose the extent to which the state will go to criminalize political organizers;
2. Fight for our right to hold whatever political views we chose to hold; and
3. Force the state to admit the political nature of these charges, as well as the fact that those now in jail stemming from G20 related charges as well as others who are incarcerated because of their politics are not hoodlums and thugs but rather political prisoners and should be treated accordingly.
These two goals can’t be achieved in the framework set up by the system and a legal defense that negates the political nature of these charges and serves the interests of the state who has yet to admit that they hold any political prisoners.
While I am expected to play my role in their kangaroo court, holding my head in shame and being fearful and repentant, I instead chose to do the only thing that is politically and logically sound, fight these charges politically, and hold high my bright red banner of Marxism Leninism refusing to be ashamed of my ideology or politics.
When confronted by a state that attempts to criminalize and demonize people due to their politics the only solution is not to water down your politics in an attempt to appease a system whose goals is to uphold power and privilege but rather to take it head on and make the issue the criminalization of politics. I refuse to be ashamed of my ideology and I will win or lose based on that. Tomorrow in court I will show that in the face of state attack the only way forward is to resist, and I will do this as a Marxist Leninist.
McGuinty appointed Tory MPP to WSIB to gun for majority
by Julian Ichim – Kitchener, Ontario
While the Conservatives, Liberals, and NDP struggled to distinguish themselves as they battled it out for control of two ridings in Vaughan and Kitchener that were up for grabs with the September 6 by-elections, less is being said of how the Kitchener by-election was triggered to begin with.
On August 22 at Queen St. Commons in downtown Kitchener, Ralph Gerstenberg, a member of Steelworkers Local 1005 and the Ontario Injured Workers Association, spoke about the plight of injured workers. Gerstenberg described how the latest collaboration between the provincial Liberals and Tories (or at least one Tory) that triggered the by-election in Kitchener is about to make the situation of injured workers much worse.
Progressive Conservative MPP Liz Witmer gave up her seat in late April 2012 at Queen’s Park in exchange for the McGuinty government appointing her as the chair of the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board of Ontario (WSIB). This places her in charge of an agency dealing with workplace injuries and compensation pay for injured workers. The plum position in the bureaucracy will pay her nearly $200,000 a year for the job, despite her notorious track record for attacking workers. In exchange, the Liberals now have a chance of returning to their position of majority government.
In her 22-year career as a Progressive Conservative MPP, Witmer served as a senior cabinet minister and Deputy Premier under Mike Harris. As Minister of Labour under Premier Mike Harris, she enacted legislation abolishing the 8-hour work day, attacked unions, slashed basic benefits for workers, and redefined workplace injury to benefit the bosses, all of which hurt workers and their rights and workplace safety.
Participants of the August 22 meeting in Kitchener committed to exposing and opposing the attacks on injured workers moving forward, agreeing to take up door-to-door outreach to explain the need to put the issues of injured workers on the agenda, distributing the newspaper of the Ontario Injured Workers Association, participating in coalition work with other workers, such as the teachers now coming under attack; exposing the blatant opportunism of the political parties; and most importantly, exposing the need for the working class to come up with there own politics and set their own agenda.
