Clearing the plains
Book review by Paul Burrows • Briarpatch Magazine • March 10, 2014
In the context of a Canadian popular imagination still permeated by myths about heroic voyageurs, intrepid Mounties, and an inexorable yet ostensibly “peaceful” and “lawful” acquisition of other peoples’ lands, James Daschuk’s Clearing the Plains is a vital intervention. Described by historian Elizabeth A. Fenn as a “tour de force that dismantles and destroys the view that Canada has a special claim to humanity in its treatment of Indigenous peoples,” Daschuk’s study of Indigenous health and disease on the Canadian Prairies draws on decades of research to recount Canada’s policies of forced starvation and ethnic cleansing. More broadly, it’s a good introduction to the history of Canadian expansion into the northwest and the nature and evolution of Canadian Indian policy in the 19th century.
Research for Clearing the Plains began some 20 years ago as part of Daschuk’s doctoral program in history at the University of Manitoba under the supervision of D.N. Sprague. Sprague was himself a scholar of Canadian and Métis history, perhaps best known for his lengthy feud with Tom Flanagan over interpretations about Louis Riel, presumptions of government “benevolence,” and the causes of Métis dispossession in the Red River valley. Like Sprague’s own work, Canada and the Métis (1988), Clearing the Plains finds little evidence of Dominion “benevolence” in its annexation of the Canadian northwest or in its post-Confederation dealings with First Nations.
However, Daschuk’s is also a work of environmental and epidemiological history. As such, he argues that human agency, greed, and colonial power are “only half of the story.” In his view, the field of biology is equally important to understanding Indigenous history, not just in present-day Canada but also throughout the hemisphere. Much of what follows is an attempt to strike a balance between these two sides of causation, with Daschuk see-sawing between a portrait of epidemic disease as an inexorable, objective, even organic force, and a counter-portrait that emphasizes the social determinants and policy-induced nature of compromised immunity, disease outbreaks, and death.
The historical scope of Clearing the Plains is sweeping. The book opens with an assessment of pre-European health and well-being on the northern Great Plains, then concentrates on the impact of the fur trade era and nascent European settlement, and ends with the post-Confederation treaty era and the “nadir of indigenous health” in the wake of the Northwest Resistance of 1885. Throughout the book, Daschuk emphasizes the relationships between Indigenous health, outbreaks of epidemic diseases, and environmental factors, as well as settlement expansion, settler ideology, and most crucially, Indian policy. In this regard, Clearing the Plains joins a growing body of historical work examining the social determinants of health and, in particular, the relationship between Indigenous health and Canadian policy.
Overall, Daschuk’s book is important less for unearthing new and surprising historical facts than for expanding upon, reinterpreting, and publicizing them. For example, one of the central theses of Clearing the Plains is that famine was a deliberate policy weapon used to coerce “unco-operative Indians” onto reserves and remove them from lands coveted by white settlers. This isn’t a revelation for anyone familiar with existing scholarship. In his influential 1983 article, “Canada’s Subjugation of the Plains Cree,” John Tobias persuasively demonstrated that starvation was a weapon used to impose the reservation system, bring “recalcitrant” leaders such as Big Bear to heel, and force the Cree to capitulate to treaty terms. Clearing the Plains not only expands on such themes, bringing to light further evidence and examples, but its publication has made them accessible to a much wider public.
Daschuk’s interpretive framework sheds the congratulatory and smug self-image that still dominates in much Canadian historical writing. He is unafraid, for example, to label the settler-colonial process in southern Saskatchewan “ethnic cleansing,” and elsewhere he has described the foundation of modern Canada as resting upon the twin truths of “ethnic cleansing and genocide.” Those wanting a crash course in Prairie colonial history would do well to read Daschuk’s book alongside Sarah Carter’s Aboriginal People and Colonizers of Western Canada to 1900 (University of Toronto Press, 1999). Both books are carefully empirical but rooted in a deep commitment to social justice. Together, they serve as excellent points of departure for further research into colonial policy in the Canadian Prairie provinces.
Paul Burrows is a Winnipeg-based writer, researcher, and parent. A lifelong activist, he co-founded the Winnipeg A-Zone (Emma Goldman Building) in 1995 and is currently finishing a PhD in history related to Treaty 1 Territory and settler-colonialism.
By James Daschuk
University of Regina Press, 2013
Canada deploys six fighter jets to Romania
Canada has sent six fighter jets to Romania as part of its contribution to NATO’s military presence in Eastern and Central Europe.
The six CF-18 fighter jets were deployed from Canadian Forces Base Bagotville in Quebec on Tuesday.
Canada’s Defense Minister Rob Nicholson, who was present for the aircrafts takeoff, told the pilots and their support staff that they were being sent in response to the crisis in Ukraine.
“Soon you will join our allies as part of Canada’s contribution to NATO’s efforts to reassure our allies in Central and Eastern Europe,” Nicholson said. “The work will be key in supporting international efforts to find a solution that respects the democratic aspirations of the Ukrainian people.”
Meanwhile, Denmark has also sent four warplanes to the region.
On April 28, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu expressed concern about what he described as an unparalleled increase in US and NATO military activity along Russia’s borders.
The planes, along with support staff, will be stationed in Romania, and will take part in NATO air patrols of the Baltic region and training activities. The air patrols operate on a rotational schedule, and the six Canadian CF-18s will be rotating in.
According to reports, some 150 US troops have been deployed in western Estonia and another 450 are presently stationed in Latvia, Lithuania and Poland.
Tensions between Moscow and the Western-backed interim government in Kiev heightened after Crimea declared independence from Ukraine and rejoined Russia following a referendum on March 16, in which almost 97 percent of the participants voted for rejoining the Russian Federation.
Meet TISA: Another Major Treaty Negotiated In Secret Alongside TPP And TTIP
By Glyn Moody | Techdirt | April 29, 2014
This Wednesday evening there is to be a “Public Information Session and Discussion” (pdf) about TISA: the Trade in Services Agreement. If, like me, you’ve never heard of this, you might think it’s a new initiative. But it turns out that it’s been under way for more than a year: the previous USTR, Ron Kirk, informed Congress about it back in January 2013 (pdf). Aside from the occasional laconic press release from the USTR, a page put together by the Australian government, and a rather poorly-publicized consultation by the European Commission last year, there has been almost no public information about this agreement. A cynic might even think they were trying to keep it quiet.
Perhaps the best introduction to TISA comes from the Public Services International (PSI) organization, a global trade union federation representing 20 million people working in public services in 150 countries. Last year, it released a naturally skeptical brief on the proposed agreement (pdf):
At the beginning of 2012, about 20 WTO members (the EU counted as one) calling themselves “The Really Good Friends of Services” (RGF) launched secret unofficial talks towards drafting a treaty that would further liberalize trade and investment in services, and expand “regulatory disciplines” on all services sectors, including many public services. The “disciplines,” or treaty rules, would provide all foreign providers access to domestic markets at “no less favorable” conditions as domestic suppliers and would restrict governments’ ability to regulate, purchase and provide services. This would essentially change the regulation of many public and privatized or commercial services from serving the public interest to serving the profit interests of private, foreign corporations.
The Australian government’s TISA page fills in some details:
The TiSA negotiations will cover all services sectors. In addition to improved market access commitments, the negotiations also provide an opportunity to develop new disciplines (or trade rules) in areas where there has been significant developments since the WTO Uruguay Round negotiations. There negotiations will cover financial services; ICT services (including telecommunications and e-commerce); professional services; maritime transport services; air transport services, competitive delivery services; energy services; temporary entry of business persons; government procurement; and new rules on domestic regulation to ensure regulatory settings do not operate as a barrier to trade in services.
If that sounds familiar, it’s because very similar language is used to describe TAFTA/TTIP, which aims to liberalize trade and investment, to provide foreign investors with access to domestic markets on the same terms as local suppliers, to limit a government’s ability to regulate there by removing “non-tariff barriers” — described above as “regulatory settings” — and to use corporate sovereignty provisions to enforce investors’ rights.
Those similarities suggest TISA is part of a larger plan that includes not just TAFTA/TTIP, but TPP too, and which aims to cement the dominance of the US and EU in world trade against a background of Asia’s growing power. Indeed, it’s striking how membership of TISA coincides almost exactly with that of TTIP added to TPP:
The 23 TiSA parties currently comprise: Australia, Canada, Chile, Chinese Taipei, Colombia, Costa Rica, European Union (representing its 28 Member States), Hong Kong, Iceland, Israel, Japan, Liechtenstein, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, Pakistan, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Republic of Korea, Switzerland,, Turkey and the United States.
Once more, the rising economies of the BRICS nations — Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa — are all absent, and the clear intent, as with TTIP and TPP, is to impose the West’s terms on them. That’s explicitly recognized by one of the chief proponents of TISA, the European Services Forum:
the possible future agreement would for the time being fall short of the participation of some of the leading emerging economies, notably Brazil, China, India and the ASEAN countries. It is not desirable that all those countries would reap the benefits of the possible future agreement without in turn having to contribute to it and to be bound by its rules.
The Australian government’s page reveals that there have already been five rounds of negotiations — all held behind closed doors, of course, just as with TTIP and TPP. The Public Information Session taking place in Geneva this week seems to mark the start of a new phase in those negotiations, at least allowing some token transparency. Perhaps this has been provoked by the growing public anger over the secrecy surrounding TPP and TAFTA/TTIP, and fears that the longer TISA was kept out of the limelight, the worse the reaction would be when people found out about it.It seems appropriate, then, that the unexpected unveiling of this new global agreement should be greeted not only by an updated and more in-depth critique from the PSI — “TISA versus Public Services” — but also the first anti-TISA day of protest. Somehow, I don’t think it will be the last.
Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and +glynmoody on Google+
University of Regina set to endorse Israeli occupation?
By Andrew Loewen • Briarpatch Magazine • April 24, 2014
What would you do if the Canadian university you attended was planning to enter into a partnership with a university in another country whose persecution of your people meant you couldn’t speak out publicly – in Canada – for fear of reprisals against you and your family?
What if, further, the proposed partnership included course delivery for a degree in public safety management inside a country conducting a nearly 50-year-long occupation in contravention of international law? An occupation in which basic freedoms – of movement, speech, and self-determination – were denied your people, and in which security forces routinely imprisoned, shot, and killed civilians, including university students and children, with near total impunity.
Strange as it may sound, this is the reality facing Palestinian students at the University of Regina today. As part of a new MBA program in public safety management geared toward police service professionals, the Faculty of Business Administration is considering a partnership that would see students take optional courses at Israel’s Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
An open letter to administrators from University of Regina faculty highlights the kind of instruction on offer in the Policing and Homeland Security Studies program in the Faculty of Law at Hebrew University: “faculty expertise in this program includes ‘Policing terrorism, Political violence and protest policing, Minorities and law enforcement, Terrorism and crime, and Terror and society.’”
An article in the student newspaper The Carillon in late January alerted students to the proposed collaboration.
Speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of complications when returning to Palestine, a University of Regina alumnus and Regina resident says, “It’s a shame that the Board [of Governors] or the administration within the Faculty of Business kept it so low key. An educational institution is supposed to keep open channels of communication.”
According to the alumnus, “It says a lot about the nature of this co-operation [with Hebrew University] or even of the nature of this Faculty of Business. Maybe they know that this is bad publicity for them.”
Palestinians line up at an Israeli checkpoint near Bethlehem. Photo: Flickr/delayed gratification
The president and the dean
Following a 2012 trip to Israel as part of a delegation of Canadian academics, University President Vianne Timmons praised the work of Israeli academics in the fields of justice and police studies. “Israel is a leader in innovation,” she told the Canadian Jewish News.
President Timmons has declined interview requests regarding the potential MBA arrangement with Hebrew University, directing inquiries to the Dean of the Faculty of Business Administration, Andrew Gaudes.
When asked what Palestinian students on campus thought of the proposed partnership, Gaudes said in an interview, “I don’t know of any Palestinian students here on our campus.”
Asked if Palestinian students would be able to participate in courses delivered at Hebrew University, or if they could face unique travel restrictions, Gaudes said he had not looked into the matter: “There’s no point in me looking at something that’s not relevant to the program.”
But this rings hollow for Palestinian students. The Palestinian alumnus as well as a current Palestinian graduate student in the Faculty of Business Administration say that as Palestinians with dual (Palestinian-Canadian) citizenship they cannot enter Israel, nor can their Palestinian family and friends in the West Bank enter East Jerusalem, where Hebrew University is situated.
“They might approve [the visas] here, but that’s not what matters,” says the alumnus, stressing that it’s not Hebrew University but the Israeli military that has final say on travel and entry permits.
The current MBA student adds that millions of displaced Palestinians around the world are denied entry to their homeland. “So how is Dean Gaudes going to get them the visas to enter? It doesn’t make any sense,” she says.
Noting President Timmons’ remarks following her official visit to Israel in 2012, I asked the Dean which university administrators were behind the proposed partnership with Hebrew University. He said that the entire process was internal to the Faculty of Business. This account is not convincing for some.
The alumnus, who travels home to the West Bank annually, says, “The Faculty of Business does not make decisions for the university. [The President] knows exactly what’s going on.” He’s also skeptical of the Dean’s position that course content is the only consideration in such an arrangement.
“I’m taking courses in project management,” he says, “where they teach us that before entering into procurement agreements, it’s best practice to look at the firm’s history, to look at their policies, to look at their culture. You don’t just look at what you’re going to be getting from them, you look at everything in the background of that institution or corporation you’re going into a contract with. That’s important. If you’re skipping that step, you’re entering blindly.”
He points out that earlier this month, just days after my interview with the Dean, Israeli security forces stormed the campus of al-Quds Open University in the West Bank, firing at least 70 rounds of tear gas at students.
No ethics, no problem
When I sat down with the Dean in his office, I drew his attention to a recently published Amnesty International report called “Trigger-happy: Israel’s use of excessive force in the West Bank.” The report states, “Israel’s security forces have displayed a callous disregard for human life by killing scores of Palestinian civilians, including children, in the occupied West Bank over the past three years with near total impunity.”
I asked Gaudes how he reconciled this information with selecting an Israeli institution as an appropriate place for his students to learn public safety management and policing.
After an initial pause, Gaudes said he hoped that students from the program who “become mid to senior managers in the area of public safety” would be “more mindful of the impacts [of their decisions] at the ground level.” Referring to the Amnesty report, he said, “My hope is that if we’re educating managers [who] make decisions that can lead towards that possible outcome, they think twice.”
The irony of Gaudes’ remarks about mindfulness and the implications of decisions “at the ground level” is not lost on students. When reminded that undergraduates in the Faculty of Business must take courses in ethics and decision-making, Gaudes reiterated that his only consideration at this stage is the course content Hebrew University offers.
“It’s shocking that he would make that comment,” says the Palestinian alumnus.
“I’m worried about the content of what’s going to be delivered,” he says. “And not just the content. If it’s being conducted, where’s this research going to be put to test? Where’s it going to go? In decision-making in Canada or is it going to influence decision-making in Israel? That’s a big thing.”
It’s a chilling question for Palestinian students. “To me the content of what Hebrew University wants to do makes me think of a guinea pig experiment,” continues the University of Regina graduate. “From a Palestinian perspective, I look at myself right now as a guinea pig, because the policies that come out of Israeli universities inform the decision-making within the army. It serves the army that’s enforcing the occupation.”
Palestinian children stand in the rubble of a school in Gaza destroyed by Israeli shelling. Photo: Ashraf Amra/APA images
It is also of concern to Indigenous activists here in Canada, who are key targets of policing and surveillance operations. The website of the Office of the President at the University of Regina proudly incorporates Indigenization into the university’s mandate and vision. Yet, policies to impose Israeli curriculum on Palestinian students in East Jerusalem have resonances with Canada’s residential school system.
It’s part of an attempt “to slowly erase Palestinian identity,” says the former student. I asked the Dean how the partnership with Hebrew University would fit with the university’s commitment to Indigenization. He seemed confused by the question, before saying that he didn’t know.
The university’s reputation
The MBA student, meanwhile, is surprised by the Dean’s apparent lack of concern about the Faculty’s reputation and credibility. “I’ve been here a long time,” she says, “and all the instructors come into the class in the Faculty of Business Administration and say ‘we have to link all the courses together. What you learn in organizational behavior has to be linked to human resources, ethics has to be linked to statistics.’”
There is a sense of betrayal in her remarks: “Now if I’m sitting in the classroom and someone is standing in front of me lecturing from the Faculty of Business Administration about ethics? I would stand up and say that’s hypocrisy. You guys are teaching one thing and you’re doing something else. They will lose credibility with their students. It’s going to affect them really badly. I can’t believe they didn’t consider ethics in this way.”
Andrew Stevens, an assistant professor in the Faculty of Business Administration and a signatory of the open letter from faculty, has expressed similar concerns: “a partnership with Hebrew University, especially in the area of public safety and policing, could do damage to our reputation.”
Academic boycott
The MBA student says that had she known such a partnership might become reality, she never would have enrolled in the Faculty of Business at the University of Regina. She is likely not alone in this view, especially as the international campaign of boycott, divestment, and sanctions against Israel continues to build momentum on campuses worldwide.
Even in the U.S., where pro-Israel sentiment and propaganda is pervasive, the American Studies Association recently voted to endorse a boycott of Israeli academic institutions.
“The academic institutions and the [Israeli] army are interconnected and they influence one another. You cannot separate them,” says the MBA student, before underlining her central point: “The Faculty of Business Administration is actually supporting the occupation if it goes ahead with the partnership with Hebrew University.”
There has been no final decision on the proposed partnership, and it is not too late for administrators at the University of Regina to find more appropriate, more inclusive, and more respectable institutional partners abroad.
~
Join concerned students and faculty at the University of Regina t in calling for this partnership to be abandoned, please write to:
Dean Andrew Gaudes: Andrew DOT Gaudes AT uregina.ca
Associate Dean Ron Camp: Ronald DOT Camp AT uregina.ca
President Vianne Timmons: the DOT president AT uregina.ca
Harper Zionists seek to boost Canada thought crime law
By Brandon Martinez | Press TV | April 11, 2014
The Zionist ruling clique of Canada, through their front-man Stephen Harper, is seeking to beef up the already-existing Orwellian “hate propaganda” law which has been primarily used to curtail criticism of Zionists and Israel.
The conspicuous change is buried in the Harper government’s proposed cyberbullying law, Bill C-13.
The existing law in Canada’s criminal code makes it illegal to “promote hatred” (whatever that means) of people “distinguished by colour, race, religion, ethnic origin or sexual orientation,” explained The Chronicle Herald, but Bill C-13 intends to expand that category to include age, sex, mental or physical disability, and most disturbingly, “national origin.” In other words, you cannot criticize anyone for any reason at all!
This means, say, if you condemn Israelis for their inhumane treatment of Palestinians, you could find yourself in court facing down the self-appointed thought police and commissars of political correctness.
The … law against “hate speech” is illegitimate and ridiculous to begin with. The idea of allowing a government to legislate against opinions and feelings is patently absurd – it is pulled right out of George Orwell’s dystopian classic 1984.
British Columbia native Arthur Topham has felt the wrath of Canada’s censorious establishment. In November 2012, at the instigation of the Zionist society of B’nai B’rith, Topham was charged with a ‘hate crime’ for publishing anti-Zionist articles on his website Radical Press.
One of the items on Topham’s site that made the Zionists convulse and contort with unrestrained anger and rage was a satire called Israel Must Perish. The text was nothing more than a spoof of a 1941 book authored by a Zionist … named Theodore Kaufman entitled Germany Must Perish! In that text Kaufman called for “a final solution” of German extinction. Topham merely substituted the words “German,” “Germany” and “Nazi” with “Israel,” “Jew” and “Zionist” throughout the text. Despite writing a clearly-worded preface explaining the satirical nature of the text, Topham was arrested by the RCMP and now faces the possibility of spending up to two years behind bars for violating Zionist sensibilities.
Many will recall the sad saga of German-Canadian publisher Ernst Zundel. In the mid-1980s Zundel was charged with “spreading false news” after he published a book, Did Six Million Really Die?, which questioned some aspects of the official “holocaust” story. In the ensuing show trial, Zundel and his team of revisionist historians as well as his indefatigable defence lawyer Douglas Christie brought the holocaust lobby to its knees with facts and information refuting many claims made by Zionists about Germany’s WW2 concentration camps.
Over the span of three decades, Zundel was dragged from courtroom to courtroom, from jail cell to jail cell, merely for expressing a viewpoint deemed verboten by the … Zionist establishment – the self-appointed architects of public discourse, the self-declared arbiters of truth and morality, the self-proclaimed “chosen people” whose faults are unseen and whose character is unimpeachable.
Zundel, a self-described pacifist with no criminal record, was physically assaulted on numerous occasions by Jewish Defence League thugs. His Toronto home, which also housed his publishing and graphic arts businesses, was bombed and torched by Zionist terrorists. He received death threats on a daily basis from members of the “chosen race of God,” but the Toronto Police did almost nothing to prevent any of it and was entirely uninterested in pursuing the criminals and thugs responsible for the campaign of terror against Zundel and his associates.
Zundel’s story is a testament to the power and control of Jewish extremists in Canada, whose agenda is anything but altruistic and whose disposition is more racist than the Klan.
In the “New World Order” being imposed on us by self-interested, ethnocentric megalomaniacs, no man has the right to explore, investigate and come to his own conclusions about history — that is the sole responsibility of the tyrannical monarchs of the NWO, who tell us what and how to think; free thought be damned.
Brandon Martinez is a freelance writer and journalist from Canada whose area of expertise is foreign policy, international affairs and 20th and 21st century history. His writing is focused on issues such as Zionism, Israel-Palestine, American and Canadian foreign policy, war, terrorism and deception in media and politics. Readers can contact him at martinezperspective@hotmail.com.
Iran dismisses Canadian court ruling on asset freeze
Press TV – March 22, 2014
Iran has rejected a politically-motivated ruling by a Canadian court to seize more than USD 7 million of the Islamic Republic’s assets and properties.
Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Marzieh Afkham said on Saturday that Iran was not informed about the legal proceedings, adding that the court ruling has therefore “no legal value” to Iran.
An Ontario judge in Canada recently ordered the seizure of more than USD 7 million of assets and properties belonging to Iran over some plaintiffs alleging that the Islamic Republic funds terrorist groups.
“Given the approach of the Canadian government, it is crystal clear that the verdict is politically-motivated and such rulings have no legal value,” Afkham said, reminding the Ottawa government of its international commitment to protect diplomatic properties.
Pointing to Canada’s move to sever ties with Iran unilaterally, Afkham said under international law diplomatic properties have immunity, warning Ottawa of the legal repercussions of disrespecting international regulations.
The Iranian official stated that Iran, as a victim of terrorism, has always denounced this inhuman scourge.
She warned that the double standards used by Western countries, including Canada, in the fight against terrorism will not only fail to uproot it but will also contribute to the spread of this phenomenon.
On September 7, 2012 the Canadian government closed its embassy in Tehran and ordered Iranian diplomats to leave Canada within five days.
In a statement, Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird cited a number of reasons for Ottawa’s decision to sever ties with Iran, including the West’s dispute over Tehran’s nuclear energy program, the country’s support for the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad as well as “threatening the existence of Israel.”
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Richard Gage, Urges Canadians to ReThink 9/11
Internationally acclaimed San Francisco speaker and architect Richard Gage, AIA, will tour 17 cities throughout Canada this March 13 to 31 to present the forensic, eyewitness and photographic evidence that three World Trade Center skyscrapers were destroyed by explosives on September 11, 2001.
Many people are not aware that WTC 7, a massive skyscraper adjacent to the Twin Towers, collapsed suddenly and symmetrically at free-fall acceleration late that afternoon. The official explanation is that “normal office fires” brought this building down, but thousands of architects and engineers disagree, as do 51% of Canadians.
During Gage’s tour, from Vancouver to Halifax, hosted by ReThink911 Canada, the 42% of Canadians who question the overall U.S. Government story of 9/11 will have a rare opportunity to understand first-hand the facts about the three sudden straight-down skyscraper collapses.
Richard Gage is an architect of 26 years and founder of the 18,000-member Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth which includes 2,100 A/E’s calling for new WTC investigation.
Tour Coincides With US Congressional Resolution To Release Classified Evidence of Saudi Government Involvement in the Attacks.
Local 9/11 activists and promoters are welcome to join in the tour.
Contact us for details.
Mar 13, 2014 – Prince George, BC – View Location
Mar 14, 2014 – Vancouver, Delta Burnaby – View Location
Mar 15, 2014 – Victoria, BC – View Location
Mar 16, 2014 – Edmonton, Alberta – View Location
Mar 17, 2014 – Calgary, Alberta
Mar 18, 2014 – Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
Mar 19, 2014 – Winnipeg, Manitoba
Mar 20, 2014 – Toronto, Ontario
Mar 23, 2014 – London, Ontario
Mar 24, 2014 – Ottawa Public Library – View Location
Mar 26, 2014 – Montreal, QC, McGill University –View Location
Mar 28, 2014 – Fredericton, NB, Wu Center –View Location
Mar 29, 2014 – Saint John, New Brunswick
Mar 30, 2014 – Moncton, New Brunswick
Mar 31, 2014 – Halifax, Nova Scotia
Apr 01, 2014 – St. John’s, Newfoundland
New Ambassador Modernizes Canada’s Hidden Agenda in Venezuela
By Gerard Di Trolio | Venezuelanalysis | March 17, 2014
Amidst headlines dominated by the situation in Ukraine, this bit of news slipped by almost unnoticed at the end of February; Ben Rowswell replaced Paul Gibbard as Canadian ambassador to Venezuela, as mandated by Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird. But a quick look into the appointee’s background brings special significance to his promotion, especially as opposition protests escalate in Venezuela.
Described in 2010 as a “rising foreign service star” by the Toronto Star, Rowswell has served as Canada’s official diplomatic representative in a number of conspicuous places across the Middle East. From Kandahar, Afghanistan to Kabul and Iraq immediately after the fall of Saddam Hussein, Rowswell has become an expert at representing Canada’s interests in the heat of conflict.
At the age of 22 he was baptized into the foreign service by fire, working in Mogadishu during the Somali Civil War of the early 1990s. He went on to work for the Canadian Embassy in Cairo from 1995-98.
A diplomat for the digital age, he held the title of “Director of Innovation” at the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development.
While overseeing the “democratic transitions” of Afghanistan, Iraq, and Egypt, the fledgling attaché specialized in the harnessing of social media for diplomatic missions, in order to interact directly with non-state actors, in effect bypassing the target nation’s government.
In 2011, Rowswell gave a fascinating TEDx talk at Hayward University in California that outlined his views about the power of social media to shape democracy. He focused on post-Murbarak Egypt, before Mohammed Morsi’s election.
He detailed how notions of race, ethnicity and class may be pushed aside when organizing through social media platforms. He theorized that the internet allows for “opensource democracy,” allowing individuals to exchange their ideas as equals.
But let’s look at that idea in the context of Venezuela, where the middle and upper classes are more likely to have regular access to the internet. Twitter and Facebook have been the choice tools of the opposition in recent months, both to organize protests and to call upon international support.
The Bolivarian Revolution itself was born 15 years ago upon massive social movements and since has experimented with many revolutionary forms of democratic participation. But theirs is a different concept of democracy than what Rowswell and other Western powers have in mind.
After the 2002 coup attempt and the mass mobilizations that restored Chavez to power, the cause of socialism was taken up with greater enthusiasm. Since its commence the Bolivarian government has created institutions that, while not directly expropriating capital, have challenged its long term prospects.
Nowadays workers’ cooperatives and collective property exist alongside corporate conglomerates and private investments. There exists a form of dual power in Venezuela, and within that balance, a gulf of classes widened by the shift in authority.
The Canadian government has made it clear that its interests lie outside the decades of organization led by the Venezuelan masses.
A motion that received unanimous consent from all parties in the House of Commons and sponsored by NDP foreign affairs critic Paul Dewar effectively condemned the Venezuelan government’s attempts at dealing with recent protests.
The statement was approved by Conservatives and Liberals alike, including MP Jim Karygiannis who has been extremely critical of the Venezuelan government.
Rowswell also argued that social media can create transparency yet Venezuela’s opposition has provided ample evidence to the contrary. Many photos from Turkey, Ukraine, Brazil, and even Syria have flown around social networks, meant to stir up indignation at the treatment of protestors in Venezuela. During the telecast of the Oscars, the opposition took to Twitter to claim the ceremony had been censored. The truth was that the Oscars was aired on TNT in Venezuela, a satellite channel.
Canada, too, knows how to wage internet campaigns and will not be left behind. Within hours of Rowswell’s appointment, a new Embassy account popped up on Twitter. (https://twitter.com/CanEmbVenezuela) Adam Goldenberg, liberal partisan and former speechwriter for Michael Ignatieff, tweeted in response: “Congratulations, Ben! Excellent choice, Minister, for all sorts of reasons.” As always, Canada’s imperial foreign policy is a bipartisan affair.
There’s no smoking gun, however. This appointment isn’t proof positive that the Canadian government and the Venezuelan opposition are conspiring an attack against president Nicolas Maduro.
While violent coups carried out by a minority are far from being a thing of the past, Canadian policy planners understand that the transformation of the opposition into a mass movement would be a much more efficient way to protect their interests, with less international backlash.
Rowswell is the best man to encourage such a “democratic” counterrevolution, given his pedigree. He certainly knows how to interact with the angry middle classes on Twitter.
As protests continue, it would be wise to keep a close watch on the Canadian Embassy in Caracas.
(http://www.international.gc.ca/media/aff/news-communiques/2014/02/28b.as…)
2. (http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2010/07/28/canadas_top_civilian_offic…)
3. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-zWJaXhHpI)
4. (http://www2.macleans.ca/2014/02/28/the-house-is-unanimously-concerned-ab…)
5. (http://www.karygiannis.net/venezuela)
6. (http://drdawgsblawg.ca/2014/02/constructing-venezuela-protests-a-photo-g…)
7. (http://www.ctvnews.ca/entertainment/many-venezuelans-miss-oscar-winner-l…)
8. (https://twitter.com/adamgoldenberg/status/439530569333211136)
300 arrested at Montreal protest against police brutality
RT | March 16, 2014
Canadian police surrounded an annual protest against police brutality in Montreal, arresting 288 people before the demonstration had barely started.
The police claim the protest was illegal as the participants did not warn the authorities of their itinerary.
Montreal’s 18th annual protest against police brutality was cut dramatically short Saturday when police rounded up the participants. Minutes into the demonstration, riot officers converged on Jean-Talon Street and began detaining protesters. According to protesters there was a strong police presence, with police horses, cars and a helicopter on the scene.
“It was a veritable army of police … who occupied the area surrounding the Jean-Talon metro when the protest was to start,” the Collective Opposed to Police Brutality, which organizes the annual protest, said in a written statement issued after the protest.
Police declared the demonstration was illegal and asked the protesters to disperse. However, the activists carried on marching, brandishing banners and chanting slogans, such as “They want us to respect them, but they don’t respect us!”
Riot police then encircled the protesters and began making arrests. The majority of the 288 people who were taken into custody were released shortly afterwards, but four people may be charged under the Criminal Code for assaulting an officer and obstructing the police. Several others could face charges of mischief.
One man sustained injuries to his face during the police intervention and was tended to by paramedics on the site, said officers.
“They refused to share their itinerary, and they refused to give us any details. When we got there, we asked them not to jump onto the street, and they answered by going into the street and yelling at us that they were not cooperating,” police spokesman Ian Lafrenière said. He added that the protest has a bad reputation with the authorities and on previous occasions the demonstrations had descended into violence and rioting.
However, activists had a different version of events and have accused the police of lying about the protesters’ activities.
“It looks good in the media — the police can say (all of these) people were arrested, were breaking windows and stuff, but it’s not true. They were doing nothing,” Claudine Lamothe told the Montreal Gazette.
The Collective Opposed to Police Brutality has staged a protest in Montreal every year for the past 18 years. This year they focused their protest on the issue of “social cleansing” where the authorities try to “get rid of people who are deemed unwanted,” the group writes on its website. The group cites an incident in January when an unnamed Montreal police officer threatened to tie a homeless man to a lamppost in temperatures of minus 30 if he did not move along. Following the incident, Lafrenière told the Montreal Gazette that the officer had been reprimanded for his “unacceptable” behavior.
ABORIGINAL JUSTICE: Listening for the voices of missing and murdered Indigenous women
By Carrie Peters | CPTnet | March 7, 2014
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Loretta Saunders |
According to reports by the Native Women’s Association of Canada (NWAC), there are roughly 600 known cases of missing and murdered Indigenous women in Canada, many of them unsolved. Loretta Saunders, an Inuit woman from Labrador whose family reported her missing on 13 February 2014, is one of the latest. The RCMP discovered her body along a New Brunswick highway on 26 February. That Saunders was in the middle of finishing her PhD in Halifax— on Canada’s missing and murdered Indigenous women—makes her death particularly harrowing, yet each of these women’s deaths is reprehensible.
CPT attended the ninth Annual Strawberry Ceremony honoring missing and murdered Indigenous women on 14 February, when over 200 people gathered at the downtown Toronto police headquarters for a rally and march. Many individuals in the crowd held up signs bearing names, dates, and occasionally photos. Several dozen people carried black silhouette-style signs cut in the shape of women’s profiles, with names in white lettering on one side, and dates—usually preceded with the word “murdered”—on the other.
Each of these sign bearers had lost someone to violence: a sister, a daughter, a grandmother. More than that, though, this ceremony was in honor of Indigenous women. Those marching were survivors of their individual griefs and losses, and the collective oppression and violence of a system set entirely against them.
Author and activist Arundhati Roy has said, “There’s really no such thing as the ‘voiceless.’ There are only the deliberately silenced, or the preferably unheard.” In CPT, we often talk about “amplifying voices,” and when I give presentations I make sure to emphasize what this means: I am not seeking to speak for anyone. I am seeking to hold up a figurative microphone to those who are already speaking. It’s a thing I’m still figuring out, time after time. But Roy’s words are a guide.
During the ceremony on 14 February, the women who spoke described how long it took them to “find their voices,” to share the stories of women in their lives who’d been taken by violence. One mother who raised her grandson from his infancy, said it took her over two decades from when her daughter was killed to when she could start speaking about it. It struck me that every single person there holding a sign or a banner was a person who could speak. The voiceless ones were the women whose names and dates were on those signs. Their daughters, and mothers, and sisters, and brothers and fathers and sons (because there were many men there too)—these relatives were all speaking for them.
The question is, are we listening? When several NDP Senators introduced the need for an inquiry to Parliament about missing and murdered Indigenous women in late February, Status of Women Minister Kellie Leitch responded by turning the call into a partisan argument, and stated that, “Our government has taken action. I encourage the opposition to join us in that action.”
Such statements, at their root, only demonstrate a desire to dismiss and delegitimize Indigenous women’s voices. If the Harper administration was earnest in its professed concern for Canada’s missing and murdered Indigenous women, it would not turn calls for a national inquiry into partisan finger-pointing, but initiate real, measurable action to end this tragedy now.
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Canada grants new identity, passport to Mossad assassin
Press TV – February 16, 2014
The Canadian government has granted a new identity and passport to an agent of the Israeli spying service Mossad who had been involved in an assassination plot in 2010.
The Mossad agent, whose identity was not revealed, received the new identity and passport after his participation in the assassination of Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai in 2010, Canadian news agency QMI quoted Arian Azarbar, a businessman, as saying.
“The girl who was in charge of that file at Passport Canada… told me about it,” Azarbar said.
Al-Mabhouh was killed in his hotel room by a team of ten assassins carrying European passports.
“The Canadian government has said we had nothing to do with this, but it is a lie,” Azarbar added.
Azarbar has also provided the QMI agency with the name of the Israeli spy and the location of his residence in Canada. The agency, however, has declined to disclose the information, saying it would “endanger the safety and security” of the Mossad agent.
Alexis Pavelich, the spokesman for Canada’s Immigration Ministry, has refused to talk about the passport issue.
Back in 1997, Jordan arrested two Mossad agents carrying fake Canadian passports following a life attempt on Hamas leader Khaled Mashal.
Canada is closely allied to the Israeli regime.
Canada was one of the few countries that opposed the successful Palestinian bid in November 2012 to upgrade its status at the United Nations from “non-member observer entity” to “non-member observer state.”
In October 2011, Canada also opposed the Palestinian effort to win membership within the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
The day the world fought back
By Danny O’Brien | EFF | February 11, 2014
Mass surveillance of electronic communications is a vast, new, government intrusion on the privacy of innocent people worldwide. It is a violation of International human rights law. Without checks and balances, its use will continue to spread from country to country, corrupting democracies and empowering dictators.
That’s why, today, on February 11th, around the world, from Argentina to Uganda, from Colombia to the Philippines, the people of the Internet have united to fight back.
The Day We Fight Back’s main global action is to sign and promote the 13 Principles, a set of fundamental rules that, in clear language, tells lawmakers and governments how to apply existing human rights law to these new forms of surveillance. With the support of thousands of Net users, we’ll use your voice to demand that all governments comply with their obligation to protect privacy against unchecked surveillance.
But there’s more to today’s global action than the Principles. Hundreds of digital rights and privacy groups, thousands of individual Net users, in dozens of countries, have come together to protest surveillance by governments at home and abroad. Here’s just a sampling of the campaigns and events happening today:
In Argentina, the Asociación por los Derechos Civiles and Vía Libre Foundation is suing the Argentinian Congressional surveillance oversight commission for withholding basic information on surveillance practices in the country.
In Australia, a coalition of groups under the banner Citizens Not Suspects, is joining to demand a government investigation of the practices of the notorious “Five Eyes” countries — the nations, including Australia, which share intelligence with the NSA.
In Brazil, where the upcoming Marco Civil bill promises to encode human rights into the country’s Internet law, citizens are renewing their demands to include strong privacy protections.
In Canada, more than 45 major organizations, and tens of thousands of Canadians are calling their elected representatives to stop illegal spying by Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSEC), Canada’s spying agency.
Colombians have launched “Internet sin Chuzadas”, a campaign calling for the end of unchecked surveillance at home and abroad.
France’s La Quadrature Du Net have started an NSA Observer program to inform people of the NSA’s global surveillance. The Philippines’ Internet Freedom Alliance (PIFA) is organizing a day of mass action against the country’s draconian Cybercrime Prevention Act.
Poland’s Panoptykon Foundation is demanding answers from the Polish government and Barack Obama.
The Netherlands’ Bits of Freedom will call on Dutch citizens to join their campaign to stop mass surveillance: bespiedonsniet.nl (“Don’t Spy On Us”).
In Serbia, SHARE Foundation, one of the earliest supporters of the 13 Principles, is renewing their campaign against surveillance locally and internationally.
In Uganda, Unwanted Witness will be urging their local telephone companies to stop sharing private data with politicians.
And in the United Kingdom, a huge coalition of Britain’s privacy groups is launching DontSpyOnUs.org.uk, to pressure the UK’s GCHQ to stop its global mass surveillance apparatus.
In the US? Call Congress today.
Dial 202-552-0505 or click here to enter your phone number and have our call tool connect you
Privacy Info: This telephone calling service is operated by Twilio and will connect you to your representatives. Information about your call, including your phone number and the time and length of your call, will be collected by Twilio and subject to Twilio’s privacy policy.
Calling Congress takes just five minutes and is the most effective action you can take right now to let your elected officials know that mass surveillance must end.
Here’s what you should say:
I’d like Senator/Representative __ to support and co-sponsor H.R. 3361/S. 1599, the USA Freedom Act. I would also like you to oppose S. 1631, the so-called FISA Improvements Act. Moreover, I’d like you to work to prevent the NSA from undermining encryption standards and to protect the privacy rights of non-Americans.
Where ever you live, can join them: you can visit Necessary And Proportionate, the home of the 13 Principles, and add your name to our action, and find out what is happening in your own country. Write your own posts of opposition, and spread the word through the hashtag #stopspying .
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Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu: Leave No Palestinian or Arab Alive
By Jonas E. Alexis | Veterans Today | July 23, 2017
Israeli Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu seems to have picked up where the late Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef left off. The Israeli army, Eliyahu said, must slaughter the Palestinians “and leave no one alive.” The Palestinians, the good rabbi continued, must be “destroyed and crushed in order to end violence.” Here is Eliyahu’s algorithm:
“If they don’t stop after we kill 100, then we must kill 1,000. And if they do not stop after 1,000, then we must kill 10,000. If they still don’t stop we must kill 100,000, even a million.”
There is more to this “logic” than meets the eye and ear. Eliyahu even postulated that the Israeli army ought not to get involved in arresting Palestinians because “If you leave him alive, there is a fear that he will be released and kill other people. We must eradicate this evil from within our midst.”
You may say that this is just an isolated case. No Israeli official believes that, right? … continue
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