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December
28, 2013 - No. 51
Growing Opposition to
Harper Government's Anti-Social Agenda
Opposition to More Nation-Wrecking
Legislation
Omnibus Budget Bill C-4 Passed
as House Adjourns
 On December 12, the House of
Commons adjourned for the Winter Break;
it will resume January 27, 2014. While the Harper government returned
to this
sitting of Parliament from its latest prorogation to face more
exposés of how
it operates as a criminal enterprise on behalf of narrow private
interests, it was
not humbled in the least or prevented from using its majority to ram
through
an agenda devoid of any moral or political authority or mandate from
the
people.
On the day of adjournment the following bills received
Royal
Assent
from the Governor General:
- C-4, A second act to implement certain
provisions of the
budget tabled in Parliament on March 21, 2013 and other measures --
Chapter
40, 2013. This is the Harper government's latest omnibus budget
bill
giving itself new arbitrary powers on behalf of the monopolies. Amongst
other
things the bill gives the Minister of the Treasury Board, Tony Clement,
new
arbitrary powers to violate the right of public servants to say No! to
government dictate. The establishment of these new powers is no doubt
because 17 of 27 collective agreements in the public service expire in
February
2014.
- C-7, An Act to amend
the Museums Act in
order to establish
the Canadian Museum of History and to make consequential amendments to
other Acts -- Chapter 38, 2013. This renames the Canadian Museum
of Civilization in Hull as the Canadian Museum of History. The aim is
to reorient the presentation of Canada's history and nation-building
created in the past for purposes of disinforming  the polity. This is
done by promoting random events in an impertinent way. In 2014, the
world marks the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of the First World
War and in 2015, the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II, and
in 2017 Canada marks the 150th anniversary of Confederation. Around
these events, the Harper government will promote the denial of
well-known warranted conclusions about the crucial matters pertaining
to war and peace, nation-building, Canada's relations with the U.S. and
about the imperialist system of states now and then. All of it is to
make space for the Harper Government's unacceptable anti-worker, racist
and anti-communist outlook and advance its preparations to embroil
Canada in a U.S.-led world conflagration.
- C-19, An
Act
for granting to Her Majesty certain sums of
money for the federal public administration for the financial year
ending
March 31, 2014 -- Chapter 39, 2013, gives permission to the Crown
to
spend funds. Nobody really knows though how many private contractors
the
government is hiring as part of its program to change the aim of
government
from one where it upholds public right to one where it enshrines
monopoly
right.
 - C-9, the First
Nations Elections Act, which
gives the
Crown new powers to impose electoral regimes onto First Nations, passed
third
reading and will now go to the Senate for its approval. According to
the
Harper government the legislation will improve First Nations elections.
In fact,
it is for purposes of further trampling under foot First Nations'
constitutional,
hereditary and treaty rights. (See TML Weekly, November 9,
2013 -- No.
44)
The Harper Government also introduced the Agricultural
Growth Act (AGA) -- an
omnibus bill for
agriculture which proposes
amendments
to a number of acts dealing with plant breeders' rights, feed, seed,
fertilizer,
animal health, plant protection, monetary penalties, agricultural
marketing
programs and farm debt mediation.
In this issue, TML Weekly reports on some of
the dangerous
nation-wrecking activities of the Harper dictatorship and the growing
widespread resistance. More and more, Canadians are raising the alarm
about the further damage the Harper government can cause before the
next federal election scheduled for October 2015, nearly two years from
now. The demand for Harper to resign Now! is becoming increasingly
urgent.
Status of Government
Legislation
The following legislation will be considered by the
House
of Commons and Senate in the New Year.
Bills at second reading:
C-2, An Act to amend the Controlled Drugs and
Substances Act, also known as the Respect for Communities Act.
This is the
Harper government's response to a 2011 Supreme Court ruling which
forced
it to stop its arbitrary denial of a permit for a safe injection site,
InSite;
C-11, An Act to amend the Public Service Employment
Act (priority
hiring for injured veterans);
C-12, An Act to amend the Corrections and
Conditional Release
Act;
C-13, An Act to amend the Criminal Code, the Canada
Evidence Act,
the Competition Act and the Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters
Act, also known as the Protecting
Canadians from Online
Crime Act. The
Harper government claims this legislation is aimed at cyberbullying;
C-17, An Act to amend the Food and Drugs Act; and
C-18, An Act to amend certain Acts relating to
agriculture and
agri-food also known as the Agricultural Growth Act.
Bills at Committee:
C-3, An Act to enact the Aviation Industry
Indemnity
Act, to amend
the Aeronautics Act, the Canada Marine Act, the Marine Liability Act
and the
Canada Shipping Act, 2001 and to make consequential amendments to other
Acts also known as the Safeguarding Canada's Seas and Skies
Act. This legislation deals with the transport of dangerous
materials,
such as oil and gas, by sea and air;
C-5, An Act to amend the Canada-Newfoundland
Atlantic Accord
Implementation Act, the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Resources
Accord Implementation Act and other Acts and to provide for certain
other
measures also known as the Offshore Health and Safety
Act;
C-6, An Act to implement the Convention on Cluster
Munitions. This legislation is supposed to implement Canada's
obligations as a
signatory to the Convention on Cluster Munitions. The fraudulent nature
of the
bill is seen in the broad "exceptions" it provides for Canadian
military and
civilian personnel to order and even request the use of cluster
munitions if it
is part of "international operations" with non-state parties to the
Convention,
i.e. the United States and Israel;
C-10, An Act to amend the Criminal Code
(trafficking
in contraband
tobacco). This legislation would give the Crown greater powers to
criminalize the sale of what it declares contraband tobacco, for
instance tobacco
produced by First Nations; and
C-15, An Act to replace the Northwest Territories
Act to implement
certain provisions of the Northwest Territories Lands and Resources
Devolution Agreement and to repeal or make amendments to the
Territorial
Lands Act, the Northwest Territories Waters Act, the Mackenzie Valley
Resource Management Act, other Acts and certain orders and
regulations, also known as the Northwest Territories
Devolution
Act. According to the government, the legislation amends "various
statutes which aim to encourage investment in the Northwest Territories
while
ensuring that resource development proceeds in a sustainable fashion,
so that
the resulting economic benefits can be enjoyed by future generations."
Bill going to third reading:
C-8, An Act to amend the Copyright Act and the
Trade-marks Act
and to make consequential amendments to other Acts. This
legislation
will strengthen the control of monopolies over various fields,
including the
production of pharmaceuticals, software and cultural works. Similar
legislation
has been tabled a number of times in the past by the Harper government
and
not passed. However it appears the government is now ready to use its
majority to put these new arrangements in place. They are likely linked
to the
recently signed Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) with
the European Union and negotiations over copyright and trade mark
protections.
The following legislation is currently at second reading
in the Senate:
S-2, An Act to amend the Statutory Instruments Act
and to make
consequential amendments to the Statutory Instruments Regulations. This
legislation would usurp the power of the legislature and permit the
Crown to
delegate and "sub-delegate" regulatory making powers to private
entities and
even foreign states;
C-9, An Act respecting the election and term of
office of chiefs and
councillors of certain First Nations and the composition of council of
those
First Nations. This legislation is part of the Harper
government's agenda
to strengthen its arbitrary powers to violate the right of First
Nations to operate
outside of government dictate, especially as concerns resource
development;
C-14, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the
National Defence
Act (mental disorder); and
C-16, An Act to give effect to the Governance
Agreement with Sioux
Valley Dakota Nation and to make consequential amendments to other
Acts. This is a self-governance agreement with the Sioux
Valley Dakota
Nation between the Federal government, the Manitoba government and the
Sioux Valley Dakota Nation.
Federal Public Sector Unions Join Forces to Fight
Omnibus Budget Bill
C-4
On December 10, federal
public sector unions issued a
press release
indicating they are joining forces to challenge the Harper government's
omnibus budget bill, Bill C-4, A
second act to implement certain
provisions
of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 21, 2013 and other
measures. The
unions will pool their resources in advance of the next round of
collective
bargaining with the Treasury Board in 2014 and will take joint action
to
challenge the constitutionality of Bill C-4. They point out that the
bill is an
unprecedented assault on collective bargaining and workplace health and
safety, that  eliminates labour rights
gained over the last fifty years
and
severely undermines the ability of federal employees to negotiate. The
bill was
drafted without consulting public sector bargaining agents which make
up the
National Joint Council of the Public Service of Canada, through which
the
unions are supposed to be informed and consulted.
The bill gives the federal
government's Treasury Board the unfettered right
to determine what constitutes an essential service, which workers are
denied
the right to strike, and which collective agreements will be decided
through
arbitration. The bill also changes arbitration by limiting the
independence of
arbitration boards.
Bill C-4 gives the Minister of Labour the authority to
throw out any unsafe
work refusal complaints without investigation, leaving employees who
refuse
unsafe work open to discipline, including dismissal. The Minister can
also
exercise his/her prerogative to have an investigation undertaken in
secret.
The impact of these changes
to health and safety
protection will reach far
beyond the federal public service to the 1.2 million private and public
sector
workers covered by the Canada Labour Code, the unions point out.
 In several presentations
before Parliamentary committees
in the House of
Commons and Senate, federal unions and legal experts called on
Parliament
to withdraw the provisions amending the Public Service Labour Relations
Act
and the Canada Labour Code from the omnibus budget bill. Presenters to
the committee included the Canadian Bar
Association which
strongly criticized the anti-democratic nature of the bill in its
recent letter to
Parliament. Labour law firm Sack Goldblatt Mitchell said that the
changes in
Bill C-4 "will have a profound impact upon the ability of unions to
bargain
effectively with the Government and to protect and promote the rights
of the
employees they represent."
The unions point out that the questions asked by
Conservative MPs at
these committees made it clear that the primary aim of the bill is not
to
modernize labour relations, but to facilitate the federal government in
attacking
the pay and benefits of federal public servants.
In addition to preparing a legal challenge, federal
public sector unions also
agreed to join forces to defend collective agreements in the next round
of
bargaining, to inform federal workers and the public of the extreme and
radical
nature of these changes, and to vigorously defend health and safety in
federal
workplaces.
The federal bargaining
agents of the National Joint
Council of the Public
Service of Canada are: the Association of Canadian Financial Officers;
the
Association of Justice Counsel; the Canadian Air Traffic Control
Association,
Unifor Local 5454; the Canadian Association of Professional Employees;
the
Canadian Federal Pilots Association; the Canadian Merchant Service
Guild; the
Canadian Military  Colleges Faculty
Association; the Coast Guard Marine
Communications Officers, Unifor Local 2182; Unifor Local 588-G; the
Professional Association of Foreign Service Officers; the Professional
Institute
of the Public Service of Canada; the Public Service Alliance of Canada;
the
Research Council Employees' Association; the Union of Canadian
Correctional
Officers -- CSN; the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers,
Local
2228; the Federal Government Dockyard Trades and Labour Council (West);
Federal Government Dockyard Chargehands Association; and Federal
Government Dockyard Trades and Labour Council (East).
(Daily
Commercial News)
New Agriculture Bill Throttles Farmers,
Threatens Seed Sovereignty
- National Farmers Union, December 10,
2013 -
Agriculture Minister Ritz is moving with undue haste
with yesterday's
announcement of the Agricultural
Growth Act (AGA) which received First
Reading in Parliament today. The government is calling the AGA an
omnibus
bill for agriculture because it proposes amendments to a number of acts
dealing with plant breeders' rights, feed, seed, fertilizer, animal
health, plant
protection, monetary penalties, ag marketing programs and farm debt
mediation.
 "This legislation will
fundamentally restructure
agriculture in ways that
will profoundly affect farmers, their rural communities and the food
system
they supply. Its effects will reach far beyond agriculture," stated Jan
Slomp,
NFU National President. "Amending the Plant
Breeders' Rights Act to
align
with the requirements of UPOV '91 (the International Union for the
Protection
of New Varieties of Plants) instead of UPOV '78 will devastate farmers'
ability to save, sell and reuse seed. At the same time, greater
corporate control
over every aspect related to seed will mean farmers pay much higher
seed
prices."
Terry Boehm, presently a member of the NFU Seed and
Trade Committee
and NFU past president, stated, "Ritz claims that this so-called Ag
Growth
Act, and UPOV '91 in particular, will stimulate innovation that
will
benefit
farmers by increasing varietal crop choices and providing higher
incomes. The
reality is -- and will be, however -- much different. UPOV '91 isn't
about
innovation. It's about restricting what farmers can do with seed and
giving
seed companies powerful new tools to extract money from farmers."
Boehm described the cascading right to collect royalties
under UPOV '91.
"These seed corporations would be able to extract money from farmers on
their entire crop," he explained. "The cascading right would allow seed
corporations to collect royalties at any point in the food system, but
most
likely when farmers sell their crop. This means that the seed companies
would
generate revenue on a farmer's entire production rather than just on
the seed
purchased to grow the crop."
The new legislation has other consequences according to
Boehm. "The
plant breeder/seed corporation would have total control of seed,
including
exclusive control of conditioning (cleaning and treating), stocking
(bagging or
storage), importing, exporting, and sales of seed," he pointed out.
"This upsets
thousands of years of normal agricultural practice whereby farmers
always
saved seed for their next crop."
"Ritz's commitment to include the 'Farmer's Privilege'
to save and re-use
seed is very deceptive and limited," Boehm emphasized. "Farmer's
Privilege
is only an option granted at the behest of a government, which can just
as
easily remove it."
"UPOV '91 is another tool to ensure a steady revenue
stream for giant
seed companies on the backs of ordinary farmers," Boehm concluded.
"With
corporations exclusively controlling everything related to seed,
farmers lose
their autonomy, Canada loses its seed sovereignty and everyone becomes
even
more dependent on seed corporations whose ultimate goal is to force
farmers
to buy all their seed every year."
The NFU Seed and Trade Committee is undertaking a
thorough
reading of the Act, and will prepare a detailed analysis of its
implications for
farmers in the near future.
Say NO to UPOV '91, Increased Level
of Seed Patenting
- Matt Gehl, National Farmers Union,
December 10, 2013 -
Behind the noise of the Rob Ford and Senate scandal
cover ups, the
Canadian government is angling to legislate the removal of a right of
farmers
that should be non-negotiable.
Ottawa is moving quickly to implement the UPOV '91 plant
breeders'
rights convention with First Reading in Parliament of the Agricultural
Growth
Act, an agricultural omnibus bill. The proponents for this move
say
that doing
this will keep private plant breeding money in Canada and stop us from
somehow immediately turning into Luddites.
What is never acknowledged by the supporters of UPOV '91
is what will
be taken away from farmers. In exchange for this increased level of
patenting
of seed stocks, farmers will lose the right to save, store, sell and
re-use
farm-saved seed.
Think about this for a second. In contrast to the
practice of thousands of
years of open source plant breeding -- which incidentally has given us
our
present bountiful harvests -- a farmer will NOT be allowed to save the
seed
they have grown to plant again the following spring if it has Plant
Breeders'
Rights attached to it. We currently have a similar system in place for
almost
all canola grown in Canada because as a GMO, the seed companies have
been
able to patent canola gene sequences and force farmers to pay royalties
every
year. The yearly cost of buying new seed is always a sore point with
canola
growers.
Staying out of UPOV '91 will not diminish Canada's
importance as a
wheat-growing region. Research will always be done here because of our
strength in growing wheat. More importantly, we do not need to be
hostage
to private plant breeders -- our public plant breeding system has been
doing a
good job for a century.
In fact, the canola boom started when an Ag Canada
scientist working in
the public plant breeding system changed the oil profile of what had
been
rapeseed, making it usable as a cooking oil. This work was then turned
over
to private sector seed companies which commercialized -- and claimed
plant
breeders' rights on -- varieties expressing the trait.
UPOV supporters point to the canola model to support
their call for giving
the entire plant breeding sector over to private interests. But are the
so-called 'amazing gains' made by privately-bred canola better than the
gains in
wheat
yields and quality achieved by the Canadian tradition of public plant
breeding?
Dr. R.J. Graf, an eminent Canadian plant breeder, is one among many
researchers who points out that gains in canola yield over the last 35
years
have increased marginally -- just one-tenth of a bushel per acre more
per year -- compared with increases in wheat yields.
What is more interesting is that the cost of improving
canola yields has
been more than three times that of the public plant breeding system's
efforts
to improve wheat. Wheat yield and baking quality have been constantly
improving for a century thanks to the work of public plant breeders.
There can be no denying the benefits that farmers and
consumers have
received from the work done at Ag Canada research centres -- work that
was
ongoing until the Harper government set about cutting the budgets of
public-interest breeding programs to the bone.
Even a hundred years of successful public-interest plant
breeding is
nothing compared to the historical importance of farm-saved seed. Since
the
origin of agriculture, farmers have been selecting, saving and
replanting seed
from one year to the next, and sharing improved varieties with their
neighbours. Ottawa is about to sign an agreement and bring in a law
that
would eliminate that right for many Canadian farmers.
It is interesting that those who normally scream the
loudest about the need
to protect property rights are now championing UPOV '91, a system that
will
protect only the intellectual property of multinational seed
corporations at the
expense of the intellectual commons that has been developed, collected
and
controlled by farmers over millennia.
Stop Harper and Ritz from favouring the rights of plant
breeders at the
expense of the rights of farmers and consumers to use grain varieties
developed impartially in the public interest.
Keep your right to use farm-saved seed. Say NO to UPOV
'91!
*Matt Gehl, is a
National Farmers Union Board Member who
farms near
Regina, Saskatchewan. This Op-Ed was published by the National Farmers
Union.
First Nations Rally on Parliament Hill
to Oppose Education Act
The movement to defend First Nations' rights including
the right to
educate their children has been in action throughout 2013. Closing out
the
year, a demonstration in Ottawa on December 10 opposed the First
Nations Education Act, part of the Harper government's plan to
extinguish First Nations' rights. Organized under the Idle No More
banner, the
march and demonstration also marked the first anniversary of the
beginning
of Chief Teresa Spence's six-week hunger strike in defence of First
Nations'
constitutional, hereditary and treaty rights.
 The day began with a meeting
of activists, an Algonquin
Elder, and
students from a local elementary school on Victoria Island and from
there they
marched to Parliament Hill. Participants and speakers included
delegates from the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) meeting taking
place
in Gatineau.
Among the speakers were Wab
Kinew, Chief Theresa Spence
and a
representative from Elsipogtog First Nation in New Brunswick, whose
resistance to fracking on their traditional lands and the state
violence unleashed against them by governments upholding monopoly
right has been supported from coast to coast.
Claudette Commanda, an
Algonquin elder,
inaugurated the event saying, "We will raise our
voice so loud, to let Canada know that education must be for, by First
Nations
people, today and tomorrow, and our voice must be heard!"
Gilbert Whiteduck, Chief of Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg
First Nation pointed
out that "this Act is part of a long list of legislation that this
government is
attempting to impose in order to eradicate and terminate our place in
this
country. The Education Act is a key part of that. Some of you may
remember,
in 1969, there was an attempt to make us disappear, and First Nations
stood
up. First Nations stood up and made education the key component of what
they would go forward with, Indian control of Indian education... We
are
speaking about true jurisdiction. And the act that is being brought
forward is
on -- I don't know what words can be used -- paternalistic -- and the
list could
go on and on -- control that the Federal government wants to have on
the very
little authority that we already hold right now. The intent is to
offload its
responsibility to the provincial governments, allow us to be taken in
and
assimilated. It's the White Paper all over again."
 Chief Whiteduck said, "Many
good things have been done
in our
communities. We have many challenges, no doubt. But no one will ever be
able to tell me that our teachers, our educators, our principals, are
not doing
the darnedest work they can. We need to applaud them because they work
so
hard with very limited means -- schools that often are falling apart,
very
limited resources -- but they care about our young people [...] We need
to put
a stop to this in no uncertain terms. But at the same time that we go
forward
with our plan, the Minister a few weeks ago said, '[I]f there's enough
opposition, I may pull the Act, and we're going to go back to the
status quo.
But you know what we're going to do, we're going to go into your
communities and make darn sure that you're following everything,
otherwise
we may take control of what's occurring in the school.' Third-party
management. Put the fear in people. 'If you accept our rules, there
will be
money.'
"It's got to be on our
terms! These are our young people. And whether
they're in the urban centres, whether they're attending provincial
schools or
on-reserve schools. And when I speak about children or people wanting
to be
educated, not only limited to grade one to grade 11 like the Minister
wants to
do. What about post-secondary? What about pre-school? What about those
people who want to get upgrading? Careers? Vocational ed? This Act is
coming to destroy or attempt to create division among all of us in each
region.
And certainly in the Quebec region right now, they're contacting each
community individually, and saying we'll go talk to you on the ground,
and
you can make up your mind about what is right and what isn't about the
Act
[...]
"They want to be able to go into the community to ask
the parents a few
questions: they're going to ask the parents, 'Do you want quality
education?'
and the parents will say 'Yes.' 'Do you want your children to be
prepared to
move on to college?' 'Yes.' But they will not be asking the questions
and
they will not be seeking the input of parents to tell them, 'Are you
prepared
to accept an Act that will lead to extermination and termination, and
the
non-recognition of your language?' Are you prepared to allow provincial
governments, who are not models -- we can't model our education on the
province --  they failed us before and
they will fail us again. We have
the
solution... It's not only an issue of saying, 'We don't accept. We want
the Act
kicked out.' We can develop it. And unless we develop it, on our terms,
what
little we have now is leading to that termination and extermination,
individually and collectively.
"If the Minister decides to
go forward, we have to decide what it is we're
going to do. There have been other Acts adopted. We come to rally and
then
we leave. But I tell you, as the people who came before us, the
leaders and
many other people knew education would allow us to move forward on our
terms and the importance of language, culture, preparing our people
with a
spirit that is strong, with a spirit of identity. But this Act, this
paternalistic Act,
says the Minister is the great Indian Agent of the past and the great
Indian
Agent Bernard Valcourt says, 'I have the answer. Don't worry. You
people
have been doing nothing; your front-line people are not educators.
You're
mismanaging the money.' And then he goes in front of Parliament and
Canadians and says, 'Here's why this Act has to be put in place. Here's
why
we gotta put those Indians in line.' Nobody can put us in line. These
are our
children.
 "Again, I ask all of you.
It's got to be beyond the
rhetoric and speeches
[...] Education, giving the tools to our people, creating the kind of
governance
in our communities that we need is what we have to not only seek, we
need
to achieve it. Our young people are waiting. Many community members
can't
come out here because of costs and whatnot, but they're listening in.
[...]
We've got to put a stop to it. All the policies that have been coming
forward,
we need to recognize them for what they are. And that's termination, in
whatever form. And let's be careful not to bite into that carrot of
money, of
saying 'If you do it, you get it.'
"And finally I'll say I
also
recall the book from Harold Cardinal, when he
fought the '69 White Paper and he wrote the book The Unjust
Society against Trudeau's so-called Just Society. The picture
on the book is
Indian Affairs, who's playing the puppeteer, and the Aboriginal person
is the
marionette. It appears that the Minister thinks that he's become the
Cirque du Soleil marionette player and that if we don't dance to his
tune, if we
decide to
cut the strings, he's going to boot us around. I ask you, don't allow
this
government Minister to boot us around. This is about our people, our
children,
our future generation! On Wednesday at the AFN Assembly I'm asking the
Chiefs to demonstrate very visibly and very clearly, no hesitation, no
'Well,
let's be soft on the language.' This government is not soft on us. They
don't
deserve for us to be soft on them."
Russ Diabo, Analyst and AFN
proxy delegate for Wolf Lake First Nation
and Defenders of the Land spokesperson spoke on the First Nations
Education Act's relationship to the overall plans for
extinguishment and
termination by the Canadian colonial state. Diabo pointed out the
hypocrisy
that the Canadian politicians attending the funeral of Nelson Mandela
in South
Africa are the same ones who "have been presiding over Canada's
termination
plan to terminate our collective rights for a long time. Joe Clark,
Jean Chrétien,
Brian Mulroney, Kim Campbell, and Stephen Harper. The mainstream media
is not talking about how South Africa came here to study the reserve
system
to create the Bantustans in South Africa. South Africa had a Department
of
Native Affairs for a long time [...] Over there, they  were arguing for
equal
rights because the blacks are the majority in the country. Here, since
the
mid-1800s we became the minority in this country. At one time we were
the
military allies because we outnumbered the whites. But the Indian
Act started to come in when they started to outnumber us.
"And the Indian Act has been the main
instrument of control
and management of our people since before Confederation, around 1850.
And
that's the same Act that they're using now. Stephen Harper said at the
Crown-First Nations Gathering that he wouldn't amend the Indian
Act. He lied. He's got a suite of legislation -- the Matrimonial
Property Act just passed. This Education Act is the
latest
in a suite of legislation that's designed at amending sections of the Indian
Act to be the main instrument for Ottawa
bureaucrats to
manage and control us. At least to try to. And it's to manage our
extinction
-- our assimilation. It strikes me, the parallels with the South
African
revolution that Mandela led. I was watching some of the TV coverage.
They
were showing a black man from the apartheid era wearing a t-shirt and
on the
back it said "Submit or Fight." And I think that's what we're facing at
a
crossroads here. The Education Act especially, as it affects our
children and
our communities. But there's a lot behind it. It's the latest piece of
the
termination plan that Canada's imposing. And I think that's what we
have to
decide, every single one of us: are we going to submit or fight?"
 Activist Arthur Manuel, son
of George Manuel, national chief of the
National Indian Brotherhood during the 1970s spoke on the slogan
'Indian
Control of Indian Education' and how it relates to the overall struggle
against
colonialism: "There's no question that when we stand before Parliament
here
we stand before the colonial regime that makes up Canada. In 1867, when
the
British Parliament passed the British North America Act, they
turned over all our land and resources to the federal and provincial
governments. Do you know how much land indigenous reserves are in
Canada? It's 0.2 per cent. That means Canada controls 99.8 per cent of
all
land. Who's going to be rich and who's going to be poor? It's going to
be the
guy that has 99.8 per cent that's going to be rich. The indigenous
people, us,
we are going to be impoverished through colonization [...] It's about
dispossession, it's about dependency, and it's about oppression.
Parliament
represents dispossession of indigenous people. And that was supposed to
stop
in 1982, when the Canadian Constitution was amended. Section 31(1) was
added, where it said the Canadian government and the provinces would
recognize and affirm Aboriginal and Treaty rights. That's when this
government was supposed to quit this nonsense about Indian
Comprehensive
Land Claims and instead of that recognize that this is Algonquin
Territory
where we stand, and begin sharing the resources... instead of cheating
us and
ripping us off like they continue to do.
"Only through taking measures like what Idle No More is
doing, like what
Defenders of the Land are doing, are we able to force the government to
not
just recognize Aboriginal and Treaty rights in the constitution, but
recognize
it on the ground. There is no reason that indigenous people should be
poor in
this country. There's only about one million of us, and Canada is the
second
largest country in the world, one of the wealthiest countries in the
world.
There's no reason except because of this dispossession that we're made
dependent [...] That's how come this place claims that it has the power
and the
authority to pass legislation concerning the education of our children.
They say
they can do that and don't recognize the fact that we, because we own
our
own territory, have a right to make our own laws and our own decisions
regarding our land and our territories. Because one of the things
that's very
clear is that colonization, the whole question of dispossession,
dependency and
oppression, has been condemned by the United Nations.
"Canada should be standing back from that and
recognizing our right as
indigenous people to self-determination. [...] We see an oppression in
Elsipogtog. We see an oppression in Sun Peaks [a private resort on
First Nations land near Kamloops, BC]. We see an oppression
whenever indigenous people stand up for our land and our resources.
Idle No
More is being investigated by the security forces of Canada [...] as a
threat to
the status quo where Canada controls 99.8 per cent of our land.
They're looking at us as a security risk because we want
to reverse that,
we want to change that, we want to make sure that indigenous people
have our
fair share in terms of resources and our right to make decisions.
That's what
the struggle in Indian education or indigenous education is all about:
that we
take possession of education, that we educate our children about what
colonization is, and we work towards self-determination."
 Clayton Tootoosis, member of
the Assembly of First Nations Youth
Council from Onion Lake Cree Nation in Saskatchewan said, "As we gather
here, [...] inside they talk about what we can do as people: You can do
that;
no, you can't do that. I don't care what they say because I am from
this land!
We were all put here by the Creator, natural beings, born of this
earth.
And
when people talk about these rights, Aboriginal rights, man made these
Aboriginal rights. My rights come from the Creator. So when we gather
and
we talk [...] what has to happen is we have to go home to our home
fires and
make that change. Standing here, me talking, isn't going to make
change. We
have to realize that we have to take responsibility for our actions.
This is the
real Assembly. This is where the people are. This is where we need to
be --
with each other. And we need to remember that we're responsible for the
actions -- so many of us talk about money, and it's all I've been
hearing all
day. Man made that money and said this is what it's worth, and we're
listening. When the land's being destroyed for that money, what am I
doing
about it? What are you doing about it? What happened in Elsipogtog is
they
stood up and they said 'no.' They rose up. Well, why don't we rise up?
The
truth be told, why are there so many police in front of this building?
Because
they're not protecting us, they're protecting this building. They know
that we
have the power. The power is with the people and it has always been,
when
we realize and we wake up to that power that exists within each and
every one
of our hearts, when [we] live that natural life with Mother Earth, not
as
its
owner. Enough of this talk of money. It's time to remember who we are.
We
are from this earth!"
 A postcard petition by the
Chiefs of Ontario was distributed to participants
at the rally. The cards are addressed to Prime Minister Stephen Harper
and call
on the government to "Support and empower First Nations; Stop the
unilateral
federal Indian Agent approach" and state that the sender rejects the
proposed First Nations Education Act. The Chiefs of
Ontario's petition
against the proposed First Nations Education Act can be
found here.
Letters of Rejection of the Act from various Ontario First
Nations as well as the union Unifor can be found here.
Erosion of Criminal Justice System
Judges Oppose Revenge-Seeking
 In year-end interviews,
Prime Minister Harper indicated
that 2014 will see
his government continue its transformations, in particular to the
criminal
justice and immigration systems as well as to various other public
institutions.
As concerns the justice system, he said: "[O]ne of the things we are
doing
beyond the
economy is making, over time, a transformation in our legal system."
"[T]hrough time, through change in law, through change in appointments
to
the
bench, I hope we'll see this transformation," he added.
Since coming to power, the
Harper government has
steadily introduced
changes to Canada's criminal justice system. Besides other measures to
criminalize the youth, the omnibus crime Bill C-36, handed over
sweeping
powers to the Minister of Justice and Public Safety and deprived judges
of
discretionary powers. This has given rise to growing opposition from
within
the criminal justice system itself to which the government has
responded by
eliminating even more of the judges' discretionary powers. These are
powers
designed to make sure that the law is applied in a manner that sees
that justice
is done, especially when it comes to sentencing.
In a recent confrontation, judges have refused to levy
mandatory "victims
surcharges" onto those convicted of crimes or they are finding ways
around the
requirement. The surcharges are an additional penalty imposed on
convicted
offenders at the time of sentencing. These surcharges are collected and
retained
by the provincial and territorial governments which are supposed to
fund
programs and services for victims of crime in the province or territory
where
the crime occurred.
The surcharges have existed
since 1989, and had been
mandatory since 2000,
however sentencing judges had the discretion to waive the victim
surcharge
when it could be demonstrated that its payment would cause undue
hardship
to the offender or his or her dependents. The Harper government changed
this
in June 2013 when it passed Bill C-37 An Act to Amend the Criminal
Code (Short Title: Increasing
Offenders' Accountability for
Victims Act) eliminating any discretion on levying the surcharge
regardless of the circumstances.
Waterloo Region Ontario Court Justice Colin Westman, who
has been a
judge for 24 years, stated, "It's arbitrary, and arbitrary has no place
in my view
in the justice system. You have to have the facts before you impose a
sentence
or you impose punishment so that it can be proportionate to the crime."
Responding to criticism of why judges are not respecting
the Harper
government's changes to the law, Westman asked, "Did they show respect
for
us when they took away that discretion?"
"What is behind all that, he didn't like what we were
doing? We're the
judges, trust us. I don't know a judge who doesn't want to do justice
in the
courtroom. Trust our judgment, you've hired us to do that. We're
capable
apparently of determining whether a person is guilty or innocent of
anything
in the provincial court right up to manslaughter and we're capable in
using our
discretion imposing sentences from suspended sentences to life
imprisonment,"
Westman said.
Addressing the revenge-seeking nature of the changes the
Harper
government is imposing, Westman pointed out, "You have to understand
these
people have nothing. That's the tragedy. I'm not trying to be a
smart-alec here
but I think someone has to remind the minister there are broken people
here
who don't have anything to give. It's a bully mentality. It's kicking
people
while they are down. The people we are dealing with, believe me, a high
portion of them are just broken souls."
He has tremendous empathy for victims, Westman said, but
added
"the accused
is a human being too."
"We also owe justice, not only to the victim, but the
justice system is also
based on doing justice to the accused. Retribution is appropriate.
Revenge is
not," he said.
Explaining why he and other judges were finding ways not
to comply with
the mandatory surcharge Westman explained that "there are things that
come
along in life that you just have to stand up for."
"I feel this is so fundamentally wrong," he said. "It's
not about Justice
Minister MacKay. It's about justice in the courtroom."
Continued Attacks on Science
Scientists Decry Wrecking of
Fishery Libraries
Contents of the Maurice
Lamontagne Library of the Department of Fisheries and
Oceans, in Mont-Joli, Quebec,
thrown in a dumpster,
July 2013.
This summer, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans
(DFO) began a
process of consolidating its nine research libraries across the country
into two,
one in Halifax and one in Sidney, BC. Scientists report that this
consolidation
was presented as a "cost-cutting" exercise, and they were not
consulted and no consideration was given to its impact on their ability
to
conduct research. This attack on fishery science comes in the context
of the
Harper dictatorship's broad assault on the federal public service,
including
Canada's libraries and archives and scientific research that does not
serve its
narrow agenda of supporting monopoly right.
The DFO libraries contained hundreds of thousands of
items, many of
which were unique and specific to various regions of Canada. The
scientists
point out that this "consolidation" is akin to a "book burning," with
irreplaceable materials being destroyed en masse. These books
formed a unique historical record including early studies of local
fisheries and
marine ecosystems and expedition reports, with some materials dating
back to
the nineteenth century.
One scientist in a December 24 posting at
unmuzzledscience.wordpress.com describes the unceremonious end of the
process of consolidation, in which much of the contents of the Eric
Marshall
Library at the University of Manitoba were opened up for the taking:
"While the Department has issued numerous statements
indicating that the
material in the library is digitized, and 'rare' texts are being
consolidated at
other institutions, the fact of the matter is that when the current
librarian
retired in July, she was nowhere near completed her task of digitizing
material
or of even simply cataloguing what was held at the library, and the
'closure'
at this particular facility has been a total gong-show."
The scientist reports that this process at the Eric
Marshall Library was
mostly unmonitored and given the incomplete state of the catalogue, it
is
impossible to determine what books were taken. Many scientists sought
to
preserve the materials by transferring what they could to their own
individual
offices.
An article by Andrew Nikiforuk in The Tyee
December 9
quotes various scientists regarding the severity of the destruction of
this public
repository of scientific knowledge.
Speaking of the Eric Marshall Library, Burt Ayles, a
68-year-old retired
research scientist and former regional director-general for freshwaters
in central
Canada and the Arctic stated, "It was a world class library with some
of the
finest environmental science and freshwater book collections in the
world. It
was certainly the best in Canada, but it's no more."
"The loss of this library and its impact on fisheries
and environmental
science is equivalent to Rome destroying the Royal Library of
Alexandria in
Egypt. It's equal to that," added Ayles.
"I was sickened," said one prominent research scientist
who had worked
for the federal government for 30 years, and who did not want to be
identified.
"All that intellectual capital is now gone. It's like a book burning.
It's the
destruction of our cultural heritage. It just makes us poorer as a
nation."
"There are so many willing accomplices to what's going
on," the scientist
added. "All of our federal libraries and archives are being diminished.
It's an
ideological thing coming from a right-wing libertarian government."
The Eric Marshall Library was closely linked to the
Experimental Lakes
Area (ELA), where for 50 years, world-renowned research on freshwater
ecosystems was conducted, which the Harper government also cut in 2012.
Nikiforuk writes, "The closure of the library, which
served as a vital
source for the ELA, will make it harder for Winnipeg's International
Institute
for Sustainable Development to rescue what remains of the team of
scientists
that ran the ELA. A last minute deal, supported by funding by the
Ontario
government, has been compromised by the federal government. The ELA's
remaining researchers all received 'surplus letters' last week, which
makes it
difficult to retain ELA staff."
Scientists also explained to Nikiforuk that digital
archives are no substitute
for physical libraries, never mind the fact that full digital archives
of the DFO
libraries were not completed. Digital libraries typically do not
include older
material and require payment to access them and thus restrict rather
than
expand readership, scientists said.
The cuts to the DFO's libraries follows in the wake of
other cuts to the
department. Nikiforuk writes, "Federal cuts by the Harper government
have
forced Fisheries and Oceans to lay off hundreds of researchers, as well
as 700
Coast Guard workers; dismantle a marine contaminants program; and close
the
Kitsilano Coast Guard station, the first line of defence against oil
spills. After
dramatic cuts to the Canada Offshore Oil, Gas and Energy Research
Centre at
the Bedford Institute of Oceanography, its director, Ken Lee, an oil
spill
expert, saw the writing on the wall and took a job in Australia."
Furthermore, Nikiforuk points out that "Since 2012, the
government has
closed or consolidated more than a dozen federal libraries at Parks
Canada,
Environment Canada, Natural Resources Canada, Foreign Affairs,
Citizenship
and Immigration and Canadian Heritage."
Stepped-up Integration and War
Preparations
Canada's Further Integration into
U.S. Homeland
Security
 On December 19 the
Executive Committee of the Beyond the Border
Action Plan made up of officials from the executives of the U.S. and
Canada
released its second report on how it is implementing the Beyond the
Border
Action Plan signed in 2011. This year's report outlines pilot projects
which
place Canada's security apparatus under U.S. command and control, in
particular at key ports. Also highlighted are ongoing steps to hand
over vast
amounts of information to U.S. officials on who is travelling to and
from
Canada. Already there are reports that more Canadians are being
harassed at
entry to the United States on the basis of private information about
their
mental health taken "legally" from Canadian databases. There is also an
increase in the number of unmanned drones flying in Canadian civilian
airspace through the implementation of the Beyond the Border Action
Plan.
"Key accomplishments" over the last year include:
- "Deployment of joint Entry/Exit program at the common
land border
whereby the record of entry into one country is shared and becomes the
record
of exit from the other country for third-country nationals (those who
are
neither citizens of Canada nor of the United States), permanent
residents of
Canada who are not U.S. citizens, and lawful permanent residents of the
United States who are not Canadian citizens, thereby enhancing the
integrity
of our immigration systems; ...
- "Enhanced the administration and enforcement ... of
respective
immigration laws by signing an agreement for the sharing of visa and
immigration information on third-country nationals; ...
- "Deployed Shiprider
teams to provide cross-border
continuity of law
enforcement operations in shared waterways in British
Columbia/Washington
State and Ontario/Michigan, and conducted Shiprider surge operations at
other
locations in the Great Lakes and Atlantic regions;
- "Initiated binational radio interoperability between
Canadian and U.S. law
enforcement personnel in British Columbia/Washington State and
Ontario/Michigan; the technology permits law enforcement on both sides
of the
border to coordinate binational investigations and timely responses to
border
incidents, while improving both officer and public safety;
- "Conducted the first ever cross-border Regional
Resilience Assessment
Program project in the New Brunswick-Maine region to improve the
security
and resilience of our shared critical infrastructure; ...
- "Strengthened cyber incident management coordination
between Canada
and the United States and enhanced private sector engagement and public
awareness on cybersecurity; ...
- "Increased membership in the nexus trusted traveller
program to more than
917,000, an increase of approximately 50% since the Beyond the Border
Action Plan was announced; ...
- "Successfully implemented Phase I of the truck cargo
pre-inspection pilot
at Pacific Highway in Surrey, British Columbia (adjacent to Blaine,
Washington) in which U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers
pre-inspected approximately 3,500 U.S.-bound commercial trucks;
- "Began preparations for Phase II of the truck cargo
pre-inspection pilot,
with an anticipated deployment in January 2014 in Fort Erie, Ontario
(adjacent
to Buffalo, New York), to test the feasibility of reducing wait times
and border
congestion by conducting U.S. primary inspection of U.S.-bound
commercial
trucks in Canada;
- "Publicly released an Integrated Cargo Security
Strategy" to address "risks
associated with maritime shipments arriving from offshore, and
undertook pilot
projects at Prince Rupert, British Columbia, Montreal, Quebec, and in
the
pre-load air cargo environment to validate and shape the implementation
of the
strategy; ...
- "Increased and harmonized the threshold value for
low-value commercial
shipments, reducing transaction costs for industry by millions of
dollars each
year; [and]
- "Released the first joint Border Infrastructure
Investment Plan to ensure a
mutual understanding of recent, ongoing and planned border
infrastructure
improvements and confirmed Canada's immediate investment plans at key
border crossings."
Government Helps Establish U.S. Control Over Arctic
Early in December, in the service of the U.S.
imperialist striving for world domination, Harper ordered a rewrite of
Canada's international claim for Arctic seabed rights to include the
North Pole, a region Russia has already marked as its own. The Arctic
is believed to hold up to 25 per cent of the world's oil and gas
reserves. From the perspective of the U.S., the battle for the Arctic
is part of its broader global military agenda.
Printed below is the full
text of a December 19 news
release from
Northrop Grumman, the American arms manufacturer which has some $34
billion in Pentagon contracts. Northrop Grumman is using its latest
drone,
known as the Global Hawk Block 30, to allegedly help "American and
Canadian scientists to study changes in topography and Arctic ice caps."
 Apart from the unbridled
violation of Canadian
sovereignty, the story
reveals an alarming increase in war preparations. This drone has
numerous
operating flaws and recurrent maintenance troubles and the U.S. Air
Force
proposed to save $2.5 billion by closing a drone production line and
mothballing some of the aircraft. However, Northrop Grumman used
campaign
donations and insider access on Capitol Hill to defeat the proposal
with Canada
intervening on the side of those who are determined to develop it.
It reveals another of what are called "baby steps" taken
on a regular basis
to keep Canadians unaware of the extent to which the Harper government
has
placed Canada under U.S. command. Notably, Northrop Grumman's President
Ronald D. Sugar is a former director of Chevron Texaco Corp., one of
the
world's largest and most profitable oil monopolies.
December 19 News Release
Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE: NOC), the NASA
Dryden Flight
Research Center and a team of international science organizations
successfully
flew a Northrop Grumman-produced NASA Global Hawk unmanned aircraft
system
through Canadian
airspace as part of a mission to collect environmental data in the
Canadian
Arctic.
The Global Hawk was equipped with an Uninhabited Aerial
Vehicle
Synthetic Aperture Radar (UAVSAR) as well as a high resolution camera
to
conduct ground mapping and visual observation of Arctic ice caps during
the
approximately 21-hour flight. Information collected during this flight
will be
used by American and Canadian scientists to study changes in topography
and
Arctic ice caps.
"Flying high and long missions with advanced scientific
equipment over
the Arctic provides scientists with real data to better understand the
changes
that are affecting our world," said Janis Pamiljans, Northrop Grumman's
sector
vice president and general manager of unmanned systems. "The
high-altitude,
long-endurance NASA Global Hawk is one of the best tools researchers
have
to study weather phenomena."
This flight marks the first time the NASA Global Hawk
has flown through
Canadian civil airspace. Global Hawk's high-altitude, long-endurance
capabilities enabled the aircraft to depart from NASA Dryden, based at
Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., and fly over several predetermined key
areas
in the Arctic before returning to NASA Dryden.
Northrop Grumman, NASA Dryden, NASA Goddard Space Flight
Center,
NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration, and Canadian science counterparts worked together to
enable
this mission. NASA Global Hawks have already been used for a wide range
of environmental missions, including collecting atmospheric data in
support of
the Airborne Tropical TRopopause EXperiment and deployment over the
Atlantic Ocean to study hurricane formation and intensity change during
the
Hurricane and Severe Storm Sentinel missions.
The flight over the Canadian Arctic comes after the
recent five-year
renewal of the Space Act Agreement, a partnership between Northrop
Grumman and NASA that allows sharing of NASA Global Hawks for science
missions and flight demonstrations. The initial Space Act Agreement,
signed
in 2008, returned two preproduction Global Hawk aircraft to flight
status. A
permanent Global Hawk ground control station was built at NASA
Dryden.
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