Canada

‘Historic’ Aboriginal Land Title Trial To Begin In B.C. Supreme Court

March 21, 2022 Jason Proctor, CBC News. Resist! Canada, Indigenous Rights, Land Reform, UNDRIP

When Captain James Cook encountered the ancestors of the Nuchatlaht people in 1778, the British explorer wrote in his journal that he had "no where met with Indians who had such high notions of every thing the Country produced being their exclusive property." Those words may come back to haunt the Crown in the coming weeks as the Nuchatlaht embark on an uncharted journey of their own: a legal quest to obtain Aboriginal title over 200 square kilometers of land off the west coast of Vancouver Island. Members of the First Nation will be in B.C. Supreme Court on Monday for the beginning of what some observers expect to be a groundbreaking trial as they attempt to prove their right to Crown land mostly comprised of Nootka Island.

Student Journalists’ Fight Against Censorship Leads To Protection Bill

March 17, 2022 Stephen Wentzell, Rabble.ca. Resist! Canada, Censorship, Education, Journalism

The recent occupation of Canada’s capital by the “Freedom Convoy” has highlighted a growing trend of vitriol, harassment and violence facing reporters both off-screen and online. Now, as newsrooms across the country grapple with the need for increased security and safety for journalists, two high school students are working to protect the rights of student journalists. The Student Press Freedom Act was created by Vancouver-based high school student journalists, Spencer Izen and Jessica Kim, after experiencing backlash on their coverage from an unexpected source: their school’s administration. Their school’s newspaper, The Griffin’s Nest, launched in 2012. Kim, who has served as managing editor of the publication since September 2020, joined the team in grade 10.

Stories From The Movement: Transition Toronto

March 12, 2022 Rob Hopkins, Resilience. Create! Canada, Environment, Food and Agriculture, Transition Town

The principle in Transition of focusing your energy on what you are passionate about is beautifully captured in the work of Transition Toronto in Canada. While COVID meant that some of their key projects, such as their annual EcoFair, which they co-present with the Green Neighbours Network, had to go virtual, two key projects, TreeMobile and Food Up Front really came into their own. TreeMobile (pronounced in the same way as ‘Batmobile’) is described by the group thus: “TreeMobile delivers and plants food-bearing trees, shrubs, and other perennials to improve local food security, reduce food miles, reforest urban communities, and create delicious food”. The idea is simple but effective. In the winter, Virginie Gysel, landscaper and the founder of the TreeMobile project, contacts tree nurseries, reserves trees and shrubs (edible species only) which will do well in the local climate.

What The US Can Learn From Canadian Activists Who Blocked Truck Convoys

March 3, 2022 Shane Burley, Waging Nonviolence. Strategize! Blockades, Canada, Right-Wing, Trucker Convoy

After several years of far-right insurgencies in the United States, the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, and Trump’s return to public life, few expected Canada to be the location of the next great explosion of right-wing energy. Over the past several weeks, people around the world have watched as a series of protests and occupations — self-titled the “freedom convoy” — brought out long-haul truck drivers and others to ostensibly challenge the vaccine and COVID-19 mandates coming from the Canadian government. Despite being vaccinated at a rate exceeding 90 percent, some cross-border truck drivers were incensed at the vaccine requirements that Justin Trudeau’s administration has issued.

Reaction To Haitian Strike Exposes Liberal Lie On ‘Feminist Foreign Policy’

February 24, 2022 Yves Engler. Educate! Canada, Feminism, Haiti, Worker Rights and Jobs

A government truly committed to a “feminist foreign policy” would support Haitians striking to boost their 70-cents-per-hour wage. But thus far Canadian officials have responded to the workers’ action by paying a celebratory visit to a sweatshop and ignoring protests repressed by Canadian-funded police. At the start of last week thousands of Haitian apparel workers launched a strike for a higher minimum wage. Thousand have taken to the streets in Port-au-Prince calling for a tripling of their 500 gourdes daily salary (CDN $6.20). The largely female workforce stitches shirts and other apparel for brands like Gap, Walmart, Target, JCPenney as well as Canadian apparel giant Gildan. The Canadian government has a long history of promoting Haiti’s export processing zones as a means of “development”.

What The Emergencies Act Reveals About Civilian Policing In Ottawa

February 21, 2022 Martin Schoots-Mcalpine , Canadian Dimension. Educate! Canada, Justin Trudeau, Policing, State Violence

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s decision to invoke the Emergencies Act to deal with the fascist “trucker” convoy has been met with a mix of support, criticism, and confusion. While Trudeau and his government claim that this is necessary to respond to the situation, many of us on the left remain skeptical, having witnessed first-hand the power of police protest control in the absence of the Emergencies Act. So why did the federal government take such a drastic step? First, the border blockades at Coutts in Alberta and the Ambassador Bridge in Ontario were effective enough that they began to hurt sections of big capital. Officials in Michigan used the opportunity to champion Buy-American initiatives. In Windsor, a coalition of auto companies was able to obtain an injunction against the blockade.

Freedom Comes To Canada

February 20, 2022 Bryan D. Palmer, Verso. Educate! Canada, COVID-19, Trucker Convoy, White Supremacy

Everything happening in the United States comes to Canada, only a little later and a tad more politely. The rage that erupted in a Presidential-endorsed riot in Washington on 6 January 2021 has now exploded to the north. Fueled by a confused swirl of resentment against the array of pandemic protocols that all advanced capitalist states have invoked to curb and contain Covid-19 – including vaccination passports, mandatory masking, business lockdowns, and cross-border restrictions – so-called “Freedom Convoys” have descended on the nation’s capital Ottawa, holding the city hostage. US-Canada border crossings have been blocked in Ontario, British Columbia, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta, and the convoys have staged sporadic protests across the country, from Fredericton, New Brunswick to Surrey, British Columbia.

The Convoy And Canada – A Call To Step Up

February 19, 2022 John Cartwright, The Council of Canadians. Organize! Canada, Polarization, Populism, Trucker Convoy

I have spent time listening to leaders and activists from across this country, and I have learned one thing: we as civil society must step up and provide courageous leadership in this time of crisis. Unions, racial and climate justice organizations, faith leaders, students, residents’ groups, health care activists – all of us have a role to play to help overcome this polarization, to bridge divides and to focus on crucial issues of social justice. We need to start organizing at the national and local level – bringing together people from all walks of life to determine strategies that will address the realities of each region of our country. There is no magic slogan that can turn this around. It’s about deep organizing. We know that public health measures are about saving lives, just as mandatory seatbelt laws save lives.

Ottawa Convoy Exposes The Racism That First Nations Have Long Known

February 19, 2022 Rachel Snow , Rabble.ca. Educate! Canada, Indigenous Rights, Trucker Convoy, Wet’suwet’en

Early in 2020 and late in 2021, the Wet’suwet’en First Nation faced down police forces as they tried to protect their homelands in northern British Columbia. The province and the federal government had no difficulty in sending in the RCMP to mete out justice. No mercy has been given to the First Nations when they protest. Oka, Ipperwash, Gustafsen Lake, logging standoffs and oil and gas standoffs, including the Tiny House Warriors standing against the Trans Mountain pipeline, were all met with unwavering police forces. The last confrontation in Wet’suwet’en had First Nations from other provinces joining in solidarity. Enter Alberta Premier Jason Kenney and his anti-protest legislation. Kenney quickly enacted Bill 1 to protect “critical infrastructure” and to fine those driven to protest.

Corporate Prosecutions Of Land Defenders Coming To Canada

February 18, 2022 Brandi Morin, Ricochet. Educate! Canada, Corporatism, Indigenous Rights, Land defenders

On the side of the road just past a bridge that crosses over the Canadian National Railway tracks in New Hazelton, B.C., sits a small tent structure. Inside, pensively warming his hands over a fire on a cold January day, sits Chief Spookw, hereditary chief of the Lax Gibuu (Wolf Clan) of the Gitxsan Nation. This is Lax Gibuu territory — ancient, unceded. The tent is symbolic, an assertion of Gitxsan sovereignty in the face of CN encroachment that started over a century ago when the rail line was built. The Gitxsan have never given up their rights to the land, but the colonizing governments claimed it for their own anyway. “They have not paid any rent for the use of that land in 120 years,” says Spookw, his voice thick with conviction.

Ottawa Trucker Protests Do Not Represent The Working Class

February 14, 2022 Eugene Puryear and Rania Khalek, BreakThrough News. Resistance Report Canada, COVID-19, Right-Wing, Truckers

Ottawa truckers have been blocking roads, airports, and border crossings from the U.S. to Canada to protest coronavirus restrictions and vaccine requirements. Despite the many illegal activities associated with the right-wing protests, they have not been attacked or sabotaged by police – in stark contrast to the many Indigenous protests over access to ancestral land and water. Q. Anthony Omene, columnist for The Globe and Mail & co-host of TheKulture.TV, joins The Freedom Side to explain more about what’s going on.

Ottawa Under Right-Wing Occupation: Progressives Push Back

February 14, 2022 Preston Wood, Liberation News. Educate! Anti-fascism, Canada, COVID-19, Truckers, White Supremacy

For more than 10 days, truckers opposed to vaccine mandates at the Canadian and U.S. borders have mobilized thousands of supporters to disrupt and terrorize the people of Ottawa. While beginning as a protest against vaccine mandates, the thousands who have poured into Ottawa have escalated the situation into a major occupation threatening the safety and well being of Ottawa residents. Ottawa’s mayor and police have finally been forced to declare a state of emergency after refusing to take measures for more than a week to quell the violence that has escalated in the nation’s capitol. Here in the United States, right-wing politicians and billionaires like Elon Musk are praising the truckers and the mobs who are rioting in downtown Ottawa and around the Parliament.

Wet’suwet’en Approach UN Over Militarization And Rights Violations

February 11, 2022 People's Dispatch. Resist! Canada, Coastal GasLink Pipeline, Police violence, United Nations, Wet’suwet’en

As the movement against the Coastal GasLink (CGL) pipeline project in Canada continues, indigenous Wet’suwet’en activists have approached the United Nations to raise their concerns about indigenous rights violations. In a submission filed to the UN Human Rights Council on Monday, February 7, activists of the Gidimt’en clan of Wet’suwet’en raised the issues of forced industrialization, police militarization and violation of the rights of indigenous peoples. The eight-page document points out that Canada has overlooked its international obligations under the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). It stated that Canada has violated several rights of the community, including the right to conserve and protect traditional lands, and has forcibly removed clan members from their territories.

Protest Calls On Public Stores To Stop Selling Apartheid Products

February 6, 2022 Samidoun. Resist! BDS, Canada, Israel, Palestine

On Saturday, 5 February, activists in Vancouver gathered outside the downtown BC Liquor Store for a picket and literature distribution calling for the publicly owned stores to stop selling Israeli wines, many of which are produced in the occupied Palestinian and Syrian lands of the West Bank and the Golan Heights. Despite repeated calls to provincial officials noting that the sale of these wines means that BC Liquor Stores are directly implicated in war crimes, they have continued to take no action and market these apartheid wines. The Canada Palestine Association has led the campaign for years to remove these wines from publicly owned liquor stores. Despite the fact that the British Columbia government is headed by the New Democratic Party, and the federal NDP has officially called for an end to trade with Israeli settlements, the NDP-run BC government continues to sell these products in the publicly owned crown corporation stores it is responsible for.

Summit Strengthens Alliances Against Coastal Gaslink Pipeline

January 19, 2022 Brandi Morin, Ricochet. Resist! Canada, Coastal GasLink Pipeline, Indigenous Rights, Pipelines, Wet’suwet’en

The conflict over the Coastal GasLink project is about more than the fate of a single pipeline or the territory of one Indigenous nation. The precedent set here will have far-reaching consequences, and Indigenous nations and leaders from across Turtle Island are paying close attention. The hereditary chiefs of the Wet’suwet’en Nation hosted a Peace and Unity Summit in the town of Smithers on Jan. 15. Wet’suwet’en leaders and representatives of other Indigenous nations gathered to offer solidarity and support in the fight against the Coastal GasLink pipeline. The Wet’suwet’en argue that their Indigenous and human rights, and rights to their territories, are threatened by the multibillion-dollar project, which is backed by the provincial and federal governments.

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