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NOTICE: CANADA AND QUEBEC ARE ORCHESTRATING A COUP USING THE SQ TO REPLACE OUR CUSTOMARY CHIEF AND COUNCIL WITH A DISSIDENT GROUP IN ORDER TO GET OUT OF SIGNED AGREEMENTS WITH OUR FIRST NATIONUrgent Request-March 13, 2008
CALL FOR SUPPORT
We are known as the Algonquins of Barriere Lake (also known by our Algonquin name, “Mitchikanibikok Inik”) we are a First Nation community of approximately 500 people, situated in the province of Quebec, 3 hours drive north of Ottawa, Canada.
Tags: Aboriginal/settler relations, canadian politics, direct action, quebec
In June 2007, following generations of non-recognition, and 16 years of intensely personal battles with bureaucrats, governments, and the justice system, Sharon McIvor, a member of the Lower Nicola First Nation, successfully challenged sex discrimination in the Indian Act in British Columbia’s Supreme Court.
Tags: Aboriginal/settler relations, canadian politics, feminism, gender
Call and Write Governor General Michaëlle Jean:
Demand that She Refuse Royal Assent to Secret Trials Bill
BRIEF BACKGROUND AND ACTION ITEM
February 12, 2008 — Following the shameful passage last week in the House of Commons of a new bill that will perpetuate secret trials, two tier justice, indefinite detention without charge, draconian house arrest control orders, and deportation to torture (thanks in large part to Liberal Party cheerleading), the legislation then rapidly moved to the chamber of “sober second thought,” the Senate of Canada.
Yet after hearing from eight hours of witnesses on Monday who unanimously informed a special Senate committee that the secret trials legislation was a human rights disaster that would not survive a court challenge and would condemn the secret trial five, their families, and their communities to many more years of fear and misery, the Liberal-dominated Senate acted more like the chamber of thoughtless, drunken irresponsibility and rushed the bill through on Tuesday, sending it on to the third and final piece of Canada’s Parliament, the office of Governor General Michaëlle Jean.
The Governor General has the power to grant Royal Assent, which makes Acts of Parliament law.
Tags: canadian politics, civil liberties, direct action, take action
EDMONTON - Canada is currently the most vulnerable country in the industrial world to short-term oil supply crises, and we need to establish strategic petroleum reserves to remedy the problem. This is the key finding of a report released today by Alberta’s Parkland Institute in conjunction with the Polaris Institute.
Freezing in the Dark: Why Canada Needs Strategic Petroleum Reserves points out the precariousness of current global oil supplies, especially given current tensions in the Middle East, and fact that Canada imports close to 1 million barrels of oil per day to supply the needs of central and eastern provinces.
Tags: canadian politics, energy, petro-politics
By Allan Dawson
Winnipeg Free Press
January 27 2008
THE Conservative minority government was elected two years ago and seems no closer to implementing an open market for barley than the day it came to power.
It’s not that it hasn’t really, really tried. It rigged the plebiscite on the barley marketing by giving farmers three choices instead of two and then combining results.
By John F. Conway
Planet S (Saskatoon)
January 17, 2008
When you combine recent reports on the earnings of the rich in Canada compared to those earning average wages and salaries with the recent political behaviour of Canadians, a stark conclusion seems unavoidable.
Class politics in Canada appears to have been successfully snuffed out by the business lobby’s relentless 25-year propaganda offensive.
Tags: canadian politics, class, history, inequality
…back after a summer hiatus that raged out of control.
The B-List is your monthly media supplement of 7 recommended readings from beyond the Briarpatch.
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The world’s last (and dirtiest) oil boom is under way in the boreal forests of Alberta. It’s destroying a wilderness the size of Florida.
By Andrew Nikiforuk
OnEarth Magazine
Fall 2007
To capture just one barrel of oil from this geologic pudding requires brute force. Great machines mow down trees (and all their supporting creatures such as boreal songbirds and woodland caribou), roll up acres of muskeg, drain entire wetlands, and reroute rivers. Next, for each barrel, workers must scoop up two tons of sand and wash the stuff in hot water. Even then the bitumen requires substantial upgrading to remove engine-clogging impurities. It costs more than 10 times as much to produce a flowing barrel of oil in this way than it does to produce a barrel of Saudi light oil. The entire process is fueled by natural gas, and the energy consumed is awesome: Every 24 hours the industry burns enough natural gas to heat four million American homes in order to produce one million barrels of oil.
http://www.nrdc.org/onearth/07fal/alberta1.asp
Also: Check out The Dominion’s special issue on the tar sands here:
http://www.dominionpaper.ca/issue/48
Finance journalists have attacked my book, but I remain devoted to their papers. After all, they supplied the facts I used.
By Naomi Klein
The Guardian
October 25, 2007
On a recent visit to Calgary, Alberta, I was taken aback to see my book on disaster capitalism selling briskly at the airport. Calgary is ground zero of North America’s oil and gas boom, where business suits and cowboy hats are the de facto uniform. I had a sudden sinking feeling: did Calgary’s business class think The Shock Doctrine was a how-to guide - a manual for making millions from catastrophe? Were they hoping for tips on landing no-bid contracts if the US bombs Iran?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2198483,00.html
Plus:
Read The Tyee’s review of Klein’s best-selling new book, The Shock Doctrine
http://thetyee.ca/Books/2007/09/11/ShockTherapy/
Double-plus:
Watch the short film by Alfonso Cuaron, director of Children of Men, inspired by the book.
http://www.naomiklein.org/shock-doctrine/short-film
What Conservatives Say When They Think We Aren’t Listening
By Johann Hari
The Independent
July 18, 2007
I am standing waist-deep in the Pacific Ocean, both chilling and burning, indulging in the polite chit-chat beloved by vacationing Americans. A sweet elderly lady from Los Angeles is sitting on the rocks nearby, telling me dreamily about her son. “Is he your only child?” I ask. “Yes,” she says. “Do you have a child back in England?” she asks. No, I say. Her face darkens. “You’d better start,” she says. “The Muslims are breeding. Soon, they’ll have the whole of Europe.”
http://www.alternet.org/story/57001
By Susan George
September 11, 2007
The only feasible way out of the ecological crisis is a new, environmental Keynesianism, bringing together government, corporations and citizens. The problem is to convince politicians that ecological transformation and environmental practices can pay off politically.
http://www.globalnetwork4justice.org/story.php?c_id=313
By Richard Heinberg
MuseLetter #185
September 2007
The subtitle of this book, “Waking Up to the Century of Declines,” reflects my impression that even those of us who have been thinking about resource depletion for many years are still just beginning to awaken to its full implications. And if we are all in various stages of waking up to the problem, we are also waking up from the cultural trance of denial in which we are all embedded.
http://www.richardheinberg.com/museletter/185
On Not Jumping Out of The Frying Pan Into The Eternal Fires
By Rebecca Solnit
Orion Magazine
July/August 2007
Chances are good, gentle reader, that you are going to have to sit next to someone in the coming year who will assert that nuclear power is the solution to climate change. What will you tell them?
http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/316
Tom d’Aquino rules Canada’s fate. What does he want?
By Murray Dobbin
TheTyee.ca
September 12, 2007
We have come so far down the road of corporate domination of the public policy process that it is now simply taken for granted by both the Liberal and Conservative governments that Mr. d’Aquino will check out the budget and give it his blessing — or instructions on how that blessing can be achieved. This is not to say that he always gets everything he wants. He just gets everything he wants most of the time. He was particularly annoyed, for example, during the Chretien years because Chretien refused to increase military spending.
http://thetyee.ca/Views/2007/09/12/Ayatollah/
This month’s B-List compiled by Dave Oswald Mitchell
Please support the B-List by subscribing to Briarpatch Magazine.
Tags: canadian politics, environmental keynesianism, neo-cons, nuclear power, tar sands
“There’s a time and a place for the media,” explained a plainclothes RCMP officer as he and his colleagues unceremoniously ushered journalists out of Charlottetown’s Delta Hotel. Evidently that time was not yesterday and that place was not the Conservatives’ annual summer caucus meeting. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: canadian politics, media
By Don Weitz
1. The federal-Harper government’s refusal to honor the Kelowna Accord that would provide over $5 billion in affordable housing, urgently-needed health care and other essential services to many thousands of Aboriginal People, including children, on First Nations reserves; the Accord was signed over 1 year ago by the previous Liberal government, all provincial premiers, and the Assembly of First Nations.
2. The federal-Harper government’s refusal to provide and guarantee clean and safe drinking water and flush toilets on all reserves across Canada.
Tags: canadian politics
