There are a lot of white people in Canada who are really really mad at being correctly identified as the modern beneficiaries of settler/colonial power, and totally living up to the moniker “Upsettler.”
All “rah rah rah my ancestors were poor as fuck and built this country out of nothing rah blargh argh check out this nationalist mythology I’m spilling everywhere” and when you’re all like “lol lern 2 history” they get legitimately confused.
Like, people really genuinely believed that the successful colonization of the Americas happened with like, 0 assistance from anyone or anything.
As if chartered companies in Europe weren’t continuously supplying food, materials, weaponry and mercenaries.
As if local indigenous populations weren’t already living in thriving communities and tilling the land before disease decimated their populations prior to settlers squatting in their homes.
As if local indigenous populations weren’t literally feeding them up until like, very recently. Crop failures were regular and devastating until strains were developed that could grow in cold climates, and usually it was pemmican and porridge that got people through winters. Guess where they got the pemmican from?
And as if they weren’t given massive amounts of cheap or free land to settle on after everyone living there was either murdered or chased off.
As if they weren’t receiving generous loans for seed and implements
As if they weren’t being protected by a colonial militia.
As if the land was truly wild and empty in the first fucking place.
“Edmonton police are rejecting allegations that their officers mistreated an 18-year-old Aboriginal woman who claims she was sexually assaulted at a motel only to be arrested when police arrived to help her.”
Edmonton police say they did their job with assaulted Aboriginal woman | APTN National News (via aboriginalpressnews)
EPS also called case worker Mark Cherrington “irresponsible” for going public with what happened. He was on Acimowin radio show this morning with more stories of prosecuting the victims of actual crimes based on frivolous outstanding warrants. There are entire industries of social workers who are afraid to speak against abuses they witness in the system because fear of retaliation.
(via allstarsalign)
Ottawa has launched an unprecedented billboard campaign in the Hungarian city of Miskolc, home of many Roma refugees, trumpeting Canada’s rapid expulsion of failed asylum seekers.
Since last week, the Canadian government has erected six billboards in Hungary’s fourth largest city, proclaiming: “Those people who make a claim without sound reasons will be processed faster and removed faster.”
The $3,000 ad campaign, another attempt to curb the inflow of Roma refugees to Canada, has already created uproar among the Roma community here and there.
In media interviews, Miskolc Mayor Akos Kriza, a member of the governing conservative FIDESZ party, said he was outraged, not because of the billboards’ unwelcoming tone, but because Canada is expecting his city to take back the failed refugees.
“Canada cannot send anyone back to Miskolc,” Akos was quoted in one Hungarian news article. “I will not yield on this point!”
Aladar Horvath, founder of the Civil Liberties Foundation in Hungary, said the campaign will provide further ammunition for ultraright conservatives to justify their racist attacks on the Roma.
“This is unfortunate,” Horvath told the Star from Budapest. “People are angry, disappointed and sad because Canada shows the same discrimination like Hungary.”
…The government said the campaign is to raise awareness of Canada’s new asylum system and to deter abuse. It is part of a broader public education outreach through the use of Internet tools, web banners and a pop-up message that appears on targeted users’ computer screens.
“Virtually all Hungarian asylum claims are abandoned or withdrawn by the claimants themselves, or determined to be unfounded by the independent Immigration and Refugee Board,” said Kenney’s spokesperson Alexis Pavlich.
“Canadians have no tolerance for those who abuse our system and seek to take unfair advantage of our country at great expense to taxpayers.”
(There’s more at the source.)
what the fuck, Canada!?
“Mr. Harper may relent, scared of the political fallout from letting this great leader die. I dearly hope he does. I want Chief Spence to eat. But I won’t soon forget this clash between these two very different kinds of resolve, one so sealed off, closed in; the other cracked wide open, a conduit for the pain of the world.
But Chief Spence’s hunger is not just speaking to Mr. Harper. It is also speaking to all of us, telling us that the time for bitching and moaning is over. Now is the time to act, to stand strong and unbending for the people, places and principles that we love.
”
Naomi Klein, Idle No More: Chief Theresa Spence’s hunger speaks to all of us | December 24, 2012
It’s festive and lovely and I don’t mean to take away from any of that, but please remember this leader of a people, now about to enter 15th day of her hunger strike for the sake of our democracy, to meet with the man who wants to change the lives of so many for the worse
(via smalltalkers)
This is Canada, Idle No More.
#IdleNoMore - National Day of Action: December 10, 2012
Uprise.
it’s way past time
Stupid and Unjust: The Highway Robbery of Prison Phone Rates
To call home, America’s prisoners (well, really their families, who accept the calls collect) pay rates many times what you or I spend on phone calls, the consequence of a dysfunctional marketplace in which the users have no choice but the phones provided — literally a captive market — and prison administrators can exact exorbitant commissions for providing the service. In Maryland, for example, where the commission can comprise up to 60 percent of the cost of a call, the rates are $2.55 for the first minute plus 30 cents per minute for intrastate calls and $2.70 for the first minute plus 30 cents for every minute thereafter for interstate calls. The state collected $5.2 million from such commissions in 2010. In effect, the high rates are a fee leveraged on the inmate population through which the prisoners fund their own incarceration.
In Canada inmates are only allowed to make calls to landlines. They have phone cards controlled by the prison that they’re only allowed to fill once a month and it’s ridiculously expensive. They can make collect calls, but it more expensive for the folks they call than accepting a collect call from anywhere else. Bell makes a lot of money off prisons here.
So, like, if you had an opportunity to interview Ambrose and Redford, what would you ask them?
“My reporting for this website and in my book has focused on how environmentalists and animal rights activists became the ‘number one domestic terrorism threat’ in the United States.
“What is taking place in Canada parallels the U.S. campaigns, step by step, but at an accelerated pace.”
7 Ways Canadian Environmental Groups Are Being Attacked as Terrorists
![mashkwi:
Holmes teamed up with the Assembly of First Nations in 2010 to create a pilot project on the Whitefish Lake First Nation west of Sudbury, Ont., to build energy-efficient, environmentally friendly homes and other infrastructure. The ongoing project also aims to develop trade skills for people living on reserves.
While recent attention has focused on the grim living conditions on the Attawapiskat reserve in northern Ontario, the First Nations housing crisis extends far beyond just the James Bay community and has gone on for years.
For Holmes and others who want to move past the politicking and fingerpointing consuming much of the public debate around the issue, solutions lie in the willingness to embrace ideas others may want to dismiss out of hand.
Maybe we can make better choices about building materials that may initially be more expensive but last longer and won’t burn or be susceptible to mould.
Maybe we can consider buildings not based on a wood frame, such as steel shipping containers converted into comfortable homes.
And so on.
‘This is not hard’
“Let’s look at the building technology,” says Holmes, whose ideal First Nations home would be about 1,100 square feet and built with wood and other materials that won’t burn or be susceptible to mould.
“I don’t care if you want a box. I don’t care if you want it off the ground. I don’t care if you want a foundation. It’s using all the products that make sense, nothing but mould-free, nothing but zero VOCs [volatile organic compounds]. This is not hard.”
Sure, mould-free drywall might cost 50 cents or $1 more per sheet than standard drywall, Holmes concedes, but will pay off in the long term, especially considering the number of homes on First Nations reserves that need renovation only a few years after being built. More than 40 per cent of the existing homes on reserves need major repairs, compared with seven per cent off reserve, according to a government-commissioned assessment of First Nations housing.
“Look at the cost of taking it down and doing it again,” Holmes said. “There’s no comparison.”
For Holmes, helping First Nations improve their housing stock extends far beyond choosing the right wood and drywall or hammering nails.
“The smartest thing we can do is to teach the First Nations how to do it,” says Holmes. “When they do it themselves, they have pride, and they care, and that’s what I think is the missing link, not to mention just using the wrong products and building foolishly.”
No quick fixes
Ralph Fireman, an 85-year-old in the Cree community of Attawapiskat, lives with his wife and granddaughter in a shack without running water. (Allison Dempster/CBC)
No one — least of all Holmes — suggests that the First Nations housing crisis can quickly or easily be resolved.
“It’s going to take time to spread out and make this right,” Holmes said. “As long as they continue to just fix, lipstick or mascara, or build the wrong way, this is never going to end.”
South of Attawapiskat, one First Nation is involved in an alliance that could offer hope for its housing problems at the same time as creating jobs and boosting work skills for its members.
“For me, obviously, the way housing is done in Canada for First Nations doesn’t work,” said Bobby Cheechoo, a member of the Moose Cree First Nation. “I think one of the options that should be considered is turning housing into a business.”
‘True and proper solutions’
But what particularly sets the Moose Cree project apart is the form the housing takes: dwellings inside converted steel shipping containers.
“Building more wood-based houses that are going to burn down or be filled with mould again isn’t a good option for anybody,” says Steve Marshall, vice-president and general manager of the Sudbury-based Morris Group of Companies.
“These are true and proper solutions to the crisis. It creates employment. It’s their own community building their own homes. They profit by it, and the homes are far better quality.”
Marshall says the only drawback to the idea of using converted shipping containers for housing is the stigma associated with it.
“A lot of it is just the mentality of people saying, ‘How could you live inside a ship container?’” said Marshall. “Well, you’re not. You would never know.”
Marshall says the shipping container really only replaces the shell of a home that is traditionally built with wood. The steel frame is highly resistant to fire and won’t allow mould to develop, and inside, the home is comfortable.
Expert, efficient workers
“They’re safe units,” Marshall said. “They’re thermally efficient. These homes have longevity. They don’t break down. They don’t come apart in the same way.”
“If our vision is realized, for example, we would have our own people building these different methods, [and be] expert and efficient at it,” he says.
But it doesn’t necessarily come easily.
“I’m not afraid to say we’ve encountered challenges with our First Nation in trying to change the mindset that exists there … to think outside the box,” Cheechoo said.
But he sees hope for changing that mindset, particularly among younger generations.
“For our generation and the one before, it’s tough to think beyond the wood,” Cheechoo said.](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m5uagclUM01r3mtxqo1_500.jpg)
Holmes teamed up with the Assembly of First Nations in 2010 to create a pilot project on the Whitefish Lake First Nation west of Sudbury, Ont., to build energy-efficient, environmentally friendly homes and other infrastructure. The ongoing project also aims to develop trade skills for people living on reserves.
While recent attention has focused on the grim living conditions on the Attawapiskat reserve in northern Ontario, the First Nations housing crisis extends far beyond just the James Bay community and has gone on for years.
For Holmes and others who want to move past the politicking and fingerpointing consuming much of the public debate around the issue, solutions lie in the willingness to embrace ideas others may want to dismiss out of hand.
Maybe we can make better choices about building materials that may initially be more expensive but last longer and won’t burn or be susceptible to mould.
Maybe we can consider buildings not based on a wood frame, such as steel shipping containers converted into comfortable homes.
And so on.
‘This is not hard’
“Let’s look at the building technology,” says Holmes, whose ideal First Nations home would be about 1,100 square feet and built with wood and other materials that won’t burn or be susceptible to mould.
“I don’t care if you want a box. I don’t care if you want it off the ground. I don’t care if you want a foundation. It’s using all the products that make sense, nothing but mould-free, nothing but zero VOCs [volatile organic compounds]. This is not hard.”
Sure, mould-free drywall might cost 50 cents or $1 more per sheet than standard drywall, Holmes concedes, but will pay off in the long term, especially considering the number of homes on First Nations reserves that need renovation only a few years after being built. More than 40 per cent of the existing homes on reserves need major repairs, compared with seven per cent off reserve, according to a government-commissioned assessment of First Nations housing.
“Look at the cost of taking it down and doing it again,” Holmes said. “There’s no comparison.”
For Holmes, helping First Nations improve their housing stock extends far beyond choosing the right wood and drywall or hammering nails.
“The smartest thing we can do is to teach the First Nations how to do it,” says Holmes. “When they do it themselves, they have pride, and they care, and that’s what I think is the missing link, not to mention just using the wrong products and building foolishly.”
No quick fixes
Ralph Fireman, an 85-year-old in the Cree community of Attawapiskat, lives with his wife and granddaughter in a shack without running water. (Allison Dempster/CBC)
No one — least of all Holmes — suggests that the First Nations housing crisis can quickly or easily be resolved.
“It’s going to take time to spread out and make this right,” Holmes said. “As long as they continue to just fix, lipstick or mascara, or build the wrong way, this is never going to end.”
South of Attawapiskat, one First Nation is involved in an alliance that could offer hope for its housing problems at the same time as creating jobs and boosting work skills for its members.“For me, obviously, the way housing is done in Canada for First Nations doesn’t work,” said Bobby Cheechoo, a member of the Moose Cree First Nation. “I think one of the options that should be considered is turning housing into a business.”
‘True and proper solutions’But what particularly sets the Moose Cree project apart is the form the housing takes: dwellings inside converted steel shipping containers.
“Building more wood-based houses that are going to burn down or be filled with mould again isn’t a good option for anybody,” says Steve Marshall, vice-president and general manager of the Sudbury-based Morris Group of Companies.
“These are true and proper solutions to the crisis. It creates employment. It’s their own community building their own homes. They profit by it, and the homes are far better quality.”
Marshall says the only drawback to the idea of using converted shipping containers for housing is the stigma associated with it.
“A lot of it is just the mentality of people saying, ‘How could you live inside a ship container?’” said Marshall. “Well, you’re not. You would never know.”
Marshall says the shipping container really only replaces the shell of a home that is traditionally built with wood. The steel frame is highly resistant to fire and won’t allow mould to develop, and inside, the home is comfortable.
Expert, efficient workers
“They’re safe units,” Marshall said. “They’re thermally efficient. These homes have longevity. They don’t break down. They don’t come apart in the same way.”
“If our vision is realized, for example, we would have our own people building these different methods, [and be] expert and efficient at it,” he says.But it doesn’t necessarily come easily.
“I’m not afraid to say we’ve encountered challenges with our First Nation in trying to change the mindset that exists there … to think outside the box,” Cheechoo said.
But he sees hope for changing that mindset, particularly among younger generations.
“For our generation and the one before, it’s tough to think beyond the wood,” Cheechoo said.
![spunkmate:
TW: Police violence/brutality, racism, oppression
who-is-v:
foreverbreezyy:
blasianxbri:
nyc-dreams:
This is actually really sad.
W3lp, time to move to Canada.
This is why I love my homecountry. Proud to be Canadian.
Um. Excuse me, Canada is also this:
The picture above is 3 cops beating one Native man in a subway station.
Police gassing people and then kicking them out of a public park:
In 1991, Canada even brought in the Canadian Army to deal with Native people who set up a barricade to stop the government from building a golf course on land that had been acknowledged as theirs in a hundreds-year-old treaty.
For over 160 days, students in Montreal have been protesting tuition, and a new law that says that groups of 10 or more people wanting to hang out in public have to tell the police that they’re going to do so. As well as how they’re going to get there and what they’re going to do there. This is the Montreal police gassing protesters on June 7.
So if you want to move to Canada go ahead, but don’t do it because you think our police are smiling, water-bottle-toting cops without a brutal bone in their body. To give context to the image of the Toronto Police officer being soaked with a watergun - this happened at Toronto Pride in 2010. For good PR, the TPS tells their officers to use a light hand at Pride since it’s a ‘celebration’ and brings MILLIONS of dollars into the city. It looks bad if they beat people.
If you live in Canada and you’re “Proud to be Canadian” and “love [your] homecountry”, what you really mean to say is you’re proud to be occupying Native land and that you escape the hard hand of corruption by having white skin and never making use of your right to protest.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lv2fujIKkP1qb5gh9o1_500.jpg)
TW: Police violence/brutality, racism, oppression
This is actually really sad.
W3lp, time to move to Canada.
This is why I love my homecountry. Proud to be Canadian.
Um. Excuse me, Canada is also this:
The picture above is 3 cops beating one Native man in a subway station.
Police gassing people and then kicking them out of a public park:
In 1991, Canada even brought in the Canadian Army to deal with Native people who set up a barricade to stop the government from building a golf course on land that had been acknowledged as theirs in a hundreds-year-old treaty.
For over 160 days, students in Montreal have been protesting tuition, and a new law that says that groups of 10 or more people wanting to hang out in public have to tell the police that they’re going to do so. As well as how they’re going to get there and what they’re going to do there. This is the Montreal police gassing protesters on June 7.
So if you want to move to Canada go ahead, but don’t do it because you think our police are smiling, water-bottle-toting cops without a brutal bone in their body. To give context to the image of the Toronto Police officer being soaked with a watergun - this happened at Toronto Pride in 2010. For good PR, the TPS tells their officers to use a light hand at Pride since it’s a ‘celebration’ and brings MILLIONS of dollars into the city. It looks bad if they beat people.
If you live in Canada and you’re “Proud to be Canadian” and “love [your] homecountry”, what you really mean to say is you’re proud to be occupying Native land and that you escape the hard hand of corruption by having white skin and never making use of your right to protest.
Meet My Mom: "Strike averted at private, for-profit Devonshire seniors facility"
My mom is a 62 year old health-care aide. She works two health-care jobs, one full time, one part-time, involving heavy lifting and highly personal dirty work. She works seven days a week and maintains a lush backyard garden on her days off in spite of increasing joint issues from a lifetime of hard work. Her day off is when she only goes to one job in a day. She has been a caretaker all of her life since growing up as the eldest of 10 children in rural Jamaica. She loves what she does. Her clients and their family members treasure her. She is essential.In the last year or two the long-term care centre at which she works full time was purchased by Park Place Seniors Living. Group health benefits were cut off last fall and staff appreciation events have been scaled back so far that they essentially don’t happen. Park Place receives the same funding as publicly run facilities yet pays my mother 30% less than a public health-care aide. At 62, she can’t quit her job to start part-time with no seniority in a public care centre.
My mother’s full-time hourly wage is just slightly more than my wage at a desk job in a bike store. Am I as essential as she is?
Today my mom arrived at her job at 6AM expecting to strike but was ordered back to work for 30 days by the government which should be holding her private employer accountable for siphoning profit off of my mother’s publicly funded wages.
This isn’t right.
More details from the Edmonton Journal: Strike averted at private, for-profit Devonshire seniors facility
“September 2000 — Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Police officers in Saskatoon took a Native man, Darrell Night, put him in a police car, drove him far from the city’s downtown, and dropped him off to walk home in freezing weather after taking away his coat. He survived, and on telling his story, it came out that police officers had regularly taken Native people out into the cold with no warm clothing, leaving them to freeze. The police would then blame their deaths on alcohol. Two other young aboriginal men did not survive such incidents — their bodies were found separately in the same area where Darrell Night was dropped off.
Constable Dan Hatchen and Constable Ken Munson of Saskatoon city police were charged with police brutality but were put back on the payroll during the trial. The Saskatchewan police commission ruled that they deserved to be paid, because the two officers had been cooperative and honest throughout the investigation.”
Andrea Smith, Conquest: Sexual Violence and American Indian Genocide (via thecurvature)
midnight rides, man.
(via ayiman)
