Category Archives: North America

Reflection on the Climate Summit of the Americas: A new sense of empowerment & collaboration from sub-nationals across the continent

. . SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT . .

An article by Mike Morrice, Sustainability Colab

Typically, I’m not too interested in large meetings of political leaders discussing climate change. Time and again it’s been proven that gatherings of this kind don’t produce much of an outcome, and I’m disinterested in words without action. Having been at the Climate Summit of the Americas (CSOTA) this past week though, I can say this: something has changed. A new rallying cry has emerged, amongst states and provinces across the continent. Whether from the Governor of California, the Premier of Quebec, or the Environment Minister from my home province of Ontario, the message at CSOTA was the same: subnational jurisdictions are ready to act, regardless of the political will (or lack thereof) coming from their federal governments. And they want to act together.

climate
Sub-jurisdictional leaders convene on stage at Ontario’s Climate Summit of the Americas. (Twitter image: @environmentont)

Seven years ago, I was deeply frustrated with the lack of international and federal action on climate change. Though I was also convinced communities across the country could show the leadership I knew was desperately needed.

The tension between the two led me to start Sustainable Waterloo Region (SWR). In doing so, space was created in my community for businesses to learn from one another’s sustainability journeys. Other communities similarly began to take action through groups like the C40 and FCM’s Partners for Climate Protection Program. States and provinces were a mixed bag. Some like BC led by implementing North America’s first carbon tax, others like Ontario joined the Western Climate Initiative though didn’t actively pursue putting a price on carbon.

In the intervening years, so much has changed. Ontario has phased out coal-fired electricity and introduced the Green Energy Act to spur an unprecedented take-up of renewable energy in this province. Cities emerged as a leading voice on climate change and a source of hope for many, and my energy has continued to be focused here. Having started Sustainability CoLab to share the program we piloted at SWR, 12% of the workforces Niagara and Waterloo Regions are now setting targets to reduce their carbon impact by almost 60,000 tonnes, while organizations across the province are launching similar programs, from the Climate-Wise Business Network in York Region to Carbon 613 in Ottawa.

The federal government, however, has continued to give little attention to the climate crisis. If anything, they’ve dug their heels in, continually positioning a false choice between the economy and the environment. It’s a damaging and unfortunate narrative that has cast Canada as a villain on the international stage.

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Question for this article:

Despite the vested interests of companies and governments, Can we make progress toward sustainable development?

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And so it’s on this backdrop that #CSOTA felt like a public declaration for a new, more collaborative and more empowered approach from subnational jurisdictions across the continent.

Time and again I heard: there is no need for us to wait for others to act. There’s no time to waste. And collectively, regions and states stated their readiness to harness their considerable influence.

Tangibly, the Summit produced 22 state and region signatories to a Climate Action Statement, itself linking to action in several areas, including commitments to join any one of the “Under 2 MOU”, to sign the Compact of States and Regions, and to support carbon pricing. The Under 2 MOU is of particular significance, underscoring an interest both in limiting warming to 2oC and to bringing GHG emissions down to 2 tonnes per capital. Both are ambitious and needed goals.

One sign that I’m optimistic these politicians are serious about their promises goes beyond the words they used to describe the crisis, which ranged from metaphors evoking the sinking of the Titanic to post-WWII nation building.

Their actions speak louder: In her opening address, I expected Premier Kathleen Wynne to be as passionate and persuasive as she was; in her words: “we have to find a better way to build prosperity”. Just two days before the opening of the Pan Am games in her province’s capital, I wouldn’t have been surprised if after her keynote she ducked out to attend a myriad of other public events, ceremonies, you name it. Instead, she stayed for the next day and a half of open and closed sessions, concluding with the signing of the Climate Action Statement. In her words and her actions she was clear: the Premier wants Ontario to lead by example and she’s strongly encouraging others to join in.

North America, SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

USA: Response to the Massacre in Charleston; Grieve, But then Teach and Organize Nonviolence

EDUCATION FOR PEACE .

An article by the Reverend John Dear in the Huffington Post (abridged and reprinted according to fair use)

Like millions of others, I’m grieving the death of the nine church folk killed in the unthinkable massacre inside Charleston’s Emanuel AME Church on Wednesday night. My heart goes out to the families and friends of the dead, and the church members, and I offer all my condolences, prayers, blessings and love. . .

John Dear
Click on photo to enlarge

Of course, this was a hate crime, an act of violent racism and domestic terrorism. Press reports claim that the insane young man who shot the church goers had just been given a gun by his father for his 21st birthday. No doubt he was a sociopath, an advocate of hatred and racism, a white supremacist, the normal product of our culture of guns, hatred, racism, violence and war.

Like millions of others, I feel swept up in grief. Where does one start? The police killings of African Americans such as Amadou Diallo, Oscar Grant, Trayvon Martin, Sean Bell, Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, and Walter Scott (of South Carolina, in April)—these are just the well known names. Thousands have been killed. And the big massacres such as Virginia Tech college students, the Sandy Hook elementary school children, the Boston marathon runners and bystanders, and the Aurora, Colorado movie goers. One could go on.

But my grief mingles with the grief of the world, the quiet death of millions of children from extreme poverty and unnecessary disease, and the deliberate killing of children by the U.S. war machine.

Not too long ago, I spent days listening to teenagers in Kabul, Afghanistan, cry as they told me in detail how their loved ones were blown up by U.S. drones which dropped bombs upon them. I remember visiting the Catholic high school for girls in Baghdad and being surrounded by hundreds of girls who cried as they denounced the U.S. bombings and war. I recall the hundreds of people I met in the 1980s in Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala who wept as they told me about the killing of their loved ones by U.S. backed death squads. I have witnessed the tears of grief brought on by the forces of death as well in India, South Africa, Egypt, Palestine, Colombia, Northern Ireland, and the Philippines.

For me, like all my activist friends, it is a lifetime of grief in solidarity with sisters and brothers around the world whose loved ones died by the systemic forces of greed, war, violence and death.

That’s why I see beyond the sickness of hatred, racism and sexism toward something deeper—an addiction to violence–to death itself–that inflicts nearly every living human being to some degree, an addiction which fuels the unjust national and global systems which bring death to so many poor people. It’s like everyone, especially us North Americans, is addicted to crack cocaine, yet we don’t know it, much less try to become sober. We’re all full of violence, and we go forward, not knowing what to do. So we maintain a culture of violence, torture, war and nuclear weapons as if that’s a perfect reasonable way to maintain a society. It’s as if we’re all living in a zombie movie.

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Question for this article:

Can peace be guaranteed through nonviolent means?

Are we making progress against racism?

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Consider the hundreds of devout Christians who attend prayer services, bible studies and Catholic masses at the Pentagon, and then go about the big business of mass murder. Or the thousands of devout Christians who attend church each Sunday in Los Alamos, New Mexico, and then spend the rest of the week devoutly building nuclear weapons. Think of the Jesuits of Baltimore who hold an annual Mass for War, who process their one hundred ROTC graduates up the main aisle at graduation mass to profess their Army Oath to Kill to the Blessed Sacrament, just as the Nazis did long ago. . .

We are all addicted to violence in one form or another. We have all surrendered to sociopathic killing in one form or another. We have refused the wisdom, the divine call, the spiritual heights of universal, loving nonviolence. But that is the only option ahead of us.

The real challenge before us, I submit, was laid down long ago by our national teacher, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. He invites each one of us to undergo the journey he went through toward active nonviolence. We have to renounce the ancient stupidity of “an eye for an eye thinking” (which Jesus outlawed when he commanded in the Sermon on the Mount, “But I say, offer no violent resistance to one who does evil”) and take up where Gandhi left off in his pursuit of truth and nonviolence. . .

In August, I’ll be hosting a national conference on nonviolence at the Hilton Hotel in Santa Fe, New Mexico. It’s sold out, but we will broadcast the entire historic two day event live on line for free, and I hope tens of thousands will watch it live (you can see it at: www.campaignnonviolence.org). We will have some of the nation’s greatest visionaries of nonviolence there, beginning with Dr. King’s friend Rev. James Lawson, whom King called the world’s greatest theoretician of nonviolence.

We will also broadcast live on line our peace vigils in Los Alamos, New Mexico, marking the 70th anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, on August 6th and 9th. (See: www.campaignnonviolence.org for details).

More, we are calling for a week of nonviolent action across the United States, from September 20th to 28th, as we mark International Peace Day, Sept. 21st. Last year, Campaign Nonviolence organized over 250 demonstrations against war, poverty, nuclear weapons and environmental destruction, and for Dr. King’s vision of a new culture of peace and nonviolence, in all fifty states. We hope to double that number this September, and we need more people to step up to the plate and get involved. That means, organizing a march, a rally, a prayer service or a lobby effort in your local community. If you are looking for some way to get involved, consider yourself invited. Here’s a concrete step you can take, in solidarity with thousands of others across the nation. As we take to the streets together, we will know that we are not alone. . .

Mother Jones was right. Don’t just mourn. Organize!

See you in the street!

EDUCATION FOR PEACE, North America

US: Columbia University Will Divest From Private Prison Companies

… HUMAN RIGHTS …

An article by Tyler Kingkade for the Huffington Post (reprinted according to fair use principle)

Columbia University trustees voted (June 22) Monday to divest from for-profit prison companies because of concerns about mass incarceration, becoming the first major university to do so.

prisons
Photo from Columbia Prison Divest/Facebook

Columbia, in New York, owned more than 230,000 shares of Corrections Corp. of America, the largest private prison company, headquartered in Nashville, Rolling Stone reported last year. The school no longer owns those shares, law professor Jeff Gordon disclosed in April. The school still holds shares in G4S, a British prison and security services company.

The trustees’ vote pledges Columbia will not invest its endowment of more than $8 billion in for-profit prisons in the future. It follows a recommendation this year from the school’s Advisory Committee on Socially Responsible Investing, and was endorsed by university President Lee Bollinger.

“This action occurs within the larger, ongoing discussion of the issue of mass incarceration that concerns citizens from across the ideological spectrum,” Columbia trustees said in a statement. “We are proud that many Columbia faculty and students will continue their scholarly examination and civic engagement of the underlying social issues that have led to and result from mass incarceration.”

Gordon, chair of an advisory subcommittee, said the group is considering whether Columbia should divest from fossil fuel companies as a stand against global warming.

Students protested for months to get Columbia to divest from for-profit prisons, citing alleged violence and human rights abuses.

An article in The Guardian described a G4S facility in England as rife with drugs and alcohol. An American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit accused a Corrections Corp. of America-owned prison as permitting excessive violence and prison guards who laughed as they declined to treat prisoners’ injuries.

According to the ACLU, “several studies suggest that prisoners in for-profit prisons face greater threats to their safety than those in publicly-run prisons.”

 

Question related to this article:

Divestment, is it an effective tool to combat the violation of human rights?

Readers’ comments are invited on this question and article. See comments box below.

HUMAN RIGHTS, North America

Urban Farming Is Booming in the US, but What Does It Really Yield?

. . SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT . .

An article from Elizabeth Royte, Ensia (abridged)

. . .. That researchers are even bothering to quantify the amount of food produced on tiny city farms — whether community gardens, like those of Camden and Philly, or for-profit operations, like Leadley’s — is testament to the nation’s burgeoning local-foods movement and its data-hungry supporters. Young farmers are, in increasing numbers, planting market gardens in cities, and “local” produce (a term with no formal definition) now fills grocery shelves across the U.S., from Walmart to Whole Foods, and is promoted in more than 150 nations around the world.

urbanfarming
photo by Martin Szczepanski

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations reports that 800 million people worldwide grow vegetables or fruits or raise animals in cities, producing what the Worldwatch Institute reports to be an astonishing 15 to 20 percent of the world’s food. In developing nations, city dwellers farm for subsistence, but in the U.S., urban ag is more often driven by capitalism or ideology. The U.S. Department of Agriculture doesn’t track numbers of city farmers, but based on demand for its programs that fund education and infrastructure in support of urban-ag projects, and on surveys of urban ag in select cities, it affirms that business is booming. How far — and in what direction — can this trend go? What portion of a city’s food can local farmers grow, at what price, and who will be privileged to eat it? And can such projects make a meaningful contribution to food security in an increasingly crowded world? . . .

Despite their relatively small size, urban farms grow a surprising amount of food, with yields that often surpass those of their rural cousins. This is possible for a couple reasons. First, city farms don’t experience heavy insect pressure, and they don’t have to deal with hungry deer or groundhogs. Second, city farmers can walk their plots in minutes, rather than hours, addressing problems as they arise and harvesting produce at its peak. They can also plant more densely because they hand cultivate, nourish their soil more frequently and micromanage applications of water and fertilizer.

As social enterprises, community gardens operate in an alternate financial universe: they don’t sustain themselves with sales, nor do they have to pay employees.

Though they don’t get as much press as for-profit farms and heavily capitalized rooftop operations, community gardens — which are collectively tended by people using individual or shared plots of public or private land, and have been a feature in U.S. cities for well over a century — are the most common form of urban agriculture in the nation, producing far more food and feeding more people, in aggregate, than their commercial counterparts. As social enterprises, community gardens operate in an alternate financial universe: they don’t sustain themselves with sales, nor do they have to pay employees. Instead, they rely on volunteer or cheap youth labor, they pay little or nothing in rent, and they solicit outside aid from government programs and foundations that support their social and environmental missions. These may include job training, health and nutrition education, and increasing the community’s resilience to climate change by absorbing stormwater, counteracting the urban heat island effect and converting food waste into compost.

Funders don’t necessarily expect community gardens to become self-sustaining. These farms may increase their revenue streams by selling at farmers markets or to restaurants, or they may collect fees from restaurants or other food-waste generators for accepting scraps that will be converted into compost, says Ruth Goldman, a program officer at the Merck Family Fund, which funds urban agriculture projects. “But margins on vegetable farming are very slim, and because these farms are doing community education and training teen leaders, they’re not likely to operate in the black” . . .

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Question for this article:

What is the relation between movements for food sovereignty and the global movement for a culture of peace?

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In the world’s poorest nations, city dwellers have always farmed for subsistence. But more of them are farming now than ever before. In sub-Saharan Africa, for example, it’s estimated that 40 percent of the urban population is engaged in agriculture. Long-time residents and recent transplants alike farm because they’re hungry, they know how to grow food, land values in marginal areas (under power lines and along highways) are low, and inputs like organic wastes — fertilizer — are cheap. Another driver is the price of food: People in developing nations pay a far higher percentage of their total income for food than Americans do, and poor transportation and refrigeration infrastructure make perishable goods, like fruits and vegetables, especially dear. Focusing on these high-value crops, urban farmers both feed themselves and supplement their incomes.

In the U.S., urban farming is likely to have its biggest impact on food security in places that, in some ways, resemble the global south — that is, in cities or neighborhoods where land is cheap, median incomes are low and the need for fresh food is high. Detroit, by this metric, is particularly fertile ground. Michael Hamm, a professor of sustainable agriculture at Michigan State University, calculated that the city, which has just under 700,000 residents and more than 100,000 vacant lots (many of which can be purchased, thanks to the city’s recent bankruptcy, for less than the price of a refrigerator), could grow three quarters of its current vegetable consumption and nearly half its fruit consumption on available parcels of land using biointensive methods.

No one expects city farms in the U.S. to replace peri-urban or rural vegetable farms: cities don’t have the acreage or the trained farmers, and most can’t produce food anything close to year-round. . .
That doesn’t mean that community gardeners, who don’t even try to be profitable, aren’t making a big difference in their immediate communities. Camden’s 31,000 pounds (14,000 kg) of produce might not seem like a lot, but it’s a very big deal for those lucky enough to get their hands on it. “In poor communities where households earn very little income,” says Domenic Vitiello, an associate professor of city and regional planning at the University of Pennsylvania, “a few thousand dollars’ worth of vegetables and fruit grown in the garden makes a much bigger difference than for more affluent households.”
History tells us that community gardening — supported by individuals, government agencies and philanthropies — is here to stay.

And whether these gardens ultimately produce more food or more knowledge about food — where it comes from, what it takes to produce it, how to prepare and eat it — they still have enormous value as gathering places and classrooms and as conduits between people and nature. Whether or not cultivating fruits and vegetables in tiny urban spaces makes economic or food-security sense, people who want to grow food in cities will find a way to do so. As Laura Lawson says, “City gardens are part of our ideal sense of what a community should be. And so their value is priceless.”

North America, SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

Truth and Reconciliation Commission: Canada guilty of cultural genocide against Indigenous peoples

… HUMAN RIGHTS …

An article from APTN National News

Canada is guilty of committing cultural genocide against Indigenous people, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission said in a summary of its final report released Tuesday.

trc-canada

The TRC builds a case that leads it to conclude Canada committed cultural genocide against Indigenous peoples and used Indian residential schools used as its main weapon.

“These measures were part of a coherent policy to eliminate Aboriginal people as a distinct peoples and to assimilate them into the Canadian mainstream against their will,” said the TRC report. “Residential schooling quickly become a central element in the federal government’s Aboriginal policy.”

The TRC unveiled two volumes and a summary of its final report which is expected to be released later this year. One volume was titled, What We Have Learned, and the other was titled, The Survivors Speak.

The TRC was created as part of the multi-billion dollar settlement agreement between Ottawa, the churches and survivors. About 150,000 Indigenous children went through Indian residential schools throughout the systems over century-long existence.

The TRC’s report said cultural genocide is defined as the “destruction of those structures and practices that allow the group to continue as a group.”

States that engage in cultural genocide aim to destroy political and social institutions by seizing land, persecuting spiritual leaders, banning languages, outlawing cultural practices, restricting movement and disrupting families so cultural values can’t be passed on to successive generations, said the report.

“In its dealing with Aboriginal people, Canada did all these things,” said the report.

The TRC report said Canada’s negotiation of treaties with First Nations were “marked by fraud and coercion.” The report said the federal government continues to stall on the implementation of treaties to this day.

The TRC suggests the only reason Canada bothered to enter treaties was because it couldn’t afford to subdue the Indigenous population through war. In 1870, the total of Canada’s budget was about $19 million. Across the border during the same time period, the U.S. was spending $20 million just to fight its “Indian Wars,” said the report.

Early post-Confederacy Canada had one goal in mind when it began negotiating treaty, said the TRC.

“The intent of the government’s policy…was to assimilate Aboriginal people into broader Canadian society,” said the report. “At the end of this process, Aboriginal people were expected to have ceased to exist as a distinct people with their own governments, cultures and identities.”

Canada’s first prime minister, Sir John A. Macdonald told the House of Commons in 1883 that residential schools would be one of the main weapons used to eliminate the “savage” before it grew to become incorrigible.

“When the school is on the reserve the child lives with its parents, who are savages, he is surrounded by savages, and though he may learn to read and write his habits and training and mode of thought are Indian,” said Macdonald, in a passage quoted by the report. “He is simply a savage that can read and write.”

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Question related to this article:

Truth Commissions, Do they improve human rights?

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The policy persisted into the 20th Century and was supported by Church leaders of all denominations running residential schools, the report said.

Supreme Court Justice Beverley McLachlin echoed the TRC’s findings in a speech delivered last Thursday when she said Canada committed cultural genocide.

The Harper government, however, has stated it does not support the view.

Canada’s attempts to wipe out Indigenous culture failed, but not without leaving deep wounds, said the report.

“Despite coercive measures that the government adopted, it failed to achieve its policy goals. Although Aboriginal peoples and cultures have been badly damaged, they continue to exist,” said the report. “Aboriginal people have refused to surrender their identity.”

The TRC report said Canada is getting another chance at reconciliation. The report notes that the 1996 Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples called on Canada to begin a process of reconciliation. That commission was triggered by the 1990 Oka crisis that saw armed Mohawks face down the Canadian military to protect a burial site from being turned into a golf course.

“In 2015, as the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada wraps up its work, the country has a rare second chance to seize a lost opportunity for reconciliation,” said the report. “The urgent need for reconciliation runs deep in Canada. Expanding public dialogue and action on reconciliation beyond residential schools will be critical in the coming years.”

The TRC report said the relationship between Canada and Indigenous peoples is “deteriorating.” The report lists First Nations education, child welfare and justice as sources of “divisive conflicts” and “barriers” to reconciliation.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has failed to live up to the promise of the 2008 apology, the report said.

“The promise of reconciliation, which seemed so imminent back in 2008 when the prime minister, on behalf of all Canadians, apologized to survivors, has faded,” said the report.

The report said too many Canadians are still ignorant of First Nations, Inuit and Metis history and it bleeds into the government sphere.

“In the public realm, it reinforces racist attitudes and fuels civic distrust between Aboriginal peoples and other Canadians,” said the report. “Too many Canadians still do not know the history of Aboriginal peoples’ contributions to Canada, or understand that by virtues of the historical and modern Treaties negotiated by our government, we are all Treaty people.”

The TRC lays out 94 recommendations it believes help mark the path toward reconciliation. The recommendations include:

Ottawa, the provinces and territories should fully adopt the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous peoples.

Ottawa, in conjunction with Indigenous peoples, should develop a new Royal Proclamation on Reconciliation.

Ottawa should repudiate the Doctrine of Discovery and the concept of terra nullius.

Ottawa and Treaty nations should renew the Treaty relationship.

Ensure Indigenous peoples are full partners in Confederation by reconciling Crown and Indigenous legal orders.

The parties to the Indian residential school settlement agreement should sign a Covenant of Reconciliation.

A National Council for Reconciliation should be created.

The Pope should issue an apology to survivors of Indian residential schools.

Canada should mark the 150th anniversary of the country by creating a fund for reconciliation commemoration projects.

Ottawa should commit $10 million for the funding the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation over the next seven years.

The Oath of Citizenship should be changed to include the following passage, “I will faithfully observe the laws of Canada including Treaties with Indigenous peoples, and fulfill my duties as a Canadian citizen.

(Thank you to Janet Hudgins, the CPNN reporter for this article.)

HUMAN RIGHTS, North America

Edward Snowden: “Two Years On, The Difference Is Profound”

FREE FLOW OF INFORMATION

An article by Edward Snowden published in the New York Times and excerpted in the Amnesty International Blog

Two years ago today, three journalists and I worked nervously in a Hong Kong hotel room, waiting to see how the world would react to the revelation that the National Security Agency had been making records of nearly every phone call in the United States. In the days that followed, those journalists and others published documents revealing that democratic governments had been monitoring the private activities of ordinary citizens who had done nothing wrong.

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Within days, the United States government responded by bringing charges against me under World War I-era espionage laws. The journalists were advised by lawyers that they risked arrest or subpoena if they returned to the United States. Politicians raced to condemn our efforts as un-American, even treasonous.

Privately, there were moments when I worried that we might have put our privileged lives at risk for nothing — that the public would react with indifference, or practiced cynicism, to the revelations.

Never have I been so grateful to have been so wrong.

Two years on, the difference is profound. In a single month, the NSA’s invasive call-tracking program was declared unlawful by the courts and disowned by Congress. After a White House-appointed oversight board investigation found that this program had not stopped a single terrorist attack, even the president who once defended its propriety and criticized its disclosure has now ordered it terminated.

This is the power of an informed public.

Read the full opinion piece at the New York Times.

Learn more about global surveillance and take action at http://amnestyusa.org/NSA/a>.

Question for this article:

The courage of Mordecai Vanunu and other whistle-blowers, How can we emulate it in our lives?

Latest comment:

Whistle-blowers may be considered as very important actors for a culture of peace.  As described on the CPNN page for values, attitudes and actions for a culture of peace, the culture of war is characterized by propaganda, secrecy, government control of media, militaristic language and censorship while the culture of peace is characterized by the free flow and sharing of information.  Whistle-blowers break the back of secrecy directly and dramatically.

Mordecai Vanunu’s courage continues the tradition of Daniel Ellsberg, who made known the Pentagon Papers during the Vietnam War and Karen Silkwood, who exposed nuclear pollution in the United States.  Ellsberg was persecuted by President Nixon and Karen Silkwood was murdered, as described some years ago in a very fine film starring Meryl Streep.

As the amount of government secrecy continues to increase, we may expect that the number of whistle-blowers will also tend to increase in the years to come.

FREE FLOW OF INFORMATION, North America

Why it matters that left-wingers just won in oil-rich Alberta

. . SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT . .

An article by Ben Adler, Grist (abridged)

. . . On Tuesday [May 5], the lefty New Democratic Party (NDP) won the provincial elections on a platform that promises to diversify Alberta’s fossil fuel–dependent economy. The NDP campaigned on criticism of the Conservatives for being too close to the oil industry and a pledge to tax more oil profits. From The Wall Street Journal:

alberta

“The longtime ruling party of Canada’s energy-rich Alberta province lost its four-decade hold on power on Tuesday, ushering in a left-leaning government that has pledged to raise corporate taxes and increase oil and gas royalties.

“The Alberta New Democratic Party swept enough districts to form a majority, taking most of the seats in both the business center of Calgary and the provincial capital of Edmonton, according to preliminary results from Elections Alberta. . .

“We need to start down the road to a diversified and resilient economy. We need finally to end the boom-and-bust roller coaster that we have been riding on for too long,” NDP leader Rachel Notley, who is expected to succeed [Jim] Prentice as Alberta’s premier, said at a news conference.

“The NDP has long been a marginal force in Alberta’s traditionally conservative politics, but recent public opinion polls showed its popularity surging. In the campaign, Ms. Notley attacked Mr. Prentice for reinstating provincial health-care premiums and being too cozy with oil-patch interests.

“In a move that spooked some energy company executives during the campaign, Ms. Notley raised the specter of increasing royalties levied on oil and gas production, although she said that her party would only consider that once crude-oil prices recovered from recent lows.

“She also signaled her party wouldn’t support a proposed Enbridge Inc. crude-oil pipeline, called the Northern Gateway, which would connect Alberta’s oil sands with a planned Pacific coast terminal in British Columbia, telling a local newspaper that ‘Gateway is not the right decision.’:

Notley also doesn’t support plans for Keystone XL, and pledged to stop spending taxpayer dollars to push the pipeline in Washington, D.C. (She does support two other tar-sands pipeline projects, though.) And she wants Alberta to get more serious about climate change, as the Globe and Mail reports:

“Another focus, according to Ms. Notley’s platform, will be bolstering the province’s reputation on climate change as previous governments have resisted establishing tougher targets for carbon reduction from the oil sands and other industries.”

The NDP triumph in Alberta may put political pressure on the Harper government, which is facing a federal election this fall. The province’s voters sent the message that they want more protection for the environment and less pandering to oil interests. This couldn’t happen at a better time, as environmentalists are nervously awaiting Canada’s proposal for carbon emission reductions heading into the U.N. climate negotiations to be held this December in Paris. Will Harper now make a more significant climate commitment? We’ll all be watching to see.

(Thank you to Janet Hudgins, the CPNN reporter for this article.)

Question for this article:

Despite the vested interests of companies and governments, Can we make progress toward sustainable development?

See the comment below. CPNN readers are encouraged to add to this discussion.

North America, SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

Battered Women’s Support Services commemorates Prevention of Violence Against Women Week

. WOMEN’S EQUALITY .

an article by Battered Women’s Support Services (abridged)

Battered Women’s Support Services (BWSS) is committed to taking action and preventing violence against women. Each year we commemorate Prevention of Violence Against Women Week held during the third week of April. This year, during Prevention of Violence Against Women Week (April 12-19 2015), BWSS features the following events:

new battered
click on photo to enlarge

You Could Do Something to End Violence against Women – Bus Shelter Ads

Violence against women in intimate relationships is a learned behaviour so BWSS has launched an awareness campaign drawing attention on the effects witnessing abuse has on children. You Could Do Something To Prevent Violence Against Women bus shelter ads are positioned around the Vancouver, BC. People are invited to share photos of the ads through social media with the hashtag #BecauseYouCan.

YOUth Ending Violence Volunteer Training Program

Youth are powerful agents for change and BWSS successful Youth Ending Violence trains young women and young men to facilitate workshops on dating and sexual violence prevention. BWSS Youth facilitators learn differences between healthy and abusive relationships, dynamics of abuse, learn where and how to obtain help, understand the impact of media and social media on youth in dating relationships and how to be an empowered bystander. BWSS Youth Ending Violence program reaches 2,000 youth annually.

Boys will be Boys: Fighting Sexism in Media and Journalism

The Jian Ghomeshi scandal shocked the country, but maybe we needed to be shocked. Despite all the gains made over decades for women’s rights and gender equality, even our trusted public broadcaster had failed us.

Newsrooms have long been a man’s world, and while women are occupying positions as journalists, editors, producers, and broadcasters more than ever before, it’s clear that sexism, sexual harassment, and even sexual assault remains a problem in the industry. Whereas women remained silent for years, fearing they’d lose their jobs and ruin their careers if they spoke out about the misogyny they experienced working in media, they are finally beginning to speak out, buoyed by the courage and righteous anger of their female colleagues.

This panel [Vancouver April 11] features four prominent and courageous women who are experts on the issue of gender discrimination, violence against women, and sexism in the media. They will address the history of this insidious problem, the current climate, and the real-life impact of sweeping sexist practices and behaviour under the rug.

#BecauseYouCan Blog

Once again, we have convened a few serious feminist writers to contribute to our blog Ending Violence this year featuring violence prevention along with an old concept with a new name “A First Responder”. Ending Violence Blog is at www.bwss.org/endingviolence.

(Thank you to Janet Hudgins, the CPNN reporter for this article.)

Question related to this article:
North America, WOMEN'S EQUALITY

Montreal, Canada: Thousands of students protest cuts in night demonstration

. SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT .

Larissa Rhyn, McGill Daily student newspaper (abridged)

An estimated 3,000 people, most of them students, took to the streets of downtown Montreal on March 24, with nearly 50,000 students on strike this week against the provincial Liberal government’s austerity measures. Police attempted numerous maneuvers to repress the demonstration, and although the protesters escaped kettling, the event resulted in four arrests: two for armed assault and two for mischief.

canada
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An estimated 3,000 people, most of them students, took to the streets of downtown Montreal on March 24, with nearly 50,000 students on strike this week against the provincial Liberal government’s austerity measures. Police attempted numerous maneuvers to repress the demonstration, and although the protesters escaped kettling, the event resulted in four arrests: two for armed assault and two for mischief.

The demonstration was also part of a Canada-wide day of action for accessible education called for by the Revolutionary Student Movement, a student group with chapters across Canada.

As the crowd was gathering at Place Émilie-Gamelin around 9 p.m., the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM) blocked the Ste. Catherine and Berri intersection and declared the protest illegal under bylaw P-6, since the route had not been given to the police ahead of time.

Demonstrators marched for over two hours, chanting anti-austerity and anti-capitalist slogans. Around 9:30 p.m., shortly after the start of the demonstration, police blocked the intersection of Réné-Levesque and St. Laurent and attempted to break up the protesters. Although some projectiles were thrown from the crowd, the mass generally stayed calm and marched forward, leading police to open the blockade.

“The police [do] not have the right to obstruct us,” a university student from Quebec City told The Daily, expressing his dissatisfaction with the application of municipal bylaw P-6. “According to the law, we have the right to demonstrate when we feel like it and when we believe that a situation is unjust. And I know my laws.”

Pénélope, a CEGEP student, said that she was wary of police in the wake of violent confrontations with the SPVM at the strike week kick-off demonstration the previous day. “It was really bad. The police dispersed us extremely quickly. Afterward, they arrested a few and attacked others,” she told The Daily in French.

“We have the right to demonstrate when we feel like it and when we believe that a situation is unjust.”

A saxophone player among the protesters helped lighten the mood throughout the march. Demonstrators chanted “Avec nous, dans la rue!” (“With us, to the streets!”) to onlooking students as they passed McGill’s Bronfman building on Sherbrooke. . .

Actions will continue throughout the week as striking students continue to pressure the government to roll back its cuts to public services, including healthcare and education. One student from Cégep de Saint-Laurent explained that students gather at the CEGEP every morning for discussion and organization.

Léa, a student from Cégep du Vieux Montréal, spoke to the importance of continuing to mobilize students across the province.

“I think that [with its policies] of austerity, the Couillard government is not […] the best to move Quebec forward. [Instead], I think that the welfare state should be improved,” she told The Daily in French. “[To achieve this] we will need a group movement – it should not only be Montreal, but the entirety of Quebec.”

(Click here for an article in French on this subject.

Question for this article:

Movements against governmental fiscal austerity, are they part of the global movement for a culture of peace?

Readers’ comments are invited on this question.

North America, SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

USA: Discipline Reformers Get A “Restorative” Lesson

TOLERANCE AND SOLIDARITY .

an article by Aliyya Swaby, New Haven Independent

While giving a presentation in a high school classroom, Lola Garcia-Blocker had to ask a student being particularly disruptive to leave the room. Instead of sulking or causing a ruckus, the student left calmly—and later sought her out to apologize for misbehaving.

New Haven

Velazquez: Students should learn to self-advocate.

That is what it looks like, Garcia-Blocker said, when a school successfully implements a culture of “restoration” instead of punishment. The student “repaired” the harm by asking for forgiveness and restored his relationship with a member of the community. Garcia-Block, the Board of Ed’s “career pathways director,” is part of a working group designing a “restorative practices” plan as a better way to deal with discipline problems in New Haven’s schools.

After delving into the district’s existing code of conduct for a few meetings, the working group got their first lesson this past Thursday in how schools can go about creating that culture while breaking an existing “cycle of fear.”

The ultimate goal of the group is figure out how to decrease suspensions and expulsions while increasing methods such as peer mediation that “restore” the offender’s relationship with the school community. The teachers union received a $300,000 grant to implement restorative practices in a handful of public schools, part of a larger city initiative to keep troubled kids in school instead of pushing them out into violence.

Kyisha Velazquez, who has for eight years headed the district’s juvenile review board, gave a short presentation on the philosophy of restorative justice to get all members of the working group on the same page. Velazquez has been working since the fall at King/Robinson School to implement restorative programs to help “kids who have struggled the most in school.” Instead of just suspending or expelling those students, school staff creates circles—of “victims,” “offenders” and the whole community—to “process with them over and over and over their behavior that has harmed the community,” she said.

Ultimately, schools should aim to turn a “cycle of fear” into a “cycle of hope,” in which members who harm others then go through a process of building community, leading to a stronger fabric that prevents future harm, Velazquez said. Students work on an action plan based on three questions: what is the harm, how can it be repaired and who is responsible for carrying out that repair?

The student who disrupted Garcia-Blocker’s classroom could have also repaired the harm indirectly done to the rest of the students, she said. When someone acts out and agrees to restorative action, someone needs to “take on the task of holding him accountable to finish” carrying out those actions, Velazquez said. “If not, that’s where the disconnect is.”

Restorative practices include restitution, reparation boards, community services, family group conferencing, letters of apology, circle sentencing and victim/offender mediation— implemented in a way that is “all-inclusive,” she said.

(This article is continued in the discussion board on the right side of this page.)

Discussion question

Restorative justice, What does it look like in practice?

(Article continued from left side of this page.)

In a recent case, a student’s father, in a fit of road rage, chased down a fellow driver who cut him off, while the student was in the back seat. The other driver and the student’s sibling got into a physical fight. The student hit the driver in the head. Velazquez said it was clear that the student was in the wrong, but “also the dad has some issues.” Family conferencing was necessary in order to address the root of the problem.

In another situation, several kids attacked a neighbor who was chronically ill. Through a juvenile review board, it was decided that the students would help the woman clean and take out her trash, as community service to repair the harm done by the attack.

Velazquez said this was restorative for the whole neighborhood, since the situation could have otherwise escalated and posed a larger danger.

Parent Megan Ifill said restorative practices also help when students are expelled from one school and placed in another. They can “process professionally why they have to go to another school” before starting anew somewhere else, she said.

And involving the student in the process of determining what the harm is helps prevent future harm, she said.

“A lot of kids don’t know why they’re saying sorry,” she said. “In your process, you take what the kid is willing to be sorry for” and repair that harm done. The student might not be sorry for having hit someone, but might be sorry for forcing his or her parents to take time off work to deal with the situation, for example.

Garcia-Blocker reminded the group that students are not the only ones who may benefit from restorative practices. Adults should also be held responsible if they harm others in the school community. “We have adults in our school … that escalate situations” and want to call the police when students act out, she said. She urged group members to change their language to reflect that reality.

Kids “crave” the healing that comes with restoration, said parent JoAnne Wilcox. She said she uses some of those practices in her own home, in order to move away from a system of punishment and rewards.

Velazquez said she has also been working with students to help them advocate for themselves in situations where they may not be at fault.

At the next meeting, according to Gemma Joseph Lumpkin, executive director for district strategy and coordination, the group will discuss a transcript of an expulsion hearing.

North America, TOLERANCE & SOLIDARITY