Charlie Angus

The Event That Started My Life in Politics

2013-04-09T09:35:42-04:00

The following is an excerpt from the book Unlikely Radicals: The Story of the Adams Mine War by Charlie Angus (Between the Lines, 2013).

I am often asked the question "What got you into politics?" I always think back to a cold October night in 2000, when I stood on a makeshift barricade on the Adams Mine Road. Across the road, police were lining up for mass arrests. But the people who were holding the line weren't radicals, they were my neighbours --many of them senior citizens and farmers. Up until that moment, I had never considered a life in politics. I believed that organized politics was the domain of stuffy old men. I was the guitar player in the alt-country band Grievous Angels. I worked as a local freelance journalist and didn't even consider myself an environmentalist. But as I stood on that barricade, I realized that the people who should have been there to protect the public interest had sold us out.

The proposal to dump millions of tonnes of waste into the fractured pits of the Adams Mine was bitterly opposed by people in my region. The plan was full of risk. Throughout the planning process, local citizens attempted to have their concerns addressed. They participated in the public hearings. They trusted that officials would do the right thing. But they soon learned otherwise. At every step of the way, the men in the fat ties and the women in grey pantsuits flagged ahead a project that should have been rejected out of hand.

As a result, small-town Northern Ontario was forced to take the extra-ordinary step of putting up barricades to protect their right to be heard. This act of radical resistance would never have been necessary if public officials had done their job. This realization moved me from observer to activist, to organizer, and eventually to a leader in the fight.

All landfill proposals generate controversy, but the Adams Mine garbage proposal brought Northern Ontario to the brink of conflict. A rural region of 35,000 fought five separate campaigns against the Adams Mine proposal. Each campaign was an increasingly high-stakes affair that included mass demonstrations, blockades, and non-violent resistance.

In pushing the project forward, the provincial government of Mike Harris dismantled long-standing environmental protection measures in the Province of Ontario and opened the door to international PCB import schemes from Japan, the United States, and Mexico. The region of Timiskaming (locally also spelled Temiskaming) became ground zero for a waste battle that was international in scope. The fight against these projects started in small northern Legion halls and ended at an international NAFTA tribunal.

Gordon McGuinty launched this war. In his self-published memoir, Trashed, this former ski bum from North Bay suggests that the people who stood on that barricade were part of a "sophisticated form of political terrorism" bankrolled by a secret slush fund of $800,000 in "foreign" money [McGuinty, Canmore: Elevation Press, 2010]. There was no secret bank account, and the people who stood in his path were the furthest thing from terrorists. What made them radicals was their determination to have a say in whether or not the watershed of their region would be used as part of a massive experiment in waste dumping.

This is the story of how a dump fight morphed into a two-decade campaign of creative and determined civil resistance. Along the way, we trashed Toronto's Olympic bid in Switzerland, organized road blockades, and hired private detectives to track down backroom investors. Numerous political careers were burned up in this fight.

But the real success of the campaign was the effort to build bridges between groups that had previously been divided. And thus we came together -- First Nations people and farmers, environmentalists and miners, urban and rural folks, anglophones and francophones. In the crucible of a dump war, community was built and community won out. For me, the lessons learned in this fight have served as a roadmap for my life in federal politics. I learned that the democratic rights of citizens must be rooted in access to fair public process backed up by an uncompromised public service.

I decided to write the history of the Adams Mine war because I believe that accountable public process is under threat like never before. Under the Conservative government of Stephen Harper, basic standards for economic accountability are being stripped through omnibus legislation. Credible and independent bodies like Rights and Democracy or the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy have been shut down because they challenged the Conservative agenda. The ability of citizens' groups and First Nations to participate in the review of controversial environmental projects has been limited. The legitimate rights of citizens to speak up against the Enbridge pipeline has been undermined with jingoistic accusations against "extremists" and "agitators."

The implications of the Harper government's attack on democratic accountability are of a much greater scale than anything attempted during the Adams Mine war. And yet, there are lessons that can be learned. The Adams Mine project was driven by big money, backroom lobbyists, and a militant right-wing government. But despite holding all the cards, they still lost. They were beaten by an army of volunteers who out-researched, out-organized, and out-strategized them. This book tells the story of how a bunch of farmers, retirees, and First Nations people stood up to the Man and kicked his ass. For this reason alone, it is a story worth telling.

*Reprinted with permission from Unlikely Radicals: The Story of the Adams Mine War by Charlie Angus (Between the Lines, 2013).

Charlie Angus is speaking on the book in Toronto on April 11, 6:30pm at the Supermarket.

First Nation Cops Are Facing "Combat-Level" Stress

2013-02-18T17:25:57-05:00

On a warm evening last May, officer Pauline Nguyen went into her backyard and shot herself with her police service revolver. The death of this popular 24-year-old police officer stunned people in her hometown of Thunder Bay. In the days following, heartbreaking memorials were posted online about the spirited young woman who was always ready to volunteer and endowed with a "calm, cool, collect personality."

To her fellow officers at the Nishnawbe Aski Police (NAPs), Nguyen's suicide was a "shocker."

"I thought she would have been the last officer to do this because she had such a strong character," said one officer speaking on condition of anonymity.

Some colleagues saw her death as a disturbing sign of the stress affecting the front line officers. The year before, another young officer, Richard Wesley, shot himself. In between these two deaths have been other attempted and threatened suicides from overstressed officers.

"We've dealt with three or four suicide threats last year alone," says another longtime officer. "We're dealing with all manner of self-destructive behavior -- alcoholism, drug abuse. In a force of just 150, we're talking losses that are comparable to combat."

Deputy Grand Chief Alvin Fiddler of Nishnawbe Aski Nation says the force is simply covering too much ground with too few resources. "We are down 30 officers at any given time from stress, injuries and other issues. It's getting harder and harder to plug the holes."

And the pressures are about to get worse.

On March 31, the Conservative government will terminate the Police Officer Recruitment Fund (PORF). The loss of this funding will mean lay-offs of 11 more police officers. Such a loss will add pressure to an already overstretched force.

Nishnawbe Aski Police services 35 First Nation communities over a vast extent of Northern Ontario in the region covered by Treaty 9. They are the second largest Aboriginal police force in North America. Many of the detachments are in remote fly-in communities north of Sioux Lookout or Moosonee.

NAPs are funded through an agreement with the federal government (52 per cent) and the Province of Ontario (48 per cent). Negotiations on a new funding agreement were supposed to begin last April but neither the Feds, nor the Province has come to the table. Despite its "tough on crime" rhetoric, the Harper government has shown little interest in ensuring police have the resources needed to ensure safe communities in Canada's north.

Chronic under-funding means that that NAPs officers often work in situations more dangerous then their counterparts in municipal, provincial or federal policing. For example, when an OPP officer responds to a call about domestic violence, legislation requires another officer to be present as back up. NAPs officers, however, often work alone. In some fly-in communities, community protection lasts until the lone police officer attempts to find sleep at the end of a 22-hour shift.

Alvin Fiddler explains, "We have officers working under very difficult conditions 20 to 24 hour shifts, and then where do they sleep?"

The lack of housing is another resource problem plaguing NAPS. On isolated reserves, the federal government supplies apartments to ensure that outside teachers and nurses will work in the communities. NAPs don't have anywhere near the same housing certainty. They are supposed to rent homes from the local Band. On overcrowded reserves where housing is scarce, this is often problematic.

One officer speaking on condition of anonymity says the situation has long been intolerable.

"The federal government figured out a long time ago how to retain nurses and teachers. These professionals fly into remote communities where they stay at proper apartments and work clear shifts. You don't see them killing themselves. I've had to sleep in places that you wouldn't let your dog sleep."

Another officer says that, although some conditions have improved there are still major problems. "New detachments are coming on too slow. Housing remains a huge problem and there is unsafe housing for the officers."

Kaschewan Tragedy

On January 8, 2006, two young men, Ricardo Wesley and Jamie Goodwin, died in a fire that spread through a makeshift jail cell in Kashechewan First Nation. The cell doors jammed shut when the fire broke out. One NAPs officer was seriously injured trying to free the men. Without any fire fighting equipment in the community, people had to endure the screams of the men as they burned to death.

A provincial inquest was conducted that shone a light on the appalling conditions in which NAPs officers had to work. The Inquest determined that a simple fire suppression system could have saved the men. But the Feds and Province had never bothered to provide basic standards for fire safety.

The judge also noted that the NAPs officers suffered "serious and psychological harm."

"The Kashechewan fire broke us," says one officer. "We were traumatized by what happened."

The Kashechewan Inquiry came forward with 86 recommendations calling for a fundamental change in how NAPs is funded. Although some efforts have been made to improve the office buildings for NAPs detachments, the standards are still Third World in comparison to remote detachments for OPP or RCMP officers.

One officer servicing an isolated fly-in community told me how he was forced to use his truck as a holding cell because there was no jail. He ended up dealing with the trauma of a young woman prisoner who attempted to kill herself in the police truck.

It is incidents like these that inevitably lead to higher levels of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in front line officers.

The officer who dealt with the young woman prisoner had obvious visible signs of PTSD. He explained how he has been haunted by the guilt of "cleaning up the bodies."

"I've stopped counting the deaths I've dealt with -- at least 25 hangings. I have had to deal with them alone. This is when you realize how helpless you are. You go in and clean things up. Nothing changes. Nobody comes in from the outside. You're supposed to just carry on. But after awhile it seems that we start imploding and killing ourselves but nobody seems to hear. We're becoming damaged goods."

In 2009, a suicide epidemic hit along the James Bay coast when over 80 young people attempted to kill themselves, 14 youth succeeded. The trauma of dealing with multiple suicides in small communities traumatized all front line response workers in the region.

Which brings us back to the suicide of young Pauline Nguyen. Was her death linked to PTSD? It is unknown.

"Perhaps there should be an inquest," says the officer with PTSD. "If we don't look at what happened to her and find ways to make changes there will be other suicides. Young officers shouldn't have to feel they have no other alternative."

Deputy Chief Alvin Fiddler says the issue of post-traumatic stress must be addressed.

"Other police services have support of police psychologists. We don't have anything. Our problem is that unlike the OPP, our officers are not operating on a legislative base. We don't have the same health and safety and funding requirements that protect Provincial police officers. Something needs to change. We can't be just out there plugging holes."

The leadership of Nishnawbe Aski Nation is calling for both the Federal and Provincial Ministers of Justice to begin negotiations to address the huge funding disparities faced by Canada's northern police front line.

The officer I met who is suffering PTSD wrote a letter to me expressing his hopes for change:

"We are the front line of defense for the NAN communities and it's frustrating not to be able to offer an adequate level of safety to our communities. We love the communities we work in and we try and handle all manner of issues from medical emergencies, fire protection, water rescues; we are counselors, protectors, agents of change and examples to youth.

"We have witnessed such tragedy and sadness and somehow we still have a healthy outlook and faith that things will get better. We have lost colleagues to grief and despair. We love what we do and we care about our communities and each other. Please care about us. We are the officers of the Nishnawbe-Aski Police Service."

Harper: Act Now Before Chief Theresa Spence Dies

2012-12-21T12:16:45-05:00

Chief Theresa Spence hasn't eaten in over 11 days. The weather has taken a big turn for the worse and her tent home on Victoria Island is far from ideal. With Christmas week upon us, there is a real danger that the war room gamers in the Prime Minister's office will think they can simply wait this one out. It would be a terrible miscalculation. Make no mistake, as Ottawa shuts down for the holidays, this hunger strike is entering a very volatile and high stakes phase.

I've been deeply worried about the timing of this Christmas hunger strike since Chief Spence first announced her attentions back on December 10. On the day she started her strike, Parliamentarians were focused on getting home for the holidays. It hardly seemed like an auspicious time to begin such a drastic action. She walked up to Parliament Hill with only a handful of supporters. There was no media present. I met her at the Eternal Flame and presented her with some presents of friendship -- wool socks, a candle and a tartan blanket. I asked her to reconsider her decision. She wasn't budging. This was a serious business and she told me she wasn't backing down.

I knew then I was watching the beginning of a revolution.

Last year, the diminutive leader from Attawapiskat was thrust into the international spotlight when she declared a state of emergency over the horrific conditions on the James Bay coast. As the Red Cross touched down with emergency aid, Prime Minister Stephen Harper lashed out against the community, and accused Chief Spence of financial mismanagement. He tried to put an end to the story by deposing the Chief and Council.

It was a serious miscalculation. Chief Spence not only defied the government, but took them to Federal Court where she won a resounding victory. The mishandling of the situation was a black eye for both Minister John Duncan and the Harper government. A little bit of diplomacy and a little bit of compassion would have gone a long way to resolving the crisis before it became an international embarrassment.

As Chief Spence said at the time, "When I declared an emergency, it wasn't my intention to cause embarrassment to Canada and I didn't plan this type of exposure. I just wanted to help my community."

It is a plea she would most likely repeat today as the hunger strike drags on. The question is what role will the Prime Minister play this time around? People often describe him as a "brilliant tactician," but tactics aren't enough to run a country. From a tactical point of view, he will no doubt assume that Christmas is the worst time to mount a protest because the public's attention is being diverted to home and family. He might also think that a winter hunger strike will sap the energy of the Chief quickly and bad weather will dampen public support rallies.

Yes, this is all true. But what Mr. Harper needs to understand is that he isn't the one holding the cards.
Hunger strikes are very volatile and potentially divisive actions. They stem from desperation and a belief that all other attempts to negotiate in good faith have been exhausted.

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Chief Spence's actions have touched a chord of anger that has been brewing in First Nation communities for some time. And the physical crucible of a winter hunger strike will bring these issues to a head much quicker than the war gamers in the PMO can respond.

Yesterday, John Duncan shrugged off mass protests and unrest as a case of "that's social media. We'll see how it goes."

Well John, if Chief Spence gets sick in her tent over Christmas because of the refusal of the government to show some leadership, then it won't take a crystal ball to see where this is going. Hunger strikes have the potential to create martyrs and stir rage. One has only to remember the days of Bobby Sands and the bitter death strikes that rocked the U.K. in the 1980s.

Chief Spence has put her life on the line. This is not a game. This is not a stunt. Every day that Mr. Harper tries to wait out the crisis, the stakes rise higher. Mr. Harper has a very short window to show leadership. He needs to come the table and begin to address the issues that have driven so many First Nation communities into poverty and despair.

If Chief Spence gets sick or worse, this country will be crossing a political Rubicon. It will signal a historic rupture between the government of Canada and First Nation people. Stephen Harper has a narrow window to avert a potential tragedy. Last year, the Attawapiskat crisis became known as Canada's "Katrina" moment. Let us hope that political obstinance will not not result in the world seeing Canada's H-Block moment.

Vic Toews is Snooping in Your Data Again

2012-11-30T13:52:08-05:00

The notorious online "snooping" bill, C-30, looks like it may be coming back for round two. Earlier this year, the government rolled out legislation to enhance police powers in the cyber age. Bill C-30 would allow police to gather telecommunications service provider (TSP) subscriber data of cell phone and Internet users without warrants. As well, the legislation would force Telecoms to create back door spy channels into their networks to aid security agencies in keeping tabs of online criminals (and potentially ordinary citizens).

But the government's point-man on the file, Public Safety Minister Vic Toews, totally blew the rollout of this controversial bill. He stepped over the line by accusing Canadians concerned about the erosion of privacy rights of being on the side of "child pornographers." Within days, the file had grown so politically toxic that the Conservatives were forced to beat an ignominious retreat.

The backlash showed that Canadians take their privacy rights seriously. But people shouldn't be complacent as efforts are underway to put C-30 back on the agenda. It's being reported that the Harper government is under pressure from the U.S. and the U.K. to pass the bill to clear the path for Canada to ratify the Council of Europe's 2001 Convention on Cybercrime. As well, the Canadian Association of Police Chiefs (CACP) has launched a campaign under the banner of fighting "cyber-bullying" to get Toews to kick start the legislation.

No one disagrees that police should have the tools they need to do their jobs. The New Democrats strongly support the ability of police to go after cyber-stalkers and criminals. But updating police tools should not be a signal to declare open season on the privacy rights of ordinary citizens. Changes to legislation will require a real balancing act.

Balance is not a word you associate with Vic Toews. In response to any questions about good public policy, Vic seems to like invoking the bogeyman. He is the wrong person to handle this file.

For example, let's look at the provisions to allow police to demand TSP subscriber data without warrants. As it stands now, if police have reason to believe that crimes are being committed, they can obtain a warrant or production order. In wanting to bypass this step of court oversight, Towes claims that getting access to subscriber data is simply like getting access to a phone book.

The privacy commissioners of Canada disagree. In fact, Ontario Privacy Commissioner Anne Cavoukian says C-30 presents "one of the most invasive threats to our privacy and freedom that I have ever encountered."

She challenges Toews' claim that allowing basic subscriber information is the digital equivalent of using a phone book: "Customer name and address information ties us to our entire digital life, unlike a stationary street address. Therefore, 'subscriber information' is far from the modern day equivalent of a publicly available 'phone book'. Rather, it is the key to a much wider, sensitive subset of information."

In an unprecedented pushback against this legislation Canada's federal and provincial privacy commissioners challenged the claim that doing away with warrants will disadvantage security and law enforcement efforts:

"...At no time have Canadian authorities provided the public with any evidence or reasoning to suggest that CSIS or any other Canadian law enforcement agencies have been frustrated in the performance of their duties as a result of shortcomings attributable to current law, tailored approach is vital. In our view, this balance has not been achieved."

The privacy commissioners go further by warning that this bill will enhance "the capacity of the state to conduct surveillance and access private information while reducing the frequency and vigour of judicial scrutiny."

If Vic Toews wants to ensure our police have the tools they need to protect Canadians in the cyber age, he will have to treat citizens with the respect they deserve.

Canadians aren't fools. Privacy matters to us. So does balance. Justifications for online snooping by the state are not going to be solved by invoking buzzwords and bogeymen. If C-30 comes back in its current form, Canadians will push back hard. The New Democrats believe that privacy rights need to be enshrined into the design of the bill. In this way, they will deliver for citizens, the police and our international allies.

On the Anniversary of Attawapiskat, One Film Tells the Real Story

2012-10-22T10:00:21-04:00

This week will mark the first anniversary since Attawapiskat First Nation declared a state of emergency over the abysmal housing situation on the James Bay coast. Footage of the living conditions in this isolated community shocked Canadians and resulted in a media firestorm.

The crisis became a cultural Pandora's box that unleashed numerous issues and misconceptions regarding our relationship with Canada's First Peoples. Now on the eve of this dark anniversary, Canada's "Katrina" moment has made it to the big screen. And who better equipped to tell the real story of the 2011-housing crisis than iconic filmmaker Alanis Obamsawin?

Charlie Angus MP with Alanis Obamsawin at the launch of People of the Kattawapiskat River, Bloor Cinema.

Last week, the 80-year-old First Nation activist, chanteuse and artist premiered her new film at Toronto's ImagineNative Film Festival. The screening of The People of the Kattawapiskat River had all the makings of a Toronto gala. But mingled in with the hipsters and Indie "doc" filmmakers were many First Nation people including some who had lived through the horrific social crisis that drew international attention last winter.

The film examines the political and personal fallout of the housing crisis through the eyes of the people at ground zero. It is a harrowing journey, but one that is surprisingly hopeful. Unlike some media reports that portrayed the Attawapiskat people as hopeless and hapless or habitual scroungers on the hard-pressed Canadian taxpayer, Obamsawin reveals the incredible dignity of the community.

She has a quiet way of drawing us into the lives of the people living in appalling conditions. In one scene, a single father who is living in a shed describes why he left the city and returned to the reserve. His feeding and burping of his baby girl creates a level of intimacy that is almost overwhelming.

Photo of the Linklater family living in a tent during Attawapiskat Housing Crisis, 2011.

This up close and personal style of filmmaking has been the mark of the woman who is the documentary voice of Canada's First Nation communities. Born in 1932 as a member of the Abenaki First Nation, Obamsawin suffered from isolation and racism as a child in Trois-Riviere, Quebec. In 1960, she landed in New York as a singer. This sense of cultural displacement defined her vision of searching out the First Nation place in North American life. By the late 1960s, she began making documentary films including Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance, the definitive documentary on the Oka Crisis.

She has made over 30 films and been the recipient of numerous awards including being named to the Playback Canadian Film and Television Hall of Fame. Now at 80 she still has many film and art projects on the go. Little wonder, that long before the Attawapiskat crisis hit the headlines, Obamsawin was on the ground in Attawapiskat.

I first met Obamsawin in the days leading up to the crisis when I was working with local youth leaders. Watching the film was, at times uncomfortable, as I knew all the families in the film. I was fascinated by how she handled the issues of the ugly backlash that was unleashed against the community in the days following Prime Minister's Harper's decision to depose the Band Chief and Council. After the imposition of the Third Party Manager, I became one of the community's de facto spokesmen in interviews with television, print and talk radio. This imposition of a Third Party manager unleashed a brutal barrage of accusations (mostly unfounded) over mismanagement.

Perhaps the low point in this racist storm was when TV troll Ezra Levant publicly ridiculed the "Indian" Band for spending money on a zamboni.

Obamsawin artfully uses this bogus "Zamboni-gate" to bring Canadians into the uncomfortable No-Man's land of Canadian racist stereotyping. She juxtaposes Levant's rant with an interview with Stella Lazarus, a local woman who fundraised money for years from local bingos in order to purchase a proper ice-cleaning machine for the town's only rink. Levant's ugly ridicule speaks for itself, while Lazarus prides in helping the children enjoy evening skating sparkles.

As I watched the film, I thought of how many times the federal government has punished isolated First Nation reserves who have stood up to the government. The Harper government imposed a Third Party manager in a blatant attempt to change the channel and to blame the victims. This is how business is done in Canada's colonial fortress at Indian Affairs. They very nearly succeeded. But impoverished little Attawapiskat stood together and as the film shows, was finally given some level of vindication in Federal court. How fitting that the Alanis Obamsawin was present to document this very real victory.

The People of the Kattawapiskat River will set the bar for any other studies on the Attawapiskat crisis. It is a film that will define the discussion on this issue for years to come. Thank you, Alanis.

Charlie Angus with a much younger Alanis Obamsawin, photo portrait on the wall on the ByWard Market Ottawa.

How McGuinty Stopped a Train and Started a Fight

2012-10-01T00:00:02-04:00

They call it "Black" Friday -- September 28th, the day passenger train service died in Northern Ontario. The loss of public transit has exposed a deep political divide between the north and south in Ontario. And yet, my decision to travel on the last run of the Northlander wasn't just political, it was personal.

I grew up on the train. My great uncles worked the line between North Bay and Timmins. I knew its storied history and can recite the litany of how the train opened the north for settlement. In many ways I felt as it if the Northlander was my train. And as I travelled on this last journey, I realized that thousands of other people from south, central and northern Ontario, also felt the same way.

Along the 800 km route of the Northlander, all kinds of people came to say goodbye. At rail crossings they waved. In towns people held up protest signs or recorded the last voyage on their cell phones. At Engelhart Station, over 300 people came out to bid farewell. Many were crying. At Cobalt, school children held homemade signs denouncing the death of the "Choo-Choo." At a rally at the North Bay station, the anger was palpable. This was a line in the sand moment. A betrayal. A fundamental breach between the north and south.

Onboard the last run, train buffs were out in force. One couple came all the way from Chicago to say goodbye to Ontario's most historic train. But many of the folks who purchased ticket were just trying to get home -- seniors with canes, students with schoolbooks, young families with little children running up and down the aisles. None of them were looking forward to the brave new world where the trains will no longer run and public bus service in the north sold off or discontinued.

If you listen to the McGuinty spin-doctors the Northlander is an anachronism, a bloated and outmoded transport relic stranded in the lean, mean 21-st century. But there is nothing anachronistic about the Northlander. On the southern part of its journey, it serves as the commuter line for people in Washago, Gravenhurst, Bracebridge and Hunstville. Anyone on this part of the line will tell you the Northlander beats the bumper-to-bumper traffic on Highway 400.

As the train moves north through Muskoka and Temagami, it transforms into a world-class travel experience offering a unique window on some of the most stunning country in North America. I have traveled VIA, Amtrak and British Rail and have never seen anything that matches the Northlander.

Culturally, it is the quintessential Canadian trip, a journey through the land of the Group of Seven. Socially, it's like being on a village on wheels with people visiting along the aisles. In the food/bar car, people gather to play cards, watch movies, trade stories and interact with the rail staff.

Even on this last ride, the sense of community in the bar car was as strong as ever, just a little bit sadder. One staffer confided to me that if she wasn't laughing with the customers, she would probably break down and cry. She, like other staff members, had just been informed that she was out of a job the minute the train touched into Cochrane Station.

What a shoddy way to treat people. It was the frontline workers who kept the Northlander viable through decades of political indifference and upper management incompetence. In the 1990s, it seemed as if the political appointees at the ONTC were trying to run passenger service into the ground. And yet the staff kept faith and this beleaguered line held its own. Ridership is back up, and the quality of the service has been climbing despite years of under-funding.

To the McGuinty Liberals, the train is just one of many political assets that can be discarded based on a narrow political calculus. No doubt the young Turks working on the Premier's spin team will tell you its about "making the tough choices" in times of austerity. But it speaks to a fundamental indifference to the realities of Northern Ontario.

People in the north have never dreamed of equal treatment with the urban south; instead they have been more than willing to settle for a basic standard of fairness. Killing public transit breaches that standard. The fact that the government is shutting down train service just before Thanksgiving weekend when all of the students will be trying to come home has sent a clear message that this government just doesn't give a damn.

No doubt, the McGuinty Liberals are counting on the public having short memories. But in the north, people don't forget. There is an unprecedented level of anger and bitterness. This isn't going to be smoothed over with a few grants and some sweet-talking from the Premier.

As I traveled along the communities of the Northlander, it was clear that a new battle has begun in Northern Ontario. There are those who are out to restore our access to public transit. And then there are those who believe its time rethink the relationship between the resource rich north and the urban south. The train has always been the primary symbol of who we are as a region, and the decision to kill the Northlander will set the political discourse in Northern Ontario for years to come.

Don't Stop This Train

2012-08-31T10:32:13-04:00

Public transit is on the chopping block in Northeastern Ontario. On September 28th, the McGuinty Liberals are planning on silencing the whistle of the Northlander passenger train once and for all. With the train service killed, they will then move to sell off public bus service and freight operations as quickly as possible. Thrown into this fire sale will be valuable public telecommunications infrastructure that has connected many isolated communities with cellphones and Internet.

The government says this is about providing northerners with better options for transportation. No one's buying it. The dismantling of the Ontario Northland Transportation Commission will have a profound impact on the northeast part of the Province.

To tell you the truth, I can't really imagine life in the north without the familiar shriek of the Northlander. Every morning and evening I hear the sound cutting across the timberline pretty much as it has done for more than a century. It is as much a sound of the north as the cry of a loon on Lake Temagami. But the fight to save the train is about more than nostalgia.

The train was originally developed as an economic development engine for the province. Despite years of neglect, it is still limping along in carrying out this duty. In the far north towards James Bay, the train is the only mode of transport and movement of supplies to communities that have no road access. Passengers make do on cars that are over 60 years old.

South of Cochrane, the train ferries people south for work, medical appointments and family visits. In the summer, you'll always find Europeans and Americans using the train to explore the north. The government will tell you that cutting these services is about making tough choices and finding better ways to provide public services. They claim that the government has provided a $439 million "subsidy." It's dubious math.

The "subsidy" in this case includes all the planned infrastructure investment made over the last decade on improving the 1,000 kms of line. The government doesn't bother to mention that during the same period the ONTC generated one billion in revenues and spin-off economic impacts of $2.5 billion. [LINK]

The investment in rail infrastructure should be comparable to investments in highways or the $2.5 billion expenditures on Metrolinx between 09-11. The government is quick to boast of these other "investments." Why, then, is any money spent improving the rail line to Moosonee derided as a "subsidy"?

What the numbers show is that, in Ontario, there really are two provinces, two standards for services and two very distinct approaches for public transit.

Let's compare bus service. Unlike Go or TTC, the Ontario Northland Bus service doesn't receive a dime in subsidies. Despite being heavily utilized, the bus line hasn't received nearly the reinvestment that the subsidized services in the south rely on.

Now let's compare train service. The Northlander is on the chopping block because the province is tired of kicking in about $11 million in annual subsidies. This is roughly the same amount the McGuinty government has promised Go commuters in refunded tickets if they are inconvenienced by more than a 15-minute delay.

So why are one group of public transit riders so much more valued than another?

Could the Ontario Northland be run more efficiently? Certainly. Could new ideas be brought to look at the best options for public transit? Definitely. But this is not what's on the table.

The government should take a deep breath and look at the options before initiating a fire sale of assets. When you listen to their logic it's clear they haven't thought through the implications. For example they have made vague assurances that if the train is killed and the bus line sold off, the government will guarantee service through a potential subsidy to the private sector. And yet, isn't this fear of subsidies the reason they are ditching the train and bus service in the first place?

The Northlander train is set to be killed on September 28th -- just a week before the university students head to Union Station to come home for the Thanksgiving break. When viewed from Queens Park, this might not seem like a big deal. But then neither, apparently, is cutting off an entire section of the province.

When viewed from the north, the timing speaks volumes. And this is why people are fighting back. Public transit is as much a right for families in the north as it is for commuters in the south.

Les dissidentes du groupe punk rock Pussy Riot méritent notre appui

2012-08-17T15:32:18-04:00

Ce texte a été co-écrit avec Andrew Cash, député fédéral dans Davenport.

« Je n'ai pas peur du verdict frauduleux à peine dissimulé de ce prétendu tribunal parce qu'il peut me priver de ma liberté. Personne ne peut me priver de ma liberté intérieure.»

Cette déclaration aurait pu facilement être prononcée par Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Nelson Mandela ou Ken Saro Wiwa. Mais ces mots ont bien été formulés par Maria Alekhina du groupe de musique Pussy Riot. Son « crime » a été d'organiser une prière punk, en compagnie des deux autres membres du groupe Nadezhda Tolokonnikova et Yekaterina Samutsevich, afin de dénoncer la corruption du régime de Vladimir Poutine. Le procès des trois musiciennes et leur condamnation subséquente pour vandalisme et « haine religieuse » ont été une parodie de justice du début à la fin.

Et pourtant, la dignité avec laquelle ces jeunes artistes ont fait face au tribunal russe a permis de dévoiler au monde le véritable visage du gouvernement antidémocratique de Vladimir Poutine.

C'est ironique que le procès ait eu lieu en même temps que les Jeux olympiques de Londres. Les festivités olympiques ont été une incroyable célébration de la diversité culturelle et de la solidarité internationale. Au milieu de tous les numéros de la grande cérémonie d'ouverture, nous avons eu droit aux hymnes punk « God Save the Queen » et « London Calling ».

Choisir de faire un clin d'œil au groupe Sex Pistols comme le symbole par excellence du caractère britannique est hautement ironique. Il y a trente ans, les Sex Pistols étaient pour le monde de la musique populaire et la classe politique britannique ce que Pussy Riot est aujourd'hui pour la Russie. « God Save the Queen » a été la seule chanson de l'histoire de la musique populaire à avoir été considérée comme étant tellement menaçante que son nom a été rayé de la liste du Top 40 (même si cette chanson a longtemps été numéro 1). Des responsables publics ont demandé que le groupe soit banni et même assassiné (voir le documentaire L'Obscénité et la Fureur). Ce groupe de l'ouest de Londres représentait une menace pour l'ordre établi en Angleterre et l'identité britannique.

À cette époque, nous étions au début de l'adolescence. La réaction hystérique aux chansons de groupes comme les Sex Pistols et Clash nous attirait immanquablement vers leurs albums. Le mouvement punk a contribué à notre éducation musicale, sociale et politique. Les albums de ces groupes ont eu le même rôle que les samizdats pour une génération de jeunes qui croyait qu'on pouvait bâtir un monde meilleur. Nous n'avons jamais cessé d'y croire.

Durant les années 1980, notre groupe L'étranger était très engagé politiquement sur la scène post-punk torontoise. L'un des enjeux dont nous avons beaucoup traité a été le combat contre l'apartheid. Les gens ont tendance à oublier que la pression de la communauté artistique internationale dans les années 1980 a permis de garder la question de l'apartheid dans la liste des priorités politiques. Les musiciens de tous les genres n'ont jamais baissé les bras dans leur campagne qui a finalement mené à la libération de Nelson Mandela et éventuellement à la chute du système d'apartheid.

Charlie Angus (député de Timmins - Baie-James) et Andrew Cash (député de Davenport) étaient membres du groupe punk L'étranger basé à Toronto.

Le mouvement punk nous a formés par rapport aux enjeux politiques et culturels. D'une certaine façon, le chemin parcouru pour passer du jour où nous avons fait la première partie des Dead Kennedys au jour où nous avons participé à l'ouverture de la 41e législature n'a pas été si long. Nous encourageons les membres de Pussy Riot à envisager un parcours similaire. Nous sommes convaincus qu'elles seraient une voix beaucoup plus crédible au parlement russe que certains des membres qui y siègent actuellement.

Le poème de trente secondes de Pussy Riot nous a démontré que la musique et la dissidence politique ont encore la capacité d'entraîner le changement. Cet événement nous rappelle que les artistes jouent un rôle unique au sein d'une société. Bien sûr, ils nous divertissent, mais ils sont également le reflet de notre culture et de notre conscience. Pour cette raison, le droit à la protestation artistique doit être valorisé et protégé.

Le groupe Pussy Riot n'est que le plus récent exemple d'une longue série d'artistes qui ont été persécutés pour avoir menacé l'ordre établi. Pete Seeger a été sur la liste noire durant des décennies. Sa carrière a été compromise et presque détruite par les responsables américains durant les années 1950. Et pourtant aujourd'hui, Pete Seeger est considéré comme le représentant par excellence de la musique folk américaine.

D'autres artistes n'ont pas eu sa chance. Victor Jara a été le porte-parole des demandes de changements au Chili. L'un des premiers gestes de la junte militaire de Pinochet a été de l'assassiner. Avant de le tuer, ils lui ont symboliquement cassé les doigts. Malgré tout, ses chansons ont continué de raisonner dans la conscience du peuple chilien.

Les artistes de Pussy Riot ont déjà passé six mois en prison. Leur unique crime a été d'utiliser l'art pour plonger un régime corrompu dans l'embarras. D'autres artistes, de Madonna en passant par Paul McCartney, ont publiquement pris leur défense. Il est temps que les politiciens fassent de même. Si ces jeunes musiciennes peuvent être emprisonnées, alors n'importe qui en Russie peut être emprisonné. Dans les mots de Bruce Cockburn : « Prêtez attention au poète, vous avez besoin de lui et vous le savez / ne laissez pas le système vous duper, tout ce qu'il veut c'est de vous contrôler. »

Les membres de Pussy Riot ont tenu tête à un homme. Nous devrions les applaudir, et non les emprisonner.

Artists of the World Unite -- For Pussy Riot

2012-08-17T10:22:15-04:00

This piece is co-written with Andrew Cash, Member of Parliament, Davenport

"I am not afraid of your poorly concealed fraud of a verdict in this so-called court, because it can deprive me of my freedom. No one will take my inner freedom away."

The statement could easily have been made by Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Nelson Mandela or Ken Saro Wiwa. But the words come from Maria Alekhina of the band Pussy Riot. Her "crime" was to stage a punk prayer along with band mates Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Yekaterina Samutsevich that exposed the corruption of Vladimir Putin's regime. Their subsequent trial and conviction for hooliganism and "religious hatred" has been a travesty from start to finish.

And yet the poise with which these young artists have faced down the Russian court has revealed to the world the real face of the anti-democratic government of Vladimir Putin.

It was ironic that the trial took place at the same time as the London Olympics. The Olympic festivities served as an incredible celebration of cultural diversity and international solidarity. Thrown into the mix during the gala grand opening were the punk rock anthems God Save the Queen and London Calling.

Choosing to give a nod to the Sex Pistols as a symbol of quintessential Britishness is highly ironic.Thirty years ago, the Sex Pistols were to the British political and pop music establishment what Pussy Riot is to Putin's Russia. God Save the Queen was the only single in pop history that was considered so threatening that the song title blanked out on the Top 40 Chart (even though it hit Number 1). In addition, public officials called for the band to be banned and even killed (see the documentary Filth and the Fury) because this band from West London posed a threat to the very existence of British order and identity.

We were in our early teens in those days. The hysterical reaction to bands like The Sex Pistols and The Clash immediately drew us to their records. Punk rock was a musical, social and political education. Those records served as a musical samizdat for a generation of young people who believed the world could be a better place. We never lost that belief.

In the 1980s, our band L'etranger was very active politically in the Toronto post-punk scene. One of the issues we were deeply involved in was the fight against South African apartheid. It tends to be forgotten that pressure from the international arts community in the 1980s kept the issue of apartheid on the front burner of political issues. Musicians of all genres were relentless in the campaign that led to the release of Nelson Mandela and ultimately the collapse of the apartheid system.

Andrew Cash and Charlie Angus

Punk rock educated us in politics and cultural issues. In some ways it isn't all that far a road from opening for the Dead Kennedys to opening the 41st Parliament. We encourage the members of Pussy Riot to consider a similar route -- they would certainly be a more credible voice in the Russian Parliament than some of the punters who are in there today.

Pussy Riot's 30-second poem has been a wake up call that political music and dissent can still affect change. They remind us that the artist plays a unique role in society. Sure they entertain us, but the also have the role of serving as a cultural mirror and conscience. For this reason the right to artistic dissent must be cherished and protected.

Pussy Riot is just the latest in a long stream of artists who have been persecuted for threatening to the established order. Pete Seeger was blacklisted for decades. His career was undermined and almost destroyed by U.S. officials in the 1950s. And yet today, Pete Seeger is seen as an embodiment of the best of the American folk tradition.

Other artists haven't been so lucky. Victor Jara was a voice giving hope for change in Chile. One of the first acts of the Pinochet Junta was to kill him. Before murdering him they symbolically broke his fingers. And yet his songs continued to live on in the consciousness of the Chilean people.

Pussy Riot has spent six months in jail already. They now face another two years in prison. Their only crime has been to use art to embarrass a corrupt regime. Other artists from Madonna to Paul McCartney have spoken out in their defense. It's time for political leaders to stand up as well. If these young singers can be jailed, then anyone in Russia can be jailed. As Bruce Cockburn says: "Pay attention to the poet you need him and you know it / Don't let the system fool you all it wants to do is rule you."
Pussy Riot stood up to the man. They should be celebrated not imprisoned.

Charlie Angus (MP Timmins-James Bay) and Andrew Cash (MP Davenport) were members of the Toronto punk band L'etranger.

LETTER TO JOHN DUNCAN: Why Did You Kill Badly Needed Housing in Attawapiskat?

2012-08-11T08:52:46-04:00

Co-signed by Jean Crowde, MP, Nanaimo-Cowichan

Dear Minister John Duncan,

It has been over a week since the Federal Court determined your department's decision to appoint a Third Party Manager in Attawapiskat last November was "unreasonable" and resulted from a failure to consider "more reasonable, more responsive, or less invasive remedies available." In the days after this very clear ruling, you said you needed to spend more time thinking about the implications. We have decided to reach out to you to suggest concrete ways of mending the broken relationship in Attawapiskat. If you showed leadership, Attawapiskat could be a test case towards finding long-term sustainable solutions for northern First Nations.

At the outset, let's deal with the key finding in the ruling by Justice Michael Phelan that Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada failed to understand the real problem in Attawapiskat, which was a lack of resources and equipment, not a problem of financial mismanagement.

To this end, we are disturbed that in the days following the court decision (August 2nd) you refused to provide a ministerial guarantee to support a plan that had been approved by Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation to build 30 new duplexes in Attawapiskat through rents established at market rates. Since Attawapiskat has never defaulted on a housing loan it is not surprising that CHMC was willing to partner with the community.

Thirty new units would have gone a long way towards alleviating the serious levels of overcrowding in the community. As the band had already been approved by CMHC, your role was simply to sign a ministerial guarantee. This was not a hand-out but a forward-looking plan that to provide safe housing for families who are living in very precarious conditions.

It would be disturbing to think that this refusal to sign off on a credible funding arrangement for new housing may have been part of the ongoing punishment of the community for having spoken up about the dire housing conditions last November. Such a move would only further underline the sense of broken trust between your department and northern First Nations. Last week, Postmedia published an article revealing that your department is now dealing with "Attawapiskat Syndrome" among communities who fear that annual water inspections will be used to impose Third Party Managers on their communities.

It is imperative that you recognize that, in re-establishing a positive relationship with Attawapiskat, you are sending a signal that you are committed to building a positive working relationship with all First Nation communities. Certainly Chief Theresa Spence in Attawapiskat has been very forthright in her desire to work with you on more positive terms.

To this end, we would like to suggest concrete steps that will help end the suspicion with which you are being viewed by many communities. No doubt, you will recognize many of these ideas as ones brought forward in the media by independent experts who spoke out during the mismanagement of the Attawapiskat housing crisis:

Reimburse the community for the costs of the Third Party Manager. The imposition of the TPM was a political decision recognized by the Federal Court as an unreasonable burden for an already impoverished community.

Appoint a team to work directly with the community on implementing the Comprehensive Community Plan, created with the input of band members, to establish long term sustainability.

Set up meetings with provincial officials in order to transfer the land needed for an adequate land base to establish a new subdivision in the community.

Establish a planning team with architects and technical teams to make Attawapiskat a model for developing sustainable and cost-effective housing suited to the climate of the far north.

Immediately start work with the community on a new finance plan through CMHC to provide the opportunity for community-financed housing.

Commit to implementing medium-term and long-term development plans with adequate resources.

These steps will go a long way towards restoring the trust that your department lost through its handling of the Attawapiskat crisis. We all have a responsibility to ensure that the families in this community are given the chance at a safer and more sustainable life. If together we are willing to learn lessons from the crisis of the past winter, Canada will be a better place.

Sincerely,

Charlie Angus
MP, Timmins-James Bay

Jean Crowde
MP, Nanaimo-Cowichan

Attawapiskat: Where Shannen's Dream Became a Reality (VIDEO)

2012-06-26T07:46:41-04:00

The children were running alongside me as we trudged along the hot and dusty road through Attawapiskat. They could hardly contain themselves. After 13 long years of heartache and struggle, the community was finally getting a real grade school.

As we walked to the site where the first shovels would ceremonially dig into the earth, the children were bubbling over with visions of what this school would be like. Lockers -- there will be lockers and we will make them pretty. A hallway -- we will have a real hallway where we can walk from class to class without worrying about the cold. There'll be a science room, a music room, a real cafeteria where mice won't eat our lunches. It was almost heartbreaking to see through their eyes the years of neglect they had faced in dilapidated portables on a heavily toxic site.

For these youngsters, the walk to the site of the new school had all the energy of Christmas morning. You could see this energy in the pictures they had painted to celebrate their new school. Colourful rainbow pictures with stick children full of smiles and little dogs and whales taking the place of clouds in the skies. Paintings to make Chagall weep.

SLIDESHOW: OPENING A NEW SCHOOL

On many of the pictures, the kids had given the school a name -- this was Shannen's school. To them, it wasn't the government or the politicians who had made this school a reality, it was Shannen Koostachin. She was one of their own. She was their voice.

Having been part of the fight for this school over the last eight years, I could name numerous community leaders, education experts, architects and advisors who had been relentless in their pressure to get this school project off the ground. Building a school in Indian country is no mean feat. The local Education Authority had produced study after study as it attempted to wade through the often-belligerent bureaucracy of Aboriginal Affairs.

The government was well aware of the brutal conditions faced by children in Attawapiskat, but no one had thought it a priority. That is until 13-year-old Shannen Koostachin had the nerve to publicly challenge the Indian Affairs Minister. Shannen opened the eyes of Canadians when she called out the government for abandoning children in Attawapiskat. Shannen took her fight for a real grade school to classrooms across Canada.

When she was 14, she was nominated for the International Children's Peace Prize. And yet Shannen wasn't here to see her dream come true. She died two years ago in a terrible car accident. Her death galvanized youth and education activists across Canada to launch the Shannen's Dream campaign for equal education rights for all First Nation children.

It was no small irony that June 22, 2012, the day set aside for finally making this school a reality, was the same day that Shannen would have graduated from high school. But in many ways, she was very present. Chief Theresa Spence thanked Shannen for her leadership.

Rob Haldiman, the representative of Minister John Duncan, made note of Shannen Koostachin and her dream that made this school a reality. Haldminan's Grade 4 daughter had come with him for the event because she was active in the Shannen's Dream campaign for equal education in her school in Southern Ontario. A government that had been in such needless conflict with Attawapiskat seemed to be finding reconciliation by paying tribute to the little girl with a big heart.

It's been five months since the Parliament of Canada voted unanimously to support the Shannen's Dream Motion. The Motion's intent is to close the funding gap faced by First Nation students and ensure that reserve children have similar rights for education as guaranteed to students in the provincial system. Since then, precious little has happened at the federal level. There are numerous Attawapiskats across northern Canada. A commitment of real resources is needed to provide First Nation children with a chance for brighter futures.

But I have no doubt that Shannen's dream of "comfy" schools for all First Nation children will become a reality. The reason for my faith is that all across Canada youth are carrying on the work of Shannen Koostachin. She has become a role model for Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal children to address the injustice of substandard education on reserve.

As I stood pondering how far we had come in this fight for equal education rights a young Cree girl came up to and asked me, "Did you really know Shannen?" It was the kind of question I often received from students in Toronto, Ottawa or London where Shannen Koostachin is a genuine hero to kids.

"Yes I knew Shannen," I replied. "She was just like you. She wasn't afraid to speak out for the children." Beaming, she ran off to join her friends. All across Canada there are children like her who believe that they too, can make their dreams come true. Truly this is the school that Shannen built.

Footage of groundbreaking ceremony in Attawapiskat for new school:

OPENING A SCHOOL

AWOL on Attawapiskat -- Again

2012-04-10T07:49:42-04:00

John Duncan has some 'splainin' to do about his botched handling of the Attawapiskat crisis to a judge. Last Thursday, he suddenly pulled the third-party manager from Attawapiskat First Nation with a dubious statement about an improvement in bookkeeping.

The move came on the eve of a court case against the government's decision to impose the third-party manager. If Duncan hoped that pulling the third-party manager would save the government from going to court, he was mistaken. The community says that, even with the third-party manager being removed, they intend to challenge Duncan's handling of the file in court.

And given the week that just passed, you can't really blame them. The failure of the government to ensure basic continuity in education funding had precipitated a completely unnecessary crisis. Last week, Attawapiskat students attending school off-reserve faced the prospect of being kicked out of their boarding house accommodations because basic financial obligations for schooling hadn't been addressed. Many of these students lacked food or bus money to even get to school.

Throughout this crisis, third-party manager Jacques Marion was nowhere to be found. Frantic students who had been calling him were told Marion was on vacation in Hawaii. I have no idea if Marion was on the beach or not, but you'd expect a little more from a guy who is charging $1,300 a day from the Band's limited funds. But whoever was at fault, this cock-up on post-secondary education inevitably led to the Minister's office. Duncan's staff seemed absolutely clueless in tracking down the reasons why basic cheques hadn't been written.

This isn't the first time that Duncan has left Attawapiskat students in the lurch. In his initial attempt to impose the third-party manager on Attawapiskat, Duncan's department actually cut off all education funding to the community for nearly two months.

Imagine any other community where the education funds could be frozen in order to force compliance with a government directive. When I challenged John Duncan in early February on the fact that he was creating a crisis for Attawapiskat students, he accused me of making things up. But the reality was, students were being used as political hostages in the government's brass knuckles attempt to impose the third-party manager.

It's hard to believe that the decision to remove the third-party manager isn't related to Duncan's failure on the post-secondary funding file.

Which brings us back to the issue of why the third-party manager was imposed in the first place. Duncan's decision to impose the third-party manager came four weeks into the Attawapiskat housing crisis of November 2011. Up until that moment he had been M.I.A on a crisis that was deeply disturbing to Canadians. The fact that the Red Cross had to undertake relief efforts to help a desperately poor Canadian community drew international condemnation.

On the very day the Red Cross teams were hitting the ground in troubled Attawapiskat, the Harper government attempted to change the channel by blaming the Band leadership with mismanagement of taxpayer's money. Prime Minister Stephen Harper led the attack personally when he claimed that the Conservatives had given every man, woman and child in Attawapiskat $50,000. It was an incendiary statement that wasn't in any way true.

The Prime Minister didn't bother to say that $50,000 spread over six years was little more than $8,000 per resident -- less than half of what is spent per capita on other Canadians. But Harper's line rang out like a dog whistle to a racist base that believed that those Indians couldn't be trusted with our money.

Duncan followed this up by deposing the authority of the Band council and imposing the third-party manager. The message was clear -- the community was responsible for its own woes. In Indian country the message was as clear as a bell -- Attawapiskat had made the minister look bad and they were going to pay.

The third-party manager was supposed to get to the bottom of this misspending. But in the months to come, the government produced no evidence of financial mismanagement. Instead, Canadians watched as the government bungled the installation of 22 mobile trailers in the community.

Despite the fact that they had deposed the leadership, it was clear the government had no idea of the real situation on the ground. The Band continued to deal with the emergency response. They had a planning team in place co-coordinated by DeBeers. What stood in their path was the obstinacy of the department and the failure of the third-party manager to cut cheques in a timely fashion; meanwhile, the community was rocked by one financial crisis after another. Hardly the kind of thing you'd expect from a government stepping in to take the reigns.

Now with the third-party manager gone we are learning that numerous financial issues facing the Band may not have been addressed and the Band is scrambling to maintain some semblance of financial responsible planning. It wasn't supposed to be this way.

Which brings us back to John Duncan.

Three months ago, Chief Theresa Spence came to Ottawa and made a heartfelt plea to the minister. She said that she was sorry that the crisis in Attawapiskat had made him look bad. She wasn't looking to embarrass anyone. She just wanted help for her people who were living in desperate circumstances. Duncan brushed her off.

Well guess what, John? The situation hasn't gone away and the public continues to look for a resolution to this tragic situation. Spring is coming and its clear that the 22 trailers are but a Band-Aid on a much more systemic problem in the community. This government has yet to show that it understands or cares about the need to develop medium and long-term strategies to get this community back on its feet.

John Duncan it's time you showed Canadians that you have actually have a Plan B for Attawapiskat.

Why I'm Saying Goodbye to Twitter

2012-04-02T01:44:29-04:00

Last weekend, I sent my last Twitter message: "Dear Twitter - Adios. Free at last. Free at last, Great God almighty I'm free at last." Since then I've had a number of politicians come up to me and say they can't believe I actually did it. Politicians are slaves to Twitter. We're junkies for immediate news and instantaneous feedback. But as one MP confessed to me, "I feel like I'm watching graffiti in a bathroom all day." He told me his dream was to one day retire and ditch Twitter forever.

Why wait, I asked?

I have to admit I wasn't planning to sever the Twitter feed, but like any dysfunctional relationship, sometimes it just hits you that the only thing you can do is cut your losses and get the hell out. Maybe it was the inanity of the last Tweet I'd received: "I hate you asshole - and you sing terribly." Or the second last tweet from some anonymous source holding me personally accountable for the fact that NDP leader Thomas Mulcair missed an interview. Or it could have been the racist troll who wanted to pick a fight with me over the Trayvon Martin killing.

Don't get me wrong; I am a huge fan of social media. And I do have a very thick skin. But are these really the kind of "conversations" I want to participate in? Being on Twitter is like being badgered by a drunk on a 24-hour bus ride.

As politicos, we're taught to embrace all things Twitter. We're supposed to champion the Twitterverse as inherently progressive, the birthplace of the Arab Spring. One friend went so far as to predict that, thanks to the unprecedented outpouring of BlackBerry clickety-clacks, Twitter will inevitably build ideas as complex as a Dickens novel or create responses as heroic as the International Brigades of the Spanish Civil War. Sorry, but three monkeys typing through all eternity won't pump out Hamlet, regardless of the fact that my Grade 10 teacher said it was statistically probable (athough I'm sure the monkeys would do fine on Twitter).

Technology is not neutral. Every new information technology has the power to both giveth and taketh away from the public conversation. It is vital for people to deconstruct how technologies affect and change our interactions. The upside to Twitter is that it serves as an amazing ticker tape of information. If you follow the right folk, you can sometimes get breaking news before it hits the mainstream. That's a pretty cool thing. If you're trying to bring attention to an issue, Twitter will certainly give you the jump.

But the ease of up-to-the-second commentary has meant that Twitter has begun to undermine fact checking and verification. For example, in response to the robo-fraud scandal I posted a humorous tweet calling for "international observers" to monitor Canada's next election. The next morning I woke up to find it had been used as a serious quote in a newspaper article.

If this were the only problem with Twitter, I'd tell myself to get with the times. But more and more Twitter seems to be morphing into a bully pulpit for trolls. It is a technology that favours the flash mob. In England, the racist takeover of some Twitter feeds has resulted in people going to jail. The digital mob is no different from a street mob. It can be excitable, good-natured or vicious, but don't ever mistake the mob for a democracy.

My insight into the dark side of the Twitter mob came during the Attawapiskat housing crisis of 2011. Thanks to an article in The Huffington Post Canada, the horrific conditions in Attawapiskat First Nation went viral around the world. Twitter played a role in raising awareness about the crisis. But it also gave a platform to a whole swath of angry white people. I will always remember the woman who tweeted that she hoped the people of Attawapiskat would "freeze to death" or the guy who sent me a tweet on Christmas Eve telling me to "eat shit."

Sure, other technologies have been used to transmit hate. But if these anonymous tweeters had called my house to deliver the same message, I'd consider it a crank call, maybe even worthy of a call to the cops. If they sent me a hate letter, I'd give them credit for taking the time to put ugly thoughts to pen and lick the stamp. These traditional forms of communication at least took effort. But Twitter is about instant gratification. There's no self-reflection and no way to apply the breaks. Tossing a hate bomb is the easiest thing in the world when you have a Twitter account with a fake name. It's a technology tailor made for the knee jerk reaction.

To be fair, during the Attawapiskat crisis, the positive messages greatly outpaced the hate mail. But one tweet really stood out. At the height of the crisis multinational giant General Electric tweeted their concerns about the horrific conditions in Attawapiskat. At the time, we hadn't been able to get a single aid agency or government official willing to help the people in crisis. And here was GE, the oil and gas giant that owns Universal, Comcast, NBC, taking a stand on Twitter.

Foolish me, I thought this would be a game changer. When my staff finally tracked down the thumbs behind the tweet, they were polite but very confused. Yes, they did tweet about Attawapiskat, but they were really at a loss as to why I expected them to get involved. I never heard from them again.

GE, a multinational powerhouse, had tweeted their concern; wasn't that enough? No it's not. Corporate responsibility can't be done in 140 characters. I had tracked down the sixth largest corporation in America and found that they were engaged in the same level of slacktivism as somebody sitting on a couch with a smart phone and a couple of bottles of beer. Talk about dumbing down. At the very least, it was a helpful reminder that real change still comes down to people being willing to step up to the plate and get involved.

So for those who love Twitter -- great, keep it up. Fight the good fight to reclaim the digital space from the morons and the haters.

As for me, I'm going back to the world of real people with real names who speak in sentences longer than 140 characters. Does this mean that I'm cutting myself off from the public? Hardly. I can barely keep up to those who contact me by phone, email, Facebook and old-fashioned mail.

Being free of the Twitter feed feels like I have gotten a small part of my life back.

If that means I'm no longer trending on Twitter, c'est la vie.

Shannen Koostachin "Really Believed that Kids Could Change the World"

2012-01-10T17:07:12-05:00

As a shout-out to the 600th birthday of Joan of Arc, CBC's George Strombolopolous compiled a list of the five teen girls who kicked ass in history. It wasn't a comprehensive list by any means (after all, Buffy the Vampire Slayer was thrown in as a cultural nod). But alongside Anne Frank, Joan of Arc, and Mary Shelley, Strombo put Shannen Koostachin in the number one spot.

Never heard of Shannen Koostachin? Then you probably hadn't heard about Attawapiskat until the housing crisis made international headlines. If you talked to your kids, however, they probably could have given you the heads up. In classrooms across this country, the story of Shannen is told. She is seen as the Rosa Parks of this generation. Shannen's fight for a school in Attawapiskat has become the subject of books and documentaries.

What makes Shannen's story all the more remarkable is that she made this mark in such a tragically narrow time frame. She was just 13 years old when she publicly challenged Indian Affairs Minister Chuck Strahl over his decision to cancel a grade school project in Attawapiskat. At 14, she was nominated for the International Children's Peace Prize for her work to end the systemic under-funding of First Nation school children. Little more than a year later, she was dead, killed in a horrific motor vehicle accident in Northern Ontario.

Following her death, the Shannen's Dream campaign was born. It is a national campaign to promote education rights for Aboriginal students.

Hello, my name is Shannen Koostachin and I am from the Attawapiskat First Nation. I would like to talk to you about what it is like to be a child who grows up never seeing a real school. I want to tell you what it is like to never have the chance to feel excited about being educated.

This is how the girl who had never seen a real school introduced herself to an auditorium full of youth leaders and academics that had come to hear her speak at the "Education is a Human Right Forum" in Toronto. Shannen didn't want to be a leader. She just wanted the right to go to a "comfy" school.

It's hard to feel pride when your classrooms are cold, and the mice run over our lunches. It's hard to feel like you could have a chance to grow up to be somebody important when you don't have proper resources like libraries and science labs. You know that kids in other communities have proper schools. So you begin to feel as if you are a child who doesn't count for anything.

Shannen went to school along with 400 other students in makeshift portables set up in the shadow of the abandoned J.R. Nakogee grade school. The school had been operated by the federal government. Under their watch, a diesel line broke under the school, resulting in massive diesel contamination. But the Feds stalled on taking action. The contamination spread until the school grounds were so badly contaminated they were classified as a Class 1 threat to human health.

Indian Affairs insisted the school was safe, despite the fact that children were passing out from the benzene fumes. In 2000, the parents pulled their children from the school and the Band condemned the building.

Eight years later, the children were still playing in this toxic field and waiting for a real school.
Federal officials knew all about the dreadful education conditions in Attawapiskat. The situation had been documented in numerous reports. Three Indian Affairs Ministers (Robert Nault, Andy Scott, Jim Prentice) had promised to build a school. But the reality was, it just wasn't a priority. In reserves across northern Canada, the horror story of condemned schools and under-funded classrooms was the norm.

But this wasn't good enough for Attawapiskat. The community had been working for years to get a proper school built. By 2007, it seemed like the project was a go. Senior bureaucrats had given the green light. Details were being worked out with architects and education experts. But then late 2007, Chuck Strahl took over the Indian Affairs portfolio and the school project was terminated. When the news was broken to the kids in the icy portables, young Shannen and her friends decided to fight back.

They held a demonstration in the snow. It was -40 outside. Nobody outside the community seemed to hear the children's cry for justice. But the Attawapiskat kids decided that they would keep fighting. And so began a simple grassroots campaign to engage other young people in helping them fight for a school. They used YouTube videos to tell the story of their plight.

They asked students to start local letter-writing campaigns of solidarity. Within two months, more than 100 schools were involved. Soon there were tens of thousands letters being written. Many Attawapiskat youth participated in the campaign but Shannen emerged as the voice of the forgotten children:

I would like to talk to you what it is like to be a child who grows up never seeing a real school. I want to tell you what it is like to never have the chance to feel excited about being educated. That's why some of our students begin to give up in grade 4 and grade 5. They just stop going to school. Imagine that. Imagine a child who feels they have no future even at that young age. We want our younger brothers and sisters to go to school thinking that school is a time for hopes and dreams of the future. Every kid deserves this.

Indian Affairs attempted to derail the "Students Helping Students" campaign with a misinformation and spin counter-offensive. Access to information documents reveal that, at one point, officials looked into hiring Hill and Knowlton to spearhead the counter attack.

Like the response to the Attawapiskat housing crisis of 2010, they attempted to drown journalists in seemingly impressive numbers spent on education. But by now they weren't just fighting Shannen and her friends; national education leaders like Catherine Fife (President of the Ontario Public School Boards Association) were wading into the fight.

Shannen had shone a spotlight on the federal government's chronic mismanagement of the educational rights of First Nation children. The Parliamentary Budget Officer undertook a devastating analysis of mismanagement of First Nation education. As one beleaguered bureaucrat noted, "We've been looking into this (the cancellation of the school) and it's not a good story."

And just like the Attawapiskat crisis of 2010, they demanded that bureaucrats "deliver the lines. Stick to them to the letter." By June 2008, Minister Strahl agreed to meet a delegation from the Band. Little did he know that he was in for a showdown with a 13-year-old.

"How do you like my office?" he asked casually at the beginning of the meeting.

Shannen spoke up. "I wish my brothers and sisters had a classroom as nice as this."

Strahl told the delegation that a school wasn't in the cards, that honouring an eight-year commitment wasn't a priority. Shannen walked out of the meeting and onto the steps of Parliament Hill where a rally numbering 5,000 were waiting.

"I looked Chuck Strahl in the eye," she declared to thunderous applause, "and I could tell he was nervous. I told him we're not going away. We're not giving up."

It was an iconic image -- a young girl in pigtails standing under the Peace Tower. She was calling out a government for abandoning children to toxic and dilapidated portables.

Shannen spoke at schools and rallies. She met labour leaders and human rights activists. When she was 14, she put the government of Canada on formal notice that she was going to go to the United Nations to challenge Canada at the upcoming review of the Rights of the Child Convention.

Little wonder she was nominated for the international Children's Peace Prize.

In Grade 9, Shannen and her older sister Serena left their isolated fly-in community to attend a non-Native high school in New Liskeard, Ontario. The two sisters lived with my family for a year. It was a hard year for Shannen. She missed her family, her community. She struggled hard to get caught up to the level of other students. But she was determined. She never missed a day of school.

One of the last times I saw her was when she and Serena spoke at the Ontario Federation of Labour Convention in Toronto. She blew the room away. Tough-assed union leaders cried when they heard her speak. There was something so vulnerable but so fierce about Shannen. She had moxy.

A few months later she was dead -- killed in a horrific accident south of Temagami. Shannen's death was a devastating blow to James Bay Cree. In a region where so many young people gave up hope and killed themselves, here was a youngster on fire. It seemed so unfair. So brutal.

Within days of her death, the phone in my office was ringing as national labour, education, and First Nation leaders called to say they wanted to carry on Shannen's work. And so, working with First Nation children's rights advocate Cindy Blackstock we launched the Shannen's Dream campaign. It is a national youth-driven campaign, coupled with a political motion (M-202) to end the systemic under-funding of First Nation students.

The campaign continues to grow and Shannen's story is being taught as part of the curriculum for students in Ontario.

This February, a group of Aboriginal youth will head to the United Nations to challenge Canada's record on the systemic discrimination against First Nation students. They will be led by Shannen's childhood friend 16-year-old Chelsea Edwards from Attawapiskat First Nation. Their report, "Our Dreams Matter Too," is a continuation of the work started by Shannen and her friends.

Prior to the UN meeting in Geneva, the Federal government will meet with Aboriginal leaders from across Canada. Education is expected to be high on the agenda. There are those in the department of Aboriginal Affairs who will tell you that pressure of Shannen Koostachin is still being felt, hence the move to take steps to address the chronic under funding.

And so what would Shannen think of all this? She really believed that kids could change the world. At her funeral, I read out the words she wrote when she was just 13-year-old: "I would tell the children not to be afraid. I would tell them to think about the future and follow their dreams. I would tell them to NEVER give up hope. Get up; pick up your books, and GO TO SCHOOL (just not in portables)."

You could have done so much more if you had the chance Shannen, but be rest assured, in your time here, you really kicked ass.

The Biggest Story of 2011 for Me? The Crowds That Came to Say Goodbye

2011-12-27T16:57:04-05:00

The thought seemed simple enough -- head over to Nathan Phillips Square and take some time to thank the people who were waiting in the long lines to say goodbye to Jack. In the lead up to the state funeral, Jack Layton's body been moved from Parliament Hill to Toronto City Hall. But the solemnity of the moment was overwhelmed by the enormity of the public outpouring. City Hall was awash with orange balloons, flowers, chalk slogans, and tens of thousands of well-wishers. The lineup seemed to go on forever.

As I started to walk the line I was overwhelmed by the diversity of people -- Tamils, Sikhs, rural folk, Quebecois, urbanites. There were people who knew Jack from his City Hall days and other folks who had never had expressed a public political thought in their lives. They were there because like me, they felt there was no place else they could be at this time.

When I arrived at City Hall I found that numerous members of my caucus were already walking the lines. I joined them, hugging and thanking and talking to the people who waited patiently in the hot sun. It had been this way for days since Jack had died. I still couldn't believe he was gone.

I first worked with him during the long and bitter Adams Mine garbage wars. At the time, he was a Toronto city councillor and I was a musician-turned-community organizer. We worked together with First Nations and blue-collar folks in northern Ontario to forge a force strong enough to stop the largest dump project in Canadian history. A lot of folks had written us off as a lost cause. Not Jack. He believed that we would ultimately win because it was the right thing. And despite the massive odds, we did win, just as he knew we would.

A few years later, when Jack told me he was running for the leader of the New Democratic Party, I signed up immediately. Next thing I knew, against my better judgment, Jack had talked me into running for federal office.

I had faith in Jack. I don't know how many times the pundits wrote his political obituary. But he was never thrown off by the naysayers or the cynics. It just wasn't in his DNA.

And in the election of 2011, Jack again had proven them all wrong. The Orange Crush obliterated the Bloc and left the natural governing party a disorganized rump. But now that he finally had the chance to show what he could do, he was dead.

It seemed so tragic, so bloody unfair.

And what about the 103 MPs who were Jack's team? Jack was the one who had knitted this broad and unwieldy team together. Now he was gone. Strike the shepherd and the sheep will scatter. Grief has a way of either tearing people apart or bringing them together. We hardly knew each other. We were especially raw. It was the crowds that healed us and brought us together.

Like many of my colleagues, I began to sense a dramatic shift in the mood. What began as an outpouring of grief had morphed into a positive assertion of Canadian identity. Jack had seen a better Canada beyond the political horizon. In his deathbed farewell, he pointed to this Canada and Canadians of all walks of life, backgrounds, and political beliefs had responded.

Our new caucus saw this national consensus emerging -- face-by-face, handshake-by-handshake. We saw in the crowds an attempt to articulate truths that we all aspire to make true.

"My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful, and optimistic. And we'll change the world."

Political memories are notoriously unreliable. In the months and years to come, there will be a tendency to downplay the significance of Nathan Phillips Square. No doubt the wise ones will write off the unprecedented outpouring for Jack as little more than a warm hug, time-out from the realpolitik of Canadian politics. But don't believe it for a moment.

Canadians aren't dupes. They took to the streets because, as much as they were saying goodbye, they were also sending a message, perhaps even a warning. They expect Canada to be a better country than it is. They expect politicians to represent a higher standard of idealism and engagement. This is the message our caucus learned from the lines of mourners. It's a message no politician from any stripe should disregard.