Some quick facts on Harris Bill 147
It will make you work a 60-hour to 72-hour week.
It will force you to take vacation a day at a
time should the employer ask.
It will pay you less overtime; overtime pay is
only required after 176 hours over four weeks.
It will make you work in unsafe workplaces.
It has no popular support. A Toronto Star poll
showed 96 percent of the public against it.
It is not being presented to the people - Harris
is not allowing public hearings on this one.
It is hurts small businesses to do with health,
recreation, the arts and so on that rely on workers having time off to
participate.
It will burden the health care system as long
hours will lead to deteriorating health.
It will erode family life and make day care difficult.
It will damage arts, culture and sports as citizens
will not have time for those pursuits.
It will increase unemployment as manufacturers
will fill contracts in shorter periods through overtime gangs, then layoff
workers.
It will increase job loss as employees who refuse
overtime and vacation demands will be let go.
It will increase homelessness as more layoffs,
workers working sixty hours, deteriorating health and firings will put
more people out of jobs and money and on the streets.
It will cost us all socially, economically and
spiritually, and it will only benefit greedy employers who are exempt from
the social and emotional costs.
--------
REPORT on the Protest:
The Toronto streets are white
with snow and most residents were out doing Christmas shopping. Most
but not all because today a few hundred people were at Eaton's Centre for
another reason. That reason being to protest against the new Draconian
labour legislation being rammed through by Mike Harris and his labour minister,
Chris Stockwell.
A crowd had already formed when I arrived and I pushed my way through to a giant of a man being interviewed by the media. This turned out to be Wayne Samuelson, president of the Ontario Federation of Labour.
Wayne's message (later delivered to the crowd) was straight to the point and gravely serious. He says that Mike Harris and Chris Stockwell met with 500 employers to develop this Draconian legislation. Workers and the public were not consulted - and "Surprise" the employers want us to work more hours, earn less money and get less holidays.
Frowning, Wayne continued to say that the public is just finding out about this legislation, and the reaction is outrage. Furious people are calling in about it, and though Wayne didn't mention it, it seems like Harris doesn't realize that if he rams this through he will face an angry public and a backlash.
Continuing the scrum, Wayne said that we won't be able to say no to overtime without losing our jobs. Mike Harris and Chris Stockwell claim there is strong protection, but the truth is that charges to do with labour matters don't occur until after you've been let go. Harris' protection is no protection - that's how the real world works.
On the issue of public hearings, Wayne said the Harris Government has time for hearings on snowmobile trails. Surely they have time for hearings on legislation affecting the lives of 5 million workers.
As it is there are only days to go before this legislation is rammed through and Wayne says, "Be on Alert." Because next week we are going to do whatever it takes to block this. (Later I managed to get a contact number from Wayne, so that I can pass on alerts on protest actions to others.)
The Harris is the Grinch theme
showed on the flyers at this demonstration and there was a worker dressed
as the Grinch. One speaker continued it by displaying a bag of Grinch presents
for Chris Stockwell.
- A lump of charcoal - because Chris is naughty
and not nice.
- an ear - because he is missing an ear
for citizens and workers and only has one for employers.
- a dictionary - so he can look up the word fairness.
Or the word revolution, as one person shouted.
and revolution did seem more like the theme of the march that followed as it involved much drumming and enthusiastic chanting.
Back at the beginning an old man confronted OFL guy Wayne Samuelson with the argument that lots of work isn't bad, and that he opposes the idea of a shorter workweek. Wayne answered that question, and my own personal answer to it spun through my head during the rest of the protest.
My answer is years ago I did work those long hours. I worked seven days a week and overtime nearly every day. This wasn't for peanuts, but for top union wages as I was a union member then. When I wasn't at work I tended to hit bars with friends to release the stress. I wasn't good for much else and my wife saw only a sleeping body once in while. I was young then but worked with guys who were 45 and looked like they were 68. That's what all the overtime does to you.
In the end my nerves were shot and one blustery night I was standing on the Bloor Street viaduct getting ready to step to the railing and jump. I didn't do it. Instead I walked away, started exercising my right to work less overtime and later left that job. I've never had a good union job since. But I wouldn't want to get into that workaholic trap again - especially not toiling for peanuts for Mike Harris in a non-union outfit.
My observation is that it often isn't insanity, but insane pressures being put on a person that can lead to the end of physical and mental health. We really have to look at what human beings are and need.
Philosophically the Harris Government wants to use Employment Standards legislation to define human beings as something other than human. In this simple Tory world there is a huge class of inferiors that should only toil.
In reality human relationships involve more than work. We are creative, appreciative and active socially. We relate in stages from the individual, family level and up through social groups. Society is a multi-layered mosaic of intermeshing organizational and support structures, and we all have physical, social, emotional, intellectual and spiritual needs. The most rewarding things we do are often not even connected with work. They involve the arts, politics, sports and other stuff involving sharing, creativity, and intellectual skills.
Deep down we all know that the good life can't happen if we are always at work. And we all know that Mike Harris and Chris Stockwell want to create an Ontario where we aren't human beings any more. We are to be underdeveloped and subhuman - laborers without rights.
So in conclusion, they really are Grinches and if their legislation isn't destroyed, we will be.
Last week I was reading about the deluge of mail Mike Harris got after promising that every kid in Ontario would get a Christmas present. If Mike Harris really wants to give all of those kids a gift, he could give them fathers and mothers who can come home from work to be with the family.
Instead he wants to give them a Grinch
gift of fathers and mothers that are always at work, in the hospital or
crumpled in the snow down at the bottom of the Bloor Street viaduct.
--------
Contacts:
The OFL page on this issue is
http://www.ofl-fto.on.ca/campaigns/dvft.html
Contact OFL President Wayne Samuelson
wsamuelson@ofl-fto.on.ca
416.443.7678
Contact Labour Minister Chris Stockwell to oppose
this legislation
Phone 416 326 7600
Fax 416 326 1449
e-mail chris_stockwell@ontla.ola.org
--------
Ontario as a Mental Institution
- Nov.22.2000
(Article on the No Force Coalition meeting in
Toronto)
Background: Tonight in Toronto anti psychiatry activist Don Weitz moderated a forum called "Brian's Law: Free Choice or Forced Treatment?" Guests were Anita Szigeti lawyer & chair of the Mental Health Legal Committee and Lana Frado psychiatric survivor and Executive Director of Sound Times Support Services.
The discussion covered new legislation of the Harris Government that amends Ontario's Mental Health and Health Care Consent Acts, allowing people to be involuntarily committed to a psychiatric facility under almost any pretext. The legal changes also introduce community treatment orders and community treatment teams (ACTT) for the forced treatment and drugging of citizens.
The legislation comes into effect on December 1rst. Rights Advisors are being given only a day and half to prepare for this huge change and no resources are being provided to lawyers. The Harris Government is making money and resources available to physicians who want to lock people up, but that is all.
* Details on how to defend yourself against this new law will appear soon on the No Force Web site at http://www.tao.ca/~pact/noforce.html
* The rest of this article with some details on the new look of Ontario is written as a philosophical essay.
Ontario as a Mental Institution - Nov.22.2000
By Gary Morton
I was mentally ill once and my life was a tumbledown affair of broken relationships. I moved from place to place and went through jobs like an endless car wreck on a road to some emotionally devastated nowhere.
There weren't all that many people who really knew about the paranoia and delusions at work behind my tinted glasses. Yet I knew about the pain and the afflictions of some of my friends.
Mental Institutions were neatly defined then. I used to visit people on the inside, though I was never taken in. I escaped the system, the shrinks and their brain hemorrhaging medications for a period of years -- and then one day I recovered, the burden of mental illness lifted and I didn't have to worry about them getting my number any more.
That was a long time ago and though I never relapsed, Mike Harris came into power and our society did. Over the last few years he's changed the public attitude toward the disadvantaged and the mentally troubled. With things like Bill 68, Community Treatment Orders and the new forced drug testing his government has extended the unbreakable Plexiglas of prisons and mental institutions into the whole of society. The entire province is now a stage for police state psychiatric meddling, and it is happening to such a degree that people won't be able to escape it and recover outside of it like I did.
Over the last four years the Harris Government has been collecting data on people and in a few days they will begin to use it. In Mike Harris' new Ontario-wide Mental Institution you can be involuntarily admitted. Any impairment could lead to your commitment. If you're seen to be at risk of mental and physical deterioration you could be committed.
In the past police had to observe dangerous behaviour. Under the new law any witness could likely have you forced in for psychiatric treatment. Even abusive husbands and other hostile people could use the system and unjustly put family members away.
People who wouldn't have been committed under the old act will be brought in under the new act and coerced into taking mind altering psychiatric drugs. Once in custody they'll have to take their medication or a CTO will be applied.
The law effectively removes every right you otherwise had in society, yet at the same time you are not fully in an institution. Put another way, the province itself becomes a large mental institution where the police may come to your door over psychiatric issues at any time.
There is a right to Informed Consent that allows you to know how and why you are being treated and through what drugs. Theoretically you could refuse treatment under this section. In practice the government can bring in a substitute decision-maker for you and that person can override your decisions.
Perhaps you or someone you know will be unlucky enough to experience this new program of society-wide psychiatric rights removal. And if you do encounter it don't believe the government's line that it is being done because they know of your emotional affliction and want to help. It's more like they and the people who vote for them think you are inferior and want to punish, degrade and exclude you to a greater degree.
Generally it smacks of a whole new class system where freedom is granted only to those who can pass Tory fitness tests. Those who fail fall through the cracks to earn police state psychiatric attention and other penalties.
Getting people off of drugs is not the intent in the related Harris law of forced drug testing for folks on social assistance. The real intent there is to administer another degrading fitness test and then get people onto the drugs and treatments of the pharmaceutical giants that fund political parties.
I would say that if there is a genuine mental disorder behind all of these negative changes it is a neurosis that afflicts the Harris Government. They suffer from bigoted delusions and have spread them through the media to the extent that much of society is now afflicted.
To address it we really have to understand the lie of society being composed of the fit and the unfit. Perfect mental health can't even be defined, and there is really only one class of human being. We are all vulnerable human beings. We have emotions that can trouble us. We can be disappointed. Others can fail us and we can break down.
Some of us don't share as much of the common reality and others are of vastly different temperament. Yet If there is a challenge in our lives it is to retain our humanity while at the same time succeeding in a world that is often predatory and hostile. Especially to our emotional needs.
Psychiatric fitness tests define government as the enemy of health when it should be the agent of our health. And if we are to retain our psychological stamina and humanity we must realize that our only option now is to support one another through mechanisms that are counter government and counter its culture. At least until the time of Mike Harris comes to an end.
Yes the whole of Ontario is now a
Brian's Law Mental Institution. There is your grief, my pain and the emotional
fallout of our friends. In the darkness and out of despair come the neurotic
politicians, cruel doctors and sick community police. Even fit people are
getting dizzy in this new milieu. It leaves our inner lives spinning to
shattered dreams, and in the end there is little freedom left in the residue
of medication swirling in urine as it rushes down some government drain.
--------
Related Demonstration. The No Force! Coalition
will
be sponsoring a major demonstration on Friday, December 1, 2000 in response
to Bill 68 or 'Brian's Law' being proclaimed on that day.
Join with Psychiatric Survivors
and other human rights advocates in saying 'NO!' to this blatant violation
of basic freedoms and human rights. Assemble at Queen's Park, Friday December
1 at 12 noon.
email patientsco@icomm.ca
http://www.tao.ca/~pact
Erick Fabris at (416) 535-8501 x2018, or Don
Weitz at (416) 760-2795
---------
A Day Away from Targeted
Policing- Nov 18.2000
Report on Equity, Awareness and Action - a daylong
retreat over policing and community self regulation in Toronto.
By Gary Morton with assistance from Janice B.
The ferry slipped through chilly waters and from the dock at Centre Island I saw Toronto resting under the gloomy weight of mid November. A few snowflakes blew in, and as they salted my face with false tears, I considered that perhaps tears don't always have the same meaning.
If I had been part of Mel Lastman's Waterfront Dream Team, or a reporter for the Toronto Star, the snowflakes would've sprinkled my cheeks like tears of joy. In the gray skyline I would have seen gilded towers and Olympic wonders. Then the roar of construction would fill my ears and I would imagine plans for magnificent development and the creation of a new city. One rising from a vibrant green landscape to send a well orchestrated sprawl - the domes, cubes, and rectangles of high-rises - on an easy incline up from the shore of the lake.
If misery and poverty had faded in that vision of a new Toronto, perhaps it would be because of the gold badges of paramilitary Target Police. Rough cops making sure that the poor and homeless are not spoiling the view, but are instead being herded off to their own special prisons and leper colonies.
If I had been a homeless person, perhaps I would have just gotten out of jail. Having escaped to the island I would be looking back and the tears would be real and composed of defeat and sorrow. Under a pallid November sun of tomorrow I would see the mayor's limousine passing, and in its wake Community Action Police would arrive, driving the rubber-bumpered paddy wagons that have become the latest in shelters for the homeless.
Then steel doors would slam in a hundred prisons and the rotors of helicopters would send a roar rising above the echoes in my mind. In falling night a thousand rude cops get unleashed like dogs onto the street on a mission to tear the unfortunate apart.
The lights of Christmas begin in November and in the blur of colors and blinded eyes I would see beyond the city and across the world. It is a planet of environmental disaster, where the majority of people live on a dollar or two a day. They have no health, no hope and no future. They are the walking wounded and the abused of a bad global system. Trying to cope against corporate powers and police forces that are too cruel to be coped with. And now it has spilled out on the streets here in Toronto as the economic downturn and the mean policies we put in place create an incredible homeless crisis.
When you don't have a home of your own, society can label you a criminal and give you a prison home of your own. You can work for nothing and you can curse a system that has no human place for you. Prisoners can pound on unbreakable plastic doors in gilded prison palaces. They can swallow a swill of genetically modified animal feed for supper - and mostly they can thrive on guilt feelings over who they are and what they have become. Because they will never really know of the humanity they could have gained had the ruling institutions of our society been under the control of leaders who were healthy instead of sick.
So dreams are interesting, and perhaps by now I've seen enough. It might be better to deal with the events of the day and the meeting on Target Policing at the Gibraltar Point Art Centre out on Ward's Island.
This event was put on by the Equity Studies Student Union of U of T. The public was invited as were people in the know on the Community Action Policing Issue. Debate took place in a large open room. It had a fireplace and lots of natural light streaming in from the island. Picnic tables, the barren birches and maples of the island could be seen out the windows and sometimes the sun broke through the clouds.
The two key speakers were Kevin Beaulieu of the June 13th Committee and Magaly San Martin of the Committee to Stop Targeted Policing and Parkdale Legal. Other people present were connected with OCAP, CIUT, Peoples Front, Women's Counseling, etc. Some participants were younger and some were older. Noticeably absent was that large wealthy middle class that cares so little about police, prisons and what might happen to the less fortunate.
Kevin Beaulieu delivered a long detailed presentation, and rather than try to produce a copy of it I hope to include a few of the ideas and questions that arose from it.
The June 13th Committee is one of a number of groups that deal with policing issues. It formed in the summer of 1999 to deal with police attacks on the lesbian and gay community. Kevin doesn't work exclusively in the gay community, he also worked with the Rave Community and played a role in the IDance Rally and other efforts that led to a partial Ravers' victory over the discriminatory actions of politicians, police and media. Earlier this year the city banned raves, while those who attended them were portrayed as drug users and criminals.
Harassment, busts and raids have taken place in the gay community, and in spite of court cases Kevin says the problem doesn't necessarily stem from the law itself. Problems often come from the interpretation of the law by individual officers.
The gay community does fight back against police harassment yet involved in that is some fighting among the gays themselves and the fact that no victory is ever really a victory. Kevin notes that when you are dealing with the police they always find a way to get around things.
On the source of the problem, Kevin says a lot of people like to blame Police Chief Julian Fantino. This is due to Fantino's history as a cop who twists child pornography investigations into a way of arresting gays.
There are also people like Councillor Kyle Rae who like to talk about rogue cops, and this idea came up later when Magaly spoke and detailed how cops in Latin American are very much vicious rogues that act on their own. The people there hate police and she can see a similar pattern beginning here. There are things like the recent Otto Vass beating death, and the cruel police raid on the Allan Gardens Project, which is a student safe park and protest on the housing issue that has been running Friday nights for more than 60 weeks. In the Allan Gardens thing police rushed in and assaulted a student leader named Elan Ohayon on Oct 21. They smashed his camera equipment, assaulted him, charged him with assault and held him in jail as they tried to get him to sign bail conditions that would remove his right to protest. The unreasonable bail conditions are a notable part of a new police trend and a tactic that is being used regularly.
The Allan Gardens raid was likely not the work of rogue cops. Most people think that nearly all of this stuff is directed from above, though no one thinks that the Otto Vass beating death was directed from above. I personally think that Targeted or Community Action Policing may be behind such murderous cruelty. This is because through the CAP program squads of police hit the streets with the goal of being specifically mean and rude to any people or groups they see as undesirable. Magaly notes that in Latin America police become murderers and torturers by distancing themselves from people in a similar way. As people are labeled as undesirable, insulted and spat upon, the dehumanization works to allow the police to become fully distanced and move to the next level of abuse - which is torture and murder.
Another issue that came up is disorderly conduct. Kevin talked about the police busts of Totally Naked Toronto Men - a group that holds gay dances. You can't get into these events by accident, it is a matter of choice, but in spite of that the police don't like them and have found a way to bust them.
The police think it is a morality issue, but they get in with raids by saying that nudity constitutes disorderly conduct. They send undercover cops - wearing clothes (large T-shirts) - into the nude events and then lay charges under the liquor license act.
Right now many people in the gay community are worried that in the legal case, police will win a precedent that says nudity is disorderly conduct. One woman at the meeting wondered whether the police could then bust you in the shower at home for disorderly conduct.
Kevin also dealt with the police description of Targeted Policing. On the record the Toronto Police Service says Community Action Policing (CAP) is meant to solve problems of crime and disorder, gangs and prostitutes, etc. Yet some of the terms used to describe this program are broad and allow the police to act against things that are not crime. Just about anything can be termed disorderly conduct and part of the mandate is to bust teens for swearing in public, people loitering and those who may be graffiti artists.
A certain moral overtone tells us that this is not about fighting crime. And the police and politicians go on to say that it is about "Battling the Perception of Crime." Chief Julian Fantino is on record saying we need more police resources to fight the imminent rise in crime, not crime as it is now. City Council, the mayor and Mike Harris' provincial government have also been on board with these ideas. They have come out with the Safe Streets Act to attack panhandlers and squeegee kids, and the Target Policing program where millions get spent mostly in the summer to sweep the streets of youth and the poor.
The astute citizen might ask why we are fighting the perception of crime instead of crime itself, and perhaps one answer might be that with crime rates constantly falling, the police and politicians need a new enemy to fight. A second answer rests in the moral overtones of this and that the elements controlling police in our society are bigoted and cruel and are using the police as a tool to enforce their own prejudices.
In Targeted Policing, the cops are visibly on the street but they are not answering calls. Instead they have been given the authority to make their own calls. Being mostly well to do white males, they see certain types of people and racial groups as undesirables and criminals. In eleven weeks of Target Policing Toronto cops investigated 62,862 people at random and retained contact cards on them in a police database. They used a stop and chat method to question anyone they saw as suspicious and in the end they redefined the criminal element as anyone that beat cops didn't like.
There used to be a police complaints process, but Mike Harris killed that. Now you have to complain at the police station where you were just beat up or harassed. In place of the complaints process the police have focussed on a Liaison Process. Kevin says that this liaison process doesn't work. When we participate in it we end up telling the police how to better oppress us.
The liaison process also circumvents democracy as the police demand background checks on those who participate. In this brave new world, the citizens and voters don't decide how they are policed. Only those citizens that can pass a police background check have input into policing. So as Kevin says - It's a smokescreen where the police are trying to give us the illusion of accountability while not really giving us accountability.
Under the newer policing there has also been a change in arrests. As well as harassing the poor and the youth, a strong focus has been taken against political activists. Magaly was arrested during the June 15th protest at Queen's Park and she says initial police documents claim she assaulted and harassed fifteen police officers. As part of the arrest the police wanted to prove she was crazy. They demanded a psychiatric assessment, and when she got into court a judge discriminated against her for being of Latin American background. Generally the police are using incredible surveillance to lay more and more charges against activists as they attempt to cripple social justice groups and bog down lawyers that aid those in need.
There were questions about the power structure that controls Toronto policing. So I should go into that before I end this.
Who has the power? Well it is the city government and the province that controls policing through the police services board. There is a citizen representative, three appointees of the province and appointees from city council. Mike Harris has put Al Leach in charge of the board and this is a grim sign as Leach is the authoritarian character who forced through the Toronto megacity. When Harris sends Leach in you can be sure that the plan is for dirty work and major negative change.
Chief Julian Fantino has a lot of power through his demands to the board, but we should remember that he never applied for the job of chief. The Police Services Board put him in over other candidates that did apply because Fantino fits in with the moral brand of policing wealthy backers of Mike Harris and Mayor Mel Lastman favour.
Also in the power equation we have Craig Bromell and the Police Union. They lobby the board and are often successful in bullying stuff through. Bromell is also a close friend of Mike Harris and has become close to Fantino.
There are a number of members of council that have pushed for the new Targeted Policing and the Safe Streets Act. Even councilors like Kyle Rae pushed for discriminatory policing. With Rae it was his desire to punish squeegee kids and panhandlers.
Grassroots demand for the new policing doesn't really exist. Mike Harris and the province brought in the Safe Streets Acts to please spiteful law and order types that live in the 905 area outside of Toronto. In the city itself the public never gets consulted or fully informed. The support for Targeted Policing comes mainly from business groups here. Nearly all citizens groups that deal with policing oppose Community Action Policing.
Toronto is run mostly through the mayor's office and behind Mel Lastman is a kitchen cabinet of wealthy people, media, lobbyists and politicians with a big Olympic/Development interest. They not only want control of nearly all city contracts and business, they also want to see undesirables swept out of the city so they will have a clean pre Olympic city or pre Olympic police state as I call it.
I left the meeting during the strategy session so I don't know how the Equity Studies Student Union plans to deal with the problem. I do know that John Clarke and OCAP would say that communities and residents have to organize to resist police aggression.
There is also the fact that City Council has to approve the budget money for (CAP) Targeted Policing. A strong effort to lobby council is needed and there should be protest as well. A new study is out called Who's the Target? - An Evaluation of Community Action Policing by the Toronto Committee to Stop Targeted Policing. So perhaps copies of it should be presented to all councillors and it should be explained to them that (CAP) has not turned out to be what they thought it would be. It has become a very negative thing that must be discontinued.
Mayor Mel Lastman and his backers
will be the opposing lobby. They want to spend a fortune to bring in year-round
Target Policing. And that means we could lose big and things will get a
lot worse before they get better. If that is the case you may want to go
back to the beginning of this article and assume that the visions of a
future Toronto police state will become reality.
--------
Contacts regarding this event and article
Equity Studies Student Union, U of T
416-536-9222 ext.1
emily.sadowski@utoronto.ca
June 13th Committee
june13committee@hotmail.com
Allan Gardens Project
oriel_varga@campuslife.utoronto.ca
This report posted at http://citizensontheweb.com
24 hour cell phone 416 938-3366
Posted on the Target Policing Opposed Page
* Read - Who's the Target? - An Evaluation
of Community Action Policing by the Toronto Committee to Stop Targeted
Policing. Posted at the bottom of the Target Policing Opposed page http://www.interlog.com/~command/targetp.htm
See Citizens on Web Reports on meeting and rallies
http://www.interlog.com/~command/action6.htm
--------
Toronto 2000 Mayoral Forum
- Nov.6.2000
By Doreen and Gary
Feathers flew, legs were bared and tempers flared tonight at OISE in downtown Toronto as mayoral candidates played to the crowd. Here is a bit of inside info on each candidate.
1. Mel Lastman - Mel Lastman was the star of this
show as the invisible man - his powerful presence emanating from a lone
antler resting on a chair. As all attention was riveted to that chair,
feathers started to fly and who should enter - none other than Chicken
Man to the rescue. Grabbing the lone antler, he leaped to the podium and
thrilled us all with a wild flapping of wings.
Platform - Last week Mel announced a million
dollar Be Nice platform. Too bad the public didn't get to hear about it
tonight.
Rating - Fringe candidate. Wants to avoid the
issues and talk about being nice.
2. Tooker Gomberg - Tooker believes debate is
fundamental to democracy. He says history is not prediction. The future
is up for grabs and the people of this city can vote - they don't have
to stay at home.
It irks Tooker that the media is
killing this election by telling people to stay at home, and he says that
Lastman is afraid of the voters.
Tooker has platforms on nearly all
of the issues. Tonight he focussed on the 1400 people dying from smog each
year. He feels the smog problem should be addressed aggressively and that
the mayoral choice is between a candidate who gets around in a black Cadillac
(Mel) and one that uses the TTC and a bicycle (Tooker).
Platform - Solid platforms on issues. Best of
all the candidates.
Rating - Would make a better mayor than Mel.
3. Enza Andersen - Enza is a supermodel drag queen.
She is proud that her name is at the top of the ballot. She says a supermodel
is always first and never follows.
Enza thinks that homelessness and
target policing are the important issues. We shouldn't be talking about
garbage - unless we are mentioning Tooker Gomberg, who is flooding the
city with election flyer garbage. And it isn't being recycled.
"People think I'm a joke," Enza
says. "Politics in this city is a joke, and the mayor is making it a real
joke."
Platform - Heels and Legs.
Rating - Italian Stallion and All Star Football
Player, flaunting his muscles in a dress.
4. George Dowar - George is the direct democracy
candidate. He wants us all to have direct access to computers for voter
referendums. One of his key ideas is to automate the subway and put the
laid off workers in as bus drivers. He said that tonight's gathering was
the secret society of mayoral candidates.
Rating - Sort of serious and sort of Fringe.
Does anybody really trust computers and automated subways?
5. Douglas Campbell - Doug ranted on about the
Italian/Jewish Mafia that is putting Lastman in year after year. This conspiracy
is a big one - we are being poisoned and destroyed by evil forces. At the
mention of the word "homeless" Doug's entire body shook, his head rocked
from side to side and his eyeballs rolled in total denial. Doug was sitting
beside Enza Supermodel Andersen. It is rumoured that they were seen heading
towards Bar Italia after the discussion.
Platform - None. Rating - No Balls
6. Victor Fraser - Victor is a sidewalk artist
and poetic gadfly. He's pissed because his rent is going up. His motto
is - Don't Suck, Vote!
Rating - Can't write, maybe his art is better.
7. John Steele - A communist league candidate,
John supports everyone on strike and believes in workers' power for everything.
He wants jail terms for the cops involved in the Otto Vass beating death.
John gets talking about a lot of national and international issues - like
he's running for Prime Minister or President. Later he had to fend off
charges of anti-Semitism.
Platform - He's does a have a social justice
platform.
Rating - Pretty good for a fringe candidate,
but trying to run for mayor as the communist candidate is like trying to
swim across Lake Ontario wearing lead shoes.
8. Abel Van Wyk - Abel is an old guy with a contraption
to give Toronto ten milllion dollars a day plus save 300 lives a year.
This is really a scheme to create a causeway highway across Toronto.
Platform - Single Issue Miracle Plan Candidate
Rating - Mad Scientist
9. Ben Kerr - Ben is an aging country singer singing
his way to city hall. He wants to make us all sexier with his cayenne pepper
cocktails.
Rating - Depends on how you feel about country
music and sex.
10. Sonic Dave duMaulin - Dave says he's being
criminalized by TTC cops and 14 Division cops that beat him. He's concerned
about toxic waste and claims to have a test that shows 500 chemicals and
radioactive stuff in our tap water. Dave has bought into a huge conspiracy
theory and thinks police helicopters are following him and spraying him
with poison vapours.
Rating - Paranoid Schizophrenic.
11. Hazel Jackson - She's fed up with corruption.
Supports the Toronto Disaster Relief Committee and wants tenants to get
a break on rent. Hazel wants to lower the voting age to 16 because 16-year-olds
have a lot more on the ball than our city councillors.
Rating - Serious enough to be outside the fringe
and part of the mainstream.
12. Duri Nazami - Doesn't like politicians who
opposed the megacity then ran for it. So now he's running for it. He wants
to subsidize health clubs because health should come before being in a
hospital.
Rating - Comes across as a fairly serious candidate
and raise good issues for discussion.
..
Federal Housing Debate -
Spin Doctoring on CounterSpin -
Nov 02, 2000
(Real Housing for Real People, or Another Bedtime
Story.)
By Doreen & Gary
Tonight CounterSpin with Avi Lewis held a discussion called Housing and Homelessness As An Election Issue. The Liberal Red Book III calls for 680-million dollars in aid for Canada's homeless, but only if the provinces match it. Some housing advocates think this is a good beginning. Cathy Crowe of the Toronto Disaster Relief Committee wants the Federal Government to spend one percent of its budget on housing. She is elated to be one sixteenth closer to her goal.
For those of us in the know the figures are nothing more than a Band-Aid treatment.
The discussion opened with politicians, developers and the public agreeing that we need more affordable housing. The Tory candidate's solution was to bring in more tax cuts and to increase the basic personal exemption. Lacking a platform on housing, the Alliance man wanted to call in experts to study the subject to death. NDPer Libby Davies seemed determined to prove that her party could create a bigger Band-Aid than the liberals. The audience wanted to hear from a homeless person.
Yes, there is a need for affordable housing, but throwing money to this noble cause is never going to be a solution unless other issues are addressed. Politicians do not want to face these issues and the public is not informed enough to insist that real solutions be put in place.
First we must decide whether government represents people or corporations. The politicians want us to believe that globalization and tax cuts will remedy the problem of homelessness and housing. But that is very far from the truth. Tax cuts take money from valuable social programs. Civil society ends up eroded and democracy is lost.
A better example exists in Norway. Citizens happily pay up to 75 percent of their income in tax, but the people get their money's worth. There is virtually no homelessness, a great health care system and lots of employment.
In contrast to the Third World living standards of Canada, this is a society that people are proud to belong to and happy to give their money to. They have created a more caring and humane nation.
Human rights abuse is good for business all over the world. For the truth about globalization just look at companies like Nike and look at companies that use child labour to generate huge profits.
What good are a few shekels thrown to housing and developer friends of the politicians, when we are building prisons and at the same time saying crime has decreased?
Obvious hypocrisy exists. Our national goal can't be housing, unless that housing is the prison industrial complex. The prison industrial complex is good for business. Workfare is good for business. Target policing that harasses and criminalizes the homeless is good for business. We are returning to nineteenth century workhouse ethics that enslave people.
It is ironic that this is happening while our politicians are arguing about how much money to dole out for a critical shortage of affordable housing.
Yes affordable housing can be built, but it isn't a real a solution. As long as the real agenda of government is to put money in the hands of the few it will make homelessness a major factor in the global economy.
With NAFTA and the WTO, jobs, resources and sovereignty leave Canada and our environment is destroyed for the sake of profit. Everything in sight is being privatized. A real solution that would show that the government is truly committed to building affordable, non profit housing would be to borrow the money from the Bank of Canada and use public money. It was a disgrace to hear the builders complaining that the government could not offer them enough incentive to make a profit on affordable housing.
If we really want to create affordable housing and eliminate homelessness we have to elect representatives who put people's needs over profits. We must take a more active role in government, stop buying the line that the poor are the cause of all our problems, forget the tax cuts and not let corporations rule the world.
contacts for CounterSpin
counterspin@toronto.cbc.ca
416-907-5089
--------
Should Police Govern?
Oct.27.2000 by Gary Morton
Four Toronto cops have been charged
with
manslaughter in the death of Otto Vass and their buddies have lined up
behind them to fight off the media. As this case moves to trial, mad Mike
Harris is considering making police union involvement in elections legal.
Against this backdrop CBC Counterspin
ran a show entitled - Should Police Unions Be Politically Active? It took
place last night at the CBC building and I was there in the audience with
Doreen, another member of the CitizensontheWeb email group. Bob Carol
(not sure about the name) stood in for Avi Lewis, the regular host.
Police Union bully Craig Brommel
had been invited, but decided to duck out on this democratic debate. Generally
the crowd was against police interference in politics, but a couple of
pro police stooges managed to hog in on the public participation portion
of the show. One guy kept going on about June 15th and Olivia Chow. He
used the word riot over and over, and it bothered me to the point that
I heckled him, saying, "There wasn't any Riot." That got the crowd going
and the show host ended up saying Please, Please, don't let me lose control
of this on my first show!
My impression is that the public
is not keen on police meddling in politics. Police do not really want to
participate, they want to draft policy and govern and that is clear to
most people. Cop unions are like lovers who kill the one they love -- crushing
democracy and trampling on the rights and freedoms they are sworn to uphold.
And like the people from the law union say -- Men with guns shouldn't be
in the driver's seat of a people's democracy.
Toronto councillor Irene Jones came
across as a real Dork in her attempts to defend the police. It really put
me off - she had no depth whatsoever - and she's supposed to be progressive.
Doreen wanted to ask about
mass incarceration and prison labour that rises from increased police powers,
but the show really needs to be longer. There isn't time to get in deep
with the public on the issues.
The setting at CBC is designed to
make people feel comfortable. In spite of that we ducked out on a second
show about the Alliance Platform. A gang of Alliance people showed for
that, but we figured that if we needed info we could pick up a few flyers
from the Alliance Space Ship parked out on John Street.
Info
counterspin@toronto.cbc.ca
416-907-5089
Free University of Toronto Debates Love -
Oct.2000
After Counterspin we went over to
Hart House and the new Free University of Toronto for a discussion on Love.
It had been advertised in Now Toronto and was well underway when we arrived.
We plunked down on a couch next
to the debate circle and listened in slight surprise as people took turns
talking about things like Carla Homolka, Parent to Child sex, those nasty
married guys who go out to hookers without taking their condoms and other
equally exciting stuff.
Doreen felt that it had little to
do with love and that the mostly male crowd was plugging perversion as
a form of love.
At one point I jumped in to say
that a father/daughter relationship couldn't work because equality could
not exist in that scenario. It would be abuse.
This drew the ire of other males
who feel that one love devouring another and strange power games are a
heartbeat of love that boring people like me want to spoil with egalitarian
nonsense.
We left as the debate raged on.
My final take is that we live in a sick society. We can't remember what
love is but some of us like to get together every so often to discuss it.
We have no hope. Perhaps the few
who really find love should teach by example
and worry a heck of a lot
about the examples the friends of Carla will set.
This whole thing should have been
on CBC Counterspin.
---------
Opposing the National Missile Defence
-Dec.2000
* MP3 Sound files by Neal Mathers of the October Scientists for Peace
meeting are now up at the A-Infos Radio Project http://
www.radio4all.net
The direct URL to the page with the Teach-In is: http://www.radio4all.net/proginfo.php?id=2359
The links to the files are down at the bottom of that page.
5 speakers - 5 files. In both broadcast quality 44.1khz
56kbps MP3 and low-quality streaming (realtime playback like RealAudio)
at 22khz 24kbps
Radio Cognito website: http://www.freespeech.org/radiocognito
or http://www.interlog.com/~nealm/a-infos.htm
for a list of talks on the Radio Project website with direct links.
The
Science for Peace Group has been opposing
Canada's Involvement in the American NMD or National Missile Defence (Son
of Reagan's Star Wars).
A panel and discussion was held
at Metro Hall on Oct.14th and ACT for Disarmament staged a March of the
Umbrellas.
Umbrellas provide as much defence
as the NMD, and maybe more. The program doesn't work technically and it
is dangerous because it harms the cause of peace and stability in the world.
Speakers featured on the panel were
Ann Crosby (Norad Expert), Sergi Plekhanov (International Security), Julia
Ching (University Professor Emeritus) David Parnas (Computer Scientist).
They described the military industrial complex as frightening and out of
control. The military has got beyond the mechanisms of representative democracy
to the point that governments can't kill unwanted programs. The military
nearly always renames programs and operates them at another level. NMD
is an obvious rebirth of Reagan's Star Wars plan.
To better understand the issues read Science for
Peace publications at
http://scienceforpeace.sa.utoronto.ca/PubPage/PubPage.html
see their newsletters at
http://scienceforpeace.sa.utoronto.ca/NewsLetterPage/Newsletter.html
The main url is http://scienceforpeace.sa.utoronto.ca
e-mail sfp@physics.utoronto.ca
Also see ACT for Disarmament News
http://www.the-activist.org
--------
Green Mayoral Candidate
Drops Composter at Mel Lastman's Home
(Do the rich and powerful provide better for
themselves?)
Report from Doreen D - Oct.7.200
Do you ever wonder if the ruling class with all their money and power provide better for themselves than for the rest of us who feel like we get the worst of everything - air pollution, genetically modified food, poisoned water, etc.? Do the Rich and Powerful buy the best for themselves and give the worst to us, or are they ignorant fools? I'm afraid to say that newly discovered evidence may point to the latter as correct.
On Friday evening I met Gordon McGuinty
in the restaurant at city hall after a fierce session in the council chambers
regarding the Adam's Mine dump which his company owns. It was rumoured
that a new smoke stack for Toronto was thrown into the deal. I was shocked
and approached Mr. McGuinty with a reminder that Toronto was already in
the path of fallout from one of the biggest smokestacks in the U.S.A. He
and his buddy seemed surprised and "swore" that his company would never
build a smokestack in Toronto. I asked them a personal question, "What
good is having all this money if even his family is going to be exposed
to the toxins? Is this the legacy he wants to leave to his children and
grandchildren? Does he want to put them at risk for cancer and respiratory
ailments for the sake of a few dollars? Both gentlemen seemed quite shocked
by the question and feebly nodded their heads to denote nay. It seemed
like they had never made any connection that the pollution could also harm
themselves and their families. The lesson learned here is that we must
get politicians, corporate presidents and other bureaucrats to understand
that they and their families will also be harmed by their decisions.
In the council chambers Mel admitted that he didn't have a composter at home and he wasn't sure how it works. In true environmental spirit Mayoral candidate Tooker Gomberg and friends went straight to Mel's house and delivered one to him on Sunday. They also discreetly put some of the nutrient rich compost on Mel's lawn. Wherever Tooker goes the press follows. They know that in Tooker they have a very serious mayoralty candidate who is an expert on the issue of garbage and other important matters like air quality, sustainability, and homelessness - a candidate who is willing to work hard to create a healthy city. It was amazing how little the reporters knew. One reporter for a major newspaper wanted to know how the compost bin works, what does the compost look like, what is it used for and how much does one cost?
What was really astounding about all this was the location of Mel's house. It is located just metres from a hydro field.
In the last twenty years much research has been gathered linking exposure to extra low frequency radiation emanating from power lines and other sources with an increase in cancer, especially childhood leukemia, birth defects, depression, learning disabilities, Chronic Fatigue syndrome, Alzheimer's disease, AIDS and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Do the Rich and Powerful do better for themselves? Mel has a lot more money than the rest of us, but he is ignorant and lives in a house that will expose him and his family to serious health risks. I also noticed that his perfect green manicured lawn was probably the result of numerous applications of toxic weed killer. So can we trust our politicians to make informed decisions regarding our health and safety when they aren't even informed enough to take care of themselves. The green dollar signs have blurred the green grass and leaves. Does Mel know what organic means?
On this Thanksgiving I am truly giving thanks
that Tooker Gomberg with his vast knowledge of environmental issues and
courage to face this opponents and bring about healthy changes is running
for mayor of Toronto. Please vote for him and tell your friends.
Cheers!
Doreen
--------
The Green Loblaws Army -
Sat Oct 6.2000
Greenpeace geneaction protesters
leafleted and petitioned today at various Loblaws around Toronto over
unlabelled, untested genetically modified foods. Among other things the
modified food is thought to speed the spread of antibiotic resistant organisms.
I went by the protest at the Christie
& Dupont superstore and stopped to take photos. They gave me a copy
of a Kellogg's cereal box redone as a Frankenfood box.
The public was receptive to the
action but store management wasn't. A female manager and a big goonlike
male manager started trying to force the greenpeace people away from the
store sidewalk. This was a public sidewalk and the store people were quite
nasty about the whole thing. I leaned against a scraggly tree growing out
of the sidewalk, watching this and later stared in amazement as the goon
manager came out with about 16 male clerks dressed in their green aprons.
They lined up in a sort of battle formation as the manager prepared to
send them forward to crush and arrest the protesters.
Some argument broke out - I suddenly
got into it, hollering that they were a bunch of idiots. This infuriated
the manager and his undercover man. The undercover man was ready to get
into a fight with me on the sidewalk. I continued to berate them saying
that's right you're idiots. Those are store workers, not a security force.
Get them out of here!
They did back off and disperse.
And I left. A person who was driving by after I left said three police
cars suddenly arrived and were ticketing people.
By Gary Morton
Info geneaction@graffiti.net
http://ecoexplorer.com/GENEaction.htm
416-406-2481
http://www.greenpeacecanada.org/
article on Kellogg's - http://alerts.web.ca/show.cfm?app=gpc&id=1837
--------
Brief Report - Car Free
Day in Toronto -
Sept.21.2000
Today the first Toronto Car Free
Day was celebrated via a Parking Meter Party on College Street between
Clinton and Manning Ave.
The event has become a worldwide
movement and members of Advocacy for Respect for Cyclists, Greenspiration,
the Sierra Club and other groups have convinced City Council to look into
the idea of an official Car Free Day. Places like Paris, Rome and London
have city supported Car Free Days that are big events.
Currently the Toronto event is activist
and citizen run and at 6 p.m. the party began with cyclists and other supporters
paying for parking meters and putting banners on the street. A truck with
rolls of sod drove up and soon the pavement was turned to grass. Lawn chairs,
guitars and people settled on the grass, flowers were planted and food
in the form of cakes got passed around.
Soon police arrived and organizers
including Mayoral Candidate Tooker Gomberg listened as officers stated
that a permit was needed for such an event.
People hung around anyway.
Here's a clip from Tooker's campaign
digest on the issue of Car Free Day. "There are way too many cars
on the planet;" said Gomberg, "over 500 million, and growing by a car a
second. This is a serious, if not critical overpopulation crisis. The beauty
and livability of a city goes up when the population of cars goes down.
If elected Mayor I will work to realize a car-free Kensington Market, as
well as a significant depaving program in Toronto's downtown."
A reduction in Toronto cars is badly
needed. Lately Toronto has become a gridlock nightmare. Smog is killing
a thousand people a year and the pavement on side streets is littered with
road kill. Residential streets that used to be mostly car free mornings
and evenings are now filling with traffic.
Perhaps we need a Car Free EveryDay.
Car free Toronto - e-mail fred.ni@sympatico.ca
World Car Free Day - Web
Site
--------
Anti-Poverty Actions Continue
in Toronto - Friday.Aug.11.2000
Intelligence officers have been staking out all anti poverty actions and making arrests since the June 15th rally at Queen's Park. In spite of that there were two actions tonight. The 1st anniversary of the OCAP "Safe Park" in Allan Gardens is still underway. I stopped by and took a couple of photos before leaving. That was just after dark and speakers were addressing a crowd that had formed a circle near the banners and tent. A few of the people who write about these events were there so reports will likely come out on it. I did notice the police out in force, with beat cops, cycle cops and a horseback detachment. Exactly why police would be needed at all for such a peaceful event is not clear.
Earlier I attended a related forum at Innis College titled Defending the Rights of the Oppressed. Where do we go from here? It featured Joy Butts of the Kensington Welfare Rights Union, (KWRU) Philadelphia & Sue Collis, Ontario Coalition Against Poverty with moderator Josephine Grey.
The KWRU speaker painted an interesting picture of the war on the poor in the USA. Perhaps war is a true term there as she points out that parts of the city look just like a bombed out war zone.
Her group does a lot of work to educate the poor, because the poor have to speak for themselves. Others will not do it. KWRU tactics include protest, sit-ins and tent cities. They reclaim abandoned buildings and put families in them, and that often leads to confrontations with police. The group also got international media coverage recently as they did a fine job of upsetting the Republican Convention with protest activity.
The level of deterioration in the USA is shocking. The poor and KWRU people accept it as a fact of life that they can't rely on any level of government when it comes to aid for the poor. The city, the state and the feds have abandoned responsibility when it comes to the well being of a large segment of society. Legislation is being implemented across the USA that puts a five-year limit on welfare. In 2002 Philadelphia will be one of the places hit by a poverty tidal wave, as huge numbers of people will be left without any source of income. Welfare caseworkers have said that what it means is that all of the children will be taken for foster care and the mothers will be arrested and jailed for stealing food.
The two speakers from Toronto pretty much outlined how the evil government of Mike Harris is slowly implementing the same horrible policies here. Sue Collis says that Harris is planning to create a disaster in First Nations communities. Though the First Nations people are not in any way bound to Workfare, the Tories have revealed that they will be forced to comply or services will be shut. Workfare is a form of low wage slavery, where a welfare recipient works for a fraction of the minimum wage. A similar program has been brought in for prisoners and they are now working as slave labour in Ontario.
In First Nations communities the forced changes will mean job loss and travel problems as people try to get to the new agencies. The effect will be to cut many from the roles. Workfare itself always cuts people from the roles. In the last listing of welfare statistics more than forty thousand people were reported cut off for refusing to work as Workfare slaves. Perhaps these people should be commended for suffering to defend our rights.
Collis says the province pays only six percent of the social assistance bill in First Nations, so their forced changes are politically motivated.
Attacking the poor is the heart and soul of the Ontario Tories. Posts to party members always make welfare cuts a feature issue. And their propaganda is always doctored with clever media spin that hides its hate-mongering intent.
Andrea Calver noted just how bad Tory policies are for those in need. Welfare workers now work as teams. Meaning you have to keep stating your case again each time you talk to a different member of the team. They are bringing in call centres for people who apply - meaning that instead of ever getting a welfare cheque, you'll more likely get an answering machine and the runaround.
A rotten technique called consolidated verification is now used, where they go through a person's file for any missing documentation, then cut the person off.
Other negative changes include an overhaul to appeals, the economic evictions caused by the Tenant Protection Act, Workfare that is now replacing paid work and the Safe Streets Act that is criminalizing the poor.
The government says more people are off welfare, yet they don't mention that there are many more people who need assistance but can't get it. Right now the only measure of success in regards to social assistance is the number of people collecting it. A better measuring stick is needed.
Of course the response to all this is going to be more direct action against the government. In the ensuing discussion an older fellow from North Bay spoke, calling for direct action there. He said he's been elected and in politics before and that system doesn't work anymore.
So cheers to him and all of the people in North Bay and
elsewhere, who decide its time get in Mike Harris' face. And best of luck
to people in the States, who are fighting just to survive.
---------
Fight for a Rent Freeze
- Toronto Tenants take to the Streets - Aug.3.2000
Members of one of this city's largest tenants' associations and its supporters took to the streets tonight in their kickoff of a fight for a Rent Freeze. This rally by the Greater Toronto Tenants' Association had a spontaneous feeling and a lot of raw energy. The tenants caught the police off guard on this one and they failed to get even a cruiser to the march.
Waving signs and banners the tenants took over key lanes of highway and motorists responded with honks of support and also of fury over the disruption of traffic near the Bloor-Danforth Bridge. Most of the time vigorous chanting residents, fed up with skyrocketing Toronto rents and terrible living conditions silenced the traffic itself.
Tenants want to stop rent increases in private sector rental housing - the vast majority of rental housing. And they want others to endorse a Rent Freeze. The Rent Freeze campaign is for a 0% provincial guideline increase for 2001.
Earlier in St. James Town a number of speakers addressed the crowd and the issues. NDP MPP Rosario Marchese said landlords have done well. They have the money and they should really stop whining. He noted that 3.5 million Ontario residents or one third of the people are tenants. And nearly all of them are victims of rents increasing far above the inflation rate. Provincial law allows landlords to wage a war on tenants. They can raise rents and they don't have to show where that money is being spent. With no new affordable housing being built the situation just gets worse by the day.
Overall rents have been increasing well above the guidelines. In 1999 Toronto landlords received a windfall of extra rent totaling $232,278,616! In that same year 55,000 tenant households received applications for increases above the guidelines. More than 700 buildings were hit with above guideline increases in 1999-2000 in the Toronto area.
As rents soar, many tenants have already become homeless and 300,000 tenants now pay so much of their income on rent that they may also become homeless.
Other speakers from GTTA noted that even in increases due to maintenance, landlords profit. They do things like add new windows that decrease heating costs, yet pass only costs and not savings on to tenants. Then in areas where there are no profits there are no repairs.
At the outset of the march, Wendy Forrest, a council candidate for Ward 28 in the upcoming Megacity election, told me of her experiences. People in the neighbourhood can't get into affordable housing, as the waiting lists are endless. They end up with high rents, get into arrears by a thousand or two and can't get back out. Weaker disabled tenants and those with psychiatric problems simply don't have a chance. Wendy's supporters at the march said that her rival in the council race, Pam McConnell, was frightened by the idea of tenants taking to the streets and has not supported the rent freeze concept.
On the issue of support for the freeze itself, Paul York of the GTTA told the crowd that all of the political parties must respond. He also said that the rent freeze idea is not all that radical. Back in the 30s tenant leaders used to call for rent reductions.
Later I questioned Paul as to other tenant organizations and support groups. Will they endorse the Rent Freeze idea? Paul replied saying that tenant groups and politicians are being put to the test. If they don't support a freeze, we'll know that they are not friends of tenants at all.
His answer satisfied me, as I was there to support the Rent Freeze idea and not any particular tenant group. The freeze is what tenants need and it is what they want. It certainly isn't full relief, but as speaker Dale Ritch said under the guidelines rents go up and up percent here percent there, and it never ends.
Contact your politician saying you support the idea of a rent freeze
Politicians' e-mail, etc can be found online at
http://www.interlog.com/~cjazz/pol.htm
Contact the Greater Toronto Tenants' Association (GTTA) at (416) 256-0060.
* Brian Burch writes that there there have been
a few new units of affordable, non profit housing built, or in the process
of development, since the end of federal and provincial programmes.
Frontiers Foundation is building housing for aboriginal people at Coxwell,
near Danforth. Houselink is developing over 100 units for psychiatric
survivors. There was a project in Parkdale, with some funding by
the Ministry of Health. St. Clair's is in the process of developing
51 units at 25 Leonard Ave. It is not a lot, perhaps a maximum
of 500 units. But it is important to remember that there are those
still beating heads against brick walls to keep the possibility of new
affordable housing alive.
Brian
---------
Bleeker Street Protest for Better Policing
- July.16.2000
It's been a cool summer so far but some folks in Toronto say the police have been uncool. So much so that a black woman named Murphy Browne called a Sunday protest on Bleeker St. at St. James Town. Murphy says she was present when police were handcuffing two young men. She asked a question and got attacked by police. Read her full letter at the bottom of this report.
People gathered on the grounds at the corner of Wellesley, and Dudley Laws spoke saying this was the 2nd protest brought about by daily police attacks on youths in the area.
John Clarke followed, noting similar attacks in the Kipling area. He says outside witnesses were present when 250 residents of Somali decent had to quickly organize to fend off a police attack. Cruiser after cruiser raced in. The Somali folks say there is police corruption and they are going into people's homes and stealing, and also criminalizing youth. Clarke says the billyclub has become a substitute for housing and social programs. He supports organizing residents and he doesn't believe in wasting time with liaison and focus groups.
Next up was a black lady named Amina Mire (pronounced Amina Mirraa). She believes there is a connection between Murphy Browne's experience and police violence that is on the rise everywhere. The media fails to make the connection and works to fragment everything to isolated events. She sees class warfare with a racial tone, police that are the instruments of the well off and not the people, and residents being squeezed out of public space into the periphery. As she spoke a large angry woman barged in and interrupted, demanding to know what police violence had to do with poverty. After she left I talked to some black kids who were laughing at her. They agreed that police tend to come after you if you are poor, black and young.
Mostly it is an attempt to lay drug charges when there are no drugs. Chris Ramsaroop and other speakers noted that police were on a sort of crusade to criminalize black youth for drug offenses. They show little respect. Recently a 16 year old black youth asked for a badge number and got punched in the face. Police are also harassing young black men as they come home from work. Grabbing them and asking all sorts of questions about drugs.
Apparently council and the police
have not responded to the concerns of residents on these issues. And with
Al Leach and Gordon Chong coming in on the police services board, the chill
between the public and the police might even turn into a sort of warfare
on the streets. We don't have an elected board, but one stacked with Harris
cronies. The only thing residents can really do is organize for their own
defense.
--------
Murphy Brownes Letter on the Assault
Hi David,
I am sending a copy of a letter I wrote to Share Newspaper and also asking for your help in getting people out to a demonstration/rally on Sunday, July 16th at 4:30 p.m at Bleecker and Wellesley Streets. We will meet at Wellesley and Bleecker and walk down to 325 Bleecker which is North of Wellesly. If people are coming by subway, the Sherbourne subway station is the closest.
This is to protest the police brutality I experienced on Saturday night at the hands of Metro's finest.
Murphy
I have written before, and I thank you for printing my letters, of police brutality in St. JamesTown. My previous letters have been of police assaulting youth of African descent. This letter is different in that I have been the victim of police brutality. I was attacked and assaulted on Saturday, July 8th by one of Metro's finest. I had to seek medical attention for the pain I was and still am feeling as a result of this cowardly and unprovoked attack.
Every Sunday, police come into St JamesTown in numbers, to harass and brutalise young people of African descent. They sweep in here and under the pretext of looking for drugs they harass and brutalise the young people of African descent. The politicians and the "powers that be" are aware of these incidents yet nothing is done and the attacks continue. The "mainstream media" ignores these blatant and flagrant acts of racism and violations of Canadian citizens' Civil Rights. We also get these "visits" on weekdays and Saturdays. Saturday, July 8th happened to be one of those days. The police were harassing and brutalising a group of young people who were at the basketball court, some of them playing basketball and some watching the game. Police descended on these young people like a pack of wolves attacking a flock of lambs.
Two young men were singled out for special treatment. They were knocked down, put in head locks and choke holds, had knees in their backs while they were lying prone. When some of the other young people who of course were afraid tried to leave the basketball court, one policeman pulled out his gun, pointed it at them in a threatening manner and ordered them not to move. This was a very traumatic incident for these young people. It was a terrorising few minutes for these young people looking down the barrel of a gun and wondering which one of them might be murdered by this trigger happy policeman.
I happened to be present when they were handcuffing the two young men. I asked a question and I was attacked. It was such a cowardly and unexpected attack that I am at a loss as to how someone like that is a member of the police force. I thought they were more subtle when dealing with adults. I have asked questions before of police who were harassing young people. I am always polite and the police respond in kind. I was my usual polite self when I spoke to the young man who was being brutalised. I was not even addressing the policeman who attacked me. I was not even close to the policeman and was shocked when he charged across the distance to where I was standing. Armed to the teeth, this man who is probably about half my age, attacked and physically and mentally terrorised me. I was no threat to this bully in blue.
I have never experienced such terror. I have been left shaken at the ferocity, the savagery of the attack I was subjected to at the hands of this person. To add insult to injury the man hissed and spat a racist epithet at me.
In the aftermath of this attack I find myself wondering how the young people of St. JamesTown cope with being brutalised by police on a regular basis.
This attack has left me feeling very vulnerable and shaken. This attack has also brought home to me in horrific detail that our young people are not the only members of our community at risk of police brutality. Each time I walk past the spot where I was brutalised, I break out in a cold sweat. I shudder to think how close I came to being murdered by someone who is paid to serve and protect me.
Yours sincerely,
Murphy Browne
--------
Report on the March to End Homelessness
- May.06.2000
A heat wave has rolled in and Toronto is under July weather on May 6th. This will be a bad summer for the homeless and most of the hundreds of protesters gathering at City Hall were wondering just how hot it is going to get. And if the heat will be worse than the cold that killed 22 homeless people in Toronto this winter. Last year the city promised to provide cooling centres, then reneged on that promise.
In spite of the heat we marched to Queens Park, being honked at by supporting cars as we followed a float of a house. For those who aren't sure just what a house is, it is one of those rare things that used to be built in Toronto.
At Queen's Park a number of speakers addressed the crowd. Here is some of the info I gathered as people like Cathy Crowe, Kira Heineck, Linda Toruney, John Clarke, a welfare mom and others spoke.
The Toronto Disaster Relief Committee has been protesting recently in Toronto over the death of Jennifer Caldwell, 20 years old. She shouldn't have been sleeping in the Don Valley but since the shelters were full, she was there. A fire in the valley killed her.
Fire is now also being used by the Toronto Police. The homeless are being forcibly moved by police from under bridges near Spadina Ave. and the police are then setting fires to these areas with gasoline.
At the same time as the housing protest, police across the road were unveiling a statue dedicated to police officers who died in the line of duty. 22 homeless people met the reaper this year, and if they had been police, our politicians would be calling it a catastrophe. When it is homeless people they not only say nothing. They give nothing.
The Toronto of the past got mentioned. Back in the good old days there were no food banks or out of the cold programs. There wasn't a police state for the poor. All of this is new stuff. Uncaring politicians have created the homeless crisis.
The Harris government just released a budget that didn't allocate a single penny to the homeless, but they did give major cash to every corporate sector. Under the Harris budget, the wealth pie has changed so that even those who do work at a standard wage now give a tax boost worth 7 days of wages to big corporations. And this is on top of the big tax benefits corporations were already receiving.
People wouldn't be homeless if the wealth was in any way shared. Social assistance, workers' compensation and UIC have been slashed to the bone. At the same time rents are skyrocketing and many Toronto workers know they are always just one pay cheque away from the streets. Hundred of thousands of tenants are living on the edge. They can't afford the rents and the situation is set to explode.
John Clarke condemned the Harris Government for its social cleansing under the Safe Streets Act, and the City for its part in harassing the homeless though Target Policing. It is a situation where they not only make you homeless, but once you're down on the street the harassment never ends.
Clarke says the Harris Government, which is rolling in surplus cash, has gone beyond being willfully blind. They are conducting a war on the poor. We can't appeal to their hearts because they don't have hearts. We can't appeal to their consciences because they dont' have any. We have to build a social movement powerful enough to make the government retreat. The Ontario Coalition Against Poverty in alliance with the homeless and many other groups invites everyone to join them for a June 15 march to the legislature. A very serious event where citizens will demand the right to enter and address the legislature.
Other groups have a number of actions planned, I know of
a couple but revealing them in this report would spoil the events.
--------
Info
Contacts
Toronto Disaster Relief Committee
168 Bathurst St., Toronto, ON, Canada,M5V 2R4
Cathy Crowe (416) 703-8482 (117)
Ontario Coalition Against Poverty
John Clarke, Organizer,
Phone (416) 925-6939
Fax (416) 925-9681
June 15th March - Meet at Noon in Allan Gardens - South East Corner
for the march to the Legislature.
More info on the web
http://www.interlog.com/~cjazz/june15.htm
---------
This report written by Gary Morton for
http://citizensontheweb.com
--------
Reclaim the Rainy Streets - May.01.2000
I didn't set out to attend Reclaim the Streets Toronto but came upon the celebration by accident on my way home from work. Apparently it started at the CN Tower and moved to a secret location, which turned out to be York Street near the Stock Exchange.
Maybe it was the rain streaking my glasses, but this appeared to be a young crowd of a few hundred people. Wet weather and the Monday date seem to have kept many older people away. The scene was general pandemonium. People dancing, banging on percussion instruments, skipping with ropes and so on.
I stayed for about twenty minutes, talking to a friend from a democracy group I used to belong to. He also happened on the event, and his only comment was "There's a lot of energy happening here."
A flyer on Reclaim and the e-mail post announcing the event read like political tracts - reclaiming the streets from traffic so people can express themselves - etc - etc.
The actual event did not appear to be political in any way. I have a photo on my web site from the A16 protest in Washington. It shows people holding a banner that says - Freedom Must Be Exercised!
Reclaim the Streets in Toronto appears to be about that. Exercising freedom for some brief period of time.
I say brief as police had the event walled in with a number of wagons, cars, horses and men on the street. It's possible that for some people the next exercise may be in obtaining freedom from jail.
Gary Morton
* An update on Reclaim the Streets
from Nigel Blumenthal <nigelb@netcom.ca>
I walked out of the building where I work, the Exchange Tower, about
6:10
pm straight into what looked, from the massive police presence, like
a
major political demonstration. I would estimate that there were
about a
couple of hundred attendees by that time, mostly late teens to
mid-twenties, and all good-humoured and peaceful. For the 200
or so
attendees, I counted at least 82 - yes, eight-two - police officers,
plus
another seven on horseback with small riot shields. Clearly,
political
protest is much more dangerous than the raves at Exhibition Place,
where
the last one saw just 70 officers to 10,000 attendees.
The demonstrators had managed to place sod down on York Street, and
it was
being treated as if it were a garden. There was a DJ playing
music like
"Dancing in the Street", and a group of very loud percussionists who
were
beating in (almost) rhythm. At about 6:20, the group started
to collect
the sod from off the road, and loaded it onto a small flatbed truck,
and by
6:30 it was all gone. The police had closed off the north end of York
Street, making the area where the demonstrators were into a cul-de-sac
(a
very threatening-looking move) but they dismantled the rope barriers
and
the protestors moved north onto Queen Street by around 6:50.
a very
peaceful demonstration, ruined only by an overwhelming, threatening
police
presence. Hope Fantino can justify the use of paid time for this.
The lead banner in this parade, by the way, expressed support for gay
cops,
and there were a couple of signs that read "Our Gay Cops are the
Tops". Must have really gotten up their macho noses.
Nigel
--------
Report - Power Politics: Is Canada Democratic
Enough? - Tues. April 25
By Gary Morton
Tonight at the St. Lawrence Centre Forum citizens discussed Power Politics: Is Canada Democratic Enough? The panel included Judy Rebick, author of Imagine Democracy, Bob MacDermid of York U, Carol Off of the CBC and Akaash Marharay of the Liberal Party.
Actual democracy began at the front doors, long before the question period. Citizen handouts were about the Province of Toronto, Opposition to the Clarity Bill, Globalization and its threat to democracy. I had my own flyer called Support a Citizens Assembly for Toronto.
When people questioned me on it I said I support the idea of a taxpayer funded citizens' assembly because it is the only way toward a more democratic Toronto that Mike Harris can't prohibit. A Province of Toronto is impossible to achieve as the Harris provincial government can always block it. Harris also has a new bill that will effectively prohibit referenda. But imagine the outrage there would be if Harris tried to pass a bill governing how citizens could assemble in Toronto.
The forum began with Carol Off informing the audience that students and citizens no longer have any faith at all in the democratic process. They believe it is phony and want to escape from it. Carol is shocked by this loss of faith but Judy Rebick was not surprised at all. She says everyone is aware of the erosion of democracy and young people that are active mainly want to protest in the street. She blames it on professional politics and party spin machines. Rebick notes that even elected members feel they have lost power. She feels Canadians have had restricted notions of democracy from the beginning. We vote in our perceived betters to represent us when we should be getting involved as ordinary citizens.
Judy sees a major problem with citizen involvement in that huge efforts have not succeeded in creating change in the system. In recent decades citizens have only managed to slow down the erosion of democracy and society. The cure is to have structural inclusion of citizens. She thinks there should be a referendum on Health Bill 11 in Alberta and forced referenda when elected parties break their promises like the liberals did with the GST.
She believes better democracy can come through organizing citizens in small groups in communities and regions. This would allow people to get included in dialogue instead of just choosing sides as we do now. In conclusion she says the system is fundamentally corrupt because it only trades on power.
Akaash Marharay of the Liberal Party says non governmental organizations have purity but they ignore the tradeoffs needed in a complex world. He plugs globalization of a citizen sort, and here he attempts to define every sort of international movement as globalization. Akaash calls the Seattle protests against globalization another form of globalization.
His conclusion is that it is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness. And that is his justification for participating in a system of political tradeoffs.
Bob MacDermid notes that the recent federal election had lowest number of voters since 1925. The last provincial election turnout was lowest in the century. He says Mike Harris glorifies the market as a substitute for the public decision making. Representatives are being rationed and political parties are now the domains of strategists and marketing people.
Bob thinks cosmetic changes will save our democratic system. He wants to undo most of the changes Mike Harris made. MacDermid wants longer campaigns, real debates, lower limits on donations, a ban on corporate and trade union donations, effective disclosure and for citizens to demand that TV stations carry political ads for free.
One item that no one mentioned is that NDPer Lorne Nystrom is currently working in federal parliament, attempting to inject a measure of proportional representation into Canada's electoral system.
In reflection I realize that the speakers all have publications out on democracy. Carol Off made a grand display of their credentials. In spite of that I've heard all of their arguments presented by ordinary citizens. Citizens for Local Democracy and other groups have been in this discussion for a long time. It is only now that a similar debate is reaching the public, via professors and media stars.
None of my personal opinions have changed. I think that with a citizens' assembly the people could begin to take the debate and power back from the media and the spin doctors. We should curse the enemies of democracy because they are the darkness, then we should light a candle, and finish by starting a fire that is too big for them to control.
Campaign for a
citizens assembly in Toronto
--------
Justice for Doctor Kin-Yip
Chun - Rally Report, Mar 5.00
(Mobilization Against Racism at the University
of Toronto)
Today's rally began at Chinatown Centre with signs, flyers and banners. At issue in the flyers is an Ontario Human Rights Commission report. It found that the University of Toronto exploited Dr. Chun and repeatedly excluded him from a permanent professorship in favour of whites. It also condemned the university for taking reprisals against Dr. Chun for filing a complaint on the issue.
Nancy Nichols of York U spoke to the people, saying she is disturbed that this case has dragged on for six years, despite the incriminating findings of two earlier reports. She feels that U of T's hiring practices set a standard for other universities and that is why action must be taken. Her faculty association supports Dr. Chun.
Dr Chun told the crowd that when he complained in 1994 he was evicted by police. University officials told him to give up, saying that the public would be interested for two or three days - then no one would listen.
Now it seems like everyone is listening except U of T.
Dr. Chun is proud of his work in representing Canada at disarmament conferences. He is offended by the university and its view of him as an immigrant or foreigner.
After the rally Dr. Chun and his two daughters led the march to Simcoe Hall at the University of Toronto. There were no police present, protesters simply walked out onto the road. Chants were peaceful near Chinatown Centre, but the crowd grew louder and more emotional at U of T.
Justice for Dr. Chun was the regular chant, and it appears that you must shout very loud for U of T to hear.
The group's flyers asks supporters to help by writing to Mr. Keith Norton, Chief Commissioner. Ask for an immediate Commission Board of Inquiry. Address: 180 Dundas Street W, 9th Floor, Toronto, ON, M7A 2R9.
More info at Doctor Chun web site
http://www.utoronto.ca/acc/chun
--------
Clips from International
Women's Day Toronto - Mar.04.2000
The rally at Convocation Hall opened with a representative of immigrant women calling Premier Mike Harris a "Bastard." There were native ceremonies, prayers and songs, followed by some news on the victimization of women world wide.
Women from various international organizations had stories strong enough to arouse both tears and fury. It began with a talk on Sri Lanka from a representative of the women's organization of the Tamil movement. She said that government sanctioned gang rapes, torture, beatings and mutilations are common in Sri Lanka. Women have had gas soaked rags thrown over them and grenades tossed at their genitals to hide evidence of gang rape.
In Defense of Iraqi Women's Rights put up the next speaker and she outlined two major problems. The first being sanctions that cause 5,000 women per month to lose babies as they starve. Sanctions serve the American political agenda but not human beings. The north of Iraq is the most unsafe place in the world for women with 4,000 recent honour killings. These go on under UN and superpower supervision. Islamic mobs preach violence against women and militias list women they call worthless and target them for honour killings. The mainstream media ignores the problem as they see it as politically sensitive. The only hope is in new organizations women are setting up to save women from the killers.
Filipino youth's representative said they are organizing millions of migrant workers. Governments, including the Canadian Government are supporting special immigration programs that are little more than a disguise for slavery. Caribbean women are also victims of this and often it is live-in requirements that lead to repression. Immigrant women must live with employers that often sexually abuse and rob them. There is a Purple Rose campaign against trafficking in Filipino women.
In Iran women are considered 2nd class citizens and are denied rights. They can't choose what they eat or wear. Virgins can be killed by males who want to send them to heaven, and women who have had sex or are suspected of it can be stoned to death. Honour killings also happen in Iran.
Joan Grant Cummings said, "This is the century for the International feminist sisterhood. We are going to be young and restless until every single woman enjoys full human rights."
On the local Canadian front, Cathy Crowe attacked the federal
budget. She said she had to return to Toronto and tell people that there
was nothing for them in Paul Martin's budget. Martin simply re-announced
the same money he'd already announced in December through Minister of Homelessness,
Claudette Bradshaw. Crowe says that at present homeless women in Canada
beg for showers and underwear, they are killed in the streets as the shelters
are full - with 5,000 children using shelters in Toronto yearly.
As a result women will target housing minister Alfonso
Gagliano in the coming year. Another target is Allan Rock on the health
care issue. A protest at his office was announced later at the rally.
Fighting violence against women, exploitation and the impoverishment of women world wide is the challenge the women's movement faces in the year 2,000.
If not much has changed we should be thankful that the women's movement is still a social justice movement. Political parties and the big media in Canada are becoming even more of a right leaning old boys network. They can conceive of things like big business and tax cuts. Often they scratch their heads and wonder why women care about things like humanity, equality and justice.
for info NAC
(416) 932-1718 ext. 25
email: hollyce@netcome.ca
--------
Erosion of Privacy (Mon.
Jan. 24.00)
Ann Cavoukian, The Privacy Commissioner for Ontariospoke on the "The erosion of our rights in Ontario" at tonight's Citizens for Local Democracy meeting.
Ann says that Quebec is the only province that has applied public sector privacy laws to the private sector. Six years later the dire predictions of damaged business are dead. Instead business sells the idea of privacy rights as a marketing tool.
All countries in Europe have privacy laws that extend to the private sector. A minimum standard of privacy prohibits trade with nations without adequate data protection.
Federal Bill C-6 was to extend protection to everyone in Canada, but it has been sent back to the commons and may not pass.
The core belief expressed by Ann is that in order to have a democracy you must have access to government information and other important information. Exemptions must be limited and specific and decisions on disclosure must be made by an independent commissioner.
Fair information practices are needed to limit the collection and disclosure of personal information. You must have access to your own personal info or it can't possibly be verified as accurate.
On Possible Erosions of Privacy she pointed first to the Privatization of Government Services. Hydro for example has been split into five corporations and two of them are exempt from the Act. The privacy commissioner can't order disclosure of information when corporations are exempt.
Hospitals are also not covered by privacy laws and they can do what they want with medical info. In one case a hospital gave a morgue the details on terminally ill patients.
Restrictions on Genetic information are non existent and as companies pass on personal data, a class of unemployable and uninsurable people may be created.
The increased use of smart cards and integrated justice systems are also a threat.
In Ontario the Harris Government sells your driver information. The driver's license and the motor vehicle databases are in fact public databases and because of that the government can sell that information.
In regards to the Internet, Ann had a lot of optimism concerning encryption and new techniques that allow a person take on a pseudo identity that can't be uncovered. I disagreed with that saying that encryption can't protect you from intelligence agencies - they can use source addresses in packets, IP addresses and high powered processors to track and crack what they want.
Report from Gary Morton
--------
All Saints' Protest Action for Housing
(report on the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty's
Pre-Budget Meal & Rally)
Sat.Feb.26.00
Part 1
The All Saints' Church Open Door Drop-In at Dundas
& Sherbourne is a place where you see some of Toronto's poorer
people. A burned out rooming house across the road exists as an omen of
the fate you may meet when you are in that condition - but that's only
if you're lucky enough to get off street.
This Saturday homeless people and OCAP members had a pre-budget meal inside the church. Later buses took the people to a rally. The message being "We will not let our brothers and sisters die while the rich live high on the hog."
The Federal Budget is coming out loaded with tax cuts for the well off while a number of homeless people have already died on the street in the new millennium. Real relief is needed to fight the rising tide of homelessness and misery. But that won't happen when two thirds of a 46 billion dollar tax-cut will only benefit families making more than $65,000 a year.
Part 2
Yorkville is a place where you see some of Toronto's
richer people. Opulent boutiques exist as an omen of the lifestyle
you will live when you are in that condition.
OCAP members and homeless folks arrived there after the buses took a circuitous route from All Saints' Church. Out on the sunny street the OCAP banner was raised and marchers beat drums and chanted as they began a walk through the wealthy neighbourhood.
At the Four Seasons Hotel the crowd suddenly entered and went up the escalators to an expensive restaurant. The chanting and pounding drums continued as marchers filled up the place. At that time plates of shellfish and oysters were being served to the wealthy for breakfast and staff made an effort to protect these valuables while many of the customers walked out. Security scuffled with a few people, but gave up as protesters delivered a vocal message against tax cuts.
People started a new beat with silverware on the tables and Pops, a homeless man leading the march, shouted through a megaphone, "I'm dying of cancer and have one year to live, yet this F---ing government is forcing me to live on the streets!"
Later we marched out and continued through Yorkville back to the buses. I handed out some polished shells I collected in the restaurant. One I gave to John Clarke, thinking that it was the best symbol of what the tax cuts are doing - giving the rich billions more to spend on minor luxury items.
The feds have cast our money upon the waters of the wealthy, where it will sink to the bottom. Whide the homeless and the poor continue to suffer on the streets.
Ontario Coalition Against Poverty is at Dundas & Sherbourne,
office: 416 925-6939, Parkdale Office: 416 530-1550
---------
