The threatened future of Canada’s universal, public postal service

This is very frightening. On a related note, Canada Post is set to formally withdraw from the Publications Assistance Program (a key support for small media like Briarpatch) in April 2009, and plans to introduce “distance-related pricing” (meaning it will cost us more to send a magazine to Halifax or Toronto than to Saskatoon) [...]

The Harper ‘Apology’ — Saying ‘Sorry’ with a Forked Tongue

By Mike Krebs
Socialist Voice
June 29, 2008

Mike Krebs is an Indigenous activist in Vancouver and a contributing editor of Socialist Voice. Related Reading: Roots and Revolutionary Dynamics of Indigenous Struggles in Canada

“I want to get rid of the Indian problem. I do not think as a matter of fact, that the country ought to continuously protect a class of people who are able to stand alone… Our objective is to continue until there is not a single Indian in Canada that has not been absorbed into the body politic and there is no Indian question, and no Indian Department, that is the whole object of this Bill.” -Duncan Campbell Scott, head of the Department of Indian Affairs and founder of the residential school system, 1920

On June 11, 2008, Stephen Harper, prime minister of Canada and leader of the Conservative Party, issued an “apology” for the residential school system that over 150,000 Indigenous children were forced through. The hype before and after the statement was enormous, with extensive coverage in all major media.

This event had a strong emotional and psychological impact on Indigenous survivors of residential schools all across Canada, who suffered attempted forced assimilation as well as countless acts of violence, rape, and abuse. Descendents of those subjected to this system were equally affected. People packed into community halls and similar venues on June 11 for what was bound to be an emotionally triggering day for survivors, regardless of their view towards the meaning of the “apology.” Some survivors reportedly felt that the statement was a step forward, while many were highly critical.

In trying to understand the responses of Indigenous people across Canada to this “apology,” it is first important to address what it did not do. It must be judged in terms of the ability of Indigenous people to move forward in the process of true healing, not just from the effects of the residential school system, but from the entire process of Canadian colonialism. In this framework, the deficiencies of the “apology” are much greater than any positive impact it could have.

A crime of genocide

“I don’t want to hear it. You know, you might as well send the janitor up to apologize…if it’s just empty words or a nicely written text.” - Michael Cachagee, survivor of Shingwauk Indian Residential School[1]

If there is one thing that Mr. Harper’s “apology” provided that could be considered groundbreaking or new, it’s the idea that there can be crimes without criminals.

You would think offering an “apology” means taking some sort of accountability for the residential school system. But Harper’s statement acknowledges that what happened is a “mistake” without dealing with it as a crime, and without any sense of any individual accountability for it. It views the residential school system as only a mistake.

No discussion of the residential school system can be meaningful without acknowledging that this was an act of genocide. For those who value the importance of international law and the United Nations convention of genocide, let’s look at the UN definition itself as outlined in the “Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, adopted in 1948″:

“Article 2. In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

(a) Killing members of the group;

(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”

Arguably all five of these criteria apply to the residential school system and other aspects of the Canadian government’s colonization of Indigenous people. And there can be no argument that parts (b) and (e) apply, as a number of Indigenous writers have pointed out.[2] It is important to note that guilt for this crime lies not only with the individuals who committed specific crimes against Indigenous people (i.e. sexual assault, physical violence, forced removal), but also with those who enacted the entire policy.

So even though Harper apologized for the residential schools as a “system,” it doesn’t absolve individuals who participated in the numerous criminal acts they committed. Yet, that is what Harper’s statement attempts to do by apologizing on behalf of “all Canadians,” deceptively hiding behind the false logic that “nobody is guilty if everyone is.”

This is similar to some of the ideas discussed by Cherokee activist and academic Andrea Smith in Conquest: Sexual Violence and American Indian Genocide. Smith uses Carol Adam’s concept of the “absent referent” in exploring various aspects of sexual violence against Indigenous women, as well as how this concept recurs throughout Western society, mythology, and history. One example is that of the “battered” woman, which makes women “the inherent victims of battering. The batterer is rendered invisible and thus the absent referent”.[3]

A similar tool of deception is at work in not only the “apology,” but the entire approach of the Canadian government in its “solutions” to the residential school issue. Aside from notorious cases like that of the Archbishop Hubert O’Connor,[4] and others who can be easily tarred as “bad people who did bad things,” in Harper’s statement the perpetrator of the crimes against residential school survivors has no tangible face, almost no concrete existence.

FULL ARTICLE

‘Dare Anyone Say a Word?’: The Canadian Labour Congress Convention of 2008

By John Peters
Socialist Project
E-Bulletin No. 114
June 17, 2008

There is always something unsettling about people who say one thing and do another. There is for one thing the hypocrisy. Then, there is the uncertainty.

It only takes a few disappointments to sow the seeds of doubt about whether you can ever trust a person’s judgement again or whether you can ever expect them to fulfill their responsibilities in the future.

These problems become even greater when those in leadership positions engage in such ’shambolic’ efforts that involve saying much and doing little, while rejecting all criticism. Couple this with trying to shut down any hints of debate or questioning of decisions or strategies, and what you end up with is a sort of variation on the ‘Emperor has no clothes’ fable.

All these problems were very much in evidence at the recent Canadian Labour Congress Convention in Toronto (May 26-30, 2008) and all of these problems raise serious red flags about the state of the Canadian labour movement today. But in a variation of the story, there was something even more staged and more malevolent about the Congress - more an event of the ‘Leader has no clothes, but I dare anyone to say anything about it.’

Even though there were many good resolutions dealing with renewing organizing, fighting privatization, establishing a national pharmacare program, and protecting and renewing good, unionized manufacturing jobs, there was very little to suggest that the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) would play any effective role in pushing these policies forward.

Many of the final CLC resolutions suggested nothing more than future meetings with union staff to discuss options. Others only broached the importance of raising issues. Few detailed how a campaign would actually be launched. None made the promise that any money would be devoted to these causes.

Even more worrisome was that in the floor debates, there was a good deal of evidence that the CLC and many in leadership positions were more interested in trying to shut down discussion and shut down the kind of activism necessary to move progressive ideas forward, rather than trying to stir passions, raise public awareness, and mobilize workers across Canada.

The state of the Canadian labour movement: Call for submissions

“Canada’s negative productivity growth under the Harper government has its roots in a deeper, longer-term trend: our emerging role as resource supplier to other, more advanced economies, and the abandonment by policy-makers of the pro-active tools that (until 1984) helped us boost productivity and diversify our economy.”
-Jim Stanford

“Over the past decade, union organizing in Canada has fallen off the map. The organizing of new union members has hit record fifty-year lows of 40,000 or so in over the past few years, less than a third of what is required if unions even want to tread water and keep up with employment growth. As a result, today only fifteen percent of those in private sector across Canada have union representation and protection. And with fewer members, there are of course, fewer resources for organizing.”
-John Peters

Briarpatch Magazine invites contributions to our November 2008 issue on the state of the Canadian labour movement. We are looking for feature articles, provocative essays, investigative reportage, news briefs, reviews, interviews, profiles, poetry, humour, and artwork that explores the issues surrounding the efforts of working people to gain and maintain some modicum of control over their lives, and their struggles for secure work and work with dignity.

Possible topics could include (but are by no means limited to):

• migrant workers in the tar sands;
• organizing the service sector;
• prospects for Canada’s manufacturing industry;
• “hewers of wood, drawers of water once more?”: labour rights and the resource boom;
• the Saskatchewan government’s attack on workers’ rights;
• the labour movement and the environment;
• international solidarity campaigns;
• the Canada/Colombia free trade agreement;
• John Cartwright’s “Action Agenda”;
• the labour movement and party politics;
• change and renewal within labour movement structures.

Queries are due by July 15, 2008. If your query is accepted; first drafts are due by August 15, 2008. Your query should outline what ground your contribution will cover, give an estimated word count, and indicate your relevant experience or background in writing about the issue. Please provide a brief writing sample.

Please review our submission guidelines before submitting. Send your queries/submissions to editor AT briarpatchmagazine DOT com.

We reserve the right to edit your work (with your active involvement), and cannot guarantee publication. We pay for the articles we publish, but not well.

May Day! May Day!

A radical volunteer fair and celebration of International Workers’ Day

Kick off a summer of activism!
Meet people working for change!
Connect with local activist groups!
Shake off the lingering winter lethargy and dive headlong into action!

Thursday, May 1, 2008
7 pm - 11 pm
The Exchange (2431 8th Ave.), Regina, SK
$7-12 (pay what you can)
All ages, free for kids under 12