National Observer lists Ontario Budget Cuts for 2019

Ontario budget cuts for 2019 - this list found in the National Observer:

Legal aid for climate emergency
Money for First Nations Wildlife Protection
Paramedic services
Support for Refugees and Immigrants
Legal aid and crime victims

"The 2019 budget forecasts that Ontario’s public account will not reach balance until 2023–24, one year earlier than the prior Liberal government of Kathleen Wynne had proposed but beyond the current term of the government’s mandate, breaking one of Ford’s key election promises." (National Observer.). But it looks like people who really need help to survive and the environment will suffer.

This morning as I waited for the ferry I struck up a conversation with a woman who lived in a luxury high-rise condo who was upset that homeless people made her and her visitors uncomfortable as they sat on a bench near the shopping mall asking for change.

I confessed I felt uncomfortable that people are homeless. It seems to me their plight is way more damaging to their well-being than having to say no to people who ask for a handout.

But then that is a sensibility that predates the concern for balancing the various budgets. The flurry of panic headlines that worry about government debt don't include the costs of homelessness on a societal level -- a kind of blindness we maintain as if life itself is a nuisance, undoing our vague sense of security in the abundance of things, entertainment and nice homes. When people suffer they seem to get in the way of being organized.

Native Knowledge

Anthropologist Wade Davis, now at the University of British Columbia, refers to the constellation of the world’s cultures as the “ethnosphere,” or “the sum total of all thoughts and dreams, myths, ideas, inspirations, intuitions, brought into being by human imagination since the dawn of consciousness. It’s a symbol of all that we are, and all that we can be, as an astonishingly inquisitive species.” Native Knowledge: What Ecologists Are Learning from Indigenous People. Jim Robbins. Yale Environment 360.

However, our national government seem to be babysitters saving this land for the profit of other nations.

350.org warns: “Let’s be clear – today’s announcement was a pledge to write a blank cheque, backed by public money, to a Texas oil company in a desperate play to bailout a pipeline that violates Justin Trudeau’s own promises on climate change and Indigenous rights. It’s desperate, dangerous and delusional, and it ignores the fact that opposition to this pipeline, in the courts, in the streets and all across Canada, is only going to grow. There’s no indemnity against that.”
“Desperate, dangerous, delusional” – 350.org Responds to Morneau Kinder Morgan Announcement

I believe our future depends on our ability to throw away centuries of European hegemonic ideology and open up to the wise voices of those who are defending the planet.

The Source of Addiction

"Through the generosity and courage of their sharing, I saw that the sources of addiction do not originate in the substances people use but in the trauma they endured. In fact, the self-medications my patients employed were an understandable response to a set of unnatural circumstances, namely the historical trauma inflicted on First Nations throughout Canadian history, and up to the present. " Gabor Mate, First Nations Health Authority.

It's time for us to realize how we might be saved by our First Nations teachings.  They are teaching us that abusive power is toxic, and as we see our leadership becoming more ineffective in dealing with the toxicity of oil pipelines and tankers, seemingly unable to choose a clean future, we will be imprisoned in the residential school of economic tyrants.

Please stop racist attacks!

I implore you to stop not because I am African or Asian or Ojibway. But because I am white, I look white, I talk white. When I witness  or hear about racism, the hair on my back stands up, I begin to shake, my stomach aches, my heart sinks down into my bowels. It keeps me awake at night, and if this hatred hurts me it must be far worse for those who are targeted. and perhaps this is the idea – that the masses self destruct in opposition to the other.

I am not saying  YOU are racist. I don’t think we set out on our life’s journey to hate. Just as all Moslems are not responsible for 9/11, YOU  are not responsible for the woman who was pushed in front of a train because she was wearing a headscarf, the murdered and missing women, the holocaust, or the tone of the US elections. YOU are not responsible for the refugees whose cities have been blown apart, the unarmed teenager who was shot by a policeman, the overworked underpaid workers in Mexico, or increasing inequality that threatens what little democratic opportunity remains.

But you and I are responsible for the words that come out of our mouths, and for how we respond when we witness attacks. We are also responsible for knowing the cost of what we choose to purchase, where it comes from and who is oppressed by its manufacture.

We are responsible for understanding what happens when racism stalks the commons. The first casualty is dialogue. (There is too much pain both sides.) The second is observation. (We prefer not to look too closely at the deep penetrating destruction of hate and the entitlement given to those who assume superiority.) The third is acknowledgement of our own opportunity to heal the small moments.

Racism makes us powerless echoes of our ancestors' fear and pain. Problem solving is shut down like an iron gate when the narrative announces “it’s all their fault”. Racism cripples democracy. Racism alienates us from our human capacity to inquire, to feel empathy and to be compassionate. Racism locks our children into binaries of fear. Racism chooses violence first and smears all privilege with blame and spilled blood.

When we feel entitled to judge those we have never met, based on generalizations spread in media and on the street, racism is the first weapon of mass destruction. It begins as a tiny virus in the reptilian brain and spreads all over the world. It is the greatest servant of the arms industry and the psychopathic ruler. It is the door to war that keeps on spilling blood, making life unbearable and the future into something to dread.

So please remember the images of Aleppo and Auschwitz before you shout racial slurs on a bus or laugh at a friend’s jokes or click “like” in the comments field.

Racism is the most destructive and disabling fantasy of white supremacy.

How much more do we need to know about Bill C-51

Global Research: "As its critics have shown, the bill isn’t really about terrorism: it’s about smearing other activities by association—and then suppressing them in ways that would formerly have been flagrantly illegal. The bill targets, among others, people who defend the treaty rights of First Nations, people who oppose tar sands, fracking, and bitumen-carrying pipelines as threats to health and the environment, and people who urge that international law be peacefully applied to ending Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian territories. (Members of this latter group include significant numbers of Canadian Jews.)"

22 minutes - Connie on Anti-Terror Legislation - Youtube 
For some of Marg Walsh's transcribed text go to Ceasefire here.

Global News - Trudeau says Harper government fostering fear and prejudice against Muslims

The Tyee: Six Things Protesters Need to Know about Bill C-51.
"Canada's privacy commissioner, ex-CSIS officials, former prime ministers and international whistleblower Edward Snowden have all raised alarm about the bill's impacts on Canadians' freedom and privacy. Lawyers at the B.C. Civil Liberties Association have gone over the bill paragraph by paragraph, and we've outlined the parts of this document that concern us most."

Rabble.ca, Marc Zwelling "As civil liberties advocates insist, Bill C-51 turns the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS) into an enemy of the people. The bill allows the authorities to spy on anyone they feel threatens the "security of Canadians." Such a broad definition of a security threat smears picketers, writers and protesters as terrorists."


Elizabeth May: Harper's anti-terror law will turn Canada into a police state
"Acts of terrorism are a threat. They are criminal acts of horrific cruelty and sadism. Luring of disenfranchised, disenchanted, alienated Canadians into their barbaric crusade must be addressed, but the new law, C-51, is not primarily an anti-terrorism law. And legal experts are already pointing out it "undermines more promising avenues of addressing terrorism." (Bill C-51 backgrounder, Professors Kent Roach and Craig Forcese)


Daniel Leblanc, Globe and Mail "A parliamentary committee will hear from strong supporters and vocal critics of the government’s anti-terrorism bill, but not from four former prime ministers who have decried the lack of increased oversight in the legislation" ... “What we have seen so far from both ministers is a tendency to wave the fear flag rather than discuss the contents of the bill,” said the NDP’s public safety critic. “With a two-hour session with the ministers and all their officials, we are not likely to get very far.”

CBC: Bill C-51: Privacy watchdog Daniel Therrien blocked from committee witness list.

During Tuesday's meeting, New Democrat MP Randall Garrison attempted to get unanimous consent for a motion to add a one-hour session with Therrien to the meeting schedule, but he was rebuffed by the Conservatives.

CBC: Bill C-51 hearings: Diane Ablonczy's questions to Muslim group 'McCarthyesque'
Ihsaan Gardee, (ED of NCCM): "First and foremost, I'll say on the record that NCCM has condemned violent terrorism and extremism in all of its forms, regardless of who perpetrates it for whatever reason," he told the committee. However, the premise of your question is false, and entirely based on innuendo and misinformation."
Gardee pointed to the group's history as an independent, non-profit, grassroots Canadian Muslim civil liberties organization with a "robust and public" track record.
"These are precisely the types of slanderous statements that have resulted in litigation that is ongoing," he said, including a defamation lawsuit launched last year against the Prime Minister's Office over "false statements" linking the group to Hamas made by now-former spokesman Jason MacDonald.

Stuart Trew, Rabble: Civil liberties, First Nation rights compromised by C-51, committee hears

"First Nations are already labelled as terrorists when they stand up for their rights to land, clean water and sovereignty, said (Chief Perry) Bellegarde, a point made by earlier witnesses, and especially Greenpeace, in relation to anti-pipeline battles. He also emphasized that First Nations rights were violated already by the process in which C-51 is making its way through Parliament -- without the government's prior consultation with Canada's First Nations as per Section 35 of the Charter. Bellegarde asked the government to withdraw the legislation and develop a process with First Nations by which all federal legislation impacting the assertion of Section 35 rights can be reviewed.""

For Loretta Saunders

image found on Google - author unknown

I dedicate this page after reading the article by Darryl Leroux in Halifax Media Co-op, to the family of a bright and courageous woman, and to all people who have been sacrificed to the institutionalized hegemony of power over life.

"It's about common goals, not colonial guilt"

Eight Ways to Take Part in Idle No More

By Jess Housty, 19 Jan 2013, TheTyee.ca

Idle No More

Idle No More Mission

Idle No More calls on all people to join in a revolution which honors and fulfills Indigenous sovereignty which protects the land and water. Colonization continues through attacks to Indigenous rights and damage to the land and water. We must repair these violations, live the spirit and intent of the treaty relationship, work towards justice in action, and protect Mother Earth. On December 10th,  Indigenous people and allies stood in solidarity across Canada to assert Indigenous  sovereignty and begin the work towards sustainable, renewable development. All  people will be affected by the continued damage to the land and water and we welcome Indigenous and non-Indigenous allies to join in creating healthy sustainable communities. We encourage youth to become engaged in this movement as you are the leaders of our future. There have always been individuals and groups who have been working towards these goals – Idle No More seeks to create solidarity and further support these goals. We recognize that there may be backlash, and encourage people to stay strong and united in spirit.

Throughout centuries of invasion, war, racial supremacy and exploitation, we have come to a cliff where we must ask ourselves what we want for the future.  A livable society where we learn how to live creatively and inclusively, or a society of fear, dread and a slow lingering death.  

Idle No More, calls for a return to conscience, to nature and justice.  Chief Theresa Spence is putting her life on the line, so that we might wake up, pay attention to the true cost of rapacious capitalism and blind consumerism. The First Nations are teaching us to care about our home, this planet and its peoples.

Ethnic Cleansing - the Prelude

In the beginning there were guns and germs, then there were residential schools, then the highway of tears and missing women on the downtown east side of Vancouver.  Now there is Attawapiskat, and other under-reported reservations.

For the last hundred and sixty years what we have seen is a spiralling down of living conditions for First Nations' people, mainly as a result of the Indian Act.  Forcibly removing children from their families and placing them in warehouses where they were physically, mentally and sexually abused, then tossed back out having only learned from their 'education' that they are useless savages.

But somewhere between the sixties and nineties Canadians developed a conscience and the information about government policies and living conditions were made available. Looking at how badly our European ancestors behaved made us look more like savages than the ones we labelled. The knowledge of our past treatment of non-whites sent some into complete denial, and racism. 

When the conditions of Attawapiskat were brought to parliament, our Aboriginal Affairs Minister  wasted no time declaring that the government will take control, implying that First Nations people are unfit to govern themselves.

Of course our government doesn't have to fix it, they just have to say they will to the flash and whir of corporate media cameras. And the essential information will be neglected and forgotten by most Canadians. Except bigots who will be preaching punishment. And the desperate people who don't land in Canada's shiny new prisons, will die of self-medicating despair.

Conflict around unsettled treaties leads to frustration, which provides an opportunity for some anonymous donor to provide guns and further inflame passions, lies and blood-shed. And beneath the chaos - an opening for a transnational mining company to make their next move.

European invasions into Africa, Asia, Australia and North America, have been euphemistically termed "Progress". While drugs, alcohol, germs and wars make people homeless, the unnamed organizers are free to extract their oil, gold, diamonds and other resources, so that they can get richer, hire more politicians and more military to begin again somewhere else.

In the transnational economy, we all, or at least ninety nine percent of us, become the unwanted  indigenous savages.  We may watch the erosion of civil society as our governments continue to roll back social services, just as they outlawed First Nations culture,  through the slow and deliberate starvation of our health, education and justice systems.

Soon we may recognize ourselves in Attawapiskat because there are no jobs, no money to fix our houses, poor nutrition, hunger, and no hope.

Ethnic cleansing will be complete when all the nations' people are similarly crippled by a centralization of power whose mission is to plunder the earth more deeply and destructively, then separate themselves from the results of their actions.

This is how power has worked for centuries but we still don't get it.  We enable the abuse of power when we dedicate our lives to the acquisition of it. We circle and protect the worst abusers from the evidence of the suffering they have caused. We protect the power that oppresses us by oppressing those who have less power.  We risk our lives, and the lives of our sons and daughters, to fight the enemies that have been chosen for us.  We punish the scapegoats that are hoisted for our judgement. We keep ourselves busy with the little things while the life of this planet is rendered down further and farther away from our reach, our ability to nurture and sustain it.

But it needn't be this way.  We don't have to worship power.  We could give the world our own by caring, protecting and nourishing what sustains and reveres life.