Conservative MP Michelle Rempel Garner: 

A duty to reject conspiracy theories about white replacement

Special to National Post - 

While campaigning in the greater Toronto area in the lead up to the 2015 election, I knocked on a door and an older white woman opened. After my opening spiel, she looked for confirmation, “so you’re with the Tories?”

Mourners gather two days after a shooting in Buffalo, New York, U.S. May 16, 2022. Picture taken May 16, 2022. REUTERS/Jeffrey T. Barnes N

After I answered in the affirmative, she let me have it. “Harper let so many brown people in around here that none of you deserve to win. You’ve replaced us with them. Canada is ruined.”

That was not the first or the last time I have had to counter that particular racist diatribe. It is a core tenet of so-called “great replacement theory”; an anti-Semitic white-nationalist conspiracy theory involving a supposed plot to replace white people with non-whites.

The narrative it usually follows is that the immigration policy of western countries is designed to replace whites, or to “out breed them,” in order to prevent whites from getting jobs, dominating culture, or electing a “pro-white” government. It is racism built on longstanding colonial and white nationalist dogma that never truly has been erased, even after decades spent building pluralistic policy

And this dangerous sentiment is mainstreamed.

Having proliferated in online forums, a poll released this month by the Associated Press-NORC Centre for Public Affairs Research showed that 32 per cent of Americans believe that “a group of people is trying to replace native-born Americans with immigrants for electoral gains.” Nearly one in three respondents also agreed that, “an increase in immigration is leading to native-born Americans losing economic, political and cultural influence.”

Those numbers have significance for politicians. In the wake of white replacement rhetoric being found in what appears to be the manifesto of the suspected perpetrator of Saturday’s Buffalo murders — of which a majority of the victims were black — on Monday, prominent Republican Elise Stefanik leaned into replacement theory. Instead of being introspective about the actual reasons why new immigrants may not want vote for her party, she instead pointed to the replacement theory and wrote, “Democrats desperately want wide open border and mass amnesty for illegals allowing them to vote.”

It is pure ignorance to believe that white replacement dogma doesn’t exist in Canada.

In a wink to this sentiment, some right leaning political candidates in recent years, both at the federal and provincial levels, have promised to “lower immigration levels” without explaining what benefit this would bring to Canada.

Long before the blockade in Ottawa happened, organizer Pat King, who rose to mainstream prominence during the occupation, posted a video stating that, “And that’s what the goal is, is to depopulate the Anglo-Saxon race because they are the ones with the strongest bloodlines … It’s a depopulation of race, okay, that’s what they want to do.”

And white replacement dogma has fuelled murder in Canada, having been cited as motivation for acts of terrorism that slaughtered people at a Quebec City mosque and mowed down a Muslim family in London, Ontario.

There is no justification for this murderous garbage. The assumption that white Canadians are more hard done by than immigrants is rooted in the racist notion that the right to basic dignities and equality of opportunity is predicated on someone’s skin colour as opposed to shared humanity, not fact.

The proof of this is a lived reality for many racialized Canadians. During the pandemic, new Canadians were significantly more likely to be affected by pandemic related job losses than Canadian-born workers. The first year of the pandemic also saw police reported hate crimes in Canada increase by an alarming 37 per cent. New immigrants are far more likely to work in low-income jobs than Canadian born-workers. Non-white Canadians are still far more likely to experience discrimination, hate crimes, and have less representation at the senior levels of power than whites. A significant portion of Canada’s agricultural labour is provided by non-Canadians who are afforded precious few opportunities to permanently reside in our country.

Beyond the fear, murder and destructive power white replacement dogma brings to Canada’s pluralism, it also cripples action from occurring on issues that need to be addressed. How can we truly address inequality if we believe some are more worthy of equality than others? How can we address First Nations and Indigenous reconciliation if there are those who still hold fast to white entitlement beliefs? How can we address the lack of focus on integration supports that belies most of Canada’s current immigration policy? How can women become more equal if the act of childbearing is reduced a notion of “breeding” solely to maintain the numbers one racial group or another?

With Canadian politics becoming more divisive and polarized every day, this dogma can’t be ignored. It must be vehemently, and proactively, denounced and stopped. This is particularly true for leaders in right leaning political movements where this sentiment may be more pervasive, and the temptation to mainstream it for political gain is greater. Promoting it or being silent when it occurs in the ranks amounts to the same thing.

The freedom of our nation exists only as long as we are willing to fight for the dignity and rights of every human, no matter what, skin colour be damned.

Michelle Rempel Garner is the Member of Parliament for Calgary Nose Hill and the co-chair of Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown’s campaign to lead the Conservative Party of Canada.

(PROGRESSIVE) CONSERVATIVE MP

WHO SUPPORTS WICCA

Michelle Rempel-Garner Gives Witchy Halloween Tribute To Women In House

Ahead of a rare Halloween full moon, she told all the witches out there to “keep rockin’ it.”

By Mel Woods
Oct. 30, 2020,

Must be the season of the witch on Parliament Hill.

At the very least, it is for Calgary Nosehill MP Michelle Rempel Garner.

The Tory health critic marked Halloween weekend Friday with a tribute to the witches of the past and the present.

“Throughout the course of history, women have been burned at the stake and tortured for being witches,” Rempel Garner said. “In reality they were herbalists, midwives or just too independent for the patriarchy’s liking.”

According to the rules of the House of Commons, MPs may take one minute to give a statement on whatever they want. Rempel Garner used the time to make a seasonally appropriate and expansive statement on women and Halloween.

She also specifically shouted out independent MP Jody Wilson-Raybould, who was booted from the Liberal caucus in 2019 after speaking out during the SNC-Lavalin affair.

“Today we might not literally burn women at the stake, but we still don’t believe them when they’re abused, we still punish them when they speak truth to power,” Rempel Garner said.


The speech was timed not only with Halloween, but Samhain, a traditional festival marking the end of the harvest and beginning of the dark winter. It’s traditionally observed starting on Halloween night and rolling into Nov. 1. The festival is marked annually by neo-pagans and wiccans as a religious holiday.

This weekend will be extra special, as it’s the first full moon visible across North America on Halloween in 76 years. It’s also a rare Halloween “Blue Moon,” meaning the second full moon of the month. October is the only month with a Blue Moon in 2020, according to NASA.

Conservative Party investigating racist email sent to Brown campaign

Richard Raycraft - 

The Conservative Party of Canada says it's investigating a complaint from the Patrick Brown campaign about a racist email which expressed support for Adolf Hitler and Nazism.


© Darren Calabrese/The Canadian Press

Workers prepare the room before the opening of the Conservative Party's national convention in Halifax on Thursday, August 23, 2018. The party is investigating a racist email sent to leadership candidate Patrick Brown's campaign.

Conservative MP Michelle Rempel Garner, co-chair of Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown's campaign for the Conservative leadership, posted the text of the email Wednesday on her Twitter account.

In it, the sender expresses support for Hitler and Nazism and makes hateful and racist remarks about a number of ethnic groups. The sender goes on to say they support Pierre Poilievre, a Conservative MP who is one of Brown's rivals in the Conservative leadership campaign.

Rempel Garner said the message was sent to the Brown campaign after the campaign sent en email denouncing the "white replacement" conspiracy theory, which has been a source of tension in the leadership race since a shooter killed 10 Black people in Buffalo, N.Y. last weekend.

She added the Brown campaign had confirmed the message came from an active Conservative Party member.

"The campaign has forwarded this email to the party's Executive Director and have asked that this membership be revoked. We expect all campaigns will support this call," Rempel Garner said in a follow-up tweet.

"No person who holds these vile beliefs should have a home in the Conservative Party of Canada."

In a tweet, the Conservative Party said it will investigate the complaint under the party's Membership Revocation Bylaw.

"The Conservative Party of Canada condemns racism in all its forms. We take any and all allegations of racism seriously," the party said in a tweet.

In a statement sent to CBC News, Poilievre denounced racism.

"I reject all racism. If you are a racist, I don't want your vote. Anyone promoting racism has no place in our party and should lose their membership," he said.
Brown campaign email attacks Poilievre

The email and investigation follow a campaign email the Brown team sent out earlier Wednesday which implied that Poilievre was trying to appeal to racists.

The email says a supporter of Poilievre said Brown's strategy in the race is to "replace the CPC membership with ethnic and religious minorities," but the email does not name the alleged Poilievre supporter or go into further detail.

"If that kind of alarming language about "replacing" people sounds familiar to you, it may be because it closely resembles the racist rants of Pat King, one of the organizers of the illegal blockades that took place across our country a few months back," Brown says in the email.

Brown has attacked Poilievre over his vocal support for the protest convoy.

The email mentions comments King made in a video about a conspiracy to "depopulate" the "Anglo-Saxon race."

Earlier this week, in an interview with psychologist and author Jordan Peterson, Poilievre said in response to a question about his political appeal that he speaks in "clear, plain language that makes sense to people" and uses "simple, Anglo-Saxon words" that don't obscure what he's trying to say.

Brown said in the email that while he doesn't believe Poilievre is racist, he draws a link between King's beliefs and Poilievre's words.

"Before I make my next point, let me just say there are things being said about Pierre Poilievre online that simply aren't true. For one, I do not believe Pierre Poilievre holds racist views," Brown says in the email.

"But when Pierre Poilievre says things like, 'I'm a believer in using simple, Anglo-Saxon words,' who does he think he's appealing to? Who is he trying to bring into the Conservative Party?"

Brown ends the email by denouncing the white replacement conspiracy theory, saying he'll never allow it "to flourish in the Conservative Party."

Poilievre and Brown have traded barbs throughout the campaign. Poilievre's gone after Brown over passages in his book that are critical of social conservatives and has accused him more than once of making misleading statements

ABOLISH THE MONARCHY

AFN national chief calls for Queen to apologize for past wrongs

John Paul Tasker - 

The national chief of the Assembly of First Nations said late Wednesday the Queen must apologize for the Crown's "ongoing failure to fulfil its treaty agreements" with Indigenous peoples, and suggested there should be some "restitution" for harms perpetrated by the Canadian government in her name.

RoseAnne Archibald met with Prince Charles today at a reception in Rideau Hall following his tour of Ottawa with his wife, Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall.

Archibald told reporters she brought up the subject of an apology with Charles.

"I did it respectfully and I told him this wasn't a political request. I told him it would be something that would help people heal," Archibald said.

"I let him know that this would be a healing path forward for us — to receive an apology. He did talk about the failures. I found him to be very empathetic."

Archibald said the Queen needs to apologize for both the government's conduct and that of the Anglican Church of Canada, which ran some of the residential schools that forcibly took First Nations children in the 19th and 20th centuries. The church itself already apologized in 1993. It also paid significant damages to survivors.

The Queen is the titular head — officially the "supreme governor" — of the Church of England, which is a member of the worldwide Anglican Communion. She does not hold any official position with the Anglican Church in Canada.

Archibald said the Queen must "apologize to survivors and intergenerational trauma survivors" in her capacity as "the leader of the Anglican faith for the role the church played in institutions of assimilation and genocide in Canada."

It is not clear if the Queen herself can actually apologize for Canadian abuses. It would be unusual for the Queen to issue that sort of statement. The Governor General, as the sovereign's representative in Canada, usually takes the lead on all royal matters.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper apologized for residential school abuses in 2008 and initiated the compensation program that paid out more than $3.2 billion to survivors.

WHY HE IS NO LONGER AFN CHIEF 

Also on hand at the reception was Perry Bellegarde, the former AFN chief. Bellegarde told CBC News an apology from the Queen should not be a top priority.

He said Indigenous activists should instead focus their energies on lobbying the government to tackle social issues like inadequate housing, ending boil-water advisories and the overrepresentation of Indigenous peoples in prisons and foster care.

"That would be more of a benefit," Bellegarde said. "Let's direct our energies towards that. That's what I'd focus on — putting pressure on nation states to deal with these issues."

In her address to the assembled dignitaries, Governor General Mary Simon said he was happy Charles and Camilla were headed to the Northwest Territories tomorrow so that they can "continue to engage with Indigenous leaders, elders and community leaders."

"Their stories are an integral part of our journey of reconciliation," Simon told the royal couple.

Letters reveal what energy companies told RCMP before Wet’suwet’en raid

LONG READ

In late April, RCMP officers walked into the Gidimt’en Camp near the confluence of Ts’elkay Kwe (Lamprey Creek) and Wedzin Kwa (Morice River). Their visits on unceded Wet’suwet’en territory in northwest B.C. had been a daily occurrence, with members of the RCMP’s Community-Industry Response Group showing up at all hours, including in the middle of the night according to locals.

Sleydo’ Molly Wickham drummed and sang while approaching the police, her young daughter at her heels, according to videos shared to social media. The officers retreated to their vehicles outside the camp, where Coastal GasLink private security maintains an around-the-clock presence.

The RCMP told The Narwhal the purpose of these visits is related to a February incident, during which unidentified individuals chased off Coastal GasLink security workers and vandalized equipment.

“After the violent confrontation against employees of Coastal GasLink on the Marten Forest Service Road on Feb. 17, the RCMP has been concerned for the safety of those in the area and has increased our presence patrolling around the industry camps and other camps along the route, and interacting with people in the area,” Madonna Saunderson, with the RCMP’s media relations team, wrote in an emailed statement.

Wickham is a wing chief in Cas Yikh House of the Gidimt’en Clan and spokesperson for the Gidimt’en checkpoint, which monitors activity on clan territory. She lives on the territory with her family, and on April 22 when she drove home down a dirt and gravel forest service road she said she was followed by RCMP. The next day, she said officers returned to her house and issued her four tickets, including one for having illegible licence plates. Her plates, she explained, were covered in mud from her regular use of the backroads.

While some elected chiefs and councils and Wet’suwet’en members support the Coastal GasLink project, Wickham, other land defenders and their allies say the escalating police activity is a sign of how a private corporation has been able to get RCMP officers to handle its own security needs. Internal correspondence and emails obtained by The Narwhal also show how pipeline company TC Energy provided instructions to the RCMP that made their way to the force’s headquarters in Ottawa.

“It indicates the relationship between the RCMP — C-IRG specifically — and TC Energy, Coastal GasLink employees,” Wickham told The Narwhal in an interview. “On multiple occasions, I have witnessed the RCMP on the ground take direction from Coastal GasLink workers. Their relationship is so close and intertwined that it’s hard to distinguish roles.”

When asked about that relationship, RCMP denied it gives preference to industry.

“The RCMP, including Chief Superintendent Brewer, meet with all stakeholders as and when necessary,” the police force’s media relations team wrote in an email to The Narwhal. “These stakeholders include elected chiefs and council, hereditary leaders, industry stakeholders and all levels of government. No one stakeholder is given preference. Meetings may occur in person, or over the phone or virtually based on availability.”

When asked about the traffic tickets, the RCMP referred The Narwhal to a website that lists traffic violations. But the alleged offences were not immediately posted.

On April 29, 2022, the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination issued Canada a reprimand for escalating the use of “force, surveillance and criminalization of land defenders.” This is the third time the committee has sent a letter calling out Canada for its complicity in supporting industrial development despite the pleas of First Nations directly impacted by that activity. The committee noted that “numerous Secwepemc and Wet’suwet’en peaceful land defenders have been victims of violent evictions and arbitrary detentions by the RCMP, the [Community-Industry Response Group] and private security personnel” since it flagged its concerns in late 2020.

At a press conference on May 11, 2022, Dinï ze’ (Hereditary Chief) Woos, whose house territory sits at the centre of where RCMP has been patrolling, didn’t mince words when discussing the United Nations rebuke.

“The government of Canada, right now as it stands, is at its highest in hypocrisy,” he said. “They do this and do that for the international stage and yet behind closed doors, in their own backyard, so to speak — our backyard — they continue to push us around, to be ignorant toward our culture. It’s horrendous.”

The international spotlight has led to support from a cadre of concerned celebrities. Actor and activist Mark Ruffalo is leading a charge of prominent Hollywood figures calling on Royal Bank of Canada and its subsidiaries to divest from fossil fuel projects, including the Coastal GasLink pipeline.

Ruffalo and Wickham collaborated on a piece recently published in Rolling Stone that was widely shared on social media platforms and Ruffalo’s tweets about the situation regularly receive thousands of shares. Critics of the celebrity support have called out Ruffalo and others for speaking about an issue they don’t fully understand. For Ruffalo, it’s about human rights.

“What’s happening is very disturbing. We are witnessing the occupation of a people,” he wrote in an email to The Narwhal. “This is a form of psychological terror and warfare. The RCMP in conjunction with the political machine of British Columbia, Coastal GasLink pipeline and Royal Bank of Canada are criminalizing and occupying the lives of this sovereign First Nation.”

“If this was, let’s say, the community in North Vancouver, we would be seeing a very different tactic,” he added. “The only reason this is happening and is allowed to happen is because these people are First Nations people and North America has become inured to these racist policies.”

RCMP maintain that entering the camps is within its jurisdiction.

“These officers are patrolling on public lands to ensure that no one is setting up structures or to impede access through these public lands,” Saunderson wrote. “This is not private property, officers do not enter into structures or tents during the course of these patrols. This is exercising common law authorities to enter public land.”

But in some cases, RCMP action appears to coincide with lobbying by private industry stakeholders such as TC Energy, which is building the pipeline, and LNG Canada, which needs the pipeline built to ensure that a new fossil fuel export facility in Kitimat is profitable.

The multibillion dollar Coastal GasLink project has been mired in delays with both companies locked in a dispute over who will pay for significant cost overruns.

Both companies sent separate letters to senior RCMP officials in early November, according to private correspondence obtained by The Narwhal through freedom of information legislation.

TC Energy’s Kent Wilfur, a vice president of Coastal GasLink, wrote to RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki and RCMP Chief Superintendent John Brewer on Nov. 2. Brewer is the gold commander of a special RCMP unit that was created in 2017, the Community-Industry Response Group, to support resource companies.

In the letter, Wilfur said the police force was “not enforcing the injunction” and stated that lack of action is “contrary to upholding the rule of law.”

The injunction he referred to was issued by B.C. Supreme Court Justice Marguerite Church in December, 2019, which replaced a temporary injunction first issued in late 2018. It prohibits anyone blocking or impeding work on the 670-kilometre pipeline, which would connect fracked gas sources in northeast B.C. to the LNG Canada liquefaction and export facility currently under construction on the northwest coast.

Wilfur singled out Wickham in his letter, noting that she “has been arrested in the past for breaching the injunction as a result of the unlawful activities.”

“As was first communicated to you on September 25, 2021, Ms. Wickham and a number of other blockaders, including several who are known to the RCMP, occupied the Marten Forest Service Road (Marten FSR) and the Morice River Crossing drill site located where the Marten FSR intersects the [pipeline] right of way.”

Wilfur went on to note that the injunction order “contains enforcement provisions compelling the RCMP to enforce the injunction.”

While it is true the injunction order explicitly includes enforcement provisions, it also notes police “retain discretion as to timing and manner of enforcement.” It specifically advises discretion around “timing and manner of arrest and removal of any person pursuant to this order.”

Wilfur concluded: “We are left with very little recourse but to make an application to the court to have direction provided to the RCMP to enforce, so that we may resume work on this critical aspect to our project.”

“The courts can’t instruct police to enforce,” Jeffrey Monaghan, associate professor at Carleton’s Institute for Criminology and Criminal Justice, told The Narwhal in an interview. “The company just has no clue what they’re talking about.”

Yet Brewer flagged the company’s intent to have the court intervene in an email to Assistant Commissioner Eric Stubbs and Deputy Commissioner Dwayne McDonald in an email he sent on Nov. 3.

“Police do not have to enforce these injunctions — they have discretion to be able to enforce injunctions, they don’t have to do it,” Monaghan emphasized. “The police are choosing to enforce these injunctions. They go all in, SWAT team, Oka-style. Police are making those decisions and those decisions are very closely aligned with the interests of the companies.”

The letter from TC Energy stressed its position that its work is “lawful and permitted” and the actions of opponents to the project were preventing its “critical” work on micro-tunneling under the river.

LNG Canada’s former chief executive officer, Peter Zebedee also urged RCMP officials to enforce the injunction in his own letter, sent on Nov. 10, 2021.

Zebedee noted the export facility would be a “major driver of positive social and economic benefits” and delays to the pipeline would have a “knock-on impact to the start-up and operations of the LNG Canada project.”

“LNG Canada has signed agreements with five First Nations in the vicinity of the LNG Canada project, and [Coastal GasLink] has obtained agreements with the 20 First Nations along the pipeline route,” as spokesperson for the company told The Narwhal in an emailed statement, noting the project has awarded $3.7 billion in contracts as of February, 2022. Of that amount, $2.9 billion was awarded to First Nations-owned businesses and local businesses.

“LNG Canada respects the rights of individuals to peacefully express their points-of-view, as long as their activities do not jeopardize people’s safety and are within the law,” the spokesperson wrote. “We also respect the rights of the 20 First Nations along the pipeline right-of-way, their councils and their nations who have put in considerable effort and due diligence to come to a decision to support LNG development in B.C. and have signed project and benefits agreements with [Coastal GasLink].”

Wickham said she’s not surprised Coastal GasLink is singling her out. She told The Narwhal the company’s lawyers have referred to her as the “protest leader,” which she said “speaks to their inability to comprehend the ways that we make decisions and the way that we do our work as Wet’suwet’en houses and clans.”

“They’re lacking the understanding that this is about Wet’suwet’en sovereignty and title and not just about one individual.”

She explained that she is a spokesperson for the checkpoint and does not speak on behalf of the nation or clan.

“I think it was very clear during the arrests and raids that they were targeting me because they arrested my husband and called him Cody ‘Wickham’ — when that’s not his name. They knew exactly who he was. They illegally arrested him and put him in jail for four days.”

Wickham’s husband, Cody Merriman, was arrested on the afternoon of Nov. 19. At the time of arrest, he was standing at a junction between the Morice River road and another forest service road that leads to his home.

TC Energy did not answer questions about why they decided to note the presence of Wickham in communications to the RCMP, noting “there are a number of matters before the courts and an active criminal investigation underway.”

“At Coastal GasLink, nothing matters more than the safety of our people and the public, including those who oppose this project. We will never compromise on safety,” the company wrote in a statement emailed to The Narwhal.

“Coastal GasLink had serious concerns about escalating protester actions in 2021 threatening our workers and our work in contravention of a court order. These actions included blockades, acts of vandalism, threats of violence to people and property, which ultimately led to a number of individuals being arrested.”

TC Energy also stressed that its work is “lawful, authorized, fully permitted, and has received unprecedented support from all 20 elected Indigenous communities along our project corridor,” adding that it recently signed equity option agreements with 16 of those elected First Nations.

But Wickham suggested it was misguided for the company to target her in its communications with police.

“In 2020, there was huge resistance to the project and I was nowhere to be found behind the blockades. I was eight months pregnant.”

She added that it’s obvious that the RCMP is giving the pipeline company preferential treatment.

“The other day, as an example of this collusion, the Forsythe security was instructing the RCMP officer how to get to my home,” she said at the press conference. “They have regular meetings right outside of Gidimt’en checkpoint, where they’re sharing information with one another.”

Forsythe is a private security force that works with fossil fuel companies, led by a former RCMP officer, Warren Forsythe. It is unclear whether there are multiple security companies working for Coastal GasLink and who is on site at any given time. It is also unclear what information the company is gathering, what it does with that information and how much is shared with RCMP or what the RCMP shares with private security personnel.

Shiri Pasternak, co-founder of the Yellowhead Institute, a First Nations-led research organization, and an assistant professor in criminology at Toronto Metropolitan University (formerly Ryerson University), described the connections between police, government and industry as “an astonishing kind of corruption and malfeasance by the B.C. government.”

“There is a quixotic love triangle between [Coastal GasLink], RCMP and the B.C. provincial government,” she told The Narwhal in an email.

“There’s so much mystery to unpack about the authorization of the pipeline and the way that they’ve been positioning the Hereditary Chiefs as having no authority. That’s totally contradicting B.C.’s negotiations over land claims with the Hereditary Chiefs for a period of decades.”

The November raids garnered international attention, in part because along with dozens of land defenders the RCMP also arrested and incarcerated photojournalist Amber Bracken and documentary filmmaker Michael Toledano.

For Pasternak, that attention is simply a by-product of the real issue at play.

“The political risk for Indigenous people of exercising their inherent rights on their own lands is the reason why journalists are being arrested,” she explained. “It’s the collateral damage of the denial of Indigenous Rights.”

Ruffalo agreed.

“What used to be done outside the eyes of the good, decent and caring people of Canada is now happening under the cool light of a video camera with the press in attendance,” he said.

“But the world is watching and history will see this no differently than Wounded Knee or the boarding schools of oppression and despair. It’s all part and parcel of the same mentality and it is time for it to end and for mankind to move away from this savage brutality and inequality.”

Both Bracken and Toledano approached the media spotlight with the same focus, always driving interviews back to the reason why they were there in the first place: to document Indigenous land defenders as they stood up for their rights in the face of government-sanctioned industrial development and police intervention.

Charges against Bracken and Toledano were dropped in December but 27 land defenders and community members — including Wickham and Merriman — still face charges of civil contempt. In a brief hearing on April 13, Coastal GasLink lawyers petitioned the courts to have Crown lawyers intervene and escalate the charges to criminal contempt. On June 1, the B.C. Prosecution Service will decide whether it is in the public interest to step in and pursue criminal litigation.

“Every time that I’ve been arrested, every time that I’ve seen guns and canine units coming at us, we’re standing in our strength and our power under Wet’suwet’en law,” Wickham said. “And that is what we will continue to do.”

“This is our livelihoods that we’re talking about. This is the livelihoods of everybody downstream. This is the livelihoods of so many Indigenous and non-Indigenous people. We, under our law, are required to protect that by any means necessary.”

— With files from Mike De Souza

Matt Simmons, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Narwhal

Hydro-Québec’s plans to power New York City reignites historic concerns

Despite Hydro-Québec’s history of environmental devastation and exploitation of Indigenous communities, the crown utility is promoting its growing collaboration with First Nations to promote expansion into markets in the United States.

Hydro-Québec received final approval April 14 to supply about 20% of New York City’s annual electricity needs via the Champlain Hudson Power Express (CHPE) transmission line that would travel 545 km underground from Quebec to the borough of Queens. The Quebec portion of the CHPE will be jointly owned by the Mohawk Council of Kahnawake, securing the community economic benefits for 40 years.

“The Champlain Hudson Power Express is a game changer,” Mohawk Council Grand Chief Kahsennenhawe Sky-Deer stated in a press release. “We are ensuring Indigenous people have a seat at the table as business partners and have a voice in the overall economy moving forward.”

With the city under pressure to reduce its reliance on fossil fuels, which have provided nearly 90% of its power since a nearby nuclear plant was closed last year, New York is touting hydropower as a clean energy alternative. With permits in place and the support of city and state leaders, the $4 billion CHPE project is seen as the most readily available solution.

However, the project faces stiff resistance from environmental groups and Canadian Indigenous leaders. Organizations like Sierra Club and Riverkeeper argue the CHPE will squeeze out more energy-efficient local options, dredge up pollutants in the Hudson River and further damage Indigenous communities.

A coalition of five First Nations – Lac Simon, Kitcisakik and Abitiwinni (Anishnabeg Nation), Wemotaci (Atikamekw Nation) and Pessamit (Innu Nation) – that opposed similar export schemes to Maine and Massachusetts, wrote to New York deputy mayor Dean Fuleihan last May denouncing the project.

“There is a direct relation between the increased demand for electricity and their impact on our traditional activities and rights,” read their letter. “Not a single impact assessment has been carried out for the construction of 33 power stations in our traditional territories, which generate 36% of Hydro-Québec’s total capacity.”

Activists accuse the power giant of “greenwashing” its environmental impact. Decaying vegetation from dammed rivers causes methane, disrupting the natural carbon cycle, and the harmful neurotoxin methylmercury, which builds up in fish and other wildlife, disproportionately affecting Indigenous people up the food chain.

“In our eyes, it’s not all that clean,” said one of the coalition’s signatories, Lucien Wabanonik of Lac Simon. “It has major impacts on climate change that they don’t say when they speak to people in the States. We’ve been struggling for some time to at least have some agreements or compensation to help our people live on the land.”

Decades ago, the former Anishnabeg Grand Chief witnessed Lac Simon and other First Nations lands exploited by the corporation without consent or compensation, depriving members of their territory and way of life. While his community continues to rely on diesel generators, the nearby hydro reservoir that flooded their land sends power to consumers in southern Quebec and the United States.

“They never consulted us first, we were never compensated and don’t have any agreement yet to find solutions,” Wabanonik told the Nation. “There are a lot of things we need to talk about if they want to have an agreement with us. We’re open to real, long-term solutions because at this time we have nothing.”

While the Lac Simon community hasn’t benefited from hydro expansion, the coalition’s “Hydro-Québec Clash” website has stopped being updated because Wemotaci is currently in negotiations with the company. There’s also been less criticism from the Innu Nation since the 200 MW “Apuiat” wind-farm joint project was announced on their territory last year.

Although recently wind projects are presented as win-win for the planet and Indigenous communities, they represent a relatively small proportion of the power necessary to appease the Northeast’s growing energy demands.

Champlain Hudson’s opponents in New York worry that Hydro-Québec’s contract doesn’t commit it to delivering power during winter months, when electricity is most needed for Canadian consumers. This past winter, the company asked people to voluntarily use less electricity during the coldest days when demand was highest.

With Quebec’s hydro demand expected to grow by 20 TWh by 2029 and 100 TWh by 2050 – half of today’s output – the province isn’t likely to be able to meet peak demand by 2027. Hydro-Québec CEO Sophie Brochu recently admitted that the company hasn’t ruled out building new dams and is already evaluating potential sites.

“They’ll probably have to make dams or increase capacity of old dams,” speculated Wabanonik. “They asked people to diminish their hydro consumption this winter and now they say they have capacity to sell to the States. Hydro-Québec says two things at the same time – which one is reality?”

Although the New York City contract stipulates that electricity can’t come from new dams and includes provisions requiring consultations with Indigenous communities for construction of new transmission lines or refurbishments that might cause environmental impacts, questions remain about how Hydro-Québec can meet demand without increasing capacity.

Similar concerns contributed to Maine rejecting its transmission-line project in a referendum last November despite a publicity campaign reported to cost $20 million. If Hydro-Québec loses its case in the state’s Supreme Court, it could add more than a half-billion dollars to its existing nearly $50 billion debt.

A previous Hydro-Québec attempt to sell electricity to New York state was thwarted in the 1990s when a Cree Odeyak was paddled to the Big Apple to oppose the proposed damming of the Great Whale River. In 2019, New York officials toured and consulted with Indigenous communities to avoid repeating history.

Now, environmental activists in New York say there is still time to organize resistance before the Canada Energy Regulator approves the project.

“Hydro-Québec needs to understand the impact of its structures and that things need to change in many ways,” Wabanonik asserted. “Unity and collaboration among neighbouring First Nations is something that has worked well in the past.”

Patrick Quinn, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Nation

DIS-UNITED CONSERVATIVE PARTY

Alberta Premier Jason Kenney intends to step down as UCP leader

globalnewsdigital - 


© THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh

Alberta Premier Jason Kenney provides details on sustainable helicopter air ambulance funding in Calgary, Alta., Friday, March 25, 2022.

Premier Jason Kenney announced his intention to step down as leader of the United Conservative Party on Wednesday night.

He announced the move even though his leadership still maintains approval from just over half of the members of his party, the UCP announced in a livestream Wednesday night.

READ MORE: Kenney dismisses need for big number in UCP leadership review

When asked if they approve of Kenney as leader, 51.4 per cent said yes while 48.6 per cent said no.

In all, 34,298 votes were passed.

Kenney said that while the results would not automatically trigger a leadership election, they were not what he hoped for nor expected.

"It is clearly not adequate support to continue on as leader," he said.

READ MORE: Kenney seriously considered leaving his post before deciding to fight for his job: audio recording

Kenney said the vote shows he doesn't have enough support as leader. He said he will push for a leadership vote to be held in a timely fashion.

"It's clear that the past two years were deeply divisive for our province, our party and our caucus."

More to come...

Video: Why all Albertans should be paying attention to the UCP leadership review

Jason Kenney stepping down as leader of UCP after narrowly surviving leadership review

Ashley Joannou , Lisa Johnson -

© Provided by Edmonton JournalJason Kenney meets supporters after speaking at Spruce Meadows in Calgary on Wednesday, May 18, 2022.

Jason Kenney is stepping down as leader of the United Conservative Party and will serve as premier of Alberta until a new leader is sworn in.

Only 51.4 per cent of the more than 34,000 mail-in ballots cast in the leadership review voted to keep Kenney in charge of the UCP he helped form, party president Cynthia Moore and chief returning officer Rick Orman announced via livestream Wednesday.

Kenney said even though that meets the party’s threshold of a majority, it’s “clearly” not enough support for him to continue as leader.

“The result is not what I hoped for, or frankly expected,” Kenney told supporters at a gathering in Calgary after the results were announced. With just over a year before the next election, he said he has asked party executives to schedule a leadership contest as early as possible.

“I’m sorry, but friends, I truly believe that we need to move forward united, we need to put the past behind us, and our members — a large number of our members — have asked for an opportunity to clear the air through a leadership election,” he said.

“It’s clear that the past two years were deeply divisive for our province, our party and our caucus, but it is my fervent hope that in the months to come we all move on past the division of COVID,” Kenney said.

Kenney’s ousting comes after more than a year of infighting including very open and public dissent from party members and his own caucus as the government managed a global pandemic coupled with a period of plummeting oil prices.

Party rules say the UCP caucus is required to name an interim leader “at the earliest possible opportunity.” The next caucus meeting is scheduled for Thursday in Calgary.

The party will then form a formal leadership election committee to set out the rules for finding a new leader. The interim leader cannot run for leader in that election.

Fort McMurray-Lac La Biche MLA and former Wildrose leader Brian Jean, who campaigned in a byelection on a platform to get Kenney out of office, has expressed interest in the premier’s job, as has another former Wildrose leader, Danielle Smith.


© Provided by Edmonton JournalJason Kenney speaks at an event at Spruce Meadows in Calgary on Wednesday, May 18, 2022.

In a statement Wednesday, Jean thanked Kenney for his service and confirmed he will run for leader. He said his campaign “will demonstrate how we can do things differently, together, to recapture the enthusiastic support of the over one million Albertans who elected us in 2019.”

In a statement of her own, Smith also thanked Kenney.

“The result we have witnessed today is a truly grassroots resolution. The membership of the United Conservative Party is hungry for a leader that will be responsive and fight for the interests of Alberta,” she said.

It’s believed that there are others who will throw their hats into the ring given the opportunity.

NDP Opposition Leader Rachel Notley thanked Kenney for his service to the province.

“There are obviously many things about which we don’t agree, but that doesn’t negate the time and sacrifice that goes into taking on the role of premier,” Notley said on Twitter. “The work is never easy. The days are long and often difficult, as I’m sure today is. I wish Jason the best.”

Lori Williams, political scientist at Mount Royal University, said she was surprised by the announcement, and did not expect Kenney to voluntarily resign with more than 50 per cent of the vote.

“He looked like he was going to tenaciously cling to this, no matter what, into the next election because he seemed convinced he was the only person who could lead the party to victory. He saw it as his party,” said Williams.

“Jason Kenney managed something remarkable in persuading (the PC’s and the Wildrose) to come together, but he made a lot of promises that he couldn’t keep,” said Williams, referring to opposition from party members who valued grassroots democracy.

“I think his political career is at an end,” said Williams.

Kenney arrived on the Alberta political scene in 2016, already well known as a former federal cabinet minister under prime minister Stephen Harper.

Kenney’s political legacy in the province was cemented when he helped orchestrate the merger of the Progressive Conservative and Wildrose parties, effectively uniting the right in Alberta.

He campaigned for and won the leadership of the PC party in 2017 on the platform to merge with the then-opposition Wildrose.

Kenney argued that multiple right-leaning parties were to blame for splitting the vote and giving Notley’s NDP a majority in 2015 after decades of conservative governments.

Kenney would go on to beat Jean and current Jobs, Economy and Innovation Minister Doug Schweitzer to become leader of the newly-formed United Conservative Party that would win a sizeable majority in the 2019 provincial election on a promise of “jobs, the economy and pipelines.”

By early 2020 Alberta was dealing with the global COVID-19 pandemic at the same time as oil prices turned negative. Kenney has faced criticism from both those who believe he did not do enough to slow the spread of COVID-19 and those who believed the restrictions went too far.

In early 2021, 16 UCP MLAs, representing mostly rural ridings, signed a public letter arguing that closing dine-in service in restaurants and lowering capacity for retail stores and gyms is the “wrong decision,” even as COVID-19 variant cases surged in Alberta.

Months later a now-former vice president of the party would call for Kenney’s resignation claiming that he had become a threat to the party after losing the public’s trust during the pandemic.

The infighting was enough to push Kenney to promise an early leadership review but when more than 15,000 people registered to vote at the in-person event scheduled for April in Red Deer, the party changed that to a mail-in ballot system.

That led to accusations of the rules being torqued in Kenney’s favour and suggestions it opened the door to cheating.

Correspondence obtained by The Canadian Press indicates Elections Alberta is investigating allegations of possible illegal bulk buying of party memberships.

As Alberta’s economy began to recover and oil prices climbed high enough to help the province project a balanced budget this year, Kenney pushed back against his critics, framing himself as an experienced leader who knows how to win elections.

He unapologetically called some of his opponents “lunatics” and warned that without him the United Conservative Party risks becoming home for those with extreme and intolerant views.

Alberta’s MLAs are currently on a constituency break and will not return to sit in the legislature until May 24.

Carson Jerema: Jason Kenney quits as Alberta's conservative movement eats itself

Alberta’s governing United Conservative Party has eaten itself.


Alberta Premier Jason Kenney responds to the results of the United Conservative Party leadership review in Calgary on May 18, 2022.

The dismal 51.4 per cent approval rating that led Premier Jason Kenney to step down Wednesday night is a victory for a long-percolating revolt, mostly coming from the party’s right wing. But this is no win for conservative politics in Alberta and could signal the movement’s shift further away from where voters are comfortable.

Kenney’s handling of the COVID pandemic irritated the more conservative elements of his caucus, who had been publicly criticizing him and calling for his resignation for months. While some of the dissent came from corners that thought Kenney wasn’t doing enough to quell the spread of COVID-19, it was driven chiefly by those who thought he was doing too much.

This is a faction that demands nothing less than ideological purity, with any deviation dismissed as unforgivable, even traitorous, socialism.

Despite the malcontents, Kenney ran among the most consistently conservative governments in Canada in years. Whereas Ontario’s Doug Ford has been accused of governing from the centre even though he campaigned on the right, Kenney has more or less stuck to his principles.

This has included cutting corporate taxes by a third, taking a machete to red tape, reforming union rules so members have to opt in to contribute dues to political campaigning, expanding charter schools and a planned return to a flat tax. His government flattened spending and brought in Alberta’s first balanced budget in 14 years. Many of these policies have been controversial, no more so than the government’s overhaul of the school curriculum to place a heavy emphasis on facts and memorization. But the controversy was often confined to the left, to the Opposition NDP and its supporters.

By any measure, Kenney was a stridently conservative premier. As former Harper advisor Sean Speer argued in the Post recently, “the Kenney government has effectively turned Alberta into Canada’s conservative policy laboratory and in so doing is expanding the country’s other centre-right governments’ sense of what is possible.”

Alberta Premier Jason Kenney resigns as UCP leader after getting 51.4% support in leadership review

Carson Jerema: Alberta travel controversy makes Jason Kenney even more vulnerable on the right

Even under COVID, Kenney attempted, often clumsily, to follow his libertarian instincts and lean first on guidance and encouraging personal responsibility, before bringing in restrictions. This led to multiple embarrassing comedowns, most prominently when the complete lifting of restrictions last summer led directly into some of the harshest pandemic rules the province had seen.

For the most part, however, Alberta used a light touch to control the spread of the virus. Those whose main complaint was that Kenney wasn’t pure enough may soon regret forcing him out of the premier’s office.

All last year, Kenney tolerated open dissent from critics, waiting weeks, or months, before turfing the most vocal of them from caucus. Those close to Kenney told me at the time that he was following his genuine belief that caucus should be free to speak. He hoped by offering an outlet for dissent, it would serve as a pressure valve.

Instead of endearing his critics to him, this approach to caucus management only emboldened them. In the fall, a group of angry MLAs were expected to bring a vote of non-confidence, but they lost their nerve when it was clear they didn’t have the votes. But after a group of riding associations requested it, a planned fall leadership review was moved to the spring.

Somewhat controversially, the party executive altered the rules to make it a mail in ballot, which prompted howls the change was made for Kenney’s benefit. Whether that was true or not, it clearly didn’t matter. The unhappiness the party membership had with the premier was evident.

With Kenney gone, there is no guarantee a more idealogical conservative leader will take over. A more moderate leader could force a split, while someone too far to the right may be unappealing to the average voter.

If it was a good night for anyone, it was Opposition Leader Rachel Notley.

Braid: After epic political success, Kenney is defeated by his own party

Don Braid, Calgary Herald -

© Provided by Calgary Herald

Jason Kenney speaks at an event at Spruce Meadows in Calgary on Wednesday, May 18, 2022.

There was only one way to upstage the hockey Battle of Alberta. Premier Jason Kenney found it, to his sorrow, by saying he will step off the stage entirely.

Despite predictions of a solid victory, only 51.4 per cent of more than 34,000 UCP members who voted in the leadership review said they approved of him.

Kenney had previously said that “50 per cent plus one” is the majority in a democracy, implying that was enough for him to continue.

To many observers it seemed he was quitting cold. But late Wednesday, it was confirmed that he intends to stay on as party leader until the next leader is chosen.

It’s even possible that he could run for the job again. That possibility did not get a denial from his staff Wednesday night.

In 2006, Ralph Klein stayed on for months after scoring 55 per cent approval. But those were different times. Despite problems with the party, Klein remained popular with the public.

Kenney’s effort to stay on will draw bitter opposition from his opponents in caucus and beyond. It will likely start Thursday, when many of them are expecting to vote on a caretaker leaders and premier.

Technically, Kenney has a case for staying on the job. He wasn’t actually defeated. He can argue that his resignation as party leader is voluntary and, like Klein, he gets to time it.

Kenney asnnopunced his intention to resign in a dramatic way , first saying he had his majority but suddenly adding: “It is clearly not adequate support to carry on as leader . . . I truly believe we need to move forward together, we need to put the past behind us.”

The small gathering of his strongest loyalists, an invited group that didn’t include many UCP ministers and MLAs, was shocked both by the result and the resignation.

Kenney asked the UCP board to set a date for a new leadership election.

On Thursday at least some UCP MLAs were expecting to carry out will carry out one of the most serious functions a government caucus ever exercises, choosing a new leader and premier.

That’s what happened in 2014 when Premier Alison Redford quit immediately as both leader and premier. Vetern Minister Dave Hancock became the caretaker premier.

On Tuesday I named several UCP members whose names were already being mentioned for the caretaker role.

They include Nate Glubish (Service Alberta); Demetrios Nicolaides (Advanced Education), Rajan Sawhney (Transportation); Ric McIver (Municipal Affairs); Nathan Neudorf (UCP caucus chair); and Sonya Savage (Energy).

The person who gets the caretaker job will have the critical task of running the party and government while restoring an image of sensible competence and unity.

But now, it appears that Kenney prevent that from happening, or try to. There will be furious backlash from MLA who think he needs to leave immediately for the good of the party.

Clearly, there will be a leadership election. Kenney said it’s necessary. What he did not say is whether or not he’ll be a candidate. Nothing in the UCP rules would prevent him from resigning, and then running.

There will be a struggle over whether the UCP edges more to the centre, or veers sharply to the right. Many of the MLAs who opposed Kenney prefer the latter.

New MLA Brian Jean will run. Danielle Smith will likely join in, too. They’re well-known voices from the party’s past, but many members will want to move beyond the old merger struggles.


© Provided by Calgary Herald

Brian Jean and Jason Kenney shake hands after Kenney’s leadership victory on Oct. 28, 2017.

Jobs Minister Doug Schweitzer’s name often comes up. So does Finance Minister Travis Toews. Other campaigns will take shape very quickly.

Whoever wins, this remains a dangerous moment for the UCP.

The Progressive Conservatives never regained winning form after Premier Alison Redford quit in 2014. Dave Hancock became the caretaker and Jim Prentice the premier. But the NDP won the 2015 election, partly because of the long years of PC division.

Kenney’s biggest mistake, I think, was to preach party unity even as he attacked people on the fringe as lunatics and radicals.

He wasn’t talking about moderate UCP members who might disagree with him, but a lot of those people thought he was. That might have been the difference between 51.4 per cent and a survivable number.

Kenney’s political accomplishments have been remarkable. With ex-prime minister Stephen Harper’s backing, he launched a drive to unify the PCs and Wildrose, which led him to first win the PC leadership.

That was an awkward fit — Kenney owed far more to Social Credit than the PCs — but it led him directly to the negotiated union with Wildrose.

Then came the UCP leadership, followed by the 2019 election and premier’s office. Nobody had ever done anything like it in Alberta politics.

On Wednesday, Kenney suffered a setback he considered serious enough to leave the party leadership, eventually.

But that does not mean he’s done with governing for many more months, and even trying a comeback.

Don Braid’s column appears regularly in the Herald.
Twitter: @DonBraid

CANADA

Parliament creates day to remember Tamil genocide in Sri Lanka

OTTAWA — Canada's Parliament has created a day to recognize the genocide of Tamil people in Sri Lanka.

Parliament unanimously adopted the motion to make May 18 of each year Tamil Genocide Remembrance Day.

Liberal MP Gary Anandasangaree put forward the motion on Wednesday.

Anandasangaree, the MP for Scarborough-Rouge Park, says in a statement that Canada became the first national Parliament in the world to create such a day.

He says the passed motion is the result of years of work by the Tamil community, survivors and their loved ones.

Anandasangaree says he knows much work lies ahead to make sure those responsible for the "atrocities" are held to account.

He says, "I hope this will give some solace to those who are impacted and traumatized by the genocide."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 18, 2022.

This story was produced with the financial assistance of the Meta and Canadian Press News Fellowship.

The Canadian Press

Sri Lanka honours Tamil war-dead after 13 years


Anti-government demonstrators gather in remembrance of the thousands of minority Tamil civilians killed in the decades-long separatist war

 (AFP/ISHARA S. KODIKARA)

Amal JAYASINGHE
Wed, May 18, 2022, 

Thousands of Tamils killed in Sri Lanka's decades-long separatist war were commemorated on Wednesday for the first time outside the minority's heartland in the north and east of the country.

Clergy from Buddhist, Hindu and Christian communities offered prayers in Colombo and lit a clay lamp for those who perished between 1972 and May 2009 when the fighting ended.

The ceremony coincided with the 13th anniversary of the ending of hostilities.

"This is highly symbolic and very important for Tamils," legislator Dharmalingam Sithadthan, an MP from the northern Tamil heartland of Jaffna, told AFP.

"In previous years, there were private memorials held in secret, but this public event is highly welcome."

Any remembrance of Tamil war victims had been banned under Sri Lanka's powerful Rajapaksa family which is currently under siege over the country's dire economic crisis.

The head of the separatist Tamil Tiger movement, Velupillai Prabhakaran, was shot dead by security forces on May 18, 2009, bringing a formal end to the bloody ethnic war.

Current President Gotabaya Rajapaksa led the government's military campaign against the Tigers as the head of the defence ministry under his president brother Mahinda.

Mahinda stepped down as prime minister last week after weeks of protests over severe shortages of food, fuel and medicines.

The government defaulted on its $51 billion foreign debt last month as it ran out of dollars to finance even the most essential imports.

The country's main Tamil party, the Tamil National Alliance, said the commemoration showed that the country's majority Sinhalese were willing to support reconciliation after decades of ethnic war.

"This gives us a lot of hope and I hope that Tamil people will also reciprocate," TNA spokesman M. A. Sumanthiran told AFP. "There may be pitfalls along the way, but this is a very good start."

- Porridge feast -

On Wednesday, volunteers offered porridge to passers-by as a symbol of the humble food that tens of thousands of Tamils were left with during the final stages of the war.

"The kanji (porridge) was the life-saving food for Tamil people in the last stages of the war," a Hindu priest said at the ceremony. "They struggled in the midst of shelling and bombing and underwent untold suffering."

Government forces imposed an economic embargo, ordered civilians into what they called "no-fire zones" and allegedly bombarded them killing an estimated 40,000 Tamils.

Successive Sri Lankan governments have denied allegations that troops committed war crimes but have refused to allow any independent investigation.

Rights activist Mari de Silva said she hoped Wednesday's commemoration would lead to ethnic reconciliation in the Sinhalese-majority nation.

"I sincerely hope this is also a first step towards real reconciliation in Lanka and that we can join the call for justice and accountability," she said on Twitter.

The UN Human Rights Council last year set up a mechanism to preserve evidence of war crimes in Sri Lanka so that prosecutions could take place in the future.

aj/ssy

One of last Rwanda genocide fugitives 'died in 2002'


'Slaughter: Skulls and personal items of victims at the Kigali Genocide Memorial in Rwanda (AFP/Ludovic MARIN)

Jan HENNOP
Wed, May 18, 2022, 

One of the last five fugitives wanted for his role in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, Pheneas Munyarugarama, died in Democratic Republic of Congo in 2002, UN prosecutors said Wednesday.

Munyarugarama, a local army commander, "died of natural causes" and was buried in Kankwala, in the eastern DRC, the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals (MICT) announced in The Hague.

The news comes less than a week after the tribunal announced the death of Protais Mpiranya, the top remaining wanted suspect over the deaths of some 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus in a 100-day slaughter.

"For the victims and survivors of Munyarugarama's crimes in the Bugesera region, we hope this result brings some closure," the tribunal's chief prosecutor Serge Brammertz said in a statement.

A former lieutenant-colonel in the Rwandan Armed Forces (FAR), Munyarugarama, who was born in 1948, was charged by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda with eight counts including genocide and crimes gainst humanity.

"Munyarugarama was alleged to be responsible for mass killings, attacks, and sexual violence against Tutsi civilians at various locations in the Bugesera region, including the attacks on Tutsi refugees at the Ntarama and Nyamata Catholic Churches," the MICT said.

The tribunal said that after a "comprehensive and challenging investigation", prosecutors established that Munyarugarama "died from natural causes on or about 28 February 2002 in Kankwala... where he was also buried."

The tribunal said only four fugitives now remained on its books: Fulgence Kayishema, Charles Sikubwabo, Charles Ryandikayo and Aloys Ndimbati.

Top fugitive and alleged genocide financier Felicien Kabuga was arrested near Paris in 2020.

- 'Unmarked grave' -

The Libya and Belgian-trained Munyarugarama fled to the former Zaire shortly after the 1994 genocide where he joined remnants of the Rwandan armed forces, according to a summary of his movements, made by the tribunal's prosecutors.

In 1998, he helped recruit ex-Rwandan soldiers for the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) rebel group, largely basing himself in the DRC's eastern Kivu provinces as a senior FDLR leader.

In late 2001, the Hutu-supremacist movement was to gather in Kinshasa for talks on how to integrate itself into one structure, prosecutors said.

Munyarugarama, escorted by two relatives and FDLR escorts, "made a lengthy journey on foot... heading for Kinshasa", prosecutors said.

"The journey lasted several months and involved crossing arduous terrain including jungle, swamps and several difficult river crossings."

Munyarugarama "had difficulty with the river crossings... and nearly drowned, and afterwards started reporting feeling unwell to his travelling companions," prosecutors said.

Several days after reaching the small village of Kankwala in North Katanga along the way, "Munyarugarama fell ill" and died in 2002.

"Although the exact cause of death is unknown, due to a lack of trained medical staff and facilities, it was from natural causes," prosecutors said, adding he was buried there the next day "in a coffin in an unmarked grave".

Prosecutors last week too announced the death from tuberculosis of leading fugitive Mpiranya in Zimbabwe in 2006.

Mpiranya was allegedly among those who ordered the murder of then prime minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana, 10 Belgian soldiers protecting her, and several other leading politicians and their families on April 7, 1994, in the early hours of the genocide.

jhe/dk/ah

Canada’s Billion Dollar P3 Boondoggle

'A nightmare:' UCP government urges Ottawa to halt Wednesday's enactment of gun control bill

UCP AND THE CONS ARE FRONTS FOR THE (TINY) CANADIAN GUN LOBBY  

Ottawa should delay or fully disarm “a long gun registry” set to take effect Wednesday, says the Alberta government. 

BLAH BLAH BLAH

Bill Kaufmann - 
Calgary Herald

© Provided by Calgary HeraldA rack of

And a Calgary gun store owner said he’s been selling far more firearms than than normal this week to customers who want to avoid the stricter rules before they’re reality.

Bill C-71 which includes additional verification for acquisition and possession licenses for non-restricted firearms and additional book keeping for businesses will be ineffective in keeping guns out of criminal hands and doesn’t give those affected by it enough time to prepare, said Alberta Chief Firearms Officer Teri Bryant.

“Despite the federal government claiming Bill C-71 is important to our public safety, distressingly little has been done to prepare individuals, businesses or my staff,” Bryant said in a press release.

“Our office has been inundated with calls since news of the deadline emerged because Alberta firearms owners do not understand the changes and are concerned about the potential for a new backdoor long gun registry.”

Ottawa should either delay implementing the legislation for a year or scrap it altogether, she said.

In a letter to federal Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino, Bryant said there are additional fears that under Bill C-71, firearms described by Ottawa as assault weapons purchased legally prior to to the legislation could be confiscated.

“This concern has been heightened by your government’s plans under the May 2020 order-in-council to use the existing registry of restricted firearms to confiscate the property of owners who acquired firearms in full conformity with the law at the time of acquisition,” Bryant stated.

The bill was passed in June 2019 but Bryant said those licensing provisions were only announced May 11, giving those affected little time to either adopt or understand them.

Canadian gun control groups contend the legislation is needed to enhance public safety by keeping better track of gun licenses and sales and banning what they call “military assault weapons.”

The Coalition for Gun Control argues the federal government isn’t doing enough to clamp down on firearms amid a rise in shootings in recent years and is calling for a national ban on handguns with limited exceptions.

“Canada is one of only a few nations in the world to have moved backwards with gun control reform,” states the group’s website.

“Few Canadians know that the AR-15, a military weapon used in many mass shootings, is sold to civilians in Canada. Many Canadians think handguns are virtually banned — there are now almost 1 million legally-owned handguns in Canada.”

Acccording to RCMP which oversees the verification system, individuals and businesses need to obtain a reference number from the Registrar of Firearms confirming the validity of the buyer’s firearms licence before transferring a non-restricted firearm.

Businesses will also be required to retain sales and inventory records related to non-restricted firearms for a minimum of 20 years.

“This is not the return of the Long Gun Registry. The records created by businesses will be held by businesses — not government — and the police will require judicial authorization to access them,” states the RCMP’s website.

One Calgary gun store owner said the new legislation is burdensome, ineffective and a threat to privacy.

But James Cox said he’s seen a huge bump in sales in the past week as customers try to beat the clock before Bill C-71 takes effect.

“I’m going to send (Prime Minister) Justin Trudeau thanks for all the extra business,” said Cox of the Shooting Edge, 510 77 Ave. S.E.

“People want to get the semi-autos before the registry kicks in.”

But Cox said his gratitude towards the Liberal government ends there, adding responsibility for additional verification is being downloaded on businesses.

And he said the demand for more personal information from firearms purchasers will put their privacy at risk, for no good reason.

“It’s just Liberal talking points that it’s going to get weapons off the street, but how is that?” said Cox.

“These guys are out of control … it’s going to be a nightmare.”

A number of Alberta gun shops, he said, are shutting down to better prepare for the legislation’s implementation.

The use of firearms like the AR-15, he said, is already highly-restricted and that particular rifle has never been used in crimes in Canada.   BULLSHIT  

SEE BELOW

“This isn’t the U.S. – the reason we have fewer firearms deaths in Canada is because of (mandatory) training,” said Cox.  GUN CONTROL BY ANY OTHER NAME

In 2020, there were 19,350 gun-related homicides in the U.S. – 70 times the 277 recorded that year in Canada.

The U.S. population is about 10 times larger than Canada’s.

Public Safety Canada didn’t comment on the Alberta government’s request to halt the legislation’s implementation.

BKaufmann@postmedia.com
Twitter: @BillKaufmannjrn

 

A short history of the AR-15 in Canada

THE CONVERSATION
Published: September 22, 2019

Canada’s governing Liberals have proposed a set of new gun control measures that would ban military-style assault rifles, including the AR-15. They contend these weapons “are specifically designed to inflict mass human casualties and have no place in Canadian society.”

The response from gun groups has been vitriolic. The National Firearms Association, for example, says that the Liberals’ gun proposals are an “attack on the rights, freedoms and property of Canadians.”

The decision to highlight the AR-15 in the proposal is unsurprising. The gun has been controversial since its introduction into the Canadian marketplace.

The AR-15 is the civilian version of the standard military weapon, the Colt M-16, used during much of the Vietnam War by the United States. After Colt’s patent for the AR-15 expired, other gun-makers began selling generic models. Colt recently announced it will stop producing the AR-15 for the civilian market, though other manufacturers will continue to make versions of the weapon available to the general public.

The AR-15 appeared in the Canadian market by the mid to late 1970s. Some Canadians immediately began to express concern about the gun. The Windsor Star, for instance, wrote in 1975 that criminals “might very well show some interest in the high-powered AR-15.”

Read more: Calls for stronger handgun laws in Canada have deep roots

The Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police also raised concerns about such firearms, and in 1977 the federal government declared the AR-15 a restricted weapon, meaning that a potential purchaser had to pass a higher threshold to acquire the gun.

This move angered some gun groups, who charged that the classification decision was based on the gun’s appearance rather than its capability. An advocate for firearm owners, Michael Martinoff, responded by declaring before a parliamentary committee that he would refuse to register his AR-15.

The complaints of the gun community led the government of former prime minister Joe Clark to reclassify the AR-15 as a non-restricted firearm. The Liberals under Jean Chrétien again made the AR-15 a restricted weapon.
Favourite weapon of mass shooters

In the United States, the AR-15 has been employed by shooters in some of the country’s most infamous mass murders.

Some gun advocates claim the gun has never been used in Canadian criminal activity. That’s inaccurate.

In 1982, Saskatoon police shot 18-year-old hostage-taker Richard Landrie after a lengthy standoff. Landrie was dressed in battle fatigues and armed with an AR-15. He fired 50 rounds during the standoff, shooting off one of his hostage’s fingers.

Media reports also indicate that AR-15s have been seized in several drug raids, taken from alleged bank robbers in British Columbia, involved in a 2009 murder and employed in the 2004 drive-by shooting of Louise Russo in suburban Toronto as she waited in line to buy a sandwich for her daughter.

Other shooters have used similar semi-automatic guns to kill multiple victims.

Most notoriously, the Montreal massacre shooter used a semi-automatic Ruger Mini-14 when he murdered 14 women in 1989.

Jean-Francois Larivee, husband of Maryse Laganière, who was shot and killed by Marc Lépine in the Montreal massacre in 1989, attends a news conference in Montreal in 2011 to push for gun control. 

THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graham Hughes

That heinous crime led to calls to ban military-style semi-automatic rifles. A student-led petition garnered more than 500,000 signatures demanding the ban.

Demanded action

Many newspapers and MPs also demanded action. Jean-Pierre Blackburn, a Progressive Conservative Québec MP, asked:

“Why are weapons of this kind allowed in Canada? Why do we let people own such dangerous and destructive weapons? That doesn’t make sense. Protecting the public and public safety should be our prime concern.”

The federal government eventually moved a number of semi-automatic firearms to the lists of restricted and prohibited weapons, but many other such guns remain in the non-restricted category.

Manufacturers and retailers have aggressively marketed these “black guns” or “modern sporting rifles” in Canada and the United States. The popularity of such weapons has contributed to a substantial increase in the number of restricted firearms owned by Canadians in recent years.

Semi-automatic military-style rifles have become an important symbol for critics of the Canadian gun control regime.

The National Firearms Association has employed an image consisting of a silhouetted maple leaf incorporating such a gun. A rival group, the Canadian Coalition for Firearm Rights, has used a similar logo.

Conservatives friendly to gun groups

The Conservative Party of Canada has been especially cozy with gun groups in recent years and opposes the proposal to ban assault-style firearms, including the AR-15. In fact, Conservative MP Bob Zimmer tabled a petition in 2016 calling for the AR-15 to be reclassified as a non-restricted firearm.

The future availability of the AR-15 and similar guns in Canada therefore appears to rest on the results of the upcoming federal election.

Canadians must decide if such guns should remain on the market or whether Canada will take a course similar to the United Kingdom, Australia and, most recently, New Zealand, and limit the availability of such firearms.

Author

R. Blake Brown
Professor, Saint Mary’s University
Disclosure statement
R. Blake Brown receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

SEE 

Canada’s Billion Dollar P3 Boondoggle

What the Liberals and Conservatives Don’t Want You To Know

The real story behind the cost overruns at the Canadian Firearms Centre

"Just read your piece on the firearms P3 – quite a revelation. I am amazed we have never heard this before – congratulations for bringing it to light." Murray Dobbin, author of Paul Martin Canada's CEO

ABOLISH THE MONARCHY!

Indigenous Canadians make a painful plea on eve of British royal visit

IF THE POPE CAN APOLOGIZE SO CAN QEII


Mon, May 16, 2022

(Reuters) - As Britain's Prince Charles and his wife Camilla prepare to visit Canada this week, some members of the indigenous community are calling on the British royal family to formally acknowledge the harm colonization did to First Nations people.

The royal couple will arrive in St. Johns, Newfoundland on Tuesday on a three-day trip that will include stops in Ottawa and the Northwest Territories and focus on the issues of reconciliation with indigenous peoples and climate change.

The impact of colonization, the residential school system and the loss of lands is what the crown represents, Mary Teegee, the executive director of child and family services at Carrier Sekani Family Services in the province of British Columbia, told Reuters.

"They also have to understand that they are not the leaders in our nation," Teegee said, adding that recognition of the harms of colonization are needed rather than just a "trite" apology.

Although Canada ceased being a colony of Britain in 1867, it remained a member of the British Empire, with a British-appointed governor-general acting on behalf of the monarch.

And it was under the guise of the crown and Canada's federal government that some 150,000 indigenous children were forcibly removed from their families and enrolled in a Christian-run network of residential schools between 1831 and 1996.

That policy, described by some as a form of cultural genocide, and survivors' accounts of harsh, paramilitary-like conditions have been under the microscope since the discovery in 2021 of the remains of more than 200 children buried in unmarked areas on the grounds of one such school in B.C.

CBC News on Monday quoted Cassidy Caron, the president of the Métis National Council, an indigenous group, as saying Queen Elizabeth should apologize to the residential school survivors.

Caron said she plans to deliver that message when she meets Charles, the heir to the British throne, and Camilla during their visit, which is part of the Platinum Jubilee celebrations marking the queen's seven decades on the throne.

'DISTANT ALIEN THING'

Jess Housty, a community organizer for the Heiltsuk Nation in B.C., said that while she doesn't care about the visit, it's hard to ignore the colonial past and the "bad relations that have happened for centuries."

The monarchy is "this distant alien thing that feels really irrelevant in my life and work," Housty said.

An opinion poll https://angusreid.org/canada-constitutional-monarchy-queen-elizabeth released by the Angus Reid research group in April shows support among Canadians to abolish the country's constitutional monarchy rising, with about 51% saying it should disappear in coming generations, up from 45% in January 2020.

While acknowledging there were a lot of people in her community who didn't actively support the monarchy, Housty conceded that many had been excited when Britain's Prince William and his wife Kate visited her area in 2016.

That excitement is on display once again this week, said St. John's Mayor Danny Breen, who told Reuters that the province of Newfoundland and Labrador is looking forward to the arrival of Charles and Camilla.

"People have respect for the queen and have respect for the family," Breen said.

(Reporting by Jenna Zucker; Editing by Denny Thomas and Paul Simao)