CLEAN, GREEN, GLOW IN THE DARK

Indigenous youth and women offered a free nuclear industry training program

BRUCE COUNTY – The Province of Ontario announced $500,000 in funding on June 11 to help offer a free program to Indigenous youth and women to be trained in skilled trades careers in the province’s clean nuclear energy sector.

This one-year program, led by the Organization of Canadian Nuclear Industries and the First Nations Power Authority, will focus on opening doors for underrepresented groups to enter in-demand careers in skilled trades such as boilermaker, carpenter, electrician, and welder, a media release from the Ontario government said.

“We know that women and Indigenous communities have been especially hard hit by job losses during this pandemic,” said Monte McNaughton, minister of energy, northern development and mines.

“This great project gives participants the skills they need for good jobs in the clean nuclear energy sector as more tradesmen and women retire. Their success will have a positive impact on the local economy, and provide meaningful jobs that support them and their families.”

Participants will train in Bruce County, Grey County, and Durham Region, with a virtual training option. Childcare support, travel, and accommodation subsidies of up to $3,000 will be available during the training period.

Job placements will then be in Bruce, Grey, and Huron counties.

“As Ontario continues to recover from the challenges caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, ensuring economic well-being for First Nations, Métis and Inuit peoples is an ongoing priority,” said Greg Rickford, minister of Indigenous affairs.

“This investment in training for Indigenous youth and women aligns with our government’s efforts to partner with Indigenous leaders and communities to break down socio-economic barriers and advance long-term prosperity for Indigenous people.”

The project, part of Ontario’s Skills Development Fund, is designed to help grow the number of skilled workers required to extend the operating lives of 10 nuclear generating units at the Bruce and Darlington power plants, and support smaller employers who supply nuclear equipment and tools to those sites.

At the end of the training, participants may be hired for jobs in the industry.

“Demand is high for talented tradespeople to train and work in Huron and Bruce counties and our thriving clean nuclear energy sector,” said Huron-Bruce MPP Lisa Thompson.

“I’m really looking forward to welcoming trainees from across the province to the riding and to the positive impacts this program will generate for them, their families, and Ontario’s economy. This valuable program will prove that good quality, high-skilled jobs have a home in small-town Ontario."

Interested candidates can apply for the program by contacting by email at Terrilynn.woods@ocni.ca.

Cory Bilyea, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Wingham Advance Times

This Juneteenth, If We Want Black Liberation, We Need Global Solidarity Now

Cherrell Brown 
REFINERY29


In 1964, after Malcolm X returned from the Palestinian territory of Gaza, he delivered a speech at a rally sponsored by the Organization for African-American Unity in Harlem. “I, for one, would like to impress, especially upon those who call themselves leaders, the importance in realizing the direct connection between the struggle of the Afro-American in this country and the struggle of our people all over the world,” he said. That call for global solidarity between oppressed people is just as important today as it was then—especially as we celebrate Black freedom day, Juneteenth.


I had an opportunity to heed this call to solidarity in 2015. Months after the 2014 Ferguson uprising rocketed anti-Black State violence to headlines across the world, and months after Israel had mounted an aggressive and violent two-month offense in Gaza, a delegation of organizers, artists and academics set out to Palestine to learn about the Israeli occupation and build connections across our struggles. I was a part of the historic delegation coordinated by the Dream Defenders, a Florida youth organization that formed in 2013 in response to the killing of Trayvon Martin. Palestinian activist Ahmad Abuznaid, one of the coordinators of the delegation, said of the trip: “As a Palestinian who has learned a great deal about struggle, movement, militancy and liberation from African Americans in the U.S., I dreamt of the day where I could bring that power back to my people in Palestine. This trip is a part of that process.”

This certainly wasn’t the first time there was a meeting between Black and Palestinian activists or a show of Black-Palestinian solidarity. James Baldwin wrote about the plight of Palestinians in The Nation in 1979. Weeks before Baldwin’s article was published, representatives of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) met with Yasser Arafat in Lebanon during a fact-finding mission to the Middle East, to bring back recommendations and to discuss with then-President Carter the necessity of recognizing the Palestinian Liberation Organization and ending Israel’s use of U.S. weapons. (The delegation also planned to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, but Begin refused to meet with the delegation of Black activists.)

After his trip to Gaza, Malcolm X said, “Did the Zionists have the legal or moral right to invade Arab Palestine, uproot its Arab citizens from their homes and seize all Arab property for themselves just based on the ‘religious’ claim that their forefathers lived there thousands of years ago?” Our delegation intended to build upon that history.

It’s been seven years, but I can still paint the open-air prison from memory: checkpoints in East Jerusalem were constructed to herd Palestinians between work and home, and the constant presence of uniformed Israeli Defense Force (IDF) soldiers carrying automatic assault rifles. My arrival to Tel Aviv started mildly enough. It was a beautiful coastal city that one could quickly tell had a vibrant recreational life. On the hour shuttle ride to Jerusalem, I saw a billboard for GAP and another one boasting Tel Aviv as a vacation destination and haven for same-sex couples. This was the Israel of progress, modernity, diversity, and acceptance. We would later learn that Israel’s heavy promotion of its position as the only state in the Middle East that has legalized same-sex marriage was a veiled attempt at concealing the violence Israel enacts on Palestinians, what activists call “pink-washing.”

Closer to the Israeli settlements near Ramallah, we saw what were once beautiful olive groves, uprooted and destroyed by Israel to make way for new settlements. One Palestinian shared that the act of destroying groves wasn’t just about expanding settlements but killing an integral part of how many families made their livelihood. The olive groves provided a source of income for many Palestinian families and an ancestral inheritance now disrupted by colonial violence. Israeli settlers have uprooted over 800,000 olive trees since 1967. “It is how Israel exerts power over us, by taking our land and destroying our food systems,” one of the guides offered. One group member drew parallels between the barren fields and the theft and intentional sabotage of indigenous food systems in America.

Israel’s military strength was evident to us in Palestine. The IDF littered the landscape at almost every turn. In the streets of Hebron, we were met with soldiers demanding to check everyone’s documents. It was clear that our Palestinian comrades were the targets. We watched as young IDF soldiers, draped in automatic assault rifles, denied our Palestinian friends passage to certain streets. Those of us with American passports were not restricted, but the movement of Palestinians, people indigenous to the land, was heavily policed. Even Ibrahim mosque, an important place of worship for Muslims, was heavily guarded—callously ironic, given the last display of violence at Ibrahimi was in 1994, when Israeli settler Baruch Goldstein opened fire on Palestinian worshippers, killing 29 people.

As we traversed through Palestine and around Israeli settlements, we’d come to more checkpoints that seemed constructed to herd livestock—not people. Each time, our Palestinian comrades were made to walk through and show their documents; an internally colonized people, both terrorized and heavily policed at home. I left Palestine knowing our struggle didn’t just have similarities; they sprung from the same source.

In 2021, the Israeli occupation has been front and center after protests against evictions of Palestinians in the neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah escalated into a full-scale Israeli military offensive, killing at least 248 Palestinian people, including 66 children. The IDF met Palestinian protestors with tear gas and riot gear, echoing what many saw in the U.S. during the 2020 uprisings in the name of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and so many more: a state that intentionally antagonizes grieving people and justifies their violence as a defense against those they’ve harmed.

It’s not a mere coincidence that the violence being enacted on Black and brown communities in America and those in Palestine is linked; it’s by design. One day during a visit to Ramallah, Yasmine*, a Palestinian artist-activist, and I were talking about the tweets that Palestinians sent to Ferguson protestors on how to best deal with the tear gas police were spraying. These days, it’s a favorite story often brought up in conversations of Black-Palestinian solidarity. Yasmine leaned over and gestured towards a few IDF soldiers lined up across the street from us and said, “They teach a lot of this stuff to your police. The tear gas, the flashing sirens—all of it.” According to Amnesty International, law enforcement officials from nearly a dozen American metropolises have traveled to Israel for training from the IDF.

While anti-Black police violence has been an issue well before the exchange program between U.S. police departments and the IDF, we must fully understand the origins of this relationship as well as the dangers of the global effort towards para-militarized police and their shared mission of exploitation of oppressed people, resource extraction, and rebellion repression.

During World War I, Britain gained control of Palestine. Zionist leaders saw an opportunity to petition London to support the creation of a Zionist state, and Britain saw an opportunity to control the Suez Canal in neighboring Egypt. The strategic agreement was called the Balfour Declaration. The U.S. became a nuclear superpower after World War II and its policy of support for the creation of a Jewish state would grow to become Israel’s biggest ally. U.S. powers were both interested in the oil reserves in the region and in stamping out the anti-imperial sentiments sweeping the Arab peninsula. For the U.S., Israel was strategic gold, providing a military outpost to advance American interests in the region. In return, Israel has received billions in U.S. aid, much of which is spent purchasing military equipment from U.S. defense companies. America’s unequivocal support of, and investment in, Israel has paid off tenfold.

The relationship was successful in thwarting Soviet influence over the Arab diaspora in the Middle East during the Cold War. Support for Israel has only become more immovable with each U.S. Presidency. Pro-Israel interest groups donate to political campaigns, with a whopping $30 million given across both parties in 2020 alone. The special U.S.-Israeli relationship has cemented over time through waves of military aid, defense contracts, Pro-Israel lobbyists, police exchange programs, and political campaign contributions, creating a loop between State and private interests. Together the two allies have co-constructed an imperial stronghold, with the IDF serving as another proxy for a U.S. military base, able to quell any uprisings that might threaten white, Western hegemony in the region.

Halfway across the globe, American interests have their hands in another long-standing fight. Last month, in response to protests against oppressive tax reforms and the killing of human rights activists, the Colombian state deployed its military into the predominantly Afro-Colombian community of Cali. The death toll of Afro-Colombian protestors is steadily climbing. We don’t have to walk far back to find the United States’ involvement.

In 2000, President Bill Clinton and Colombian President Andrés Pastrana negotiated a deal for military and financial aid to help combat Colombian drug cartels and left-wing insurgency groups. Though the supposed original intent of the agreement, dubbed ‘Plan Colombia,’ was focused on social programs, a whopping 78% of aid went to the military and police. The shifting focus to the army and the police in this plan was supported by someone who is no stranger to “tough-on-crime” policies. In a speech before Congress, then-Senator Joe Biden stated:
“What did we do? We gave the Colombian National Police aid, $750 million in aid… if I stood on this floor five years ago and said the Colombian police are going to crack the Medellin and Cali Cartel, no one would have said that is possible. No one. Guess what. They cracked the Medellin Cartel. They cracked the Cali Cartel. They put them in jail. They are extraditing the police. Why? Because we trained their police….”

‘Plan Colombia’ was an extension of the so-called ‘War on Drugs’ started by Richard Nixon—at least, that’s how it was sold to the American people. The agreement that bolstered military aid to U.S.-backed Colombia under the premise of drug crackdowns was crafted while Colombia was fighting the left-wing insurgency group Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). FARC was a Marxist rebel group founded in 1964 by the Colombian Communist Party. The U.S. interests in the region date that far back, as both Presidents Truman and Eisenhower moved to secure their geostrategic positions in the region and contain the spread of communism. Like every president, they wanted a pro-American Colombia government to advance American interests in Southern America with U.S. investment in the region’s oil and the Panama canal. FARC disarmed itself in 2017, but the vestiges of their resistance remain today as protestors fight back against military occupation and police presence funded by the U.S.

Since the invention of the War on Drugs, every U.S. President has worked to reaffirm the connection between drug cartels and the need for military aid and intervention in Colombia.

The War on Drugs at home was extended to, or arguably an extension of, the fight for American imperialism abroad. As it’s made enemy combatants of leftist insurgencies overseas, so has it of Black people here at home. Today, nearly 77 percent of people incarcerated in America’s federal prisons for drug offenses are Black and/or Latinx. Colombia remains America’s third-biggest trading partner in Latin America.

Another major movement that rose up in the past year was the #EndSARS protest movement that sparked in Nigeria in October of 2020, nearly 60 years after Nigeria gained independence from Britain. Just as Black protestors in America rose up against our police state, #EndSARS was not only Nigeria’s battle cry to disband the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) police force that terrorized their communities, it was also a cry against neoliberalism and colonization. To understand how, we have to understand Nigeria’s history pre-Independence.

One of Britain’s first acts after establishing the colony was to create a paramilitary police force to protect British occupiers living in certain quarters of the country while also making way for unfettered exploitation of Nigerian resources. Police and military were a central part of funding proposals in the Nigeria Police Act of 1943, and additional state-hired guns proliferated the streets—recruited and trained by the British Empire to crush potential uprisings.

The presence of armed forces continued well after Nigeria’s independence, and in the early 2000s, U.S. AFRICOM was established by the U.S. in partnership with other western powers. Like the America’s partnership with Israel, the pretext of AFRICOM was counterterrorism and protection against domestic threats, but the real aim was and still is, protecting Western investments in Nigeria. AFRICOM now operates in over 50 African countries and continues to provide military weaponry to the powerful and elite who, in exchange, make way for the theft of resources by both state and private interests, including what would become SARS.

So what, then, is our mandate? Solidarity between oppressed peoples across the globe isn’t about a perfect homology. These aren’t just parallels, but imbricating pieces of a global struggle. The Black Panther Party understood this and offered an anti-imperial framework that situated Black people as an internal colony in America, in solidarity with other colonized people worldwide.

Though the Black internationalism tradition has experienced a renaissance, with organizations like the Movement for Black Lives and Black Youth Project 100 embracing Palestinian liberation as a core politic, the demand to “Free Palestine” is not popularized across the Black political spectrum. For those who consider themselves in solidarity with oppressed people around the world, it should be.

Yet Black Evangelicals have a long-standing relationship with Israel and Zionism based on a manipulation of faith texts that suggests that Jewish people must return to Israel in order to trigger the Rapture—wherein Jesus will return to Earth to bring Christians to heaven and everyone else will suffer in hell—a belief that’s been characterized as anti-Semitic. Global powers are brokering international alliances in service of colonization and capitalism; land theft and unmitigated riches, while their people suffer and rage. The oppressors’ playbook has become clear: colonize the land, exploit their resources, call it a fight against communism to save democracy, call it counterterrorism, call it a War on Drugs, call it tough-on-crime—and for Evangelicals, call it religious duty.

Whatever the suggested pretext, however it gets packaged and sold to the American people, it is but a part of a trajectory of neocolonialism, a marriage between capitalism and imperialism, and people across the globe suffer. From Palestine to Cali, to Nigeria and abroad, an insurgency spirit is cropping up alongside the rise of right-wing regimes backed by the U.S. government.

This Juneteenth, it is not enough to invoke the past-work of our elders; solidarity is something each generation of freedom fighters must opt into by deeply studying these histories, popularizing education about struggles beyond our borders, and heeding calls to picket and boycott from our comrades abroad. Black people in America must see their struggle as a part of a broader global decolonial struggle. As Malcolm said: “As long as we think… that we should get Mississippi straightened out before we worry about the Congo, you’ll never get Mississippi straightened out. Not until you start realizing your connection to the Congo.”

* Yasmine’s name has been changed for her protection

ABOLISH PRISONS ! PETER KROPOTKIN

When We Say ‘Abolish,’ We Mean More Than Just Police

Kandist Mallet

REFINERY29


If there’s a word that has signified the culture of resistance over the past year, it would be “abolish.” Despite always being present in U.S. history, especially during slavery, the abolition movement was popularized in 2020 after the uprisings following George Floyd’s murder by a Minneapolis police officer. Acts of abolition—the collective efforts to abolish systems of subjugation—are rooted in both the need to destroy the oppressive structures in this society as well as the need to create alternative ways of living, beyond the extractive, exploitative mode of interaction that dominates our society. Often when we think of abolition, we just think of abolishing the police or the prison system. And while those are definitely components of abolition, they are not all that needs to be abolished.

By looking at the injustices in our world, and how they perpetuate and are perpetuated by anti-Blackness, we can see how this current system of governance doesn’t serve Black people. Black people are continuing to be killed by police, are disproportionately forced into incarceration, and are economically disadvantaged. For the past year, there have been abolitionist efforts through mutual aid support, kicking cops out of schools, migrant defense support, prison uprisings, rent strikes, and people refusing to work low paying jobs. These abolition efforts were ignited by an even more direct act of abolition in the wake of Floyd’s murder: the burning of a Minneapolis police precinct.

To understand where these abolitionist actions are leading the movement, R29Unbothered speaks to five people who are active in abolition efforts about the state of these movements and why we need abolition now.

For years, Chicago has had an active defund movement and Bettina J has spent the past year training people who were activated by last year’s uprisings to implement the DefundCPD (Chicago Police Department) campaign. One of the core demands of the campaign is to cut the Chicago police budget by 75%. “Defunding is the first step to abolition,” Fullamusu Bangura, another Chicago based abolitionist, says. “But we run the risk of replicating the same structures if we just stop there.” Through her work with the social justice-centered education program Chicago Freedom School, Bangura has supported Chicago students in their efforts to remove “school resource officers” and other police-adjacent entities from their schools. Individual school councils across the city began voting out SROs, undermining the citywide campaign efforts. Despite not getting a citywide ban on SROs in schools, Bangura still sees it as a win for the schools that did decide to remove SROs.

New Afrikan Liberation Collective co-founder Shaka Shakur focuses on prison abolition behind the walls of Buckingham Correctional Center in Dillwyn, Virginia. Shakur says that solidarity between those who are imprisoned and those on the outside is central to prison abolition. “This allows us to network across the world and allows us to network within our individual community, with our families and so forth.” Shakur says the last year has given him hope because he “sees the movement growing,” especially in Virginia. Shakur and others have helped form the Virginia Prisoner Abolitionist Collective which engages local communities to better support abolition efforts as well as those who are locally imprisoned.

“We are part and parcel of a unified front within the Prison Lives Matter National Coordinating Committee,” the Twitter bio for the VA Prisoner Abolitionist Collective reads. “We seek to use this network to build a statewide infrastructure and regional organizing committee aimed at establishing inside-out coordination between captives [and] outside.”

Shakur sees Virginia recent ban on the death penalty as a good sign towards the larger prison abolition movement but says the conversation still, “has to be pushed and has to be put in the proper context where it doesn’t just become like trying to reform the system itself and go for a kinder, gentler form of prison.”

In the wake of these national uprisings, another abolitionist tactic people are using to address community needs and solve social problems is mutual aid. Like abolition, mutual aid has become a buzzword, but its practice predates colonialism and capitalism. Throughout the years, Black and non-Black indigenous people have been practicing mutual aid as a way to care and support one another but also to build and maintain a community autonomous from the forces of control that sought their domination.

In Los Angeles, Edxi Betts shares the foundations of mutual aid. “It is foundationally anarchistic, it’s foundationally anti-authoritarian,” Edxi says. “I’ve been taking part in mutual aid for quite a few years in the form of different food programs, rent strikes for housing, and cop watch. There’s quite a long list of things you can do for people and it’s more service based.” Mutual aid can play a crucial role when we discuss abolition and what building a world outside these oppressive structures can look like. “It’s a practice that meets our needs and differs from charity because it isn’t top down,” Edxi says. “That money prolongs the hierarchical power dynamic. It does nothing to flatten it.”

In the United Kingdom, Kwabena Asare has been doing mutual aid work focused on supporting migrants and refugees detained by the UK’s Home Office (similar to the United States’ Department of Homeland Security). “We have had demonstrations at Napier Barracks in Kent, we’ve been able to keep people in touch despite the punitive relocations. Some in the network have gained rescue boats to save lives who may have otherwise drowned in the channel—all this in opposition and despite state resources,” Kwabena says. “In creating networks of support that are independent of the state, we reduce its power and legitimacy over our lives. There is beauty in this collective endeavor.”

The pandemic illustrated in high definition the failures of capitalism, and mutual aid projects have played a crucial role in various abolition movements. Some of these efforts have looked like distributing food, masks and sanitation products to those in the community that have needed it and offering crisis support as an alternative to calling the police. Mutual aid has been and continues to be a key part of taking an active role in creating the world we want to see. Through direct action, mutual aid shows others there’s another way of co-existing.

Though police abolition has gotten some shine over the year, there are other parts of abolition that the movement has neglected. When it comes to the death of trans women, Edxi is pushing for the end of gender policing to be included in larger discussions on abolition. “I wish there was more education around policing, not only towards the policing of Black people’s bodies, but the policing of gender, gender roles and norms. I’ve always tried to bridge that,” Edxi says. “There are certain laws that have criminalized Black people and that same ‘law and order’ has also criminalized and vilified trans people.”

With the popularization of abolition terminology, there’s a fear that abolition efforts can be co-opted. “I definitely see folks trying to co-opt abolition by watering it down to something more palatable for the masses. Abolition is not settling for reform and I think that’s the biggest misconception I’ve seen,” Bangura says. Co-optation has always been a danger for movements once they have gained the interests of the masses. And while “abolish” is being used in other reformist efforts, like the movement to “abolish the filibuster,” it’s important to distinguish that fight from the efforts of those who are working to abolish the whole structural system that the filibuster and senate work within.

Co-optation efforts shouldn’t distract us from the goals at hand. Our need for abolition remains just as necessary now as it was for our enslaved ancestors. Economically, it is vital for Black people to abolish capitalism because of its inherently exploitative nature. Black people are by far the most indebted within the capitalist system through predatory payday loans and student, health care, and credit card debt. Through creating a society that is based on mutual aid, we would have stronger Black communities that aren’t constantly threatened by gentrification and evictions.

While Black capitalism may be touted by the Black wealthy class as a means towards liberation, it is through collectivity that we will be free, not by exploiting each other for individual families’ gain. “We do not need control over these systems,” Bettina J says. “What we need is more people involved and imagining and most importantly building what needs to come next.”

As more people become interested in abolition, it’s key that we understand that part of those efforts must be to abolish our own internalized desire to police and dominate others.

Thinking about what needs to happen next,,Kwabena emphasizes the need for a new kind of international solidarity. Specifically, he says, we must “actively make links beyond and across borders, not limiting ourselves to policing and prisons but abolishing all of the violences of imperial armies and global economic structures which impoverish peoples and impose poverty worldwide.”

Black farmers fight to keep their land, cultivate next generation

John Boyd Jr., a fourth-generation farmer, grew up close to his 1,000-acre farm in southern Virginia where he now grows soybeans, wheat and livestock.

Boyd, of Baskerville, Virginia, is also the founder of the non-profit National Black Farmers Association, which educates and advocates for Black farmers’ civil rights, land retention and access to public and private loans, among other initiatives.

Boyd and his father farmed together for 30 years and his grandparents were sharecroppers after the abolition of slavery in 1865.

“I know there were slaves and sharecroppers that helped build these barns here,” Boyd told ABC News. “You can see the logs were hand-carved by wooden axes. … Just looking at that reminds me of history, where I came from and where we have to go in this country.”

© Bill Clark/Getty Images, FILE Rep. Bobby Scott, left, and John Boyd, Jr., president of the National Black Farmers Association, wait for the news conference to start on Wednesday, March 24, 2010, on the $1.15 billion Black farmers settlement.

As part of his efforts with the NBFA, Boyd has worked to attract more Black people who are interested in farming, as well as to protect their rights and their land, even riding a mule-drawn wagon and driving a tractor to Washington, D.C., to lobby Congress.

© Scott J. Ferrell/Getty Images, FILE Baskerville, Va., farmer John W. Boyd Jr. arrives on Capitol Hill on a borrowed tractor to urge the U.S. Senate and President Obama to pass $1.15 billion in funding for a settlement in a 1997 case against the Agriculture Department.

“The most powerful tool you can possess, only secondary to Jesus Christ, is land ownership,” he said.

To be a farmer in the U.S. is to be part of an aging but crucial industry. Black farmers, especially, have seen their numbers plummet from nearly 1 million at the turn of the 20th century to only about 50,000 today, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. While the reasons are complex, they ultimately come down to economics, migration -- mainly to northern urban areas -- and discrimination and racism, according to the Duke Sanford World Food Policy Center.

© Chris Maddaloni/AP, FILE Baskerville, Va., farmer and National Black Farmers Association president John Boyd leads demonstrators in his carriage to find their Congressional representatives at the Capitol.

Watch “Juneteenth: Together We Triumph — A Soul of a Nation Special Event" on FRIDAY at 9 p.m. ET and next day on Hulu.

In 2017, Black farmers were older than the overall population of U.S. farmers, according to the 2017 agricultural census, which said that their farms were smaller and the value of their agricultural sales were less than 1% of the U.S. total. Due to more complete data collection, the census found that the number of Black producers was 5% higher than in 2012, but the number of Black-operated farms dropped by 3%. In all, 57% of Black-operated farms had sales and government payments of less than $5,000 per year, according to the census, while 7% percent had sales and payments of $50,000 or more when compared with 25% of all farms. © ABC News
A rich history of farming

Black people have a rich history in farming predating slavery. Leah Penniman, co-director of Soul Fire Farm in Petersburg, New York, said that the Mende and Wolof people of West Africa were expert rice farmers kidnapped from their homes and taken to the Carolinas. MORE: Biden signs bill making Juneteenth, marking the end of slavery, a federal holiday

“Our ancestral grandmothers had the courageous audacity to braid seeds into their hair,” Penniman told ABC News, adding that they were transported in slave ships with okra, cowpea, egusi melon, sorghum, millet and eggplant seeds.

© ABC News Leah Penniman, co-director of the Afro-Indigenous community-centered Soul Fire Farm, talks to ABC News about Black people's history and connection to the land.

Hundreds of years later, when enslaved people were given freedom, they were also promised no more than 40 acres of Confederate land along the Atlantic coast, a plan from the federal government that came to be known widely by the phrase “40 acres and a mule.”

The government’s promise was broken soon after President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, when his successor, Andrew Johnson, overturned the order and the land was given back to its original owners.

“If ‘40 acres and a mule’ had been a promise kept, that [land] would be worth almost $7 trillion today,” Penniman said.

ABC News Soul Fire Farm is an Afro-Indigenous-centered community farm committed to uprooting racism and seeding sovereignty in the food system, its website says.

Many of the former slaves became sharecroppers, often renting land from their former owners.

“It didn’t just stop when we were freed,” said Boyd. “Where were we free to go? We didn’t have any money. We didn’t have any resources. So, many Blacks stayed on these farms like my forefathers. … That’s how Blacks got land in the first place.”
'It's about fairness'

Boyd said the challenge for Black farmers has been holding onto the land and believes the federal government has failed to adequately support farmers of color.

“The last plantation,” as he calls the USDA, is “the very agency that’s supposed to be lending me a hand up, [and it is] the very agency putting Black farmers out of business.” ©

 ABC News John Boyd Jr. is the founder of the National Black Farmers Association. He's been fighting for years to protect his land and that of other Black farmers around the country.

Boyd said that even up until the 1980s, he would see the word “negro” on USDA applications and that at his area’s USDA office, the only day they would see Black farmers was on Wednesdays.

“We named it Black Wednesday,” he said.

The USDA said in a statement to ABC News that it did include the word "negro" on the application Boyd referenced until at least 1988 and that it used the terms "Black" or "African American" since then. It also said the "scenario" Boyd recalled with regard to Wednesdays "is a reprehensible one, but we have no information to support the claim."

"It is clear that for much of the history of the USDA, Black, Hispanic, Native American, Asian American and other minority farmers have faced discrimination -- sometimes overt and sometimes through deeply embedded rules and policies -- that have prevented them from achieving as much as their counterparts who do not face these documented acts of discrimination," the USDA said in its statement. "We are committed to building a different USDA, one that is committed to equality and justice, celebrates diversity and is inclusive of all customers." MORE: EXPLAINER: The story of Juneteenth, the new federal holiday

Boyd said that since 1995, “a half-trillion dollars -- with a ‘T’ -- have been paid out to large-scale farmers in this country in the form of just subsidies” by the USDA.

"That doesn’t include farm ownership loans, farm equipment loans, any of those things, and little to none has went to Black farmers," he said. © ABC News People work on the land at Soul Fire Farm in Petersburg, New York.

In 1999, the USDA settled the class action lawsuit Pigford v. Glickman, and eventually paid more than $1 billion to Black farmers, who claimed they were unfairly denied loans and other government assistance.

“It’s about fairness,” Boyd said. “It’s about dignity and respect.”

Signs of turning tide

For Black farmers, the tide is showing signs of turning. In March, President Joe Biden signed the American Rescue Plan Act, a nearly $2 trillion law that directed $5 billion to farmers of color. Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock, a Democrat, co-sponsored the bill, which is meant to provide additional relief to Americans impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The COVID-19 pandemic both illuminated and exacerbated long-standing health disparities and economic disparities,” Warnock told ABC News. © ABC News Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock talks to ABC News about the issues Black farmers face.

Lestor Bonner, a Vietnam War veteran and fifth-generation farm owner, said that in 1893, his great-grandfather bought the farm that he now works on. He said there’s only 136 acres left and that he needs $20,000 to save it from foreclosure. The relief money, he said, could help jumpstart his business after a difficult year living through the COVID-19 pandemic.

Bonner said he thought he would have the money by now “so I could get a crop in the ground this year,” he told ABC News.

ABC News Lestor Bonner, a farmer in Virginia, talks to ABC News about his fight to keep his land.

As part of the American Rescue Plan Act, the USDA had set up a loan forgiveness program that would have helped Bonner pay off his outstanding loans, as well as pay for supplies and equipment to help him continue farming. But this month, a federal judge in Wisconsin ordered the government agency to stop forgiving loans, saying the program unconstitutionally uses race as a factor in determining who is eligible.

© ABC News Lestor Bonner, a farmer in Virginia, talks to ABC News along with John Boyd Jr., the founder of the National Black Farmers Association.

Penniman says her organization’s mission is to help Black farmers hold onto their land, as well as to introduce young Black potential farmers to the occupation (the average age of Black farmers is over 60).

“We have between one and 2,000 folks who come through for these courses every single year at the farm to learn everything from taking care of the soil to planting a seed,” she said. 

© ABC News Leah Penniman is co-director of Soul Fire Farms. She says their mission is to help Black farmers hold onto their land and train a new generation of Black farmers.

Penniman said that many important agricultural techniques, including many of the practices in organic farming, like raised beds, composting and cover-cropping “come out of an Afro-indigenous tradition.”

Boyd, for his part, said he’s “proud and excited to see young people” taking an interest in land ownership and farming.

“There’s a new generation of Black farmers. I love that win,” he said. “So, I welcome them to the fight and welcome them as farmers and stewards of the land and contributors to agriculture and the fruit base in this country. That’s what my fight is all about.”

Preliminary report blames construction errors for deadly Mexico City metro collapse

Sara Puig, Noticias Telemundo and Juliana Jiménez J., Noticias Telemundo 

A structural failure caused by at least six serious construction errors led to the collapse of a Mexico City metro train overpass last month that killed 26 people, according to a

 preliminary accident report the municipal government presented Wednesday.

© Provided by NBC News

The document, which the Norwegian company DNV and international experts prepared at the request of the Mexico City government, found multiple problems with the screws, beams and planks used in the structure.


It further detailed deficiencies in the welding of bolts that were not fused as they should have been to prevent erosion from water and use. It said bolts were missing in the beams that make up the bridge, that different types of concrete were used and that some welds were poorly made or not completed.

Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum said at the news conference that officials will continue to investigate and follow up "not only because of our legal obligation but because of our ethical, human and moral commitment."

The city's public works secretary, Jesús Antonio Esteva Medina, said reviewers visited the accident site to prepare the report, adding that laboratory tests are still needed to determine, for example, whether any incorrect or defective materials were used.

Esteva said they found deformed beams in the section where the metro track was curving and that other beams had slid from their positions.

Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard, who was Mexico City's mayor when the so-called Golden Line was built, defended his management of the project Wednesday and reiterated his willingness to work with the authorities.

"I support the carrying out of the necessary expert and technical investigations to determine the causes of the accident and define the responsibilities that may arise," Ebrard, one of the most important political figures in the national administration, said in a letter posted on Twitter.

Ebrard said decisions about the layout, design, construction and supervision of the metro line were made in consultation through committees and that there is ample documentation.

Wednesday's report found that a different concrete was used where the crucial Nelson bolts were placed — and that the bolts were not spaced equidistantly, "which does not comply with the design," Esteva said. The bolts also were not pushed well into the beams, and fewer bolts were used than required.

"In the area of ​​the fault, the necessary reinforcements in the columns were not observed, and the foundation was shallow" in the columns, Esteva said.

The report said information about repairs carried out after the rail line was built and about the daily maintenance tasks at that section of the subway still need to be analyzed.

DNV maintained that its objective, beyond clarifying the cause of the incident, is to determine whether there are systemic problems to prevent them in other sections of the metro.

An elevated bridge of Line 12 collapsed between the Olivos and Tezonco stations shortly before 10:20 p.m. local time on May 3, causing one of the country's biggest rail-related tragedies.

In addition to the 26 people who died, almost 100 more were injured. The head of the capital's government, Claudia Sheinbaum, promised a thorough investigation.

"Noticias Telemundo Investiga" gained access to a report the city's congress issued in May 2019 to the management of the metro addressing service delays and its administrative and financial status. The document describes the use of defective parts to repair trains and reports that unskilled employees, such as ticket officers, were performing maintenance work.

Mexico City's metro, which transports about 6 million people every working day, is one of the busiest such systems in the world. Several citizen groups have criticized the precariousness of the facilities and a lack of maintenance that causes frequent interruptions in service.

A second phase of the report will be delivered July 14, and Phase 3 will be delivered Aug. 30.

A version of this story was first published on Noticias Telemundo.

Mexico City mayor to construction firms: Pay up for collapsed metro line

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum said on Friday that she would like the firms that built the metro railway that collapsed and killed 26 people last month to help pay for its reconstruction, though she did not specify how much money was at stake.

 

© Reuters/HENRY ROMERO Employees work as part of the investigations at the site where an overpass for a metro partially collapsed with train cars on it, in Mexico City

Preliminary findings of an independent investigation presented on Wednesday showed the collapse of a section of the Metro 12 Line was caused by a structural failure.

The line was built by a consortium of Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim's Grupo Carso, Mexico's ICA, and French trainmaker Alstom SA.

"We want them to participate in the rehabilitation in economic terms. That is part of what we are proposing," Sheinbaum said at a news conference, without giving details of whether the firms would be asked to only rebuild the collapsed section or the whole line.

The Civil Engineering Corps of Mexico said on Thursday that after a physical inspection of the metro line it found evidence of other deficiencies and vulnerabilities that require further analysis.

Sheinbaum said she had spoken by phone this week with representatives of ICA and Grupo Carso and would be talking shortly with Alstom. She plans on meeting with company representatives in person next week.

ICA and Grupo Carso did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

(Reporting by Raul Cortes; Additional reporting by Daina Beth Solomon; Writing by Anthony Esposito; Editing by Leslie Adl

Commons committee calls for reshaping of EI to cover gig workers, self-employed


OTTAWA — A House of Commons committee is recommending a boost to the value and duration of employment insurance benefits, and expanding the system to cover gig workers and the self-employed.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

Its report Thursday also asks whether special benefits, such as maternity and parental leave, should be hived off into their own program, and recommends extending sickness benefits to 50 weeks.

To pay for the moves, the committee says federal officials should look at having the government again help finance EI alongside premiums paid by employees and employers.

The committee says EI no longer reflects the realities of today's labour market, nor is it well positioned to respond to sudden disruptions like the COVID-19 pandemic.

In a dissenting opinion, the Bloc Quebecois underlined the need for reforms, but outlined the party's concern that the opportunity for change would be lost to usual government complacency.

Last year, the government effectively shut down parts of the EI system over concerns that historic job losses at the start of the pandemic would crash the decades-old program, and instead put unemployed Canadians onto emergency pandemic aid.

The situation highlighted issues long known about EI, including how not all workers can qualify for benefits, and more are blocked entirely.

April's federal budget committed $5 million for a two-year review of EI, which the government hopes will allow time to begin badly needed upgrades to the aging computer system that runs the program.

The federal budget also proposed $648 million over seven years to fund a long-term technological upgrade to the EI system, the oldest portions of which rely on programming language from the 1960s.

In the meantime, the government is also planning to extend some pandemic-related measures that the committee believes should become permanent, such as lowering the bar to qualify and eliminating the one-week wait before receiving benefits.

The parliamentary budget officer on Thursday estimated that allowing workers to qualify for benefits after 420 hours of work, rather than 600 or more, will cost federal coffers $574 million this year, and $930 million in the ensuing 12-month period.

A second report estimated that waiving the one-week waiting period for benefits would cost $356 million over two years, just above the $320 million outlined in the budget.

Conservatives on the committee noted ongoing concerns with unemployed new mothers who, after being caught by the social safety net, don't have enough hours to qualify for maternity and parental leave benefits. The party urged the government to quickly close the loophole.

"It is a national shame that these women, despite paying into the EI system for years, are now ineligible for maternity benefits and forced to cut short precious time with their newborns to return to work so they can provide for their growing families," reads the Opposition's dissenting report.

The committee also suggested federal officials look at how to make it easier for new parents on EI-funded leave to work without jeopardizing their federal benefits, known as "working-while-on-claim."

A new study from the Institute for Research on Public Policy finds that EI claimants who worked while on claim were more likely to take up part-time work or to work more hours, which improved their job prospects.

With about half of EI claimants making use of the provisions, the study's authors make a similar recommendation to the committee, but add that the earnings limit rises during economic downturns when part-time jobs tend to be more plentiful and accessible.

Many of the committee's recommendations also match calls from Unifor, the nation's largest private-sector union, including ensuring migrant workers can qualify for benefits and improving retraining options.

"We have no time to waste," said Unifor national president Jerry Dias in a statement accompanying the release of his union's EI recommendations.

"Decades of cuts have left Canada's workers vulnerable to employer exploitation and reliant on a program that leaves far too many out."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 17, 2021.

The Canadian Press

The world’s 50 largest financial institutions increased investments in commodity companies that are linked to deforestation by more than $8 billion, reported Mongabay based on analysis of financial data

by Forests & Finance 

.

© Provided by National Post A member of the Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation (ICMBio) walks next to a tractor used for deforestation at the National Forest Bom Futuro in Rio Pardo, Rondonia State, Brazil, September 13, 2019.

The report compared sustainability commitments of the world’s top 50 financial institutions with investments, lending, and guarantees to more than 200 companies that operate in industries linked to deforestation. These industries include beef and palm oil. Forests & Finance found that the gross value of investments in deforestation-linked commodity companies increased by more than 21 per cent, or $8.1 billion, when compared to the previous year.

“This indicates that the majority of financing to the different commodities driving deforestation (beef, palm oil, pulp and paper, rubber, soy and timber) is not subject to even basic desk-based social, environmental or governance checks, much less actual verification of client standards,” the report said.

The financial data comes from the Forests & Finance database that was made publicly available last year and includes information dating back to 2013. Forests & Finance is a coalition of NGOs that assesses the financials of companies involved in the beef, soy, palm oil, pulp and paper, rubber and timber supply chains.
Half of top businesses lack commitment to prevent supply-chain deforestation - report
From beef to chocolate, illegal deforestation found behind many everyday foods

To compile this report, the group analyzed the financial records of some 200 companies with interests in Southeast Asia, Latin America, West Africa, and Central Africa.

Investment data used in the assessment spanned 2016 to 2020 and included $128 billion in underwriting of commodity projects with ties to deforestation. Also included was $28 billion of investments that were made up to April 2021.

The largest recipient of investment was the South Asian palm oil industry, where five Malaysian companies received one-fifth of all investment in the region. U.S. firms, including BlackRock and Vanguard, were among those with significant investments in the industry.

The report from Forests & Finance also ranked more than 50 financial institutions based on environmental, social and governance policies (ESG), and investments they have with deforestation-linked companies.

Various major banks and investors in the industry received low scores from Forests & Finance. Among them were Bank of America, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street.

Based on the data, the group concluded that ESG policies of the top 50 financial institutions were inadequate. Forests & Finance gave the institutions an average 2.4 of 10 ranking.

“Protecting the world’s tropical forests has quite literally never been more important to all life on Earth,” said Merel van der Mark, a coordinator for Forests & Finance. “And yet, these financial institutions are all but writing a blank check to the companies driving forest destruction and human rights abuses.”

Forests & Finance also highlights how the figures used in this assessment are likely underestimated because of differing disclosure regulations across the regions involved in the report.

The report is paradoxically released at a time of increased global interest in ESG initiatives. Last year ESG fund assets hit a record high of approximately $1.4 trillion USD, reported Bloomberg News , where more than half of all money going into European funds went into sustainable products.

PwC, one of the four major accounting firms, is also taking a leading role in ESG according to Financial Times . The firm announced the launch of “trust leadership institutes” in both the U.S. and Asia, which will train clients in relation to ESG business ethics.

Despite the growth of ESG, deforestation-linked industries are still profitable. The palm oil industry alone quadrupled between 1995 and 2015 and is expected to so again by 2050, according to the Guardian . The continued growth of the palm oil industry could be partially attributed to its vast application, where Palm Oil Investigations said the product is listed as an ingredient in at least 200 common food, home, and personal care products.

One million chickens euthanized during labour dispute at Quebec slaughterhouse

MONTREAL — The head of an association representing Quebec chicken producers says it is unacceptable that one million chickens have been euthanized during an extended labour dispute at a slaughterhouse near Quebec City.
© Provided by The Canadian Press

The Exceldor co-operative closed its slaughterhouse in St-Ansèlme, Que., south of the provincial capital, on May 23 due to a strike, leaving few options for chicken producers.

Pierre-Luc Leblanc, president of Les Éleveurs de Volailles du Québec — the province's association of chicken producers — said he's never received as many calls and messages from members as in the past few weeks, unsure of how to handle the situation.

"People are telling me they are offended, mad and sad," he said. "It's not an easy situation because there's not a lot of solutions for us."

Leblanc's association represents more than 700 producers, mostly family-run businesses, who operate within strict guidelines.

"There are rules for producers: when you transport the chickens, you are allowed to have only one per cent rate mortality. If you go beyond that, you can get a fine for animal cruelty," Leblanc said. "But right now, we are allowing that many chickens to be killed."

Both the union and the company have confirmed the one million discarded chickens would have provided up to four million meals.

The union said the strike has forced Quebec producers to send euthanized chickens either to waste sites or to a rendering plant, where they can be transformed into products not for human consumption.

Exceldor spokesman Jordan Ouellet said the company tried to send as many chickens as possible to other slaughterhouses in Quebec or Ontario.

"The problem is that at one point, after 35 days, when chickens reach a certain weight, they are ready to be transformed," Ouellet said. "But beyond that, they continue to grow and infrastructures are not made for those sizes."

Premier François Legault described the situation in a Facebook post on Wednesday as a "shame that needs to stop."

Legault urged both sides to take up the province on its offer of an arbitrator to help resolve the matter, noting that the waste amounts to 13 per cent of the province's chicken production being throw in the garbage.

"Workers have the right to strike and employers have the right to lockout. But we shouldn't be allowed to waste huge amounts of food so stupidly. It’s indecent," Legault said.

The company and the union representing its striking employees continued talks Thursday.

Exceldor welcomed Quebec's offer, first made Tuesday by Labour Minister Jean Boulet, but the union has refused, saying it would prefer to continue with negotiations with a conciliator rather than have a third party impose a collective agreement.

Workers at the slaughterhouse have been without a contract since July 2020 and have been on strike for more than three weeks, with salaries and working conditions key sticking points.

"We have to give the conciliation process a chance," said Roxane Larouche, spokeswoman for the United Food and Commercial Workers union. "Of course, we are sensitive to food waste, there is no one who wants that. But it is the employer's responsibility."

Boulet agreed in an interview Thursday that the large rate of euthanasia and food waste was making the situation even more urgent, but was confident both sides understand the human and social repercussions and hoped they will soon find common ground.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published on June 17, 2021.

Virginie Ann, The Canadian Press

Panel says Grassy Mountain coal mine in Alberta Rockies not in public interest

A joint federal-provincial review has denied an application for an open-pit coal mine in Alberta's Rocky Mountains, saying its impacts on the environment and Indigenous rights aren't worth the economic benefits it would bring.© Provided by The Canadian Press

In its 680-page report released Thursday, the panel questioned the ability of Benga Mining, owned by Riversdale Resources, to control the release of selenium from its proposed Grassy Mountain mine.

"In some cases the claimed effectiveness of the proposed measures was overly optimistic and not supported by the evidence," the report says. "As a result, we are not confident about the technical and economic feasibility of some proposed mitigation measures.

"We find that this was particularly true for effects on surface water quality, westslope cutthroat trout (and fish and fish habitat more generally), and vegetation."

A spokesman for Riversdale Resources or Benga Mining was not immediately available for comment.

Riversdale first filed its environmental impact assessment on the mine in 2016. Public hearings on the project in southern Alberta's Crowsnest Pass region were held last fall.

The mine, said Riversdale, would create about 500 jobs during two years of construction and 400 over its 23-year life. The company said it would pay $1.7 billion in royalties and $35 million in municipal taxes over that time.

It was supported by many in the town of Crowsnest Pass.

But concerns were raised during hearings about the chance the mine could contaminate headwaters of the Oldman River with selenium, an element commonly found in coal mines that is toxic to fish in large doses.

Riversdale argued the mine would capture up to 98 per cent of selenium release.

Probably not, said the panel. "The project as proposed is unlikely to achieve this capture efficiency."

The panel criticized Riversdale for using optimistic assumptions and relying on unspecified "adaptive management" measures if problems arose. It said its reclamation plans were vague and pointed out that much of the land wouldn't be available for reclamation for 25 years after the mine closed.

The review panel also concluded the mine would damage ecosystems and impair the cultural and physical heritage of local First Nations, even though most had signed agreements with the mine and didn't object to it.

Nor was the panel convinced by the mine's economic arguments.

"We are not able to verify the magnitude of the estimated benefits," it said. "We find that Benga's estimated royalty payments are likely overstated."

The panel advises federal Environment Minister Jonathan Wilkinson to turn the mine down. It has also denied the project's permit applications under provincial laws.

Alberta's Environment Minister Jason Nixon and Energy Minister Sonya Savage said the panel's conclusions prove the rigour of the province's regulatory system.

"We are continuing the process of widespread public engagement to inform the province’s long-term approach to coal and will have more to say on water quality management in the days ahead," they said in a joint statement.

New Democrat environment critic Marlin Schmidt said the panel's conclusions point to the need for an overall land-use policy for the eastern slopes, one of the province's best-loved landscapes.

"We can no longer consider these projects in isolation," he said. "We cannot pit potential mining jobs against the existing and future jobs supported by agriculture and tourism all along the eastern slopes."

Three groups that had long opposed the mine issued a joint press release.

"We take heart from the panel's decision and their recognition of the significant adverse environmental consequences associated with the Grassy Mountain proposal," said Bobbi Lambright of the Livingstone Landowners Group, a group of local ranchers and residents. "We have always seen Grassy Mountain as the litmus test for other coal development in the area."

Katie Morrison of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society said, "We are happy that this decision prioritizes clean water, fish and wildlife species at risk."

Latasha Calf Robe of the Niitsitapi Water Protectors added: "Projects that will have adverse effects on Niitsitapi ways of life, culture and rights should not proceed and we are grateful that the panel acknowledged the severe impacts a project such as this would have."

The mine is the first of a number of coal projects proposed for the mountains and foothills of Alberta's western boundary. At least eight companies have taken large exploration leases.

The exploration rush took off last spring after the United Conservative government revoked a decades-old policy that protected the area against open-pit coal mines. It sparked public outrage from First Nations, municipalities and thousands of Albertans.

In response, the province restored the policy, paused the sale of new leases and suspended permits for exploration work on the most sensitive landscapes. Work in less sensitive areas continues.

Earlier this week, Wilkinson announced that any proposals from those exploration leases would be subject to a federal environmental review. He said concerns about selenium prompted the move.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 17, 2021.

Bob Weber, The Canadian Press

No apologies: Hassan Yussuff faces down his critics as he retires as leader of Canadian Labour Congress

David Thurton 

CBC

© Hassan Yussuff/Facebook Hassan Yussuff, centre, is retiring as president of the Canadian Labour Congress.

© Hassan 

Heading for the exits, Hassan Yussuff — leader of the country's largest labour organization — has a terse message for those unhappy with the mark he's leaving on Canada's labour movement.

"I'm never going to apologize for the advancement of the interests of working people," Yussuff told CBC.

Yussuff, the first non-white person to lead the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC), said he's leaving the labour scene with pride in the gains he's made and no apologies for his harshest critics. The congress elects new leadership at its convention Friday.

Yussuff, a Guyanese-born Canadian turned political power broker, is often said to have the ear of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Thanks to that access, Yussuff said, unionized and non-unionized workers have gotten an expanded Canada Pension Plan, a ban on asbestos products, the repeal of controversial labour legislation and an increase in the federal minimum wage to $15/ hour.

His critics say that while the CLC may have gained access to the halls of power, that access didn't translate into real influence over policy.
Too close to the Liberals?

With his departure, those critics say they're hoping new leaders will more closely align the CLC with labour's traditional political partner — the NDP.

The Canadian national director of the United Steelworkers said such an alliance could deliver substantive changes for workers, such as pharmacare and higher taxes on the wealthy.

"Having access does not equal action," said Ken Neumann. "You've got to fight to get change."

The candidates running to replace Yussuff agree the labour movement needs to remain closely aligned with the New Democrats. The Labour Forward slate of candidates condemned Yussuff for publicly supporting former Liberal finance minister Bill Morneau for a top position at the OECD.

"His endorsement for Bill Morneau was a big shock and a big disappointment for many people," said Julius Arscott, who is also running for president under the Labour Forward slate.

Arscott is part of a slate of candidates who say they want to shake things up in the CLC by pushing the organization to confront systemic racism, skyrocketing real estate prices, stagnant wages and international human rights abuses.

The opposing team of candidates, Team Unite, would not evaluate Yussuff's tenure when asked by CBC News. Still, its leaders are campaigning on a pro-NDP platform that promises to mend frayed relationships in the house of labour and engage with disaffected workers.

"So I feel very strongly that we need to be able to speak to all governments, regardless of what political party they belong to," said Bea Bruske, Team Unite's candidate for CLC president. "However, at the same time, the NDP is our natural home."
Forget party loyalty, says Dias

Unifor national president Jerry Dias said he predicts Bruske will win on Friday. But his advice to everyone in the labour movement is to abandon party loyalties — because they won't be rewarded.

"The reason I say I don't have any blind loyalty to any political party is, no political party has any blind loyalty to the labour movement," Dias said.

He said he's seen both NDP and Liberal governments adopt anti-union measures, citing the federal government's move to intervene in the recent port of Montreal strike.

And while Unifor is not a member of the Canadian Labour Congress, Dias said he's been impressed by Yussuff's pragmatic approach to politics and his skill at navigating official Ottawa.

"Personally, I think Hassan did a hell of a job for the Canadian Labour Congress," he said.
'We're going to take advantage'

Asked about his closeness to the Trudeau government, Yussuff said it's paid dividends for the CLC.

He said Justin Trudeau's Liberals have demonstrated an interest in the problems of working people that goes beyond "platitudes" — at least compared to the previous Conservative government.

"We spent a decade getting beaten by a government who had no regard for the labour movement and for workers in this country," he said. "And we succeed in defeating that government. We're going to take advantage of the government that is there."

It's been rumoured that, after he leaves the CLC helm, Yussuff will run for the Liberals.

"I don't see myself doing that," he said. "I spent a lifetime running for office, which, by the way, is far more brutal than the other office. And the demands of it have been enormous."

Elected in 2014 and having served two terms, Yussuff, 64, said he wants to spend more time with his wife and teenage daughter after years of splitting his time between Ottawa and Toronto.

As for the possibility of a future appointment to the Senate, Yussuff was non-committal.

"If I feel I can make a contribution, I will seriously think about it."