Tuesday, November 23, 2021

Lethbridge police commission nixes call for inquiry into alleged threats against MLA and CBC reporter

Members surveilled NDP MLA Shannon Phillips without authorization


Janet French · CBC News · 
Lethbridge-West MLA Shannon Phillips at Lethbridge Police Service. She has been in a cycle of complaints and investigations since discovering police had photographed her and later searched personal files on their database (Dave Rae/CBC)

Lethbridge's police commission has rejected a call for a public inquiry into allegations that members of the Lethbridge Police Service threatened retaliation against NDP MLA Shannon Phillips and CBC journalist Meghan Grant for exposing misconduct within the force.

Rob vanSpronsen, the chair of the commission, said in a statement the circumstances around the request were "problematic."

"Not only do the anonymous communications lack specific information that definitively confirms they originate from LPS [Lethbridge Police Service] employees, the allegations contained in them lack any substantive supporting details," vanSpronsen wrote.

Michael Bates, a Calgary defence lawyer, called for the public inquiry in September. He represents Phillips and a woman who accused a retired LPS inspector of sexual assault, both of whom received anonymous whistleblower letters in June.

The alleged threats follow Phillips' revelations earlier this year that police monitored her while she was the NDP's environment minister.

Members of the service took secret photos of her meeting with constituents at a diner in 2017. A subsequent freedom of information request revealed that people who work for the service searched a police database eight times for her name, with no investigative purpose.

Phillips is also pushing for harsher consequences for the members who followed her without authorization.

In Lethbridge on Monday, Phillips said the serious nature of the retaliation threats against her merited an inquiry under the Police Act.

"While I am not surprised at the breathtaking incompetence of the Lethbridge Police Commission, I have learned to live with this sense of fundamental insecurity in my own home and my own community, and I will be reviewing my options accordingly," she said at an unrelated media event.

She said if police morale is so low that whistleblowers are leaking information to her, the police chief and commission also have a problem.

A host of internal problems

The commission's statement said its members considered the nature of the allegations, the anonymity, suggestions of an unsafe work environment and the potential cost and benefit of holding an inquiry.

The commission asked police Chief Shahin Mehdizadeh to ensure all employees are aware of whistleblower protections and respectful workplace policies already in place.

The force has had other controversies. Three officers pleaded guilty to misconduct and two more plan to retire for their roles in circulating inappropriate memes of police leaders.

Another woman also pushed for an inquiry says a retired inspector sexually assaulted her while he was still on the job.

Earlier this year, Justice Minister Kaycee Madu threatened to disband the force unless they could submit a plan for substantial improvement.

Madu did not take reporters' questions at the legislature on Monday. His office has not yet replied to written questions.

NDP Leader Rachel Notley says Phillips will likely explore all official avenues of appeal. If those are exhausted, Notley may call on the minister to intervene.

"The idea of there being the kind of politically driven activity in relation to an elected official is deeply troubling and we know that it needs to be resolved," she said. "It cannot be allowed to stand."

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Photojournalist released with conditions after arrest at pipeline dispute in B.C.

PRINCE GEORGE, B.C. — A photojournalist was released by a B.C. Supreme Court judge on Monday, three days after she was arrested while covering the RCMP's enforcement of an injunction against pipeline protesters in northern British Columbia.

Amber Bracken was released on the condition that she appear in court in February and that she comply with the terms of the injunction order first granted to Coastal GasLink by the same judge in December 2019.

An RCMP statement issued Friday said two people who "later identified themselves as independent journalists" were arrested after refusing to leave "building-like structures" near a drilling site for the natural gas pipeline, which is under construction.

The arrests came after members of the Gidimt'en clan, one of five in the Wet'suwet'en Nation, set up blockades along the forest service road on Nov. 14.

The road was cleared on Thursday, the RCMP said.

Opposition among Wet'suwet'en hereditary chiefs to the 670-kilometre pipeline route sparked rallies and rail blockades across Canada early last year, while the elected council of the Wet'suwet'en First Nation and others in the area have agreed to the project.

A memorandum of understanding had been signed between the hereditary chiefs and the federal and provincial governments, easing tensions up until now.

The pipeline would transport natural gas from Dawson Creek in northeastern B.C. to Kitimat. It is more than halfway finished with almost all of the route cleared and 200 kilometres of pipeline installed, Coastal GasLink has said.

The Canadian Association of Journalists issued statements over the weekend condemning the arrests of Bracken and documentary filmmaker Michael Toledano, who was expected to appear in court later on Monday.

In an open letter to Canada's public safety minister posted Monday and signed by several dozen news outlets and press freedom organizations, the association called for a "swift resolution respecting journalists' fundamental rights."

On Sunday, Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino said on Twitter that journalists play a role that is fundamental for democracy and they "must be able to work free from threats, intimidation or arbitrary state action."

"As the courts have held, it would be wrong for any journalist to be arrested and detained simply for doing their vital work on our behalf," he wrote.

B.C. Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth said Monday that a free press is critical to democracy and it was his hope that the situation would not escalate.

The province has been doing "a significant amount of work over the last number of months to try and de-escalate tensions in the area," he told a news conference.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 22, 2021.

The Canadian Press


Outrage after two journalists detained at Indigenous protest in Canada

Press organizations condemn arrest of Amber Bracken and Michael Toledano at pipeline protest in British Columbia

Supporters of the Wet'suwet'en First Nation hereditary chiefs block railway tracks in Toronto on Sunday. Photograph: Chris Helgren/Reuters

Leyland Ceccoin Ottawa
Mon 22 Nov 2021 

Press organizations in Canada have condemned the arrest of two journalists who were detained while covering Indigenous-led resistance to a controversial pipeline project and remain in custody.

Amber Bracken, an award-winning photojournalist who has previously worked with the Guardian, and Michael Toledano, a documentary film-maker, were arrested on Friday by Royal Canadian Mounted police officers who were enforcing a court-ordered injunction in British Columbia. More than a dozen protesters were also arrested.

The activists sabotaging railways in solidarity with Indigenous people

Bracken was on assignment for the environmental outlet the Narwhal, which had previously notified police that Bracken was reporting in the area.

“The Narwhal is extremely disturbed that photojournalist Amber Bracken was arrested for doing her job while reporting on the events unfolding in Wet’suwet’en territory on Friday,” said the editor-in-chief, Emma Gilchrist, in a statement. “Bracken has been held in jail for three nights, in violation of her charter rights. We strongly condemn the RCMP for this behaviour and all violations of press freedoms in this country.”

Gilchrist told the Guardian the publication had not been able to access Bracken’s photos from the day she was arrested.

The Canadian Association of Journalists has condemned the arrests and called for the immediate release of the two journalists.

Bracken and Toledano have each spent months documenting tensions over the 670km Coastal GasLink pipeline that would transport natural gas from the north-eastern part of the province to a facility in Kitimat. While a number of communities have approved the project along the pipeline’s proposed route, hereditary chiefs of the Wet’suwet’en peoples have refused to give consent for the project, which passes through their traditional territory. The Wet’suwet’en has never signed a formal treaty with the provincial government, and have not relinquished their land.

Police conduct against Indigenous-led blockages has drawn criticism in the past, and in 2019 the Guardian revealed that the RCMP was prepared to shoot activists.

In recent months, during a separate blockade against old-growth forest logging, police responded by ripping off protesters’ masks to pepper-spray them and dragging them by their hair.

Last month, a British Columbia supreme court judge ruled that the police force’s expulsion zones – set up to prevent media from entering certain areas of the injunction area – were unlawful.

The RCMP said in a statement over the weekend that its officers were enforcing a provincial court injunction granted to Coastal GasLink which bars protesters from blocking a forest road used by construction crews.

The statement says police found a structure built on the service road and ordered people to leave after reading out the injection. Police then broke down the doors of the structure and arrested 11 people, including Bracken and Toledano, who the police said identified themselves as “independent journalists”.

The two are due to appear before Prince George court on Monday.


Photojournalist and filmmaker released after RCMP arrests in Wet’suwet’en territory spark outrage


By Omar MoslehEdmonton Bureau
Jeremy NuttallVancouver Bureau
Mon., Nov. 22, 2021timer4 min. read

A photojournalist arrested by RCMP as she covered protests by members of the Wet’suwet’en Nation against a pipeline project in their territory was released Monday after being held in custody for three days, in a case that has alarmed advocates for freedom of the press in this country.

Amber Bracken, who had been working for the Narwhal news outlet at the time of her arrest, was released after agreeing to appear again in court on Feb. 14 and to comply with the terms of a 2019 injunction that stops opponents from impeding work on the pipeline.

Meanwhile, the story at the centre of the events, the Wet’suwet’en opposition to the pipeline project, rages on.

Bracken and documentary filmmaker Michael Toledano had been among more than a dozen people, including Indigenous land defenders and elders, arrested by the RCMP as they enforced the injunction granted to Coastal GasLink, which is building the natural gas pipeline in northwest British Columbia.



The arrests came after members of the Gidimt’en clan, one of five in the Wet’suwet’en Nation, set up blockades along the forest service road earlier this month.

Opposition among Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs to the 670-kilometre pipeline route sparked rallies and rail blockades across Canada early last year, while the elected council of the Wet’suwet’en First Nation have agreed to the project.

In an interview with the Star on Monday, Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Marc Miller stopped short of directly criticizing the RCMP’s decision to enforce a court injunction against a blockade last week. But he noted that he and his counterpart in the B.C. government, Murray Rankin, were pushing for a last-minute meeting with Wet’suwet’en chiefs and “what everyone has witnessed over the last four days was sadly the result of that.”

The arrests of Bracken and Toledano — both of whom were released Monday — had enraged media advocates.

“I believe that, under the charter and as journalists, we have a right to be in those spaces and documenting them,” said Carol Linnitt, executive editor of the Narwhal, following Bracken’s release.

“The RCMP has been able to undermine that right with total impunity in this case.”

RCMP had said they arrived at the two-kilometre mark of the Marten Forest Service Road to find obstructions, blockades, “two building-like structures” and a wood pile that was on fire near a drilling site. They said they encouraged people within the buildings to leave or face arrest, before breaking through the doors and arresting those who did not comply.

Cody Merriman, a Haida land defender who was also arrested, was also released Monday upon agreeing to court conditions to not enter the exclusion zone.

The court’s order Monday specifies those arrested cannot obstruct or impede work on the pipeline, and lays out a 10-metre buffer zone they must not breach between them and the company’s work and personnel.

The RCMP issued a release Monday saying Bracken and Toledano did not identify themselves as journalists during a 60-minute dialogue between police and protesters inside “barricaded structures.”

The statement said all inside were given the chance to leave and the two “later” identified themselves as journalists when police forced open the door.

The RCMP also said it understands the “constitutional role the media play in Canada” and has a relationship based on respect and professionalism.



Lawyers for Coastal GasLink had also argued that Bracken had not clearly identified herself as a journalist at the time of her arrest, while her lawyer, David Sutherland, said she had identification that clearly labelled her as a member of the press.

He added she was not a protester, was not obstructing police and was doing her job when she was arrested.

Linnitt said she doesn’t buy the RCMP’s version of events.

She said the Narwhal had notified the RCMP in advance of the arrests to tell them Bracken was on scene on behalf of the outlet.

“It was no secret that Amber was up there as a journalist,” she said. “She was actively reporting.”

Linnitt said she worries a new precedent has been set by the arrests, calling them a concerning set of circumstances for press freedom in Canada. Reporters have a right to be in areas where police are arresting people or enforcing the law, she said.

Now, along with arguing for the RCMP to drop the charges, she said the Narwhal is exploring the possibility of further legal action.

Linnitt said it still isn’t clear how the conditions of Bracken’s release could affect her coverage of the protests.

“Our position is she, as a journalist, is not bound by the terms of the injunction, which has nothing to do with journalists,” Linnitt said.

The Canadian Association of Journalists said Friday the courts have previously affirmed the right of journalists to report in court injunction areas, pointing to a 2019 decision made by Newfoundland and Labrador Supreme Court Justice Derek Green to dismiss civil charges related to coverage of the Muskrat Falls site protest, which had shut down work at a dam in 2016.

In July, the CAJ along with other media organizations won a court challenge at the Supreme Court in B.C. on press freedom in the Fairy Creek area. The judge’s final decision agreed with the media groups, indicating the RCMP cannot interfere with coverage without providing an operational reason to do so.

The Star worked with other news outlets to support Bracken and Toledano, and Torstar was one of more than 40 news outlets that called for Canada’s public safety minister to take immediate steps to review the RCMP’s actions and to ensure journalists’ rights to report were protected.

Longtime press freedom advocate Sean Holman, a professor of environmental and climate journalism at the University of Victoria, said given the outcry from the public and press he didn’t think Bracken would actually face trial.

“A free press and the work that journalists do are essential for democracy,” he said.

With files from Olivia Bowden and Alex Ballingall

Omar Mosleh is an Edmonton-based reporter for the Star. Follow him on Twitter: @OmarMosleh


RCMP operation puts end to Wet’suwet’en blockade, latest tumultuous chapter in northern B.C. pipeline saga


 British Columbia

Judge releases journalists arrested by RCMP during enforcement of pipeline injunction

Amber Bracken's lawyer told judge photojournalist was well

 known to both Coastal GasLink and RCMP

CBC News · 
Filmmaker Michael Toledano emerges from B.C. Supreme Court in Prince George on Monday after his release from custody. Toledano was arrested for civil contempt as RCMP sought to enforce the terms of an injunction for the Coastal GasLink pipeline. (Andrew Kurjata/CBC)

A B.C. judge has released two journalists arrested by RCMP at a pipeline protest camp last week as police sought to enforce an injunction.

Justice Marguerite Church of the Supreme Court of B.C., in Prince George, said she would release Amber Bracken and Michael Toledano from custody after they agreed to comply with the terms of an injunction intended to keep protesters away from the construction of the Coastal GasLink pipeline.

Both journalists were detained by RCMP last Friday — arrests that sparked an angry response from advocates of press freedom across North America.

Both are required to return to court Feb. 14, 2022 for a hearing related to allegations of civil contempt of court.

A lawyer for Coastal GasLink said that unlike the other 27 people who were arrested at the resistance camp, Bracken and Toledano would be allowed to return to the "exclusion zone" covered by the terms of the injunction because they have a "justified reason to go back."

'Labelled as press'

Bracken is an Alberta-based photojournalist who has won awards for her work covering the Wet'suwet'en conflict; Toledano is an independent filmmaker who has been working on a documentary on the conflict and resistance to Coastal GasLink since 2019.

"This was a punitive arrest. A punitive incarceration. I was put in a holding cell for four days for filming Indigenous people being removed from their land at gunpoint," Toledano said in brief comments to CBC News upon his release. 

"Canadians should know that journalists in this country can be arrested and incarcerated if they're telling a story the RCMP don't like."

Demonstrators gather outside the courthouse where a judge on Monday released Toledano and photojournalist Amber Bracken, whose arrests drew criticism from advocates of press freedom. (Andrew Kurjata/CBC)

Bracken's lawyer, David Sutherland, took issue with the company lawyer's contention that neither of the journalists had identified themselves as media immediately and were "crossing the line between being media and being protesters."

Sutherland said Bracken was well-known as a member of the media to both Coastal GasLink and the police.

"She was labelled on her body as press," said Sutherland, who said Bracken had pinned to her body a copy of an assignment letter from The Narwhal, the publication that hired her to cover the situation.

"Amber Bracken told me she was labelled as press and identified herself as press ... so there's no breach of the injunction at all."

Long-standing protest

The Coastal GasLink pipeline, if completed, will span 670 kilometres across northern B.C., transporting natural gas from near Dawson Creek in the east to Kitimat on the Pacific Ocean.

The company has signed benefit agreements with 20 band councils along the route of the project. But Wet'suwet'en hereditary leadership says band councils do not have authority over land beyond reserve boundaries. The hereditary chiefs oppose the construction of the pipeline, saying the company does not have consent to cross Wet'suwet'en territory.

RCMP have previously taken action against protesters in this area in 2019 and 2020. 

According to Church, the latest flashpoint in the conflict occurred at a blockade erected "in the name of the Gidimt'en band of the Wet'suwet'en people," that had halted Coastal GasLink's plans to drill a tunnel under the Wedzin Kwa river.

The blockades stranded about 500 Coastal GasLink employees, causing water rations and fears over food shortages, after the company declined to comply with an eviction notice issued by the Gidimt'en Checkpoint, which controls access to part of the Wet'suwet'en territory. 

Last week, police dismantled blockades along the Morice River Forest Service Road that lead to two work camps by enforcing the terms of an injunction Church issued in December 2019.

Some protesters released with conditions

In a statement, B.C. RCMP Assistant Commissioner Eric Stubbs claimed Bracken and Toledano were inside barricaded structures that were the subject of police enforcement efforts when they were arrested.

"They were also among those to whom the injunction was read and they were afforded the opportunity to leave the structures," Stubbs wrote.

"They did not identify themselves at any point during this dialogue with police, which lasted over 60 minutes."

Stubbs claimed Bracken and Toledano only identified themselves as journalists once police forced open the doors of the barricaded structures.

Toledano gave a different account. 

"I would argue that I had no opportunity to leave the scene," he said. "I was surrounded by men who had guns pointed at the house and so if I had opened the door, I would have endangered everyone else."

Toledano is hugged upon emerging from court. (Andrew Kurjata/CBC)

At the end of Monday's court proceedings, Church released five protesters who said they would be willing to sign a document promising to comply with the terms of the injunction, but felt they should be able to return to the injunction's exclusion zone.

Church disagreed, ordering them released on the condition that they promise to stay out of the proscribed area.

Beyond the courtroom itself, reporters and members of the public listened to the hearing through a teleconference line that was beset with technical difficulties and people who failed to mute their microphones, drawing the ire of other participants.

A number of other protesters remained behind bars Monday night, with a hearing on their applications for release set for Tuesday morning.

With files from Andrew Kurjata


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David Suzuki Warns That 'Pipelines Will Be Blown Up' If Nothing Changes After The BC Floods

Amid the B.C. flooding and the devastation that has followed it, a march against climate change was held and David Suzuki had something to say.

© Provided by Narcity

Morgan Leet 


A group called Extinction Rebellion organized the protest, which they called a "Funeral for the Future," on social media. The funeral was for the extinction of humans, which they expect to come from the ongoing impacts of climate change if no changes are made.

Canadian environmental activist and academic, David Suzuki, gave a passionate speech at the event.

"That's why I joined Extinction Rebellion, to rebel against the extinction path we are on," he said in the speech.

"We think dinosaurs were losers because they suddenly disappeared, but they ruled the planet for 190 million years. We've been here, as I say, for 200 thousand."

After the speech, which called for action from the government on climate change, he spoke to CHEK News, and said: "There are going to be pipelines blown up if our leaders don't pay attention to what's going on."

"We're in deep deep doo-doo," he also said.

Climate change has been top of mind for many living in B.C., which is in a state of emergency due to the historic weather and tragic events that have followed.

Multiple lives have been lost in the mudslides caused by flooding, including the parents of a 2-year-old girl.

While still being in the midst of dealing with last week's weather, B.C. is expected to get hit with yet another atmospheric river and high winds.
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The first Thanksgiving is a key chapter in America’s origin story – but what happened in Virginia four months later mattered much more

The Conversation
November 22, 2021

"The First Thanksgiving at Plymouth," Painted in 1914 By Jennie A. Brownscombe (Photo: Screen capture)

This year marks the 400th anniversary of the first Thanksgiving in New England. Remembered and retold as an allegory for perseverance and cooperation, the story of that first Thanksgiving has become an important part of how Americans think about the founding of their country.

But what happened four months later, starting in March 1622 about 600 miles south of Plymouth, is, I believe, far more reflective of the country's origins – a story not of peaceful coexistence but of distrust, displacement and repression.

As a scholar of colonial New England and Virginia, I have often wondered why Americans tend to pay so much less attention to other English migrants of the same era.

The conquest and colonization of New England mattered, of course. But the Pilgrims' experience in the early 1620s tells us less about the colonial era than events along Chesapeake Bay, where the English had established Jamestown in 1607.

The Pilgrims etched their place in the nation's history long ago as plucky survivors who persevered despite difficult conditions. Ill-prepared for the New England winter of 1620 to 1621, they benefited when a terrible epidemic raged among the Indigenous peoples of the region from 1616 to 1619, which reduced competition for resources.

Having endured a winter in which perhaps one-half of the migrants succumbed, the survivors welcomed the fall harvest of 1621. They survived because local Wampanoags had taught them how to grow corn, the most important crop in much of eastern North America. That November, the Pilgrims and Wampanoags shared a three-day feast.

This was the event that now marks the first American day of Thanksgiving, even though many Indigenous peoples had long had rituals that included giving thanks and other European settlers had previously declared similar days of thanks – including one in Florida in 1565 and another along the Maine coast in 1607.


A postcard from 1912 depicts goodwill and cooperation between Native Americans and colonists.
Samantha Vuignier/Corbis via Getty Images


In 1623, Pilgrims in Plymouth declared a day to thank their God for bringing rain when it looked like their corn crop might wither in a brutal drought. They likely celebrated it in late July. In 1777, in the midst of the Revolutionary War, the members of the Continental Congress declared a day of Thanksgiving for Dec. 18. The Pilgrims didn't even get a mention.

In the 19th century, however, annual Thanksgiving holidays became linked to New England, largely as a result of campaigns to make the Plymouth experience one of the nation's origin stories. Promoters of this narrative identified the Mayflower Compact as the starting point for representative government and praised the religious freedom they saw in New England – at least for Americans of European ancestry.

For most of the last century, U.S. Presidents have mentioned the Pilgrims in their annual proclamation, helping to solidify the link between the holiday and those immigrants.

In Virginia, a tenuous peace shatters

But the events in Plymouth in 1621 that came to be enshrined in the national narrative were not typical.

A more revealing incident took place in Virginia in 1622.

Since 1607, English migrants had maintained a small community in Jamestown, where colonists struggled mightily to survive. Unable to figure out how to find fresh water, they drank from the James River, even during the summer months when the water level dropped and turned the river into a swamp. The bacteria they consumed from doing so caused typhoid fever and dysentery.

Despite a death rate that reached 50% in some years, the English decided to stay. Their investment paid off in the mid-1610s when an enterprising colonist named John Rolfe planted West Indian tobacco seeds in the region's fertile soil. The industry soon boomed.

But economic success did not mean the colony would thrive. Initial English survival in Virginia depended on the good graces of the local Indigenous population. By 1607, Wahunsonacock, the leader of an alliance of Natives called Tsenacomoco, had spent a generation forming a confederation of roughly 30 distinct communities along tributaries of Chesapeake Bay. The English called him Powhatan and labeled his followers the Powhatans.

Wahunsonacock could have likely prevented the English from establishing their community at Jamestown; after all, the Powhatans controlled most of the resources in the region. In 1608, when the newcomers were near starvation, the Powhatans provided them with food. Wahunsonacock also spared Captain John Smith's life after his people captured the Englishman.

Wahunsonacock's actions revealed his strategic thinking. Rather than see the newcomers as all-powerful, he likely believed the English would become a subordinate community under his control. After a war from 1609 to 1614 between English and Powhatans, Wahunsonacock and his allies agreed to peace and coexistence.

Wahunsonacock died in 1618. Soon after his passing, Opechancanough, likely one of Wahunsonacock's brothers, emerged as a leader of the Powhatans. Unlike his predecessor, Opechancanough viewed the English with suspicion, especially when they pushed on to Powhatan lands to expand their tobacco fields.

By spring 1622, Opechancanough had had enough. On March 22, he and his allies launched a surprise attack. By day's end, they had killed 347 of the English. They might have killed more except that one Powhatan who had converted to Christianity had warned some of the English, which gave them the time to escape.

Within months, news of the violence spread in England. Edward Waterhouse, the colony's secretary, detailed the “barbarous Massacre" in a short pamphlet. A few years later, an engraver in Frankfurt captured Europeans' fears of Native Americans in a haunting illustration for a translation of Waterhouse's book.



Matthäus Merian's woodcut print depicted brutal bloodshed in Jamestown, shaping European attitudes toward Native Americans.
Wikimedia Commons

Waterhouse wrote of those who died “under the bloudy and barbarous hands of that perfidious and inhumane people." He reported that the victors had desecrated English corpses. He called them “savages" and resorted to common European descriptions of “wyld Naked Natives." He vowed revenge.

Over the next decade, English soldiers launched a brutal war against the Powhatans, repeatedly burning the Powhatans' fields at harvest time in an effort to starve them and drive them away.
Conflict over cooperation

The Powhatans' orchestrated attack anticipated other Indigenous rebellions against aggressive European colonizers in 17th-century North America.

The English response, too, fit a pattern: Any sign of resistance by “pagans," as Waterhouse labeled the Powhatans, needed to be suppressed to advance Europeans' desire to convert Native Americans to Christianity, claim Indigenous lands, and satisfy European customers clamoring for goods produced in America.

It was this dynamic – not the one of fellowship found in Plymouth in 1621 – that would go on to define the relationship between Native Americans and European settlers for over two centuries.

Before the end of the century, violence erupted in New England too, erasing the positive legacy of the feast of 1621. By 1675, simmering tensions exploded in a war that stretched across the region. On a per capita basis, it was among the deadliest conflicts in American history.

In 1970, an Aquinnah Wampanoag elder named Wamsutta, on the occasion of the 350th anniversary of the arrival of the Mayflower, pointed to generations of violence against Native communities and dispossession. Ever since that day, many Indigenous Americans have observed a National Day of Mourning instead of Thanksgiving.

Today's Thanksgiving – with school kids' construction paper turkeys and narrative of camaraderie and cooperation between the colonists and Indigenous Americans – obscures the more tragic legacy of the early 17th century.

Peter C. Mancall, Andrew W. Mellon Professor of the Humanities, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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Bill seeks to improve healthcare access for urban American Indians

By Yiming Fu, Medill News Service

President Joe Biden participates remotely in a Tribal Nations Summit from the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 15, speaking with tribal leaders and announcing a number of steps to improve public safety and justice for Native Americans. Photo by Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA-EFE


WASHINGTON, Nov. 22 (UPI) -- A proposed amendment to the Indian Health Care Improvement Act is intended to improve healthcare access for American Indians who live urban areas, its advocates say.

The Urban Indian Health Confer Act would require the Department of Health and Human Services to consult with the 41 Indian organizations -- nonprofits governed by Native Americans -- on healthcare policies for the 2.8 million American Indians and Alaskan Natives who live in urban areas.

The bill was introduced by Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-N.M., and co-sponsored by 19 members of the House. It passed the House on Nov. 2 and awaits Senate action.

Roughly 70 percent of American Indians and Alaskan Natives live in urban areas and face inequities in healthcare access because the the Department of Health and Human Services is not required to consult with the urban organizations when it creates policies that impact urban Indians, Grijalva said.

American Indians began to move to urban areas after the Indian Relocation Act of 1956 was enacted. The act incentivized American Indians and Alaskan Natives to live in urban areas by promising housing, jobs and healthcare.

Other American Indians have moved off reservation lands to pursue higher education and employment opportunities.

According to the Department of the Interior, the United States has a trust obligation to provide American Indians with healthcare, education and welfare in exchange for settling Native lands. This trust responsibility also follows individuals once they leave reservation land.

Limited healthcare options

Yet, for many American Indians who move off tribal land, healthcare options are limited.

For Grijalva, the Urban Indian Health Confer Act would improve parity between urban Natives and American Indians living on tribal lands.

"Passage of the Urban Indian Health Confer Act will provide urban Indian health organizations with a critical role in planning and decision making for Alaska Natives and American Indians. I look forward to working with my counterparts in the Senate to get this bill over the finish line and onto the president's desk," Grijalva said in a Nov. 2 press release.

Sunny Stevenson (Walker River Paiute), the federal relations director for the National Council of Urban Indian Health, said Urban Indian organizations are under-resourced, underfunded and not found at all in all metropolitan areas.

Stevenson said the bill supporting urban Indians will not cut into IHS funding and will not disadvantage Indians living on reservations.

"An urban confer policy with any part of the administration does not conflict, supplant or undermine any tribal consultation or government to government relationship," Stevenson said.

Monumental benefits

RoxAnne Unabia (Chippewa), executive director of the American Indian Health Service of Chicago, said benefits of the confer act would be monumental.

"We're hoping through urban confer, we're able to explain and discuss with Congress how severely funds are needed for urban natives," Unabia said. "I have so many people who are opting to pay for their heat versus coming in for a visit."

With additional funding, Unabia hopes to hire specialists, such as rheumatologists and cardiologists, to come into the clinic to better assist urban Indians.

American Indians are disproportionately affected by health problems, including lower life expectancies and higher rates of chronic disease, such as diabetes, according to the Indian Health Service.

Unabia said the clinic has to outsource appointments, meaning urban natives pay more and wait longer. Additional funding also could bring down co-pays for medications, which many of her patients cannot afford.

"Our patients have to decide between paying utilities, paying rent and buying prescriptions. And they want to keep living in their homes. They want a roof over their heads and their families' heads," she said.

Lack health insurance

Unabia said 40% of her patients are uninsured because they don't qualify for Medicare and Medicaid, and many urban Natives do not have health insurance.

"When families were on the reservation, we were always told it's part of your treaty right to receive health care," Unabia said. "But the U.S. government has never fully fulfilled any treaty obligations."

For Stevenson, an urban confer would be the first step toward improving urban Indian health, but confers need to be monitored to prove successful. She said it's important for Urban Indian Organizations to complete a satisfaction survey after conferring with a federal agency. Then, the urban Indian organization's feedback should be made public immediately.

"If the administration's interested in furthering transparency, staying accountable, and being held to a high standard, it's important that they release those survey results as they come," Stevenson said.

A confer would become nearly useless, Stevenson said, if federal agencies don't respond promptly. She recommended a deadline of 30 to 60 days.

Stevenson said federal agencies also will need to establish a point person to communicate with Urban Indian organizations. The point person should not only relay information but also be in a position to affect change, she added.

"If you have people on there that are just there to listen and relay information, that's really insufficient," Stevenson said. "You need to have people there who can agree to make commitments on behalf of Indians."
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Bill marks 'final step' in San Jacinto land exchange between federal government, Agua Caliente


Tom Coulter, Palm Springs Desert Sun
Mon, November 22, 2021, 1:57 PM·3 min read

The Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians soon could be expanding the land that it manages in Southern California. A pair of bills in Congress aim to wrap up a land exchange between the tribe and the federal government that has been more than two decades in the making.

California’s U.S senators plan to introduce a bill that would place roughly 2,560 acres of tribal land in the San Jacinto Mountains into trust for the Agua Caliente, a step the tribe’s chairman says will boost conservation and land management efforts in the area.

U.S. Sens. Alex Padilla and Dianne Feinstein, both Democrats, said Monday they will introduce the bill in the Senate, with U.S. Rep. Raul Ruiz, D-Palm Desert, who introduced a nearly identical bill in February, leading the effort in the House.


By placing the hundreds of acres of land into a trust, lawmakers say the bill would fulfill a 1999 tribal agreement with the Bureau of Land Management to exchange lands within the Santa Rosa and San Jacinto Mountains National Monument, which comprises a total of about 280,000 acres of public land.

A land exchange for these particular parcels, which cover a remote area of the mountain region, was finalized in March 2019, and the transferred areas "will be managed as conservation land similar to how it was managed by the BLM," according to Padilla's office.


Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians Tribal Chairman Jeff L. Grubbe socializes during Agua Caliente's annual Singing of the Birds event held at Palm Springs High School in Palm Springs, Calif., on Saturday, February 1, 2020.

The bill had the support of Jeff Grubbe, Agua Caliente's tribal chairman for the past nine years, who said it “represents the final step in bringing approximately 2,560 acres of land owned by the Tribe into trust for the Tribe and making those lands part of the Reservation.”

“These lands, when brought into trust, will improve land management that directly benefits ongoing management of trails, invasive species and endangered Big Horn Sheep habitat,” Grubbe said in a statement. “In addition, this trust taking means the Tribe will now manage conservation lands that have long-standing cultural and natural resource value to our people.”

Grubbe added it is “imperative this land be expeditiously brought into tribal trust status to ensure the Tribe once again is the primary steward of land for the benefit of all future generations.”

Others involved with the bill also pushed for it to be passed quickly by federal lawmakers. Padilla said in a statement he looks forward “to advocating for its swift enactment” by Congress.

“For generations, the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians have lived in what is now known as Coachella Valley and the San Jacinto mountains,” Padilla said. “Enactment of this legislation would culminate a decades-long endeavor between the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians and the federal government to finally allow the Tribe to manage lands of cultural and historical importance to the Cahuilla people.”

Feinstein, who encouraged the bill’s “swift passage,” noted the legislation prohibits any gaming on the parcels.

“The parcel of land in the San Jacinto Mountains was consolidated in a 1999 land exchange agreement with the Bureau of Land Management but was not placed in trust — this bill rectifies that oversight,” Feinstein said.

The Agua Caliente reservation dates back to 1876, when President Ulysses S. Grant signed an executive order setting aside land for the tribe. The reservation lies in a checkerboard pattern over parts of Palm Springs, Cathedral City, Rancho Mirage and into the San Jacinto and Santa Rosa mountains.

It is unclear whether the bill from Padilla and Feinstein could be considered before Congress adjourns for a holiday break in a few weeks. Ruiz’s bill introduced in February had yet to receive a floor vote in the House as of Monday.

Tom Coulter covers politics. He can be reached at thomas.coulter@desertsun.com or on Twitter @tomcoulter_.

This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Bill would conclude San Jacinto land exchange for Agua Caliente tribe
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HYPOCRITE
Philippines presidential hopeful Pacquiao says he was 'naive' drug user



Known for his rags-to-riches rise from street kid to world champion boxer, Manny Pacquiao has made fighting drugs, corruption and poverty key themes of his presidential campaign
 (AFP/JAM STA ROSA)

Allison JACKSON
Mon, November 22, 2021

Philippines presidential hopeful Manny Pacquiao says he was "naive" and ignorant of the law when he took crystal meth in his youth, but argues offenders today know drugs are illegal and should be punished.

Pacquiao, a retired world champion boxer, has been a high-profile backer of President Rodrigo Duterte's brutal war on drugs that has killed thousands of people.

But in the lead up to the 2022 elections, Pacquiao has sought to distance himself from the outgoing Duterte, who is facing an international probe into his bloody crackdown, and now says offenders should have a "chance to defend themselves".

"We have to put in jail those who are using drugs, selling drugs -- that's what the law says," he told AFP, vowing to continue the anti-narcotics campaign "in the right way".

"Before, I'm naive, that's why I use drugs... I don't know the law," said Pacquiao, 42, who currently holds a seat in the Senate and previously served two terms in Congress.

Nowadays, "people, they know already that the law is not allowing the illegal drugs."

Pacquiao shocked the sporting world in 2016 when he admitted using marijuana and shabu, the local name for cheap and highly addictive crystal meth, as a teenager.

Known for his rags-to-riches rise from street kid to one of the greatest pound-for-pound boxers of all time, Pacquiao has made fighting drugs, corruption and poverty key themes of his campaign to succeed Duterte.

- 'Man of Destiny' -

While victory for Pacquiao is not unrealistic in a country famed for its celebrity-obsessed politics, he faces a tough fight.

A leaked survey conducted in October by respected polling outfit Social Weather Stations reportedly showed Pacquiao in fourth place with just nine percent of voter support.

Ferdinand Marcos Jr, the son and namesake of the nation's former dictator, was the top preference for president with 47 percent.

He was followed by incumbent vice president and leading opposition candidate Leni Robredo (18 percent) and celebrity mayor Francisco Domagoso (13 percent).

Sitting in front of a teleprompter in his luxury mansion in the capital Manila, Pacquiao dismissed his poor showing and insisted his "Man of Destiny" campaign for the top job would go on.

"I'm not thinking about backing out," he said, as a bevy of staff hovered around his home in a secured enclave of billionaires and foreign ambassadors.

"The people will choose... I know that the people want change in this country, they want to stop this corruption, they want to have a prosperous country and they want jobs."

Fans in the poverty-afflicted nation see the former boxer as living proof that success is possible for anyone who works hard, no matter their origins.

But as a politician and fervent evangelical Christian, Pacquiao has stirred controversy with his support for Duterte's drug war and push to restore the death penalty, as well as his admission of past drug use, and previous homophobic comments.

Critics accuse the high-school dropout of lacking intellect and barely turning up to sessions in Congress and the Senate, raising questions about his ability to run the country of 110 million people.

And he risked political capital this year in a public falling out with Duterte, who rivals Pacquiao for the affections of many Filipinos.

"He might be popular with the masses, but so are some of these other candidates," said Ted Lerner, a US-born sports journalist in the Philippines, predicting a return to the ring for the boxing great.

"Just look at the surveys -- it doesn't bode well at all for him."

- 'I'm done' -

Whoever wins the presidency may have to grapple with an International Criminal Court investigation into Duterte's drug war, which rights groups estimate has killed tens of thousands of mostly poor men.

Duterte, who yanked Manila out of the ICC after it launched a preliminary probe into his deadly signature policy, has insisted it has no jurisdiction in the Philippines and he would not cooperate.

Asked if he would protect Duterte from prosecution if elected president, Pacquiao said he would "obey" the law, and was adamant that the Southeast Asian nation was still a member of the ICC.

A glittering decades-long career in the ring brought Pacquiao fame and fortune -- as well as the vices of booze, gambling and infidelity that nearly wrecked his marriage before he found religion.

Two months after hanging up his gloves, Pacquiao said a comeback was not on the cards -- even if he lost the election.

"I'm already turning 43 years old, so it's enough for me, I'm done," said the father of five.

Pacquiao has served as a celebrity endorser for products ranging from appliances to pizza and cars, hosted TV shows, and even founded his own cryptocurrency, the "PAC Token".

If his presidential bid fails, he plans to add farmer to his CV, growing fruit on a 20-hectare (50-acre) property in the southern province of Sarangani.

"It's also quiet (there), I like that," he said, before opening his smartphone and playing a country music ballad.

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US unions call for halt to Amazon buyout of MGM


Amazon offered to buy the storied MGM studios for $8.45 billion in May 2021 (AFP/Chris Delmas)


Mon, November 22, 2021

A consortium of US unions called Monday for Amazon's buyout of the legendary Hollywood studio MGM to be blocked, citing concerns about the tech giant's growing power over the subscription video streaming sector.

"Amazon's influence on the health and diversity of the film-making industry is likely to be negative if the company is permitted to grow larger," said the Strategic Organizing Center, a federation of four major labor unions that represents some four million workers.

The group called on the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to block the takeover, which was announced in May.

Amazon has offered $8.45 billion dollars for more than 4,000 films, including the James Bond series, "The Silence of the Lambs," "Robocop," "Basic Instinct," "Raging Bull" and "Thelma & Louise," as well as an extensive catalog of TV series including "The Handmaid's Tale," "Fargo" and "Vikings."

"Amazon's current control over massive amounts of streaming content means the merger is likely to give Amazon greater incentive and power to exclude and discriminate against its competitors," the group said in its statement.

It argued that the buyout will give Amazon control of some 56,000 titles, far ahead of Netflix, which would have just under 20,000.

The unions further argued that Amazon's market power is not just "horizontal" but also "vertical," with the sale of electronic devices for video streaming (the company's "Fire" line) and cloud services for storing the content of its competitors, starting with Netflix, the most popular of the platforms.

Questioned by AFP, Amazon highlighted the variety of choices currently available to consumers, citing in particular Netflix, Disney +, Apple TV +, HBO Max and Peacock.

The company also noted that neither MGM nor Amazon were involved in the production or distribution of any of the 20 most successful films around the world in 2018, 2019 and 2020.

The FTC and many US states have launched investigations and lawsuits against Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon, which they accuse of abusing their dominant position in their own markets, from social networks to digital advertising and online commerce.

Amazon has come to broadly lead the cloud services sector, but it is its towering dominance of e-commerce that raises the hackles of its critics.

"The company has a long history of leveraging its dominance to gain a foothold in new markets by using practices we believe are unfair and anticompetitive," the unions said.

"This merger would allow Amazon to use the same playbook against the streaming video industry, inevitably impacting producers and consumers of video content and squeezing diversity as it gains market share," the unions said.

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Back in the spotlight: Africa's Great Green Wall

After years of struggling with insufficient funds, efforts to build Africa's Great Green Wall -- a massive defence line against desertification -- have received a major boost.
© Issouf SANOGO 
Green shoots: So far 11 countries have self-financed the recovery of 4.6 million hectares of impoverished land

The initiative concerning 11 countries on the rim of the world's biggest desert was first launched to great acclaim in 2005, only to battle a lack of cash.

But 2021 could be the year of change.

Donors this year pledged $19 billion for the scheme, half of which has now been committed, while at the recent COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, US billionaire Jeff Bezos indicated that his foundation would stump up $1 billion to help fight land degradation, particularly in Africa.

- What is the Great Green Wall? -

The idea is to plant diverse trees and shrubs in a corridor about 8,000 kilometres (4,900 miles) long and 15 kilometres (nine miles) wide across Africa, hugging the southern edge of the Sahara.

The African Union endorsed the initiative in 2007, two years after the leaders of Burkina Faso, Chad, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal and Sudan hatched the plan at a summit of the Community of Sahel-Saharan States held in the Burkinabe capital Ouagadougou.

The project is being coordinated by the Pan-African Great Green Wall Agency.

Once completed, it will be the largest living structure on the planet, according to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification.

- What are its aims? -

The Great Green Wall is Africa's flagship programme for fighting climate change and desertification, and also aims to combat food insecurity and poverty across North Africa, the Sahel and the Horn of Africa.

The region, among the world's poorest, is also seeing some of the steepest temperature increases on the planet.

Concrete goals include rehabilitating 100 million hectares of degraded land by 2030, sequestering 250 million tonnes of carbon and creating 10 million green jobs.

"It's not just a curtain of trees," Senegalese geologist Abdoulaye Dia, executive secretary of the Great Green Wall Agency, told AFP.

- What is the situation today? -

Since 2005, the Green Wall has recovered 4.6 million hectares of impoverished land across the 11 countries, according to Dia.

The main strategies have been reforestation and measures to prevent soil degradation and over-grazing, he said, noting that the financing came from individual governments -- well short of the funds needed for the overall success of the programme -- without giving a figure.

In January this year, the Green Wall received a major shot in the arm at the One Planet Summit in Paris, where donors pledged $19 billion for the programme.

"Forty-eight percent of the funds have been committed (to work) on the ground," French President Emmanuel Macron said at a side event at the climate summit in Glasgow.

But progress has been slow. In a 2020 report, the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification said there was an "insufficient, unpredictable and insecure funding situation".

Adama Doulkom, the Great Green Wall's Burkina Faso manager, pointed to rampant insecurity as a "major difficulty".

Amazon founder Bezos said work on the wall -- which he called a "remarkable innovation" -- had to be sped up.

Still, Dia praised the global surge in "visible and tangible activities" tied to the wall, saying the project had been criticised as being "a never-ending saga -- but now it has become a reality."

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Great Green Wall brings life back to Niger desert



A farmer sits in the shade of a tree in the Great Green Wall site in Simiri, Niger
 (AFP/BOUREIMA HAMA)

Boureima HAMA
Mon, November 22, 2021, 10:16 PM·3 min read

Once a desolate landscape, the Simiri plateau in Niger is now a small paradise for fauna and flora.

Goats crunch acacia seeds, squirrel and partridge prints dot the ground, praying mantises hang from trees and swarms of grasshoppers devour the verdant foliage.

"A small forest has miraculously been reborn," marvelled Simiri mayor Moussa Adamou.


The transformation is part of the African Union's Great Green Wall project, which aims to restore 100 million hectares of dry land by 2030 along an 8,000-kilometre (5,000-mile) strip stretching from Senegal in the west to Djibouti in the east.

Arable land is prized in landlocked Niger, where desert covers three-quarters of the territory and 80 percent of the population lives on subsistence farming.

The World Bank predicts its population will rise from 23 million in 2019 to 30 million in 2030 and 70 million in 2050, underlining the vital importance of the Green Wall's success.

Niger's contribution is mainly made up of white gum and Bauhinia rufescens trees, two drought-resistant species that can grow 12 metres (40 feet) tall.

Armed with pickaxes and spades, villagers built earthen embankments that hold rainwater around the saplings longer to ensure they grow even during droughts.

"Their leaves and seeds are rich in protein for livestock," explained local farmer Garba Moussa.

"Cooked or dried, we also eat them as survival food during severe food shortages," he added.

Mayor Adamou said that game animals and even giraffes have been leaving their remote habitat south of the capital Niamey to savour the tender acacia leaves since the Simiri plateau reforestation programme started in 2013.

Niger's southern forests have lost one-third of their surface area and now make up only one to two percent of the country, according to the United Nations Environment Programme.

By 2030, Niger aims to "green" 3.6 million hectares of land, which represents more than 37.5 percent of its territory, said Maisharou Abdou, the Green Wall's director-general in Niger.

Abdou said between eight and 12 percent of the total had been achieved by 2020, but emphasised the project was "a long-distance race".

Mouhamadou Souley, head of the anti-desertification services, added that work had already begun to extend Simiri's reforestation by another 65 hectares.

- Jihadist threat -

To achieve this dream, the country -- one of the world's poorest -- needs more than 454.645 billion CFA francs ($780 million), he added.

The European Union, UN Food and Agriculture Organization, World Bank and other donors have already given money.

In addition to halting desertification, the Great Green Wall also focuses on access to water, solar energy and socio-economic development including market gardening, fish farming, cattle rearing and poultry farms to provide employment for the local population.

Local NGOs have joined the battle, with plans to reforest 100 hectares, cultivate nurseries and dig water wells, according to Issa Garba of Young Volunteers for the Environment.

However, the jihadist attacks that have plagued several Great Green Wall countries could jeopardise the project.

Niger expert Sani Yaou said farmers are afraid to carry out reforestation or tree maintenance activities due to the jihadist threat.

"Insecurity has dealt a heavy blow to its realisation... All countries are focused on the fight against insecurity," Garba added.

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