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CRA audits of ultra-wealthy Canadians yield zero prosecutions, convictions

“In former times we didn’t see tax avoidance as a crime," said Brigitte Unger, professor of economics  "But now we see the public sector needs money, and this is effectively stealing money from public coffers, and should be treated as such," she said.

OTTAWA — Data from the Canada Revenue Agency shows its recent efforts to combat tax evasion by the super-rich have resulted in zero prosecutions or convictions.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

In response to a question tabled in Parliament by NDP MP Matthew Green, the CRA said it referred 44 cases on individuals whose net worth topped $50 million to its criminal investigations program since 2015.

Only two of those cases proceeded to federal prosecutors, with no charges laid afterward.

The lack of prosecutions follows more than 6,770 audits of ultra-wealthy Canadians over the past six years.

It also comes amid a roughly 3,000 per cent increase in spending on the agency's high-net-worth compliance program between 2015 and 2019 due to a beefed-up workforce, according to an October report from the parliamentary budget officer.

Green said federal authorities avoid pursuing Canada's biggest tax cheats but go after small business owners who don't pay their taxes under a "two-tiered system" pocked with "loopholes."

“The CRA is not pursuing Canada’s largest and most egregious tax cheats. And yet for a small mom-and-pop shop if you don’t pay your taxes long enough — two or three years — then they will absolutely go in and garnish your wages ... because they know you don't have the ability to take it to court," he said.

“There's a tax code for the ultra-wealthy ... and then there's a tax code for the rest of us," Green said. "The rich are taking advantage of the holes in our tax system. And this Liberal government continues to allow them to do so.”

The issue is top of mind for federal lawmakers this week as a parliamentary committee convenes to discuss the CRA's attempts to combat tax evasion and avoidance. Diane Lebouthillier, minister of national revenue, is slated to appear before the panel Tuesday afternoon.

A spokesman for the minister's office referred questions to the CRA, which did not respond immediately to requests for comment.

Denis Meunier, former deputy director of the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada, known as Fintrac, said the dearth of criminal charges is striking. But authorities often lack resources to carry out pricey, painstaking prosecutions across international borders and can opt instead for hefty non-criminal penalties.

"They may have some of the best lawyers fighting, so you may see that more in tax court, rather than convictions," Meunier said of proceedings against the ultra-wealthy.

"You need a search warrant to go kick in — well we don’t kick in doors, but you knock on them."

Often tax evasion boils down to unreported incomes or exaggerated expenses, which can then be deducted from income declared on tax filings.

"It’s not atypical to see individuals pay out invoices from foreign consulting companies. You pay a million bucks for a specialized report, and the company is a consulting firm based in a tax haven (where the real, or 'beneficial,' owner is hidden from view) and basically the company is owned by the same guy in Canada whose business it is," Meunier said.

It can be extraordinarily tough to trace money through the warren of shell companies and tax havens used by those seeking to stash their loot.

"Those persons who set up those shell companies and trusts in all those jurisdictions, they hear you coming. They know CRA Is after them," said Kevin Comeau, author of a 2019 C.D. Howe report on money laundering.

"They can just put in a couple more trusts and companies in other jurisdictions to make the trail longer at any time. It's a never-ending rabbit hole."

The Liberal budget in April allotted $2.1 million over two years for the Industry Department to launch a new beneficial ownership registry by 2025.

Comeau, a retired lawyer and member of Transparency International Canada’s working group on beneficial ownership transparency, said the registry could be a "game changer” for tax avoidance.

“Even if it is legal, they're not paying their fair share. So there's going to be huge social pressure on those persons to unwind those dealings and actually start bringing their money back to Canada,” he said.

“Many of these people are very highly respected people in the Canadian establishment.”

The absence of criminal prosecutions against high-net-worth residents comes in an era of rising wealth inequality, a disparity laid bare by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The top one per cent of Canada's families hold about 26 per cent of the wealth — some $3 trillion — up from the roughly 14 per cent estimated under previous methodology, according to modelling in a report from parliamentary budget officer Yves Giroux in June 2020.

The same report found that families with $29.3 million and more rank among Canada's 0.1 per cent.

Tax evasion — a predicate offence, meaning it forms a component of a more serious crime, such as money laundering — differs categorically from tax avoidance, a legal means of keeping wealth out of tax collectors' hands through clever accounting.

But critics say the vast troves wealth that remain untouchable to government authorities reveal the need to tighten tax rules as well as crack down on cheats.

“In former times we didn’t see tax avoidance as a crime," said Brigitte Unger, professor of economics at Utrecht University and head of the world’s biggest tax evasion project, run by the European Union.

"But now we see the public sector needs money, and this is effectively stealing money from public coffers, and should be treated as such," she said.

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

Christopher Reynolds, The Canadian Press

Biologist estimates helium balloons are ending up in Great Lakes by the hundreds of thousands

© Submitted by Leanne Grieves 

A half-deflated balloon marking someone's graduation lies in the sand on the north shore of Lake Erie.


The plastic balloons we use to mark some of the biggest milestones in our lives — births, deaths, graduations, homecomings, engagements, gender reveal parties — are ending up in the Great Lakes by the hundreds of thousands, according to an Ontario biologist who spent two weeks gathering trash.

Leanne Grieves is a postdoctoral fellow at McMaster University in Hamilton who studies bird behaviour and communication. This summer, she's been working at Birds Canada at Long Point on the north shore of Lake Erie.

"Lake Erie is beautiful and the shoreline is just stunning, especially if you're on the Long Point peninsula," she said. "It's really a glorious place to be."

What wasn't so glorious, though, was the trash, which became such an eyesore for Grieves that she couldn't help herself.
Hundreds of balloons along 7 km of beach

"There is just so much garbage washing up on shore," she said. "After a couple of days driving up and down to our site, I just thought, 'This is ridiculous. We have to start cleaning this up.'"

So Grieves and fellow biologist Ryan Ley started going up and down the shore, picking up whatever trash they found. In just under two weeks, across seven kilometres of beach, the pair amassed less than 380 helium balloons — and it wasn't always easy.

"Sometimes I had to wade out in my rubber boots to get balloons that hadn't yet washed ashore," Grieves said.

"Sometimes it would involve digging into the sand to extract balloons that had been buried and sometimes going up into the surrounding habitat to extract balloons from trees and shrubs."

The mass release of balloons has been a traditional way to celebrate special events for decades, but the practice is becoming increasingly controversial as studies highlight the environmental consequences.

While the balloons do break down over time, they don't dissolve completely, and the smaller plastic debris ends up in the environment, where animals can mistake it for food.

When ingested, the plastic provides no nutritional value and if the pieces are large enough, they can block or become lodged in the intestinal tracts of animals, slowly starving them to death.

Animals, such as birds and turtles, can also become ensnared in the strings and streamers that accompany balloons, drowning them or weighing them down so much that they're unable to find food.

The Canadian Wildlife Federation suggests alternatives to releasing balloons, such as planting a tree or memorial garden, to honour a loved one.

On its website, the federation notes that balloons can travel long distances when carried by winds and currents, noting a report about a balloon released at the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan, that ended up in Los Angeles 8,500 kilometres away.

Shiny, metallic-looking mylar balloons, in particular, have been known to cause fires or blackouts when they become entangled in power lines.

Gender reveal, grad balloons common finds

Despite the dangers, people are still releasing plenty of balloons.

Grieves said she and Ley found plenty of pink and blue balloons released at trendy gender reveal parties, as well as graduation balloons coinciding with the end of the school year.

"They say things like 'follow your dreams' or 'the adventure is just beginning,' but it's just this huge balloon trashing this beautiful landscape, so it's a bit shocking to see that."

One of the most striking finds that illustrates how a seemingly small and fleeting moment of celebration can have a lasting effect on the environment, according to Grieves, was a balloon from last Christmas.

"It was dated December 13, 2020 and it was in quite good shape, so these balloons really do stick around in the environment for months, if not, years."

During her trash-finding work, Grieves documented everything, including taking took pictures of each one before stuffing it into a trash bag and carefully noted the amount collected and where.

She also did a little math. Once she and Ley cleaned a section of beach, they returned the next day and counted every new balloon they found along that same stretch.

Based on her calculations, she estimates 1.9 balloons wash up on every kilometre of Lake Erie's 1,400-km shoreline each day.
The potential impact is 'staggering'

"If you assume they wash up on the Lake Erie shoreline at an equal rate, it's possible that 960,000 balloons wash up on the Lake Erie shoreline every year," she said.

"Even if my estimate is off by 50 per cent, that's half a million balloons that are washing up just on one of our Great Lakes. The potential impact of these balloons is staggering."

She said given the sheer number of balloons Grieves found that seemed to cover the gamut, from Mother's Day to welcoming the troops home, it shows how popular the practice of releasing balloons into the air is, despite the environmental consequences.

With the exception of a few Ontario communities passing their own bylaws banning the release of large numbers of helium balloons, there is no provincial or federal legislation regulating the practice.

A New Democrat-sponsored petition to the House of Commons is trying to gain enough signatures to ban the release of helium balloons, along with sky lanterns, making it punishable by levying a fine.

Grieves hopes by sharing her work, more people will understand the potential environmental consequences of releasing helium balloons.

"Balloon releases are an ongoing issue and you can't just clean them up once, and we'll continue to clean them until we stop releasing them."

A tiny Alaska town is split over a gold mine. At stake is a way of life

This year, plans to open operations finally took a significant step forward when Dowa took over the majority interest in the project from its Canadian partner, exploration company Constantine.

LONG READ

Dominic Rushe in Haines, Alaska 

THE GUARDIAN JUNE 22,2021

For 2,000 years, Jones Hotch’s ancestors have fished Alaska’s Chilkat River for the five species of salmon that spawn in its cold, clean waters. They have gathered berries, hunted moose and raised their families, sheltered from the extremes of winter by the black, saw-toothed peaks of the Iron Mountain.

Now Hotch fears a proposed mining project could end that way of life.

Hotch has an infectious, boyish laugh – but there is no mistaking how worried he is about plans to build a mine where millions pounds of zinc, copper, lead, silver and gold are buried, beneath the valleys’ mountains. We arejust miles from the headwaters of the Chilkat, the glacial river that serves as the main food source of the Tlingit, the region’s Indigenous people, as well as the inhabitants of Haines, the nearest port town.

“You guys might have your Safeway,” he says, waving his arm across the valley. “There’s ours all around here.”

Hotch, a tribal leader, lives in Klukwan, a village that takes its name from the Tlingit phrase “Tlakw Aan” – “the village that has always been”. It is the hub of an ancient trading route – later known as the Dalton Trail – that runs from Haines to Fort Selkirk in Canada.

Here in south-east Alaska, the consequences of the climate crisis are already visible. “Our mountains used to be snow-capped all year round,” Hotch said. “Two summers ago, our mountains were almost totally bare.” In Haines, hardware stores sold out of box fans because it was so hot.

King salmon – also known as Chinook – are in particular trouble. Haines’ popular annual fishing derby for largest species of Pacific salmon has been canceled, and now if anyone catches one, it must be released, in the hopes of encouraging their numbers.

“We need the snow to keep water cold for the salmon, for the summer blueberries,” says Hotch. Last year he saw fewer bumblebees, essential for pollination, and the blueberry crop was very disappointing. “I saw a bumblebee last week and I got real happy,” he laughs.

The mine, known as the Palmer Project, is still in the exploratory stage but financial control of the project was taken over by Dowa – a metals manufacturer and one of Japan’s largest companies – in a move that is seen as giving fresh impetus to the project.

If it gets approved, Hotch worries that contamination from the mine, located under the Saksaia glacier, could destroy the salmon runs they rely on. Even the exploration now under way could irreparably damage the fragile ecosystem, he believes, adding that the town would suffer too. Haines is heavily reliant on commercial salmon fishing, as well as tourism – each November, visitors flock to town to watch the largest convocation of bald eagles on the planet gorge on salmon.

“This project is a serious, significant threat facing our people,” says Hotch. “Some of the younger generation here now, they could say, ‘We were the last ones that were able to smoke fish, jar fish, pick blueberries,’” says Hotch. “We are working very hard to make sure no generation will have to say that.”

Mining has a long and storied history in the Chilkat Valley, stretching back all the way to the 1890s Klondike gold rush. Hopeful prospectors have been trying to strike it rich ever since Haines local Merrill Palmer – hence the name of the mine project – first laid claim to the site in 1969.

This year, plans to open operations finally took a significant step forward when Dowa took over the majority interest in the project from its Canadian partner, exploration company Constantine.

“It is a decision by an investor, already highly invested, to put in additional money to further develop it and take control of the project,” Jim Kuipers, a Montana-based consultant, told the Chilkat Valley News. “Every year the project continues to get financed and ownership gets more consolidated it does become more likely to happen.”

Along the banks of the Chilkat, there are already signs of increased activity. The Haines highway is being extended to carry heavy trucks at higher speeds, and the state-run Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority (Aidea) is proposing financing reconstruction of the town’s deepwater dock to include an ore dock that would make it easier to transport the bounty that the Constantine corporation believes the mine contains.

The economic turmoil triggered by the coronavirus has added impetus to the plans. The unemployment rate in Haines was over 14% in January. Meanwhile, copper prices have soared to record levels as large parts of the global economy emerges from pandemic lockdowns. The Palmer project would support 220 full-time jobs and 40 contractors, a significant boost to a town with a population of 1,863.

‘What we have here is special, not just for us but for the world’

For Gershon Cohen, a long-time Haines resident and project director of Alaska Clean Water Advocacy, rumblings that the mine may finally become a reality are “a nightmare”.

Cohen moved to Haines in 1984 and lives surrounded by trees in a beautiful wooden house he built himself – nothing out of the ordinary for Haines’s hardy, self-sufficient residents. On a walk to the shed he uses as his outside office, his wife suggests he gives me the “moose and the bear” talk. I joke I am a little old for that, but the dangers of the area’s two largest mammals are very real. Bears are likely to sniff you coming from a mile off and leave before you ever see them, but moose are easier to surprise and likely to trample you if spooked.

This is still a wild place. A record 40 grizzlies were killed in Haines last year, perhaps because poor fish runs and a bad berry season drove them into town looking for food (they have also been kept out of the local dump by an electric fence.) Bears, however, are smart – they have learned to open car doors to look for food and are not averse to breaking and entering houses.

“What we have here is very special, not just for us but for America and the world,” said Cohen. “There is a very real possibility that this mine will destroy the fisheries here. With the fish gone, there will be no eagles, no bears, no tourists. If this mine gets started it’ll be here for what? Ten years? What’s that against thousands of years of supporting this community?”

Haines and Klukwan are part of the Inside Passage, the longest and deepest fjord in North America and a place with a unique ecology. Cold, glacial freshwater meets the sea here, making it the perfect spawning ground for salmon and a critical corridor for bears, moose, lynx, coyote and snowshoe hares.

“Part of what makes this place so full of life is the robust salmon runs,” says Shannon Donahue, executive director of the Great Bear Foundation. The salmon transport nutrients from the ocean to the streams, they feed the bears and the eagles and their bodies feed the forest. But salmon are “pretty picky about their habitat,” she says.

Copper in particular can be catastrophic for them. Salmon can travel thousands of miles to return to the stream where they were born to die, using a smell memory bank to navigate one of the greatest migrations in the animal kingdom.

Metals leaked into streams can destroy the fish’s ability to find their way home, and“fugitive dust” shaken from trucks transporting extracted minerals can also contaminate the waterways, eventually building up to levels that can destroy the salmon’s unique homing abilities.

The mine’s supporters believe they can safely extract the Palmer Projects riches. But even if they do, the mine’s “tailings” – the waste materials including millions of tonnes of contaminated water – will have to be managed forever.

For local opponents, one recent disaster comes to mind immediately. In 2014 the tailings at the Mount Polley gold mine in British Columbia failed, sending 24m cubic metres of mine waste into the local waterways.

The Palmer site sits on active earthquake faults and in an area prone to catastrophic landslides. Only last December, two people died and multiple houses were destroyed after record-breaking rainfall triggered a landslide in Haines, leaving a huge, brown scar on the hillside.

As he recounts the tragedy, Cohen shakes his head. “What could possibly go wrong?”
‘It’s nerve-racking to even pick a side’

Alaska is heavily Republican and deeply pro-mining, but Haines is split on the project – and this includes the Native community, says local artist James Hart, a tribal council member of the Chilkoot Indian Association.

Hart is against the mine, but is wary of speaking out. “I am not a scientist, but I have seen what has happened in other places,” he says. “Worst-case scenario [is] it could potentially devastate and wipe out all of our salmon runs.”

Sharing that view in a small town where everyone knows everyone has consequences. “It’s nerve-racking to even pick a side or voice an opinion as a minority person,” he says. “The political climate in Haines makes it really hard.”

Hart’s mother has long been involved with tribal politics and and is another opponent of the mine. Recently people yelled at her in the street “just for having an opinion,” he says. “It’s not even an opportunity for having a dialogue, it’s just yelling because you have an opinion.” The incident made him more nervous for himself and his family.

Support for the project also runs deep. Jan Hill, Haines’ former mayor, is also Tlingit and a First Nation’s member of the Southern Tutchone. Her family has deep ties to the community and the project; Palmer was a friend of her parents.

“Mining is kind of in my blood,” she said. Her great grandparents came up to Alaska in 1898 from Washington state for the Gold Rush. “We have dealt with resource extraction in this community and it’s worked well for us. For the most part it is done responsibly and that’s what is important to all of us,” she said.

She points to Constantine hiring local people who can buy homes , offering “good paying summer jobs” for students and purchasing all the goods it can in Haines. And experts at Constantine offered help after the recent fatal landslide that would not have been available otherwise.“They stepped up immediately,” said Hill. “They are a part of our community.”

“None of us want bad things to happen to our fish or any of the wildlife. We live a subsistence lifestyle here. We depend on our fish and moose, the bears and ducks – all the creatures that God gave us. We all have these concerns, but I believe Constantine is very responsible. They are very regulated, they are good stewards of the environment.”

Garfield MacVeigh, Constantine’s chief executive, says he listens closely to the community’s apprehension. “We hear and appreciate those concerns. All the work we are doing is to demonstrate that we won’t be a threat to the environment. If we can’t demonstrate that, you are not going to build the project,” he said.

He points to a similar sized mine, Greens Creek silver mine near Juneau, about 80 miles as the eagle flies from Haines, which went into production in 1989 and has been operating for 32 years without any obvious impact on salmon.

Asked about Hotch’s concerns, he said: “I hear them, and as far as I am concerned they [the Tlingit] will be there for another 2,000 years, because we won’t take a risk that would result in any threat to the river environment.”

Many of the concerns about the impact of the mine were unscientific, he said, and comparisons to the Mount Polley catastrophe were “very misleading”.

“These days you are seeing virtually every project, anywhere, being contested. You have got the extreme group on one end contesting all of these things. They seem to become political rather than scientific. That’s their intent, to create noise around this and make it more and more political. The more extreme element doesn’t seem to be interested in the scientific data that may or may not justify the project,” he said.

Cohen dismissed MacVeigh’s comments, saying that there had been plenty of evidence, including from state reports , of high levels of pollution near Greens Creek.

Holding strong opinions can be hard in a small community. Other Haines residents were happy to talk as long as they were promised anonymity. One said it was particularly hard for the younger generation to speak out. The pandemic recession hit the town hard and, given its isolation, life was already too expensive for many here. “My friends are moving away,” he said. “I’m lucky – I’m working. But I can’t afford to piss anybody off. Older people have less to lose.”

He suggested I go and check out how much a gallon of milk cost in the local supermarket. A gallon of 2% milk was $6.89 in Haines, while the national average in April was $3.58. Nearby, the supermarket was selling organic cucumbers for $2.29 a piece, compared to $1.49 in a Whole Foods in Brooklyn.

It’s not just the mine that divides Haines. The town has a long reputation for sharp-elbowed politics and bitter generational infighting.

Few people know that better than Kyle Clayton, publisher of the Chilkat Valley News. Trying to objectively cover the Palmer project is a hard task. “I piss everybody off,” says Clayton. “I’ve been called a lackey for the mine.”

A handsome 36-year-old, Clayton has the worried look of a peacemaker. “It comes from all directions. The good thing is that in a small town, you can talk to people and reach some kind of understanding.”

He dislikes the black or white nature of the debate. “There’s a lot of unknowns. It’s still a long way off from being a project,” he says. He wants to see more information before deciding whether he should take a side.

On his paper-strewn stand-up desk is a list of 22 questions to be asked of interviewees to “complicate the narrative”, to “amplify contradictions and widen the lens”. In this hyper-partisan age, he is determined the paper will try its hardest to be fair to both sides.

People warned Clayton of Haines’ reputation before he moved from Petersborough, another small Alaskan town near Juneau. These days, he thinks it’s not so different from much of America. When he speaks to people back home, they tell him people there are at each other over face masks and Covid vaccinations.

“Maybe we just did it first?” he says. “Haines is definitely a divisive little town. But what doesn’t get said is a lot of people are very engaged,” he says.

As plans for the Palmer project pick up, the community and the wider world is likely to get even more engaged – and enraged. The Biden administration recently banned drilling for oil and gas in Alaska’s Arctic national wildlife refuge. Alaska’s Republican governor Mike Dunleavy called it an “assault on Alaska’s economy”.

But the opposition to the mine may not come entirely from the left. Last year Donald Trump Jr, the former president’s son and a keen hunter and fisherman, joined opposition to the controversial Pebble mine at the headwaters of salmon rich Bristol Bay. That project is now in jeopardy.

Hotch said his community would be fighting hard to make sure Merrill Palmer’s gold stays underground. No short-term gain is worth the risk involved, he said.

“There might be money for five, 10, 15 years and then they will leave for the next spot, wherever that is. And we here will have to live with the consequences of what they did to our lands.”

More than anything, he wants the way of life that has supported his people for 2,000 years to be protected.

“I long for the day we can stop having to do this and look at ways that the salmon can have a friendlier way swimming up river. That’s how we can help them. That’s my goal after we finish this battle. They have been helping us for generations. It’s the absolute least we can do.”

Patrick Brown: Islamophobia is a scourge on Canadian society. We must erase it

What happened in London, Ont., on June 6 was horrific, and sadly this tragedy was not an isolated incident.

Provided by National Post Mourners pray as caskets draped in Canadian flags are lined up at a funeral for the four Muslim family members killed in a deadly vehicle attack on June 6, 2021, in London, Ont. Talat Afzaal, 74, her son Salman Afzaal, 46, his wife Madiha Salman, 44, and their 15-year-old daughter Yumna Afzaal all died when they were struck by a driver in what officials have deemed a terror attack.

Whether it is in London, Peterborough, or Quebec City, hate crimes against Muslims are real and a reminder that there is still much work to do in Canada.

After the senseless massacre in Quebec City on Jan. 29, 2017, I had Muslim friends who couldn’t sleep for fear of going out in public the next day wearing a hijab and facing hate or targeted violence.

A few weeks later I was eager to rise at Queen’s Park as leader of the Opposition and support a Liberal MPP’s motion on Islamophobia. I was enthusiastic to support the motion and even more proud to stand in the provincial legislature and declare, “Islamophobia is real, and we have to condemn it unreservedly.”

It was disappointing to see 91 federal MPs in Ottawa subsequently vote against the same motion, which passed nonetheless. Islamophobia can’t be a partisan issue. It’s about what is right and what is wrong. For me, it was very straightforward. Islamophobia is not a difference of opinion. I couldn’t comprehend how it had become a politically polarizing issue.

My best friend growing up was of Muslim faith. His family was no different than mine other than the god they worshipped. But I learned early on, he faced bias and hate simply because of the faith he was born into.

As a younger man I travelled internationally with a Muslim friend quite often, and when flying back to Canada I’d cringe knowing he would undergo enhanced security checks while they wouldn’t give me a second glance.

On the two-year anniversary of the attack on the Centre Culturel Islamique de Québec, Brampton city council unanimously passed a resolution proclaiming Jan. 29 as a day of remembrance and action on Islamophobia. In Brampton we honour and remember the victims of discrimination, and fight intolerance.

NP View: After terrible tragedy in London, Canada's leaders must fight hatred with more than condolences

Opinion: A typical London family out for a walk. Until hatred attacked

There are many reasons why bias and hate grow, but the most troubling emanate from the chamber of the extreme far right. In Canada, right-wing extremists broadcast falsehoods, play on emotions and pander to the worst in society.

Islamophobia is disgusting.

The London terrorist attack against the Afzaal family, killing all but a nine-year-old as they were out on an evening stroll simply because they were Muslim, was cowardly, heinous and cruel.

Crimes in Peel Region motivated by race or nationality increased by 54 per cent from 2018 to 2020. Yet, despite these numbers, our justice system continues to have an incredibly high threshold for anyone to be prosecuted under hate-related laws, and as a result, it is not achieving the desired aims.

The Criminal Code of Canada does not specifically define what constitutes a “hate crime” as a chargeable offence, and what is laid out only provides a judge the ability to hand down harsher sentences based on their perception of a perpetrator’s motivation. In Peel, only one-third of the Criminal Code offences designated by police as hate or bias-motivated crimes resulted in Criminal Code charges being brought forward in 2020.

© Twitter Salman Afzaal, 46, and his family were out for a walk the evening of June 6, 2021, in London, Ont., when they were struck by a driver who police believe targeted them because they were Muslim.

Javeed Sukhera, chair of the London Police Services Board, and Ahmad Attia, chair of the Peel Police Services Board, recently wrote, “It’s time to arm our justice system with the necessary tools to root out hatred, and to hold accountable those who perpetrate hate crimes. It’s time to remind far-right extremists and terrorists that our country will not tolerate their hate-motivated crimes and rhetoric. The human cost of our inaction would be too great to bear.”

We need more accountability in the justice system.

Additionally, if there was ever a time for federal leaders to speak up against Quebec’s ban on religious symbols for public-sector workers through the province’s Bill 21, it’s now.

Whether it be with a hijab, yarmulke, turban or any other religious garb or symbol, Canadians have a right to express their faith. The government of Canada can’t simultaneously be against Islamophobia in English Canada and allow it in Quebec.

Two years ago, Brampton council quickly and unanimously passed a motion to support a legal challenge against Bill 21. We would not be bystanders to hate; we reject it and we encouraged other municipalities to join the fight. Canada must be a country where no one fears recrimination based on their faith.

Brampton is deeply grief stricken and outraged by this most recent hate crime. It was heartwarming to see such an outpouring of love, support and strength at the vigil for London’s fallen this past weekend in Brampton. Islamophobia is a scourge on our society. It does not belong in Canada, and we need to erase it.

We can be a nation that celebrates religious freedom, not only in the words of our Charter, but in the reality of our society.

We must embrace, not shun, celebrate, not denigrate, love, not hate.

Patrick Brown is the Mayor of the City of Brampton in Peel Region, Ontario.

Patrick Brown (politician) - Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Brown_(politician)

• Overview
• Early life and career
• Municipal politics
• Federal politics
• Provincial politics
• Return to municipal politics
• Political views
• Personal life

Patrick Walter Brown (born May 26, 1978) is a Canadian politician who is currently serving as the Mayor of Brampton. Prior to his election as mayor, Brown was the leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario and Ontario's Leader of the Official Opposition from 2015 to 2018.
Brown's political career began when he served on the Barrie City Council in the early 2000s. From 2006 until 2015, Brown was a federal Conservative Member of Parliament representing the riding of Barrie.

QUEBEC NATIONALISTS ARE CHAUVINISTS

Quebec isn't interested in adding a statutory holiday in the province to recognize Indigenous Peoples.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

Premier François Legault told reporters today the province has enough statutory holidays and the government isn't interested in adding another, no matter the reason.

The federal government recently adopted Bill C-5, which designates Sept. 30 as the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation; it will apply to federally regulated workers.

Legault says the province marked National Indigenous Peoples Day today and that there's a lot of work to do on reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples in the province.

He notes that his government has brought back a roundtable with the Assembly of First Nations Quebec-Labrador and says a first meeting was held last week.

Legault says he hopes Indigenous Affairs Minister Ian Lafrenière will be able to eventually conclude agreements with each of the 11 nations in the province.

"I understand very well we have a lot of work to do for reconciliation between our nation and each of the 11 nations," Legault said today. "We have to honour them, we have to respect them, we have to make sure we don't see racism like we have in the past unfortunately, so there's still a lot of work to do."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 21, 2021.

The Canadian Press

‘Staggering disparity’: Study finds Indigenous people travel farther to give birth

#YEG H SERVE NORTHERN ALBERTA AND NWT/ARCTIC

(Photo by LOIC VENANCE / AFP) FILE: A mother holds the foot of her newborn baby on July 7, 2018 at the hospital in Nantes, western France.

Indigenous people living in rural Canada are 16 times more likely to travel long distances -- sometimes hundreds of kilometers more -- than non-Indigenous people to give birth, according to a new study.

The findings, published Monday by researchers from several universities, hospitals and health institutions, were found through a review of data from a federal survey on maternity experiences in Canada.

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The results of the review, which included 3,100 mothers living in small and rural towns across Canada, revealed a staggering disparity between the experiences of those across several different communities -- that 23 per cent of Indigenous women had travelled 200 km or more to give birth compared to only two per cent of non-Indigenous.

"I knew there would be a disparity, but I never imagined that the disparity would be so extreme, particularly since we weren't including First Nations women on reserves," Dr. Janet Smylie, who is Métis-Cree and is a family practitioner and professor of public health at the University of Toronto, told a Canadian Medical Association Journal podcast.

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Smylie and the other co-authors of the study had also taken into account several other socio-economic factors experienced by Indigenous people, pointing specifically that mothers from those communities were more "likely to be single, have lower levels of education, have an income under $30,000 a year, have experienced abuse and have been admitted to hospital during pregnancy than non-Indigenous mothers."

They had also specified that the sample of 3,100 had been weighted to represent 31,000 mothers -- which comprised of 1,800 Indigenous and 29,300 non-Indigenous -- and that First Nations women who were living on reserve were excluded from the survey.

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Smylie said that for First Nations, Inuit and Métis people, giving birth close to home is a very important tradition because the land is considered a part of their family.

"If you have to move away from where you're from, it's like leaving a very important relative out of the birth experience," said Smylie.

Dr. Anna Banerji, a pediatric infectious disease specialist and expert on Indigenous and refugee health at the University of Toronto, said she wasn't surprised by the findings of the report.

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Though Banerji wasn't directly involved in the study, she frequently travels to and works out of rural Indigenous communities, and said that there are so many other complications to consider for Indigenous people who are not able to give birth within their communities.

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"So it has a huge impact on these young women -- they're separated from their families, often separated from their spouses, they can be separated from their children," Banerji said, noting that in many instances, women would have to fly large distances from their communities and wait by themselves in boarding houses or tertiary centres.


"Often they travel alone so they don't have someone there with them during the birth, they may be in places where they don't speak the language or the health care providers may not understand the culture."

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The study's authors also pointed to the discrepancies in travel distance between Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities as being a result of longstanding systemic colonial policies.

Banerji said, however, that these policies have far extended past that of Indigenous health care, pointing to disparities in funding across the board from education to housing to social services.

Death of 6-year-old reveals gaps in Indigenous health-care system

"Indigenous people get per capita a fraction of the funding that non-Indigenous people get, and that is very much a colonialist attitude -- that they don't need more, deserve more," she said.

"I would say it's actually an apartheid attitude where you have differential funding in one group of people based on race."

Though a lack of access to health care in those communities, including those in reserves, remains one of the longest running issues faced by Indigenous peoples, the studies authors pointed at several ways to help increase access to proper birthing support.

Bringing in more Indigenous midwives and health professionals to or near those communities, as well as including community leaders in health service planning, could all potentially help increase access.

Lack of access to Indigenous midwifery

Banerji said that they need to take it a step further and start looking at the system as whole to make it safer and more equitable for Indigenous people.

"We've seen over and over again, especially in the past few years, how Indigenous people are generally treated differently than non-Indigenous people," she said.

Ultimately, Banerji said that concrete steps need to be taken in remediating those disparities and that funding should be going to both health-care workers and to the education of those not working in health care as well.

 Canada  

NDP's Singh blasts Liberal 'hypocrisy' on National Indigenous Peoples Day

Liberal 'hypocrisy' blasted

The Canadian Press - Jun 21, 2021 / 9:25 am | Story: 337622

Photo: The Canadian Press

Inuk elder Reepa Evic-Carleton lights a traditional oil lamp at a ceremony to celebrate National Indigenous Peoples Day.

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh says he believes the Liberal government is "hypocritical" for saying it wants to make reparations for past sins against Indigenous people while also facing tough criticisms of its handling of a number of key files.

Singh says the Liberals are hoping to turn the page and celebrate their achievements on reconciliation with First Peoples today, on National Indigenous Peoples Day, but he believes they should instead be taken to task on their record.

The Liberals have faced several weeks of challenging questions following the discovery of what are believed to be the remains of 215 children at the site of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School.

A number of Indigenous groups also condemned Ottawa's action plan responding to the National Inquiry on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, calling the development process not consultative enough and the plan “fragmented.”

Ottawa was also in Federal Court last week challenging two Canadian Human Rights Tribunal rulings that found the federal government discriminated against Indigenous children by not properly funding child and family services.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau published a series of tweets today celebrating the "vibrant and diverse cultures, languages, and traditions of First Nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples," but he also acknowledged that action must be taken because "saying sorry is not enough."

VIDEO

HOW CANADIAN OF US

Canadians appreciate Indigenous land acknowledgements, but don't think it applies to them: poll

OTTAWA — A new poll shows that while Canadians want politicians to acknowledge the Indigenous history of the land they’re standing on, they don’t think it applies to their own land.

Provided by National Post 

The Canadian flag stretched out in the wind on Monday, February 15, 2021.

Indigenous land acknowledgments in which speakers, usually politicians, mention the Indigenous history of the land they are speaking on have become common in recent years. As an example, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau often mentions when he is speaking from Ottawa that he is sitting on unceded Algonquin territory.

A new poll done by the Association for Canadian Studies, a not-for-profit focused on increasing Canadians’ understanding of our past, found that most people appreciate the statements coming from their political leaders.

In the poll, 50 per cent of respondents said they either strongly or somewhat agree that politicians should regularly make a land acknowledgement, in contrast to 34 per cent who disagree and 17 per cent who don’t know.

Support for the statements was generally highest among younger people, with 67 per cent of people in the age group agreeing with it.

Despite the support for having politicians say it, when asked if they personally are living on unceded Indigenous territory, only 25 per cent of people agreed.

Jack Jedwab, president of the association, said it shows there is work for people to do in understanding what the acknowledgements actually mean.

“People feel it’s okay for governments to make that acknowledgement, but a lot of people simply don’t feel that they’re not on their own territory, so to speak,” he said.

Jedwab said he believes many people interpret that as saying they don’t own their land, rather than simply acknowledging the history behind it. He said there is a need for more education on what land acknowledgments really mean.

“Optimally, the idea is to give meaning to these land acknowledgments. We don’t want them to be gratuitous land acknowledgments, we want people to understand what they are about,” he said.

Unceded Indigenous territory generally refers to lands that were controlled by Indigenous communities before French and British settlers arrived. Courts have since recognized those claims, and land claim settlements have been underway with Indigenous communities to compensate communities for the land.

Mostly in Western Canada, Indigenous communities entered into treaties with the Canadian government of the time. Land acknowledgments in the Prairies generally mention those treaties, which were often not fulfilled.

The government is engaged in negotiations over land claims with Indigenous communities across the country. Jedwab said these views could be a political barrier to those negotiations, but generally he believes Canadians just need to better understand the process.

“My conclusion from all this, is there’s more education and more understanding that’s required,” he said.

The poll used an online panel and reached out to 1,539 respondents between June 4 and June 6.

Twitter: RyanTumilty

Email: rtumilty@postmedia.com

Ottawa approves new truth and reconciliation legislation on National Indigenous Peoples Day

Nick Boisvert 

© Justin Tang/The Canadian Press People gather at the Centennial Flame on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on May 30, 2021. Children's shoes were displayed there following the discovery of children's remains at a residential school in Kamloops, B.C.

New Canadians will soon have to affirm their commitment to respecting treaties with Indigenous peoples when they are sworn in as citizens.

Two pieces of legislation concerning the government's relationship with Indigenous peoples received royal assent and became law Monday evening.

One of them, Bill C-8, will change Canada's oath of citizenship to include a new line acknowledging the country's treaties with Indigenous communities.

New citizens will be asked to affirm their commitment to Canadian law, "including the Constitution, which recognizes and affirms the Aboriginal and treaty rights of First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples."

That change reflects the 94th and final recommendation in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada's landmark 2015 report.

Immigration Minister Marco Mendicino said the change "will help new Canadians better understand the role of Indigenous peoples, the ongoing impact of colonialism and residential schools and our collective obligation to uphold the treaties."

The other legal change comes through Bill C-15, which will see Canada formally adopt the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP).

Both bills have been approved already by the House of Commons and the Senate, although Conservatives in both chambers said they were concerned by the UNDRIP bill and largely voted against it.

Richard Wagner, who is serving temporarily as the acting governor general, granted the bills royal assent on Monday evening, which enshrines them as law.

The legislation was approved on National Indigenous Peoples Day.
Grand chief notes 'abysmal' situation in Indigenous communities

Video: National Indigenous Peoples Day (Global News)

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau marked the occasion on social media earlier Monday by acknowledging that Canada has "much more work to do to advance truth and reconciliation."

Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs Grand Chief Stewart Phillip described the government's adoption of UNDRIP as a "significant development" before laying out numerous inequities that continue to plague Indigenous peoples in Canada.

"The true measure of reconciliation must be taken on the ground itself, and in that regard we still have abysmal rates of infant mortality, children are apprehended on an ever-increasing basis, we have an epidemic of youth suicides, Indigenous women are continuing to be kidnapped and murdered," Stewart said in an interview on CBC's Power & Politics.

"When one looks at the reality on the ground, we haven't really moved to where we need to be," Phillip added.
Singh, Qaqqaq say Liberals have nothing to be proud of

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh said Monday he believes the Liberal government is "hypocritical" for saying it wants to make reparations for past sins against Indigenous people while also facing tough criticism of its handling of a number of key files.

Singh said the Liberals are hoping to turn the page and celebrate their achievements on reconciliation with First Peoples, but he believes they should instead be taken to task over their record.

The Liberals have faced several weeks of challenging questions following the discovery of what are believed to be the remains of 215 children at the site of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School.

A number of Indigenous groups also condemned Ottawa's action plan responding to the National Inquiry on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, saying the development process was not consultative enough and calling the plan "fragmented."© Sean Kilpatrick / Canadian Press NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh said appropriate action has not yet been taken to address Canada's 'genocidal policies that targeted Indigenous families and communities.'

Ottawa was also in Federal Court last week challenging two Canadian Human Rights Tribunal rulings that found the federal government discriminated against Indigenous children by not properly funding child and family services.

Nunavut MP Mumilaaq Qaqqaq acknowledged National Indigenous Peoples Day while speaking to the House of Commons on Monday.

She said the federal government ought to be ashamed of its record on serving Indigenous communities.

"It should be a day of celebration, of culture and history. But I am filled with a tremendous amount of sadness and anger," Qaqqaq said.

"There is nothing for Indigenous peoples to be proud of in this institution."

CANADA
Two Catholic churches burn to ground on First Nations' land
David Carrigg 

VANCOUVER SUN

© JAMES MILLER Firefighters' jackets hang Monday on the fence outside what used to be Sacred Heart Church on the Penticton Indian Reserve. The church was destroyed by a fire around 1:30 a.m. Monday.

Two Catholic churches on Indigenous land in the southern Okanagan were destroyed by fire early Monday, as shock waves continue from the discovery of 215 unidentified graves near the old Kamloops Indian Residential School.

According to Penticton South Okanagan RCMP spokesman Sgt. Jason Bayda, an officer on patrol spotted fire coming from the Sacred Heart Church on Penticton Indian Band land at around 1:20 a.m.

Penticton Fire and Rescue were called and arrived to find the church fully engulfed in flames.

Bayda said that less than two hours later — at 3:10 a.m. — Oliver RCMP and the Oliver Fire Department were notified that St. Gregory’s Church on Osoyoos Indian Band land was ablaze.

Oliver is a 40-minute drive south of Penticton on Highway 97.

“Both churches burned to the ground and police are treating the fires as suspicious,” Bayda said.

The wooden churches were each at least 100 years old and are the responsibility of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Nelson.

“Investigators have and continue to liaise with both the Penticton and Osoyoos Indian bands as we investigate these fires,” Bayda said.

“Should our investigations deem these fires as arson, the RCMP will be looking at all possible motives and allow the facts and evidence to direct our investigative action. We are sensitive to the recent events, but won’t speculate on a motive.”

© ROY WOOD The remains of St. Gregory Church on the Osoyoos Indian Reserve. It was destroyed by fire at around 3 a.m. on Monday.

Bayda was referring to the discovery of the remains of the 215 kids found late last month. This discovery has sparked outrage directed toward the Catholic Church that operated the majority of B.C.’s 28 residential schools, and the federal government that created the policy and funded the institutions, where children were systematically degraded and abused.

June 21 was National Indigenous Peoples Day in Canada.

Father Thomas Kakkaniyil, the priest in charge of St. Gregory’s Church, said Sunday had been the first mass at the church in over a year — due to COVID-19. He said the church had daytime security for the mass, but there was no security overnight.

“Somebody from outside came and burned it as I understand it,” Kakkaniyil said. “It was done on the Osoyoos First Nation land but not by those people. It was somebody else.”

A spokesperson for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Vancouver said there would be no comment on Monday’s fires.

“We do not consider this as cause for concern for churches locally,” Makani Marquis said.

Chief Greg Gabriel of the Penticton Indian Band said the Sacred Heart Church was a community fixture that hosted weddings and funerals but many people also feel pain due to the Roman Catholic Church’s role operating abusive residential schools.

“There’s a lot of anger, a lot of hurt in every First Nations, Indigenous community throughout Canada,” he said, adding that he was not speculating on the cause of the fire.

Gabriel said he was awoken by a staff member calling at 2 a.m. to report the church was on fire.

“I quickly rushed down to the church site and by the time I got there it was already gone. It was a very old church and didn’t take very much time for it to completely burn down,” he said.

The church was built around 1912, he said.

The Penticton Indian Band is also asking that band members not be approached to ask how they felt about the fires.

dcarrigg@postmedia.com

— with a file from Canadian Press