RCMP’s top cop says defunding police is ‘more about funding all social services’
By Charlie Pinkerton. Published on Jun 23, 2020 10:07pm

R.C.M.P. commissioner Brenda Lucki speaks with reporters at a press conference from West Block about the recent shooting in Portapique, N.S. on Apr. 20, 2020. Andrew Meade/iPolitics

RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki says she agrees with calls from activists to better fund needed mental health supports, but argued that stripping resources from frontline police officers is not a solution.

While several high-profile police killings of racialized people in mental distress in Canada have prompted calls for defunding police services, in favour of specialized supports for vulnerable populations, Lucki stressed that police officers are still required as first responders in these instances.

“I have said at three o’clock in the morning when somebody’s wielding a knife, and they’re suffering from a mental health crisis, that is not the time to bring in mental health practitioners,” Lucki said when posed the idea by Liberal MP Gary Anandasangaree, during an appearance Tuesday before the House public safety committee.

“It’s time for the RCMP to go in, get that person calm, get them to a place of safety and get them the help they need.”

READ MORE: RCMP union boss says cops are on board with body cameras plan

Lucki was testifying for the committee’s study of systemic racism in policing in Canada. She said more money needs to be given to have more readily available mental health supports in emergencies.

“So it’s not about defunding, it’s about funding everything that goes along and I think we can work better with our mental health practitioners,” Lucki said.

CBC News published a video earlier on Tuesday, part of a civil lawsuit being argued before the B.C. Supreme Court, that showed an RCMP officer in Kelowna dragging and stepping on a girl who had been restrained during a wellness check. Mona Wang, who CBC says was a student of the University of British Columbia’s nursing program, sued RCMP Cpl. Lacy Browning for physical and emotional abuse. The officer says she only used necessary force when Wang became violent.

The revelation of the Wang incident piles onto a disturbing trend in Canada, in which police across the country have been challenged for mishandling delicate scenarios, often-times by using unnecessary force towards people who aren’t white.

Ejaz Choudry, a 62-year-old man from Pakistan whose family say suffered from schizophrenia, was shot and killed by police in Mississauga over the weekend during a wellness check by police.

In May, Regis Korchinski-Paquet, a 29-year-old Black woman, fell to her death from a balcony in Toronto, after police had arrived to help her.

The provincial Special Investigations Unit is looking into both Korchinski-Paquet’s and Choudry’s deaths. 

Activists PEOPLE angry over allegations of police involvement in the death of 29-year-old Regis Korchinski-Paquet, who fell from the 24th-floor balcony of a High Park apartment building in May, hold a protest and march to Toronto Police Headquarters. Steve Russell/Toronto Star
Two Indigenous people, Rodney Levi and Chantel Moore, have also been killed by police in New Brunswick this month. Levi was shot by an RCMP officer, while Moore was killed by an officer with the Edmundston Police Department. Both of their deaths are being looked into by investigatory bodies outside of the police forces.

The dashcam footage of the violent arrest of Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation Chief Allan Adam was also acquired and published by CBC News this month. Adam, who repeatedly swears at RCMP officers and accuses them of harassing him, is tackled, punched and choked by police in the video.

The incidents in Canada follow a number of incidents of law enforcement violence in the U.S., including the police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, which have been seen as cause for weeks of anti-racism and anti-police violence protests that have continued south of the border. Likewise rallies have taken place in Canada, albeit less frequent than the everyday gatherings seen in the U.S.

READ MORE: NDP MP Green sponsors petition calling for nationwide ban on use of tear gas

In what’s seen as a response to calls for action, the federal police agency has promised to start a process of outfitting officers with body-worn cameras.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has described that plan as “one measure amongst many” that the government will pursue to push back against systemic racism that he and others in his government say exist within Canada’s institutions.

Systemic racism in the RCMP

During a series of media interviews almost two weeks ago Lucki denied the existence of systemic racism within the RCMP. She rolled back those comments the next day, saying that “I do know that systemic racism is part of every institution, the RCMP included.”

The topic was again brought up at Tuesday’s committee meeting, when Liberal MP Greg Fergus asked Lucki to provide a definition of systemic racism, in the context of how it exists in the RCMP.

Lucki stumbled through an answer, giving an example of a physical test that officers are subjected to.

“We have a physical abilities, a requirement evaluation, it’s an obstacle course. In there, there’s six foot mat, that you have to do a broad jump and when we put the lens on it and reviewed that physical requirements test, evidence told us that the average person can broad jump their height. So, of course, how many six foot people do we hire? And there are people in all different cultures that may not be six feet, including, there’s not a lot of women that are six feet tall,” Lucki said, before she was cut off by Fergus.

“That’s systemic discrimination,” Fergus said, “But I’m trying to think of systemic racism.”

Lucki then asked Gail Johnson, the chief human resources officer of the RCMP, who appeared by video on Tuesday to instead answer the question.

Earlier in her committee appearance, during a portion in which she read from prepared remarks, Lucki defended the police force at large, saying that she believed many officers have been misaligned because of the events of the last few weeks.

“I have listened to RCMP employees and their families who are demoralized by the anti-police narrative that is painting everyone unfairly with the same brush. But acknowledging that systemic racism is present in the force does not equate to employees being racist,” Lucki said.

Lucki went on to talk about how she means for her acknowledgement of systemic racism existing in the RCMP to be interpreted.

“It is about how an organization creates and maintains racial inequality, often caused by sometimes subtle and unintentional biases and police policies, practices and process that either privilege or disadvantage different groups of people,” the commissioner said.

RCMP officers close the road off near the scene of one of the victims of a shooting spree in Nova Scotia. Steve McKinley/Toronto Star

She also said the RCMP is determined to “seek out and eliminate all forms of racism and discrimination” that exist within it.

READ MORE: RCMP plan to buy more armoured vehicles amid new scrutiny over policing tactics

Lucki also said the force needs to “double down” on its diversity hiring efforts, revisiting its relocation requirements for officers and looking to ensure greater place-based recruitment, “so that officers remain in the communities that ties and roots are already established.”

Lucki also said she’s committed to working with the federal privacy commissioner to collect race-based policing data, which advocates have called for to get a better sense of how often police use force against visible minorities compared to white people.

RCMP union says cops are on board with body cameras plan

By Charlie Pinkerton. Published on Jun 19, 2020

A Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) member stationed on Dec. 12, 2018 in Calgary. (Christina Ryan/Calgary StarMetro)

RCMP officers won’t get in the way of a new plan by the national police agency to outfit cops with body cameras, the head of the officers’ union says, as long as careful discussion is had about the privacy concerns that come in tow with collecting the videos.

“(We’re) fully on board, fully aware that things need to change,” Brian Sauvé, the president of the National Police Federation (NPF), told iPolitics in a phone call on Thursday.

READ MORE: Trudeau says police body cameras are ‘what we need to move forward with’

Sauvé said he spoke with RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki about the proposal last week, which was also when she shared publicly her plan to more forward with equipping police with body-worn cameras.

“The commissioner has confirmed that the RCMP will engage in work and discussion with policing partners and the NPF on a broader rollout of body-worn cameras,” Dan Brien, a spokesperson for Lucki, said in a statement on June 8.

Sauvé said he expects the NPF and RCMP to work through issues about when cameras would be required to be activated. One approach for police in other jurisdictions has been to only turn their cameras on when they’re on a call.

“There’s a discussion around, and from our perspective is, do members have them on all the time? Are they allowed to turn them off if they get a phone call from their wife? When they use the washroom or when they’re having lunch – those personal time periods? Do we tie it into lights-and-sirens calls or do we leave it to the discretion of the member to turn on or off?” said Sauvé.

He also raised concerns about how evidence collected showing minors could be shown in court.

“It’s not that we’re against it – it’s just all of these things have never been done before, so it’s a matter of getting it right, respecting the privacy of Canadians, but also respecting the privacy of the members,” Sauvé added.

Some of Sauvé’s concerns about body cameras echo similar points in a report the federal Privacy Commissioner published in 2015 offering guidance for law enforcement that were thinking about implementing the policy.

READ MORE: NDP MP Green sponsors petition calling for nationwide ban on use of tear gas

That report concluded that “the recording of individuals through the use of BWCs (body-worn cameras) raises a significant risk to individual privacy, and LEAs (law enforcement authorities) must be committed to only deploying BWCs to the degree and in a manner that respects and protects the general public’s and employees’ right to personal privacy.”

Sauvé noted that the RCMP and NPF have discussed a committee to establish how body cameras would be rolled out, but that the union hasn’t decided who it would like represented in the group yet.

Earlier in the same day that Lucki announced the RCMP would move forward intending to implement a body cameras in the force, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said they had spoken about it and agreed there was a need for the policy. Trudeau promised to raise the idea to the provinces later in the week. 

 

RCMP commissioner Brenda Lucki speaks with reporters at a press conference on April 20 from West Block about the shooting in Portapique, N.S. Andrew Meade/iPolitics

READ MORE: Toronto police, city bylaw, not collecting data on race when enforcing COVID rules

Equipping federal officers with body cameras was the first policy pushed forward by the federal government in response to weeks of protests in the U.S. and later for days in Canada following the death of George Floyd at the hands of police.

The government has been pressured by protestors across the country to undertake solution-seeking action against racism and police violence. Calls escalated after Trudeau joined a Parliament Hill protest on June 5, where he knelt with anti-Black racism protestors in a show of solidarity.

The statement from the RCMP days later said “the commissioner agrees it is critically important for Canadians to feel protected by the police.”

“(Lucki) is committed to take whatever steps are required to enhance trust between the RCMP and the communities we serve,” Brien said.

Pierre Paul-Hus, the Conservatives’ critic on public safety issues, said he supports the move to have police wearing body cameras, but would prefer to have the cost of equipping RCMP officers with cameras examined before the policy is rolled out.

The NPF is in the early goings of working toward a collective agreement with the Treasury Board (which is responsible for all of the core federal government’s collective bargaining and negotiations) to negotiate things like pay, employee benefits and resources.

(Sauvé said collective bargaining is in the early stages, while Treasury Board spokesperson said negotiations are expected to begin “soon.”)

READ MORE: What the RCMP’s new civilian advisory group will do at a moment of reckoning for police misconduct

The NPF was certified last July after a several-year fight. It represents around 20,000 RCMP officers, which by themselves are 30 per cent of police officers across all forces in

THIS IS A POLICE UNION I CAN SUPPORT AS DO MOST LEFT WING CANADIANS WE CALLED FOR IT TO CHANGE THE RCMP FROM BEING A MILITARY FORCE TO A CIVILIAN FORCE

IMF slashes forecast for the global economy, warns of soaring debt levels and unemployment

Silvia Amaro, CNBC

© Provided by NBC News

The International Monetary Fund slashed its economic forecasts once again on Wednesday and warned that public finances will deteriorate significantly as governments attempt to combat the fallout from the coronavirus crisis.

The IMF now estimates a contraction of 4.9 percent in global GDP (gross domestic product) in 2020, lower than the 3 percent drop it predicted back in April.


“The COVID-19 pandemic has had a more negative impact on activity in the first half of 2020 than anticipated, and the recovery is projected to be more gradual than previously forecast,” the IMF said Wednesday in its World Economy Outlook update.

The Fund also downgraded its GDP forecast for 2021. It now expects a growth rate of 5.4 percent from the 5.8 percent forecast made in April (the positive reading reflects that economic activity will be coming from a lower base following 2020's heavy contraction).

The Washington-based institution explained the downward revisions were due to social-distancing measures likely remaining in place during the second half of the year, with productivity and supply chains being hit. And in those nations still grappling with high infection rates, the Fund expects that longer lockdowns will dent economic activity even more.

“Women are bearing a larger brunt of the impact in some countries,” the IMF said.The IMF cautioned that the forecasts are surrounded with unprecedented uncertainty and economic activity will depend on factors such as the length of the pandemic, voluntary social distancing, changes to global supply chains, new labor market dynamics.

“The steep decline in activity comes with a catastrophic hit to the global labor market,” the IMF said Wednesday, indicating that the global decline in work hours in the second quarter of the year is likely to be equivalent to a loss of more than 300 million full-time jobs.

“The hit to the labor market has been particularly acute for low-skilled workers who do not have the option of working from home. Income losses also appear to have been uneven across genders, with women among lower-income groups bearing a larger brunt of the impact in some countries,” the IMF said.

Looking at country forecasts, the United States is expected to contract by 8 percent this year. The Fund had estimated a contraction of 5.9 percent, in April.

Similarly, the Fund also downgraded its forecasts for the euro zone, with the economy now seen shrinking by 10.2 percent in 2020.

In order to mitigate some of the economic impact from the pandemic, governments across the world have announced massive fiscal packages and new borrowing. As a result, public finances are seen deteriorating significantly as a result.

“The steep contraction in economic activity and fiscal revenues, along with the sizable fiscal support, has further stretched public finances, with global public debt projected to reach more than 100 percent of GDP this year,” the Fund said.

Under the IMF’s base case, global public debt will reach an all-time high in 2020 and 2021 at 101.5 percent of GDP and 103.2 percent of GDP, respectively. In addition, the average overall fiscal deficit is set to soar to 13.9 percent of GDP this year, 10 percentage points higher than in 2019.

There have been more than 9 million confirmed infections worldwide from COVID-19, according to Johns Hopkins University. The United States, Brazil and Russia are currently the nations with the highest number of cases globally.

Exclusive: Women, babies at risk as COVID-19 disrupts health services, World Bank warns

By Kate Kelland

© Reuters/Amit Dave FILE PHOTO: Outbreak of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Ahmedabad
By Kate Kelland

LONDON (Reuters) - Millions of women and children in poor countries are at risk because the COVID-19 pandemic is disrupting health services they rely on, from neonatal and maternity care to immunisations and contraception, a World Bank global health expert has warned. 

 

© Reuters/Luisa Gonzalez FILE PHOTO: Outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Bogota

Monique Vledder, head of secretariat at the bank's Global Financing Facility (GFF), told Reuters in an interview the agency was gravely worried about the numbers of children missing vaccinations, women giving birth without medical help and interrupted supplies of life-saving medicines like antibiotics.

© Reuters/Ivan Alvarado FILE PHOTO: A child receives a vaccination as part of the start of the seasonal flu vaccination campaign as a preventive measure due to the outbreak of coronavirus disease (COVID-19)
"We're very concerned about what's happening - particularly in sub-Saharan Africa," Vledder said as she unveiled the results of a GFF survey, one of the first seeking to assess the impact of COVID-19 on women's and children's health.

"Many of the countries we work in are fragile and so, by definition, already have very challenging situations when it comes to health service delivery. This is making things worse."

From late March, the GFF has conducted monthly surveys with local staff in 36 countries to monitor the impact of COVID-19 on essential health services for women, children and adolescents.

Sharing the survey findings with Reuters, GFF said that of countries reporting, 87% said the pandemic, fears about infection or lockdown measures designed to curb the spread of the coronavirus, had led to disruptions to health workforces.

More than three-quarters of countries also reported disruptions in supplies of key medicines for mothers and babies, such as antibiotics to treat infections and oxytocin, a drug for preventing excessive bleeding after childbirth.

The number of GFF countries reporting service disruptions nearly doubled from 10 in April to 19 in June, and the number reporting fewer people seeking essential health services jumped to 22 in June from five in April.

GFF found that in Liberia, for example, fears about COVID-19 were preventing parents from taking their children to health clinics. In Ghana, some pregnant and lactating mothers were opting to postpone antenatal services and routine immunisations for fear of contracting the pandemic disease.

"We are seeing declining vaccination rates among children. We're seeing women accessing services less for ante- or post-natal care. We're seeing a decline in babies being born in health facilities. And we're also seeing a slide in outpatient services - for treatments for diarrhoea, malaria, fever, pneumonia for example," Vledder said.

Rapidly declining access to reproductive health supplies is also a key worry, Vledder added. The GFF estimates that if the situation does not improve as many as 26 million women could lose access to contraception in the 36 countries, leading to nearly 8 million unintended pregnancies.

© Reuters/Ivan Alvarado FILE PHOTO: A child receives a vaccination as part of the start of the seasonal flu vaccination campaign as a preventive measure due to the outbreak of coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Santiago

(Reporting by Kate Kelland; Editing by Josephine Mason and Alex Richardson)

A Black Progressive Beat A 16-Term Democrat In A Heated New York Congressional Primary

Jamaal Bowman, an educator in the Bronx, win over Eliot Engel, a 16-term congressman, is a signal victory for progressives.

PELOSI CALLED ENGEL THE DEMOCRATS MOST PROGRESSIVE MEMBER, THAT IS THE PELOSI DEMOCRATS, LIKE THE ONE AOC DEFEATED. ENGEL WHILE A LIBERAL WAS ALSO A ZIONIST ISRAEL HAWK SUPPORTED BY THE ISRAEL LOBBY IN THE USA 

Addy BairdBuzzFeed News Reporter

Ryan BrooksBuzzFeed News Reporter

Posted on June 24, 2020,

Spencer Platt / Getty Images



Jamaal Bowman meets with voters at a school on June 23 in Mount Vernon, New York.


Jamaal Bowman, a former educator and middle school principal from the Bronx, declared victory Wednesday over Rep. Eliot Engel, a 16-term member of Congress who represents New York’s 16th congressional district.

The primary win is a galvanizing moment for national progressives, just two years after Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who backed Bowman, sparked a new wave of progressive organizing to push the Democratic Party further left. And, like with Ocasio-Cortez’s success in 2018, it is another win for a challenger who cast the incumbent as too out-of-touch with their district.

“I’m a Black man who was raised by a single mother in a housing project. That story doesn’t usually end in Congress. But today, that 11-year old boy who was beaten by police is about to be your next Representative,” Bowman said in a statement Wednesday morning. “I cannot wait to get to Washington and cause problems for the people maintaining the status quo.”

New York is still counting votes and may be for days, with a huge increase in absentee voting during the coronavirus pandemic. But Decision Desk HQ and others have found that Bowman's lead over Engel is too much for the incumbent to make up.

Bowman’s candidacy was propelled over the last month by national protests against police brutality and a surging Black Lives Matter movement. He was one of several Black candidates to have a strong result in Tuesday’s elections.


“Tonight as we celebrate, we don’t just celebrate me as an individual, we celebrate this movement,” Bowman said during a speech Tuesday night. “A movement designed to push back against a system that’s literally killing us. It’s killing Black and brown bodies disproportionately, but it’s killing all of us

During his remarks, Bowman said he would only mention his opponent once.

“Eliot Engel, and I’ll say his name once, used to say he was a thorn in the side of Donald Trump. But you know what Donald Trump is more afraid of than anything else? A Black man with power,” he said.


Spectrum News NY1@NY1
Jamaal Bowman, who has a lead in his primary against Eliot Engel, just spoke to supporters. "Our movement is designed to restore that faith, to restore that hope, to bring back the belief in what is possible, to root our values in everything we do."02:46 AM - 24 Jun 2020
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Bowman is expected to win the seat outright in November in a Democratic-heavy district that spans across parts of New York City and stretches into Westchester.

Bowman’s race was just the most high profile in a series of New York congressional primaries pitting progressives against incumbent Democrats or those with the backing of the mainstream establishment.

Mondaire Jones, 33, appeared to win the primary for an open House seat in New York City’s suburbs with the support of Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Bernie Sanders. Jones would be the first Black gay member of Congress should he win the seat. Rep. Carolyn Maloney faces a tight rematch from Suraj Patel, who ran in 2018 and secured 40% of the vote. Patel, a former Obama campaign staffer, ran on a platform similar to Bowman's of a Green New Deal, defunding ICE, and debt-free college. Rep. Yvette Clarke again faced Adem Bunkeddeko, a 32-year-old progressive who came within just 2,000 votes of defeating Clarke in 2018. Clarke appeared to beat Bunkeddeko Tuesday night.

But Bowman’s race gained the most attention over the last month, and was the contest progressives were most invested in winning.

Bowman, who is 44 and a former middle school principal in the Bronx, began his campaign with the backing of Justice Democrats and other progressive networks that helped Ocasio-Cortez win in 2018. He campaigned on priorities for the left, like Medicare for All and the Green New Deal, while also centering education and investment in public schools.

Engel, the chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, took heat late in the campaign for being absent from his district during the coronavirus pandemic and for announcing that he would be at events in the district that he ultimately did not attend.

In early June, Engel was caught on a hot mic at an event to address protestors against police brutality in his district telling the organizer, Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr., that he only wanted to speak because o

“If I didn’t have a primary, I wouldn’t care,” he said.f his campaign.

Two days later, Engel’s campaign released a statement saying he would refuse The New York Times endorsement after the paper ran a column from Sen. Tom Cotton calling for the use of military force against protesters.

“I have decided not to seek the New York Times endorsement and I call on my opponents in this race to do the same,” he said in the statement. “Sadly, any endorsement from an editorial board that supports the publication of such un-American demands at a time of great pain and turmoil is not worth the paper it’s printed on.”

A week later, the paper endorsed Bowman.

Engel still had powerful support for his campaign for a 17th term, including from Hillary Clinton and powerful House Democrats Nancy Pelosi, Jim Clyburn, Hakeem Jeffries, and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo.

MORE ON THE 2020 CAMPAIGN
How Diverse Is Joe Biden’s 2020 Staff? His Campaign Won’t Say.Ruby Cramer · 4 hours ago



Addy Baird is a political reporter for BuzzFeed News and is based in Washington, DC.

Ryan Brooks is a politics reporter for BuzzFeed News and is based in New York.

US deports ex-paramilitary leader 'Toto' Constant to Haiti

a man in a police car parked in a parking lot© Provided by The Canadian Press

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Former paramilitary leader Emmanuel Constant was deported from the U.S. on Tuesday and arrested as soon as he landed in Haiti, where he faces murder and torture charges stemming from killings committed during the political upheaval of the 1990s that involved the U.S. government.

Constant did not say anything as he was placed into a police vehicle, where one officer held a cellphone up to Constant’s ear so he could talk to an unidentified person before he was taken away for questioning.

Constant was among 24 deported migrants who landed in the capital of Port-au-Prince, the fourth such flight since the COVID-19 pandemic began, said Jean Negot Bonheur Delva, director of Haiti’s migration office.

Some criticized his deportation and worried whether he would be held accountable for any of the charges he faces. Reed Brody, an attorney for Human Rights Watch known as the “dictator hunter,” told The Associated Press in a phone interview that Constant should be prosecuted somewhere.

“The worst solution for Haitians would be to have somebody like ‘Toto’ Constant with so much blood on his hands walking around,” he said. “It would just epitomize the impunity with which people have committed murder in Haiti for so long.”

Human rights groups have accused Constant of killing, raping and torturing Haitians when he became leader of the Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haiti after President Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s presidency was toppled in 1991. They allege that between 1991 and 1994, the group that Constant led terrorized and slaughtered at least 3,000 slum dwellers loyal to Aristide.

a man wearing sunglasses taking a selfie in a car© Provided by The Canadian Press

According to the San Francisco-based Center for Justice & Accountability, Constant had pictures of mutilated victims in his office and his group would perform facial scalpings and display them.

“Constant sought to cultivate a nearly supernatural mystique for FRAPH,” the centre said.

When Aristide returned to power in 1994 with help from the U.S. military, Constant fled to the Dominican Republic and then entered the U.S. on Christmas Eve. He was ordered deported in 1995 but was allowed to remain in the U.S. because of instability in Haiti. In 2000, Constant was convicted in absentia in Haiti following a trial for the 1994 massacre in Raboteau, a shantytown in the northern coastal town of Gonaives where Aristide supporters were killed.

Constant kept a low profile while in the U.S. and lived with relatives in Queens, New York, until he was arrested in 2006 and later found guilty of fraud and grand larceny. In October 2008, he was sentenced at least 12 years in prison for his role in a $1.7 million mortgage fraud scheme.

Constant has repeatedly alleged that he was on the CIA’s payroll and that he is a scapegoat and would be killed upon his return to Haiti.

There were no protesters or supporters when he landed in Port-au-Prince or when he was taken to a jail cell shortly afterward. His attorney, Ronaldo Saint-Louis, told reporters that Constant was being held illegally.

“This is a country of injustice. We are going to fight for his right to be released,” he said.

Constant was expected to remain in jail overnight in a cell he was sharing with several other detainees. An Associated Press journalist overheard Constant asking them if they needed anything before he requested certain things from his attorney.

“I've been away for too long. Can you bring me some poisson gros sel?” Constant asked Saint-Louis, referring to a popular dish of coarse salt fish. He also requested deodorant, water and mosquito repellent, among other things.

U.S. legislators including Rep. Maxine Waters of California have said it would be “dangerously irresponsible” to deport Constant without a plan to prosecute him in Haiti and protect victims. Waters noted that Jean-Robert Gabriel, who also was convicted in absentia in the Raboteau trial, became a top official in Haiti’s military in 2018.

Marleine Bastien, executive director of the Miami-based Haitian non-profit Family Action Network Movement, also decried Constant's deportation, saying it will only create more chaos. She said many of his friends remain in power and noted that judges in Haiti are on strike.

“Does the US government want to export more instability to an already vulnerable nation?” she said in a statement. "Given the rising number of COVID-19 cases in Haiti and in the US, deporting Constant now, and without a plan to prosecute him, is disgusting and dangerous.”

Brody, the human rights lawyer who worked in Haiti during the 1990s to prosecute human rights crimes, also said the U.S. was not a bystander when Constant rose to power.

“The U.S. has an obligation to ensure that the story ends better than it started,” he said.ovided by The Canadian Press

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Former paramilitary leader Emmanuel Constant was deported from the U.S. on Tuesday and arrested as soon as he landed in Haiti, where he faces murder and torture charges stemming from killings committed during the political upheaval of the 1990s that involved the U.S. government.

Constant did not say anything as he was placed into a police vehicle, where one officer held a cellphone up to Constant’s ear so he could talk to an unidentified person before he was taken away for questioning.

Constant was among 24 deported migrants who landed in the capital of Port-au-Prince, the fourth such flight since the COVID-19 pandemic began, said Jean Negot Bonheur Delva, director of Haiti’s migration office.

Some criticized his deportation and worried whether he would be held accountable for any of the charges he faces. Reed Brody, an attorney for Human Rights Watch known as the “dictator hunter,” told The Associated Press in a phone interview that Constant should be prosecuted somewhere.

“The worst solution for Haitians would be to have somebody like ‘Toto’ Constant with so much blood on his hands walking around,” he said. “It would just epitomize the impunity with which people have committed murder in Haiti for so long.”

Human rights groups have accused Constant of killing, raping and torturing Haitians when he became leader of the Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haiti after President Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s presidency was toppled in 1991. They allege that between 1991 and 1994, the group that Constant led terrorized and slaughtered at least 3,000 slum dwellers loyal to Aristide.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

According to the San Francisco-based Center for Justice & Accountability, Constant had pictures of mutilated victims in his office and his group would perform facial scalpings and display them.

“Constant sought to cultivate a nearly supernatural mystique for FRAPH,” the centre said.

When Aristide returned to power in 1994 with help from the U.S. military, Constant fled to the Dominican Republic and then entered the U.S. on Christmas Eve. He was ordered deported in 1995 but was allowed to remain in the U.S. because of instability in Haiti. In 2000, Constant was convicted in absentia in Haiti following a trial for the 1994 massacre in Raboteau, a shantytown in the northern coastal town of Gonaives where Aristide supporters were killed.

Constant kept a low profile while in the U.S. and lived with relatives in Queens, New York, until he was arrested in 2006 and later found guilty of fraud and grand larceny. In October 2008, he was sentenced at least 12 years in prison for his role in a $1.7 million mortgage fraud scheme.

Constant has repeatedly alleged that he was on the CIA’s payroll and that he is a scapegoat and would be killed upon his return to Haiti.

There were no protesters or supporters when he landed in Port-au-Prince or when he was taken to a jail cell shortly afterward. His attorney, Ronaldo Saint-Louis, told reporters that Constant was being held illegally.

“This is a country of injustice. We are going to fight for his right to be released,” he said.

Constant was expected to remain in jail overnight in a cell he was sharing with several other detainees. An Associated Press journalist overheard Constant asking them if they needed anything before he requested certain things from his attorney.

“I've been away for too long. Can you bring me some poisson gros sel?” Constant asked Saint-Louis, referring to a popular dish of coarse salt fish. He also requested deodorant, water and mosquito repellent, among other things.

U.S. legislators including Rep. Maxine Waters of California have said it would be “dangerously irresponsible” to deport Constant without a plan to prosecute him in Haiti and protect victims. Waters noted that Jean-Robert Gabriel, who also was convicted in absentia in the Raboteau trial, became a top official in Haiti’s military in 2018.

Marleine Bastien, executive director of the Miami-based Haitian non-profit Family Action Network Movement, also decried Constant's deportation, saying it will only create more chaos. She said many of his friends remain in power and noted that judges in Haiti are on strike.

“Does the US government want to export more instability to an already vulnerable nation?” she said in a statement. "Given the rising number of COVID-19 cases in Haiti and in the US, deporting Constant now, and without a plan to prosecute him, is disgusting and dangerous.”

Brody, the human rights lawyer who worked in Haiti during the 1990s to prosecute human rights crimes, also said the U.S. was not a bystander when Constant rose to power.
“The U.S. has an obligation to ensure that the story ends better than it started,” he said.

Protesters allegedly attack state senator, topple statues outside Wisconsin Capitol

© Lawrence Andrea/Imagn via USA Today The "Forward" statue that typically sits at the top of State Street outside the Wisconsin State Capitol in Madison was torn down by protesters, June, 23, 2020.

Turmoil unfolded outside the Wisconsin State Capitol on Tuesday night as protesters allegedly attacked a state senator, smashed windows and toppled two historic statues.

Demonstrations began in downtown Madison earlier Tuesday following the arrest of a Black protest organizer, who police say walked into a restaurant while speaking through a bullhorn and holding a baseball bat. Devonere Johnson, 28, was taken into custody Tuesday afternoon but allegedly broke free from the back of a squad car. He was tackled to the ground as he attempted to escape, according to the incident report from the Madison Police Department.

Two officers suffered minor injuries during the alleged incident, while Johnson sustained abrasions to his arms and leg. Johnson has been tentatively charged with disorderly conduct while armed, resisting arrest and attempted escape, police said.

That night, protesters chanting for Johnson's release tore down the "Forward" statue and dragged it away from its base at the steps of the Wisconsin State Capitol, according to Madison ABC affiliate WKOW. The bronze allegorical statue, which is more than 100 years old, depicts a female figure standing on the prow of a boat, with her right hand stretched out while her left clasps the American flag.

© Dylan Brogan/Isthmus Newspaper Dylan Brogan posted this image on Twitter on June 24, 2020.

A short time later, the same group pulled down a statue of Col. Hans Christian Heg from the Capitol grounds and threw it into a nearby lake, according to WKOW. Heg was a Norwegian immigrant and abolitionist who served in the Union Army during the American Civil War. He led the predominately-Scandinavian 15th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry Regiment into battle against the Confederate Army until his death at Chickamauga in 1863.

MORE: Protesters try to topple Andrew Jackson statue near White House

The Madison Police Department confirmed in an incident report that a large group of people had removed both statues from Capitol grounds and caused damaged elsewhere. Windows were smashed at a number of buildings, including the Tommy G. Thompson Center, a state government office named after a Republican politician who served as governor of Wisconsin from 1987 to 2001. Windows were also broken at the City County Building and a Molotov cocktail was thrown inside, police said.

The group also attempted to force entry into the Wisconsin State Capitol. Authorities inside the building deployed pepper spray to stop the individuals from entering, police said.

© Dylan Brogan/Isthmus Newspaper Dylan Brogan posted this image on Twitter on June 24, 2020.

At some point during the night, WKOW's crew reportedly came across state Sen. Tim Carpenter who claimed he had been assaulted by protesters for taking a photo of them. Carpenter, a Democrat, then collapsed and the news crew called 911 for an ambulance. His condition was unknown, according to WKOW.

In response to a WKOW reporter's post on Twitter, Carpenter tweeted Wednesday morning about the alleged incident, saying he was punched and kicked in the head, neck and ribs by several people.


ABC News has reached out to Carpenter for comment as well as Wisconsin State Capitol Police.

Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers issued a statement Wednesday morning, saying the violence will not be tolerated.

"What happened in Madison last night presented a stark contrast from the peaceful protests we have seen across our state in recent weeks, including significant damage to state property," Evers said. "Any single act of injustice against one person is less justice for all of us, and the people who committed these acts of violence will be held accountable. My thoughts are with Sen. Carpenter who was among the individuals attacked last night and wish him a quick recovery."

Authorities are assessing the damage to state property and have recovered both of the toppled statues, according to Evers.

"We are prepared to activate the Wisconsin National Guard to protect state buildings and infrastructure," he added, "and are continuing to work with local law enforcement to understand their response to last night’s events and their plan to respond to similar events in the future."

© Lawrence Andrea/Imagn via USA Today The "Forward" statue that typically sits at the top of State Street outside the Wisconsin State Capitol in Madison was torn down by protesters, June, 23, 2020.

The civil unrest comes on the heels of the death of George Floyd, a 46-year-old unarmed and handcuffed Black man who died in Minneapolis on May 25 shortly after a white police officer was filmed kneeling on his neck as three other officers stood by. Demonstrations taking place across the United States and around the world are demanding police reform as well as an end to police brutality and racial injustice.

The protest movement has also called into question the appropriateness of a number of statues and monuments, specifically those depicting historical figures linked to racism, colonialism and slavery.

On Monday night, protesters tried to pull down a 168-year-old bronze equestrian statue of Andrew Jackson in a park near the White House in Washington, D.C. but police intervened. Jackson, a former U.S. Army general who served as the seventh president of the United States from 1829 to 1837, has long been criticized by Native American activists for his role in forcing indigenous tribes off their ancestral lands. Many of them died in the process.

Earlier this month, protesters in Virginia's capital tore down a statue of Jefferson Davis, who served as the president of the Confederate States of America from 1861 to 186

Slavery advocate's statue being removed in South Carolina

© Provided by The Canadian Press

CHARLESTON, S.C. — The historic South Carolina city of Charleston was removing a symbol of its legacy on Wednesday, sending crews to take away a statue honouring John C. Calhoun, an early U.S. vice-president whose zealous defence of slavery led the nation toward civil war.

After a nightlong struggle to dislodge it, city crews were still working after daybreak to lift the statue from a pedestal that towers over a downtown square along Calhoun Street. The city and its mayor voted unanimously Tuesday to remove it, the latest in a wave of actions arising from protests against racism and police brutality against African Americans.

© Provided by The Canadian Press
Crews in bucket trucks soared more than 100 feet (30-meters) to reach the top of the pedestal, where they strapped the statue around its shoulders in preparations for its removal using an even taller piece of equipment.

A few hundred people, most of them in favour of removal, gathered to watch it come down. City officials said the statue will be placed permanently at “an appropriate site where it will be protected and preserved.”

“I believe that we are setting a new chapter, a more equitable chapter, in our city’s history,” said the mayor, John Tecklenburg, sent the resolution calling for its removal to the council. “We are making the right step. It’s just simply the right thing for us to do.”

Council members heard from dozens of residents for and against the statue.

Grace Clark, a Charlestonian who said her family has lived in the city since the late 18th century, asked them "to please not remove our history. Not all history is good but it is our history.”

Clark suggested a notion that city leaders had considered in the past: adding contextual information about Calhoun's history with slavery, rather than taking down the monument. "We are doing what we can to honour the black men and women. We’re Charlestonians. We’re south Carolinians. We’re better than this,” she said.

Councilman Karl L. Brady Jr. said he knew his support for removal could cost him politically, but that he would vote his conscience, showing that in Charleston, “we place white supremacy and white supremacist thought back where it belongs -- on the ash heap of history.”

The move comes days after the fifth anniversary of the slaying of nine Black parishioners in a racist attack at a downtown Charleston church. It also comes as cities around the U.S. debate the removal of monuments to Confederate leaders and others, and as thousands of Americans demonstrate against racial injustice in the wake of George Floyd's death under a Minneapolis police officer's knee.

The statue's ultimate resting place will be decided by a special panel. The mayor has anticipated it would go to a local museum or educational institution.

When Tecklenburg announced his plans a week earlier, dozens of protesters linked arms around the monument, shouting, “Take it down!” Video posted on Twitter also showed signs and spray-painting on the monument. Police said they made several arrests for vandalism.

The Calhoun Monument stood since 1898 in the heart of downtown Charleston, towering over a sprawling square where locals and tourists alike enjoyed festivals. But several event organizers said recently that they would no longer use the space while the statue remained.

About 40% of enslaved Africans brought to North America came through the port city of Charleston, which formally apologized in 2018 for its role in the slave trade. In its resolution, the city says the statue “is seen by many people as something other than a memorial to the accomplishments of a South Carolina native, but rather a symbol glorifying slavery and as such, a painful reminder of the history of slavery in Charleston.”

Calhoun’s support of slavery, which he called a “positive good,” never wavered. He said in speeches on the U.S. Senate floor in the 1830s that slaves in the South were better off than free Blacks in the North. With his pro-slavery “Calhoun Doctrine,” he led the South toward secession before he died in 1850.

South Carolina’s Heritage Act protects historical monuments and names of buildings, but the mayor said the monument is not on public property, nor does it commemorate one of the historical events listed in the act. According to the National Parks Service, the city technically leases the land, which “is to be kept open forever as a parade ground for the Sumter Guards and the Washington Light Infantry.”

Thus far, Tecklenburg’s interpretation has not been legally disputed. A two-thirds General Assembly vote is required to make any changes under the Heritage Act. That's tough in a state where conservatives dominate the House and Senate, but it happened in 2015 when the Confederate flag was removed from Statehouse grounds.

Gov. Henry McMaster described the Heritage Act on Tuesday as a “good state law” and a “deliberate process that is not influenced by passion and time.” The former prosecutor called Tecklenburg's assertion that the law doesn't apply in this instance a “legal question,” adding, “It depends on how you read the Heritage Act, and there are people who read it in different ways.”

Several Black lawmakers are urging local governments and colleges to act unilaterally in defiance of the monument protection law because it carries no stated penalties and hasn’t faced a court challenge, and several are planning to do so.

___

Meg Kinnard can be reached at https://twitter.com/MegKinnardAP.

Meg Kinnard, The Associated Press

Frank Oliver’s role in moving Indigenous people off land spurs calls to change name of Edmonton neighbourhood


Dustin Cook
13 hrs ago

© David Bloom Robyn Paches, Oliver Community League president, left, and Jacquelyn Cardinal, an Oliver resident from the Sucker Creek Cree First Nation, beside the Oliver Park sign at 10326 118 St. in Edmonton on Tuesday, June 23, 2020.

Oliver residents are asking the City of Edmonton to change the name of its most populous neighbourhood because of its namesake’s history of racism.


The Oliver Community League, representing the core neighbourhood west of Downtown, launched a campaign Tuesday morning calling on the city to launch a renaming process led by Indigenous communities to create a new name for the area.

The board of directors voted to oppose the Oliver namesake as part of the league’s “Uncover Oliver” campaign because it doesn’t reflect the diversity and inclusivity of the community, president Robyn Paches told Postmedia.

“It’s been a long time coming. This has been a conversation for numerous years that first came to light in 2017,” he said. “Right now is a time in which society in general is talking about racism and what we can do to combat racism and folks have realized it’s simply not enough to be complacent. Folks are talking about this more than they ever have before.”

Frank Oliver was an Edmonton-based federal member of parliament and minister who was instrumental in the removal of Indigenous people from their land by introducing the Oliver Act.

Oliver resident and Sucker Cree First Nation member Jacquelyn Cardinal said the act was one of several of his actions that discriminated against minorities.

“This had horrible impacts on Indigenous people, but they were not the only people his policies affected,” she said. “The Immigration Act of 1906 was incredibly discriminatory and also put forward legislation that tried to shut down Blacks trying to escape the United States into Canada.”

Oliver, who also has a pool, school and park named after him in the neighbourhood, represented Edmonton politically at the federal level from 1904 to 1917 and fought for the city at the national table. He helped establish the province’s national parks, fought for the city’s economic interests and was an integral advocate for Edmonton being named Alberta’s capital over Calgary.

Downtown Coun. Scott McKeen, who represents and lives in the neighbourhood, said he welcomes the discussion but isn’t sure if removing Oliver’s name is the right solution without informing the public of his discriminatory actions. He suggested the city erect plaques and display panels that provide details of the policies he advocated for that negatively impacted Indigenous communities.

“One of the things I worry about with just pulling the name off, then we even want to forget that there was exploitation, fraud, robbery and theft by the early white establishment against the First Nations people in the area,” he said. “There’s a discussion that the community of Oliver and the broader community needs to have to honour reconciliation and through that come up with an answer that best fits the philosophy of Edmonton in 2020.”

Moving forward, the community league is seeking city support and resources to begin a renaming discussion with the public. In response, the city is currently developing a process to rename a neighbourhood or park because this is the first time it has been discussed, spokeswoman Mary-Ann Thurber said. Municipal resources are formalized by the city’s naming committee, but this doesn’t cover renaming.

“The renaming of any park, community or facility will require the creation of an inclusive and thoughtful engagement process,” Thurber said in a statement to Postmedia. “Any suggestions for renaming neighbourhoods and buildings would be taken to city council for approval.”

The campaign already has the support of Brent Oliver, a relative of Frank Oliver, who took to social media Tuesday to acknowledge the need for change.

I am proud to work and stand along side the OCL in this project to #UncoverOliver. My ancestor’s actions are more than problematic, and I support a change. https://t.co/SCzyModAHM— Brent Oliver (@brentoliver) June 23, 2020

Under a new neighbourhood name, Paches said the community would intend to hold a discussion every 30 years to review the name and ensure it still aligned with the values of future generations.

“We think there should be a renewal process integrated into community naming in the city of Edmonton. Every 30 years, allow communities to engage in the process of discussion and reflection,” he said.

This call to change the Oliver name comes a day after council passed a motion from Coun. Aaron Paquette for the city to put a focus on Indigenous communities when naming city parks, buildings and roads.

duscook@postmedia.com

twitter.com/dustin_cook3

AMERIKA
OPINION: History shows us why the fight for LGBTQ equality is far from over

Queer Americans live in schizophrenic times. Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Civil Rights Act protects LGBTQ employees from discrimination, finally extending federal workplace protections to the more than half of U.S. states that had resisted them. The week before, on the fourth anniversary of the Pulse nightclub shooting, the Trump administration announced a rule change rolling back healthcare protections for trans and gender-queer Americans by redefining sex as determined by “biology,” or birth gender, effectively allowing religious liberty advocates in medical facilities “of faith” to discriminate against the most vulnerable subgroup of the LGBTQ alliance.

Gay conservative columnist Andrew Sullivan, in the wake of the court decision, asked hypothetically whether now might be a good time for the gay rights movement to declare victory, having assimilated gay and lesbians into a society where they’ve supposedly ceased to be minorities. Religious conservatives would encourage such complacency, as they mean to fracture the LGBTQ alliance and then quash it through religious-based discrimination. United, we stand. Divided, we fall.

They will make trans and gender-queer citizens the test case in private hospitals, locker rooms and bathrooms – opportunistic locations, where exposed bodies can become the objects of ideological interrogation. There, trans and gender-queer students and patients now oddly lack the same protections as the average LGBTQ employee. And it would be naïve for gays and lesbians to think that such interrogations will end with their bodies.

© Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images Joseph Fons holds a Pride Flag as he walks back and forth in front of the U.S. Supreme Court building after the court ruled that LGBTQ people can not be disciplined or fired based on their sexual orientation, June 15, 2020 in Washington.

(WATCH: Prejudice & Pride: Revisiting the tragic fire that killed 32 in a New Orleans gay bar)

My concerns are rooted not in suspicion, but in history. Forty-seven years ago today, on the night of June 24, 1973, fire struck a working-class gay bar called the Up Stairs Lounge on the ragged edge of New Orleans’ French Quarter. Intentionally set, it was the deadliest fire on record in city history and the worst mass killing of homosexuals in 20th-century America, claiming 32 lives and injuring 15 others. Yet, few Americans were willing to acknowledge such a catastrophe because a gay victim was then considered to be marginal and criminal. Seven out of 10 of Americans, when polled, considered homosexuality to be “always wrong.”

“They viewed homosexuality… as something heterosexuals did that was bad,” remembered Rev. Troy Perry, the legendary gay activist and minister.

The public response to the tragedy reflected those prejudices. As I wrote in my book Tinderbox, a nonfiction account of the Up Stairs Lounge disaster, the police investigation closed without answers or an outcry, and the chief suspect was never questioned. The body of one victim, a gay religious minister named Rev. Bill Larson, was left hanging out a street-facing window as a public spectacle for four hours. City leaders failed to address or even acknowledge the tragedy and the pain it wrought. Local churches refused to bury the dead, and jokes that circulated after the blaze spoke of “flaming queens” who should be discarded in “fruit jars.” Bodies that went unclaimed were dropped into unmarked graves in a potter’s field and lost.

© New Orleans Times-Picayune via AP A firefighter examines the remains of the UpStairs Lounge on June 24, 1973, after a fire that left 32 dead.The Up Stairs Lounge once stood on the edge of gender, racial and religious mores. It served as a forerunner to modern queer spaces in that it was racially integrated, permitting Black and white gay courtship, as well as a haven for trans patrons, then self-identifying as “cross-dressers” in an era when gender dysphoria was not well understood. Local members of a radical, gay-affirming Christian congregation called the Metropolitan Community Church (MCC) found safe harbor at the Up Stairs Lounge, and their flock held Sunday services in the bar’s theater hall for several months. The Up Stairs Lounge even hosted receptions for MCC “holy union” ceremonies, or spiritual conjugations for same-sex couples. Patrons of the Lounge had an anthemic song they liked to sing together around the bar’s white baby grand piano, which summed up their ethos: “United We Stand,” by the Brotherhood of Man.

“It was just a wide variety of people,” recalled Up Stairs Lounge survivor Ricky Everett in an interview for Tinderbox. “We had politicians who come in there. We had doctors, lawyers, everyday hourly-wage blue-collar people.”

Fire survivors like Everett, in their trauma, could not fathom how their society conspired to squash an awakening and push them back into hiding. So profound was the denial and minimization of this event that it took into the next century for the Up Stairs Lounge to be known and memorialized, with the names of the victims spoken aloud. Yet today, burial places of several fire victims are unknown, and more than several Up Stairs Lounge survivors choose not to share their sexualities with employers and healthcare providers. Now in their 70s and 80s, these men and women braved an inferno, survived AIDS and grew old only to fear Medicaid discrimination and conceal their orientations to those who provide their insurance. As queer elders, they view their economic livelihoods as indelibly tied to the healthcare system, and they don't want to take risks. They, like trans folk and many others in the LGBTQ crusade, face a “closet at the end of the rainbow,” and it shows that the advancement of queer Americans has been uneven.

© Courtesy Johnny Townsend Patrons of the UpStairs Lounge are pictured in an undated handout photo.

(MORE: The worst crime against the gay community you've never heard of -- until now)

How can this be? How can cisgender gays and lesbians of the American middle class assimilate while the rest of the LGBTQ alliance sits in a waiting room for equality? How can 34% of LGBTQ elders fear that they will have to hide their identity to access suitable housing and 40% of homeless youth happen to be queer in the same nation that Pete Buttigieg, a gay mayor, runs for president? Because the opposition targets those they perceive as vulnerable to attack. Currently, they see a prime path through bigotry by pitting gender identity against birth gender.

Gender minorities have been the target of opportunity for religious conservatives since same-sex marriage became federally mandated in 2015. As “sexual orientation” evolved into a protected class, religious conservatives doubled down on the precept that God determines sex at conception, and they’ve fought it into elementary schools and doctor’s offices. This goes way beyond who bakes a cake for whom. Trans youth are at higher suicide risk; nearly 25% of trans people do not seek healthcare they need for fear of mistreatment; more than 80% of the victims of fatal anti-trans violence since 2013 have been trans women of color.

“We are the most afraid we’ve ever been, but we’re also stronger than we’ve ever been,” Mariah Moore, program associate for the Transgender Law Center, told The New York Times last year.

© Bettmann Archive/Getty Images A fire at the UpStairs Lounge in New Orleans on June 24, 1973 left dozens of people dead.

Up Stairs Lounge survivor Stewart Butler, who descended the front staircase to the bar with seconds to spare, witnessed disparities such as these in the aftermath of the fire, wherein straights and closeted elites worked to smother a working-class gay consciousness – even if such repression meant denying the dead their dignity. He channeled his grief into becoming a self-described “political animal,” a queer activist who worked more than a decade to secure anti-discrimination protections for homosexuals in New Orleans, which finally passed in 1991.

But Butler did not declare victory for himself. Instead, he recruited a local protégé in trans activist Courtney Sharp, who had been pushed out of her job at an engineering firm because of her trans status. Working together, Sharp and Butler campaigned to extend anti-discrimination protections in New Orleans to transgender residents, and they succeeded in 1998. That same year, in a decade when many in the LGB alliance resisted adding “T” to the acronym, Sharp and Butler pushed PFLAG, a national advocacy group encompassing more than 400 regional chapters, to incorporate transgender issues. Through their efforts, PFLAG became the first national queer rights organization in America to add transgender people to its mission statement.

“It amazed me that Stewart, a cisgender gay man who had no skin in the game, would take up our cause,” recalled Sharp.

© Vince DeSantiago Up Stairs Lounge survivor Stewart Butler became an outspoken activist for LGBT+ rights in the wake of the fire.

(WATCH: Prejudice & Pride: Revisiting the tragic fire that killed 32 in a New Orleans gay bar)

Butler passed away this March at the age of 89. The “political animal” never got to witness a U.S. Supreme Court decision that affirmed employment protections for all LGBTQ Americans.

“I thought of him all day long,” said Sharp. “It’s amazing, after all the resistance to us having common cause in the 1990s, to see trans and gay issues affirmed side by side.”

Sharp is currently counseling the family of a transgender youth who attempted suicide and cannot get access to New Orleans schools. Her work continues. As does the work of others who fight against a return to the place where we queer citizens began: denial and erasure.

Robert W. Fieseler is the author of “Tinderbox: The Untold Story of the Up Stairs Lounge Fire and the Rise of Gay Liberation.”

Walmart Canada facing backlash over 'All Lives Matter,' 'Blue Lives Matter' apparel

• 5 hours ago
• News
• 2:22

Walmart Canada says it's investigating to see if items sold on its website breach the company's "terms and conditions" after social media users expressed outrage over "All Lives Matter" and "Blue Lives Matter" products on its site.

Asylum seekers continue to cross Canada-U.S. border despite shutdown

© Provided by The Canadian Press

OTTAWA — New statistics show 21 people were apprehended by the RCMP crossing into Canada from the U.S. in May, despite the shutdown of the border.

That's up from just six who were stopped in April, the first full month the border was closed to nearly everything but essential travel in a bid by the two countries to slow the spread of COVID-19.

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada says 1,390 people in total filed for asylum in Canada in May, and 1,570 did so in April.

Since 2017, nearly 57,000 people have crossed the border between Canada and the U.S. using unofficial entry points so they are able to file for asylum.

The vast majority arrived in Quebec, and as they've awaited a decision on their claims, many found work in health care.

With those positions now essential to the fight against COVID-19, the federal and Quebec governments are considering a program that could see asylum-seekers granted permanent residency.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 24,2020.

The Canadian Press

How new American tariffs on Canadian aluminum could backfire

Janyce McGregor, Alexander Panetta · CBC News · Posted: Jun 24, 2020

Canadian aluminum ingots await processing on the shop floor. A potential 10 per cent U.S. tariff on Canadian aluminum could hurt the United States more than Canada. (Stu Mills/CBC)

If the Trump administration buys the argument that Canadian aluminum exports have surged and slaps a 10 per cent tariff back on products imported from Canada, the move could end up hurting Americans instead, warns the head of the association representing Canada's aluminum producers.

"Canada stands to win more in a situation like this," said Jean Simard, the president and chief executive of the Aluminum Association of Canada.

"Production will keep going on, exports will keep going on, and at the end, unfortunately, it's the U.S. economy that will bear the brunt of this increase in tariffs."

The damage, Simard said, will be more on the political side, given how much political capital the Trudeau government spent on persuading the U.S. government to lift steel and aluminum tariffs in May 2019.

Last week, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer fuelled D.C. rumours of a possible return to tariffs by telling the Senate Finance Committee that a recent spike in imports is a "genuine concern."

President Donald Trump and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer on Oct. 1, 2018. The Trump administration is reportedly considering re-imposing tariffs on Canadian aluminum. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)

Followers of Canada's long-running battle with the U.S. softwood lumber industry have seen this drama play out before.

As with softwood, the U.S. needs imported aluminum to meet its domestic demand.

Tariffs or no tariffs, the U.S. consumes up to six million tonnes of aluminum every year. But its struggling domestic industry produces only 800,000 tonnes of that.
These bandits would tax their own military to buy the votes of morons ...- Flavio Volpe, Automotive Parts Manufacturers Association

Now, some players in the U.S. aluminum industry (but not all of them) are leveraging their political influence to gain a price advantage over foreign competition.

Why does this lobbying work? Well, there's an election coming in November. And the Trump administration draws a straight line between protecting jobs and winning votes.
How the 'snap back' works

When the previous round of American steel and aluminum tariffs ended, the joint statement issued by Canada and the U.S. laid out conditions under which tariffs could "snap back," or re-apply.

"In the event that imports of aluminum or steel products surge meaningfully beyond historic volumes of trade over a period of time," the statement said (without defining a "meaningful surge" or what that time comparison should be), "with consideration of market share" (again, this ideal share is undefined) "the importing country may request consultations with the exporting country."

U.S. plans to slap tariffs on aluminum imports from Canada, Bloomberg report says

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Canadian aluminum shows its mettle in face of Trump's tariff

A formal consultation process hasn't been publicly requested, agreed to or even disclosed. The Canadian side says regular conversations with the Americans about monitoring aluminum shipments have been underway for several weeks; one such conversation involved Canada's ambassador in Washington last Friday.

"After such consultations, the importing party may impose duties of 25 per cent for steel and 10 per cent for aluminum in respect to the individual product(s) where the surge took place," the 2019 statement continued. "If the importing party takes such action, the exporting country agrees to retaliate only in the affected sector."

In other words, no politically damaging Canadian tariffs on Kentucky bourbon or Florida orange juice next time.

Searching for a surge

All the U.S. lobby needed to reignite this tariff heat was evidence it could spin as a "surge." In the volatile market conditions of this past year, American protectionism saw its opening.

American manufacturers, including its defence and aerospace industry, have relied for decades on Canadian aluminum from factories like this one in Sept-Iles, Que. (Jacques Boissinot/The Canadian Press)First came last fall's rail strikes and last winter's protest blockades, disrupting the regular flow of aluminum shipments into fits and starts. Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit, shutting down North American automotive production.

Smelters can't stop production just because their contracts for value-added alloyed steel products are on hold for a few months. The massive costs and environmental risks aren't worth it.

So earlier this year, Canadian producers pivoted temporarily to primary aluminum ingots — a basic commodity that can be stored in a warehouse until the market picks up, at which point it can be melted into something specific.

This "P1020" aluminum is the focus of the data now being spun around Washington. It's a commodity that directly competes with output from older and less-efficient American facilities.

'False' and 'unfounded'

Canada rejects the idea of voluntarily restricting production to satisfy American demands. (It's also not really proper for publicly-traded corporations to do.)

This unwillingness to go along with voluntary export quotas is what sparked the latest tariff threats: higher prices discourage imports by another means.

Simard said the total volume of aluminum coming out of Canada hasn't changed significantly — only the type of product has changed, for reasons that are entirely short-term and related to the pandemic.

Allegations of a threatening surge are "totally false" and "unfounded," he said.

"It's purely market dynamics," he said, adding that the same substitutions happened during the last financial crisis in 2008-09.

"Everybody is doing this. It's the only way to keep plants operating and keep the link with the market," he said. "The problem is caused directly and certainly by COVID. It's a matter of months for the situation to correct itself."

An 'extortion syndicate'

A decision by the Trump administration to reapply the tariff would be curiously timed.

In the new North American trade agreement that takes effect July 1, the Trump administration specifically negotiated requirements for the automotive industry to use more North American steel and aluminum, in an effort to shut out offshore suppliers and repatriate jobs.

Canadian aluminum is geographically convenient and produced in cost-efficient mills, so in theory, the new NAFTA should be a growth opportunity.

But depending on whether a new tariff is applied specifically to P1020 aluminum or across the board — hitting value-added automotive inputs as well — the Trump administration could be taxing automotive suppliers by an extra ten per cent, just as they're struggling to recover.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau met workers at the Alouette aluminum plant last May, championing his government's agreement with the Trump administration to lift steel and aluminum tariffs. The U.S. is now threatening to slap tariffs back on. (Jacques Boissinot/Canadian Press)"Canada would be foolish to accept quotas of any sort," said Jerry Dias, the president of Unifor, the union that represents Canadian auto workers.

"The long-term negative ramifications for Canada would be huge. But it would be equally so for the United States. All it does is gouge the American consumer."

Flavio Volpe, president of Canada's Automotive Parts Manufacturers Association, said this apparent hustle to slap tariffs back on before the USMCA takes effect (as early as Friday, according to a report earlier this week from Bloomberg News) is further evidence that "an unprincipled extortion syndicate is in charge of U.S. trade policy."

"The biggest gangsters wear the cleanest suits," he said. "Has anyone seen this kind of behaviour by trading partners in the history of the post-industrial world?"

"These bandits would tax their own military to buy the votes of morons in an election year," Volpe said, referring to the wide use of Canadian aluminum in U.S. defence procurement.
'No harm ... no threat'

Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland's office emailed a statement to CBC News Tuesday saying the government "will always defend Canada's aluminum sector and its workers."

It characterized the state of play as "ongoing conversations with our American partners."

 

(CBC News)

Shortly after, Treasury Board President Jean-Yves Duclos told reporters that Canada is keeping its commitment to monitor its aluminum trade and prevent other countries from dumping cheap products into the North American market.

"The use and production of aluminum in Canada is no harm and no threat to our American friends and neighbours," he said. "The free flow of aluminum across our border is a mutual benefit to both countries and workers in both countries.

"It makes our businesses more competitive, in particular in the automobile industry. It also reduces cost to consumers."

ANALYSIS Trump or no Trump, Canada's relationship with the U.S. isn't going back to 'normal' soon

ANALYSIS Is the global trading system unravelling before our eyes? Here is where things stand 

ANALYSISNew NAFTA beats no NAFTA, gov't says, but no big economic boost coming for Canada

But what happens if the Americans don't see it that way?

Should Canada limit its retaliation to what was agreed to in the 2019 statement — and target only U.S. aluminum? Or would all bets be off if the U.S. no longer appeared to be operating in good faith?

During a webinar session hosted by the American Council for Capital Formation, Canada's ambassador in Washington, Kirsten Hillman, wouldn't be drawn into a discussion of what form of retaliation Canada might pursue this time if the U.S. re-imposes tariffs.

"Like all aspects of our economy there can be challenges, right now in particular," she said. "But we firmly believe that Canadian aluminum exports to the U.S. aren't hurting the U.S. market in any way."

ABOUT THE AUTHOR


Janyce McGregor

Parliamentary Bureau

Janyce McGregor has covered Canadian politics for CBC News since 2001. Send news tips to: Janyce.McGregor@cbc.ca
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