Friday, August 26, 2005

Canada's First Internment Camps

CANADA'S RACIST HISTORY OF EXPLOITATION
OF IMMIGRANT WORKERS

"Ukrainian and other internees at the Castle Mountain Alberta internment camp in 1915"

PM reaches out to Ukrainians
Ottawa to spend $2.5-million to mark internment of citizens in First World War
Thursday, August 25, 2005

There were 24 internment camps across Canada, including ones in Vernon, Banff, Jasper, Brandon and Kapuskasing, Ont. Some camps housed only men, while others, like the large Spirit Lake camp, held women and children, too. The camps provided a cheap way of clearing land, benefiting government and private industry at the expense of second-class immigrants, and reduced unemployment in cities.Workers were meant to be paid 20 to 30 cents a day, but many didn't get their money. "Nine holes of the Banff Springs golf course was hacked out of the bush with this slave labour," Hladyshevsky said.

It's been a long time coming, the UCCLA has been lobbying for two decades to get this wrong addressed. Chretien could have done it back in 1997 or 98, 99, etc etc.

"The Liberal Party understands your concern ... we support your efforts to secure the redress of Ukrainian-Canadians' claims arising from their internment and loss of freedoms during the First World War ... we will continue to monitor the situation closely and seek to ensure that the government honours its promise." Jean Chretien, Leader of the Liberal Opposition, June 8 1993.

Request to the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister
of Canadian Heritage, the Honourable Sheila Copps, MP
by the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association
24 January 1997



Before they interned the Japanese, the Canadian Government interned first and second wave Ukrainian immigrant. They did this creating the War Measures Act supposedly because Ukrainian immigrants were from Austro-Hungarian Empire and thus 'enemy aliens'. The real story is that they were interned for being communists, socialists, and labour radicals.

To this date it has not been determined what was the driving force for the Internment. Was it due to wartime xenophobia and war fever, or the Economic benefits of a forced-labour system, or bigoted-driven emotions against Canada's first non-Official language speaking immigrants? The truth is that it was probably due to mixture of these reasons. Unfortunately, the War Measures Act formed the basis for future government incursions on the Civil liberties of Citizens and immigrants to Canada. This act was used as the basis of the internment of the Japanese Canadians in 1941 and the French-Canadians (or Quebecois) in 1970. This act was always implemented via an Order in Council, rather than through approval via the democratically elected parliament. This Act was first implemented during World War I where Ukrainian Canadians were primarly and unjustly made it's first victims.
Internment of Ukrainians in Canada 1914-1920

The internment and arrests coincided with the Canadian Government banning the Industrial Workers of the World, IWW, as an illegal alien organization set to overthrow the government. The War Measures Act was used against the Wobblies and other labour activists. While in the United States, they passed the Criminal Syndicalist Act to ban the IWW, who were in outspoken opposition to Imperialist War.

Anti Immigrant rhetoric was used to cover up the fact that immigrant workers in Western Canada were organizing for their rights, whether those workers were Ukrainian, Italian, German, Slovian, Jews, Icelanders,English, Scots or Irish, etc. Racism against non-English speaking immigrants was virulent, all dark skinned Eastern and Central European workers (being peasants or farmworkers) were called 'niggers', by their English bosses. Ukrainians and other Eastern Europeans were called 'Bohunks'.


In Alberta many of the Ukrainians along with other new immigrants, Italians, Finns, Hungarians, Germans, etc. worked in the the dark primitive coalmines in order to get wages to clear the homesteads they farmed. Homesteads that they had been promised by the CPR and Canadian government in order to open up the West. They had also been promised NO TAXES and NO CONSCRIPTION, both of which were reneged on by the Borden Conservative Government in 1917. This was why Peter Kropotkin advised the Russian Anabaptist Community, the Duhkobours to come to Canada, as pacifists they were being persecuted by the Tsar for refusal to fight in the Cimean War and WWI. The Duhkobours moved to Saskatchewan and B.C.

Between 1906-1919 Alberta along with B.C. was a hotbed of labour organizing in the mining and forestry industries. And it was the 'foriegn workers' who organized usually under the leadership of English trade unionists.

New immigrants helped fuel a growing militancy in the labour movement. These men and women had come to Canada seeking a better life, but many found their success hampered by anti-immigrant sentiment and unscrupulous employers. Under these circumstances, they found it necessary to either organize their own unions or join other groups that promised to promote their interests.

Ukrainian
Jewish

The dissatisfaction with the quality of life in Canada experienced by some Ukrainians forced them to express their frustration in a variety of ways.

"The only salvation from despair was drama and singing groups, and socialist and union organizing."

Excerpt from: No Streets of Gold: A Social History of Ukrainians in Alberta, Helen Potrebenko (Vancouver: New Star Books, 1977).

"Their expectations were low, revolving around work and survival. Indeed, they were preoccupied with survival.... They were willing to work long hours and endure much discomfort if it allowed them security and a viable future for their offspring. They settled for the concept of 'limited good,' but if their modest stipulations were not met, they reacted in a variety of mutinous ways."

Excerpt from: Peasant in the Promised Land: Canada and the Ukrainains 1891-1914, Jaroslav Petryshyn (Toronto: Lorimer, 1985)

Established trade unions under the American Federation of Labour discriminated against them as unskilled immigrants, with the same racist attitudes as the bosses. The Ukrainians and other immigrants found a more sympathetic union in the IWW and later in the One Big Union (OBU)

In addition, many coal miners saw their conditions as the direct result of capitalism and the systemic exploitation of the working classes. This group of militants envisioned “One Big Union” (OBU) to protect their interests. Thus, labour organization would shift from one based on a “craft” or trade to one based on all workers in all industries coming together. At the forefront were the coal miners of District 18 of the UMWA, which comprised western Canada. They wanted to withdraw from the UMWA and set up their own district—District 1, Mining Department, OBU. The UMWA tried to crush this splinter movement and in the period 1919-20 there were a number of strikes and lockouts. It was an idealistic attempt to get workers to see their commonalities rather than differences but was doomed to failure by entrenched craft and trade thinking dating back to the Middle Ages.

In addition, the Winnipeg General Strike, which began in May 1919, set off other strikes in support. Edmonton and Calgary both saw strikes and, in August 1919, violence broke out in Drumheller. Strikebreakers, drawn from returning veterans, attacked the miners and their homes. The miners, largely immigrants, were OBU supporters. When Coal Was King


This was the first interment, after the Winnipeg General Strike of 1919, anti- immigrant anti-bolshevik editorials advised the government of the day to deport the foriegn born Bolsheviks, 'enemy aliens'. Again Ukrainians were deported.

Shortly after the strike began, Winnipeg's most influential manufacturers, bankers and politicians created the Citizens' Committee of 1000 to oppose the action. Winnipeg's leading newspapers published allegations that the strike was initiated by a small group of "alien scum"—European workers and Bolsheviks. Thus, management waged a public relations war by stereotyping the working class as dangerous foreigners—a ploy that proved successful.
The Famous Five.


In the 1920's the Communist Party of Canada was declared illegal, and again Ukrainians, Finns, etc. were deported as foriegn agents of Bolshevism.

The Internment and deportation of Ukrainians was poltical, tinged with the usual anti-immigrant rhetoric. The reality was it was an aspect of the class war in Western Canada that threatened the ruling class and its government in Ottawa.

The practice of Internment was introduced during the Boer War, which Canadian Military Historians see as Canada's first real involvement in a Foriegn War, usually with great fanfare and cheers of our coming of age. The British developed the internment camps for the Boers in South Africa but Canada perfected it.

The Boer War was a first in many ways for Canada. It was the first time we sent troops abroad. It was the first time French and English Canada fought over sending troops overseas, and it was a time when the Canadian military discovered Canadians are not born soldiers, but must be trained like everyone else."For the first time Canadians realized that war is destructive, chaotic and messy. In wars people do get killed," says Granatstein.
Canada's first war a fading memory



Internment was used as an economic measure as much as it was a political one, without the 'slave labour' of the Ukrainian internees there would be NO NATIONAL PARKS IN THE ROCKIES. Banff and Jasper as national tourist resorts were built by the slave labour of the Ukrainian internees.

Life in the internment camps was often harsh, and the lives of the prisoners were often consid­ered expendable to many of their guards. In Canmore and Banff the in­terred prisoners were used to help build roads, create the golf course in Banff , and work the mines in Canmore.
Two camps were set up between 1915 and 1917 in what is now Banff National Park . The Cave and Basin camp area near the Banff townsite was used in the winter, and the other at Cas­tle Mountain , was used during the summer months.
INTERNMENT CAMPS PART OF BANFF HISTORY
BY JACKIE GOLD FOR THE BANFF CRAG & CANYON

A excellent book documenting the Ukrainian internees building of Canada's two most famous national parks is: In the Shadow of the Rockies: Diary of the Castle Mountain Internment Camp, 1915-1917, Edmonton: CIUS Press, 1991

For a great labour/social history of Ukrainians in Alberta see:
Potrebenko, Helen, No Streets of Gold: A Social History of Ukrainians in Alberta (1977) New Star Books. out of print

In the Shadow of the Rockies / As I Walk Through Canada
© Maria Dunn, 2001 SOCAN / Traditional Ukrainian, Public Domain


Growing up in Alberta with the Rockies as a favourite holiday destination, I only learned about the WWI internment of Ukrainian Canadians in the national parks on a trip to Jasper in Spring 2000. There, I came across Bill Waiser's book, Park Prisoners. Shortly afterwards, I read In the Shadow of the Rockies: Diary of the Castle Mountain Internment Camp, 1915-1917 by Bodhan Kordan & Peter Melnycky. When war broke out in 1914, Galicia was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and Ukrainian immigrants (often referred to as "Galicians" in the early 1900s) became "enemy aliens" in Canada, the very place that had actively encouraged their immigration. Ironically, most of them viewed their former Austro-Hungarian rulers not with loyalty, but as occupiers and exploiters of their Ukrainian homeland.

For more information, see the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association website: www.uccla.ca

***

Young stranger, as you walk these trails of beauty
And you feel the mountain air caress your face
As you play in the shadow of the rockies
Remember who toiled in this place
Please remember who toiled in this place


They courted our labour and called us to settle
The great Canadian plains
But how fickle the love of a fair young Alberta
For her enemy aliens

Oh pity the young man in 1914
Who hadn't a job or a trade
And doubly so the man from Galicia
For he was soon detained

Our invisible hands worked in nature's cathedral
For the pleasure of tourist and town
Six days a week at slavery's wages
Still we were not wanted around

In a camp that lay beneath Castle Mountain
Rotten food and sodden tents
The most glorious place in the world is ugly
When seen through a barbed wire fence

Our footsteps and voices have long since faded
From these pristine forest paths
Yet many's the mile and the hour we trudged here
To our place of labour and back

If you listen, young stranger, the wind in the pines
Or the water over the stones
You may hear the songs we sang to each other
To remind us of our homes

***

Ethnomusicologist and musician Brian Cherwick chose the traditional Ukrainian tune that follows the CD version of In the Shadow of the Rockies and performs it on tsymbaly. "As I Walk Through Canada" is taken from a field recording made by Robert B. Klymasz of a song sung by Mrs. M. Baraensky, Mrs. G. Kuprowsky and Mrs. S. Stjaharj in Sheho, Saskatchewan, 1964. It was published in Klymasz's An Introduction to the Ukrainian-Canadian Immigrant Folksong Cycle, Folklore Series 8. Ottawa: National Museum of Canada. Brian has provided an English translation of the lyrics here:

As I walk through Canada, I count the miles, (2)
Wherever nightfall finds me, there I bed down.
Hej-ja-hej, there I bed down.

I spent the night in a wood, in a green wood, (2)
Over there my young wife is crying for me.
Hej-ja-hej, my young wife.

My young wife and my young children, (2)
I came to Canada in search of happiness.
Hej-ja-hej, in search of happiness.

On a high hill the grass does sway, (2)
Somewhere my beloved is writing a letter to me.
Hej-ja-hej, is writing a letter.

She writes it in fine, delicate script, (2)
When I read it, I washed myself in tears.
Hej-ja-hej, washed myself in tears.

I waited for a letter for a month and an hour, (2)
I never received the letter from my family.
Hej-ja-hej, from my family.

O Canada, Canada, how deceitful you are, (2)
You have separated many a husband from his wife,
Hej-ja-hej, from his wife.

Photo in CD Liner Notes: Prisoners of war at internment camp, Castle Mountain, Alberta, 1915, Glenbow NA-3959-2

Written as part of an Artist Residency with the Edmonton District Labour Council; funding support from Alberta Foundation for the Arts

Sources used in writing this song:
Kordan, B.S. & Melnycky, P. (1991). In the Shadow of the Rockies: Diary of the Castle Mountain Internment Camp, 1915-1917. Canadian Institute of the Canadian Studies Press: University of Alberta, Edmonton.
Waiser, B. (1995). Park prisoners: The Untold Story of Western Canada's National Parks, 1915-1946. Fifth House: Calgary.
Doskoch, W.H. (2001). Oral history interview by Alberta Labour History Institute. Unpublished.
Doskoch, W.H. (1993). Strait from the Heart: Biography of W (Bill) Doskoch, 1893 - 1941. Self-published.


At the same time as the internment was happening to the Ukrainians the Canadian Government and its mercantilist ruling class which owned the CPR were using Chinese labourers to finish building the railway. They imposed a head tax on Chinese workers, to stop them from immigrating to Canada. They were ok for forced labour at cheap wages, another reason the IWW attempted to organize these workers on the railway, but they were not good enough to become Canadians. And like the Ukrainian Internee campaign, the Chinese Redress campaign has been going on for over two decades.

The Chinese Immigration Act of 1885, 1900, and 1903 were a series of anti-Chinese legislations in Canada that were meant to discourage Chinese from entering Canada after the completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway. These legislations are examples of institutional racism against the Chinese in Canada.The Government of Canada collected well over $23 million from about 82000 head tax payers, some of the money were used to support Canada's war effort in World War I.
Head Tax

Chinese Head Tax & Exclusion Act Redress in Canada
In 1909, Dere's grandfather arrived in Canada only to hand over $500 to the government for simply being Chinese. Now, a special United Nations rapporteur is urging the Canadian government to pay back the money owed to Dere and thousands of other Chinese immigrants and their families who were forced to pay the so-called Chinese head tax.

It was July 15, 1921 when the "Controller of Chinese Immigration" clerk scrawled his signature on the head-tax receipt for Mah Ming Sun, who would take the Canadian name Wally. He and his uncle had just disembarked a steamer from Canton, China. Wally's father had scraped together enough as a labourer building the railroad near Revelstoke, B.C., to pay their passage and the tax. The white children taunted him at school in Kelowna, B.C. "Chink-Chong Chinaman," they would jeer.

The labour movement in Canada never forgot the internment and exploitation of Canada's immigrant working class.

When the depression hit in the 1930's the Government of the day, again the Conservatives this time under Prime Minister R. B. Bennet from Alberta, used internment camps to deal with mass unemployment. They called them 'Relief camps' and rather than providing unemployment benefits all able bodied single men were shipped out of Western Canada's cities, to once again work in forced labour camps under the watchful eye of the Canadian Army and RCMP.

Mass unemployment affected every advanced industrial country in the world, and in response the most radical activists in the labour and farmers movement, usually the communists and anarchists, organized mass Hunger Marches of the unemployed demanding unemployment payments, veterans payments, and farm subsidies.

In Western Canada Hunger Marches were held and were brutally repressed by police assaults ordered by the provincial governments of the day. Including the famous battle of the Evergreens in Edmonton in the winter of 1932. The outrage of the citizens at being attacked by their own government, the United Farmers of Alberta, with the support of the Mayor and city council who were all trade unionists and members of the Edmonton Trades and Labour Council, led to the defeat of the electoral left in Alberta and the rise to power of the Social Credit party.

See:
Labour/Le Travail 16, Fall 1985. Special Issue on Labour in Alberta

Alberta law cases #3-5 - "The Hunger March of 1932"(audio mp3)
In December 1932 unemployed men from all around the prairies congregated in Edmonton. The purpose? - to participate in a ""Hunger March"" to the Alberta Legislature to raise awareness of their desperate situation. A clash between marchers and police resulted in the arrest of 29 participants.

We Were Good People
© Maria Dunn & William Dolinsky, 2003 SOCAN


The Edmonton Hunger March took place on Tuesday, December 20, 1932. Protesters planned to walk in an orderly and peaceful manner from Market Square (currently the Stanley Milner Public Library) to the Legislature to ask for government assistance for farmers and the unemployed in the midst of the Depression. Wielding billy clubs, police on horseback broke up the march. In researching this event, I read an unpublished letter to the Edmonton Journal, written by William Dolinsky in 1999, in which he described the events he had witnessed. He wrote: "I remember well this Bloody Tuesday" and asserted, so eloquently and simply: "We were good people". Of the 10,000 people reportedly in the square that day, I imagined the debacle from the point of view of a mother with two children.

***

I was an ordinary mother in 1932
My husband out of work and more worries here than food
I was weary with asking the man for relief
Feeling like a beggar, being treated like a thief

So when word of a protest started going round
I bundled my boys for the long walk downtown
And bless them, they didn't make a peep about the cold
One was only 5, the other 9 years old

We were good people, gathered in the square
It wasn't ease and comfort had driven us there


Well the air was almost festive with Christmas trees in view
But as we moved to leave the square and march the Avenue
A sound I'd never heard before turned my heart to lead
The sound of a billy club cracking open heads

Well I'd always taught my sons we were safe around police
But when they charged on horses, I dragged us off the street
It made me so angry they'd endanger children too
In silencing the voices of 1932

We were good people, gathered in the square
It wasn't ease and comfort had driven us there
But they treated us like criminals for showing our despair
Oh I remember well this Bloody Tuesday


Where was the government who wouldn't let us starve?
Who wouldn't take the farmer's land, who knew we worked so hard
We, the people, were just scraping by for our daily bread
We had voted for the cowards and away they turned their heads

Now I've read it in the paper, this supposed "Hunger March"
Was the scheme of Reds, they said, our hunger was a farce
Well I don't care what they say, for me it did ring true
An ordinary mother in 1932

Again the leadership in Alberta of the mass movement was Ukrainans in the Worker Farmer Unity League. Several were arrested and tried for inciting a riot and seditious insurrection.

By 1935 a mass movement of labour activism across the west, mobilized the
On to Ottawa trek, it emptied the relief camps of thousands of workers, who then hopped on trains, the CPR again, and were brutally attacked by the CPR police, as well as by the RCMP as they attempted to 'march on Ottawa' to demand an end to internment and demand Unemployment Insurance. They were stopped in Regina where they were met with brutal repression by the RCMP.

The On-to-Ottawa Trek

The On-To-Ottawa-Trek 1935
Courtesy of the Glenbow Collection

Alberta experienced its greatest period of social and economic crisis during the 1930s, better known as the "Dirty Thirties." Trigger by Europe's cut in Canadian food imports the Depression saw wheat prices plunge and that combined with a drought that destroyed many family farms. Railways and mines cut back on their operations and shop laid off employees. Both rural and urban communities were in crisis sending many families to seek relief aid from the government to keep from starving. Many unemployed men began wandering the country, riding the train boxcars, looking for any kind of work. A number of these men ended up working in government relief camps that were no better than hard labour internment camps.

Riding the boxcars to Regina
Courtesy of the Glenbow Collection

The men resented these harsh conditions and organized the Communist-led Relief Camp Workers Union of the Worker’s Unity League organised the On-to-Ottawa-Trek in 1935. Unemployed single men left the relief camps of British Columbia in June on board east-bound trains. The marchers halted at Regina when its leader, Arthur Evans (a former OBU organizer), and others went to Ottawa to express their grievances to Prime Minister R. B. Bennett. Having little sympathy for the protesters, Bennett ordered the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to ambush the protesters and force them to return to the relief camps. Bennett’s order resulted in the Regina Riot of 1 July 1935. Disappointed, 1250 of the protesters volunteered for the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion to fight for the Spanish Republic during the Spanish Civil War. At least 25 of these men were from Alberta. Many of the Spanish Civil War veterans returned to offer their battle experience to the Canadian Armed Forces and fought as heroes during World War II.



Internment was again used in World War II. It was used as a racist reaction against Japanese Canadian. The first internment had been against Ukrainians because of our language and cultural differences which in itself was racism by the English ruling class. In the case of the Japanese it was because they were a visble minority.


Once the bombing on Pearl Harbour happened racism came to a head. British Columbians started to blame all their troubles and problems on the Japanese. Japanese people were blamed for everything from a bad crop to a flat tire. The scared people of BC cried out, wanting the BC Government to deal with the problem as they saw it-Japanese Canadians. The people of British Columbia wanted to feel safe in their homes again and they wanted Prime Minister Mackenzie King to rid Canada of people of Japanese orign. They were causing a threat to Canada (or so it was believed by the public.) Mackenzie King wanted the votes from B.C. so he was more than happy to do what they asked. Mackenzie's first order of business was to incarcerate all Japanese males between the ages 14 and 45. They were ordered to move more than 160 km inland. This was to "safe guard" the pacific coast from Japanese spies. The Canadian government took away all of the Japanese fishing fleets, in order to protect Canada. The war caused a large labour shortage for farmers, especially sugar beet farmers. The Security Commission Council organized sugar beet projects to combat the labour shortage. This gave the Japanese males a choice. The choice was to work in road camps as slaves or go to the beet camps and be with their families. Working in the beet camps was the choice taken by the majority of Japanese married men.
Japanese Internment Camps

Lethbridge and Southen Alberta boomed with sugar beet production as Japanese families were moved into the province during the war. Once again internment was as much about economics as it was about race and politics. Southern Alberta farmers benefited from the forced labour, and many being former American emigres Mormons in particular, their white racist communities were the perfect location for a visible minority.

Unlike the United States, where families were generally kept together, Canada initially sent its male evacuees to road camps in the B.C. interior, to sugar beet projects on the Prairies, or to internment in a POW camp in Ontario, while women and children were moved to six inland B.C. towns created or revived to house the relocated populace. There the living conditions were so poor that the citizens of wartime Japan even sent supplemental food shipments through the Red Cross. During the period of detention, the Canadian government spent one-third the per capita amount expended by the U.S. on Japanese American evacuees. Not until 1949, four years after Japan had surrendered, were the majority of Nikkei allowed to return to British Columbia. By then most had chosen to begin life anew elsewhere in Canada. Their property had long before been confiscated and sold at a fraction of its worth.
Japanese Canadian Internment
Information at the University of Washington Libraries and Beyond


Today Lethbridge, Warner, Taber, Raymond, Alberta which are the sugar beet centres of Canada, are also home to a large Japanese Canadian community, which grew up there in concentration camps and then made it their home.

Again the use of the 'Concentration Camp', developed by the British but perfected by the Canadian State, was not for keeping prisoners, it was for the extraction of 'Forced Labour', the exploitation of workers. Let us never forget that. And it was used against visible minorities, it was the original source of 'racial profiling'.


Canada's Sad History of Racist Oppression:

Righting wrongs

Ukrainian-Canadians have long sought redress for the internment of 8,579 Eastern Europeans during the First World War, a 'dark chapter' that Prime Minister Paul Martin acknowledged this week. It is one of 13 claims put forward by ethnic and religious groups.

1847 to 1985

In Canada's residential schools, aboriginal children were forced to assimilate and many were abused.

1885 to 1946

Discrimination against immigrants from China, including a $500 head tax.

1891 to 1956

Imprisonment of leprosy patients, mostly Chinese, on two Victoria-area islands.

1900 to 1932

The unjust treatment of black immigrants from the Caribbean.

1914 to 1920

The internment of Ukrainian-Canadians during the First World War.

1938 to 1948

The ban of Jewish immigrants in the mid-20th century, including the time a boat carrying more than 900 German Jews was turned away from a Canadian port in 1939.

1940 to 1943

The internment of Italian-Canadians during the Second World War.

The internment of German-Canadians during the Second World War.

1942 to 1949

The internment and relocation of Japanese-Canadians during and after the Second World War.

Post 1949

The discrimination against aboriginal war veterans, who were offered $20,000 each in compensation in 2002.

OTHER COMMUNITIES

z African-Canadians nationally, including the descendants of black Loyalists, are mobilizing toward a collective claim for reparations.

z In Nova Scotia, the Africville Community is working toward advancing its claims for reparations.

z The Doukhobors, for the forced confinement of children in a sanitorium by the B.C. government.


Today with the so called phoney war on Terrorism, the new security State in Canada is once again threatening the civil liberties of it's citizens and racial profiling those immigrants coming from Muslim countries. Will we see a call for internment of these folks like we have in the past. Not if we are vigilant and learn the lessons of the past. It is up to the labour movement, progressives, Canadians who are concerned about civil liberties and human rights, and most importantly by those communities such as the Ukrainians, Chinese, Japanese, Indigenous peoples, etc. who have been brutalized by the Canadian state to speak out and say loudly and clearly: NEVER AGAIN!

Security certificates
CanWest News Service
OTTAWA - The Supreme Court will decide whether Canada's security certificate policy, which permits non-citizens to be kicked out of the country based on secret evidence that they endanger national security, should be struck down for violating the Charter of Rights and Canada's international commitments.he high court announced yesterday it will hear the appeal of Moroccan-born permanent resident Adil Charkaoui of Montreal, who is accused by immigration authorities of being an al-Qaeda sleeper agent, a charge he denies. Before being granted bail under strict conditions last February, the father of two was detained for 21 months on a security certificate under Canada's immigration laws. Mr. Charkaoui argues the security certificate system is a Kafkaesque violation of his Charter right to a fair hearing and to defend himself because it allows immigration authorities to deport foreign nationals and permanent residents without fully disclosing to them the evidence that allegedly shows that they are a danger to Canadians.

CSIS had concerns over Arar's release
Spy agency felt case was a 'hot potato,' but denies wanting to leave him in Syria
Globe and Mail, Friday, August 26, 2005
Canada's spy agency had concerns about Maher Arar returning to Canada from Syria, but never believed he should remain in a Syrian jail, the second-highest ranking official at CSIS testified yesterday. Jack Hooper, deputy director of the agency, told the Arar inquiry that the Canadian Security Intelligence Service detailed those concerns to the solicitor-general, Foreign Affairs officials and others inside government. Among them: CSIS's ability to deport non-citizens using security certificates could be diminished.



My Grandfather on my mothers side of our family was a miner in Wayne Alberta, and a homesteader. My grandfather on my fathers side was a scholar, the first presbrysterian preacher in the Ukrainian community, a labour activist and helped found the Ukrainian Farmer Labour Temple Association the precursor to the Association of United Ukrainian Canadians.

My partners grandparents and family on her mothers side were Japanese Canadians who were interened during WWII in Warner Alberta. Her grandfather was a Bhuddist priest.

This article is in memory of Comrade George Piche, who passed away July 2005, a tireless fighter for worker and immigrant rights in Canada.

And I would like to thank Maria Dunn for her efforts to document in song the workers history of Alberta.








Wednesday, August 24, 2005

A Slap on the Wrist

No one gets fired from the Ralph Reich. They all piggy up to the trough, say they are sorry, won't do it again and all is well in Alberta Land. Unless you are a social worker or other frontline employee of the Ralph Regime. Then you DO get fired, and have to file for arbitration to get justice.

Alta trade rep in Washington to be reprimanded for taking oil firm board job
Alberta Premier Ralph Klein says he will send the province's trade official in Washington a letter of reprimand for initially accepting a directorship with a junior oil and gas company.
Klein said Wednesday he wants to know if former energy minister Murray Smith accepted a seat on the board of Calgary-based Tusk Energy Corp. before or after being told by the ethics commissioner not to. Stelmach has said the matter is closed as far as he's concerned, and Smith won't be fired from his post in Washington.
Klein said what Smith did was wrong because of the potential conflict of interest, although it wasn't a firing offence.
It's not the first time Smith has raised eyebrows over the job he took late last year.
Figures show he is receiving more than double his old salary as energy minister. It includes $223,000 Cdn in base salary and benefits, a tax-free international service allowance of $21,608, a car, accommodation and other perks.
It was Smith who closed Alberta's trade offices in the mid-1990s as a cost-cutting move when he was economic development minister.

Smith blinks
Alberta's man in Washington resigns from oil firm board
By Rick Bell
Of course, TUSK Energy didn't see a problem. Their head honcho called it a non-issue. Murray didn't think there was a problem. He was Murray, the premier's pal with enough clout to score a cushy post right after retiring from politics and not even having to worry if it's perceived as patronage, an evil Murray once campaigned against.Reining in Murray, the premier's compadre, was tougher."But how did this happen without clearing the appropriate authorities? Here again is a member of the Conservative glitterati who think he's in a world of his own, operating under his own rules. He has got to go. "When it comes to credibility and integrity we have a long way to go across this country, all governments have a way to go," concludes Stelmach, of this baby step.

Nope this government has a lot longer way to go than any other in Canada. Period.

A Little Rae of Sunshine for the Liberals

It's been said that the NDP are Liberals in a hurry. Well it appears that the old canard may have legs. Rumours are abounding in the Press that former NDP Premier of Ontario Bob Rae is being courted by the Federal Liberals to run in the upcoming election next spring. It helps his brother is a long time Liberal backroom boy. And it helps that since he has retired from politics Bob's profile has been kept up with royal commissions, and other public policy work, where he has moved further and further to the centre, making him the ultimate prize for the Liberals.

Strange days as they say, but he proved himself a liberal when he was Premier, and took on the unions and the left of the party with is New Social Contract, which ended up being the prelude to Mike Harris's Common Sense Revolution.
Paul Martin slayed the deficit dragon with cuts to social programs across the board, Bob did the same in Ontario. Birds of a feather.

Heck next the Liberals will be courting Ralph Klein, after all he used to belong to the party. Just kidding. He is retiring from politics, or so he says, we are still waiting with bated breathe for that joyous day.


The public eye bats its lashes at ... Bob Rae
JIM COYLE
Who'd have thought that, at 57, the onetime boy wonder of Canadian politics would find himself being courted by federal Liberals obviously looking beyond the current occupant of the prime minister's office to who might fill it nextAnd who'd have thought Bob Rae would seem so appealingly suited to the task?

Liberals want Rae to join fold
Ex-NDP premier says Air-India his current priority
After that,
The case for a Rae candidacy was bolstered with the release yesterday of a Toronto Star-SES Research Associates poll.It said former New Brunswick premier Frank McKenna, 57, now the Canadian ambassador to Washington, is the frontrunner in the undeclared leadership contest with support of 23 per cent of the 1,000 people surveyed.Rae and former deputy prime minister John Manley, 55, were tied for second at 11 per cent apiece followed by former federal minister Martin Cauchon, 42, and Harvard University professor Michael Ignatieff, 58, at 4 per cent.Among Ontarians polled, 20 per cent favoured Rae compared to 17 per cent who back McKenna.

Taken it to the Man

As I have blogged here before the arguement by the Western Seperatists including the soft right wingers who support Alberta Uber Alles, claiming a constitutional right to mineral & resource rights and defying the idea of sharing the spoils with 'Eastern Bastards" fails to recognize that these land rights are illegal, illegitimate, and based on stolen land and broken promises to Canada's indigenous peoples.

Using their arguement that the 1935 constitutional accords allowed provinces the right to mineral and resource stewardship, justifies Alberta's position of telling Ottawa to bug out when it comes to oil and gas, coal, etc. revenues generated by the province one can then say that earlier legal agreements; treaties, supercede the Alberta governments right to resource revenues.

Link Byfield who I challenged over this is still humming and haaing over the question.

However Stewart Steinhauer, writing in the Dominon in his column, agrees. The Land belongs to the first nations, and they have as much say if not more in who should benefit from the revenues as does the Alberta Government.

Insurgency In Occupied Alberta

A Voice From The Coffin

We're getting down to the heart of the problem, the heartbeat of our Great Mother. Land. The indigenous insurgency in Alberta comes down to a call for Canada to adhere to international law, and recognize Indigenous title to land. The major shareholders and their corporate managers of energy corporations like Exxon Mobil, BP, and Royal Dutch Shell, to name a few, have other ideas, for oily reasons; powerful forces are keeping Canada from following the rule of law.

This distain for the rule of law, when it does not suit the interests of the powerful, is not a new phase in the history of Canada, or of western civilization. I came across a petition signed by my great-great grandfather, Henry Bird Steinhauer, and his son, Arthur, my great grandfather, among others, addressed to Canada's Lieutenant-Governor Archibald, calling for recognition of Indian title to land. The petition, dated 9 January, 1871, reads:

"We as loyal subjects of our Great Mother the Queen whom your Excellency represents, wish that our privileges and claims of the land of our fathers be recognized by Commissioners whom your Excellency may hereafter appoint to treat with the different tribes of the Saskatchewan…our friends the plains Crees, who have not been taught as we have, think that their lands and hunting grounds shall be taken from them without remuneration. As loyal subjects of our Great Mother the Queen, we pray that all the privileges and advantages of such subjects may be granted to us as a People by your Excellency's Government."

Tuesday, August 23, 2005

The Face of Terrorism

Look Ma, Terrorists.
No dear they are homeless
Yeah ma, thats what they want you to think, the guy with the beard is obviously Ben Laden.
No dear, they are poor, out of work, homeless people.
Ya ma and poverty leads to terrorism.
Now dear be nice, and just ignore them.
Ma I am going to have to report you to Homeland Security,
for showing sympathy with our enemies.


Homeless security? U.S. warned of terrorists in disguise
Washington — Asking for increased vigilance in the wake of the London bombings, the government is warning that terrorists may pose as vagrants to conduct surveillance of buildings and mass transit stations to plot future attacks.

“In light of the recent bombings in London, it is crucial that police, fire and emergency medical personnel take notice of their surroundings, and be aware of ‘vagrants' who seem out of place or unfamiliar,” said the message, distributed via e-mail to some federal employees in Washington by the U.S. Attorney's office.

It is based on a State Department report that was issued last week. The State Department had no immediate comment Monday.

The warning is similar to one issued by the FBI before July 4, 2004, that said terrorists may attempt surveillance disguised as homeless people, shoe shiners, street vendors or street sweepers.

The Republican Administration in the US knows that in order to continue with it's fictional war on terrorism it must continue to make its citizens fearful and paranoid.

Hello American Citizens, wake up, it's not a bad dream. Yes you were attacked on your own soil, but the Bush administration was already preparing to go to war. The horryfiying reality is that you would still be in a war in Iraq regardless of 9/11. That was the Bush plan all along.

There is no war on terror, there is only the Bush war. Its an economic plan to keep America armed and dangerous, so as to maintain your hegemony in the world economy. Since Viet Nam, America has relied on its military expansion to use up its surplus value and to create new capital. You need foriegn wars not to keep America safe from terrorism, but from an economic collapse.
A Permanent Arms Economy by Michael Kidron

Which reminds me that my favorite SF author Samuel R. Delaney, wrote the Fall of The Towers between 1963 and 1965 as a trilogy. (The Fall of the Towers (Bantam Spectra 0-553-25648-3, Feb ’86 [Jan ’86], $4.95, 401pp, pb) [Fall of the Towers] Reissue (Ace 1970) omnibus edition of the sf trilogy Out of the Dead City (Ace 1963), The Towers of Toron (Ace 1964), and City of a Thousand Suns (Ace 1965).)

It was NOT about the WTC Towers, they hadn't been built yet.

Nope it was an allegory on Vietnam. It was about an interplanetary war that didn't exist except in minds of its victims and the computers who controled their virtual war reality. It was the society of Tornor's ruling class way of keeping its economy booming, by a continual war against an unknown enemy, and keeping the big lie secret from it's citizens.

The protagonists of the novels are young anarchist nihilist beat poets who graffiti the streets with the slogan; "There is No War!"

A message that would serve American's well now.


SAMUEL RAY DELANY, JR. (b. April 1, 1942, New York, N.Y., U.S.), African-American critic and science-fiction novelist whose highly imaginative works address racial and social issues, heroic quests, and the nature of language.

Delany attended the Bronx High School of Science, and in the early 1960s, City College of New York (now City University of New York). His first novel, The Jewels of Aptor, was was written when he was nineteen and published in 1962. His subsequent trilogy, The Fall of the Towers, was completed while he was still twenty-one.



Gee mom he looks like one of those homeless terrorists.
Aw shut up, George



Big Apple Redux:
An Interview with Marshall Berman
Tony Monchinski

T.M.: Besides the enormous human toll, here in New York City we no longer have our Twin Towers. In the November 2001 final edition of Lingua Franca you have an article entitled, "When Bad Buildings Happen to Good People." Like yourself, I'm a native New Yorker, albeit one with fewer years under his belt. For me, the Twin Towers always were: they were natural and normal, a part of the city as if they had always been. In Lingua Franca you describe the Towers as "expressions of an urbanism that disdained the city and its people." Please explain.

M.B.: If you contrast the World Trade Center with the skyscrapers in New York that were most prominent before them, the Chrysler and the Empire State Buildings, these building were on the streets, part of a total system, in the middle of life. The World Trade Center isolated itself from the city in very elaborate ways. It was hard to get to, it was hard to use. They had enormous expansives of space, but it was a lousy public space. In some ways they didn't want the rest of us there. Even before September 11th, it had its own forms of security clearance and it gave off hostility.

That's interesting, because just to the south of the World Trade Center, the Battery Park City Complex, which was built in roughly the same way through the Public Authority, was infinitely more user-friendly. Every weekend for most of the year, the parks, the Strand, the museums and restaurants that grew out of Battery Park City were jammed. People would use one or more of those, but to get to the subway to go home one would have to pass through the World Trade Center. And there it was like a ghost-town: you passed from this overflowing, full site to one that was empty.

From everything I heard, the Port Authority wanted it that way. Their idea of safety involved repelling the people. The slab shape of the Towers and their isolation grew out of an aesthetic voiced best by Le Corbusier, who said that in order to have modern planning we have to "kill the streets." For him the street epitomized disorder and chaos. The idea was to create some other system that repelled the city street. I think that this was one of the greatest mistakes made all over the world.

There is some fear of the city that plays an important role in 20th century culture. It created an endless series of completely sterile and empty gigantic spaces all over the world. There are certain types of stereotyped buildings that people eventually came to see as dreadful. But maybe they had to experience them and live with them before they could see what was wrong. That said, after the World Trade Center got bombed it made me and many other people feel more sympathy for it. Like us, it was vulnerable.

Monday, August 22, 2005

Go West Liberals,Thar's A Boom Out Thar

We Feel Your Pain Canada, Not

Alberta Awash in Riches

Alberta may get $7-billion surplus
Private sector foresees a booming budget as oil hovers above $65 (U.S.) a barrel. And as the money from crude and natural-gas royalties flood provincial coffers, there are concerns about how the Ralph Klein Conservatives will use the riches. "For the last 13 years, their whole mindset has been around the politics of constraint . . . well that doesn't prepare you well for the situation we are in now," said Roger Gibbins, president of the Canada West Foundation, a western think-tank. "It takes a real leap in imagination to get into this space. I think it's very difficult for this particular government to do this."

Well that's an understatement, the Ralph Reich is still in debt and deficit mode, and will be until the King steps down and makes way for his Calgary Corporate Replacement. But that does not assure us that the Party of Calgary will have any new ideas of what to do except like Scrooge McDuck to dive into their emabarssment of riches.



What's interesting is that the Harper Conservatives who complain about the Federal Liberal Government underestimating its surpluses are silent when Alberta does the same. Perhaps while Paul Martin is out here today, placating the alienated Alberta Robber Barons see below, he can ask Ralph for tips on underestimating surpluses and not having the opposition howl about it. Oh yeah that's right there is an Opposition in Ottawa, unlike Alberta.



The surplus we have in Alberta is thanks to the world price of crude and the $1 a litre gas prices at the pump in Toronto and Montreal. Thanks Canada. We appreciate your generosity even if we whine about our alienation. Again it's the Scrooge McDuck ideology in Alberta, 'they are out to get our oil, wealth, money." And its summed up as the NEP. Give it a break already heck most Albertans weren't even born when the NEP had its short lived existance.


Using data from First Energy Capital Corp. and Peters & Co. Ltd., The Globe and Mail estimated Alberta may reap an extra $3.9-billion to $4.1-billion in oil and gas royalties, on top of its budgeted $6.7-billion. Even the more conservative figure means that Alberta would take in a total of $11.6-billion in overall non-renewable resource revenue, easily surpassing the current record of $10.5-billion in fiscal 2000-01. In that scenario, the provincial surplus would swell to at least $6.9-billion, another record.

A growing windfall
Alberta's spring budget forecast $6.7 billion in oil and natural gas royalties but soaring prices since then mean the province will take in much more. Prices since April, along with analyst forecasts through to the end of March point to a windfall of close to $4billion, a record year for royalties and a surplus nearing $7 billion. The calculation of those extra royalties combine commodity price forecasts from First Energy Capital Corp. and Peters & Co. Ltd. with price sensibilities from Alberta Finance.
First Energy Capital Corp. Peters & Co.
First fiscal quarter $659 million $599 million
Second fiscal quarter $956 million $1.02 billion
Third fiscal quarter $1.23 billion $1.07 billion
Fourth fiscal quarter $1.27 billion $1.2 billion
Total $4.12 billion $3.89 billion

COMMODITY PRICE PROJECTIONS; FIRST ENERGY CAPITAL CORP AND PETERS CO.


Why that would be the amount needed to pay for Lyle Obergs $7 billion infrastructure bill, a need created because the Debt and Deficit Fear Mongers in the Kingdom of Ralph, failed to pay for them over the last decade. So there is no need to tap into the Heritage Trust Fund or to borrow the money.

But again the King Ralph and his government will cry poor, just like Scrooge McDuck, while being awash in riches, its been their mantra for 13 years why change now.




The Liberals Go West

Here they come
The boys in the bright white sports car
Waving their arms in the air
Who do they think they are?
And where did they get that car?

Boys In The Bright White Sports Car (Trooper)

A Great band from Calgary, home of Western Alienation and Warren Kinsella. This song started going in my head when I read about the PM and the Liberals moving right, err coming to Alberta to commiserate with those suffering from western alienation

PM's trip aimed at soothing West
On Monday, Martin will meet in Edmonton with the Canada West Foundation, an Alberta-based think tank that released a poll in 2003 that suggested most western Canadians believe the federal government doesn't care about them.

A right wing think tank from Southern Alberta, aren't they all, but not as right wing as the Western Standard.

Liberals seek to woo West at caucus meeting
At least one-third of western Canadians think it's time for their provinces to consider forming their own nation, a poll suggests. The survey, which was released earlier this month, was commissioned by Western Standard magazine, a right-leaning bimonthly news and opinion magazine founded in 2004 by Ezra Levant, a former Reform Party and Alliance Party activist."Westerners are very frustrated with their position in Confederation," said Faron Ellis, a political science professor at Lethbridge Community College, who conducted the survey.

Note Farron is also a longtime supporter of the Reform/ Alliance rump in the new Conservative party, he like this poll are NOT objective, and highly suspect. It's increbible that anyone gives this junk politics of Western Seperatism any credence, but then again Lougheed saw the danger of the right wing seperatist rump when the WCC won a provicial seat. Basically if you look at the politics of Western Seperatism they are the right wing of the right wing, old Social Credit, anti-French, anti-semitic, White Western Canada only type. Which means that they are all bluster and no base.

Of course Western Canada has suffered alienation from the East, cause it acted like a colonial power over the fate of the Western Provinces since the Riel Rebellion. But to kowtow to the likes of LeRant, the Byfields, Farron Ellis, or the majority of the Conservative Caucus, which comes from Alberta, is to capitulate to a minority view which is situated in one city; Calgary.

So lets call it Calgary Alienation, and Calgary Seperation, heck they already want to seperate from Alberta, cause we're all reds up here in Edmonton. And because they are the largest American city north of the 49th parellel. Whats good for Huston is good for Calgary.

And they rule the West in their little minds cause all the old eastern based capitalists are moving their Head Offices from Montreal, Toronto, and Winnipeg to Calgary. It gives them a royal swollen head about their importance as a city state.

Federal Budget gets big Canadian Yawn

One-half of respondents couldn't name one specific item from Goodale's financial blueprint. Half of Canadians paid absolutely no attention to the last federal budget, despite its long list of expensive spending promises on subjects ranging from child care to the military to seniors, federal government polling suggests.Cdns still demanding change: poll

To make matters worse, almost one-third still erroneously thought Ottawa is running deficits - undermining one of the Prime Minister Paul Martin's greatest claims to fame: the fact he balanced Ottawa's books, clearing the way for eight successive surplus budgets.

Okay Liberal media spinners here you go the messaage is; there is NO DEFICIT. The slogan should be hey we are like Alberta deficit free, and well on our way to being debt free thanks to the billions you bilked out of EI.

Liberals have been a little too successful with their controversial practice of underestimating surpluses to dampen public demands, said Derek Burleton, economist with TD Bank Group. "They've made clear . . . there are only limited fiscal resources and as a result, perhaps Canadians are interpreting that as government is running short of money - which spells deficit." Critics complain Goodale repeated that pattern in February's budget by projecting only a $3-billion surplus - just enough for his rainy-day fund - when the books are finally closed on fiscal 2004-05. In reality, the surplus should be about $6.8 billion, rising to $9.5 billion in 2005-06, thanks to lower debt-servicing costs and higher corporate tax payments, says economist Ellen Russell.

Yep who needs Monte Solberg whining about deficits when you have Goodale being cautious and the Liberals playing hide the surplus sasuage,with undeclared budget surpluses, to appear frugal and good managers. It fails to reassure Canadians all is well in the economy, surprize surpirze. Just say NO Deficit.

Surplus rockets to $9.5B
The federal government is -- and will continue -- racking up fatter-than-forecast budget surpluses that will climb back above the $10-billion mark next fiscal year, an economic think-tank says. The surplus this fiscal year will rise to $9.5-billion from an estimated $6.8-billion last year, and then surge even further to $11.3-billion in 2006-07, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives says in a new forecast prepared for the House of Commons finance committee.The surpluses forecast by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives are in excess of the $2-billion a year required to meet the conditions for that agreement with the NDP to be implemented.

Ok so perhaps its Alberta and Canada awash in riches, but I don't expect to see Paul Martin and Ralph Klein toasting each other like their predecesors, Peter Lougheed and Pierre Trudeau, did back when oil boomed in the eighties.

Nope don't see that at all.

Now thats Western Alienation, well actually it's Calgary Pig Headedness, cause out West here we are real friendly even to our enemies.