The Canadian Olympic Mentality: There is an I in Team

Canada is turning into a place I don’t recognize.

The men’s hockey team just played a lame 1st period against the Americans. We’re losing 2-1 so far. Passing seems to no longer be a Canadian virtue. Players carry the puck past the blue line then try to score themselves. Where is the team mentality? Where did this notion of individualized super-stardom come from?

I thought “Own the Podium” meant doing well in medals. It turns out it means we will get more medals than anyone. Even against countries with 10-30 times more citizens and insanely large training budgets. And CTV seems to be invested in the mythology of patriotic excellence or die.

Kady O’Malley wrote in Twitter today about the horrible mobius loop of anticipation, disappointment, and recrimination. Today someone won a silver medal in skating. The CTV presenter announced that medal with bland boredom, then quickly moved to a programming announcement.

Earlier today, a Canadian athlete who earned 5th in an event, sat at a press conference basically apologizing to the country for letting us all down.

Who are we? What is our national self-identity? Do we really believe we are capable of getting gold in everything, and if our athletes let us down, we are less of a nation and they are less as people?

Fifth and Second in the world of almost 7 billion people is great.

Why are we, as a nation, unable to acknowledge that kind of excellence?

Perhaps something lame on the Own The Podium website is indicative of how clueless this emerging national sentiment is: they still have an 18 day countdown to the beginning of the Vancouver Olympics.

All I know is that if someone wants to turn Canada into a place where we shame people who “only” come in 2nd or 5th in the world, our nation will turn into a place to be ashamed of.

One Snapshot of #iPad Trending in Twitter

Catch the global groove:

BC NDP Convention Minus 1 Day: Defining Ourselves as a Party

11.26.09

With convention starting tomorrow, we are on the eve of defining a new culture of the BC NDP. Or not.

Lots of people think everything is fine in the party, that people calling for reform are navel gazers who don’t understand that the real enemy is the Liberal party.

Working against the Liberals and improving the synergy within the NDP are not mutually exclusive.

Losing two elections is a reasonable trigger for some useful introspection for the party. I’ve written about many of the crux issues for the party over the last week. Today I want to talk about who we ought to feel like as the NDP in BC.

Let’s use the party’s words, even…the convention tagline and a core campaign slogan:

Communicate. Inspire. Build.

Because everyone matters.

Communication

All conventions are about communication. The communication that must happen this weekend will give space to delegates to express all range of emotions and attitudes about the state of the party. Our core identity is in disarray to a degree. If convention is going to stimulate improvement, we need to get our ideas out on the table. We need to speak our truths to each other.

Inspiration

Inspiration is critical. When organizations are in flux, there are generally two leadership options: entrenching conservatism and expansive reinvigoration. Ever since 8:35pm on May 12, 2009, when I began talking to people about what went wrong in the election, everyone walked down one of those two paths, or alternated depending on their moods.

All through convention there will be crux moments: times when ideas will gel. I used to watch basketball games when I was at SFU. Each game was a series of scoring or defensive streaks. Whichever team could build enough momentum for enough runs would win the game.

At convention, these crux moments will compile over the weekend to define the starting point of the culture and tone of the BC NDP for the next 2 or more likely, many years.

I implore delegates to ignore the timidity inherent in conservatism and embrace the boldness of hope and vision and belief in our capacity to be an organization that lives in integrity. The party can be the electoral wing of the progressive social movement that already exists in BC.

Build

Suitably inspired, we need to leave convention with a goal of building a party that operates in integrity. All the catharsis, debate and re-envisioning that needs to happen cannot happen by the end of the weekend. The first thing to build coming out of convention is a process to continue the dialogue. Several hundred delegates represent all members for constitutional purposes, but they represent only themselves when it comes to rebuilding a party culture that will reverse the tide of alienation that showed up in members defunding the party, not volunteering on the election campaign and in a disturbingly large number of cases not even showing up to vote.

Once we build a process for de-alienation, we need to build some other things:

• a historic policy database on the party website for members and the whole world to see so they know what we stand for and so that we are willing to be held accountable to our policies
• an open communication network with all the people and groups that make up the progressive social movement in BC that is desperate for an electoral wing that sees value in working alongside allied groups
• a new economic vision supporting progressive businesses and business models that makes the economy serve people rather than people serving corporate shareholder wealth, all within the context of averting climate breakdown
• a series of other projects that will require member engagement for them to succeed, see Think Forward BC NDP goals.

Because Everyone Matters

I used to teach high school English. “Kids matter. Teachers care.” This BCTF message always carried weight for me. It’s all about what matters.

The BC NDP positions itself as the party that makes everyone matter. It didn’t quite succeed in that message in the last election because various things happened to alienate its own membership.

The future of the BC NDP hinges on making sure everyone in the party matters. Everyone needs to be included, informed, heard, involved and a part of solutions: from addressing the debt to policy formation, to coalition building on community and province-wide levels, to simply imagining what kind of BC we want our grandchildren to inherit.

Everything that everyone says and does at convention needs to be judged in the context of whether it will enable the party to ensure that every member matters during convention time and starting on November 30 when the party has to take the lessons from convention and rebuild itself.

A political party cannot exist if it alienates its members. For cyincal, neoliberal parties, corporations and the rich are the key constituents. For progressive parties, the constituents are members and supporters.

Our members need to see events at convention as reasons to re-commit to the party because it is worth engaging in.

Our supporters who aren’t members need to see a reason to join.

These will be the tests of the success of convention. If we do it right, we will start a process of defining ourselves as a party that can flourish in the 21st century. When people belong, they will fund the party. They will not financially support an organization that alienates them.

And that is why I will be running hard for Vice-President. All weekend. And if I get elected, I will be pursuing the goals and visions I’ve been writing about for the last week.

I Am a Free Speech Zone: No Mayor Can Waive My Charter Rights During the Olympics

Granted, I’m not a lawyer. I consider myself at best a pretend-lawyer [I prefer "lay-lawyer"] so when I dispense legal advice I add a standard disclaimer that I’m not real. We’re all lucky, though, that David Eby is a real lawyer, even those around here who have drunk the Olympics Boosterism Kool-Aid[tm].

But when it comes to my Charter rights, I don’t believe I need to be a lawyer to understand that former Vancouver Mayor Larry Campbell doesn’t have the right to suspend my Charter rights, even if I gave him permission, which I would never do.

While the Charter includes right at the top a limiting statement making my rights “subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society,” I don’t believe the intellectual and political sanitation of communication to appease the International Olympic Committee is a reasonable limit or a part of a free and democratic society.

So as I’m following the dance of lawyers and cops around what kind of free speech zones I’ll be able to express myself in, I found David Eby’s piece today interesting, particularly in that it informed me of the [sadly not isolated] grand act of hubris of Larry Campbell in pledging to the IOC that I don’t need all my Charter rights at all times in all places during the Olympics:

the 2003 contract signed by Larry Campbell waiving Charter rights in Vancouver for the Games, and the bylaws passed recently by Vancouver city council giving that contract effect.

via A tale of two papers: Olympic bylaw coverage | David Eby.

Check out Section 47 at the bottom of page 23 of the Vancouver-IOC Host City Agreement to review such limitations. And read Eby’s piece on Section 47 here.

I simply don’t accept this.

Free speech violations as part of a sanitization campaign for global PR is not an acceptable limitation of my Charter rights.

This is why I am asserting that I am a free speech zone. And I’m proud that as I read David Eby’s piece today, I also received today my order form for the “I am a Free Speech Zone” t-shirt and underwear from COPE.

So it’s time now to order your shirt and undergear to remind yourself and others that you won’t tolerate the Olympics Sanitation Machine to come to my country and tell me I can’t express myself when the world is watching.

And our test over the next 6 months is to wear these t-shirts to events where the thought police would have some interest in controlling expression: places where the premier or prime minister may skulk around, Olympic venue opening parties, you get the picture. It’s time to see if our Charter still means anything now that the IOC ghoul is haunting our communities.

So buy your t-shirts and underwear. And wear them proudly because the phrase is part of the creative commons, something the IOC would never understand.

CanWest/Global: Mondaylessness in Victoria

CanWest/Global is lying about why it stopped publishing the Times-Colonist on Mondays. Read it below, though their last sentence may not be completely accurate.

They “say” that it’s because of the evolving newspaper industry. The truth is that they’re fast going broke. They first announced a plan to “temporarily” stop publishing the National Post on Mondays. Soon after they announced a permanent Mondaylessness for the T-C.

The firm skipped a loan payment last month. And while I too hastily predicted they’d close the Vancouver Sun or The Province after the provincial election, they are still clearly on the edge of an existential event.

I thought for a while to buy 100 shares in CanWest at its close of $0.38 today [down from its 5-year high of $15], only to then sell them for $0.09 each to hopefully creating a downward run on the stock to push it into the abyss. Alas, stock manipulation takes far more effort than that.

All we’re left with, then, is to simply keep repeating the demand for quality journalism. Whenever we ask for it, CanWest/Global won’t deliver. In time, they’ll pass on.

Dear Times Colonist subscriber:

The newspaper industry is evolving, and as a result of the many changes in the media environment, we will be making a major revision to our publishing schedule and subsequent deliveries, effective June 22, 2009.

As of that date, we will no longer be producing a Times Colonist on Mondays.

<snip>

The decision to cease publishing a Monday newspaper was not made lightly. We are proud of our 151-year history in the community, and we remain committed to being the No. 1 source of news in the region. We appreciate your understanding as we adjust to these challenging times. And in the end, you’ll take what we give you, without questioning it.

via Your Times Colonist is online today; sign up for breaking news alerts.

Destroying the CBC: Another Step Today

I’ve already written about the slow destruction of the CBC. And I’m at it again today.

The short list of what I wrote before:

• constrain funding to lose Hockey Night in Canada
• lose the rights to the HNIC theme song
• kill the CBC orchestra

And now: “the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. plans to cut up to 800 jobs as part of its strategy to make up for a $171 million shortfall in 2009-10.”

Defunding through manufactured crises is a core element of the neoliberal toolkit. Today’s 800 layoffs are not the first assault–it’s been going on for years under Conservative and Liberal governments. Corporate media and Canada’s neoliberal parties are cozy. A state-run media portal is unfair competition in a “free” market. It has to go, but quietly.

So the weak, unbelievable argument from Igg holds little credibility: “Even the private broadcasters understand the importance of a public broadcaster, so the question is what is the government prepared to do now to ensure that this national institution survives this recession?” Clearly, nothing. The recession is another bludgeoning tool for socialized media.

Another great neoliberal toolkit is selling assets to rent back, thereby providing an eternal revenue stream for anyone wealthy enough to buy a government asset…a revenue stream funded by tax dollars in a pretty straightforward corporate welfare scheme: “The public broadcaster will consider selling and leasing back some of its real estate assets to raise extra cash.”

If the government really believed this was a good idea, they’d be advising all Canadians to sell their homes and rent them back for a quick influx of cash and the privilege of renting for the rest of our lives.

So what to do?

In a world where megacorporations are floundering, they are even more desperate for public broadcasters to get out of the way and slide their assets over to the private sector.

It’s basically theft.

Taxes are how we buy things together. Our ancestors paid for the CBC. In a nation of concentrated corporate ownership of private media, public broadcasting offers some of the last best examples of a vibrant free press keeping leaders accountable in a democracy. It’s no wonder our right wing governments are dismantling it.

Neither the Conservatives nor the Liberals are interested in keeping it. A coalition government with the NDP in significant power or a better representative government mix in a new electoral system is pretty much a minimum for saving the last pounds of flesh from being scraped from MotherCorp’s tortured body.

Leaving the knife-wielders in power leads to the obvious conclusion.

via CBC to cut up to 800 jobs, sell assets.

Remembering Fondly the Professionalism of Teachers

Every once in a while I lament how drastically the public education system degraded over my 11 year high school teaching career. The system in the early 1990s was a dream compared to how it ended for me 4 years ago, with Gordon Campbell, Christy Clark and the gang robbing me of what I expected to be a lifelong career.

So when I read this piece today about the activities at the BCTF AGM, I just started nodding. I used to enjoy attending AGMs over spring break to discuss the state of the profession and ways of improving the public education system. It’s nice to see that is still happening.

I remember distinctly the last few semesters I taught. With changes in evaluation [I won't even go into how much I hate the FSAs and other standardized tests], we ended up in a no-win situation.

School districts had to meet arbitrary, “objective” accountability contracts for improvement. This led to students being discouraged from taking skill-appropriate courses, struggling students encouraged to not take provincial final exams to keep the scores up, that sort of thing.

We were suddenly not allowed to give zeros for incomplete assignments or deduct late marks. This idea I actually agreed with. The process meant that students had a chance to complete assignments sincerely with integrity. That was the idea. The problem was how to help students know the importance of time management and meeting deadlines. But those were non-content skills that should not be reflected in the evaluation of students’ work.

So many schools used the GSN system for evaluating work habits: good, satisfactory and needs improvement. I embraced no late marks, but I let my students know that good work habits meant actually handing in all but maybe 1 or 2 assignments. Missing more assignments than that was satisfactory and after missing a significant number of assignments, they’d get an N. This made great sense because poor time management and deadline meeting skills were work habits issues, after all.

I’d send home assignment reports to parents indicating missing assignments with a reasonable, extended period [with a deadline] to hand in outstanding work. After setting such a deadline, I was entitled to not accept outstanding assignments. Only then would the assignment get a zero.

The blowback came from several fronts. GSN evaluations had real consequences. Often athletes wouldn’t be allowed to play with Ns. Honour roll rules required no Ns; this also had implications for post-secondary admissions and scholarships. Parents would complain that their students were missing extra-curricular opportunities. Coaches complained that key players were benched. Administrators were complaint departments putting out blowback fires and began to hassle teachers who followed the new grading regime and used work habits marks as intended.

So we had a new grading system, but the institution did not display the integrity to follow it through by supporting its own work habits evaluation system.

Enter the standardized testing [non-] solution for a problem manufactured to halt the flow of an education system.

This kind of professional hypocrisy was one of the things that I didn’t miss when I finally resigned.

Since I left teaching, my profession has championed profound social and political causes: draconian labour relations from the government, to confronting “that’s so gay” hate rhetoric.

Every March when I read about the BCTF AGM, I nod, thinking of how proud I am to have been a teacher, a member of a profession with such integrity in the face of assaults from a neoLiberal government and misanthropes pretending to be educational leaders.

Principals ‘dumbing down’ B.C. schools, teachers say

Complain they’ve been ordered to allow rewrites, never give zeros, accept late work

By Janet Steffenhagen, Canwest News Service March 15, 2009

VANCOUVER — B.C. teachers complained Sunday that school principals are ordering them to never give zeros when marking class assignments, to accept late work and to allow students to rewrite tests as many times as it takes for them to get good marks.

Such orders are being delivered in many schools around the province by principals who have embraced a program called Assessment for Learning, and it’s undermining teachers’ professional autonomy in the classroom, delegates said at the annual meeting of the B.C. Teachers’ Federation in Vancouver.

“When principals say you have to retest over and over and over again, that is a violation of professional autonomy,” Burnaby teacher James Sanyshin told the three-day meeting.

It’s as though B.C. principals recently attended a “can’t-give-a-kid-a-zero conference,” another delegate added.

Some warned the imposition of top-down assessment practices is “dumbing down” public education and will ultimately result in more families turning to private schools.

Burnaby delegates were particularly incensed, saying teachers are in the best position to evaluate student performance and they should decide what assessment tools they will use. The BCTF says principals are using Assessment for Learning to boost student performance and graduation rates in their schools.

It’s being presented as a cure-all and a best practice, Burnaby teacher Frank Bonvino said, adding: “It’s good that these new theories are being discussed … but it’s got to be up to the individual teacher to decide how or if or when they’re going to implement these things in their classroom.

“Sometimes when I hear administrators talk about best practices, I think … that’s just a buzzword they use for ‘teachers’ autonomy is going to get screwed,’ ” he said. “At the end of the day, you have to have control and you have to be comfortable with what you’re going to teach in the classroom.”

Union vice-president Susan Lambert said student assessment has become a political issue in schools because of standardized tests and a requirement for schools to show continual improvement in student achievement. “There’s huge pressure on [principals],” she said. “You set a goal for your school and if you don’t meet that goal, you’re seen as a failing principal.”

Delegates also approved plans for an aggressive, year-round media campaign to promote public education over private education and to increase pressure for more public-school funding.

But creative action must be the priority leading up to the May 12 provincial election if teachers hope to make education a vote-determining issue, union president Irene Lanzinger told delegates. That’s because the government’s so-called “gag law” restricts advertising by the BCTF and all other third parties.

“We need to make news, use new technologies and engage our members like never before,” said Lanzinger, who is unopposed in her bid for a third one-year term as president. “We all need to make sure the public and our members know how important this election is.”

Delegates plan to protest today in downtown Vancouver.

© Copyright (c) Canwest News Service

via Principals ‘dumbing down’ B.C. schools, teachers say.

No One Is Illegal – Ignite resistance ~ Canadian multiculturalism is not enough!

No One Is Illegal – Vancouver » Blog Archive » Ignite resistance ~ Canadian multiculturalism is not enough!.

In a world where the deregulated global market capitalist regime is imploding, there is wide open space to re-frame the local, national and global economy in a socially and economically just way.

An off-shoot of this progressive agenda is the celebration of authentic community where people/consumers/citizens can get out of their cocooned homes and participate in the cultures of community.

What better way to do it than in this event?

Details:

SATURDAY MARCH 21. rhizome cafe, 317 e. broadway

* 6:30 – 7:30 pm: artists of colour showcase. please bring $ and support their creations! (tshirts, crafts, prints, posters, art and more) Free food served during artists showcase (on us and Rhizome)
* WITH: Louis Cruz, Tania Willard, Afuwa Granger, Riadh Hashim, Angela Sterritt, Gord Hill, Kat Norris, People’s History of Kanada posters, Café Ramona and products made by Zapatista Mayan women, and more.

* 7:30 – 9:30 pm: wicked performances and inspiring words includes spoken word, storytelling, children’s songs, hip hop, comedy, musical performances, and talks! Enjoy dinner and drinks from Rhizome’s delicious menu
* WITH: George Ciccariello-Maher from OAKLAND!, Kat Norris, Aysha and Sahara, Carnegie Community Action Project Choir, Hari Alluri, Reem Alnuweiri, Ros Salvador, Sinag Bayan Filipino Cultural Collective, Priscillia Mays, Gupreet Kambo, Alaaeldin Abdalla, and Lindsay Bomberry.

Keep Reading Your Community Newspapers, Or Else

Despite the sexiness of the internet, print is not dead. If you are not spending more time reading your community newspaper, you are on the wrong road, for yourself and for the health of our society.

Granted, decades ago television supplanted newspapers as the dominant source of news and information for the majority of North Americans. And now the internet has passed newspapers.

The Pew Research Center in the United States is one of the most respected research organizations because of the balance of their approach to tracking political, social, economic and cultural trends and patterns.

Late in 2008 they reported that 40% of Americans get their news mostly from the internet, up from 24% just 2.5 years ago. Newspapers have slipped to 35%. Canadian trends usually follow the Americans.

There are many reasons for this shift, largely obvious, but they don’t reflect the whole story.

Certainly internet media sites have improved their capacity to deliver information with far more appeal and better organizational tools for users. The Air America radio network, Alternet.org, Rabble.ca, BC’s TheTyee.ca and other progressive online media have been well served by new technologies like podcasting and people’s need to look outside corporate media to find critical information and analysis on this decade’s radically right wing governments in BC, Canada and the United States.

At the same time, increasingly concentrated corporate media ownership, with increasing ownership by foreign corporations, has led to cost cutting through centralizing reporting and firing breathing journalists. Corporate media often prefers to often just be the de facto communications department of right wing governments by reporting as “news” often verbatim press releases.

This has led to the dilution of meaningful content in newspapers, declining paid subscriptions, and full-page ads on the front page of newspapers. People notice the decline. Even daily newspapers have been dumping papers for free in public spaces to be able to claim their circulation is high despite decreasing subscriptions and actual paying consumers. Declining circulation leads to declining ad revenue: a debilitating revenue feedback loop. Large North American cities are losing their status as two-newspaper towns as large dailies close.

But the other side of the story is about the necessity of a free press in a healthy, functioning democratic society: an increasing rarity with such corporate concentration of ownership.

While the internet has risen in prominence, television is responding with enhancing relevance. On the progressive side, MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow have drawn more viewers. Even CNN’s reporters have become more critical than soon after 9/11. Farid Zacharia would never have been able to get a show on CNN 6 years ago.

Sadly, the same kind of improvement in critical capacity has not emerged in Canadian television. CBC TV’s high profile pundit panel consists of centre, centre-right and right wing commentators, with no progressive voices.

But community papers are a vibrant resistance front against ignorance, apathy and right wing governments preferring to elude the spotlight.

During our global economic crisis and increasing oil prices, globalization of goods and services will decline. People will be buying local more, supporting bioregional agriculture and production.

In a world of global corporate media ownership, people still long for news, commentary and analysis that affects them and not just some nebulous World Economic Forum policy from Davos, Switzerland.

Indeed, in the global economic, environmental and energy crises we are entering, it is the community itself that will be the our way out. People of all political stripes on the prairies, and where Gordon Campbell cynically calls BC’s heartlands, have known this for generations.

Community papers have breathing journalists who see what happens on their streets, in their closing mills and in spin-off sectors throughout their regions. They see how people live and breathe and how suffering shows up. There is far less centralization and homogeneity of reporting.

And as long as community papers are financially viable it is their publishers’ and editors’ duty to enhance their content since global corporate media owners and the internet’s capacity to inform people about life outside their communities provide just one scope of information.

Community papers do recognize the role they play in reflecting and influencing the fabric of local society. They have to make sure what they publish is worthy of reading.

Similarly, people need to realize they have a part to play in ensuring a free press can exist. They can do this by reading their local papers, demanding quality analysis, engaging in community discussion about issues in the paper and supporting local advertisers.

There are a handful of community papers in the province that excel in quality journalism and commentary. There are many more that sometimes rise to a significant level, but there are many more that are not reaching that standard. This needs to change.

It is the public’s job to demand more from their local media. The public must complain about press releases from city hall or the health authority showing up as news without analysis and contextualization. We must be vigilant in writing letters to editors. We must contact journalists and editors directly to tell them when what they publish is good, and when and how it can be better.

The effectiveness of a free press in a democratic society is eroding, and that is not accidental. But it doesn’t have to decline. And while it is very hard to force the CRTC to break up concentrated corporate media ownership across the country, it is far easier to walk into the office of your local paper with some Timbits for the staff and your opinions about your community, what is working and what needs improvement.

Directors of right wing think tanks can always get meetings with the editorial boards of large corporate media. But on a community level, the leaders of community groups, activists, all citizens need to realize that they deserve to have the ears of their local media.

After all, community media is about us, the community. And the more we insist that it reflects our lives, the more robust our media will be.

And if we let our community newspapers become Pablum or die, that will be our fault. Our society deserves a freer, more vibrant press. We need to do our part in ensuring that.

Mr. Harper’s Gift of Democracy

The Canadian prime minister, Stephen Harper, is not a fan of democracy, transparency or accountability.

His hallmark moment upon sliding into the office was to eviscerate responsible government by forcing cabinet ministers to get approval from the prime minister’s office before speaking, answering questions, sampling the decadent cheese plate in the parliamentary dining room, that kind of thing.

He also passively declared war on the media by setting new standards of unavailability. Taking cues from his American Idol, George W. Bush, the Conservative Party’s Harper generally refused to talk to the media at all. When he did decide to hold a press conference he gave little notice. By little I mean once in February 2008 when he sent an email notification to the press corps 17 minutes before his press conference was planned to start. That is just insulting.

But this past fall during what was incorrectly called Canada’s constitutional crisis, Harper inadvertently gave Canadians an early Christmas present: more functional democracy combined with an example of how he is afraid of it.

Here’s a quick background on the “crisis.” Canada’s parliamentary system has traditionally been run by majority governments, where one party wins more than 50% of the currently 308 seats in the House of Commons. That party’s leader becomes prime minister, appoints a cabinet from other members of parliament and forms an executive branch from members of the legislature, the opposite of the distinct membership of the executive and legislative branches in the United States.

Minority governments occur when no party wins 50% of the seats. In this case the tradition is for the party with the most seats to form a government, but for bills to pass, they would need votes from some or all of members from one or more other parties.

Canada’s October 2008 election resulted in the third straight minority government in four years. Harper won, but in the midst of the economic collapse released economic plans that refused to acknowledge the reality of the global crisis in deregulated, neoliberal, free market capitalism, and that attacked the successful public funding model for political parties and the rights of public sector workers to pursue pay equity justice. Note that I don’t call it an economic crisis, as this is a crisis of how free market capitalism manages the economy.

The parliamentary system is typically deemed robust because of its capacity for creative forms of governing, one of which is coalitions. So when Harper presented his useless and offensive economic posture as 2008 was winding down, the Liberal and New Democratic Parties formed a coalition with voting support from the progressive and separatist Bloc Quebecois and prepared to vote no confidence in the government, then ask the usually titular governor-general for the right to form government.

Instead Harper asked her to prorogue, or suspend, parliament until late January 2009 to avoid losing his job. In January he released a more realistic budget with attempts, albeit conservative and cynical, to address the crisis in capitalism. The Liberal party decided to support the budget until it has the funding and public opinion to crash the parliament when they have a chance of winning a minority government themselves.

Majority governments are now unlikely in Canada as the Bloc Quebecois dominates federal politics in Quebec, blocking national parties from the dozens of Quebec seats required for a majority government.

So, the Liberals are supporting Harper’s Conservative government in a de facto coalition.

And here we sit just weeks after the federal Liberals put a dog collar around Harper’s neck by voting for his budget, but the previous two months were a grand flowering of democratic capacity in the often sleepy politics of Canada, with nation-wide rallies to support the “progressive coalition,” despite the participation of the Liberal Party.

While media was reporting a majority of Canadians fearing for the existence of our country when Harper asked permission to prorogue parliament, what we all learned if we were paying attention is that most Canadians do not understand the difference between government and our elected members of parliament (MPs).

While governments form when a crowd of 155 MPs can vote together on key issues, we elect our MPs directly. If the governor-general refused Harper permission to hit the pause button on parliament to save his job and a Liberal-New Democrat coalition began governing, there would be no coup as Harper was implying, but rather the proper functioning of a parliamentary system.

More than proper, though, we saw a more responsive operation of a political system a few months ago. Majority governments in parliamentary systems are inherently tyrannical as the government wins all key votes and can largely ignore citizens between elections. Non-majority governments are tenuous and need to serve at the pleasure of the people.

So when Harper released his deluded economic messages in November, disconnected as they were from the reality of citizens’ experiences and worries, parliament worked beautifully. Opposition parties that outnumber Harper’s party and reflect 62% of the popular vote, threatened to end his attempt at governing.

Through Harper’s inability to understand or care about Canadians and their priorities, he set in motion a far more legitimate mechanism of parliamentary democracy.

In the mid-1960s, a similar minority parliamentary situation erupted new ideas like the national pension plan and the government funded, yet patient-driven healthcare system. The 1980s and 1990s, in contrast, were a time of neoliberal majority governments. At the end of 1989, parliament unanimously pledged to eradicate child poverty by the year 2000. What happened? Child poverty worsened by 400,000 over the 11 years. More recently the last Liberal majority government never got around to implementing its celebrated national child care program before they lost government. Oh well.

This turns on its head the notion that majority governments get more done because they’re more stable. In truth, they are usually complacent.

So for 2009 as we wait for the Liberals to decide when they’re sufficiently out of debt and ahead of Harper in the polls, we watch our often arrogant politicians plunged into a forced compromise.

It smells like democracy to me. And with the success of the Bloc Quebecois preventing majority governments, we may be able to smell the flowering of minority parliament democracy for years, that is until we can finally get some electoral reform that will euthanize the 19th century first-past-the-post electoral system, where the candidate with more votes than any of the others gets elected. It is a good system for two party countries like Canada in the 19th century, but in most of Canada today we have four national parties fielding candidates eroding the legitimacy of anyone not elected with a massive and unlikely 50% of the vote in their constituency.

Until then, Canadians need to stop and smell the roses. And we must send emails to members of parliament in all parties demanding they act on what we want because they are more responsive to each of us now than ever before in the last two generations.

The other day on Parliament Hill, I met a New Democrat member of parliament, Peter Stoffer from Nova Scotia, who personally telephones anyone who contacts him. This is virtually unheard of from federal Canadian politicians. But it better become the model for anyone who wants to get re-elected to the next minority parliament in Canada. Because we will not see a return to the arrogance of majority governments for quite some time, if at all.

The Backstage Lounge, 2002

So Virgin took over Crave 95.3fm in Vancouver recently, which had been Zed 95.3fm since 1991-ish. On Virgin yesterday afternoon they had Marianas Trench in the studio. They talked about compiling a band of folks who could sing really well, which shows because their vocal talent surpasses that of most popular bands in the world today.

They talked about how you spend you whole life on your first album and your goal is to not have your second album suck.

Then they sang some stuff.

This was all really interesting because 7 years ago my best friend lived on Dunbar and worked in a video rental store sporadically to pay off some custom golf clubs made by the store’s owner. So the store was getting rid of some old in-store TVs and I went with my friend to buy one. Josh sold me one of those TVs and my best friend said that he was in a band. Josh explained the band and as I had already been haunting the Backstage Lounge on Granville Island, I was pleased to hear they had a gig there.

The Vancouver Bach Children’s Chorus sure ended up being a useful part of Josh’s past.

They were part punk band, part boy band, spectacular 5-part harmonizers and an all around high energy wild night. 

So when I heard yesterday on Virgin that their album was iTunes top selling album last week, I was not at all surprised. If you run iTunes right now, you’ll see their album on its front screen.

The Backstage Lounge in 2002 was a grand moment in Vancouver’s recent music history with a number of incredibly talented musicians.

Beyond Marianas Trench inspiring grateful folks at the Backstage were Jon Arnot’s Echophone, Welkin, The Clumsy Lovers touring band and Jenny Galt, Sam Soichet and Vicky Sjohall in Cherrybomb.

Trench, Welkin and the Lovers are still going, Echophone and Cherrybomb have moved on. But out of all the great times there 7 years ago, it’s nice to see a well-deserving band contribute on a global level.

Vista Video Arrives!

Politics, Re-Spun is intricately connected to the dgiVista.org nexus of expression. As much as my audio podcasts have been terribly fulfilling and well received [with hundreds of hits/month since mid-2006], it’s time to move into video.

My audio podcasts have been audio versions of my editorials as well as interesting chats with people I know being/doing/thinking/feeling interesting things.

And now that bandwidth restrictions are virtually passe, video podcasts are just so simple now. All my audio and video podcast conversations have extensive indexes of topics. See below for the first two video podcast chats to watch.

You can review past audio podcasts through searching here: http://politicsrespun.org/?s=podcast

You can also access past and current audio and video podcasts at the following sites. Even though iTunes isn’t terribly oppressive, I’m prefering Miro lately, as it’s open source:

iTunes

Pick it up straight in your iTunes at itpc://dgivista.org/pod/Vista_Podcasts.xml.

Miro

Click subscribe below to keep up in Miro, the new wave of open source bliss:

The first video podcast chat is with Colin Mills and Ameena Mayer, followed by Rachel Marcuse.

June 2008 conversation with Colin Mills and Ameena Mayer, topics:

Introductions: Colin Mills, Ameena Mayer, Stephen Elliott-Buckley

Colin on…

- the process on his photography
- perfect versus meaningful art and paralysis
- accepting failure
- learning curves
- the problem with money in art
- 1 of 1 versus mass “production” and paralysis
- Stephen on the new Karsh self-portrait stamp
- truth is bullshit
- Princess Sophie as a beautiful person or a focus of security guards, and what is true
- painters’ freedom versus photographers’
- photography is not about truth
- impressionist photography
- Flickr mode
- Stephen on the Classical Joint in Gastown 20 years ago and watching/listening to jazz without glasses on and seeing a different colour aura over each musician’s musical contribution…and how it’s like Colin’s impressionist photography
- truth as crispy and blurry
- deciding how to photograph concerts in the moments and anonymity
- on Utah Phillips dying at 180

A critique of the absolute lack of community in North American culture by Ameena…

- GM popcorn sucks, organic popcorn is good
- disconnecting social networks
- let’s blame capitalism, the internet and our lack of valuing relationships [excepting romantic ones]
- and it’s not just her, it’s endemic
- addictions, social alienation undermining our tribal nature
- the growth of capitalism and globalization, the isolation of the individual consumer, workaholism, hyper-individualism, less selflessness
- Colin suggests we may be creating capitalism because we want to live this way: greedy; with some manipulation from Madison Avenue
- Colin on the 1972 40-ish hour documentary “The World at War”: fewer material possessions with depression followed by war
- friendship as less reciprocal
- younger adults are more workaholic than in earlier times
- we are busy because we have a hole in our lives
- Colin asks whether economic anxiety may be a social reality, not a choice
- technology and the internet are replacing more “traditional” human interaction, like the phone or having coffee with something
- we don’t make the luxury of time by choosing to forego distraction
- a tangent is vetoed
- it returns
- Colin on the self-consciousness of believing he grew up under a microscope
- difficult figuring out how to reconcile my relationship with the rest of the world versus self-obsession
- college students live in a fishbowl too, or is it just our trained narcism?
- the iPod generation is symbolic: I, I, I
- why don’t we have a sociologist in the room tying all this together

- beer break

Lack of community, continued…

- self-absorbtion is against our intrinsic human nature
- the nuclear family is bad
- we need ways of seeing the world beyond our solipsism
- our elders are also noticing less mutual human consideration
- Colin on CHiPs, Disney and Hymn Sing: how choice contributes to narcism and narrowing of awareness
- Stephen on why my.yahoo.com is bad, ultimately the celebrated entrenchment of ignorance
- freedom = ignorance
- hyper-specialization of interests leads to social dislocation
- wearing headphones in public
- how we actually talk to our neighbours on snow days
- socially, we are now less interdependent
- romantic relationships might be economic arrangements
- or is it avoiding alone-ness
- our absence of extended family cripples us as a spouse can’t fill all the needs that an extended family could
- yard sales as community building
- intentionally spending time with friends
- [drifting into the next topic, the Follies of Technology]
- female body mutilation, extreme makeovers, etc.
- all the flavours of feminism [many of which are mutually exclusive]
- What Not to Wear: fashion and sincere self-concept counselling, but is it feminist or anti-feminism?
- the Lululemon world
- how women’s poor clothing choices sadly can hamper their career success
- recognizing we can’t control other people’s impressions of us
- Ameena asks the boys how much sexual attraction motivates the desire to have a relationship

Ameena ties it all together: feminism, social isolation, community, marriage, different values, loneliness…

- the challenges to meaningful relationships create a desperation to be noticed [Letty agreed]
- communities of ideas have replaced communities of propinquity
- why arranged marriages can work, unlike how much we need to try so hard
- LavaLife: the solution to arranged marriages?
- folk versus popular cultures and how they affect us as individuals
- reflections on cyberpaths: socio/psychopaths stalking women in dating websites
- why Colin argues that we should be focussing blame more on individualism than societal features
- the cats show up: aren’t they precious

Technology, Facebook and video podcasting

- Ameena argues that video podcasting is kinda pathetic
- Colin argues that we don’t lament the absence of writers in our rooms when we read
- then we try to define what video podcasting IS in our culture, and what it is supposed to be
- we get a bit judgemental, I’m afraid
- what do Facebook “friends” mean to human connections?
- Facebook friends versus networking usefulness

December 2008 conversation with Rachel Marcuse, topics:

Rachel Marcuse, December 28, 2008, Foundation restaurant on Main Street at 7th Avenue in Vancouver.

- Coalition of Progressive Electors, a Vancouver municipal party

- youth engagement and facilitation

- grassroots community and political organization and development

- the whole Obama thing: top down versus people-centred; concern about overblown expectations and lack of populist follow-through; being a blank slate of “change”; participatory democracy and accountability; packaging over substance;

- reforming the political process in Vancouver, BC and Canada: ideas instead of personalities; re-framing citizens’ views of what politics is; apathy versus irrelevant effort; apathy versus electoral disengagement and indifference; apathy in middle aged people as opposed to the youth; why proroguing is not well understood

- break: the arrival of chocolate fondue

- beat boxers are so talented, Thundering Word Heard, Montmartre Cafe, Cafe Deux Soleils, the poetry slam, George Bowering versus T.Paul Ste. Marie

- democracy’s arrival in Canada with the end of majority governments: how this isn’t a constitutional crisis but a constitutional flowering, Stephen Harper’s lies about how the parliamentary system works in order to scare citizens enough so he can keep his job, anti-Quebec racism in western Canada, the Bloc Quebecois helps Quebec flourish as a culture without needing to focus on separation, the ease of stereotypes

- political populism, hope and progressive growth in Canada, Vision Vancouver, COPE, BC NDP, Venezuela: people deciding to lead; Jack Layton’s outside chance of becoming prime minister last month; Dion and Ignatieff; the Liberal ruling birthright/arrogance; electoral reform in Vancouver [ward system] and BC [proportional representation, BC-STV]; decentralizing politics to communities; electoral reform needing to happen at the right time; Social Credit in BC; Obama at the 2004 Democratic Convention and timing

- social change through speaking to people’s self-interest in improving society: livable communities; improving society can’t happen with sound bites but by engaging people and introducing a new paradigm; Gordon Campbell pulling a Shock Doctrine response to the meltdown as if he used Naomi Klein’s formula; shopping to save the economy is unsustainable; re-education people out of blind obedience to Milton Friedman

- how do we mobilize and catalyze people to becoming more socially engaged: building relationships and visions; mobilizing youth and adults; Disney sweatshops; working with young people as a way to confront cynicism; youth who care about social change and resent previous generations’ mistakes they must live with; Craig Kielburger; how young people are disempowered, doubly so when they work for social change; losing builds resilience; David Chudnovsky; social change requires celebration to keep us going; work-life balance in activism and saying no; hope, common sense, pacing and self-knowledge; Greenpeace, protests, martyrdom; CCPA and Check Your Head and mentorship; Fraser Institute indoctrination programs

- the future: indulging imagining a functioning utopia and what we want our communities to look like; capitalism is not eternal, particularly because of finite resources; spanning communities to synchronize work for social, political and economic change; focussing on change that really matters right now while keeping a long-term plan; the value of being interdisciplinary; there is no real failure when groups engage with each other; the Open Space workshop model, its advantages and frustrations; Open Space as a metaphor for empowering citizens’ involvement in politics; Don Davies, Jack Layton and a community meeting at Collingwood Community Centre on politics and the economy;

- how the Foundation restaurant’s expansion is a good sign for culture and community on Main Street in Vancouver.

Ignatieff Will Be Content as Opposition Leader

As much as it pains me to write this, I believe at 8am Vancouver time this morning, the federal Liberal leader will claim that Harper has shown enough conciliatory, cooperative gestures in yesterday’s budget to enjoy the right to govern for a while more.

I hope so much to be wrong, but the budget wasn’t as heinous as I expected it to be. While it did little of substance to make a real difference for the most vulnerable Canadians or women or first nations or working parents or or or or…you get the message, it had enough tidbits to make the Liberals look like whiners if they crash the government and form the coalition, since an election would cause massive political vomit from across the land.

Here are a few issues:

1. The Liberals, as Conservative-Lite, could easily have come up with many of the stimulus package elements that Flaherty spewed out. After all, don’t forget that the Liberals brought us the MacDonald Commission which led to free trade with the USA, NAFTA, the GST, Paul Martin’s anti-social budgets, the Kandahar escapade and a host of other annoyances.
2. Ignatieff didn’t enter politics in Canada to become a prime minister of a coalition government. His ego is all about the Liberal ruling birthright. He will get far more political capital for the bankrupt and desperate party he leads by slamming Harper as opposition leader than by suffering as a coalition prime minister. Harper’s budget wasn’t sufficiently anti-human for him to reject it and lead a coalition [which he would have to do since rejecting the budget and the coalition and causing an election would be blamed on him].
3. Jim Flaherty demonstrated today that Conservative cluelessness will continue unabated: open season on how out of touch they are. During the last election campaign, Harper described the beginnings of the global economic crash as a good time to buy stocks: truly heartless and obvlivious to the reality of millions of Canadians’ fears. Today Flaherty put on his grinning smirk in announcing the tax credit for home renovations: “The home renovation tax credit is available for renovations to the house or the cottage, for everything from a new furnace to energy efficient windows to a new deck.” And his compatriots were grinning and giggling along with Flaherty’s nod to elites that love/control them so much. Hands up all Canadians who don’t have a cottage!

It all adds up to the Liberals biding their time, unless I’m wrong and we get a coalition government. So here’s hoping that I’m wrong!

Welcome Back to Civilization, America!

Putting Race on the Table

It has been a rather busy Saturday for the issue of racial and cultural awareness. Below is a notification of two significant events next month regarding a more progressive cultural awareness in our very white [but not really] community.

When I think about race and politics I look at BC’s legislature and our nation’s House of Parliament and see an unjustifiable abundance of white men.

I think about two StatsCan reports over the last several years that hit the front page of Vancouver’s daily papers describing how in just under 10 years, white people in Canada will dip below 50% of our population. Short of putting racial and gender quotas into our legislatures, I don’t see how that will stop over 50% of our legislators from continuing to be white men…unless, of course, there is an intentional, pro-active cultural dialogue about what representation really means. And we can’t have that unless we put race on the table and not in a tokenist or affirmative action sense.

So as well as the events below, I received by email today this notice from the OECD, that grand promoter of corporate neo-feudalism and neoliberal homogenized globalization. In it we read that the OECD thinks that “OECD governments need to do more to help immigrants integrate and make better use of their skills.” They are, of course, right. They are also, of course, wrong.

While OECD countries are domestically xenophobic about letting “them” exercise “their” vocations “here” because “they” may have learned to become brain surgeons or engineers in dodgy “overseas” “schools,” we who are already running the OECD nations are also eager to shore up our national crises of declining birth rates and the threat of not being able to support the rapidly aging boomers–many of whom are the white men in legislatures who represent the corporate white men who run things around here.

The flip side is that while a generation ago Canadians were worried about the brain drain to the USA as all our “best” professionals and such gravitated to the great Horatio Alger-land of the USA, leaving us unable to perform our needed brain surgery and bridge building. But thanks to neoliberal globalization, Canada has also become a destination for brains to drain to–and that doesn’t even count our strong dollar. Except we don’t always use those brains. There used to be two Croatian engineers who delivered pizza at a nearby pizza restaurant. We’ve all met these folks…or maybe we haven’t all met them, which might be part of the problem.

So many Canadians are really not in a position to interact with the vocationally dispossessed that we lure here. And the sociologists have a myriad of explanations for this, but for now, let’s just say that this is something we need to put on the table–and fast.

And if we can shake our minds out of our heady stupor of the fast approaching Olympics surreal spectacle/corporate greed-fest to truly examine the cultural makeup of “Canada” for the next generation or so, we’ll see that white men in power need to face the very real fact that we aren’t in charge. We can hang on to it and functionally disempower other groups, or we can figure out that narcissistic xenophobia is just fear of emasculation. And a future of Canada with healthy cultural interaction is not really an emasculation threat at all–unless you think you, as a white man, have something personal to be ashamed of. And if that’s the case, maybe you have it coming.

And while the OECD piece goes on about how “the better targeted immigration policies are, the more successful integration will be. This in turn will help reduce the risk of political backlash against immigrants,” the enlightened of us who are now ready to face our cultural inter-subjectivity need to realize that it’s not about marketing and luring the “right” people “here.” It’s about putting it on the table and seeing how a new Canada should be structured based on the reality that we are.

And if you can’t handle that, then it’s you who has the problem.

See you in March!

* mark your calenders for March 1 and March 21 . please forward. *

A series of events to commemorate March 21 International Day for the
Elimination of Racism. March 21 marks the anniversary of the 1960
Sharpeville Massacre in South Africa when police opened fire on hundreds
of South Africans protesting against Apartheid’s passbook laws, killing 67
and wounding 186…

STRUGGLES AGAINST RACISM ARE NOT OVER!

*** March 1st: An evening of film, speakers, spoken word, and more ***

Award winning film CONTINUOUS JOURNEY; opening talk by critically
acclaimed writer and activist LEE MARACLE; spoken word and poetry from
inspiring community members SADHU BINNING, RITA WONG, and RAUL GATICA

——————————
SATURDAY MARCH 1
FOOD @ 4:30 PM
Multipurpose Room (2nd floor), Bonsor Community Centre
6550 Bonsor Avenue (1 block east of Metrotown Skytrain Station)

Pay what you can.
Wheel chair accessible. Bus tickets available
Childcare on site (pls call 604 220 0451 to register)
——————————-

* To mark the 100 YEAR ANNIVERSARY of the racist and exclusionary
Continuous Journey Rule passed in 1908 we are screening the highly
acclaimed and award-winning film “Continuous Journey”.

The Kamagata Maru entered the port of Vancouver in 1914. On board were 376
immigrants, who for two months, lived like prisoners, threatened by famine
and disease as the ship was refused permission to land with scores of
people, media, and government calling for “White Canada Forever.” The
incident marks a dark chapter in Canada’s immigration history and
contributed to the growing anti-colonial sentiment in India. The film,
which required eight years of research, is solidly documented, packed with
archival material, and resonates powerfully with contemporary events.

* Talk by LEE MARACLE: Lee is of Salish and Cree ancestry, and a member of
the Stó:lô Nation. She is a gifted orator and the author of critically
acclaimed “Ravensong”, “I am Woman”, “Bobbi Lee-Indian Rebel”, “Daughters
are Forever” and the poetry collection “Bentbox”. She has been an active
member of the Red Power Movement and Liberation Support Movement and her
writings reflect her efforts against racism, sexism, and white
cultural
and colonial domination.

* Poetry by SADHU BINNING (Punjabi, English). Sadhu is at the forefront of
Punjabi/English diasporic writing with dozens of poetry collections, books
of fiction, and plays. He edited a literary monthly Watno Dur; co-edited a
quarterly Watan; and is a a founding member of Vancouver Sath, a theatre
collective. Nearly all his poems reflect on the legacy of the Komagatamaru
and other struggles of Indian immigrants agaist racism and labour
exploitation such as the farmworkers in BC.

* Poetry by RITA WONG. Rita is the author of monkeypuzzle and forage. Her
poems have appeared in anthologies such as Ribsauce: a CD/Anthology of
Words by Women, The Common Sky: Canadian Writers Against the War, and
Shift and Switch: New Canadian Poetry, and more. Her work investigates the
intersections between decolonization, social justice, gender,
racialization, labour, migration, and contemporary poetics. She was a
founding member of Direct Action Against Refugee Exploitation (DARE).

* Poetry by RAUL GATICA (Spanish, English). Raul is a member in exile of
the Consejo Indigena Popular de Oaxaca Ricardo Flores Magon (CIPO-RFM), an
indigenous community organization in Oaxaca, Mexico. His struggles embody
those of indigenous self-determination, against neoliberalism affecting
people of the Global South, and of a refugee to North America.

MARCH AGAINST RACISM!

Join us on March 21, International Day for the Elimination of Racism, to
show our communities collective strength in challenging ongoing racism.
Canadian multiculturalism is not enough!

//////////////////////////////////////
COMMUNITY MARCH
Friday March 21 at 1 pm
(Good Friday Holiday)
Meet at Clark Park on Commercial Drive and 14th
//////////////////////////////////////

==> Bring your children and family.
==> There will be food, water and snacks during the march.
==> Rest vehicles will accompany the march.
==> All welcome!

For centuries, communities have led countless courageous struggles against
racism and the many ways in which it manifests itself in our daily lives.
Although many would like to believe that racism no longer exists, we are
reclaiming the tradition of anti-racist marches to reveal the ugly truth
about the worsening reality of racism both locally and globally. Join us
on March 21 to celebrate the dignity, strength, and resilience of our
communities!

- End individual and institutional racism, racial violence, and racial
profiling!
- Stop the theft of indigenous lands!
- End all racist wars and occupations!
- Stop the deportations now!
- Living wages, healthcare, education, and housing for all!

[[[ Events organized and supported by a community network including No
One Is Illegal, Indigenous Action Movement, Komagata Maru Heritage
Foundation, Canadian Arab Federation, John Graham Support, Siraat
Collective, Association of Chinese Canadians for Equality and Solidarity
Society, DTES Elders Council, SIKLAB - Overseas Filipino Workers
Organization, Anniversaries of Change, International Indigenous Youth
Conference Secretariat, Canadian Muslim Union, Asian Society for the
Intervention of AIDS, Justicia for Migrant Workers, Al-Awda Vancouver,
Salaam Vancouver, Iranian Federation of Refugees, Cafe Rebelde Coalition,
VIRSA, Latin American Connexions, Hogans Alley Memorial Project, Filipino
Nurses Support Group, La Surda Latin American Collective, Indigenous Free
School, Canadian Network for Democratic Nepal, Canada Palestine
Association, Group of Relatives and Friends of Political Prisoners in
Mexico, South Asian Network for Secularism and Democracy, Consejo Indigena
Popular de Oaxaca Ricardo Flores Magon (CIPO-Vancouver), Chetna Dalit
Association, Philippine Women Centre of BC, Coalition of South Asian Women
Against Violence, Vancouver Status of Women, The North Shore Women's
Centre, Battered Women Support Services, Friends of Women in the Middle
East Society, Women Against Violence Against Women, Canadian Union of
Postal Workers, Hospital Employees Union, Industrial Workers of the World,
SFU Teaching Support Staff Union, Vancouver District Labour Council,
Canadian Union of Public Employees - Local 1004, Gallery Gachet, Rhizome
Cafe, New World Theatre, Colouring Book Project, UBC Realities of Race,
SFU Public Interest Research Group, BC Committee for Human Rights in the
Philippines, StopWar.ca, Anti Poverty Committee, Politics Re-Spun,
Building Bridges to Chiapas, Alliance of People's Health, International
Solidarity Movement Vancouver, Vancouver District Labour Council Young
Workers Committee, Filipino-Canadian Youth Alliance ]]]