Kinder Morgan "suspends non-essential activities and spending" ... NOT!

By Mike Ma - April 9, 2018

Today, I went up to support the pipeline protest with a couple of friends. We went up to Burnaby mountain and visited both campsites. It was interesting to see that on the day Kinder Morgan "suspends non-essential activities and spending" on the Trans Mountain Expansion project that a whole bunch of workers were actually cutting trees/bushes and vacuuming out rocks and debris from various drainage systems. They may have suspended activities and spending in their announcement, but it didn't look like they were suspending the real work of expansion. We dropped off some apples and chatted with people. It was inspiring to see the material work of protest and resistance.

Ending Violence Against Women: What if Police, Prisons, and the State are not the Solution?

Kwantlen Polytechnic University. March 22, 2018

By Jeff Shantz

It should be evident that police are not the solution to ending violence against women. Police are major sources of violence against women. From sexual, physical, emotional violence they inflict every day on marginalized women, including sex workers and street involved women, to the high levels of domestic violence among policing as a “profession” to the numerous cases now coming out publicly of sexual harassment within police forces and against women officers the connections between policing and violence against women are clear and substantial. With this in mind there is a need to think about social responses to the issues that go beyond and pose alternatives to policing.

This discussion was advanced at the “Ending Violence Against Women” event organized and hosted by the Kwantlen Public Interest Research Group and hosted at Kwantlen Polytechnic University. The event was facilitated by activist Kalamity Hildebrandt of the PIRG at Simon Fraser University. Key among the alternatives are notions of transformative justice that change systems of violence, inequality, and injustice rather than offering a limited focus on individuals.

Oppression

Hildebrandt began by suggesting that they see much hope in the transformative justice approaches being developed and put forward among racialized feminist groups in the United States. These include anti-racist and prison abolitionist groups such as Black Lives Matter. The discussion began by identifying various forms of violence against women: physical; sexual; emotional; harassment; psychological abuse; and control, intimate violence—and more. These are tools of sexism and patriarchy, but not exclusively (they are also tools of exploitation and racism).

Indeed, these tools are used in various ways within all forms of oppression. Hildebrandt suggested that oppression consists of sets of logic that divide people and set up power hierarchies between them. As police do in constructing “bad guys” and other means of stigmatization.

Some women wield them against other women—as in carceral feminist approaches criminalizing sex work, for example. Hildebrandt called out a particular type of feminist analysis that is anti-sex work and/or anti-trans or which says only CIS women and girls can be counted in violence against women.

Oppression harms some people so that other groups can benefit. This relates to the unearned advantages of privilege within hierarchical systems.

Policing is Violence

After examining diverse systems of oppression, Hildebrandt asks: “What are people taught is the proper response to oppressive violence?” The answer, of course is: “Call the cops.” Hildebrandt noted that even victims are showered with guilt when they choose not to call the police. They are said to be contributing to the problem or “letting the bad guys get away with it.”

Yet police can and do harm victims as well as those who have done harm as well as “third parties” like children, for example. This can also include the use of border agencies to deport people and child welfare services to take children. Immigration officials can come after people who have been harmed as well as those who do harm. Laws, police, prisons, all do harm.

Here Hildebrandt asks about the experiences of women. “What happens to women going through those state systems?” Well, in part it depends, of course, on the class standing and racialized identities of women within an unequal and racist system of white supremacist capitalism.

So Hildebrandt asks: “Why might people not trust the police? Which women especially?” Answers are wide ranging: colonial racism; poverty; histories of psychiatrization; migrant status; Indigenous women; sex workers; trans women.

It bears emphasis: Police are a source of violence rather than a solution to it. And they inflict violence on communities as well as individuals. Not only is it a failure to protect and serve, but police are actual, active, perpetrators of violence. And that includes sexual violence. The discussion touches upon public strip searches, removing women from their homes without clothes on, sexual assaults by police, and more.   

Hildebrandt speaks explicitly against what has come to be called “carceral feminism,” an approach that calls for police intervention, criminalization of sex workers and sex work, etc. For Hildebrandt, this is a feminism of the most privileged women who have faith in the system ad turn to police to address issues the do not like (whether socially harmful or not). This is, they note, the most dominant funded version of feminist work. For Hildebrandt, there is a need to create new processes of justice in our day to day lives.

Transformative Justice

This is the need for transformative justice. Hildebrandt asks: “What are tangible and practical things that people have tried to bring this about?” Answers range from: accountability processes in collectives; conversations around consent; developing skills for intervening positively in cases of violence; skills for responding in different and unexpected situations of public violence.

It was acknowledged that we do not have opportunities to think about or prepare for responding in those situations. We need to be able to practice and rehearse things to see how we react and how we feel in situations that can be frightening. In terms of accountability we need to learn to receive negative feedback and to give it.

Transformative justice requires also taking on directly, and tearing down, systems of oppression. It is not only about building close relations in a community. We need groupings of people we can trust and rely on in specific contexts (of being harmed or doing harm). We need personal embodied experiences to connect to larger movement work and contexts of social change.

We have learned inhibitions that tell us someone else is better equipped to deal with challenging situations. We often do not realize that we have the ability to deal with situations. And this leads to defaults to authorities, who want us to feel helpless and inadequate.

On the whole this was a useful start to thinking about issues, of oppression, violence, etc., and our responses to them in ways that do not reproduce oppression and violence. The police and policing are about violence and the reproduction of violence. We can ad must do better. And we must develop alternatives in transformative practice. The organizers of this discussion, KPIRG, should be thanked for putting this on at KPU. Hopefully it will be the first of many building on crucial issues of transformative justice as social justice practice.

Carceral Cultures Conference - Vancouver 2018

Canadian Association for Cultural Studies, 2018:

For lots more amazing photos click HERE

Also check out:

https://www.facebook.com/Canadian-Association-of-Cultural-Studies-157551737773032/

#carceral18

Video Feedback, Plenaries, and thoughts:

The Captive Maternal and Abolitionism: A Tribute to Erica Garner

Joy James and Robyn Maynard in Conversation. Carceral Cultures Conference. Simon Fraser University. March 3, 2018

By Jeff Shantz

Joy James and Robyn Maynard have raised critical voices in calling out and confronting state violence, particularly in its multiple forms of policing and containment. They have provided potent and insightful analysis of, and tools for opposing, state-driven anti-Black racism in the United States and Canada. Their work offer important examples of scholarship as, and in solidarity with, activism. This conversation, hosted by the Carceral Cultures conference, was full of significant insights and relevant calls to action.

Joy James began her talk by telling those assembled that her thinking is somewhat muddled these days. And it is muddled by grief. Yet her analysis was clear and incisive. James reflects that anonymous people wake up and do the work of movements and resistance. It is motivated by love. And they often suffer anonymously. The criminalization and brutalization of care. The captive maternal.

The conversation, and James’ thinking about the captive maternal, is dedicated to Erica Garner who was killed by the systems of exploitation and oppression, as was her father Eric Garner, even if her death was less public, less dramatic. Her death can be attributed to the stresses of fighting for her dad, infamously murdered by New York police officer Daniel Panteleo who choked him to death on a Staten Island street. Over three years of fighting for justice took a toll on her. Erica Garner was constantly doing research on her dad’s case, and organizing demonstrations against the force that killed him, but not taking care of herself. Erica Garner found no justice from any of a supposedly progressive mayor, supposedly progressive governor, or Obama.

James suggested, in what is a significant reflection, that Erica Garner was rendered a non-entity in the movements because she was too unruly and her demands too “unreasonable.” Even social justice movements and activists can be too ready to make accommodations to power and authority, believing criminal justice systems can be reformed (even when based on brutality, erasure, and genocide) and careful not to threaten their own positionality (through “reform-minded” politics). Criminologists who accommodate cops in their departments can be like this. So the unruly are left to deal with it—to push for real change, to confront the institutions and agents of exploitation of oppression. And face the consequences.

James emphasized the illness and disease suffered by Black women who are fighting for justice. Incidents of stroke, heart disease, high blood pressure are not uncommon. She has studied this in different contexts including health issues among poor Black women organizing in Brazil, which she referenced in the talk.

James noted that the origins of United States democracy are grounded in genocide and enslavement. The settler colonial state has had to deploy a captive maternal in its very development. Captive maternalism goes along with capitalist development.  She referred to the distortions of those who view Thomas Jefferson as a “benevolent slave owner” and asked if he might also be posed as a “benevolent rapist” by those seeking to whitewash settler colonial violence at all costs. They have tried to erase Sally Hemmings from history, but the refusal by activists to forget her, and Jefferson’s violence against her, has led to her becoming an icon of resistance.

How does the captive maternal take back their generative powers?

Robyn Maynard offered a thoughtful and engaged response to James’ words. She began by asking what is considered a public tragedy. In part they are those that are fought over and remembered. Recalling words by Angela Davis she asked how caring for ourselves and our children can be recognized as revolutionary work. This is more than individual action.

Erica Garner was a victim of both state violence and state neglect. She suffered the isolation that family members of policing killings almost always face. Erica Garner’s death was private. It is seen as sad but no one is held accountable. We need to look at other institutions that failed Erica Garner—beyond the spectacular forms of state violence.

In this regard we must put a focus on the criminalization of Black motherhood and care giving, as ongoing histories. This includes but is by no means limited to welfare snitch lines and refugee women who are demonized and said to be “sending money to warlords” as has been said about Somali women. In abolitionism, not only do we need to eradicate prison. We need to eradicate child welfare systems that disproportionately capture Indigenous and Black children. And which expend vast social resources in doing so. Maynard points out that these child welfare systems spend more per child than most poor women even have.

We need to address the fact of Indigenous women being killed disproportionately by drug policies. What happens to their families and communities?

For Maynard, as for James, we need to think about abolition in ways that are larger. We need to think about other sites of surveillance and punishment. And both speakers stressed that prisoners must be part of this, not only activists and academics—it must be relevant to prisoners.

One aspect of abolition that we need to start challenging now is in opposing police budgets. We need open campaigns to divest from police. This would address a range of interconnected issues of brutality, oppression, injustice, and social harm. From mass incarceration to drug overdoes deaths to violence against sex workers to ongoing colonial violence. We need to put resources instead toward other things that would bring real care and support to communities.

James pointed out that caregiving work, in families and socially, is done by women mostly. If women went on strike the system would fall apart. Straight up. This is the still relevant call of “Wages for Housework.” As James put it, we have to steal ourselves back from capital, from war, from misogyny.

To the credit of the speakers the conversation did not stay away from issues of ongoing imperialism and the role of the US and Canadian states. James reminded the audience that the US government has actively destabilized every national liberation movement around the globe for decades (while bringing in actual Nazis to develop their military and space programs). In her words the US is a war zone that exports war. Police in the US are often former soldiers who come back from Iraq and Afghanistan. They are trained to kill. And they shoot first, ask questions maybe never.

Maynard added that the control of migration and the theft of resources, in “home countries” and abroad are the ongoing legacies of slavery. Now it is posed as the restriction of movement and tightening border restrictions.

Robyn Maynard concluded her discussion by saying that she hopes that today’s resistance will address the real nature of the system, not only the boldfacedness of Trump who puts openly on loudspeaker what has often been the unspoken reality. Maynard is clear that it is not positive, or progressive, to seek a return to the “closeted” status quo of empire as maintained under Obama. James worries that under Trump people have gone from amusement to outrage to simply numb.

Poverty, racism, grief and depression all contributed to Erica Garner’s death. These are the structural manifestations of exploitation and oppression. Her father’s killer, officer Daniel Pantaleo has received promotions and pay increases. The only person ever arrested and charged in relation to Eric Garner’s murder was Ramsey Orta, the man who recorded the killing on cell phone video and took it from the realm of anonymity and police cover up that so many police killings of civilians are contained within.   

Cops Are a Cause: "Understanding the Overdose and Opioid Epidemic." Science World.

Cops Are a Cause: “Understanding the Overdose and Opioid Epidemic.” Science World. February 28, 2018

By Jeff Shantz

Policing kills. It was significant that this basic, but often avoided, truth was stated so clearly and honestly at the “Understanding the Overdose and Opioid Epidemic” event at Science World. Criminalization and prohibition are causes of the crises that are taking so many lives. This must be acknowledged and police institutions and agents made accountable for it. As police continue to drain resources away from public and social health supports that would actually be useful and as realities and fears of criminalization continue to cost lives, it must be said openly—cops are the cause not the cure.

This truth is too little spoken, particularly in mainstream venues like Science World. So it was striking and important to here this said directly by participants at the “Understanding the Overdose and Opioid Epidemic” panel discussion. Dr. Mark Tyndall said very pointedly that criminalization and prohibition are at the root of all of this. That, fundamentally, is what has to be fixed.

Other participants in the event, Sarah Blyth, Patrick Smith of Culture Saves Lives, and Erica Thomson, touched on this issue in various ways. The panel included one cop, VPD Sergeant Mike Wheeler, and he too admitted that criminalization is regressive, but seemed unaware of ongoing repressive policing in the downtown eastside or was unwilling to address the fact (and the negative role of police more broadly).

The Speakers

Scott Sampson of Science World introduced the event by saying that it is the first public event in the institution’s efforts to rethink what role Science World should fill over the next generation. After a broad consultation process in which hundreds of people gave insight, it was determined that Science World needs to address pressing issues if social concerns for the local community. They need to contribute to creating a new world.

In asking what the most pressing needs are it was clear that the opioid ad overdose crises are having a massive toll on communities all over so-called British Columbia. This event was the first foray in transforming Science World into a “convening hub” for change in the community.

The event consisted of short opening statements by panelists and some follow up questions by host Don Schafer. Questions then moved to the audience.

First up was Dr. Mark Tyndall. He stressed that the work people do is not giving up on people. So many people need time. And we need to give them more time.

He pointed out that for every person who died, about 20 more people overdosed—that is, they almost died. This is more than traffic accidents, more than homicides, more than suicides. The relative death toll is astronomical in his words. And it impacts communities throughout British Columbia.

Tyndall referenced some terrible statistics, which had been provided in a handout to audience members. Eighty percent who died are men. Eighty percent are between 20-49 years in age. About 70 percent never had a chance to call for help. They were alone and isolated. Many have been saved from naloxone and most is administered by people in the community saving their friends and neighbors. Not by official institutions.

Tyndall emphasized that how we refer to people is so important. We have to roll back stigma. People who use drugs should be treated with respect. They should not be referred to and dismissed as junkies, abusers, druggies. Sadly, but not surprisingly I have had students tell me that police officers who “teach” in our criminology classrooms use these terms regularly and without self-awareness.

Sarah Blyth told the audience that we need to have the bravery to do something different, not keep doing the same thing we have done for 100 years (i.e. criminalization). That is key. The community overdose prevention sites have been part of a different way of thinking.

She said that she and others started the overdose prevention site at the downtown eastside street market because there were increasing numbers of people overdosing. There were people overdosing all day, everyday. So they put a tent in the most used alley where people were using drugs, they were aiding people in the alley. Now they see 400 to 500 people every day, with as many as 700 in one day. She reported they have seen about 10,000 people overall. They have saved around 500 lives.

Patrick Smith is with Culture Saves Lives who gave the evening a powerful and rising start with their singing and drumming. He made clear that what is most important is sovereignty and self-determination. We should not impose dominant values. What is needed is cultural justice. We need to operate on principles of equity. We also need to shine light where it does not usually go. He noted that the drummers have shown up for so many memorials and it is hard on them. He was strong in saying that culture had sustained Indigenous people through a previous genocide and it will carry them through this.

Erica Thomson, someone I greatly respect and have worked with on events in Surrey, spoke of overcoming stigma and the importance of lived experience and commonality. There is a special scope of peer practice and understanding for each other. She reminded the audience that drug users are divers and people in recovery are diverse. There is a need for diverse choices—which are not there in the system. She goes into her work with the idea that people know what is best for them. She feels safest and most belonging most in groups of drug users, like VANDU (the Vancouver Network of Drug Users). She said we need to remove deserving and undeserving labels.

On Policing and Crisis

Criminalization has driven people underground. It leads to lonely, isolated people using drugs alone. And not even telling friends or colleagues because of criminalization fears and stigmas. Erica Thomson challenged the audience to ask what was behind drug policy in the first place. It certainly was not concern for peoples health.

While Sergeant Wheeler tried to suggest the Vancouver Police Department is not criminalizing drug use anymore, Blyth reported, what people in the downtown eastside confirm, that for a month or so prior to the event date there has been a lot of police street activity around small level dealers being targeted. That is in no way a step forward.

Unfortunately Sergeant Wheeler made the police appeal, once again, for more resources and more cops to target and process larger dealers. Tyndall noted that for every drug bust celebrated in the media, that is 50 people who lost their trusted dealer and will have to turn to less safe, unknown, sources. He stressed too that the issue is demand driven not supply driven. It will not be stopped by shutting down dealers as so many seem to hope. It will still get out.

Dr. Tyndall asked how it became that 300 deaths a few years earlier became almost 1500 deaths last year? His answer is that criminalization and prohibition drove the market into fentanyl. Policing squeezed the market into all sorts of unsafe chemicals.

It was brought up be a member of the audience that policing is racist and disproportionately processing people on a racialized basis. Without acknowledging this Sergeant Wheeler admitted cops have a great range of discretion. Of course. Smith was more direct and said we have to name systemic racism and confront that it is alive and well in every institution in Canada. Indeed, Canada is founded on white supremacy.

Erica Thomson insisted that peers need to be supported and employed to bring their experiences and perspectives into the decisional positions. Tyndall tied the exclusion of peers into criminalization. People cannot get a voice and be empowered if they are hiding or being viewed as “criminals.” Tyndall also pointed out that there are no supports for people released from incarceration. And there are many overdoses of people after leaving prison. We must provide health care and social supports. And, even more, stop jailing people especially given that most people are incarcerated for non-violent, property, victimless, consumption, and administrative “offenses.”

What is needed is proper housing, medical care, access to safe drugs and medical doses.  Blyth stressed that medical provision could be done in the community right now.

Tyndall noted that policy makers say the public is not ready for this. But they haven’t asked the public. He noted that every death is predictable given the social context of inaccessible and inadequate housing, social inequality, personal and community trauma, etc. Social needs for health care and housing can be met but are not for political reasons. These are fixable but will require mobilizing to secure.

On the whole it says plenty that the only contribution that Sergeant Wheeler, or anyone else present, could see police making to alleviate the crises, was to stop criminalizing people. That is to stop being police (though Wheeler did not put it in that light). It tells us a lot that the only contribution police can make is negative (subtractive) rather than positive (additive). They need to go away. They need to dissolve themselves. And their funds need to be redistributed to people and organizations that can actually help our communities.

Police are always made to feel too comfortable, their demands are always met.  They are included in policy solutions discussions by politicians and business improvement associations seeking to preserve their political or economic capital. And in so doing police are able to diversify themselves and remarket themselves by expanding into areas they have no place being—like health care, harm reduction, housing. And people and groups that can provide these do without or face cuts to budgets and programs.

Instead police need to be made to feel uncomfortable and unwelcome, their demands (for resources, funds, for inclusion) refused and rejected. They need to be addressed as the very causes of the problems we so desperately need to solve. In defunding police we need to fund proper community and social services.

Justice for Tina Fontaine: Rally and March, Vancouver, Feb. 24, 2018

By Jeff Shantz

On August 17 of 2014, the body of 15-year-old Tina Fontaine, an Indigenous girl from Sagkeeng First Nation, was pulled from the Red River in Winnipeg, Manitoba. She had been wrapped in a duvet weighted down by rocks. Intentionally submerged. Her death was a major impetus to the forming of a national inquiry on missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls in Canada.

On Thursday, February 22, 2018, a jury in Winnipeg delivered a not guilty verdict in the trial of 56-year-old Raymond Cormier, the man who admitted to throwing her body in the river. This verdict came only weeks after another infamous decision from Saskatchewan where white farmer Gerald Stanley was declared not guilty of killing Indigenous youth Colten Boushie, despite admitting that he shot the young man in the head. 

In response to the verdict, gatherings and marches calling for “Justice for Tina Fontaine” have been held in cities and towns across so-called Canada. A mass rally and march of at least 400 people took place in Vancouver on Saturday, February 24. It was a powerful and moving action with diverse voices, in rage and pain, raised against the criminal injustice systems of the Canadian state.

Love for Tina, Hate for the System

The assembly met in front of the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) building in downtown Vancouver because the national broadcaster’s initial reporting on the trial emphasized that Tina Fontaine had drugs in her system, a case of victim shaming. The focus was not on her killer admitting to throwing her in the river. The focus was not on the failings of the child welfare system that let her down so fatally.

From the CBC the group marched, first to Granville and Georgia where the intersection was taken and traffic blocked for an hour or so. From there the march went to Howe and Robson where the intersection was also taken and held. The march ended at the Law Courts where there was a candlelight vigil for Tina Fontaine.

Speakers throughout stressed the injustice of colonial justice systems. Co-organizer Tawahum Justin Bige, a Kwantlen Polytechnic University student and poet, asked why Indigenous people have to go through a court system that banned Indigenous peoples own governance and justice practices. It was pointed out by several speakers that the Indian Act is a racist piece of legislation that provided a model for the Nazis and their racist programs.

The killing of Tina Fontaine goes well beyond the horrible, vicious act that directly took her life, but is located throughout the entire colonial criminal justice system and child welfare system in Manitoba and Canada. These are themselves murderous systems over the history of colonial occupation. As many have said: “The whole damn system is guilty as hell.”

Sii-amlouet Hamilton said, poignantly, that she always feels hunted here (in Canada). And she emphasized that the police are a large source of that feeling. She made it clear that the police are not on her side, not on the side of Indigenous people. She told the gathering that she always feels in danger with police present. She concluded by saying that she does not like being at events like this because it always means another woman or girl has gone missing or been killed.

She put out a call for people to start asking questions. The cops are not going to help, and will likely hurt. So we need to do the work that needs to be done to protect ourselves and our communities.

It was noted, quite importantly, that the colonial courts have made, and continue to make, millions and millions of dollars on processing the bodies of Indigenous people. As I have argued, without processing poor and oppressed people, and the flow of public money generated by this, the criminal justice system in Canada would collapse. Generations have been processed through the system. They are not in conflict with the law, the law are in conflict with them.

Kanahus Manuel spoke powerfully. In her words: “I want to say to Canada that we are done with you.” She said that as the grandmothers and mothers of collective Indigenous communities, “We must turn our backs on the system and build something more beautiful than Canada has ever had.”

People made clear that it will take community, together, to protect the children. Family and community need to “surround the children” as one speaker put it. Indigenous governance must be restored as part of protecting the children.

JB the First Lady affirmed the call that it is “time to do our way.” Indigenous people have tried the settler protocol. In her words: “We have the solutions and yet they don’t fucking listen.” Indigenous people have traditional ways of governance. In her view the two row wampum worked, now “get out of my canoe [to the colonial state].” She noted that the United States government took traditional ways of governance (the Iroquois Confederacy) but distorted it by forgetting the clan mothers and forcing it into a patriarchal system.

Several speakers stressed the need for solid allyship. And it was said repeatedly how good it was to see allies turn up. One ally, Cicely Belle-Blain, a co-founder of Black Lives Matter Vancouver, noted that the injustices on colonized land are multifaceted.

While analysis and commentary laid out the injustices and violence of the colonial system the message of speakers was love for Tina Fontaine and her family. A foundation of love and solidarity against systems of callous brutality.

There is No Justice on Stolen Indigenous Land

It was emphasized that the land question must be dealt with all over so-called North America. Several people connected colonial violence against the land with colonial violence against women. Speakers reminded the assembly that Indigenous women began disappearing as soon as the colonizers arrived. Kanahus Manuel pointed out that the Hudson’s Bay Company took Indigenous girls and women. Defiantly she said: “How dare Canada?” Now governments want to bring more men from outside into their territories—and more women will go missing. Defending the land is the work of stopping women from going missing.

Carol Martin told the crowd: “When they destroy the women, they destroy the family and the community.” The system knows this. One speaker noted that it is not a coincidence that herb gatherers and knowledge women were called witches and treated like monsters.

Related to this directly was a call to drop the charges against those standing up against Kinder Morgan. It was pointed out that it is a waste of public money paying cops to protect a pipeline company. And again it was stressed that we need personal protection plans to protect our communities and families.  Not cops.

This was a strong and reflective, angry and loving gathering. The messages were clear. As Manuel said: We never destroyed our land, never contaminated our water. Canada, 150 years, we’re done with you.” Or as JB the First Lady proclaimed: “I am the Indian problem. And watch out!”

And as the verdicts in the Stanley trial and the Cormier trial show: “There is no justice on stolen Indigenous land.”

Injustice is Death - End the Drug War: National Day of Action - Feb. 20, 2018

By Jeff Shantz

Drug war laws, policing, and criminalization kill people. Straight up. They do so simply so that the state can regulate peoples’ bodies and what some people choose to put into them. And these bodies are regulated, punished, on the basis of class and racism. In a serious way death is a certain outcome of drug prohibition. In 2017, 1422 people died after using drugs in British Columbia alone. This year we are facing over 4000 overdose deaths in Canada. It must end now.

On February 20, 2018, people in communities across Canada stood up to call for an end to the drug war on the National Day of Action on Drug Decriminalization. I participated in the rally, march, and red zoning of the Law Courts building in Vancouver along with about 200 people who turned out on a frigid day. Actions across the country put forward the message that “Injustice is Fatal.” There were five common demands:

1.       Decriminalize all drugs immediately

2.       Decarcerate those with drug convictions

3.       Defund the Department of Justice and use the resources to properly fund and support health care initiatives

4.       End red zoning which places conditions on people that restricts their access to parts of the city even if they have not been convicted of anything

5.       Expansion of needle distribution and overdose prevention systems, including in prisons

The rally began in Victory Square at Hastings and Cambie in downtown Vancouver. Jordan Westfall, executive director of the Canadian Association of People who Use Drugs (CAPUD) asserted the five demands. He pointed out the social and health related harms of criminalization.

The next speaker was Dr. Susan Boyd who pointed out that in 1998 there was a press conference with activist Bud Osborne and Member of Parliament Libby Davies in which they explained that these deaths are preventable, and why. Government in Canada has ignored their call. Dr. Boyd noted that from 2010 to now, drug arrest stats, for heroin, meth, and now fentanyl possession have been increasing instead of decreasing. She asked: “Why are we arresting anyone for drug possession?” In the midst of a crisis we must decriminalize drug use, open overdose prevention sites, and make prescribed drugs available.

Following these introductory speeches we marched to the Law Courts to raise the demands. At the courthouse participants spoke out against the drug wars. First up was Dave from VANDU (Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users). He argued that stigmatization will not end without decriminalization.

The next speaker was Malcolm of the Western Aboriginal Harm Reduction Society. He reported that yesterday alone he saw six cops around one person just to grab there stuff (as police continue to steal belongings from poor people). He added that racism against Indigenous people is a central part of the drug war in British Columbia. Acknowledging the strength and community of people in the downtown eastside, Malcolm ended by saying: “Down here we are all family.”

Following was Simona of the BC-Yukon Drug War Survivors. She told the gathering that she was arrested most recently in front of VANDU. She was red zoned and told she could not go to Main and Hastings. This meant that she could not access her programs at the Carnegie Centre. This is purely vindictive by the state. She wanted those assembled to know that she uses drugs an she is alright—sand wants to assert that clearly and strongly.

Scott, a social worker in the downtown eastside started by saying that he has spent years in jail himself and was jailed because of drugs. He wanted people to know that he never got any help in jail, for anything. He now works with people who are criminalized and insists that we need to change drug laws and how we relate to people and work together. He noted that substance use is a way of dealing with oppression in this world (including the oppression of policing). People in the downtown eastside are among the most oppressed and have much to cope with. Drugs are a coping tool.

Several speakers emphasized the injustice of red zoning. Red zones carve people out of their communities, restrict access to family, friends, and needed services. Red zones hurt people who are not convicted of anything. It is a form of profiling, and poor bashing (the state would never dream of red zoning corporate criminals). It is a violation of peoples’ rights. Quite simply, red zoning needs to end.

A key theme of the day, stressed by several who spoke, was the foundation of reciprocity, giving, and sharing that marks community in the downtown eastside. Culture saves lives. Several people suggested this makes it the healthiest community in Vancouver, distinct from areas of social separation and apathetic detachment.

Counter to this are the actions of police. Several speakers spoke to the fact that police steal peoples’ homes and belongings on a regular basis. And we need to recognize this for what it is—theft and violence. Cops are robbing trusted dealers and forcing people to go to dealers they cannot trust. Obscenely, police are using the crises to push for increased budgets and looking to diversify or rebrand as harm reduction or healthcare services (which they cannot actually provide and should not be involved in anyway). And they consume resources that could be better deployed among real healthcare and social care organizations (including, of course, grassroots ones). In some jurisdictions drug war cops are looking to cash in on upcoming cannabis legalization in a despicable display of hypocritical Canadian justice.

In Neil Magnusson’s words, the war on drugs is actually a war on people. Criminalization is the only crime. Prohibition kills. Use is not criminal. In his view, cops only play a role in hurting people. He argued that the only people who should be arrested are politicians and public servants, including cops, who are harming people through criminalization and prohibition. He made a call to arrest Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The managers of the drug was have real blood on their hands.

The action ended with a symbolic red zoning of the courthouse as those assembled locked arms in a human chain closing off the entrance.

As Scott suggested: “End the drug war—Love the People.”

Beyond the Psychology of Poverty: Anti-Colonialism and Justice - Feb. 13, 2018

By Jeff Shantz

A report on the second annual Metro Vancouver Aboriginal Executive Council conference. Vancouver Aboriginal Friendship Centre. February 13, 2018

The conference “Reversing the Psychology of Poverty: A Policy Engagement Conference” hosted by the Metro Vancouver Aboriginal Executive Council proved a lively, important, and compelling venue for discussing a range of crucial issues of truth, reconciliation, colonialism, anti-colonialism, decolonization, and justice (social, economic, political) in the present context. It went beyond its initial focus in some highly significant ways. Speakers included Kevin Barlow, Rocky James, Sue McIntyre, Chas Desjarlais, Dan Guinan, Ginger Gosnell-Myers, Colter Long, and Norm Leech.  

The conference set out to analyse and critically develop approaches to the so-called psychology of poverty, a rightly contested notion that can have the consequence of individualizing social problems and locating them in personal rather than social factors. Several impacts of a psychology of poverty were identified. They included the following. First, living below the poverty line creates generations of people willing, even expecting to cope with less. That is they may stop asking for more, for what they deserve. Second, there is a learned defeatism that suggests things will never improve. Third, people can feel the need to take risks, opting for short term gain over longer term opportunities. Fourth, Indigenous people are pushed to internalize cultural identity as inferior. Fifth, anger and frustration (which can be productive or unproductive).

The issue of education is given much attention in discussions of reconciliation, and as a university instructor this is something of much concern. It is noted that education is healing but, at the same time, people have to heal before they can learn. These are integrated, but one cannot learn if some basic needs are not met (health, nutrition, housing, etc.).

Resistance and Resilience

Significantly the discussions very soon shifted focus organically to meaningful analyses of the structural and systemic roots of poverty and psychology. Several crucial issues were brought forward.

During the first question period it was posed that there is a need to shift focus away from the emphasis on trauma, that has characterized much reconciliation discourse, to the violence that causes trauma. Focusing on psychologies of trauma can serve to privilege the forces and structures of power.

The original violence that causes trauma is colonialism. Children are still put out into a colonial world, even if education and culture are done in the home, community, and schools. Emphasis is still on success in a colonized world. A key question is raised about reconciliation and restoration: “Is it building a world that is healthier or is it making people more individually “successful” (on certain markers of materiality) in a fundamentally unhealthy world?”

It is worth pointing out that services seem oriented toward changing the individual to make them appear less traumatized in a traumatized and traumatizing environment. But the environment remains largely unchanged and it remains harmful and destructive.

Resistance and renewal must be in balance in addressing structural colonial violence. Four emphases were brought forward. These were as follows. First, food security and nutrition. Second, affordability. Third, a sense of belonging. Fourth, a meaningful sense of hope for the future. And this is all to be done while not forgetting about the violence of colonialism and domination. In belonging one can feel contributing. In contributing one can feel hopeful and create the conditions for change that they want to see. This is forward thinking and positive rather than reacting in the world to seemingly outside conditions.

There is a need to create home, not only homes. Physical, emotional, nutritional needs must be addressed. Attention needs to be given to “spiritual homelessness” on stolen lands. Real questions are posed to us about how to maintain collectivism in an individualist and individualizing culture.

On Justice

The final session involved an explicit and sustained focus on justice and notions of social versus criminal justice. As a criminologist, and active member of the Social Justice Centre, I was especially attuned to this discussion and will focus most of my report here. The session was facilitated by Norm Leech with Colter Long.

The justice session began, appropriately enough, by stating clearly that the big injustice we all face is that we are colonized. At some point someone colonized all of our families. It was pointed out that injustice comes first in thinking about justice for Indigenous people, on the basis of the very fact of colonialism. That injustice also includes, but is not limited to: racism; homelessness; children in care; education; inequality; government structures; the justice system. How do justice issues relate to other issues? Well, housing problems for people who have been incarcerated, for example. Colonial justice clearly does not work for Indigenous people, and, it was pointed out, it does not work for non-Indigenous people either. Most are targeted and processed for being poor or discontented.

Norm Leech made the point that people are in conflict with the law, because the law is in conflict with them. The laws were written in conflict with Indigenous people. They are not in conflict with the law, the law is in conflict with them. Leech asked: “When was there justice for Indigenous people?” The answer was straightforwardly: “Before colonization.” So that is what justice would look like for Indigenous people.

It must be remembered too that each nation had their own laws for maintaining care and stability in the nation and care of and with the land. Those laws and systems of justice were developed over hundreds of thousands of years. They were well developed and practiced. In the stories are the laws. Many of these records have been lost because they were not written down. And because those who carried oral learnings were erased through colonialism.

Mainstream society talks about reconciliation but says little about truth. So genocide is not mentioned and the term itself is avoided in mainstream society. Yet Indigenous people focus, rightly, on the truth of genocide. How does one talk about genocide recovery? Genocide is a group process. Community recovery rather than only individual recovery is the central focus.

It was asked if it is useful to fix or propose policy and program changes to “solve” justice issues for Indigenous people within prevailing frameworks? Solutions have been colonial “solutions.” Money, policy, curriculum, positions. Restorative justice is based on Indigenous justice. But it has been coopted in some ways. It was suggested that in consultations people not trust the government. Do not answer their questions. It was recognized that governments, police, etc., will not take information and act in a way that is helpful in meeting peoples’ needs.

People want justice, and they want justice advanced. One respondent suggested doing it their own way without the state’s laws. So these sorts of transformative approaches are being discussed. They are desired by people. And they are realistic. Yet reconciliation approaches tend to marginalize or diminish them, posing them as unrealistic or “out there.”

Culture saves lives. Sharing economies save lives. It was pointed out that these are what are saving people in the fentanyl crisis. Not criminal justice systems, which make the crises worse. In sharing economies no one need be alone. There are responsibilities to the community. But the community also takes care of you. Learning is done in the community, for the community, and in service to the community.

The Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development was raised. It identifies three conditions for economic success. First, sovereignty and self-rule. Second, capable governing institutions. Third, a congruence between institutions and Indigenous political culture. This did not generate detailed discussion or debate. It was pointed out that one cannot be fully self-sufficient and self-reliant if you go to the colonizers for funding.

The colonized system is the problem and every system within it is the problem. Fitting better within that system is not working for Indigenous people.  Answers are found in pre-colonization. Five hundred years of experience show that colonial criminal justice systems  do not work except for colonial elites.

Importantly, the discussion moved to a consideration of prison abolitionism. There is a need to think about things to do for people targeted by police and the criminal justice system. It can include providing housing for people who have been imprisoned. It requires, more broadly, thinking how to be transformative in developing practices. It requires creating cultures where we do no feel a need to call the police and do not need to. This includes, again, communities of care.

There are some who do real  harm, but they are not the ones that the criminal justice system spends most of its time and resources dealing with. They are not even a small minority of people processed by the system. And on the whole there are relatively few examples of extreme evil.

One step in abolition is the decriminalization of illicit substances. The money used on criminalization could be taken out of the criminal justice system and policing and put into social health and well being. Defund the police and support actual caregivers in the community.

Conversations need to be held in communities more. It was suggested that people not ask permission to do what works. Do it according to the needs of the people in question. Do it if it works. This includes doing it under the radar. It is alright to be subversive.

On the whole this was a productive conference. Over almost eight hours a range of crucial issues were addressed. And responses were honest, direct, and often bold and visionary.

Problematic Substance Use and Harm Reduction in Surrey - Public Talk by Michael Ma, KPU - Feb. 13, 2018

By Mike Larsen

I am writing to congratulate our colleague, Mike Ma, for his excellent Arts Speaker Series talk, 'Problematic Substance Use and Harm Reduction in Surrey, BC’. The presentation was well-attended and informative, and the audience was composed of KPU community members, journalists, and activists.

Mike’s talk was based on his ongoing survey-based research in the 135a / Surrey strip area on issues related substance use, housing, and homelessness. The project (80 surveys conducted so far with 120 to go) provides a picture of who is using what kinds of substances, with what kinds of consequences, and - crucially - how these questions relate to housing, homelessness, and poverty. While the research is still in progress, the findings so far are fascinating. Some of these findings confirm (and provide data to support) common or anecdotal notions about substance use and homelessness, while others provide a basis for much-needed demystification.

Of particular interest to me were findings about the lack of available / accessible treatment spaces and statistics regarding participant experience of overdoses (80% reporting overdosing, with the median being 5-7 overdoses per participant) and the prevalence of fentanyl as a sought-after drug or adjunct (33% had asked for fentanyl and many ask for heroin and are aware that it contains fentanyl). Unsurprisingly, 90% of Mike’s participants self-identified as homeless, with 99% having been homeless within the last six months. I encourage you to speak with Mike about his research, and I look forward to future updates on this project.

After providing a review of his preliminary findings, Mike provided some contextualizing remarks about drug use in Surrey, the surveillance and public order policing of drug users, and the politics and policies of harm reduction, detox, and treatment.

Following the talk, questions and discussion focused on culturally appropriate harm reduction and treatment options for Indigenous community members, the language and cultural categories used to frame the discussion about fentanyl (‘clean’ vs. ‘dirty’ drugs, ‘poison’, etc.), and policy and service options.

Generally, the event was great, and I came away with some ideas for classroom discussions and new FOI requests.

Thanks, Mike, and congratulations!

Challenging Solitary Confinement - Public Talk - Feb. 6, 2018

“Challenging Solitary Confinement” A Report.

By Jeff Shantz

On January 17, 2018, BC Supreme Court ruled that the practice of prolonged and indefinite solitary confinement in Canadian prisons is unconstitutional. The decision came in response to a challenge from the BC Civil Liberties Association. In a lengthy ruling, Justice Peter Leask found that the laws surrounding so-called administrative segregation in prison discriminate against Indigenous and mentally ill inmates. On February 6, 2018, a panel of prisoners’ justice advocates, including moderator Caily DiPuma, the BCCLA lawyer who argued the case spoke on issues of solitary in Canada and the implications of the ruling.

The Speakers

The first speaker was Bibhas Vaze, counsel to the family of Christopher Roy, a prisoner who took his own life while in solitary. Vaze is a litigator with 10 years of experience working with prisoners, specializing in law related to incarceration, especially filing habeas corpus. He started by saying that in his work he assumes that prisons do not cooperate. It is  not a cooperative process.

Notably, Vaze was clear that rule of law does not really exist within prison. He said that in working on cases he expects that at some point he will have to go to court to bring rule of law within prison walls. Positive decisions are never enough. He noted that there is a history of legal decisions that are not brought within prison walls—there is a fundamental non-compliance with the law. Supposedly great laws are often not applied in prisons.

Vaze told the audience that it is necessary to understand that prison administration and solitary have to be thought of as a whole. Prison cultures work through competing interests—and these are not the interests of the prisoners.

Vaze reflected on his work with the family of Christopher Roy. He noted that in the inquest into Roy’s death it was reported that there was no mental health staff for segregated inmates. Non-qualified psychologists and social workers did assessment on him and found no risk—shortly before he killed himself. There was no time provided for release. Instead he was threatened with transfer to Kent, a more violent institution. In fact they served him papers on the transfer at his segregation cell. Two hours later he was found hanging in the cell. There were no qualified medical personnel at the institution to revive him.

Vaze emphasized that in Roy’s case the existing laws could have been followed—they were not. It was not a problem of the absence of laws, but the absence of compliance.

The second speaker was Lora McElhinney of Joint Effort. Joint Effort is an abolitionist group started by a prisoner on Prison Justice Day forty years ago, From an abolitionist perspective they look at the capacity of communities to provide resources that people might benefit from in prison, including specific programs. Their view is that these programs can be better provided in and by communities. Prisons do not serve either communities or prisoners.

McElhinney suggested that segregation is the worst of the worst, but everyone in prison suffers in various ways. These include the decline of mental health. Prisons overlook or downplay root causes.

It was noted again that in prisons policy takes over from law and arbitrary decisions become the order of the day. Policies become more labyrinthine and keep the community out and the prisoners in.

Cecily Nicholson, another Joint Effort member, acknowledged the fugitivity that is part of everyday practice in the downtown eastside of Vancouver. She spoke to the gendered aspects of punishment and the reproduction of trauma in women’s lives. Nicholson emphasized the disproportionate racialization of imprisonment. Indigenous women do harder time. They do the majority of solitary. They are subjected to more maximum security placements. And they are subjected to more use of force interventions.

Nicholson stressed the inherent cruelty of prisons and reminded the audience that it is an outcropping of genocidal policies. While the Justice Minister makes a push to “Indigenize the prison system,” Nicholson noted, following a recent tweet by Ryan McMahon, that community supports and resources are more needed and helpful than Indigenizing the prison pipeline, which remains a system of cruelty. 

Speaking next was Yves Cote,a person with lived experience in prison, and i solitary, serving two life sentences. He noted that he has experienced every level of incarceration. Cote argued that worse than segregation is transfer out of province, away from family, friends, connections, and communities. Yet the Correctional Service of Canada is thinking about using that as an alternative to segregation.

The final speaker was Jennifer Metcalfe of Prisoner’s Legal Services. She expressed excitement about the decision and the possibilities it raises going forward. She is optimistic that they can change the culture. Metcalfe told the audience that her group has received reports from prisoners of guards slipping razor blades under cell doors of people at risk of self harm. They have heard multiple reports of this from multiple people.

The brutality of prison guards and their central role in resisting reforms was noted by all speakers. Metcalfe spoke of pushback from guards’ associations who want to be able to use solitary. It is a matter of convenience for them.

Question Period

The question period was also fruitful and a number of issues were given additional attention. It was generally agreed that in the short term there is a need for a culture shift from all involved in the prison system (health care providers as well) to break them from the corrections mindset. It was also suggested that a change federally returning to a Conservative Party of Canada government will make that impossible.

It was reiterated that guards and staff associations have been the major part in keeping solitary in place. They have, in fact, gone to great lengths to maintain it. It is more convenient for guards and it takes fewer resources for the prison system. Priority is placed on staff comforts and resource costs. These are not reasons for abuse of people. And guard associations are not properly unions and really have no place in the labor movement.

It was pointed out that as bad as federal prisons are, provincial prisons operate behind closed doors. No one is looking inside them. They are out of control. Levels of brutality are high and unobserved outside. It was noted that one cannot even FOI data because they do not even keep it.

McElhinney stressed that cultures like those of prison administration have to be forced. They do not shift on their own or voluntarily.

DiPuma concluded by reflecting on the limits of what she does as a lawyer. It was pointed out that under Section One of the Canadian Charter the government can justify their reasons for restricting human rights. The court will decide if the reasons are legitimate.

Vaze noted that Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 did not de-segregate schools in the United States. Much of the work of the NAACP over the next 50 years was going to small districts and ensuring that the decision was implemented. And this was also in a context of civil rights movements.

Conclusion

Justice Leask said the existing rules create a situation in which a warden becomes judge and jury in terms of ordering extended periods of solitary confinement. He wrote:

“I find as a fact that administrative segregation … is a form of solitary confinement that places all Canadian inmates subject to it at significant risk of serious psychological harm, including mental pain and suffering, and increased incidence of self-harm and suicide.”

The reality for prisoners right now is unchanged. The court gave the government 12 months to draft new law that meets the Charter.

All panelists were in general agreement, even the abolitionists (and I consider myself one), that the decision on solitary is an important one. McElhinney said that while an abolitionist she was still excited about the decision. It ahs opened spaces to talk about abolition and prison harms and the work that needs to be done. But it is only part of a wider goal. The judgement must be subject to a longer view.

Abolition will not come through litigation. We do need multi-level approaches to get to abolition. And as criminologists it means we have a responsibility to teach and work toward abolition. Criminologists must reject the conversion of their departments into recruitment centers for the prison industrial complex. We must oppose the intrusion into our departments by police, prison guard recruiters, and border security agencies. This means rejecting their presence in the classroom, in co-op programs, and at job fairs on campus.

The public still has much to learn about what goes on in prisons every day. There is a need to expand the discussion to talk about everything, not only the high profile or “hot” topics. In response to a question about why it is that prisons have been repeatedly non-compliant without any consequences, Cote pointed to the demonization of prisoners in the public. The public says lock them up and throw away the key.

Regardless of laws and oversight it will only be as effective as people are willing to advocate for. And change requires persistent mobilization and conscientious vigilance.

Fighting for Space: Travis Lupick and Ann Livingston on Drug Users' Struggles in Vancouver

Vancouver Public Library. January 11, 2018

Event report by Jeff Shantz

Travis Lupick, a journalist with the Georgia Straight, has written a number of important pieces on the opioid crisis in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside (DTES). Recently he released his book Fighting for Space, which chronicles grassroots struggles of drug users in Vancouver to support and defend themselves and fight for their needs over the course of decades. On January 11, 2018, he was joined by Ann Livingston, a founding member of VANDU (Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users), a key figure in the book, and in the struggle, for a book launch.  

Lupick started by saying he decided to write the book to discuss today’s opioid crisis by looking back at an earlier crisis in the 1990s. He wanted to see what lessons could be learned from then and applied today.

He began the talk with a picture of Liz Evans who quit her job at Vancouver General Hospital at 25 over frustrations with the treatment of people dealing with mental health issues. She ended up running a hotel in the DTES in the 1980S, with her partner Mark Townsend, at a time when the drug problem was growing and the HIV and AIDS crises were growing in Vancouver. The hotel was the Portland. It would become a center of anti-poverty organizing. The presenters recount that the Portland was really as peoples’ place. People were welcomed there when they were not welcomed elsewhere.

Ann Livingston showed up around the same time. There was a squat at a furniture store where people were using heroin. Ann and her kids went to clean it up for the people there so the place was a little more comfortable. Bud Osborne arrived around the same time. There were others showing up in the DTES who were ready to break the rules.

VANDU started in 1997. They had already started a safe injection site before then on the 300 block of Powell—the Back Alley. VANDU was the first drug users union in North America. At the time there was little acknowledgement that IV drug users deserved compassion and justice. There was nowhere where people could keep a place if they had an addiction. People were kicked out of residences if they had an overdose. Liz insisted that people could stay at the hotel under these conditions.

The first VANDU meeting was in Oppenheimer Park. It drew more people than expected. The first meeting was in a park because no one would give them a space. They were not welcome anywhere. That is a problem that people still face today in Surrey, for example, where drug users have to fight for space. VANDU and Portland were the first time people had been welcomed because of who they were. Camaraderie, membership, belonging—this is what people lacked and what VANDU offered.

They received a government community grant designed to see if community groups could provide services better, less costly, than hospitals. They could. The approach w as grounded in the idea of what makes people healthy (rather than how to “treat” illness). People are colleagues not patients.

The presentation made clear that direct action was key. They did not ask for permission. They took it. There were actions in city council chambers. They tried to show how many people were dying as a result of government policies.

Liz and Mark eventually decided, after some coaxing, that they could have an injection site. They did it in guerilla style at a hair salon. It was the same space, the same room, in which InSite would open and operate.  They confronted Mayor Larry Campbell with it—pushing for a formally supported site. But the initial site was, again, taken, not given. The presentation stressed that they were rule breakers who forced politicians to act (even against their own inclinations, prejudices, and political wishes).

The real problem, then as now, was government policy that kept people from getting what they needed—not drug using itself. People did not have access to clean needles, for example. Clean needles went for $5 on the streets. Dirty ones went for $1.   

Today

The presenters point out that there was a large heroin scene in Vancouver in the 1940s. It is an ongoing part of the city and should be recognized as such.

In the 1990s crisis, 400 people were dying each year of overdoses. In 2018 the city is on pace for 1800 deaths.

The overdose prevention site (OPS) today was started by peers as well, including Ann Livingston and Sarah Blyth. And the government is still taking too long and delaying supports. The founders had already been outside in tents with the street market so that was how they started. There are people working at the OPS site in the alley who  are sleeping in the alley.

Today’s crisis is a matter of economics and white collar crime, what Edwin Sutherland called chiselling. As Ann Livingston pointed out, heroin production used to require acres of poppies to produce a table sized amount. Now, with fentanyl, much more can be produced with much less. And with fentanyl it is used more times a day, more frequently. It was suggested that this may be six or more times a day rather than two or three.

Ann Livingston suggested that the obstacle then is the same as the obstacle now. If people have no welfare support and no health care they are at risk. She insists that people not use alone. Eighty percent who die are men—alone in their rooms. SROs, public and private, have the same rules—No guests. That puts people at risk.

The current opioid crisis is driven by growing economic inequality. It has been part of economic crisis in a neoliberal context since the crisis of 2008. And it is tougher for people to get welfare now and welfare provides much less than even a generation ago. In British Columbia it explicitly says in welfare law that addiction is not a disability. It is recognized in Ontario after a court case there was won. In Ann Livingston’s view the welfare legislation in British Columbia is illegal.

When welfare is cut one’s MSP (medicals services premium) gets cut off. People cannot get methadone because they are cut off MSP.

Policing Kills: For Lives Not Laws

The presentation made very clear—a key point that was stressed—that police are still a massive problem and play an active part in people dying needlessly. They are still a major threat.

Now governments are proposing manslaughter charges for people who sell fentanyl. This is a disastrous policy based only on revenge. It will lead to more people dying. People will not call for help because they do not want to be charged. Most of those arrested and charged will be low level and peer dealers—not major dealers anyway. This is all merely a way for police to increase their already boated budgets and resources at a time when crime rates are dropping consistently.

The presenters pointed out that the OPS tents are illegal and violate federal drug laws. No one knew how far they could push it before they got in legal trouble. Stealing electricity from a building next door, for example.

Finally the government let them move indoors. Then-Health Minister Terry Lake visited the OPS and told Lupick that he woke up at 4 AM thinking about Ann and Sarah. Fifteen sites were opened in British Columbia a week later. It is the fastest any government in Canada has moved on the issue.

Bureaucrats always think what they cannot do. Drug users think what they can do. VANDU started by trying to find out what people wanted to do and what they needed. Ann Livingston says basic organizing is to go to people and ask what their concerns are. What do they need? What do they want to do?

Many who use drugs believe what is said about them. They internalize stigma. Criminalization and policing only plays into that and increases that. It tells the public drug users are deviant, bad, undeserving.

Heroin needs to be available in prescriptions. Ann Livingston says, half jokingly, that we need to grow lots of poppies.

The government could make it easier for people to get methadone than it is to get fentanyl at the corner. They could start up some of the vending machines to get things to people.

An Activated Community

The DTES is what some urbanists call an activated community. There is street life, a bustle. Ann Livingston says we need clean alleys. We need parkettes. We can make the alleys nice. There could be activities. There could be yoga. The OPS site does things to make the alley nice.

What helps to build community? For Ann Livingston, as for many of us, the answer is that, still, we need a space! A place where people can meet each other, do things together, figure out what we can do together. Spaces is the main thing people need. Travis Lupick concludes by saying that the book leaves out a struggle for a community center—a long, drawn out struggle. They  were going to occupy a space for one.

I have long argued that this must be a priority for Surrey and for a social justice center that would be a real social justice center. Places are needed—more and more places.

At Least 65 Deaths Connected with Police Encounters in Canada in 2017

By Jeff Shantz

In Canada, there is no formal, systematic process for documenting and recording the deaths of civilians through encounters with police. And there is no systematic reporting publicly of civilian deaths through police encounters. The main source tracking, documenting, and analysing police killings of civilians in Canada is the critical criminology project Killer Cops Canada. A baseline or minimum number of people who died through police encounters can be arrived at by review of oversight agency reports, coroners inquest reports, and close following of media articles. Based on this, we can say that there were at least 65 deaths of people in Canada through encounters with police officers. Of these, the majority, 29, were shot and killed by police. Here is some of the very limited information of what we know. We need to know much more.

1.       Amleset Haile. Female. 60. January 2. Toronto, Ontario. Toronto Police Service. Self-inflicted. (Black woman).

2.       Jimmy Cloutier. Male. 38. January 6. Montreal, Quebec. Montreal Police. Shot.

3.       Ralph Stevens. Male. 27. January 7. Stoney Nakoda First Nation, Alberta. RCMP. Shot. (Indigenous man).

4.       Nadia Racine. Female. 34. January 25. Gatineau, Quebec. Gatineau Police. In-custody.

5.       Unnamed. Male. 20. February 11. Goodfare, Alberta. RCMP. In-custody.

6.       Unnamed. Male. No Age Given. February 12. Winnipeg, Manitoba. Winnipeg Police Service. In-custody.

7.       Moses Amik Beaver. Male. 56. February 13. Thunder Bay, Ontario. Thunder Bay Police. In-custody. (Indigenous Man).

8.       Unnamed. Female. 20. March 6. Burlington, Ontario. Halton Regional Police Service.

9.       Unnamed. Male. 28. March 6. Montreal, Quebec. Montreal Police. Heart attack.

10.   Vitaly Savin. Male. 55. March 9. Edmonton, Alberta. Edmonton Police Service. Shot.

11.   Unnamed. Male. 20. March 18. Pond Inlet. Nunavut. RCMP. Shot.

12.   Unnamed. Male. March 24. 61. Chateauguay, Quebec. Sûreté du Québec.

13.   Unnamed. Male. 40. April 1. Kelowna, British Columbia. RCMP. In-custody.

14.   Unnamed. Male. 24. April 28. Puvirnituq, Quebec. Kativik Regional Police Force. In-custody.

15.   Unnamed. Male. 39. May 2. Hall Beach. Nunavut. RCMP. Shot.

16.   Unnamed. Male. 32. May 13. Fort McMurray, Alberta. RCMP. In-custody.

17.   Unnamed. Male. 41. May 15. Beauceville, Quebec. Sûreté du Québec. Shot.

18.   Unnamed. Male. 26. May 22. Cambridge, Ontario.

19.   Unnamed. Female. No Age Given. May 27. Oak Bay, British Columbia. Victoria Police.

20.   Unnamed. Male. 43. June 3. Smith Falls, Ontario. Ontario Provincial Police. Self-inflicted.

21.   Unnamed. Male. 31. June 3. Ottawa, Ontario. Ottawa Police Service. Shot.

22.   Unnamed. Male. No Age Given. June 18. Port Coquitlam, British Columbia. RCMP. Shot

23.   Austin Eaglechief. Male. 22. June 19. Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Saskatoon Police. Shot.

24.   Pierre Coriolan. Male. 58. June 27. Montreal, Quebec. Montreal Police. Shot. (Black man).

25.   Unnamed. Male. No Age Given. July 3. Edmonton, Alberta. Edmonton Police Service. Vehicle chase.

26.   Unnamed. Male. No Age Given. July 5. Blaine Lake, Saskatchewan. RCMP. Self-inflicted.

27.   Unnamed. Male. No Age Given. July 9. Quebec City, Quebec. Quebec City Police. Shot.

28.   Dale Culvner. Male. 35. July 18. Prince George, British Columbia. RCMP. In-custody.

29.   Marlon “Roland” Jerry McKay. Male. 50. July 19. Thunder Bay, Ontario. Thunder Bay Police. In-custody. (Indigenous man).

30.   Shawn Davis. Male. 52. July 26. Chatham, Ontario. Chatham Police. “Sudden Death.”

31.   Unnamed. Male. 66. July 30. Pointe-Calumet, Quebec. Vehicle chase.

32.   Unnamed. Male. 25. August 10. Saint-Georges-de-Beauce, Quebec. Sûreté du Québec. Shot.

33.   Unnamed. Female. 55. August 7. Edmonton, Alberta. Edmonton Police Service. In-custody.

34.   Unnamed. Male. 23. August 20. La Sarre, Quebec. Sûreté du Québec. Shot.

35.   Unnamed. Male. No Age Given. August 13. Winnipeg, Manitoba. In-custody.

36.   Ozama Shaw. Male. 15. July 27. Mississauga, Ontario. Peel Region Police. Shot. (Black youth).

37.   Unnamed. Male. 48. September 4. Sudbury, Ontario. Sudbury Police. In-custody.

38.   Unnamed. Female. 26. September 4. Windsor, Ontario. Windsor Police Service. In-custody.

39.   Unnamed Male. 26. September 6. Whitefish Lake First Nation, Alberta. RCMP. Shot.

40.   Unnamed. Female. 46. September 9. Indian Head, Saskatchewan. RCMP. In-custody.

41.   Unnamed. Male. 29. September 9. Edmonton, Alberta. Edmonton Police Service. Shot.

42.   Adrian Lacquette. 23. September 13. Winnipeg, Manitoba. Winnipeg Police Service. Shot.

43.   Unnamed. Male. 34. September 15. Windsor, Ontario. Windsor Police Service. In-custody.

44.   Unnamed. Male. 33. September 23. Winnipeg, Manitoba. Winnipeg Police Service. Shot.

45.   Sheila Walsh. Female. 65. September 25. Arnprior, Ontario. Ontario Provincial Police. Vehicle chase.

46.   Unnamed. Female. No Age Given. October 2. Quesnel, British Columbia. RCMP. In-custody.

47.   Nathan Wehlre. Male. 15. October 6. Highway 6, Ontario. Waterloo Regional Police. Vehicle chase.

48.   Taryn Hewitt. Female. 16. October 6. Highway 6, Ontario. Waterloo Regional Police. Vehicle chase.

49.   Cody Severight. Male. 23. October 10. Winnipeg, Manitoba. Winnipeg Police Service. Hit and run, officer DUI.

50.   Unnamed. Male. 35. October 12. Qualicum Beach, British Columbia. RCMP. Shot.

51.   Cavin Poucette. Male. 26. October 19. Gleichen, Alberta. RCMP. Shot. (Indigenous man).

52.   Brydon Bryce Whitstone. Male. 22. October 22. North Battleford, Saskatchewan. (Indigenous man).

53.   Tom Ryan. Male. 70. October 27. Cobourg, Ontario. Cobourg Police Service. Shot.

54.   Unnamed. Male. 44. October 31. Brampton, Ontario. Peel Regional Police. During arrest.

55.   Unnamed. Male. 23. November 8. Montreal, Quebec. Montreal Police. In-custody.

56.   Bill Saunders. Male. 18. November 15. Lake Manitoba First Nation, Manitoba. Shot.

57.   Unnamed. Male. 57. November 26. Toronto, Ontario. Toronto Police Service. In-custody.

58.   David Tshitoya Kalubi. Male. 23. November 24. Montreal, Quebec. Montreal Police. In-custody. (Black youth).

59.   Unnamed. Male. 52. December 6. Douglas, Ontario. Ontario Provincial Police. Shot.

60.   Unnamed. Male. 25. December 13. Maple, Ontario. Toronto Police Service. Shot.

61.   Babak Saidi. Male. 43. December 23. Morrisburg, Ontario. Ontario Provincial Police. Shot.

62.   Unnamed. Male. December 24. Edmonton, Alberta. Edmonton Police Service. In-custody.

63.   Unnamed. Male. 22. December 28. Umiujaq, Quebec. Shot.

64.   Unnamed. Male. 36. December 28. Danford Lake, Quebec. Sûreté du Québec. Shot

65.   Unnamed. Male. No Age Given. December 30. Mississauga, Ontario. Peel Regional Police. Shot.

Invisibles & Disposables: International Migrants' Day - Dec. 17, 2017

By Mike Ma

We, Kathy Dunster, Davina Bhandar and I, attended a wonderful solidarity event organized by Migrante and Migrant Workers' Dignity Association today. It was held on a rainy Sunday afternoon --in honour of International Migrants' Day-- in a program room at the Kensington Branch Library of the VPL. The room was packed with people eager to discuss and learn more about the plight of migrant workers. A few films/videos were shown that chronicles the struggles of Migrants in Canada. This was followed by ample discussion and friendly conversation. There was copious amounts of tasty food and snacks for everyone to nibble on while we watched and discussed. The delicious food was prepared by volunteers and donated by Discovery Organics and Kensington Branch, VPL.

Migrant Workers' Dignity Association is a small but mighty organization and we hope to support and organize with them in the future!

https://dignidadmigrante.ca

https://www.facebook.com/mwdabc/

http://www.migrantebc.com

Trails of Broken Promises: A Settler Government Resurrects Site C

by John Price

In his recent book The Reconciliation Manifesto, the late Indigenous leader Art Manuel spells out how the Liberal government burned its fingers in the handling of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP).

Adopted by the United Nations in 2007, UNDRIP asserts unequivocally that Indigenous peoples “have the right to the lands, territories and resources which they have traditionally owned, occupied or otherwise used or acquired,” and that governments were bound to obtain “their free, prior, and informed consent before adopting and implementing legislative or administrative measures that may affect them.”

Canada first voted against UNDRIP, along with other settler states—the US, New Zealand and Australia in 2007. Later, after Obama’s administration agreed to its principles, Canada under Harper reluctantly followed suit in 2010.

And so it was no surprise that the Trudeau government when it came to power supported UNDRIP.

However, when Indigenous Affairs minister Carolyn Bennett declared before the UN that Canada would fully embrace codifying UNDRIP into law, many people were ecstatic, thinking she might add some real teeth to UNDRIP in Canada.

Welcome poles at BC Hydro: Credit: J. Price

Not long after, the Liberals hedged their bets, backing off Bennett’s statement to the point where Justice Minister Judy Wilson-Reybould declared “Simplistic approaches such as adopting the United Nations declaration as being Canadian law are unworkable and, respectfully, a political distraction to undertaking the hard work actually required to implement it back home in communities.”

Fast forward to May 30, 2017. The NDP and Green Party signed a 10 page, power-sharing accord (signed by every MLA) that declared: “A foundational piece of this relationship is that both caucuses support the adoption of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission calls-to-action and the Tsilhqot’in Supreme Court decision. We will ensure the new government reviews policies, programs and legislation to determine how to bring the principles of the Declaration into action in BC.”

Six months later, on what some referred to as black Monday (but which might be more appropriately be dubbed ‘Settler Monday’) the NDP government in BC, supported by the Green Party, refused to terminate BC Hydro’s Site C dam on the Peace River despite a scathing BC Utilities Commission report criticizing the project and clear objections from the First Nations most affected.

As it took the decision, the NDP seemed almost hyper-aware of the harm this brings to Indigenous peoples. Thus Horgan’s fumbled attempt at honesty – "I am not the first person to stand before you and disappoint Indigenous people."

Nope.

Source: Wikipedia

But he may be the first person to make a written promise to pledge to abide by three treaties/conventions and then bury them all under a single $10 billion megaproject.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC) in its reiterates the importance of UNDRIP at least twenty times in its “Calls to Action”. And the Tsilquot’in court decision recognizes Aboriginal title including the right to decide how the land should be used.

Fearful of electoral retribution from business and from BC’s settler society for saddling them with a $2 billion dollar debt with nothing to show for it, the NDP elected instead to saddle First Nations again with continuing cultural and economic dispossession.

As a descendant of a settler family who has been on these Indigenous lands for four generations, I am mortified. I cannot help but recall Bev Sellars’ remonstration to the descendants of early settlers: “I know you are not personally responsible for these laws and policies, but now that you are aware, you have a responsibility to help change the situation. You cannot turn a blind eye to this because, if you do, you will be doing the same thing as your ancestors.” John Horgan should have listened to his family.

As an aspiring environmentalist I am deeply disappointed by this decision. No doubt the federal government will rejoice and use the NDP decision on Site C as justification for its own backing of Kinder Morgan. Even the Green Party is complicit in its failure to make Site C a confidence issue.

And as an historian, I can’t help feel that the past is repeating itself.

Translator Simon Pierre with Cowichan Chief Tsulpi’multw with Chiefs Joe Capilano and Basil David (left to right) in London to deliver the Cowichan Petition, 1906. Credit: British Library Board

Over a hundred years ago Cowichan Chief Charlie Tsulpi’multw, together with Squamish Chief Joe Capilano and Shuswap Chief Basil David, travelled to London to lay before King Edward VII a petition protesting the seizure of their lands and the lack of voting rights. They received platitudes only.

A few years later, Chief Basil David recalled how another BC premier, Richard McBride, “greeted them with a smile, shook them by the hand, and said they were good brothers, and treated them very kindly to their faces, then his actions were like a kick in the back.”

The televised announcement of this decision, with the downcast faces of the cabinet, suggests that there was an intense debate and intense disappointment with the decision, even in the NDP.

But in explaining its decision, the NDP raised the specter that canceling Site C would ‘punish British Columbians’ and put at risk their ability to deliver housing, child care, schools and hospitals for families across BC.”

Does this assertion differ much from Richard McBride’s when he told over 1000 people in Victoria in 1913 that “to look seriously upon the claims of the Indians would mean a revolution in our economic conditions that would be very disastrous indeed.”

Yet can we imagine reconciliation without some sacrifice on the part of those of us who have benefited from the land that rightfully belong to First Nations?

Some in the NDP seem to believe that their good intentions outweigh the long-ignored and trampled rights of Indigenous peoples. They seem to willfully erase the historical debts this province has incurred.

A province like no other, it dispossessed First Nations of their lands, refused to sign treaties, supported cultural genocide, excluded First Nations and Asian Canadians from voting, and attempted to ethnically cleanse Japanese Canadians from the province. Today, First Nations continue to bear the brunt of that legacy.

The debt is long overdue but the NDP seems to think it can avoid it with promises to do better next time. Been there, done that.

Divide and Rule

According to the government statement on Site C, Horgan acknowledged that Site “did not have the support of all Treaty 8 First Nations. “We know this decision is not what some First Nations wanted.”

The sub-text to such assertions is that First Nations are divided and some wanted Site C. Some might conclude that the lack of consensus among First Nations gives a green light for settler society to make the decision for them. Really?

Bill Bennett, former Minister of Energy and Mines revealed how to rig the game: “If it’s all negative impact to them, I don’t think I’d be supporting the project either. All we’re trying to do is put them in a position where because they’re going to be impacted, they’ll have an opportunity to derive benefits from project.”

BC Hydro has two huge welcome poles in the lobby of its headquarters on Dunsmuir Street in downtown Vancouver. Does this mean it supports First Nations?

The fact the government or crown agencies can use their big purses to influence outcomes is, in this instance, adding salt to the wound.

The NDP has done much in the past to support First Nations, just as they did with Japanese Canadians when they supported their right to vote in the 1930s. Yet.

Seventy-five years ago Harold Winch, the leader of the NDP’s predecessor the CCF (Co-operative Commonwealth Federation) went to Victoria to meet with then Premier John Hart. He and the premier then phoned federal Cabinet Minister Ian Mackenzie to demand that something be done about Japanese Canadians on the Coast. The next day the federal government issued Order In Council 1486, beginning the uprooting, dispossession and exile of Japanese Canadians.

Good intentions, sadly, are not enough.

John Price teaches history at the University of Victoria.