Over the last year in Toronto, we’ve seen disbelief and anger swell amongst people as they’ve learned that the police in this city have “carded” some 1.2 million people between 2008-2013, with young black men being the most targeted group.  What has shocked people has been both the illegal and violating nature of the whole practice.  If you haven’t been a victim of this practice, just imagine what it must be like to be profiled, stopped, harassed, questioned about where you’re going and who you know.

Now, imagine if that invasion of your privacy extended right to your front door. Imagine living in a place where your every movement in and out of your house was tracked, viewed, and the recordings controlled by someone else.  Now, imagine that the people who control these cameras can be sitting at home, on their couch, watching you in real time.

Welcome to 3400 Eglinton Ave East, where the superintendents can watch the comings and goings of every resident from the comfort of their own living room.

As reported by BASICS recently, the conditions in this 16-story Scarborough high rise at Markham and Eglinton shock even those who have lived in Toronto’s “low-income” hoods most of our lives.  Water leaking from hallway ceilings. Rampant roach and bedbug infestations. Carpets that hadn’t seen a steam cleaner in years, and only finally ripped out this past November to leave exposed deadly slippery flooring. Elevators are in a chronic state of disrepair.  The father of one Caribbean family on the 6th floor recently told BASICS that he “got stuck halfway between the basement and first floor [back in October] with a pregnant woman and a kid. I had to pull them all out.”

Yet, with very few funds flowing to repairs, last year Premax Management Ltd somehow found the money to install surveillance cameras on every floor of the building.  Pointing in each direction when you exit the elevator, there are cameras recording the comings and goings of every person in the building.

Kim, a resident and mother on the 17th floor, describes her first encounter with these cameras:  “I just came out of my apartment one day and realized that there was a camera facing my door. As far as I know, there at least needs to be a notice put up if your landlord is watching you.”

Kim’s right. According to the guidelines set out by the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario, prior to the installation of such a surveillance system, “consultations should be conducted with relevant stakeholders as to the necessity of the proposed video surveillance program and its acceptability to the public. Extensive public consultation should take place.” Such a consultation reportedly never happened.

A mother on the 9th floor, Benisha, who finally picked up and left the building this past November, told BASICS that back in June 2015 her entire load of laundry was stolen in the direct line of sight of the cameras. When she confronted one of the superintendents, Chamu, she was told that “That camera is not for all that stuff. It’s for when something happens in the building. If you have a problem with that, call the police… What do you want me to do about that right now? I tell you guys when you washing your clothes, ‘stay there, stay there’”.

Click here to listen to short audio segment from resident concerning stolen laundry

BASICS questioned the superintendent Chamu about the purpose of the surveillance cameras in the building, relaying concerns that residents had shared with us. Her response was brief: “Who has complaints with the cameras!? It’s for security.”  Chamu was more concerned with identifying those who were airing their grievances than giving a good explanation for why the cameras were installed. Again, more surveillance.

Abha*, an Indian mother who also lives in 3400, described two incidents where in spite of the existence of cameras, neither perpetrators nor lost property were ever located. “A year ago”, she says, “my friend saw a man looking lost, like he didn’t know where he was going in the building. My friend asked him if he was looking for something. He snatched her chain and ran down the staircase. We never found the chain though.”

Abha also relayed an incident about the cars of multiple residents being damaged in the parking lot. “It seemed as though the damage was intentional, as if someone had hit multiple cars in a row with a sharp rod of some sort.”  In the recent past, other residents have also reported to BASICS instances of their vehicles being damaged, even stolen, under the watchful eye of surveillance cameras. Residents reported that no action was taken by building management.

In six months of social investigation and literally hundreds of conversations by BASICS and allied community organizers, we have not come across a single story of the cameras being used to address people’s legitimate concerns about safety or protection of their personal belongings.  At least two residents specifically reported to us being robbed of their jewelry during building-related repairs.

But the problem at 3400 Eglinton is not that the cameras are going completely unused.

Many have reported that camera footage is indeed being used: used to harass residents about who visits their apartments, what personal consumer objects they own, and even the conversations they are having in the elevators or hallways.

In the spring of 2015, one single mother told a BASICS reporter that Chamu questioned her about a man who visited her apartment late. “She said to me: ‘You’re on welfare, you’re not supposed to be having any men over.’  A teenage girl residing on the 9th floor also reported that her mother was questioned about a man that had been in their unit. This man when her older brother, who came to stay with them for a few days.

A number of residents also believe that the cameras may also be equipped with audio. Karl Murray of the 6th floor told BASICS that: “You can say anything you want in the hallway, and they know about it. A lot of people are saying this. Somehow they know what people are talking about in their private conversations.”  A resident who wished not to be identified in this article backed up this suspicion by reporting that one of the few residents in the building who is close with the super told her earlier this year that the cameras are indeed audio equipped.

The ability of the cameras to record both movement and conversations disturbs many, particularly female residents. A resident and mother from the 6th floor, another Kim, also told BASICS that “I have to be conscious of what I’m wearing – it’s not like I’m wearing anything inappropriate, it’s just that it’s something I have to think about just outside my own home”. Michelle, who lives across from 6th floor Kim, said that “Women in this building do not feel safe… You should be able to have conversations without people using them against you.”

As we were talking to Kim on the 17th floor, one of the superintendents, Chet, arrived and threatened to remove BASICS correspondents from the building.

Though we could not acquire a legal opinion on the cameras prior to the print deadline on this article, a city inspector on site at 3400 Eglinton Ave this past October 2015 commented to a BASICS correspondent that personal surveillance of private activities seemed unlawful**.

Again, according to guidelines set out by the Privacy Commissioner of Ontario, “organizations should ensure that the proposed design and operation of the video surveillance system minimizes privacy intrusion to that which is absolutely necessary to achieve its required, lawful goals.”  

It’s not so clear if harassing residents, threatening people’s journalists, and ignoring people’s concerns about their personal belongings constitutes “lawful goals”, but that’s the law of the land at 3400 Eglinton Ave East.  

But like “the law” in general, as with police carding, when people don’t fight back, “the law” will oppress us. The “lawful” authorities will use illegal, criminal means to keep the people down. So it’s time to stand up.

*Name altered to respect privacy. Unlike the superintendents at 3400 Eglinton Ave E.
**Correction made at 7:36 PM on 27 December 2015. Original article read: “Though we could not acquire a legal opinion on the cameras prior to the print deadline on this article, a city inspector on site at 3400 Eglinton Ave this past October 2015 commented to a BASICS correspondent that the surveillance system seemed unlawful.”

Against the anglicization and exotification

Of a body and a struggle

You don’t even have the syllables to comprehend.

My name is a form of resistance

Because my mother named me for my Homeland.

She named me to belong no matter where my feet would find me.

My name is a form of resistance

Because I was blessed in birth

To embody an oral history kissed to my forehead like a prayer

Joining Air and Earth to Flesh and Blood.

My name is a form of resistance

Because it means hope and aspiration in Sanskrit

across the Crimson scars you have left

on the faces of those who have tried to Rise.

My name is a form of resistance so

just because you cannot pronounce it

Does not give you the right to dismiss it or erase it

And then make me feel like suddenly it doesn’t fit.

Because I respond to my name,

Battle cries, I take charge in my name.

I am blessed unlike those who don’t need a face and story

To ground them to a history they see everywhere

I am visible in my name

So no, I don’t have a nickname.

For I will not shorten or adjust even a bit of myself

To fit the capacity you have to stomach Me.

And my nine letters can spell

more defiance, more passion, more fire

than you will ever be able to extinguish.

My name is a form of resistance

because I was named for a purpose.

And like all things that have a purpose,

I will not rest until mine on this earth is fulfilled.

So I will tell my stories,

I will them for they need to be heard,

And I invite pride to come into the hearts

Of those who wait submerged

For my name is a form of resistance.

And in it, I am empowered,

Loud, and clear.

Aakanksha John

Aakanksha John

“Two people have been killed since I moved in here. Of course I feel unsafe. I feel more safe in the street than in my home.”

This is how Maryam*, a woman in her early twenties and a three-year resident of 3171 Eglinton Avenue—one of the TCHC high-rises at the intersection with Markham Road—describes her life in the building.

“I don’t feel comfortable inviting friends over. Once a friend spent the night, and at two a.m. someone started banging on the door demanding to come in. How are two women alone in an apartment at that hour going to feel?”

Of the dozens of residents at 3171 with whom BASICS has spoken, nearly all have similar concerns about safety. For female residents in particular, the greatest feeling of threat can sometimes come from other residents—in particular, men. Such feelings are common for women who, like Maryam, live alone or as single mothers.

Due to the seeming lack of other choices, some residents turn to the police. For example, after racist curses were scratched onto her door a few months ago, Maryam immediately informed the Toronto Police Service. When constables came by, however, she found them unwilling to pay even cursory attention to the situation: “When I told them about these words someone had written and asked them what they were going to do, one of them just shrugged and said, ‘It’s TCHC’.”

The cop’s indifference to Maryam’s concerns reflects the attitude of the police department towards the concerns of low-income residents. After the murder of 22 year-old Dillon Phillips in the stairwell on September 2014, a second resident recalls the police and TCHC management as encouraging residents to “Take back your building”. In such circumstances, residents and onlookers are forced to ask whether the police are in place to protect or divide communities.

Trapped between a rock (insecurity) and a hard place (disdain and disinterest from the police), Maryam’s only goal is to get as far from community housing as possible. “I don’t hang out in the area, I don’t want to be here. When I’m gone, I’ll never think about this place again,” she said to BASICS.

For a woman in her position, this view is entirely reasonable, and it is one which many women in the building seem to share. Yet when residents are lucky enough to get a transfer or start making enough money to move out, their apartments will immediately be filled by a few more people from TCHC’s 160,000-household waiting list. New residents, as well as the many who are unable to leave, are simply forced into the same stressful, unchanging, and sometimes dangerous circumstances. Unable and uninterested in providing a secure home, TCHC and the Toronto Police Service bring TCHC residents to see their apartments as places where fear and suspicion are constant.

When asked if her concerns about security cause alienation from other residents, Maryam said, “Definitely.” In a building where turnover is high, security is low, and many wish to leave, it is difficult for residents to build a sense of trust in the community.

Yet the police prove, as they did in Maryam’s case, that they have little interest in protecting working-class and racialized women—and this is without any discussion of police treatment of working-class and racialized men.

Under these circumstances, who better for female residents to turn toward than one another? Protective links already exist in small, informal ways—between friends, for instance. But if these links could turn into something larger and more organised, a safer and more inclusive community for women—and perhaps also men—at 3171 Eglinton could take shape.

*At her request, we have given Maryam a pseudonym for this article.

(Photo Credit: Chris Doucette, Toronto Sun)

There has been widespread condemnation of the attack on a 25-year old pregnant woman as she stood in front of Lahore Courthouse, Pakistan on May 27. Farzana Parveen died after being hit with bricks and sticks by her father, brother, and former fiancé.

The stoning coincided with news of Elliot Rogers who shot and killed 7 people including himself in Santa Barbara, California, in his “War On Women”, sparking the Twitter hashtag #YesAllWomen. Rogers acted on a patriarchal power trip, and family friends reported that “Rogers had talked to [their] son about wanting to hold down and rape women”.

In both these instances, men intentionally, publicly and violently executed a gender-based attack on women.

Yet coverage of the two incidents have shown stark contrast. While the Santa Barbara shootings are portrayed as an act of individual rage, the attack on Parveen’s death is depicted as one of many ‘honour killings’. These are frequently described in op-eds of leading Canadian mainstream media sources as a ‘social institution in South Asia and the Middle East’, and are wrongly attributed to the ‘tribal’, ‘violent’, ‘illiterate’ South Asian men, who are steeped in ‘pre-modern’ and ‘ossified’ traditions.

The brutal attack on Parveen and her unborn fetus should rightly be condemned and taken as a call to action against the terrible conditions faced by many Pakistani women. But it can not be chalked up to any misguided notions of Islam, culture or to some inherent violence or madness found in Pakistani men. Such ideas allow structural oppression to be dismissed, colonial influences to be overlooked, and patriarchy seen as simply “a problem in our culture”.

“After reading the news that morning, one begins to think that murder by gunshot is somehow less barbaric an act than by stone,” says Tayyaba, a Toronto graduate student who was born and raised in Pakistan for 18 years. The depictions of an entire culture as barbaric are not only blatantly untrue, but also reek of Eurocentric prejudices that are used to justify imperialist aggressions around the world.

The vast prevalence of sexual assaults in our homes, on campuses, and in the military is evidence to the contrary that we in Canada / on Turtle Island stand on some moral higher ground when it comes to gender equity. Perhaps the most glaring demonstration of Canada’s colonial-patriarchal character is the epidemic murder and disappearance of Indigenous women. Yet such attacks are portrayed largely as exceptional and individualistic acts that have no connection to each other. What fails to be recognized is that the same problem that is so quickly pointed out abroad, also exists at home and should not be reduced to the tendencies of any given culture.

Shamefully adding to the blatant racism, one commentator began shaming other Pakistani women themselves for their inaction, mockingly asking if they “require permission from the men of their families”. She continues by saying that in other countries, “one does not need an outside agency to prick a conscience, and there is no hiding behind the deceptive veil of culture.”

Surely we’re as much to blame for the 1,026 murdered aboriginal women as a whole, if Pakistani society is to blame for their “social institution” of stoning? Where’s the public outrage about that? Or about Robert Pickton’s mass killing of 49 women? Or for the women who are raped every 17 minutes in Canada?

There is a rich history behind the global gender equity movement and women in Pakistan have not been known to keep quiet. Some of the prime examples of social movements in Pakistan’s history, such as the peasant movement in the Okara region and the anti-Zia Ul Haq protests, have been women-led.

Art by Iranian artist Seema Sardarzehi.

Alia Ali, a former women’s rights activist in Pakistan describes the public demonstrations that took place in the 1980’s under what is considered to be one of the most repressive regimes for women in Pakistan’s history. “Despite the oppressive regime, censorship and lack of connectivity large numbers of women from all walks of life came out on the streets and faced brutalization by the police,” she recalls.

The protests were against the harsh reforms implemented by military dictator Zia-Ul Haq that sought to limit the social visibility, physical mobility, and sexuality of women in both the public and private spheres.

“They were active in public consultations on the laws in higher courts across the country. Some of the organizations that came into being as a reaction have persisted and continue to raise their banner against oppression of women”.

Both of these tragic incidents resulted in a senseless loss of life. And both must be understood against the backdrop of the structural violence that silences women in the first place, and the ongoing struggle against it.

Reducing these acts to individual or cultural problems is tantamount to ignoring the systemic oppression and exploitation that women face in both Pakistan in Canada.

Both Rogers and Parveen’s killers are products of the same societal values whereby patriarchal relations – the social domination and violence of men over women – express themselves in the social relations of each country. Certainly Pakistan and Canada are widely variant. Yet, Canada cannot claim superiority in this regard, as women and Indigenous peoples from across the territories demand an end to the murder, disappearance, and violence against Indigenous women.

In a response to the racist discourses in a major media outlet. Azeezah Kanji, lawyer and active member of the Toronto Muslim community wrote to the editors:

Let us not forget that Pakistani men were among those protesting the horrific murder of Farzana Parveen … As a feminist, I am committed to addressing patriarchy in all its forms. And as an anti-racist, I am committed to not demonizing entire groups of men as carriers of an “antediluvian, violent hatred of female sexuality” on the basis of their ethnicity.

It is precisely these commitments that must be reiterated. Tackling systemic barriers requires that people get organized, following the trails that women before them set ablaze to confront the structures that stand in their way.

The following content derives from a speech delivered by Martha Roberts, a practicing Registered Midwife in Vancouver and a member of the Alliance for People’s Health, at the 3rd Annual Day of Action for Refugee Health Care in Vancouver on June 16, 2014.  The title of the original speech is “End Medical Profiteering! Demand Health for All!” 

I’d like to tell you story; a story about a woman who’s baby I recently delivered. It is a true story, and a common story. This story is not unique. It is one story of thousands, a story of who benefits and who loses from forced migration and global chains of economic exploitation.

Maria came to Canada in August from United Arab Emirates through the Temporary Foreign Worker Program to be a low-wage cashier for the Canadian operations of an unnamed global petrochemical corporation. Shortly after arriving in Canada Maria discovered she was pregnant, having been briefly reunited with her husband who was working construction in Dubai over the summer. Maria planned to continue working her contract and planned to only take a few days off to give birth to her baby, who would be sent to live with family. Her story of economic exploitation and family separation is heartbreaking, but the story doesn’t end there.

Shortly after Maria started work in Canada her employer started to request that Maria go out on dates with important clients after she finished her work. For precarious workers, abuse and theft are common experiences. Afraid of losing her job and being forced to leave Canada, Maria complied, until finally she was raped. Two months after starting to work in Canada, Maria fled sexual violence from her employer, wound up in a women’s shelter with no open work permit, pregnant with no access to medical care or health care coverage, fearing reprisal for breaking her contract, and terrified of being deported with no money to provide for herself or her family.

As a midwife and a community health organizer, I was glad to be connected to Maria, and to provide some basic free maternity care until she could apply for an open work permit, have her [B.C.] Medical Services Plan application reinstated, and find new employment – a process which would take her well beyond the birth of her baby. Maria was able to mobilize community supports and resources for herself and her baby – but not every woman forced to migrate for economic or political reasons has this support. Maria was forced to decline recommended ultrasounds and prenatal testing due to lack of finances and fear of discovery, Maria worried through her entire pregnancy about Canadian Border Service Agency officers arriving to deport her, about the very real possibility of her work permit being denied, about lacking any savings and being not able to support her 5-year-old son and her own parents, from whom she had been separated for over 3 years.

Maria wasn’t a refugee claimant, but no doubt Maria was forced to migrate, enduring family separation, employer violence, and gross economic exploitation due to an economic system built on the cheap labour of migrant workers and the unpaid reproductive work of women.

As a midwife looking after moms and babies I know first-hand that cuts to health care for refugees and the gross lack of accessible health care services for undocumented and temporary workers hurts entire generations as women are forced to decline essential diagnostic tests and treatments due to cost. And while I’m a home birth advocate, home birth should be about love and trust, and not based in fear of costs or harassment by immigration or corrupt bosses. After years of struggle to make midwifery care accessible to all, we still haven’t achieved this goal.

Families go without access to health care because the federal government stated it wanted to “save” a paltry $100 million…

Yet our tax dollars funded:

• $785 million dollars to arm 4800 CBSA officers;
• $600 million to build 2,700 new prison cells; and
• 2.84 billion in federal and provincial subsidies to petrochemical industries
• 

Why? Because precarious workers without any rights but with a lot of fear form a cheap and readily-available labour pool, working to earn greater profits for big businesses and their bosses & shareholders;

Because shifting public dollars from health care increases industry subsidies and funding for the security culture and the mass incarceration agenda.

Why should health care workers struggle for economic justice?

Privatization, de-regulation and trade liberalization aren’t just buzz words we use to feel smart. Neoliberalism is the basis of a string of economic and political attacks on the health of working class and marginalized communities.

The roll-back of essential services that we have all come to rely on due to low wages and the rising cost of living is an attack on the health of working class and marginalized communities.

It is time for health care workers to accept that we have to make a choice: Which side are we on? Are we on the side of people? Or are we on the side of profits?

´       Do we really believe that armed CBSA agents are good for the health of our communities?

´       Do we really believe that incarcerating for women crimes of poverty is good for the health of our communities?

´       Do we really believe that subsidizing mining, pipelines, and fracking is good for the health of our communities?

´       Do we really believe that denying public health insurance to refugees and undocumented workers is good for the health of our communities?

If our society wasn’t based on profit – wouldn’t our common goal be health and a meaningful life for all?

We must develop a structural analysis of our economy, of our federal budget, to expose and oppose the grossly unequal distribution of wealth and power in our society.

We must decry the ongoing colonial occupation of these lands.

We must be brave and declare these cuts as a component of ongoing injustices under capitalism.

It is time for health care workers to join with communities in the struggle for access to health care in the context of a broader struggle for social and economic justice.

Leanne Wilkins, a UFCW member for over 20 years and a paid organizer for the last 6 years, was recently fired by her local’s executive for, she believes, trying to unionize her fellow staffers, among other political reasons.

“The labour movement is broken.” Strong words from long-time union organiser Leanne Wilkins. Wilkins has been part of local 1000A, a local of the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) for over 20 years. Wilkins was fired from her paid position in December 2013 for voicing her displeasure and exposing the hypocrisy of leaders of her local.

Wilkins became a union member in 1993 when she started working at a grocery store part time. In 2008 she was hired by the union. She left her job at the grocery store, and took on the role of a union organizer.  As an organizer she helped non-unionized workers, mainly retail workers, form unions.

In mid-November of 2013, she, along with two other colleagues were told they would not receive the wages they were previously promised. When Wilkins was hired as a staff member of the union, she was put on a pay progression scale. Each year, staff members move up a level of pay and after six years a staff member reaches the final level. Wilkins, herself, was six weeks away from moving up to the final level, when she and two other staff members were told they would not receive this increase. After trying to talk to her employers and getting nowhere, Wilkins decide to take action.

At the Ontario Federation of Labour convention in November 2013, Wilkins took to her Facebook wall, stating: “My intention was that if I could get out what they are doing to us and potentially why they are doing this to us, if you put pressure on the outside and on the inside, to our president to change her mind“.   Her local president contacted her right away, and asked her to take the Facebook post down. Leanne refused and was fired December 19 2013.

But her Facebook comments amounted to more than griping about a pay raise unfulfilled.

Anti-union sentiments in the union

Leanne felt that her and her colleagues were being unjustly and specifically targeted for prior actions. In 2011 some staff at her local tried to unionize its staff members. At UFCW Local 1000A, staff members are not themselves unionized, despite the staff of other locals under the umbrella of UFCW being unionized. Leanne was part of the group of people within the local who wanted to unionize.

“The staff were basically divided right down the middle,” Leanne told BASICS; and in the end, they were not able to unionize.

The president of her local was part of the group of people who were against the local unionizing. “She made some quite controversial statements, basically chastising those of us who were supportive of unionizing.” This experience left Leanne feeling vulnerable, as she was on the side in favour of unionizing. “Everyone that was really open and supportive now had big giant targets on their back” she explained to BASICS.

The job of a local is not only to work for its members, but also to go out and try and unionize other work places. They encourage workers to unionize by educating them about all the benefits of a union. One of the reasons it can be difficult to organize, is the fear and intimidation that workers receive from management and owners. But these same tactics are being used within a union itself.  One questions how they can encourage others to unionize, when they themselves are subjecting their own employees to fear and intimidation.

Targeted for challenging the leadership?

Just a few months after the failed attempt to unionize, there was an internal election to determine the president and executive for local 1000A. In the 70 year history of the local the reigning executive and presidents had always been acclaimed. For the first time, a group of members ran against the current executive. “Needless to say our president did not take that too well.”

In the spring when the election was called, the president gave the staff a letter asking for donations for her campaign. Leanne remained neutral in her support for the executive, and Wilkins claims, she was the only staff member who refused to donate to the current president’s campaign. “I didn’t care at that point. Go ahead try and fire me right? I’ll just bring everything out and say I was fired for political reasons because I didn’t donate. And that contradicts everything that we stand for. Well what we are supposed to stand for in the labour movement – you know, democracy, free speech, all those kinds of things.” In the end, the incumbent president and top executive retained their positions.

Leanne Wilkins is known, among many other things, for her behind-the-scenes contributions to Toronto’s annual May Day rally. A participant in the May 1st Movement, Leanne Wilkins has driven the May Day truck since the founding of the May 1st Movement in Toronto.

Broken Promises

The staff members who were told they would not receive the wages they were promised, were all strong supporters of the group of staff who wanted to unionize the local.

“I feel like we were being [reprimanded] for wanting to unionize at the local, which obviously violates our rights. It completely contradicts the spirit of the labour movement and what it’s suppose to encompass” Wilkins went on to say that “The culture of fear and intimidation in our local that our staff is subjected to, is so deep.“

Wilkins has decided to take legal action and will be suing for wrongful dismissal. She has had to retain a lawyer out of her own pocket. The local on the other hand, has hired a lawyer, who ironically enough is being paid in part through the union dues that Wilkins has paid out for the past 20 years. Essentially her own union dues are being used against her.

BASICS contacted local 1000A to obtain their side of the story. They did not return our calls.

Whither the labour movement?

Wilkins explains that she publicized what was going on in her own local for a specific reason. “It would shine a light on the hypocrisy and contradiction within the labour movement, not only in our local union but the broader labour movement as well. This issue is not exclusive to my local.”

It’s no secret that the labour movement is under attack. General anti-union sentiments are being widely propagated by the media, think tanks and all levels of government. Potential legislation like ‘Right to Work Ontario’ – once promised by Tim Hudak, who back-peddled on it early this year to soften his deeply anti-working class image – would make paying union dues voluntary, are designed to break unions. It goes without saying that the foes and challenges the labour movement face are enormous.

But the labour movement is also being undermined and attacked by those who are supposed to nurture and encourage it. A revitalized labour movement would have to first deal with the internal opportunism and bureaucratism of its leadership and leadership structures if it will be able to tap the energy and power of its members to fight the ongoing and oncoming attacks.

Justice Minister Peter McKay tabled a new prostitution bill yesterday [June 4] which Canadian sex workers, allies, and advocacy groups have criticized as unconstitutional and will endanger the physical safety and well being of sex workers.

The legislation in Bill C-
36 is seen by many to fly in the face of the Bedford decision of December 20th, 2013, in which the Supreme Court of Canada struck down criminalization of purchasing and living off the avails of prostitution, as well as brothel keeping, on the grounds that these stipulations present additional dangers for vulnerable women.

The new bill prohibits the purchase of sex, materially benefiting from the selling of sex, communicating for the purposes of purchasing and selling sex in areas where persons under the age of 18 may be present, and conflates ‘prostitution offences’ with existing offences relating to human trafficking. Penalties for all violations will include escalating mandatory minimum fines of $500 to $4,000, for first and subsequent offenses, and can include up to 5 years in jail.

“If clients are criminalized, people are worried about their livelihood,” said Jean McDonald, executive director of the organization Maggie’s- Sex Workers in Action. “Criminalizing clients also means that street-based sex workers get pushed out of the strolls [which are established areas known to clients, workers, and police] and into isolated areas,” she continued.

McDonald said that this could be especially dangerous for trans women, since there are established strolls which are known to clients as trans areas. If trans women are working elsewhere, clients could pick them up not knowing that they are trans, and potentially react violently once they find out.

Fallon Cunning, a transsexual sex worker in London, ON said that the new legislation “will impact indoor work, outdoor work, this will impact it all. As someone who works from home, not being able to properly screen clients results in there always being this underlying stress and fear. That prevents me from being able to enjoy the legitimate clientele that I have.”

The section of the bill which criminalizes materially benefiting from the selling of sex also prevents sex workers from hiring drivers and bodyguards, which places them at significantly higher risk of assault and robbery.

“I’m worried that I’ll have to go to areas that I’m not used to in order to avoid the cops,” said Tammy, a street-based sex worker in Toronto, while Nicole, another street-based sex worker, told Toronto Media Co-op “I need time to see if they [clients] are okay. How can I negotiate prices and condoms if they’re worried about a cop catching them?”

The government’s decision has come under fire from numerous sex workers, allies, and advocacy groups for conflating consensual sex work with human trafficking. This false equivalency can result in people who have been trafficked or abused becoming further marginalized, said Naomi Sayers, former sex worker and founder of kwetoday.com. “If a client is witness to exploitation, he or she can’t go to the police.”

Nikki Thomas, former Executive Director of Sex Professionals of Canada (SPOC), wrote in her recent article ‘The Five Fatal Flaws of the Abolitionist Approach’ that clients have on numerous occasions assisted her in investigating suspected abuse or coercion in sex work establishments. “By providing me with this information, I was able to relay the name of the sex worker and agency owner to Detective Wendy Leaver, former head of the Special Victims Section of Toronto Police Services’ Sex Crimes Unit, and she was able to intervene and stop the exploitation immediately.”

According to C., a Toronto-based sex worker who requested anonymity, sex workers who solicit online often request references from clients before meeting them, which becomes next to impossible if clients must operate under false identities. “If we are able to request references, it’s actually safer than online dating,” she said.

Fears of sex worker safety being compromised under the so-called ‘Nordic Model’ have been further confirmed by a recent study published in the British Medical Journal Open, showing criminalization of clients renders sex workers more vulnerable to direct violence, as well as health risks such as sexual transmitted infections– a reality which, according to Cunning, looks no different in practise from the criminalization of sex workers themselves.

“We need education that promotes health, safety, and human dignity as opposed to the continued policing of bodies, which is an ongoing form of colonial violence” said Cortney Dakin, a social service provider in London, ON.

“In a society that’s free of stigma and criminalization,” said Cunning, “there’s no fear of reporting predators, of being tested, or of advertising. Having all of these things out in the open puts a spotlight on anyone who is committing abuse or trafficking people.”

In New Zealand, purchasing and selling sex, as well as brothel keeping and living off the avails of prostitution, have been decriminalized under the 2003 Prostitution Reform Act. Prostitution of minors, as well as coercion of sex workers, are prohibited under the Act. Despite fears of decriminalization resulting in countries becoming prime destinations for international sex trafficking, the last instance of international trafficking reported in New Zealand was in 2001.

“Exploitation happens in many workplaces,” McDonald stated. “The hotel industry, for example, is notorious for it. But no one is pushing for the abolition of other labour industries; they are pushing for better labour laws and the protection of workers.”

According to Sayers, Cunning, and Dakin, criminalizing any aspect of the sex trade also renders sex workers more vulnerable to discrimination in their interactions with social services providers, particularly in terms of child custody and housing. Discrimination in these settings could be especially dangerous for Indigenous women, who already experience disproportionate rates of child apprehension, Sayers commented.

In the face of this bill, many feel that the only option is to continue fighting. McDonald told TMC: “This means we will have to go back to the Supreme Court, and collect more evidence on people being abused and harmed and murdered.”

“One thing that’s promising is that this bill is blatantly against the Bedford decision, and blatantly unconstitutional. It will definitely go back to courts” said Bella Clava, a Toronto-based sex worker and harm reduction activist. “Out of this, from coast to coast, we’ve created a really strong movement. Whatever laws get put in place, we’re going to be researching their effects and challenging any negative implications they carry for sex workers. But in the mean time, people are going to die. My friends are going to die, and people who I work in my harm reduction advocacy are going to die. It took almost a decade for the Bedford decision to go through, and how many people died during that time?”

Republished from Toronto Media Co-op

EARLY YEARS

O: I was born in El Salvador. My parents migrated here.  I didn’t speak the language at all as a youngster, and I remember I was about 7 years old.  You definitely feel outcasted. I remember feeling that the only people that really knew me and the only place where I felt safe was at home amongst my family. I would go to the classrooms.  Kids would laugh at me.

R: The first school I went to, there was no ESL program at that school. There was one Latina.  Actually she was from Spain, she wasn’t Latina, and she refused to speak to me.  I remember very clearly that she said she would be considered low class if she was to speak Spanish to me.

RACISM

O: There was one particular incident where there were these two girls that were speaking and they were talking about my skin colour. Something along the lines that “We shouldn’t judge him because of his skin colour, like it’s not his fault.”  And I was like “Really? Like why is that even a problem?” I didn’t even know that that was an issue.

R: I remember being picked on a lot. People would come to me and sing Daddy Yankee songs, like that was cool or that I would feel at home or something, and people bullying me.  It was very hostile. A lot of people tried to fight me and I didn’t really know why.

At one point, I went to Mexico to celebrate Christmas. And so when I came back, the teacher had a set-up with chunks of desks, like she had four here, four there, whatever. And when I came back, my desk was at the corner closest to the door. And everyone else’s was at the opposite corner, packed away from me. And so when I walk into the classroom the teacher says to me, “Look, we just really feel you shouldn’t be here, because you’re Mexican and we don’t want to catch swine flu. And so we wanna ask you not to come back to school.”  I got completely bullied.  I was harassed.  People wrote this on my Facebook and made videos about it.

SCHOOL

R: I got kicked out of the school because, well, I was in a classroom and the priest walked in and he started to ask people the commandments. And so I didn’t know them in English and so he threw a set of keys at me. And I picked them up and I walked to him and I gave them back to him in his hand. I mean, he was a priest and I was just coming from Mexico. And so he once more asks me for a commandment which I don’t know how to say. And so he throws the keys at me for the second time, and I pick up the keys and I throw them at him. And so I was like arrested [sic] by a teacher, and they took me to the office and they were just screaming at me.  Like I understood what they were saying.  They were saying I was stupid or I was gonna burn in hell, that Mexicans were violent, that it was all because I was Mexican. That Mexican people were horrible.

Then I arrived at Downsview which is where I completed my high school. There was a lot more Latinos at Downsview and things were a lot more enjoyable in the sense of students. I remember at one point we had a group of like 30 friends and we would help each other out. But as soon as I got there I was told by the principal that I would never be able to go to university, and that I would never achieve to graduate high school, because I would never be able to pass Grade 12 English.

And I was bashed out of many classrooms by teachers because I was called a communist, simply because I wanted to speak about things. I remember one time, this teacher wanted to give us a lot of homework for Thanksgiving. And I said to him, “No, this is a holiday.” And he started to argue to me and I said, “Look, this is not a dictatorship.  You’re not an ultimate power. You are in a sense elected by somebody and if we all work as a collective and decide to walk out on you, you will be fired.” And he bashed me out of the classroom.  He called me very nasty things and started to relate me to a lot of nasty characters in Latin American history. He started saying “Oh, don’t call Pablo Escobar on me,” and stupid things like that.

O: I remember this one professor, he was white, but I remember one of the first slides.  He showed a little caricature, and he said, “Oh its scientifically been proven that those students that wear hats backwards, there is a correlation with lower grades.” So I purposely would bring in a cap.  I wouldn’t always put it on backwards, but I would always bring it in, as a form of resistance. And you know, that’s bigotry right to the end because it’s based on absolutely nothing, and yet you’re claiming it to be scientific evidence, as a professor.  I don’t know if he was joking but even if he was, like who jokes around about that? Why, out of everything, pick that? And I think that’s definitely targeting racialized groups. They don’t understand the culture that it even comes out of.

R: I was incarcerated [sic] by a principal. It was in high school and the teacher said we could do whatever we felt like doing, but our teacher had written on the board that we had to do a shitload of work, like a crazy amount of work. He had been absent and he hadn’t taught any of the material he wanted us to do, and so I was like “Wait a second, this guy never comes to class, never teaches the material and expects us to perform like a super student.” And so I said to the students “Look, if we all walk out of this classroom, the teacher can’t fail us all. If all of us get up and walk out right now, he’s screwed.” And so, we all got up… Well it took some convincing, took me a little more convincing. And so we all got up and started walking out, and the principal grabs me. Grabs me by the shoulders and yells, “Everybody get back into the classroom!” Everybody gets freaked out.  Everybody started heading back in.  And he says, “You’re coming to the office with me!” By the way, that class was very crucial to me.  That was Grade 12 English and if I didn’t pass I wouldn’t graduate. And so he took me to the office and made me sit in a corner of his sketchy office. And so I said, “No, I’m an adult.  You’re not gonna treat me like this.  You’re not gonna segregate me, you’re not gonna outcast me because I was speaking about my rights.”  And he was literally like, “Shut up, I don’t wanna hear you, go in your corner.”  And so he locked the door and locked me in. And he left me in that office for two hours, just sitting there. And I remember kicking the doors and getting angry and screaming.  I started writing step by step how I was segregated, and comparing it to acts of genocide which have happened in our society.  Like I was locked in an office as a student for fighting for my rights! And I drafted this to the director of education. He looked at the paper and said, “Oh yeah, this is a good principal, don’t worry about it.”

At one point in my life, I was like, “Fuck this.  These guys are all racist.  I’m never gonna win against them.  There’s no one like me.  I’m a nobody.  I’m not gonna go to university,” and I started believing it. And it’s really hard without teacher support, it’s really hard as a student. And it’s quite frustrating because you don’t have control over them. If a teacher wants to be racist to you, he will be racist to you. And to know that you can’t do anything about it, that you report it to the Director of Education and he does nothing about it. It’s frustrating.  It’s heartbreaking.

You don’t feel like you belong in the school, all your teachers are white, and they talk about white behavior, and they’re all racist towards you, and it’s like well, what am I? A fucking alien? Am I the weird one? We talk about why there is so much violence in youth, why there is so much anger…fuck, what do you think this frustration builds to?

GENDER

O: I feel like a lot of times we have to resort to those things [violence], or fit into the stereotype that was being projected onto me. As a young Latin American male, you’re like cholo, gangster, like you have to do that. You have to be a drug dealer, beat people up, treat women like shit, be a scumbag, machista.  Even with all the bullshit that we have to go through, I imagine it’s much, much more difficult for a Latina.

R: My girlfriend was told to take parenting classes five times because she was told by a guidance counselor that all she needed to do was go to university to find a husband. And that once she found a husband that what she would do for the rest of her life was be a mom, so she might as well take a lot of parenting courses. And so it took her two extra years to graduate high school because of that, because the courses she was supposed to take were not given to her because she didn’t need to be smart. All she needed was to find a good husband, so she was given almost a semester and a half of the same subject.  Just because she was Latina.

LATINO COMMUNITY

R: There was definitely a lot of pride in the land where we came from and I never wanted to turn my back on mi gente and my community. I was blown away by the lack of community that I experienced here. Coming from a little colonia back home, it was all like one family and that was something that I lost.  Every time you try to explain to people who we are as Latin Americans, we aren’t listened to.  Like I feel that we are a minority and not even recognized…things like the constant need to remind people that we’re not Spanish but Latin American, and the constant need to remind people that we’re not all Mexican.  We’re not all the same.  It’s important for us to come together; I remember one of the chants in El Salvador that is used all over Latin America. “El Pueblo unido jamás será vencido” [The people, united, will never be defeated] and I truly believe that.

Several hundred demonstrators gathered outside the Toronto Police Headquarters in downtown Toronto to protest state inaction on missing and murdered indigenous women. SHAFIQULLAH AZIZ/BASICS.

“The strawberry represents love, courage, and women,” explained Wanda Whitebird in Toronto at the 9th Annual Strawberry Ceremony Honoring Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and those who have died violent deaths by colonialism in ‘Canada.’

“Over 600 strawberries and cups of water were handed out,” Audrey Huntley of No More Silence posted on the Strawberry Ceremony Facebook event page.

The Toronto ceremony took place February 14 outside the Police Headquarters in downtown Toronto. From coast to coast, other communities also gathered to mourn and remember beloved sisters, daughters, mothers, and grandmothers who have gone missing or have been murdered in recent decades.

Photo: SHAFIQULLAH AZIZ/BASICS

“We stand together on this day to show our solidarity with the community of the downtown eastside in Vancouver where the Memorial March has been taking place for 23 years and because the violence is here too and inherent to settler colonialism”, Huntley shared with BASICS.

Indigenous women are five to seven times more likely than other women to die as the result of violence, cites Canadian government statistics. Still officers of the colonial state, including the police, have a track record of over-persecuting and under-protecting indigenous women. In Canada, Onkwehon:we (original) peoples make up four per cent of the population, yet First Nations, Inuit and Metis women account for 32.6 per cent of the inmates in the federal prison system.

Blu, the event’s emcee, shared with those gathered at College and Bay that “when my Kohkom [grandmother] was murdered – her life was taken and this took something away from me, my family members, from people in my community”. When describing how healing and solutions to end the violence requires the collective efforts of community members, Blu stated, “we ask the men to help, to stand beside us, to support us as we are a community and a community involves everybody”.

Tobacco ties were handed out to participants as the Strawberry Ceremony progressed into a march from Toronto Police Headquarters to the 519 Church Street Community Centre. As an indigenous medicine, tobacco is seen as a plant responsible for acting as a medium for communication with the Creator, with its smoke seen as lifting prayers to the Creator to be heard. When offering tobacco in ceremony it signifies that those involved are to be of one heart, one mind, and one spirit moving forward with the same purpose.  Those who took the tobacco ties were asked to “tie them in a place where they will be seen, so that those who come will know that someone has been there before representing not a closing, but a beginning” explained Whitebird.

John Fox, father of Cheyenne Fox, led the march of over 200 community members to  519 Church. Cheyenne Fox of the Sheguiandah First Nation died at the age of 20 in April 2013 after mysteriously and tragically falling from a 24-storey condo in Toronto. After only 8-hours police had ruled the death a suicide. John Fox has been vigilant in pressuring the police to look further into the death of his daughter.

Michelle Schell, an Ojibwe woman, shared with BASICS, “I was staying at a Native women’s shelter and I heard a story of a woman who was raped in the backyard…I later found out that this was Cheyenne Fox. The fact remains that she was harmed in a place where she was supposed to be safe. So it’s not just a question of whether she jumped from that balcony or whether she was pushed, but I cannot help but wonder had she not left that place because obviously she did not feel safe after what happened, if things might have happened differently. Either way she may not have found herself in the position of being on that balcony”.

Schell’s insight into Cheyenne’s death speaks to the continued systemic failings that indigenous women are continually subjected to by service providers and agencies set up by the Canadian colonial government.

Since last year’s ceremony, Toronto has seen the unresolved violent deaths of three indigenous women – Cheyenne Fox, Terra Gardner, and Bella Laboucan McLean.

As the march carried forward to the beat of hand drums and songful voices, major intersections were occupied by those who came out to honor the lives lived and the loved ones of indigenous sisters no longer with us. Before partaking in a community feast prepared by the men of NaMeRes, a round dance took place at the intersection of Church and Wellesley. Schell told BASICS that the Strawberry Ceremony is held in front of Toronto Police Headquarters because “it’s symbolic… to make it visible and to let people know that they have failed in so many cases and that they just don’t seem to care”.

“From coast to coast, other communities also gathered to mourn and remember beloved sisters, daughters, mothers, and grandmothers who have gone missing or have been murdered in recent decades” – Nicole Oliver. Photo: SHAFIQULLAH AZIZ/BASICS

Native hip-hop artist Young Jibwe (Cameron Monkman) of Lake Manitoba First Nation created a song featuring Robbie Madsen entitled “Come Home” to raise awareness about Missing and Murdered indigenous women of Turtle island.  Young Jibwe was in attendance at the Feb 14 event in Toronto and he told BASICS that “I want to show my respect to the missing and murdered women and acknowledge my cousin Unice Ophelia Crow. She was murdered in Winnipeg in August. She was 19.  She was stabbed multiple times on her upper body. I came out to shine light on that. I feel people need to know who she was. She was a great person. It’s just sad that community loses great people”.

In discussing where the solutions to end the violence will come from Schell told BASICS, “I think the answers will come from the community itself; whether it’s an indigenous issue or not we have to stop relying on the government…obviously they don’t listen, obviously they don’t do anything … they keep saying there’s no money, we don’t have it, so we have to look to ourselves to organize.”

‘Family Separation’- An art mural by Migrant Youth BC

by Jesson Reyes

In December 2013, the newly appointed Chris Alexander, Minister of Citizenship and Immigration Canada, announced that the handful of proposed changes within the Family Reunification Program will be effective as of January 2, 2014. Together with this announcement is the assurance to the applicants of its main motives:  to decrease processing time (currently averaging 4 years) and to clear backlogs in the application pool.

Most of the changes constitute an additional burden to what is already a challenging process to begin with: Citizenship Canada has been quoted as saying they are doing everything to reunite ‘families’ as quickly as possible. But the CIC defines a family as per the nuclear family model — family members that can come with you when you immigrate to Canada are your spouse, dependent child and the child of a dependent. Grandparents, siblings, cousins, aunts, and uncles are not allowed to be sponsored unless they are streamed into a particular program.

Also, an applicant who does not declare their “dependents” when they  initially apply for the permanent resident form, will not be able to “add a dependent” in the future. This may not appear to be an issue for most applicants but it certainly affects those who may come from a particular situation where reasons for not claiming their children may come from the fear of persecution from either family members or their government.

The CIC’s definition of the family actually contradicts Statistics Canada’s, which in 2002 broadened its definition of family to include couples of any sexual orientation, with or without children, married or cohabiting, lone parents of any marital status, and grandparents raising grandchildren.

In addition, the age of who would be considered as a “dependent” will be changed from 22 to 19. It is important to remember that this particular change was considered to “better the economic integration” of dependents coming in to the country.

In 2012, Canada’s Economic Action Plan was released where the Government cited its immigration priority goals: to fuel economic prosperity, transition to a fast and flexible economic immigration system, and select immigrants that have the skills and experience required to meet Canada’s economic needs.

Research has demonstrated that older immigrants (age 19+) have a more challenging time fully integrating into the Canadian labour market, and so the policy is meant to promote immigration only of those deemed economically useful. The policy does not give consideration to family unity.

But one of the major barriers that those above the age of 19 face in finding jobs remains with the employers’ inability to recognize their working experience and/or their professional credentials. The Ontario Human Rights Commission even considers this requirement for ‘Canadian experience’ to be a violation of human rights. But the prevalence of such requirements leads to deskilling or deprofessionalization of well-qualified immigrants.

Clearly, Canada or at least its current government has demonstrated with its immigration policies that it is not willing to acknowledge and engage in the issues of transnational families.  This is reflected in its reluctance to sign the United Nations Convention to Protect Migrant Workers and their Families.  Canada has contributed to separating families through strict laws regarding migrant workers, since the 1920s with the Chinese railroad workers up until the introduction of the live in caregiver program in 1993.

All that matters is what is economically expedient, not family values! Statistics indicate that family class decreased from 43.9% of all immigration in 1993 to 21.5% in 2010.

Grassroots community organizations such as Migrante Canada, Filipino Migrant Workers Movement, Justicia 4 Migrant Workers, No One Is Illegal, and Migrant Workers Alliance for Change are all at the forefront of migrant struggles in Canada.

These groups are fighting both the injustices on foreign soil and against the systemic displacement of people through what countries like the Philippines call their ‘Labour Export Policy.’ Imperialist interventions and systematic underdevelopment provoke people to look for work abroad. The most important thing to keep in mind is that the struggles of migrants start way before they land on Canadian soil.