The Politics of Baby-Snatching

by Bryan Doherty
Basics Issue #10 (Aug/Sep 2008)

So the Canadian government doesn’t want babies to be raised by racists? Five months ago Child and Family Services in Winnipeg removed a 7-year-old girl and 4-year-old boy from their mother because it was felt the children’s emotional well being and safety were at risk due to their parents associations and conduct. The mother, who can’t be named as it would identify the children, has been all over the news claiming she’s no nazi – just proud of her white race. Her home is decorated with white supremacist flags, posters and, slogans. One day her 7-year-old daughter went to class sporting a classic nazi symbol – the swastika – drawn on her arm. Her teacher scrubbed it off and sent her home. Before the mother of the grade-schooler sent her back the next day she was sure to draw the white supremacist images back on. Children’s Services were alerted and the mother was left childless.

The mother has a long history in white supremacist organizing. When she’s not on the internet ranting about how she has to raise her children in a city “infested by Indians” she might be found out postering Winnipeg with white supremacist propaganda. Her children are likely being raised to hate everyone that doesn’t share their skin colour and political views. But are her attitudes much different than the Canadian society she lives in?

Child and Family Services objecting to parents raising their impressionable kids with racist views may seem like objecting to racism itself. But Canada is one racist country. The systemic discrimination based on the race of families and children runs right through all levels of power: governments, police, social services, schools, health, etc. This country was built through racist policies that continues to this day. Is Child Services going to be carrying out visits to police officers homes after they shoot unarmed young men of colour? Will politicians that under-fund social housing and then sell off the land to condo developers have their children taken in the middle of the night? What about all the children of soldiers that are busy occupying the lands of people oversees – do they go into foster care? Is racism really the issue here? We aren’t going to let this one case fool us into thinking racism is honestly being tackled by either Canadian social services or the government.

Let’s not be fooled into thinking that the Canadian government is opposed to fascism or the racist ideas that support fascist governments. Canada’s genocidal reservation system against the Natives was where apartheid South Africa and apartheid Israel first learned how to colonize. And the Canadian government has no problem supporting governments whose policies are genocidal and whose governments are pretty close to fascist: U.S.? Israel? What about the authoritarian Karzai government ruling under Sharia law in Afghanistan that Canada is propping up?

The solution to racism isn’t to take away the kids of racist parents, even if their parents advocate the most despicable ideas history has known. The point is that these ideas are the outgrowth of living in a society born out of slavery, colonialism, endless imperialist wars, and class exploitation with racial divisions between the classes. Capitalist society is riddled with all of these contradictions, and racism is an ideological expression of these contradictions. Without making apologies for racists, ultimately the fight against racism must be the fight against capitalism.

Merchants of Death Coming to the Capital: Ottawa to Host International Arms Trade Show

Basics Issue #10 (Aug/Sep 2008)

From September 30 to October 1, Lansdowne Park in Ottawa will play host to an international arms trade show, sponsored by some of the biggest players of the military-industrial complex, including General Dynamics, Sun Microsystems and General Atomics.

The exhibition is moving ahead despite a 1989 Ottawa City Council ban on arms shows on city property. The ban came about after community groups launched a campaign against ARMX, Canada’s biggest arms trade show at the time. Under mounting pressure, the politicians were won over and banned all arms exhibitions from all city parks and facilities in a near-unanimous vote.

City staff have attempted to defend the decision to allow the arms show to take place by claiming that Secure Canada 2008 is not really an arms show at all, since actual weapons will not be on display. The group Coalition Against the Arms Trade rejected this excuse in a public letter, pointing out that many of the exhibitors “are famous the world over for the manufacture of bombers and fighter aircraft, frigates, destroyers, intercontinental ballistic missiles, tanks and other large weapons and weapons delivery systems which do not lend themselves to display at most “arms exhibitions” where booths average 8’x10.’”

The arms show will be a three-part exhibition featuring a veritable who’s who of the military-industrial complex. The first part, “Secure Canada and the World” is to be hosted by the U.S. Embassy and the British High Commission in Ottawa and will feature “pavilions” for the display of top American and British weapon producers. The second part, “Tech Net North” will run under the theme of “National Security in a Coalition Environment” and is organized by the Canadian chapter of the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association (AFCEA), a non-profit group that encourages close cooperation between the government, the military, corporations, and academics. The third part, “Unmanned Systems Canada Expo” is organized by the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI). The AUVSI main office is in Arlingon, Virginia, about 12 miles from CIA headquarters. Back in the 1990s, Anne Healey, the current Executive Director of AUVSI Canada, infiltrated the peace movement in Ottawa as a spy for her father, a retired Rear-Admiral and lobbyist for the arms industry.

The fair will also allow Canadian arms traders to show off their deadly wares. MacDonald Dettwiler and Associates (MDA), a Vancouver-based company, produced satellites (paid for by taxpayers for around $1 billion) that have placed Canada in a leading role in the militarization of space. The satellites were used extensively by Canadian, American, and other NATO forces in the criminal wars against Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Montreal-based Canadian Aviation Electronics Ltd. (CAE), a “global leader” in military simulation technology, produces training systems for various military forces around the world, including the U.S. Army, NATO, and the Israeli Air Force – all of whom are currently engaged in ongoing war crimes.

Although the exhibition will be closed to public scrutiny, we can expect that heads of the Canadian government and military will be doing more than just attending. They will also be on the lookout for the latest war-toys to purchase for the Canadian military as part of the Harper government’s pledge to pour billions of dollars into upgrading military hardware so that Canada can unleash even more violence on the world stage. Canada currently spends $18.9 billion a year on the military, more than it spent on average during World War II. This is money that could have gone to creating jobs or social programs.

The people of Canada must demand that this arms trade show be cancelled! Contact Ottawa’s mayor, Larry O’Brien by email at Larry.Obrien@ottawa.ca or regular mail at City Hall, 110 Laurier Ave. West, Ottawa, ON, K1P 1J1 and tell him to uphold the ban on arms bazaars!

When Workers Can’t Find Work: GM Cuts Another 2600 Jobs in Oshawa

by Enver Harbans
Basics Issue # 10 (Aug/Sep 2008)

On June 3rd, 2008, Canada’s manufacturing sector was dealt another blow as General Motors announced they will be shutting down their Oshawa truck plant in the third quarter of 2009.
With this decision the Oshawa community is out another 2,600 jobs adding to the 10,800 jobs they lost in the last 2 years alone. This disturbing trend of job losses throughout Canadian society adds to the troubles working-class people are facing as energy costs and food costs sky-rocket. In the last 5 years alone, Canada has lost 350,000 good-paying manufacturing jobs, most of which were covered under union collective agreements.

Consider 2008 alone, where days before the Oshawa closures were announced Air Canada had announced that they were going to lay-off 2,000 union members. A little earlier in the year, Canac Kitchens in Scarborough announced that they would be closing, and thus, shall we say, draining out another 900 unionized jobs.

The situation in Ontario and Canada is such that the capitalist system cannot guarantee work for its servants and the working-class advocates in the trade-unions are scrambling for answers. Take the case of Oshawa workers and their union representatives, the Canadian Auto Workers Union. CAW made it clear in the contract that job allocation was the key item in this round of negotiations. It was agreed upon that new car parts would continue to come through the Oshawa plant throughout the life of the contract, which would have expired in 2012.

Members ratified the contract, taking serious concessions on wages in exchange for ensuring the long-term productivity of the plant. This was all shot down when GM decided they were going to move the plant to Mexico and Fort Wayne.

Free trade agreements like the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) have made it possible for corporations to make these plant closures and moves easy and without any penalties for businesses. Under such free trade agreements, countries that allow for corporate profits to be impeded by unions, high wages, health and safety standards, etc., are faced with the threat of capital packing up and moving out.

However through mass mobilizing tactics, which included a 12-day blockade of GM headquarters, forced the company back to table to negotiate new terms of closure. The union was able to secure buyout packages for workers which include compensation anywhere from $37,500 to $120,000 (depending on seniority) plus a GM car voucher worth $35,000. The buyout packages are good for the short-term but what about the next generation of workers?

The trade-union movement must come to terms with capitalism and its ongoing crises and working-class organizations must develop methods to unite workers in and out of the trade-unions to struggle against this exploitative system.

The right to a good job should be a guaranteed human right., and this system can promise workers no such thing. Working-class Canadians must organize and fight for a nationalized industrial base owned and operated by the people.

“What Makes a Hero”

Filipino Community Gathers to Commemorate the Life of Police-Slain Jeffrey Reodica

by Steve da Silva
Basics Issue#10 (Aug/Sep 2008)

It’s been over four years since undercover Toronto cops murdered Jeffrey Reodica in May 2004; but time has yet to heal the wounds inflicted by his tragic and unjust departure.

On June 28, 2008, family, friends, and allies gathered at the Wellesley Community Centre from across the GTA to commemorate Jeffrey’s life. The event was organized by Migrante Ontario Youth, with support from the groups Philippine Advocacy Through Arts and Culture (PATAC) and the Community Alliance for Social Justice (CASJ).

The free event included musical and cultural performances by talented Filipino youth, which included spoken word artists Len Cervantes and Myk Miranda, rapper R. Scribe, and vocalist Belinda Corpuz.

The emotional high of the event was struck with the stirring words of Jeffrey’s father Willie Reodica, who recounted the painful last days of Jeffrey’s life. Reodica reminded the mostly-Filipino audience that “We Filipinos are still the targets of police violence because we do not have enough organization amongst us”.

A lawyer who worked with the Justice for Jeffrey campaign during the Coroner’s Inquest, Mike Leitold, recounted for those gathered how it had been the mobilization and demands of the community that led to an expedited Coroner’s Inquest. More importantly, Leitold pointed out that because justice was ultimately not attained for Jeffrey “we need to continue relying on mass organizing if we’re going to get justice”

The event was concluded with vocalist Belinda Corpuz’s singing of “What Makes a Hero”, a song written by Jose Maria Sison, a hero among Filipinos who helped found the present-day national liberation movement in the Philippines.






The empassioned father of Jeffrey, Willie Reodica, tells crowd of his experience of losing his son to police terror (Photo by Alex Felipe).

Vaughan / Oakwood: Profile of a ‘Mixed Income’ Neighbourhood

by Louisa Worrell
Basics Issue#10 (Aug/Sep 2008)

On Sunday, June 1, 2008 at approximately 11:30 pm more than 50 Toronto cops raided the studio/home of hip-hop artist Kama Kazie, allegedly for drugs.

A couple days later the bar/club across the street Town Talk was raided for the same reason.
Neither of the raids were fruitful, no arrests were made and no drugs were found at either site.
A couple days later on June 3, there was a “community” meeting organized by a group known as 5-Points Community Action, regarding a shooting that had happened May 24 on Belvedere, just off of Vaughn and Oakwood.

Although Vaughn and Oakwood’s ethnic make up is predominately Jamaican and Chinese, and is considered a mixed-income neighbourhood, the attendees of the community meeting did not reflect this reality. The meeting was attended by pre-dominantly middle-class white residents who expressed concern about “community safety”. And this is the reality of mixed income neighbourhoods: put wealthy homeowners who are concerned about their property value alongside deeply exploited workers and the unemployed, and what you get is a conflict. It should be clear who the police are going to side with in this equation.

To be sure, the June 3 meeting was attended by the police, with much discussion about the local business Town Talk at 616 Vaughn Rd. People at the meeting expressed concern that criminal activities such as drug dealing were going on at the bar. Only one of the community members who spoke had actually been to Town Talk, but there was a clear sentiment that the bar made people at the meeting uneasy. One attendee, Samantha Goldsilver, was quoted in the Toronto Star saying: “It’s just a bunch of hoodlums hanging out late at night,” she said of one of the bars. “If you drive by at one in the morning there’s people out on the street drinking and people who live on the street feel very intimidated. They feel like they’re walking a gauntlet to come home.”

It’s too bad that some of the hundreds of Jamaican-Canadian patrons of the restaurant weren’t invited to the meeting – they might have had a different opinion.

Tragically, on July 21, 2007, 21 year-old Kimel Foster was gunned down outside of Town Talk and since then Toronto police have heavily patrolled the bar’s vicinity. But a higher policing of the youth cannot be a solution to a problem that is social and economic, such as alienating curricula in Toronto schools and a lack of decent employment opportunities for young workers.

Furthermore, the police routinely set up RIDE programs right down the street from the bar on busy nights, further harassing community residents and patrons of the bar.

5-Points Community Action is currently rallying their members around stopping Town Talk from serving alcohol on its patio, despite the fact the Town Talk already has a license to do so.

It’s clear that the current organizing of middle-class homeowners in the community is suiting the agenda of the police, given that both are working together to marginalize and intimidate the non-white working-class residents of the community. It’s time for Vaughan and Oakwood’s working-class residents to organize as well. We must demand an end to police harassment and intimidation in our own neighbourhoods!

Armed Cops Moving into Toronto Schools in Sep ‘08

by Kabir Joshi-Vijayan
Basics Issue#10 (Aug/Sep 2008)

High School students have another thing to look forward this September - police with guns patrolling their hallways. On June 23rd, the chair of the Toronto District School Board (TDSB), John Campbell, announced that at least 22 public and 8 Catholic schools will each get a police officer this fall - for security and to supposedly ‘build relationships’ with students. Campbell first said the cops would be walking around in jeans and golf shirts “meeting… and talking to kids”, but he was corrected the next day by Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair, who made it clear that the officers would have both their uniforms and their weapons in the schools.

While we’re told that the police are supposed to help with security in schools, a School Safety report released in January (in response to the Jordan Manners killing at CW Jeffreys last year) did not make any recommendations to put police in schools. This Safety Report was written by a three-person advisory panel, after surveys of students and teachers at two west-end schools, and made many recommendations on how to improve school security - none of which included police being sent into high schools. However, the report did talk about the devastating effects of the social service cuts to Ontario in the 1990s, as well as the destructive use of the Safe Schools Act. Surveys showed that Black youth feel that racial discrimination by teachers is a major problem - and that they experience racism from the police outside of school. So the decision to put armed cops in Toronto High Schools made by the School Board ignored advice both from a community panel they appointed, and the feelings of their own students.

You only need to look at the US, which has put armed police in the schools of many of its major cities, to see what this policy will mean for students. In New York, youth are regularly brutalized and arrested for swearing, being late for class, having cell phones or not having hall passes. A number of times, teachers and even principles have been arrested for trying to protect their students. On a regular basis across the United States, youth have to be sent to hospital for injuries received from police while in school.

Will Toronto cops be very different? The announcement from the School Board was made a week after Toronto police were cleared by the S.I.U. in the murders of 17-year-old high school student Alwy Al-Nadhir and 28-year-old Byron Debassige, both of whom were unarmed when murdered by police. And according to the School Board, police will be put primarily in “schools who have the highest suspension rate and highest crime rate”. We know this means schools with the highest number of poor, black, brown and native kids. These are youth who are already threatened, brutalized and arrested by police on a daily basis in this city. There’s no reason to believe that the way police treat youth every day on the streets will be any different in the halls of a high school.

TDSB should focus on implementing community services and after-school programs for youth, and dealing with its own systematic racism and discrimination, instead of making schools a more intimidating and oppressive place for youth.

T.O. Cops Accused of Lying and Abuse by Judge

by Hassan Reyes
Basics Issue#10 (Aug/Sep 2008)

A Toronto judge recently dismissed the charges against two young men on the grounds that signs of physical abuse by police were obvious and that the police evidence was “unreliable, likely false.”

Shayne Fisher, 24, and Valter Almeida, 23, who were arrested on Lawrence Ave. W., west of Keele St., were found not guilty by Ontario Superior Court Justice Brian Trafford.
Fisher suffered a fractured rib, a perforated right eardrum, and bruising around the right eye. Almeida suffered abrasions on his forehead, back, neck and legs, with his nose bloodied.

The defendants also testified that they were threatened by the assaulting police if they complained or asked for medical attention. Fisher and Almeida - who police accused of selling crack when they were just smoking marijuana - may be filing a lawsuit against the police in the coming months.

This comes at the same time as a report was released showing that 43 Toronto police were acquitted for 12 civilian deaths, 50 injuries and four sex-assault complaints in the last year. This includes the murder of Alwy Al-Nahdir and Byron Debassige.

The mechanisms currently in place to review police conduct, such as the SIU, are a joke and must be overhauled so that retired cops aren’t judging their own buddies and former colleagues for abuses. The people of Ontario need a truly independent civilian-led body to oversee the police, because clearly the police cannot be trusted to themselves. And before getting this, people need to be more vigilant of police conduct in our communities.

Chicago Police Rampage: 12 Shot, 6 Killed in 4 Weeks

by N. Zahra
Basics Issue#10 (Aug/Sep 2008)

Between June 11-July 5, 2008, Chicago cops shot 12 people, murdering 6 of them. All of them were either black or latino and most of them were unarmed and/or shot in the back. Amongst those dead were Shapell Terrell, a 39 year old sanitation worker supporting 7 children, Robin Johnson, a mother with a history of mental illness, and 17 year old Jonathan Pinkerton who had just graduated from highschool the night he was murdered.

According to Fred Hampton Jr., chairman of the Prisoners of Conscience Committee (POCC), this is business as usual for Chicago cops who routinely get away with harassing, brutalizing and murdering racialized youth in Chicago. However, this time the people came together to show that they would not accept such abuse.

On July 25th, 2008 people rallied in Englewood (a Chicago neighbourhood) to protest the brutal behaviour of the cops. At a nearby basketball court, more people had gathered for a repast for another slain youth. Out of nowhere, the cops drove up and started tearing up pictures of Bennie and calling the youth ‘nigger bitches.’ The protest against police brutality spontaneously spread to the courts. At the end of the evening an estimated 10 people had been arrested and brutalized, amongst them Chairman Fred Hampton Jr.. In an interview with Basics, the Chairman described the rage of the youth who chanted, ‘Let them go!’ not allowing the cops to drive off with their captives.

Despite brutal repercussions, the people of Chicago continue to organize and resist police terror, naming the cops for what they really are, the biggest gang of them all.

$5 Million Boost to TAVIS... More Police Terror on the Way

by Ellis Mayfield
Basics Issue#10 (Aug/Sep 2008)

Toronto Police Services has recently received a $5 million dollar boost in its budget from the provincial government for its Toronto Anti-Violence Intervention Strategy (TAVIS) unit. The money is earmarked to add 26 new officers to the Jane and Finch and Regent Park areas. Beefing up the police further simply doesn’t make sense in a city that is ranked by Statistics Canada, as of July 2008, as having the second lowest crime-rate in Canada. In Toronto, the police budget stands at a whopping $840 million, which adds up to as much spent on Fire Services, Social Services, Shelter, Support, and Housing, TTC and Wheel-Trans, Children’s Services, Emergency Medical Services, Toronto Public Health, and Homes for the Aged all put together.

Ontario Correctional Services Minister Rick Bartolucci has lauded TAVIS for making over 10,000 arrests and seizing 400 guns since the program began in 2006. That’s 1 gun for every 25 people arrested.

What most people who watch these raids on television the next day don’t realize is that most of these youth are never convicted or even charged. The pro-cop corporate media, such as Toronto’s CP24, loves to frighten and console its audiences with images of tens or hundreds of black youth being arrested in TAVIS unit raids. But we know very well that the guns and drugs do not come from these communities; and those youth who are getting pulled into the illicit economy do so because the formal economy and the government simply isn’t offering these youth the jobs, skills training, and educational opportunities they need. The only solution for these youth will be a social and economic system that provides them with meaningful life opportunities, not joblessness, decrepit housing, and irrelevant curriculums.

Uprising Erupts in Montreal as Cops Murder 18-Year-Old Fredy Villanueva

by Luis Granados Ceja of Barrio Nuevo
Basics Issue#10 (Aug/Sep 2008)



In the middle of the night on August 10, 2008, youth from Montreal-Nord took to the streets to express their outrage with the racist actions of the Montreal Police. Protestors marched through the streets and set fires to cars and trash. A fire station was also burned.

The youth were responding to the police murder of 18-year-old Honduran youth Fredy Villanueva the night before, on the evening of August 9. According to witnesses, the police approached a group of youth who were playing dice and became aggressive with the group of youth. Fredy’s brother, Dany Villanueva, was singled out by the police to be searched without cause and ultimately arrested. After Dany was placed in the back of the police car, the situation quickly escalated and the police fired four shots without warning, killing Fredy. Police have refused to explain themselves for their actions. The Centre for Research-Action on Race Relations in Montreal has called for a public inquiry as a result.

It is clear that the actions taken by youth on the night of August 10 are merely the boiling over of anger towards a history of racism and misconduct by police in Canada, especially toward racialized youth. The murder of Fredy Villanueva is not an isolated incident. Just last year, Toronto police murdered unarmed teenager Alwy Al-Nadhir in a similar unprovoked attack, and earlier this year, 28-year-old Native man Byron Debassige.

Communities subject to racist policing need not tolerate it anymore. Although the riots on the night of August 10 certainly got the public’s attention, it cannot bring lasting solutions. Our communities must create a broad-based movement to end racist police brutality all together.

Police must not be allowed to “investigate” each other so as to cover their own backs. We must demand justice for the murder of Fredy Villanueva, but moreover, we must organize ourselves if justice is going to be realized.





Brother of murdered youth, Dany Villanueva