Haiti’s Minimum Wage Struggle

Choice Between Super-Profitability and Two Meals a Day

BASICS #16 (Nov / Dec 2009)
by Niraj Joshi

The United Nations Security Council has just voted to extend the UN “peacekeeping” mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) for another year. MINUSTAH will now enter its sixth year of illegal occupation, in violation of both the Haitian constitution and international law. The military force was imposed on Haiti in June 2004 and used to violently contain and repress the popular resistance to the western-backed 2004 coup d’etat against President Aristide. Since the 2006 election of President Preval, it has been used to violently contain and repress popular resistance to the neoliberal and imperialist program imposed on the Haitian government, and which has only worsened poverty and increased misery on the Caribbean island.

Such has been the case in the last months when several thousand workers and students have tirelessly protested President Preval’s failure to raise the minimum wage in Haiti. The protestors were brutally repressed by MINUSTAH and the Haitian police, with at least two demonstrators killed and several others beaten and arrested.

Haiti has the lowest minimum wage in the hemisphere. In May of this year both chambers of the Haitian parliament voted to increase the minimum wage from the daily 70 gourdes to 200 gourdes ($5.32 Cnd). The current 70 gourdes is not even enough to cover transportation and two meals a day. Even the proposed 200 gourdes is not an actual increase but rather an adjustment, since inflation has soared drastically beyond the purchasing power of the minimum wage. However, it is a small step toward alleviating the rampant poverty endured by Haitian workers. The last minimum wage raise happened in 2003 under President Aristide, but was immediately revoked by the western-installed dictatorship after Aristide was kidnapped by the joint forces of U.S., Canada, and France.

But under foreign occupation, President Preval has yielded to the demands of international institutions, foreign governments and the business sector. He has blocked the wage raise arguing it would hurt the country’s maquialdora sector (the tax-exempt plants that assemble products mostly for export and that is slated for expansion – but that produces some of the most exploitive and precarious employment in the country). Foreign factory owners, such as Canada’s Gildan Activewear, have threatened to shut down because they cannot afford to pay the higher wages (Gildan cleared 150 million in profits this year and projects a free cash flow of $600 million over the next 3 years).

A compromise of a woefully deficient raise to 125 gourdes is likely to be passed. However, the foreign investor’s export zones (where most of the lowest paid jobs exist) will be exempt! Haiti under American, Canadian and UN occupation remains on its neoliberal course despite the moderately contrary efforts of some of its legislators. And if outraged Haitian workers chose to resist with strikes or protests, the MINUSTAH “peacekeeping” forces will be on site to take up their military position and lead the unruly back to their slave-like posts.
Demonstrators rally outside the Haitian Parliament to demand a minimum wage increase to 200 gourdes ($5 dollars / day) - which would still remain the lowest wage in the western hemisphere.

India Launches War Against Tribals

Counter-insurgency offensive is really a resource and land grab
BASICS #16 (Nov / Dec 2009)
by Dhruv Jain

On June 17, 2009, the Indian state launched a major counter-insurgency offensive, Operation Lalgarh, to “restore law and order” to the West Midnapore district of West Bengal. In the months leading up to the military offensive, the adivasi, or tribal, populations of Lalgarh and surrounding villages in the district had been subject to consistent police harassment, including the torture and detainment of tribals on the slightest suspicion of rebel activity.

To protect the autonomy and self-governance of the area, villagers formed the People’s Committee Against Police Atrocities (PCAPA). As the people’s movement had support from the Maoist party, the state quickly labeled the organic, self-directed community uprising a Maoist rebellion. Although the Maoist party only played an advisory role and was only one of the progressive forces supporting the movement, the Indian state was able to employ its commonly-used scare tactic of labeling villagers opposed to state intervention as “Maoists”. Paramilitary forces suppressed the movement in twelve days through the recapture of the villages, but did not defeat it.

In the months following the June offensive, the people’s movement – under the leadership of the PCAPA – has continued to grow and resist, while the police harassment has escalated. On September 27, 2009, Chhatradhar Mahato, a key leader of the PCAPA, was arrested for sedition and raising funds for the Maoists.

In early October 2009, the Central Government of India announced that they would start preparations for a major anti-Maoist offensive. What they did not announce is that this major offensive would serve as a huge resources and land grab. The government had entered into hundreds of secret memorandums of understanding (MOUs) with companies that include mining corporations and information technology parks. The communities had not been consulted about the business deals and actively resisted the “development projects” the national government was championing for the area. Areas like Lalgarh, largely inhabited with tribal populations, are mineral-rich and the people recognize that the companies that exploit these resources will not contribute to their livelihoods. These so-called ‘development’ projects would effectively dispossess tribal populations from their ancestral lands and allow for greater exploitation of the population, including a highly exploitative labor market. Thus, under the veneer of an anti-Maoist offensive, the Indian state hopes to achieve the final suppression of tribal populations from the area.

However, the people of Lalgarh are not alone. A national and international campaign has begun to stop the offensive. A petition signed by luminaries including Noam Chomsky, Arundhati Roy and several hundred human rights activists and academics was presented to the Indian government calling for the immediate halt to the offensive and to have the MOUs made public to the tribals so that they can decide for themselves how to improve their lives.

Women from the People’s Committee Against Police Atrocities (PCAPA) carry axes and bows as they form a road block in protest of widespread police atrocities in Lalgarh. April 2009.

The Hudson’s Bay Company

From colonial empire to union-busting and the 2010 Olympics

BASICS #16 (Nov / Dec 2009)
by Michael Red

The Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) was first established in 1670 and effectively became the first colonial government in Canada. The original name of the corporation – The Company of Adventurers of England Trading – foretold what would become a legacy of land expropriation and genocide. For example, when a smallpox epidemic hit the settlement of Victoria in 1862, HBC forced indigenous peoples out of town at gunpoint, knowing very well that the disease would spread to surrounding villages. As a result, 1 in 3 of all indigenous peoples in what is now called British Colombia died that year. The corporation had its own security forces as well as military protection from England. During the North-West “Riel” Rebellion of Métis and Cree warriors in 1885, HBC security forces were the prime agents in suppressing the uprising.

It is fitting that today, HBC is the main sponsor of the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. This relationship reveals how the past and present of this country flow into one another with the continued expansion of corporate-sponsored colonialism and the land-theft and marginalization of indigenous peoples. During the 19th century, HBC oversaw executions of Native leaders along the coast of B.C. and invaded communities to facilitate the corporation’s land grab. Due to the over-representation of indigenous peoples among the oppressed in the BC today, they will bear the brunt of homelessness and police abuse directly resulting from the Olympics.

So how does this legacy impact us in our own communities? For starters, HBC owns Zellers. For anyone who has ever worked at a Zellers store, you have likely experienced bad working conditions, low pay, and no job security. In fact, many women workers at Zellers have actually been fired as a direct result of being pregnant! If you’ve ever attempted to organize a union at your Zellers, you will know that HBC is a sophisticated unionbusting machine. Inside organizers have often experienced threats, intimidation and coercion from a corporate anti-union team flown in from Alberta at the first hint of union activity.

Recently, HBC was purchased by an American investment firm. The new owners have also engaged in union busting at the few facilities that are organized. In the latest round of negotiations at the Zellers warehouse in Scarborough, CAW members were forced to hit the picket line after the company demanded massive concessions. After three months on strike, the workers voted 83% in favour of a new contract with wage increases and protections against further concessions. The success of the strike was largely due to massive support from the labour movement and solidarity pickets at HBC facilities across the country.

While this strike was occurring, UFCW successfully unionized an HBC warehouse in Etobicoke. This facility is adjacent to another HBC warehouse that has been unionized with UFCW for more than 20 years. Sure enough, the corporation ran a well-oiled smear campaign against the union leading up to the certification vote. HBC hired one of the richest anti-union law firms in the land – Hicks Morley – a bunch of sophisticated thugs who are paid big bags of cash every time the company attempts to defeat an organizing campaign. However, the workers prevailed and won their vote.

However, HBC has currently tied up the certification process for the new union with legal wrangling at the Ontario Labour Relations Board. By flooding the voters’ list with people who have not worked at the warehouse for many years, HBC hopes to defeat the union by tilting the ballots in favour of the company. While it remains clear to a majority of workers that they want their union, it will be government appointees at the Labour Board who will make the final decision in December of this year.

There are three decisive actions BASICS readers can take to challenge the corporate-sponsored colonialism of HBC. If you work at a Zellers or HBC location, you can build an inside organizing committee with your co-workers and start fighting for better wages and fair treatment. If you shop at Zellers, you can talk to workers and encourage them to stand up for their rights. Finally, you can join numerous community and Native groups that are resisting the oppression, racism and colonial legacy of the Olympics.

Guilty Pleas and the “Toronto 18”

Questioning Canada’s Terror Convictions

by Kabir Joshi-Vijayan
BASICS #16 (Nov / Dec 2009)

Last month, twenty-four-year-old Zakaria Amara pled guilty to terrorism charges arising from the 2006 allegations that a radical “homegrown” Islamic terrorist cell was plotting large-scale terrorist attacks in Ontario, including bombing the Toronto Stock Exchange and storming Parliament.

Much of the investigation, charges and legal proceedings in the case have been facilitated through the overreaching powers granted under Canada’s Anti-Terror legislation, while the case itself is seen as a major test of these anti-terror laws. Coincidentally the brutal 2006 commando-style raids (involving over 400 heavily armed police and security forces) that ended with the arrest of 13 men and 5 teenagers (dubbed the “Toronto 18”) took place on the eve of a parliamentary vote on whether or not to extend the then soon to expire anti-terrorism laws.

This legislation was also crucial to the nonsensical conviction last year of one of the youth in the case - Nishanthan Yogakrishnan (who was 17 at the time of his arrest). While the presiding judge acknowledged that Yogakrishnan may not have known of any terrorist plot, he was nonetheless convicted of participating in activities (shoplifting) that facilitated that plot!
As of the writing of this article, 7 of the original 18 men and teenagers have had their charges dropped while six men are still awaiting trial (two of whom are being inhumanely held in solitary confinement). Within the last year and following Yogakrishnan’s conviction, 4 other men (all in their 20s) have plead guilty to knowingly participating in a terrorist group and/or intending to cause an explosion for the benefit of a terrorist group.

The response to the five convictions from security officials, media commentators and the wider public has been to rebuke those who expressed doubts about the existence of the terror cell or a viable terror plot. They say that the guilty pleas speak for themselves, and prove that Canada’s Anti-terrorism legislation is “protecting the safety and security of Canadians”. They also ridiculed those community members who rejected the fear-mongering created from the arrests or who advocated for the protection of the civil liberties of the accused. Canada’s Spy chief, Richard Fadden chastised, “Many … have come to see the fight against terrorism by the government as an overreaction or as an assault on liberty…Terrorism is the ultimate attack on liberties”.

Yet the guilty pleas are not in themselves evidence of guilt. Every conviction to date hinges on allegations that have never been tested in court– most significantly the concreteness of a terrorist plot or the existence of an actual terrorist cell. The prosecution will test their evidence only when the remaining six accused have had their trials (and by some accounts most of these men are only charged with participating in camping expeditions characterized as “terror training camps” by the prosecution, yet characterized as a “religious recreational retreats” by the prosecution’s own witness!)

The prosecution must also explain the extent of the role played by at least two highly-paid police moles (collectively compensated 4.5 million dollars) brought in only after months of security surveillance had reached an impasse. Were these provocateurs? It has already been revealed in pre-trial testimony that these infiltrators provided the accused money, expertise, training, bomb material and possibly the plot idea itself.

Other reasons for pleading guilty could be based on fear of getting full justice after the outrageous ruling against Nishanthan Yogakrishnan, combined with complaints of inadequate funding for their defense through the defective legal aid program and the fear of losing credit for the three years of pre-trial detention already endured. Incidentally, a bill is close to being passed that will prevent judges from granting twice the time already served to be subtracted from final conviction sentences.

The reality is that the public has limited information about “Canada’s largest terrorism trial” because many of the details have been withheld due to a publication ban. Even the defense counsel has been denied some critical information related to evidence (kept “secret” on the grounds of national security).

The reality is also that both CSIS and the RCMP have a history criminal behavior and routinely and maliciously abuse their power in service of the Canadian state. One obvious political payoff from successful convictions in the “Toronto 11” will be justification for expanding state power (in the maintenance of oppressive legislation) that can then be used to further repress and criminalize dissent within state borders.

Most recently two Muslim men (Adil Charkaoui and Abousifian Abdelrazik) accused of terrorism, harassed and abused by Canada’s investigative agencies and imprisoned or banished by the Canadian state have been cleared of all charges. It only took six traumatic years to get to that point – along with nonstop solidarity and public civil rights campaigns from a group of dedicated people who happened to be skeptical.

Crisis of Public Sector Workers

McMaster TAs go on strike as UofT Sessionals Set to Walk Out

BASICS #16 (Nov / Dec 2009)
by Farshad Azadian and Noaman Ali

Hundreds of teaching and research assistants at McMaster University in Hamilton set up picket lines at three different entrances on Monday, November 2, after the university administration tabled an offer that actually was a step backward from an offer they had tabled earlier. The administration thereafter walked away from the table and thus forced the union out on strike.

Meanwhile at the University of Toronto, sessional lecturers are getting ready to go on strike next Monday, November 9 as the university administration also drags its feet in negotiations. The tactics used by these administrations echo the ones that forced over 3400 academic workers out on strike at York University in a three month strike that began almost one year ago in November 2008 and ended in January 2009. That strike was ended after Dalton McGuinty’s Liberal government legislated the strikers back to work. Although many people were angry at the union for being out on strike so long, it becomes clear from the current labour unrest that the problem is a systemic one and not limited to certain unions.

Since so many communities in Ontario rely on the public university system, the provincial government and employers try to set people in communities against the workers. The same pattern was seen in during the inside and outside Toronto city workers strike of summer 2009. That strike was also caused by the City of Toronto administration looking to gut workers’ wages and benefits. These attacks on workers come just as McGuinty’s government has expressed its intention to attack public sector workers in particular, along with the entire working class through service cuts, as a means of “solving” the government deficit that is supposedly a result of the economic crisis.

But the crisis wasn’t caused by workers, it is a built-in feature of the capitalist economic system, that for the last many decades has made a small minority immensely wealthy. Despite this, workers are expected to pay for it, as with the $270 billion bailout to big banks and industries funded by taxpayer money. The huge deficit at the federal and provincial levels – a deficit caused by the bailout – has instead been downloaded on our communities and our workplaces, through expected concessions at the bargaining table and through cuts to services such as housing, childcare and recreation centers that will probably result in increasing user fees.

University workers need to be prepared to play hardball against the anti-worker policies of the university administrations, who force workers out on strike by making offers with little substance that they know will be refused. Working class people should take an example from the important stand that university workers are making and be prepared to support them on the picket lines.

Province-Wide Day of Action for a Poverty Free Ontario

BASICS #16 (Nov / Dec 2009)
by Corrie Sakaluk

Since the 1990’s, the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS) has organized province-wide days of action in Ontario as part of our ongoing struggle for affordable post-secondary education. This year other groups have joined forces with the CFS through the Coalition for a Poverty-Free Ontario to host another mass mobilization on November 5.

According to Shelley Melanson, Ontario Chairperson of the Canadian Federation of Students, the motivation for bringing groups in different sectors for this day of action is because “the government has already announced that there will be cuts to funding in the 2010 budget” and, in the past, different social justice groups have been pitted against one other and divided.
Melanson believes that now more than ever Ontario citizens “need to make it clear to the government that we are united on these issues”.

While increased unity on issues that affect all working people in Ontario is a positive step forward, there continue to be disagreements on Toronto campuses between student union organizers who (by the nature of their positions) are more heavily involved in national and provincial decision-making bodies of the CFS, and other radical political organizers. These tensions also filter out into the many communities connected to current students.

One major question is whether lobbying the government and pulling media stunts such as the November 5th Day of Action with the aim of swaying public opinion and influencing elections is an effective use of time and resources. In terms of affordable education, there have been few gains on a provincial level since the tuition freeze of 2005 was lifted by Dalton McGuinty’s Liberal party...only to be re-elected in similar numbers shortly afterwards.

Achieving unity around a united goal has also been difficult. Another major point of contention on campuses in Toronto and across Ontario remains: should our primary call be “reduce tuition fees” or “eliminate tuition fees, free education for all”.

Over the past two years, CFS-member students unions have developed a new CFS campaign slogan “Drop Fees”, which is meant to bridge the divide between these two different positions with a catch-all phrase that can include both perspectives. This diverges substantially from the very specific “Reduce Tuition Fees” CFS campaign of the early 2000’s.

Melanson explained to BASICS that “the Federation believes that the best access to education comes from free education and at all times that should always be our goal. At the same time, we recognize that... in Ontario we have the highest tuition fees in the country so it puts us in a good negotiating position with the government...to call for return to the tuition levels of the 2005 freeze and then begin incremental reductions. The Drop Fees campaign has been designed to encapsulate what our end goal is as well as what we are working for in the immediate future”.

According to Melanson, after the Day of Action CFS representatives will be devoting their energy towards lobbying days with government representatives throughout the month of December in the hopes that the 2010 provincial budget will show new investment in post-secondary education.

Given the unsurprising non-responsiveness of the provincial government to lobbying in Ontario since the tuition freeze was lifted in 2005, it is difficult to have faith that these meetings will result in very much in terms of concrete gains for working people. But it’s clear that tactics focused on reforming the system will not be abandoned by elected student union and CFS representatives anytime soon.

This being the case, it is up to other students to do our own political work alongside these lobbying-based efforts.

No government, regardless of who is office, is truly going to have the interests of working people at heart. Lobbying cannot be our only or even primary way forward.
Coming together in anti-poverty coalitions to support a Day of Action is definitely positive and constructive.

We must also continue to organize ourselves separately, create collectively-directed revolutionary political education programs, and develop other student-based mass organizations with different organizing strategies to help protect our education and our livelihoods.

The Struggle of Sessional Lecturers for Job Security at U of T

An Interview with Dr. Krista Hunt, member of CUPE 3902 Unit 3 and a BASICS supporter


BASICS #16 (Nov / Dec 2009)
by Luis Granados Ceja

Sessional Lecturers at UofT have been in bargaining for several months, and could be on strke as of November 9th. Many UofT Students, including supporters of BASICS Free Community Newsletter have been actively building a solidarity network on campus called Students In
Support of CUPE 3902.

BASICS: What are the demands of CUPE 3902-Unit 3?

Krista Hunt: The bargaining team is looking for a wage increase of 3%, which is the same amount of a wage increase that the Teacher Assistants got in our union. It covers basic cost of living increase. In addition to that, the other major thing is job security because currently we have no job security: we have to reapply for courses every 4 months or 8 months. People don’t know if they can afford to pay their rent or their mortgage; they can’t really plan ahead at all. The third is having some time allocated and funding allocated for sessional lecturers to do research because a key component of teaching is staying current in your field and publishing your research.

BASICS: A lot of students don’t seem to know that their professors are not full professors. Can you explain a little bit more what exactly a “sessional lecturer” is?

KH: A sessional lecturer is somebody who has graduated with a PhD and has not been hired in a full time position. The university relies on 30% of its courses to be taught by sessional faculty. There’s this myth that contract faculty are second-rate academics but in fact the system is set up that way. We have internalized that myth of meritocracy.

BASICS: How would you respond to the accusations that a strike could become prolonged and adversely affect students?

KH: The union has been willing to bargain, we actually started bargaining early in the summer to make sure that there was time for negotiations. So from my perspective the university is the one that is putting students in the position of having their classes interrupted. I don’t know if people know this, but the university actually makes money when we’re on strike because they don’t have to pay us. It’s in the best interests of both the workers and the students to have professors who are committed to the university and that the employer recognizes that with job security and a living wage.

BASICS: Do you feel that the university’s push for underpaid casual labour is indicative of a wider trend in Canada?

KH: Definitely, we see that the university is, interestingly enough, producing its own flexible labour pool. You graduate. You have no work... Your loans come due. What do you do? You take the contracts and people end up there terminally in these positions because there aren’t any other options.

BASICS: How can students demonstrate their support?

KH: I would say make sure we’re not divided. I think that if you’re interested in quality education, I would say strategically, that students need to come out in support of us – and make that support vocally known.

Canada’s Cell Phone Monopoly

...and why you can’t get an affordable cell phone plan in Canada

BASICS #16 (Nov/Dec 2009)
by Derek Rosin
On Thursday October 29, regulators in Canada barred Globalive, an Egyptian-owned cell phone company, from operating in Canada.

Globalive was promising to charge lower fees for cell phone services, but the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) barred them, arguing that the degree of foreign ownership makes it illegal for them to do business here.

The whole Globalive story is worth taking a look at because it gives us an example of exactly how capitalism operates in this country, not to mention why our cell phone bills are so high. Today, Canada’s economy is controlled by what amounts to monopolies – massive conglomerates or associations of businesses that are massive enough to carve up markets amongst themselves and therefore drive up the price of their commodities to maximize profits.

In the telecommunications and wireless business world, Canada’s “Big Three” monopolies are Rogers, Bell (BCE), and Telus. Together, and with the brands they control (Solo, Koodo and Fido are also owned by these Big Three) they dominate Canada’s $12.7 billion cell phone market. And it’s not like Rogers, BCE and Telus are small, weak firms needing government protection. They are massive enterprises, with tens of thousands of employees and are collectively worth around 50 billion dollars!

As monopoly capitalists, they are guided by dynamics of competition and collusion. First, there is competition between one another over market share and customers. We all know this – it’s hard to turn on the TV or go to a movie without being clobbered by their various ads.
But second, and just as important, is their collusion with one another to protect their larger interests. None of the Big Three would want or allow competition to get so fierce that it would erode their healthy profits. This is why there aren’t many substantial differences in the plans offered by the various companies. And be sure that not one of the Big Three would allow a new competitor like Globalive to come on the scene and drive down the price of cell phone plans.

How this fight played out shows us a second aspect of today’s monopoly capitalism: the role of the state and government. The state, and its numerous bureaucratic bodies like the CRTC, play an important role in the current system by regulating capitalism, primarily to serve the interests of the big monopoly capitalists.

The Big Three all came out in force to the CRTC’s hearings to demand that Globalive be barred from Canada. Working together, they argued against Globalive’s representatives, claiming that the upstart’s structure did not constitute Canadian ownership. And they won. This victory means that the Big Three will continue to make mad cash off Canadian cell phone users, who currently pay the highest fees out of any developed country.

Now Globalive will have to turn to government to try and settle this inter-ruling-class conflict. They are appealing the CRTC’s ruling directly to Stephen Harper’s cabinet.

Genocide Washes Up on Canadian Shores

76 Survivors of Sri Lanka’s anti-Tamil ethnic cleansing are now shackled and jailed in Canada

BASICS #16 (Nov/Dec 2009)
by Kabir Joshi-Vijayan

Since January 2009, the Sri Lankan state has launched a full-out holocaust on its minority Tamil population. This began with a 5 month indiscriminate shelling and bombing campaign of the north coast (home to a majority of the Tamils) and included the deliberate targeting of safe zones, hospitals and schools. The bloody outcome was the death of over 20,000 Tamil civilians and the decimation of the Tamil Tiger national liberation movement. Civilians that survived the government onslaught were forced into detention, and some 300,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) remain imprisoned in state-run concentration camps. Along with severely limiting accessibility to water, food and other essential supplies, news leaving the camps report of systematic rape, torture, murder, beatings, forced abortions and even child trafficking by the Sri Lankan Army – with death rates in the camps estimated at 1,400 per week.

So on October 16, when Canadian Authorities intercepted 76 exhausted and desperate Tamil men on a rusty freighter off the B.C. coast, there should have been little doubt as to why they fled to Canada. Rather than treating the refugees (who are suspected of having paid smugglers for their escape from the concentration camps in Sri Lanka to B.C.) as victims of genocide and survivors of one of the most violent and chauvinistic regimes in the world, Canadian Border Services tossed all the 76 men back into detention. All the migrants continue to languish in prison, and while some have had preliminary dates of review set with the Immigration and Refugee Board, others without identification have been told they will remain in custody without any hearing for at least another month.

Community support groups, including No One Is Illegal Vancouver and the Canadian Tamil Congress have demanded a release of the refugees and a respect of their right to due process and protection from inhuman treatment. However, the Canadian government has responded by casting the asylum-seekers as criminals in the media, and saying that they must be screened for “connections to terrorism” (Tamil Tigers). Yet who will the Canadian government ultimately collaborate with to investigate the refugees? Sri Lanka, a state that has murdered some 370,000 Tamil civilians (and continues to murder) in operations since its independence. And even if some of the men have participated in the Tamil Liberation movement, is it a crime to resist a genocidal regime?

Canada is a signatory to the international convention for the protection of refugees, and therefore must meet its moral and legal obligation to protect the 76 Tamil men who, if deported, will be thrown back into concentration camps, face torture and perhaps be executed.

Rock to the Rescue

Benefit concert raises more than $700 for disaster relief in the Philippines
BASICS #16 (Nov/Dec 2009)
by J.D. Benjamin

On October 24, it was standing room only in cozy Parkdale bar Not My Dog, as the Philippine Solidarity Organizing Group and local rock band Hot Karl and the Cincinnati Bowties came together for a benefit concert to raise funds for disaster relief in the Philippines.

The band played two blistering 45 minute sets of covers, ranging from The Beatles to The Kinks. Not your typical cover band, Hot Karl’s unique style of 70’s influenced rock added their signature sound to the songs they play. The band was happy to help out for the cause and clearly enjoyed playing for an audience of regular fans that follow them to various venues around the city as well as entertaining new guests that came out for the fundraiser.

In between the sets, Diwa Marcelino of BAYAN-Canada, a coalition of progressive Filipino organizations in Canada, spoke about the devestation of Typhoon Ondoy, the slow response of the notoriously corrupt Philippine government and thanked the crowd for their support. Attendees dug deep as the donation jar was passed around and Not My Dog co-owner Russ Fernandes pledged a percentage of the bar take. By the end of the night, over $700 was raised, all of which went to grass roots peoples’ organizations in the Philippines.