Daily Archives: September 10, 2021

The decision to declare the precinct a Capital City zone triggered a massive hike in land values, a frenzy of high-rise apartment tower applications and approvals, and windfall paper profits to landowners and speculators, among whom were some senior Liberal Party members and donors, including the partys honorary federal treasurer Andrew Burnes.

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At the time there was no binding master plan nor height limits, nor any mechanism to capture any of the uplift in land values money that could have helped pay upfront for the infrastructure and services.

In 2015 a Labor-appointed committee found Mr Guys Fishermans Bend move was unprecedented in the developed world in the 21st century.

Confidential departmental briefs from early 2011 to 2013 revealed how senior bureaucrats had urged Mr Guy to buy key strategic sites before allowing redevelopment of the precinct. But, over 15 months, at the behest of the ministers office, the department gradually dropped its demands.

The Andrews governments Planning Minister, Richard Wynne, later knocked back an application by Fragrance for an 82-level tower on the site, and reversed Mr Guys rule change that allowed the overshadowing of the Yarra.

Despite a Baillieu government ban on fundraising at the time, Mr Guy attended a secret fundraising dinner in 2011 with leading Melbourne developers, some of whom were seeking planning approvals.

When The Age revealed the dinners in 2013, a spokeswoman for Mr Guy said the minister was told that the developers had not paid to attend the dinners.

She stressed that he had rejected some of their planning applications.

Developers and landowners who had tipped thousands of dollars into Liberal Party coffers were among the big winners from Mr Guys opening of green-wedge areas and farmland to development on Melbournes fringe in 2012.

Matthew Guy as opposition leader.Credit:Daniel Pockett

Among those celebrating the expansion of the citys boundary were the owner, the developer and the lobbyist connected to an egg farm known as Brompton Lodge in the City of Casey.

In 2011, The Age revealed that the trio farmer Peter Carpenter, developer Watsons, and lobbyist and former Liberal MP Geoff Leigh were among those poised to share in a $500 million bonanza if the property was rezoned and developed.

At the time Mr Carpenter told The Age he had met Mr Guy, then shadow planning minister, twice at Liberal fundraisers before the 2010 state election.

In August 2017, The Age revealed that Mr Guy had dined on lobster and Grange wine with the alleged boss of the Victorian mafia, Tony Madafferi, and relatives in Victoria in April that year.

Alleged Melbourne mafia boss Tony Madafferi.Credit:Jason South

A Liberal insider had sought to use the dinner to extract donations from Mr Madafferi and his relatives and funnel them into party coffers. Mr Guy insisted he knew nothing about donations.

An invoice was issued by deputy Liberal leader David Hodgett in 2013, directing the developer to place a $10,000 donation into Mr Hodgetts electorate branch account for sponsorship of an industry forum.

In reality the industry forum was an intimate lunch at a private penthouse attended by two developers with Mr Guy and staffers.

Leaked Liberal emails revealed that at the lunch, plans by the developer to progress an inner-Melbourne development were discussed with Mr Guy.

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See original here:

The greatest controversies of Matthew Guy - The Age

If the Greater Toronto Area West Highway, or 413, is built, the major transportation corridor will have a generational impact on Peel region.

A decision on its future now lies in the hands of the federal government after a request from Environmental Defence and climate law group Ecojustice asked Ottawa to revisit the impact of the provincially approved 400-series highway, arguing the project would have sweeping consequences on everything from federally protected at-risk species to the health of ecologically vital lands that are also safeguarded from human activity.

The 2021 election will not only determine the next prime minister, it will likely decide the outcome of the 413 Highway, being aggressively pushed by Doug Ford and his majority PC government.

Climate change has been spoken about routinely on the campaign trail while leaders of each party explain how their platform will successfully mitigate the ongoing problem of carbon emissions, simultaneously creating more green jobs and economic growth.

All parties promise to boost transit projects and green transportation in general. But the New Democrats and Greens don't even mention the word highway, in their platform while both the Convervative Party of Canada and the Liberal Party do the Conservatives explain an all-weather road built in northern Canada will connect to the existing national highway. The Liberals mention the word in a paragraph about building a clean power grid, Just as past Canadian governments invested in the national railway and highways..., the platform states.

Thats it. No mention of the GTA West Highway project or what each party will do about it, if elected.

While recently visiting the riding of MississaugaMalton, Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau was asked by The Pointer if he opposes the construction of Highway 413.

Being a provincial matter, makes me very cautious about giving a direct answer. But I think Canadians can see the level to which we are committed to protection of our lands, and our coastal areas, Trudeau responded during the press conference.

While he did not offer his own position on the provincially-approved highway (which the previous Ontario Liberal government scrapped), Trudeau did reinforce his party's work on climate action.

We are committed to doing the right thing, protecting the environment. And we will always stand up for that rigorous environmental approach, Trudeau told The Pointer.

Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau had a press conference in an airplane hangar in the riding of Mississauga Malton.

(Natasha ONeill/The Pointer)

The leaders general thoughts on the broader issue of smart land use were also expressed by Liberal candidate for the riding of DufferinCaledon, Lisa Post (the corridor would cut through her riding) but she went a step further. In an email to The Pointer, Post wrote, We must think of better ways to move people in our riding, we must also always keep in mind the environmental impact of such decisions. We are in a climate crisis, and we must do everything possible to protect our green spaces from harm. Any proposed development must keep that factor in mind. As such, I cannot support the 413 in its current form."

An NDP spokesperson did not directly answer the same question when asked if the party supports or opposes the construction of the GTA West Highway.

While tackling the climate crisis and creating good jobs, the NDP will double the investment in public transit projects across Canada, help municipalities fully electrify their fleets by 2030 and make fares more affordable, or even free, for Canadians, the Party spokesperson wrote in an email.

The spokesperson criticized Trudeau and the Conservatives trend of missing national carbon emissions targets.

The Green party referred The Pointers question to Tim Grant, candidate for UniversityRosedale in Toronto, who doubles as the Partys municipal affairs and transportation critic.

Greens, federally and provincially, do not support the GTA West Highway. Such projects eat up farmland, facilitate urban sprawl, and surprisingly, worsen traffic congestion, Grant wrote in an email. The money to build it would be better spent on better transit within the municipalities in Peel and Halton Regions.

The Pointer reached out to Green party candidate for DufferinCaldeon, Jenni Le Forestier, who has done a lot of the heavy lifting locally to defeat the 413 Highway plan, even publicly challenging Caledon council members such as Jennifer Innis and Mayor Allan Thompson who have pushed to build the controversial highway. She said in an email, As I have done for the last 10 years, I will absolutely continue to advocate against the 413 highway. It is an environmental disaster. Yet another highway is unnecessary infrastructure that will create more car dependency.

Conservative candidate Kyle Seeback, who is seeking reelection in the riding, did not respond to questions, neither did Party Leader Erin OToole.

Mississauga Centre Liberal candidate Omar Alghabra also responded to questions on the issue at the Trudeau press conference in Malton, telling The Pointer, The Minister of Environment, Jonathan Wilkinson, is conducting an Environmental Assessment Review of this project. So as we've committed to Canadians, we're showing a diligent and a rigorous environmental assessment process.

While the parties campaign nationally, a big issue for many Peel voters is the decision on the massive highway that would plow through the southern tip of the protected Greenbelt.

The Region is the fastest growing area in Ontario, and as it moves toward more than two-million residents in the next couple decades, how Peel manages its unrelenting growth is the big question.

The Region of Peel and the City of Mississauga voted to oppose the routes construction, while Brampton and Caledon backed calls for Ottawa to step in to assess the plan, with the possibility of overriding the Provinces authority with direction to scrap the entire project.

Travelling up from Milton, along Bramptons western edge and then curving east through Caledon across to Vaughan, the highway will rip through sensitive habitats and valuable agricultural lands, while spawning more sprawling suburban planning alongside.

Route for the GTA West Highway.

(Environmental Defence)

Regional and municipal targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) will be difficult to meet if a huge, 400-series highway promotes single-occupancy vehicle use and sprawling subdivision designs. Creating denser, more walkable communities inside Peels boundary would be redundant if a highway is built promoting more vehicle traffic and detached homes, along with low density employment such as warehouses and big-box retail that are commonly build along large highway corridors.

Its the type of planning tha characterized the 60s, 70s and 80s, before the transition to smart growth and sustainability.

Peel is undergoing its municipal comprehensive review (MCR) a plan for the Region until 2050 mandated by the Ontario government. It has to lay out where and how the Region will accommodate future residents and jobs over the next few decades. Expected to grow to at least 2.2 million residents by that time, both Brampton and Mississauga will host close to 1 million residents each, and Caledon will be home to 300,000 people by 2041. The Region has outpaced the expected population growth for 2031 by five years, as newcomers continue to flood into the area.

Federal candidates and the major party platforms have failed to link smart growth with issues like, climate change, economic productivity, job creation and mental health.

Land designated for agriculture doesnt just produce food, it also helps mitigate carbon pollution in the atmosphere. A study by Nature United explains how protection efforts for agricultural land in Canada can reduce emissions by 30 megatonnes by 2030.

Only 5 percent of the GHG emission reductions identified come from restoration efforts like tree planting programs or wetland restorations. It means while municipalities celebrate initiatives such as successful tree planting programs, any mitigating impact those trees have on the climate picture is completely erased by making poor land-use decisions that compromise Greenbelt spaces or destroy prime agricultural land.

When factoring the additional carbon released into the atmosphere from highway use and sprawling residential and commercial buildings that cause large levels of carbon emissions for heating and cooling, a project like the 413 is a death knell for our struggling planet.

Both Cities and the Region have ambitious carbon emission targets to hit; growing food locally, cutting out transportation emissions while reducing the residential and commercial carbon footprint could drastically reduce current emissions levels.

Iceland community garden in Mississauga is teaching residents to grow and harvest produce in their own backyard.

(Natasha ONeill/The Pointer)

A recent Environmental Defence report shows how detrimental the highway could be. Modelling commissioned by Environmental Defence shows the route could cause 17.4-million tonnes of CO2 emissions by 2050. Even in a scenario where a federal target of 100 percent electric cars by 2050 is achieved, Environmental Defence still estimates the addition of Highway 413 would lead to 13-million more tonnes of CO2 by the same year.

More CO2 in the atmosphere directly impacts the quality of air humans breathe. Health Canada estimates approximately 6,700 people already die prematurely each annually due to air pollution. The World Health Organization estimates in the 2090s, more than two-billion people will be breathing polluted air beyond levels considered safe. Green spaces not only sequester carbon and slow warming, they filter the already polluted air and reduce harmful carbon levels.

Along with clean oxygen to breathe, water is another life or death necessity for humans. As urban areas grow, populations add stress on local waterways that are vital to humans and plant and animal life.

For years, conservation authorities across Ontario have been ringing the alarm bell about the presence of chloride in local watersheds. Chloride is a compound found naturally in most water systems, occurring as sodium chloride, but elevated levels can be harmful to aquatic and human health.

While most of the Region gets its water from Lake Ontario, the streams, creeks and rivers collecting water from highways runoff into the lake.

The Toronto Region Conservation Authority (TRCA) and Credit Valley Conservation Authority (CVC) which cover Peel, are working with the Region and local municipalities to find solutions to abate this hazardous salt runoff.

Another highway through Peel will increase the amount of saline solution used on the Regions roads, and while its better than solid salt it still increases the amount of sodium found in Lake Ontario.

Although high sodium levels are not immediately harmful to residents, it can have an adverse effect on the long-term health of some people.

While sodium isnt toxic, more than 20 milligrams per litre of sodium in drinking water may affect people with hypertension or cardiovascular disease, Peel Regions website reads.

The construction of the highway would also lead to capacity being reached rather quickly, eliminating any congestion relief it is supposed to create. The concept known as induced demand will lead to more people using cars and will inevitably lead to higher GHG emissions.

Along with sprawling subdivisions, a 400-series highway would bring more warehouses, logistics operations and fulfillment centres, in between low-slung mega-retail big box stores. Throw in some spread out houses and, voil, the worst of the 70s and 80s all over again: Few jobs, those created would be low-income, poor tax returns for all three levels of government, massive tracts of land eaten up and more environmental damage.

Single and semi-detached homes in the region have skyrocketed in price but the demand continues to pour in.

(Isaac Callan/The Pointer)

Perhaps the most damaging consequence of a new highway would be felt by the animal world. Dropping loads of asphalt along an environmentally sensitive area with species already endangered or threatened will knock out diverse ecosystems.

The Pointer previously published a piece on the species impacted by the highways route using Ontarios Natural Heritage Information Centre which collects data on ecosystems and sightings of threatened or endangered species.

The 4-to-6-lane highway is expected to run approximately 59 kilometres connecting Halton and York regions running just north of the border between Brampton and Caledon.

The Pointer confirmed 29 species either listed as endangered, threatened or of special concern have been spotted along the highways route in the last 6 months, 21 of them inside the areas where proposed interchanges could be built, transforming valuable habitat into a hub of automobile traffic and human activity.

This includes 6 species listed as endangered, 7 as threatened, and 8 species of concern. In many cases, the species are named on both provincial and federal government at-risk species lists, meaning their habitat is usually protected under government legislation. While species of concern dont receive such protection, they are closely monitored due to their vulnerability to potentially becoming threatened or endangered.

Many species spotted along the route of the 413 are endangered or threatened to become extinct.

(Joel Wittnebel/The Pointer)

The decision on the 413 will create a trickle-down effect in the Region of Peel. Whether it will mean denser, greener and cleaner communities, or more vehicles and residential sprawl, depends on the decision by the next federal government. And its the voters that get to choose who that will be.

The stakes for the future of Peel have never been higher.

Email: [emailprotected]

Twitter: @taasha__15

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See the rest here:

Highway 413 is a provincial plan that can be quashed or saved by the next federal government - The Pointer

The city of Fremont, California, home of the Tesla manufacturing plant, is located 50 minutes southeast of San Francisco. In addition to being a popular bedroom community for well-to-do tech employees, Fremont is home to what is likely the largest community of Afghan immigrants in the United States. Official counts have found as many as 5,000 Afghans in the area known as Little Kabul, but the unofficialand probably more accuratenumber is closer to 30,000.

So youd think that American diplomats and relocation-assistance programs would identify Fremont as an ideal destination for the incoming wave of Afghan refugees.

Instead, the State Department has warned Afghans away from not just Fremont but all coastal California cities. Last week, the State Department released a list of cities that it deems suitable for Afghans who qualify for Special Immigrant Visas, or SIVs, such as interpreters or others who have assisted the U.S. government. In a telling indictment of Californias housing policies, not one of the 19 cities considered affordable for refugees were in the nations most populous state. A very limited exception was granted to the inland capital, Sacramento, but it came with a warning about a critical shortage in housing availability. Like in so many California neighborhoods, the average rent for a two-bedroom home in the Afghan-heavy Sacramento community of North Highlands has doubled in just the past five years.

For decades now, Californias housing situation has forced residents to abandon the state for cities that build a lot more affordable housing, such as Dallas, Phoenix, and Houston. Now this domestic phenomenon has officially gone international: Although a few refugees are being resettled in Californiaand with the affordability crisis, even that tiny number is strugglingthe Golden State is no longer the haven for refugees that it once was.

Read: When the refugees landed

California has been dealing with a serious housing-affordability issue for years, and the problem is only worsening, says Amer Rashid of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. This means reexamining and expanding funding for programs like Refugee Cash Assistance so that the resources refugees receive upon arrival correlate more closely to Californias cost of living. We love to say we welcome refugees in California, but we need to do more to act on it by ensuring it is feasible for refugees to join our communities.

The situation may sound ho-humCalifornia is expensive. Whats new?but the implications go far beyond the plight of refugees in search of a better future. California is not affordable to most Californians; the pace of housing growth is so anemic that children born in California today are almost certain to be forced to leave the state or vacate the coast for an affordable home. In 2020, the states population shrunk for the first time ever, and research shows that most of the departed are low- and middle-class Californians.

This is no accident. The states housing policies were designed with this outcome in mind.

Californias deliberate housing shortage took 50 years to engineer, and may take nearly as long to unwind. Since the 1970s, the state has imposed de facto population limits and reduced housing capacity in its coastal communities, where housing demand and job growth is the highest, and it has done so with the support of a small but vocal coalition of liberals and small-c conservative property owners.

The state of California now ranks 49th in housing units per person. According to the 2020 census, California had the lowest inventory of vacant housing in the country. Exclusionary zoning laws, Reagan-era caps on property taxes, and the dismantling of public housing have done what they were intended to do: keep nonwhite people and non-nuclear-family households out of our communities. This all happened during a period when the Latino and Asian populationsboth immigrant and native-bornwere the primary source of population growth in the state.

The Reagan Revolution won decisively here even among liberals who bought into the antiquated, Malthusian idea of capping the population. The result: California, which has the highest share of foreign-born immigrants in the U.S., at 27 percent, is regressing from a golden land of opportunity for immigrants to a quasi-feudal society, where housing stability is a luxury available only to property heirs and the wealthy. The states median home price is now $800,000. Those Refugees Welcome signs you see on the lawns of homes in California's famously progressive cities, such as Los Angeles and San Francisco? Only the wealthiest people can afford to live in many, if not most, of those neighborhoods, thanks to the lack of affordable and available rental housing.

The refugee signs sometimes sit next to Black Lives Matter signs, in neighborhoods with no Black people. Thats also by design.

Californias progressive cities have shown almost total disinterest in confronting the problem, even as the state legislature has begun to lead on housing reform. More than 75 percent of the urban land in California bans multifamily housing, the key to reducing household overcrowding, particularly among large, multigenerational, and extended-family households. Local leaders resistance to reformespecially in the suburbshas long prevented the state legislature from allowing even the most modest changes. However, the legislature finally passed a measure in late August that will allow two-family housing in neighborhoods zoned for single-family homes; one Los Angeles legislator cited the bill as a way to help multigenerational immigrant households and admonished the L.A. city council for its opposition. The bill now awaits Governor Gavin Newsoms signature.

In addition to the growing push for more housing from the state capitol, the Biden administration is taking an aggressive stance on getting more homes built in places that need them. But these long-term initiatives to bring greater housing affordability wont affect refugee resettlement in the immediate future.

Read: The California dream is dying

Newly resettled refugees are mostly families. In many cases, only the men are able to work, which means that its not uncommon for these families to crowd into one-bedroom apartments. Thats why the State Department didnt recommend California cities, even those with Afghan populations: The state has the five most overcrowded cities in America, and two- and three-bedroom housing is in short supply. In the Bay Area, rents for houses of this size range from from $3,000 to $5,000 a month. But the federal Refugee Cash Assistance program pays just $325 per adult and $200 per child each month for eight months.

In the rare cases where refugees do make it to high-cost metropolitan areas such as Los Angeles and the Bay Area, they typically dont stay for long. Helene Eisenberg, a descendant of Jewish refugees, is a sponsor of refugee resettlement for the International Rescue Committee. She recalls helping an Afghan family settle in Oaklands Fruitvale neighborhood in 2017. The husband and wife were living in a one-bedroom apartment with four children, Eisenberg says. The husband seemed so tired from interrupted sleep from the four being in one bedroom. When the landlord raised the rent, the family relocated to Tracy, a far-flung suburb thats growing fast to accommodate the Bay Areas working class. In Tracy, at least, they could afford a two-bedroom home.

At some point, Californians have to ask ourselves: Howbeyond the lawn signsdo we support refugees? By what metrics? Conservative Texas has three cities on the State Departments list of places whose policies and housing affordability are refugee-friendly. Houston and Dallas, whose diversity in Black, Asian, and Latino residents continues to grow, are much more hospitable to refugees than the so-called liberal bastions of San Francisco and Los Angeles. Houstons and Dallass housing production per capita is more than double that of both California cities. Thats not a coincidence either.

What many ostensibly progressive California cities fail to understand is that housing affordability is refugee policy. If you want an inclusive community where people seeking refuge can actually live, you need to add a lot more housing. Theres no way around it.

See original here:

Why Afghan Refugees Arent Actually Welcome in California - The Atlantic

Housing affordability is one of the top federal election concerns. However, there is no clear solution to fix the current complex housing crisis in Canada.

The Liberal party is hoping to build on their National Housing Strategy by incentivizing developers to construct rental properties. The Conservatives are also advocating for increasing the housing supply, yet the image accompanying their housing proposals is of a suburban neighbourhood full of single-family dwellings. This is currently the most unaffordable form of housing.

The NDP has the most ambitious plan, promising to build 250,000 affordable rental units in the next five years. The parties all suggest solving the housing affordability crisis by increasing supply, especially rental and regulating foreign investment, but most importantly they focus on making it easier for people to buy a home.

Election promises of more affordable housing are effective because they tap into the narrative of the good life. Housing is central to the-rags-to riches trope because home ownership is scripted as central to a successful and full life.

Since the 18th century, governments have used the dream of home ownership as a settlement strategy, a tool to decide who should live where. In Canada, land was advertised as open and empty, immigrants left their home countries to fulfil their dream to own land and build a new life.

The settler dream of home ownership rests on stolen Indigenous land a fact most Canadians would prefer not to acknowledge. Home ownership became a symbol that the land no longer belonged to Indigenous people. And houses dotting the landscape became proof that settlers were a permanent fixture.

As a society, we have largely accepted home ownership as a guiding narrative because shelter is essential. However, the foundation of this national dream rests on the theft, deception and destruction of Indigenous communities.

Home ownership formed the creation of a landed class, as those with financial means could get access to stable and secure housing and those without were left scrambling or were pushed to the margins. The lack of a stable and secure home was seen as the failure of the individual. Affordable housing is not viewed as a human right that should be protected by government.

Over the last century, housing affordability has reached several crisis points. During the Great Depression, the dream of home ownership began to falter. Rather than investing in an affordable rental market to ensure stable and secure housing, the federal government encouraged home ownership by regulating mortgages.

Those with financial means were able to secure adequate shelter. Those without resources were often, literally, left out in the cold. This perpetuated the earlier settlement narrative that only home ownership would ensure stable and secure housing.

The housing crisis reemerged again after the Second World War when it became increasingly apparent that there was a lack of housing for low-income families and returning veterans who were promised homes. The national dream of home ownership was re-animated in the post-war period to encourage suburban development, which catered to middle-class families. Low-income families were left to scramble for the token public housing developments or continued to live in inadequate dwellings.

However, sub-urbanization and the few public housing units built in the 1950s to early 1960s did not solve Canadas housing crisis. In 1968, former member of parliament Paul Hellyers task force on housing travelled across Canada collecting data on low-income families facing inadequate housing. Rather than improving public housing, former prime minister Pierre Trudeau subsidized home ownership.

With mortgage rates skyrocketing during the early 1980s recession, the federal government once again intervened to reduce mortgage rates in hopes of ensuring people could afford to buy.

A similar government intervention occurred after the 2008 stock market crash. The federal government defaulted to encouraging home ownership rather than exploring subsidizing and constructing a range of housing options that would ensure all citizens have adequate shelter to meet their individual needs.

Read more: Canada's housing crisis needs answers but first we need to ask the right questions

Federal subsidies supporting home ownership have shown to be an ineffective strategy to ensure housing is safe, stable and affordable for all members of society. Each time the federal government has subsidized home ownership, access to stable and secure shelter becomes more difficult for a larger number of citizens.

As a society we need to examine our symbols and values attached to housing. The dream of home ownership has been a tool of dispossession and exclusion and has perpetuated the commodification of housing.

We dont need federal subsidies to buy a home. A new national narrative needs to emerge that provides access to safe, secure and affordable housing to all, regardless of income.

See the rest here:

'Home sweet home' is a dying dream: Federal election promises won't solve affordable housing crisis - The Conversation CA

Thursday night, the leaders of Canadas five major political parties will take the stage at the Canadian Museum of History, a space heavy with the burden of colonialism. After doing so, they will participate in a land acknowledgment, an important rite of recognition that they honour the land we call home and thank the First Peoples who welcomed them.

Land acknowledgements have become an essential ritual in Canada, and done right, they are a vital step in the process of reconciliation. They help to reframe the discussion to one where we share commonality and a commitment to this place we call Canada. But like the countless commemorations of Indigenous peoples across the museum itself, tonights acknowledgment is simply words and without action, not worth very much at all.

The debate is a crucial opportunity for Canadian political leaders to commit to real change toward a fair, inclusive and responsive approach to the vital issues of our time. While reconciliation is simply one of five themes to be debated, it is one that requires immediate action and has an important impact on all our futures.

Reconciliation cannot take place without language rooted in action, authenticity, shared prosperity and abundance. Federal leaders have an important role in changing the narrative, but it will take much more than words.

In recent years, it has become clear that Canadians and First Nations, Mtis and Inuit peoples alike, want political parties to stop talking and take meaningful action in Indigenous reconciliation. Recent polling conducted by Discover reveals that 73 per cent of Canadians believe we have to stop the empty gestures and enact concrete policy to help Indigenous people. Again, language matters and while this figure is telling, we must move past the language of help and toward a movement that builds meaningful relationships. Federal leaders have an important role to play in this work.

While the Liberal government sees its performance on Indigenous issues as a strength, only 6 per cent of Canadians feel the Trudeau government has done a very good job on these issues, while 35 per cent feel Jagmeet Singh would do a better job.

Whats more, Canadians now care seriously about Indigenous issues and the progress of reconciliation. Just last week, Manitoba Premier Brian Pallister became the first Canadian leader to resign (at least in part) due to the fallout of his governments racism toward Indigenous peoples. Earlier this year, Sen. Lynn Beyaks despicable stance on residential schools saw her pressured out of the red chamber after years of spitting vitriol.

In short, Justin Trudeau is vulnerable on a theme that is very important to Canadians in this election and the electorate is paying attention.

So, beyond the land acknowledgment, what do Indigenous peoples and Canadians want to see from the federal political parties? As a starting point, 75 per cent of Canadians want the federal government to take responsibility for their role in residential schools. The debate offers a perfect opportunity for each of the party leaders to reaffirm that responsibility.

In addition, there are a few vital questions that Canadians deserve to have answered in tonights debate. Just a few that spring to mind include the following:

I would love to hear their answers but ultimately like most Canadians I am weary of words and believe it is high time for action. We have all waited long enough.

Karen MacKenzie is a proud CreeMtis woman, a consultant and a member of the expert panel of the Canadian Centre for the Purpose of the Corporation.

Original post:

Debate best chance to challenge leaders on actions they will take toward Indigenous reconciliation - Toronto Star

Breadcrumb Trail Links

With 21 hectares chopped off for the new campus, it's not hard to imagine, in future, someone asking for another piece of land for some complementary project.

Author of the article:

Ottawa residents who are worried about the future of the Central Experimental Farm once the new Civic hospital campus is built, may take comfort in Yasir Naqvis call for legal protection for the city landmark.

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The location of the $2.8-billion hospital on the Experimental Farm near Dows Lake has been met with considerable opposition from many, whose main fear is that the project would open the door to further development. Once its sanctity is breached, it wont be long before the Experimental Farm as we know it, is gone, they argue. They are not entirely wrong.

But Liberal candidate Yasir Naqvis promise to legislate protection of the farm, could be whats needed. His plan drew a rebuke from NDP candidate Angella MacEwen, who pointed out that Naqvi was the ridings MPP when the current site was chosen, and he supported that choice. He cant now pretend to be its saviour. MacEwen believes its not a forgone conclusion that the hospital will be built at the Farm.

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Naqvi indeed supported the current site, but the time to litigate the location is long gone. Whats important is to not lose sight of the larger point Naqvi is making. What I am hearing is the concern that this may be the beginning of further development of the Central Experimental Farm, and what I want to do is legislate to protect it forever, he says.

With 21 hectares chopped off for the new campus, its not hard to imagine, in the near or distant future, someone asking for a piece of land here or there for some complementary project. Besides, hospitals expand, and it is not inconceivable that The Ottawa Hospital itself may someday seek more land for expansion. And its not hard to imagine a future government bending to something of civic importance. Once that happens, the fear is that the Experimental Farm will face death by 1,000 cuts. Will this happen? Probably not in the immediate future. But there is no guarantee. Thats why legal protection from further development is critical.

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For years, many in the city have demanded such protection, to no avail. If someone can lead such a fight in Parliament, it is worth supporting. This should be the commitment of whoever emerges the winner in Ottawa Centre.

The reality is that the new Civic hospital campus is going to be built at the Experimental Farm. The best we can do for it is legislated protection.

Those who oppose the current location tend to forget that when former Conservative cabinet minister John Baird handed over a portion of the Experimental Farm across from the Civic, many objected. The argument then, as now, is the same: The Experimental Farm is sacrosanct, you cant build on it. The National Capital Commissions offer of Tunneys Pasture also faced public disapproval. The Ottawa Hospital board not only rejected the location because of higher building costs; others in the city also objected.

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The truth is, there is no location in Ottawa all 2,790-square-kilometres of it that can be chosen for the Civic, without one group or another objecting. There is no site that would gain universal acceptance. That is the nature of Ottawa, so lets get on with building a 21st-century hospital the city needs.

The parking garage is a different proposition, and the community cant be faulted for its opposition. Residents around the hospital want an underground garage to preserve parkland, and that clearly is the best option. Except for the small matter of the $150 million to $200 million it would cost. Unless someone can come up with the money, its a futile debate to have.

Weve waited too long for this new hospital to be talking about relocation now. Right or wrong, the Experimental Farm is it. There is no turning back. What we can do as a city is make sure the Civic campus is the last development project to ever adorn the Experimental Farm.

Mohammed Adam is an Ottawa journalist and commentator. Reach him at: nylamiles48@gmail.com

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Adam: The hospital will be built. Focus on protecting the rest of Ottawa's Central Experimental Farm - Ottawa Citizen

Sep 11th 2021

BASRA AND TORORO

A WOMAN WHO drives a car will be killed, says Sheikh Hazim Muhammad al-Manshad. He says it matter-of-factly, without raising his voice. The unwritten rules of his tribe, the al-Ghazi of southern Iraq, are clear. A woman who drives a car might meet a man. The very possibility is a violation of her honour. So her male relatives will kill her, with a knife or a bullet, and bury the body in a sand dune.

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The sheikh is a decorous host. He seats his guests on fine carpets, in a hall that offers shade from the desert sun. He bids his son serve them strong, bitter coffee from a shared cup. He wears a covid face-mask.

Yet the code he espouses is brutal. And one aim of that brutality is to enable men to control womens fertility. A daughter must accept the husband her father picks. If she dallies with another man, her male kin are honour-bound to kill them both.

Women mostly stay indoors. Your correspondent visited three Shia tribes in southern Iraq in June, and wandered through their villages. He did not see a single post-pubescent woman.

Oppressing women is not only bad for women; it hurts men, too. It makes societies poorer and less stable, argue Valerie Hudson of Texas A&M University and Donna Lee Bowen and Perpetua Lynne Nielsen of Brigham Young University.

Some Iraqi cities are quite liberal by Middle Eastern standards, but much of the rural hinterland is patriarchal in the strict sense of the word. The social order is built around male kinship groups. The leaders are all men. At home, women are expected to obey husbands, fathers or brothers. At tribal meetings, they are absent. Ill be clear: according to tribal custom, a woman does not have freedom of expression, says Mr Manshad.

The male kinship group has been the basic unit of many, if not most, societies for much of history. It evolved as a self-defence mechanism. Men who were related to each other were more likely to unite against external enemies.

If they married outside the group, it was the women who moved to join their husbands. (This is called patrilocal marriage, and is still common in most of Asia, Africa and the Middle East.) The bloodline was deemed to pass from father to son (this arrangement is called patrilineal). Property and leadership roles also passed down the male line. Daughters were valued for their ability to give birth to sons. Strict rules were devised to ensure womens chastity.

Such rules were designed for a world without modern states to keep order, or modern contraception. In rich, liberal countries, the idea of the male kinship group as the building block of society faded long ago. Elsewhere, it is surprisingly common. As a group that champions an extreme version of it has just seized power in Afghanistan, it is worth looking at how such societies work.

In The First Political Order: How Sex Shapes Governance and National Security Worldwide, Ms Hudson, Ms Bowen and Ms Nielsen rank 176 countries on a scale of 0 to 16 for what they call the patrilineal/fraternal syndrome. This is a composite of such things as unequal treatment of women in family law and property rights, early marriage for girls, patrilocal marriage, polygamy, bride price, son preference, violence against women and social attitudes towards it (for example, is rape seen as a property crime against men?).

Rich democracies do well; Australia, Sweden and Switzerland all manage the best-possible score of zero (see chart). Iraq scores a woeful 15, level with Nigeria, Yemen and (pre-Taliban) Afghanistan. Only South Sudan does worse. Dismal scores are not limited to poor countries (Saudi Arabia and Qatar do terribly), nor to Muslim ones (India and most of sub-Saharan Africa do badly, too). Overall, the authors estimate that 120 countries are still to some degree swayed by this syndrome.

As a patriarch, Mr Manshad is expected to resolve problems his tribesmen bring to him. Many involve bloodshed. Yesterday, he says, he had to sort out a land dispute. Men from another tribe were digging up sand to make cement on a patch of land that both they and Mr Manshads tribe claim. Shooting broke out. A man was hit in the thigh. A truce was called to discuss compensation, mediated by a third tribe. In a separate incident five days ago, three men were killed in a quarrel over a truck. We have many problems like this, sighs the sheikh.

The Iraqi police are reluctant to intervene in tribal murders. The culprit is probably armed. If he dies resisting arrest, his male relatives will feel a moral duty to kill the officer who fired the shot or, failing that, one of his colleagues. Few cops want to pick such a fight. It is far easier to let the tribes sort out their own disputes.

The upshot is that old codes of honour often trump Iraqi law (and also, whisper it, Islamic scripture, which is usually milder). Cycles of vengeance can spiral out of control. Innocent bystanders are being killed, complains Muhammed al-Zadyn, who advises the governor of Basra, a southern city, on tribal affairs. The last gun battle was the day before yesterday, he says. The previous month he had helped resolve a different quarrel, which dated back to a murder in 1995 and had involved tit-for-tat killings ever since. Mr Zadyn has two bullet wounds in his head, inflicted after he decried tribal shakedowns of oil firms.

His phone rings; another feud needs mediation. A woman was accused of having sex outside marriage. So far, seven people have been killed over it, and five wounded in the past few days. Because two of the slain were elders, their kin say they must kill ten of the other tribe to make it even. Mr Zadyn has a busy night ahead.

Clan loyalties can cripple the state. When a clan member gets a job in the health ministry, he may feel a stronger duty to hire his unqualified cousins and steer contracts to his kin than to improve the nations health. This helps explain why Iraqi ministries are so corrupt.

And when the state is seen as a source of loot, people fight over it. Iraq saw five coups between independence in 1932 and Saddam Husseins takeover in 1979; since then it has invaded two neighbours, been invaded by the United States, seen jihadists set up a caliphate, Kurds in effect secede and Shia militias, some backed by Iran, become nearly as powerful as the government. Clearly, not all this can be blamed on patriarchal clans. But it cannot all be blamed on foreigners, either.

Ms Hudson and her co-authors tested the relationship between their patrilineal syndrome and violent political instability. They ran various regressions on their 176 countries, controlling for other things that might foster conflict, such as ethnic and religious strife, colonial history and broad cultural categories such as Muslim, Western and Hindu.

They did not prove that the syndrome caused instabilitythat would require either longitudinal data that have not yet been collected or natural experiments that are virtually impossible with whole countries. But they found a strong statistical link. The syndrome explained three-quarters of the variation in a countrys score on the Fragile States index compiled by the Fund for Peace, a think-tank in Washington. It was thus a better predictor of violent instability than income, urbanisation or a World Bank measure of good governance.

The authors also found evidence that patriarchy and poverty go hand in hand. The syndrome explained four-fifths of the variation in food security, and four-fifths of the variation in scores on the UNs Human Development Index, which measures such things as lifespan, health and education. It seems as if the surest way to curse ones nation is to subordinate its women, they conclude.

The obstacles females face begin in the womb. Families that prefer sons may abort daughters. This has been especially common in China, India and the post-Soviet Caucasus region. Thanks to sex-selective abortion and the neglect of girl children, at least 130m girls are missing from the worlds population, by one estimate.

That means many men are doomed to remain single; and frustrated single men can be dangerous. Lena Edlund of Columbia University and her co-authors found that in China, for every 1% rise in the ratio of men to women, violent and property crime rose by 3.7%. Parts of India with more surplus men also have more violence against women. The insurgency in Kashmir has political roots, but it cannot help that the state has one of most skewed sex ratios in India.

Family norms vary widely. Perhaps the most socially destabilising is polygamy (or, more precisely, polygyny, where a man marries more than one woman). Only about 2% of people live in polygamous households. But in the most unstable places it is rife. In war-racked Mali, Burkina Faso and South Sudan, the figure is more than a third. In the north-east of Nigeria, where the jihadists of Boko Haram control large swathes of territory, 44% of women aged 15-49 are in polygynous unions.

If the richest 10% of men have four wives each, the bottom 30% will have none. This gives them a powerful incentive to kill other men and steal their goods. They can either form groups of bandits with their cousins, as in north-western Nigeria, or join rebel armies, as in the Sahel. In Guinea, where soldiers carried out a coup on September 5th, 42% of married women aged 15-49 have co-wives.

Bride price, a more widespread practice, is also destabilising. In half of countries, marriage commonly entails money or goods changing hands. Most patrilineal cultures insist on it. Usually the resources pass from the grooms family to the brides, though in South Asia it is typically the other way round (known as dowry).

The sums involved are often large. In Tororo district in Uganda, a groom is expected to pay his brides family five cows, five goats and a bit of cash, which are shared out among her male relatives. As a consequence, some men will say: you are my property, so I have the right to beat you, says Mary Asili, who runs a local branch of Mifumi, a womens group.

Bride price encourages early marriage for girls, and later marriage for men. If a mans daughters marry at 15 and his sons at 25, he has on average ten years to milk and breed the cows he receives for his daughters before he must pay up for his sons nuptials. In Uganda, 34% of women are married before the age of 18 and 7% before the age of 15. Early marriage means girls are more likely to drop out of school, and less able to stand up to an abusive husband.

A story from Tororo is typical. Nyadoi (not her real name) waited 32 years to leave her husband, though he once threatened to cut off her head with a hoe. He was the kind of man who marries today, tomorrow and everyday. She was the first wife. When he added a third, her husband sold the iron sheets that Nyadoi had bought to make a new roof. Perhaps he needed the cash for his new wife.

Bride price can make marriage unaffordable for men. Mr Manshad in Iraq complains: Many young men cant get married. It can cost $10,000. Asked if his tribes recent lethal disputes over sand and vehicles might have been motivated by the desire to raise such a sum, he shrugs: It is a basic necessity in life to get married.

Insurgent groups exploit male frustration to recruit. Islamic State gave its fighters sex slaves. Boko Haram offers its troops the chance to kidnap girls. Some Taliban are reportedly knocking on doors and demanding that families surrender single women to wed them.

Patrilineality is sustained by property rules that favour men. To keep assets within the patriline, many societies make it hard for women to own or inherit property. Written laws are often fairer, but custom may trump them. In India, only 13% of land is held by women. Several studies have shown that women who own land have more bargaining power at home and are less likely to suffer domestic violence.

Nyadoi tried to build a small house on the land of her deceased parents, but her cousins told her she could not, because she was a woman. Only when staff from Mifumi interceded at a clan meeting and laid out her rights under Ugandan law did her relatives let her have a small patch of land. She now lives there, away from her husband. She sobs as she recalls all the suffering for so many yearsfighting, beatings, cuttings, being chased away.

Home matters. If boys see their fathers bully their mothers, they learn to bully their future wives. They may also internalise the idea that might makes right, and apply it in the public sphere. Ms Hudson argues that if women are subject to autocracy and terror in their homes, society is also more vulnerable to these ills.

Yet there are reasons for optimism. Globally, patrilineal culture is in retreat. The selective abortion of girls is declining. The male-to-female ratio at birth peaked in China and India and has fallen since. In South Korea, Georgia and Tunisia, which used to have highly skewed sex ratios, it has fallen back to roughly the natural rate.

Child marriage is falling, too. Since 2000 more than 50 countries have raised the legal minimum age of marriage to 18. Globally, 19% of women aged 20-24 were married by 18 and 5% by 15, according to Unicef, the UNs childrens fund, but that is down from 31% and more than 10% in 2000. Polygyny is less common than it was, and often unpopular even where it is widespread, because of the harm it does to women and non-elite men. Womens groups have pushed for bans in countries such as India, Uganda, Egypt and Nigeria.

Even in rural Iraq, some sexist traditions are in retreat. Mr Manshad says it is no longer acceptable for men to pay blood debts by handing over a daughter. It is haram [sinful], he says, though local feminists say it still goes on.

Other trends that help include urbanisation and pensions. When women move to cities, they earn higher wages and increase their clout at home. Their clan ties tend to loosen, too, since they live surrounded by non-members.

When the state provides pensions, old people no longer depend so completely on their children to support them. This weakens the logic of patrilineality. If parents do not need a son to take care of them, they may not desire one so fervently, or insist so forcefully that he and his wife live with them. They may even feel sanguine about having a daughter.

That is what happened in South Korea, the country that in modern times has most rapidly dismantled a patrilineal system. In 1991 it equalised male and female inheritance rights, and ended a husbands automatic right to custody of the children after divorce. In 2005 the legal notion of a single (usually male) head of household was abolished. In 2009 a court found marital rape unconstitutional. Meanwhile, increased state pensions sharply reduced the share of old Koreans who lived with, and depended on, their sons. And among parents, one of the worlds strongest preferences for male babies switched within a generation to a slight preference for girls.

The change was so fast that it prompted a backlash among bewildered men. By comparison, it took ages for patrilineal culture to wither in the West, though it started much earlier, when the Catholic church forbade polygamy, forced and cousin marriage and the disinheritance of widows in the seventh century.

Individual attitudes can evolve. In Uganda, which has seen five violent changes of government since independence and invaded most of its neighbours, 49% of women and 41% of men tell pollsters that it is sometimes acceptable for a man to beat his wife. But this rate is in decline.

In the northern district of Lira, which is still recovering from a long war against rebels of the Lords Resistance Army, domestic violence is rampant, says Molly Alwedo, a social worker. But it is falling. She credits the REAL Fathers Initiative, a project designed by Save the Children, a charity, and the Institute for Reproductive Health at Georgetown University. It offers older male mentors to young fathers to improve their parenting and relationship skills.

Gary Barker of Promundo, an NGO that promotes such mentoring globally, says: Theres always a cohort of men who say, wait a minute, I don't believe in these [sexist] norms. [They see the] consequences for their mums and their sisters. It is local dissidents, rather than parachuting Westerners, who make the best messengers. Mentors do not tell young men their attitudes are toxic. They get them to talk; about what happens in their homes and whether it is fair. Peers swap tips on how to control their anger.

It doesnt work everywhere. But a randomised controlled trial with 1,200 Ugandan fathers found that such efforts resulted in a drop in domestic violence. Emmanuel Ekom, a REAL Fathers graduate, used to come home drunk and quarrel until morning, says his wife, Brenda Akong. Now he does jobs he once scorned as womens work, such as collecting firewood and water. One day she came home and discovered him cooking dinner.

This article appeared in the International section of the print edition under the headline "The cost of oppressing women"

Continued here:

Societies that treat women badly are poorer and less stable - The Economist

A teepee set up on the lawn of Parliament Hill to receive walkers of Blinding Light Walk Tiger Lily, who walked from Sudbury to Ottawa to call for changes to the Indian Act, in Ottawa, on Thursday, Aug. 19, 2021. (Photo: The Canadian Press / Justin Tang)

One of the first things to learn about Indigenous communities is that we are not alike. Supporters of decolonization resist the idea that we are a singular voting block. Yet there are some shared concerns and major issues in Indigenous communities that are of importance for everyone going to the polls this September.

The discovery of graves and the uneven implementation of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission calls to action, not to mention the more than 51 long-term boil water advisories for First Nations across Canada, show that there is still work to be done.

In May, the country was shaken by the news of 215 bodies of Indigenous children found on the site of a former Kamloops residential school, tangible proof of the mistreatment of Indigenous children at boarding schools. Truth and Reconciliation commissioner Justice Murray Sinclair has told media that the commission documented the deaths of over 6000 residential school children. The bodies of Indigenous children are still being uncovered at residential schools so there is not a final number at this time.

These findings from ground-penetrating radar further reinforced what survivors told the TRC. However, a June poll by Abacus data reported that almost 70 per cent of Canadians said they had been unaware of the severity of abuses in the residential school system until the graves were found.

The repatriation of childrens bodies to their communities is a priority for the communities affected.

The process of identifying remains isnt something to be rushed, says Dr. Kisha Supernant, director of the Institute of Prairie and Indigenous Archeology at the University of Alberta. For most First Nations it is a journey, she says. The first stage is not to go out using ground-penetrating radar to look for graves. Theres a lot of background that needs to happen in terms of bringing together communities and providing supports for survivors trying to come to a consensus about what should happen.

Despite the headlines and attention when the news of grave sites first broke, the findings of grave sites and the grief of communities has not remained on the front pages of newspapers, and it also hasnt been a prevalent election issue.

In July, federal NDP leader Jagmeet Singh visited the Kamloops former residential school: I just wanted to get a better sense of what it was like, he said. At a press conference that day, Singh reiterated that the NDP is committed to implementing the 94 calls to action in the TRC report. He also called on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to halt federal court appeals that are currently taking place, in an effort to reverse two Canadian Human Rights Tribunal orders concerning discrimination against Indigenous children. And he said the NDP is committed to providing more funding for Indigenous communities, and will work to address the harms done from intergenerational trauma caused by residential schools.

Conservative leader Erin OToole was asked about his position on the flags on federal buildings, which Trudeau has said shall remain at half-mast in honour of children who died at residential schools until further notice. OToole told reporters he believes, We should be proud to put our flag back up.He continued, Ive been talking to Indigenous leaders since I became Opposition leader. Reconciliation will be important for me, as will be pride in Canada Its not a time to tear down Canada, its a time to recommit to build it to be the country we know it can be. And reconciliation is very important and should be important to all Canadians.

The Conservative platform commits to implementing TRC calls to action 71 through 76, which relate to missing Indigenous children and releasing burial information about the students who died in care. The platform also commits to funding the investigation of all former residential schools in Canada where unmarked graves may be found.

Trudeau met with Chief Cadmus Delorme in Saskatchewan, where 751 unmarked graves were found at the site of the former Marieval Indian Residential School. In a media statement, Trudeau said, The hurt and the trauma that you feel is Canadas responsibility to bear, and the government will continue to provide Indigenous communities across the country with the funding and resources they need to bring these terrible wrongs to light. While we cannot bring back those who were lost, we canand we willtell the truth of these injustices, and we will forever honour their memory.

In 2015, Trudeau promised to reset relations between Canada and Indigenous people. That is a pretty vague promise, and many feel that he has not fulfilled his promises to Indigenous people. One of the major campaign promises was fulfilled: a 2019 inquiry into murdered and missing indigenous women and girls. The 2021 Liberal platform now says that the Liberals will confront the legacy of residential schools by providing funding for research for discovering unmarked graves.

Before his first election victory in 2015, Trudeau had also promised to address all 94 calls to action set out by the TRC report, but as of last year had covered only eight, according to the Yellowhead Institute, a First Nation-led think tank.

In July, as the country was gripped by an unprecedented heat wave, a major new report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was released, and a grim picture of the reality of climate change became even clearer to Canadians. (Chatelaine covered this subject and its connection to the 2021 election here.) However, five months before the IPCC made international news, Indigenous Climate Action, an Indigenous-led organization concerned about climate change, released a report titled Decolonizing Climate Policy in Canada. The report notes that although Indigenous people are referenced repeatedly in discussions on climate change, many of the policies put forth by the Trudeau government conflict with federal commitments to engage with First Nations in a way that upholds their rights to self-determination. Issues around land sovereignty and pipeline expansion through Indigenous communities still need to be addressed by all Canadian political parties.

The report states, The Federal climate plans egregiously fail to address the fossil fuel industry as a driver of climate change, a violator of Indigenous rights, and a major contributor to the vulnerabilization of Indigenous communities and Nations by way of impacts on waters, lands, livelihoods and food systems.

Many of the issues Indigenous communities face are interconnected, which Trudeau noted on a panel on gender equality he spoke at in Argentina. What does a gender lens have to do with building this new highway or this new pipeline? Well, there are impacts when you bring construction workers into a rural areathere are social impacts because they are mostly male construction workers. How are you adjusting or adapting to those [impacts]? asked Trudeau. He was widely mocked in conservative media.

The authors of the final report of the Murdered and Missing Indigenous Womens inquiry agree with him. In a section on economic insecurity and government neglect in Inuit Nunangat, the 2019 report notes that extractive development can pose additional threats to Inuit womens security, as the high number of transient workers at mining camps can create working and living environments where sexual harassment and abuse of Inuit women take place. Statistics reveal that Indigenous women represent only 4 percent of the Canadian population in 2016, but they comprised nearly 50 percent of victims of human trafficking. (Approximately one-quarter of human trafficking victims are are under the age of 18.)

At the same time, some Indigenous communities are supportive of oil and gas projects, as they provide funding and resources to their community. One such place is Enoch Cree First Nation. There, Chief Billy Morin attended a blessing ceremony when the reserve became a stockpile site for the Trans Mountain pipeline. In Alberta, where the economy is tied to oil and gas revenues, many Indigenous leaders often speak out in favour of extraction industries.

This aligns particularly well with the Conservative platform, which focuses on working with Indigenous-led businesses. Their policy pledges to work with organizations, such as the First Nations Major Project Coalition, the Indigenous Resource Network, the Indian Resource Council, the Canadian Council for Aboriginal Business, the Council for the Advancement of Native Development Officers, the National Coalition of Chiefs, and First Nations LNG Alliance, to support communities that wish to become partners in natural resource extraction.

The NDP promise to ensure that Indigenous people in Canada will get a seat at the table when it comes to discussions about the environment and conservation. The platform reads that a New Democrat government will work jointly with Indigenous leadership and communities to develop coordinated action plans to respond to climate change emergencies like wildfires and floods. This work will be informed by Indigenous traditional and ecological knowledge and legal systems, and include improving existing infrastructure, developing new infrastructure and supporting response efforts to keep people safe.

Indigenous people dont vote as a monolith, and many who live on-reserve may have a viewpoint based on what they have experienced, but the prosperity and health of their communities is a concern that should be shared by everyone. None of the political parties agree to match funding to First Nations, Inuit and Metis communities with the money spent on developing Canadian infrastructure, but the Liberals and NDP do promise increased funding in these areas.

Jesse Wente, an Anishinaabe writer, broadcaster and artist, describes the Land Back movement this way: Its about self-determination for our Peoples here that should include some access to the territories and resources in a more equitable fashion, and for us to have control over how that actually looks.

Land Back emerged after Idle No More and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. It asks Canada to live up to the treaty agreements that Indigenous people signed with the representatives of the Crown in Canada, many of which were to share the land and water as long as the sun shines, the grass grows and the river flows, as many Elders say.

Treaties are constitutionally recognized agreements between the Crown and Indigenous people. For the Indigenous people who signed these agreements, they are considered sacred, living pacts. There were 70 treaties signed between First Nations and the Crown between 1701 and 1923. There have been about 25 modern treaties signed since 1975.

Land Back is also concerned with regions that are not included in existing treaties, including the Atlantic provinces, areas of British Columbia, eastern Ontario and Quebec, many of which are now the subject of land titles disputes and treaty negotiations moving through the Canadian courts. Indigenous land ownership is a complex legal situation that can differ from province to province, but most Indigenous communities point to the 2014 Supreme Court of Canada William decision, which recognized aboriginal title of the Tsilhqotin nation to 1,750 square kilometres of their land in central British Columbia, acknowledging the nations right to use and manage the land and to reap its economic benefits.

Many of those disputes are related to resource extraction and climate change. In 2014, Atikamewkw First Nation declared sovereignty over its territory, which covers 80,000 square kilometres in Quebec. Chief Christian Awashish and a few dozen community members from Opitciwan First Nation (one of three Atikamekw communities) filed a provincial lawsuit in 2019 to settle a land claim that has been in negotiation for 40 years. The Atikamekw never signed a treaty, and yet their villages were flooded in 1918 to create dams.

A few weeks ago, hereditary Wetsuweten chiefs spoke to The Tyee about two recent spills that have contaminated their territory, the site of a hotly disputed natural gas pipeline. Construction is currently ongoing on the 670-kilometre pipeline in northern British Columbia, where the Unisttoten resistance camp was set up in January 2020, before being a January 7 RCMP raid on their barricades, and an additional raid in February where four people were arrested.

The Oil and Gas Commission never informed us at all about the recent spills, says Mike Ridsdale, an environmental assessment coordinator who represents the Wetsuweten hereditary chiefs. Theyre supposed to be working with us. For them to let me know two to three days later is not being right on the ball. Even on the report, it said that the Wetsuweten were notified. I have no messages and no emails.

Land negotiations are of massive importance to local communities. And while many nations disagree among themselves over the best course of action, all Indigenous communities know the importance of being able to make independent decisions about where they live. Many believe that questions of resource development and sustainability should be answered by the people it most affects.

None of the major political parties address the issue of Indigenous land sovereignty and governance in their platforms directly. The NDP come the closest, with their statement that they are committed to good-faith, consent-based engagement and negotiations consistent with the Tsilhqotin decision, an approach that honours Canadas legal and constitutional obligation.

Theres no one Indigenous issue, there are many complex problems facing the communities and Indigenous people and allies have a lot to think about as they go to the polls. Choose wisely!

Originally posted here:

What You Need To Know About The Biggest Indigenous Issues This Election - Chatelaine

TORONTO -- More than half of Canadians say that they are not comfortable or somewhat not comfortable with having more private health care options, according to new polling from Nanos Research.

The poll, conducted by Nanos Research and sponsored by CTV News and The Globe and Mail, found that 30 per cent of Canadians are not comfortable with having more private health care options and 23 per cent are somewhat not comfortable, totalling 53 per cent of those surveyed.

However, of those surveyed, 30 per cent said they were comfortable with greater privatized health care while 14 percent reported being somewhat comfortable. According to the poll, three per cent of Canadians said they were unsure.

Nanos reported that residents of the Prairies are more likely to be comfortable with increased private health care options compared to other provinces (48 per cent). Those who said they would be uncomfortable with this were mostly found in Quebec (55 per cent) and Ontario (57 per cent).

The poll found that men are more likely to be comfortable with increased private health care services at 37 per cent compared to 24 per cent of women.

As well, 49 per cent of Canadians said that having more private health care options will make the country's health care system weaker while 34 per cent said this would make the system stronger.

According to the polling, those who live in the Prairies (46 per cent) are more likely to say it will strengthen the system than residents of other provinces.

Only nine per cent reported that there would be no impact to the overall health care system, and eight per cent said they were unsure.

The poll found that men were more likely to say privatized health care options would make the system stronger (40 per cent) compared to women (28 per cent).

Canada has a universal health care system, which is paid for through taxes, and provides coverage for necessary health services on the basis of need, rather than the ability to pay.

While all of the party leaders support universal health care, Conservative Leader Erin O'Toole has also advocated for privatized options that go much further than, or is contrary to, what other parties support.

On the party's election platform, the Conservatives say they will partner with the private sector rather than over-rely on government. We know that there are some things best done by the private sector and will be faster to reach out for help.

However, OToole has been generally vague about what kind of medical care could be privatized

The new polling from Nanos also found that Canadians are more likely to prefer subsidized child-care spaces (50 per cent), such as those proposed by the Liberal and NDP parties, than a tax deduction on child-care expenses (40 per cent), like that promised by the Conservative Party.

Of those surveyed, 10 per cent of Canadians said they were unsure of which child-care plan they would prefer.

According to the polling, those who reside in Atlantic Canada are more likely to prefer subsidized child-care spaces at 62 per cent, while those living in the Prairies prefer a tax deduction at 55 per cent.

Women are more likely to prefer the proposals for subsidized child-care spaces (52 per cent), while those between the ages of 18 and 34 (56 per cent) also favoured this promise over a tax deduction on child-care expenses.

The Liberals have promised to reduce fees for child care by 50 per cent, on average, in the next year and introduce $10 a day daycare within five years. Like the Liberals, the NDP are promising a $10 a day child-care system across Canada, although the timeline for it has not been made clear.

Instead of a universal child-care program, the Conservatives are promising a refundable tax credit of between $4,500 and $6,000 per child, with an aim to cover up to 75 per cent of the cost of child care for low-income families.

Nanos conducted an RDD dual frame (land-and cell-lines) hybrid telephone and online random survey of 1,029 Canadians, 18 years of age or older, between August 28 and 30, 2021 as part of an omnibus survey. Participants were randomly recruited by telephone using live agents and administered a survey online. The sample included both land- and cell-lines across Canada. The results were statistically checked and weighted by age and gender using the latest Census information and the sample is geographically stratified to be representative of Canada. Individuals were randomly called using random digit dialling with a maximum of five call backs.

The margin of error for this survey is 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20. This study was commissioned by CTV News and the Globe and Mail and the research was conducted by Nanos Research.

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More than half of Canadians uncomfortable with private health care options: Nanos - CTV News