Harper, Kenney, Day – not just turning back the clock.
Posted on | July 23, 2010 | 2 Comments
Not just turning back the clock!
23 July, 2010 – We heard yesterday about the review being undertaken by the Harper government into Employment Equity. A lot is being made of the ‘shock” and “concern’ felt by Jason Kenney, Minister of Citizenship, Immigration, and Multiculturalism, after reading the account by Sara Landriault, who sought a job in the public sector but was turned down. Landriault, who is Caucasian, applied for an administrative assistant’s job in the federal ministry of Citizenship and Immigration. She was turned down because the job was only open to members of Indigenous People and People of Colour.
Minister Kenney was apparently so taken aback by this incredible turn of events that, after reading Landriault’s email (imagine that! one email and his eyes flew open at the astounding injustice white folks suffer at the hands of Indigenous People and People of Colour) that he contacted Minister Day who promptly ordered a review of the blasted legislation.
Oh my! I’m thoroughly impressed by the swift action to help the sister. Isn’t that the kind of action required to help Canadians? Yes it is! … if you’re white.
The Ministers (and the Prime Minister) seem to leap quickly into the breach to help when it is Caucasians who need the help. Abousfian Abdelrazik, Omar Khadr Abdullah Almalki and Bashir Makhtal all still need help from their own government, which refuses to act. Are they all white? No. Are they brown folks? Yes. Are they Muslim? Why yes, yes they are!
Some history
Let’s back up just a bit. Employment Equity came about in Canada as a result of the 1984 Abella Commission, presided over by Judge Rosalie Abella. The report coming out of that commission resulted in the Employment Equity Act in 1986 (and later ammended in 1995). The body designated to enforce the Act was the Canadian Human Rights Commission. It’s no coincidence that Justice Abella didn’t call it by it American name, Affirmative Action, as the term had been so excoriated and sullied by right-wing attacks down south that she thought it would suffer prejudgement. Instead, she coined the term “Employment Equity”, a term she thought might escape an American fate. She was wrong!
Justice Abella thought she was doing a good thing – the Canadian thing:
“The purpose of this Act is to achieve equality in the workplace so that no person shall be denied employment opportunities or benefits for reasons unrelated to ability and, in the fulfilment of that goal, to correct the conditions of disadvantage in employment experienced by women, aboriginal peoples, persons with disabilities and members of visible minorities by giving effect to the principle that employment equity means more than treating persons in the same way but also requires special measures and the accommodation of differences. (Employment Equity Act 1995, c. 44, via Wikipedia)
She was moved to act in this way because of the gross discrimination against all the four groups mentioned in the Act: Indigenous People, People of Colour, Women and Disable People (youth and LGBTQQ people are not mentioned, nor were they included in subsequent revisions!)
Have they really?
While it may be argued that women have more than achieved equity in the public service, the demographics are sadly lacking (anyone know what the breakdown is?). We don’t really know how may of the women are Caucasian, do we? Or how many Indigenous or People of Colour. The POINT of the legislation is that there weren’t enough of the designated groups represented in the federal civil service and the Act was going to try and address that.
Here’s an April 2010 commentary from everyone’s favourite right-wing rag, The National Post as a bit of history to the thing. In it, all the crusty arguments are dusted off and made shiny again. “The hypocrisy of employment equity has always been that it replaced an alleged systemic discrimination — hard to see or quantify — with overt discrimination against mostly white, able-bodied men.” This is just a sampling of what they trot out as truth – and what Kenney, Harper and Day are now using as ammo in their attack on Employment Equity. One has only to read this article to understand where all the future justifications for trashing the Employment Equity Act will be coming from.
It is interesting that Kenney and Stockwell Day, President of Treasury Board moved so quickly to hold a review of this legislation.
“I was very concerned to read the report of a position only being open to people from an identifiable group,” said Kenney. “All positions should be on the basis of equality of opportunity and merit.” “While we support diversity in the Public Service, we want to ensure that no Canadian is barred from opportunities in the public service based on race or ethnicity,” said Minister Day.
Cynical words indeed. The Tories, through these two ministers, are
Whitelash
White backlash (also known as whitelash) has been defined as “backlash by white racists against black civil rights advances” (The Free Dictionary). Ever since the end of the Civil War in the United States, racist whites have seethed, simmered and boiled over the preferential treatment they saw as being given to others who had traditionally been on a lesser level than they. They just couldn;t stand to think those they had denigrated were now on an equal footing (such as it was back then). Those very strong currents went underground and started expressing themselves finally with overt anger against what was perceived to be advantageous treatment of all except white males.
The primarily white Tory caucus (and their primarily White supporters) can certainly be counted as part of the grouping of people who have felt a resentment against what they see as the preferential treatment. These are the people who get angry when the term “People of Colour” is mentioned and angrily expostulate that “I’m a person of colour – I’m white!”
Mike Harris and his gang of thugs (many of whom have migrated to the federal level) really started the ball rolling in Canada by abolishing and demolishing any legislation seen as progressive. After wreaking havoc in Ontario and finally getting thrown out, they got into power and are now able to cumswap their venom at a national level with all the other Whitelashers. It seems to be having an effect. A Globe and Mail poll (as of the writing of this article) showed 80% of respondents in favour of reviewing the Employment Equity Act.
The move to review the Employment Equity Act has already polarised Canadians, as a quick look at tweets on the popular microblogging site Twitter shows.
Other motives?
What are the Conservatives really up to? We know that whenever an election comes around, right-wingers bring up the hot-button issues – do immigration, abortion and gun control sound familiar? So why are the Tories bringing up a very controversial issue now? Can there be an election on the horizon – say, around September? Are they testing the waters to see if their hot-button issues will gain them a majority government? We shall see in fairly short order.
It would be an easy thing to turn back the clock. Harper, Kenney, Day and all the Tories and their ilk are not just turning back the clock – they are smashing the crap out of it!
Take some action: a Facebook group has just started up. Join it.
If you have a Twitter account, start tweeting (hashtag #employmentequity
If you have a blog, start blogging the hell out of it so you can be found on an internet search.
PSAC has posted a very cogent response. Please read it.
(Read articles on the issue at Canoe, Globe and Mail, another Globe and Mail article, and the Treasury Board Secretariat.
A final note: a little more that an hour after I posted this (unfinished and unpublicised) post, Sara Landriault left a comment on the article “without a review I’m still being left to tell my children than racism still lives alive and well in our own government in the year 2010! Why can’t we find a middle ground and have a true equal opportunity employer.”
While I may find it perturbing, it also seems that she is trolling the internet trying to insinuate her viewpoint into everything opposing the review. I have posted her comment, but also invite others to oppose her!
Tags: Abousfian Abdelrazik > affirmative action > Bashir Makhtal > Canadian Human Rights Commission > Employment Equity > Jason Kenney > Omar Khadr > Rosalie Abella > Sara Landriault > Stephen Harper > Stockwell Day
Ontario MPPs Ignore International Denounciations of Israeli Apartheid
Posted on | March 2, 2010 | Comments Off
Shourideh Molavi
On February 25, a group of Ontario Members of Provincial Parliament (MPP) voted unanimously on a motion to “denounce” this year’s Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW). Claiming to send a message of so-called “moral suasion” to all “fair-minded Ontarians,” Peter Shurman, the MPP who tabled the motion, argued that the mere application of the phrase ‘Israeli apartheid’ is “about as close to hate speech as one can get without being arrested.” In what seemed a veiled threat of possible arrests in the future of those accusing Israel with the crime of apartheid, Shurman moved on to state that he was “not certain” that its use “doesn’t actually cross over that line.”
Israeli Apartheid Week, March 1-7, 2010 – apartheidweek.org.
To make the case for curtailing the use of this phrase, random online blogs not associated with IAW are quoted, after which a barrage of name-calling which vilify the organizers as “propagandists” and “liars,” and label IAW as “pure garbage” and “toxic” follow. Once tabled, a range of bizarre anecdotes of relatives, neighbours and friends who support the Zionist project were presented by various NDP, Liberal and Conservative MPPs as reasons for supporting this blatant censure of freedom of expression. Other than a letter written by Ontario NDP leader Andrea Horwath, distancing the NDP from the motion, there was little disagreement.
Read the full article on The Socialist Project website
Tags: Andrea Horwath > IAW > Israeli Apartheid Week > Peter Shurman > zionist
Chiefs furious after Ottawa sends dozens of body bags to flu-stricken reserves
Posted on | September 17, 2009 | Comments Off
I have wondered about this since the time the revelations were made: why is it that Health Canada sent body bags to northern indigenous communities? Perhaps it was that they sent masks, hand sanitizers and body bags, but no medication. It’s a hell of a message to send our First Peoples. It has been said that it was an oversight, a mistake. Would that kind of a mistake been made for privileged white communities? Ask the question out loud and see what you come up with.
READ THE FULL STORY AFTER THE BREAK
Tags: Canadian Press > Carolyn Bennett > Chief David McDougall > Chinta Puxley > David Butler-Jones > Grand Chief David Harper > Indigenous People > Judy Wasylycia-Leis > Leona Aglukkaq > Liberal > NDP > New Democrat > St. Theresa Point First Nation
Climate Change and Indigenous People
Posted on | September 17, 2009 | Comments Off
Sept. 23rd 7:00pm
Innis Town Hall, 2 Sussex Ave.
(south of Bloor, on St. George Street).
Free event
The impact of climate change generates more devastating effect on the Indigenous People than the average population. Some of the initiatives supposed to deal with climate change often result in very damaging consequence on the Indigenous People in various regions of the world.
http://www.climatechangeiscomingtotown.net/schedule.html
(Submitted by Vincent Pang)
Tags: Climate Change Film Festival > Indigenous People > Innis Town Hall > Vincent Pang
More than a tiff – The Toronto declaration
Posted on | September 15, 2009 | Comments Off
The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) is having a spotlight on cities by hosting a City to City component. This year, its first, TIFF is spotlighting Tel Aviv. While Cameron Bailey, the festival’s co-director in his first year at TIFF, is a well-known and-respected personality, he seems to have made a serious faux pas.
It is well and good to think of Tel Aviv in a vacuum – as just another city in this modern, hectic, and mondo-cool, world, he and his “team” at TIFF have conveniently forgotten the plight of the Palestanian people in that city. Moreover, they seem to think that separating Tel Aviv from Israel would separate the oppressive state from its oppressive tactics and practices. Read more
Tags: Anne McClintock > City to City > Danny Glover > Dionne Brand > Harry Belafonte > Jane Fonda > John Greyson > Joy Kogawa > Judith Butler > Julie Christie > Kerri Sakamoto > Naomi Klein > Noam Chomsky > Rawi Hage > Tel Aviv > TIFF > Toronto > Toronto International Film Festival > Viggo Mortensen
LATUC – it’s how we spell solidarity in Spanish
Posted on | September 14, 2009 | Comments Off
This past weekend, the Latin American trade Unionists Coalition (LATUC) was formed at their inaugural conference held at the venerable Steelworkers Hall on Cecil Street in Toronto, Ontario. The Coalition was supported by many unions.
The LATUC conference delegates bag.
Tags: ACLA > Asian Canadian Labour Alliance > Canadian Union of Public Employeers > CBTU > Cecil Street > Coalition of Black Trade Unionists > CUPE > IAMAW Canada > International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers > Latin American trade Unionists Coalition > LATUC > Steelworkers Hall > UFCW > United Food and Commercial Workers > United Steelworkers > USW
The Real “Norma Rae” Dies
Posted on | September 14, 2009 | Comments Off
Labor organizer succumbed to long battle with brain cancer
from Associated Press
Mon., Sept . 14, 2009
RALEIGH, North Carolina – Crystal Lee Sutton, whose fight to unionize Southern textile plants with low pay and poor conditions was dramatized in the film “Norma Rae,” has died. She was 68.
Sutton died Friday in a hospice after a long battle with brain cancer, her son, Jay Jordan, said Monday. Read more
Tags: ACTWU > Alamance Community College > Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union > Bruce Raynor > Crystal Lee Sutton > health care > healthcare > J.P. Stevens > Norma Rae > North Carolina > Sally Field > SEIU > Service Employees International Union > UNION > Workers United
Welcome to Buzzard Press
Posted on | September 11, 2009 | Comments Off
Hello and welcome to Buzzard Press. We are working on building a few rooms, closets, as well as walls and a roof. Drop by and see what construction projects we finish. We may ask you for help in some of our efforts. Wile it is true that it takes a village to raise a child, it is also true that it takes a community to build a community! See you in the real world!
Sedatives for the Christian right
Posted on | March 9, 2007 | Comments Off
This just in from CNN:
“Former House speaker and potential presidential candidate Newt Gingrich has confessed, telling conservative Christian leader James Dobson that he was cheating on his wife at around the same time the House was impeaching President Bill Clinton over his White House affair with Monica Lewinsky.
But Gingrich said that didn’t make him a hypocrite, because Clinton was impeached not for the affair, but for lying about it.”
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/03/09/gingrich.schneider/index.html
You should really read the article. All sorts of warm bullshit…and with no-one to throw cold water on it. Thsi is what the last part of the article says: “So, will religious voters forgive Gingrich? Dobson seemed inclined to think so. […] Critics are likely to call the lot of them hypocrites, however, noting that religious conservatives make allowances for people they agree with politically, like Gingrich, but not for Giuliani or Clinton.”
So how does one figure they can sleep at night. They will castigate the progressives but cheerfully “forgive” their bastard co-fundamentalists when they perform the same deed.
Tags: Bill Clinton > Christian right > CNN > James Dobson > Monica Lewinsky > Newt Gingrich
Clown parachutes
Posted on | March 9, 2007 | Comments Off
So Bob Rae is being parachuted into Toronto Centre (doesn’t he live in the Parkdale area?) and Martha Hall Findlay is being dropped on the good folks in Willowdale. How very nice nice of the ‘naturally governing party” to practice such AWESOME democracy.
Make no mistake, Bob Rae WILL win the riding unless the NDP run a strong candidate. But they MUST run a strong candidate federally against him. Findlay will probably also win.
You can be sure the Libs aren’t going to caught with their knickers showing like they did in the York-South Weston provincial by-election, when they told one prospective candidate that he needn’t bother running because they already had a candidate. They lost to New Democrat Paul Ferreira.
This time around, they’ll make sure their parachuted pets win, but they’ll do it subtly – probably by sending in staffers and party hacks to work on their campaigns. Money might also find itself in secret pockets of the parachutes. Election laws be damned. Ahhhhh, life is good.
keep looking »
Frank’s Twitter Updates
Search
Popular
ACLA Anne McClintock Asian Canadian Labour Alliance buzzard press Canadian Union of Public Employeers CBTU Cecil Street City to City Coalition of Black Trade Unionists Crystal Lee Sutton CUPE Danny Glover Dionne Brand Harry Belafonte IAMAW Canada Indigenous People International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers J.P. Stevens Jane Fonda John Greyson Joy Kogawa Judith Butler Julie Christie Kerri Sakamoto Latin American trade Unionists Coalition LATUC leadership race Liberal Naomi Klein Noam Chomsky Norma Rae Rawi Hage Sally Field Steelworkers Hall Tel Aviv TIFF Toronto Toronto International Film Festival UFCW UNION United Food and Commercial Workers United Steelworkers USW Viggo Mortensen welcome
WP Cumulus Flash tag cloud by Roy Tanck and Luke Morton requires Flash Player 9 or better.
Login
Born on this day
1895 Nigel Bruce
1892 Darius Milhaud
1901 William Lyons
1931 Mitzi Gaynor
1932 Dinsdale Lansden
1937 Dawn Fraser
1945 Bill Kenwright
1949 Tom Watson
1961 Kevin Kennedy