Not long ago, corporations were able to vote in municipal elections in B.C. Since that right was taken away in the 1990s, they’ve been trying to win it back….

Earlier this year, the Local Government Elections Task Force released a paper that discussed arguments for and against the reinstatement of the corporate vote. It noted that corporations are not citizens, and that the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms grants only citizens the right to vote for members of the House of Commons and legislative assemblies.

“The possibility of constitutional implications from allowing them a vote at the local level but not provincial or federal level should be explored,” the paper stated.

John Winter, the president and CEO of the B.C. Chamber of Commerce, argues that businesses deserve the right to vote.

“There’s a principle involved that says if you’re a taxpayer, you have some say in how your tax money is spent,” Winter told the Straight by phone. “The fact that the corporate world in British Columbia is the major taxpayer in terms of property taxes, with no say, is of concern.”

2. Mike de Souza, “Climate-change scientists feel ‘muzzled’ by Ottawa: Documents,” Montreal Gazette, 15 March 2010:

A dramatic reduction in Canadian media coverage of climate change science issues is the result of the Harper government introducing new rules in 2007 to control interviews by Environment Canada scientists with journalists, says a newly released federal document.

“Scientists have noticed a major reduction in the number of requests, particularly from high profile media, who often have same-day deadlines,” said the Environment Canada document. “Media coverage of climate change science, our most high-profile issue, has been reduced by over 80 per cent.”

The analysis reviewed the impact of a new federal communications policy at Environment Canada, which required senior federal scientists to seek permission from the government prior to giving interviews.

In many cases, the policy also required them to get approval from supervisors of written responses to the questions submitted by journalists before any interview, said the document, obtained in an investigation into the government’s views and policies on global-warming science that was conducted by Climate Action Network Canada, a coalition of environmental groups.

The document suggests the new communications policy has practically eliminated senior federal scientists from media coverage of climate-change science issues, leaving them frustrated that the government was trying to “muzzle” them.

Charles Johnson celebrates the Ides of March.

What we have here is a recipe for tacitly sanctioned police brutality.

David Eby, executive director of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, said he was “sickened” by images of Black Bloc members smashing windows and tossing newspaper boxes into the streets.

Eby, who’s been outspoken against what he considers police intimidation of Olympic dissidents, said protesters were prepared for civil disobedience, such as sit-down demonstration to block an intersection.

Eby said there was a hint that the protest would turn violent when his group was asked by a faction of the protesters not to send legal observers to the march, saying they were worried they’d been infiltrated by police and could have their video documentation used as evidence in court.

This is completely unacceptable for exactly the reasons outlined by Lawrence A. Hildes, a member of the U.S. National Lawyers Guild whom I saw at two separate anti-Olympic protests in the past few days:

I don’t expect Eby or the BCCLA to condone the black bloc’s actions. But as Lawrence Hildes says, it’s not the job of either Eby or the BCCLA to decide which protesters are “good” and which are “bad” — it’s their job to ensure that the civil liberties of all protesters, peaceful or not, are protected. Talk of being “sickened” by a few broken windows protects no one’s rights; on the contrary, it lends legitimacy to the authorities’ ongoing efforts to repress dissent by sowing division among the dissenters. It also raises questions about the ability of the BCCLA to provide adequate and unbiased legal counsel to protesters who face charges over acts of civil disobedience.

This problem is compounded by Eby’s decision to reveal that some protesters asked BCCLA legal observers not to attend Saturday’s protest. Not only could that information be extremely damaging for those who are facing charges related to the protest, but clearly those who sent the email had placed a certain amount of trust in the BCCLA in matters like that. It’s no secret that there was at least some communication between anti-Olympic activists and the BCCLA in the months leading up to the Games, and it was the BCCLA’s phone number that was circulated to protesters so they’d know who to call for legal representation in case of arrest. (It speaks volumes that the Olympic Resistance Network, which did not even organize Saturday’s protest, has begun distributing a different number instead.) I have no idea whether Eby’s statement was a violation of attorney-client privilege or of BC’s Canons of Legal Ethics, but I do know that it was a shameful and profoundly disrespectful breach of trust.

I have a great deal of respect for the work that the BCCLA and David Eby personally have done over the years, Olympic-related and otherwise, and I hate to see their reputations tarnished. Nor do I want to undermine the Olympic-related work that the BCCLA still has ahead of it — like holding the RCMP accountable for the fact that many riot cops did not display their badge numbers on Saturday. But so far at least thirteen people in this province have faced charges over their opposition to the Olympics, in a climate of intense official and popular hostility to their views. They — and all of us who confront the threat of repression when we choose to dissent — deserve better.

In defense of the black bloc: A communique from Olympic resisters

February 14th, 2010 – Vancouver, Coast Salish Territories

On February 12th and 13th, 2010, thousands of courageous individuals came together to resist the 2010 Olympic police state and to attack the corporations plundering the land and deepening poverty. We write this communique as participants in and organizers of the black bloc presence at these demonstrations, known as “Take Back Our City” and “2010 Heart Attack.”

On February 12th, the Vancouver Police Department pacified us with a force of mounted police. The next day during 2010 Heart Attack, they deployed riot police armed with M4 carbine assault rifles. They claim this was necessary in order to stop the march from “jeopardizing public safety” – yet the only threats to public safety were in their own hands. Participants in the demonstration only undertook strategic attacks against corporations sponsoring the Olympics and did not harm or attack bystanders.

The media are now busy denouncing the political violence of property destruction, such as the smashing of a Hudson’s Bay Company window, as though it were the only act of violence happening in this city. They forget that economic violence goes on daily in Vancouver. People are suffering and dying from preventable causes because welfare doesn’t give enough to afford rent, food or medicine, and because authorities routinely ignore the medical emergencies of poor or houseless individuals. This economic violence has gotten worse as we lose housing and social services because of the Olympic Games. In response to this assault, thousands took to the streets, hundreds joining what is known as a black bloc.

The black bloc is not a formal organization; it has no leadership, membership, or headquarters. Instead, the black bloc is a tactic: it is something people *do* in order to accomplish a specific purpose. By wearing black clothing and masking our faces, the black bloc allows for greater protection to those who choose active self-defense. The majority of people involved in the black bloc do not participate in property destruction. However, in masking up they express their solidarity with those who choose to take autonomous direct action against the corporations, authorities and politicians who wage war on our communities.

Participation in the black bloc is an act of courage. With only the shirts on our backs and the masks on our faces, we took to the streets against Canada’s largest ever “peacetime” police force. Protected only by black fabric and the support of our comrades, we stood in front of antiriot cops armed with assault rifles, pistols and batons. We proved that $1 billion of “security” couldn’t prevent us from clogging the heart of downtown Vancouver and crashing a party of 100 000 people — and getting away with it.

You won’t ever know who was in the black bloc this weekend, but you do know us. We are the people who organize community potlucks, who dance during street festivals, who make art, defend the land, build co-ops, bicycles and community gardens. When we put on our black clothing, we are not a threat to you, but to the elites.

Whoever you are, one day you will join us. As long as government and corporations attack our communities, we’re going defend – and that means attack.

Signed,

Two organizers and participants in the anarchist presence of the “Take back our city” demonstration and “2010 Heart Attack” street march, February 2010, Coast Salish Territories

Conclusion: hosting the Olympics is five times more dangerous than getting involved in a land war in Asia.

Vancouver’s two major newspapers are sponsoring a government-run centre that will tell international media covering the 2010 Winter Olympics about how the province is dealing with homelessness issues in the city’s troubled Downtown Eastside. [...]

News that BC Housing and the City of Vancouver wanted to establish a centre to “showcase the range of programs and services that have been undertaken to address the issues of homelessness” was first reported by Public Eye in November. ”We think there’s a good story to tell about what we’ve done in B.C. for homelessness, mental health, drug addiction,” Housing and Social Development Minister Rich Coleman later explained in an interview with The Globe and Mail’s Frances Bula.

Now it comes to light that six private sector interests — including The Vancouver Sun and The Province — are sponsoring that centre, which is being set up in the Woodwards building and will also target the city’s international visitors.

(Hat tip: Sean Orr at Beyond Robson.)

In the aftermath of the earthquake in Haiti, the Guardian published an informative article by Peter Hallward that provides some some much-needed context on the disaster:

The full scale of the destruction resulting from this earthquake may not become clear for several weeks. Even minimal repairs will take years to complete, and the long-term impact is incalculable.

What is already all too clear, ­however, is the fact that this impact will be the result of an even longer-term history of deliberate impoverishment and disempowerment. Haiti is routinely described as the “poorest country in the western hemisphere”. This poverty is the direct legacy of perhaps the most brutal system of colonial exploitation in world history, compounded by decades of systematic postcolonial oppression.

The noble “international community” which is currently scrambling to send its “humanitarian aid” to Haiti is largely responsible for the extent of the suffering it now aims to reduce. Ever since the US invaded and occupied the country in 1915, every serious political attempt to allow Haiti’s people to move (in former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s phrase) “from absolute misery to a dignified poverty” has been violently and deliberately blocked by the US government and some of its allies.

Aristide’s own government (elected by some 75% of the electorate) was the latest victim of such interference, when it was overthrown by an internationally sponsored coup in 2004 that killed several thousand people and left much of the population smouldering in resentment. The UN has subsequently maintained a large and enormously expensive stabilisation and pacification force in the country.

This website has more information on that 2004 coup. The short version is that Canada, the US, and various other countries, increasingly dissatisfied with Haiti’s existing government, got together in early 2003 and decided that Aristide had to be removed; violent unrest in Haiti the following year provided a convenient cover for them to carry out their plans.

Hallward’s article continues:

Haiti is now a country where, according to the best available study, around 75% of the population “lives on less than $2 per day, and 56% – four and a half million people – live on less than $1 per day”. Decades of neoliberal “adjustment” and neo-imperial intervention have robbed its government of any significant capacity to invest in its people or to regulate its economy. Punitive international trade and financial arrangements ensure that such destitution and impotence will remain a structural fact of Haitian life for the foreseeable future.

The Times of London sheds some additional light on the origins of Haitian poverty:

After a dramatic slave uprising that shook the western world, and 12 years of war, Haiti finally defeated Napoleon’s forces in 1804 and declared independence. But France demanded reparations: 150m francs, in gold.

For Haiti, this debt did not signify the beginning of freedom, but the end of hope. Even after it was reduced to 60m francs in the 1830s, it was still far more than the war-ravaged country could afford. Haiti was the only country in which the ex-slaves themselves were expected to pay a foreign government for their liberty. By 1900, it was spending 80% of its national budget on repayments. In order to manage the original reparations, further loans were taken out — mostly from the United States, Germany and France. Instead of developing its potential, this deformed state produced a parade of nefarious leaders, most of whom gave up the insurmountable task of trying to fix the country and looted it instead. In 1947, Haiti finally paid off the original reparations, plus interest. Doing so left it destitute, corrupt, disastrously lacking in investment and politically volatile. Haiti was trapped in a downward spiral, from which it is still impossible to escape. It remains hopelessly in debt to this day.

This brutal legacy — originating with reparation demands from Haiti’s slave-owning overlords and perpetuated by Canada, the US, and other Western countries through the International Monetary Fund — is one reason why the news that the IMF may cancel Haiti’s international debt is such a big deal. (I’ll believe it when I see it.)

With a history like that, what should we expect from the American and Canadian response to Haiti’s latest disaster? Let’s see what advice the Heritage Foundation (the fifth most influential think tank in the United States) has to offer:

In addition to providing immediate humanitarian assistance, the U.S. response to the tragic earthquake in Haiti earthquake offers opportunities to re-shape Haiti’s long-dysfunctional government and economy as well as to improve the public image of the United States in the region.

The U.S. government response should be bold and decisive. It must mobilize U.S. civilian and military capabilities for short-term rescue and relief and long-term recovery and reform. President Obama should tap high-level, bipartisan leadership. Clearly former President Clinton, who was already named as the U.N. envoy on Haiti, is a logical choice. President Obama should also reach out to a senior Republican figure, perhaps former President George W. Bush, to lead the bipartisan effort for the Republicans.

While on the ground in Haiti, the U.S. military can also interrupt the nightly flights of cocaine to Haiti and the Dominican Republic from the Venezuelan coast and counter the ongoing efforts of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to destabilize the island of Hispaniola. This U.S. military presence, which should also include a large contingent of U.S. Coast Guard assets, can also prevent any large-scale movement by Haitians to take to the sea in rickety watercraft to try to enter the U.S. illegally.

Meanwhile, the U.S. must be prepared to insist that the Haiti government work closely with the U.S. to insure that corruption does not infect the humanitarian assistance flowing to Haiti. Long-term reforms for Haitian democracy and its economy are also badly overdue.

Congress should immediately begin work on a package of assistance, trade, and reconstruction efforts needed to put Haiti on its feet and open the way for deep and lasting democratic reforms.

The U.S. should implement a strong and vigorous public diplomacy effort to counter the negative propaganda certain to emanate from the Castro-Chavez camp. Such an effort will also demonstrate that the U.S.’s involvement in the Caribbean remains a powerful force for good in the Americas and around the globe.

Well, that’s what the Heritage Foundation originally said. After Naomi Klein called them out, they changed the text of their article — among other things, altering the headline from “Amidst the Suffering, Crisis in Haiti Offers Opportunities to the U.S.” to the less blatant “Things to Remember While Helping Haiti.”

Why does the Heritage Foundation think Haiti’s economy is in need of reform? They don’t say, but the Globe & Mail’s business section has some ideas:

Why was Haiti the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, its people surviving on foreign aid, mostly from the United States, and remittances from exiled Haitians, also mostly from the U.S.? (This money accounted for more than 40 per cent of Haiti’s GDP.) The most obvious reason is not sufficiently identified amid all the pervasive lamentations for Haiti’s forlorn fate. For all practical purposes, throughout its history, Haiti had prohibited commerce. And it’s hard to survive without it.

Haiti lacked the one prerequisite necessary for economic advance — freedom of trade. Yes, many Haitians toiled for subsistence in the informal economy. But their governments had always imposed prohibitive costs on acts of commerce. Haitian governments had always run the country’s major businesses (including the banks) themselves. It was precisely Haiti’s lack of freedom to do business that led the Index of Economic Freedom (published jointly by the Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal) last year to rank Haiti as the 147th least-free country in the world (out of 179 countries).

Conspicuously absent from this article, of course, is any mention of the global North’s role in the impoverishment and destabilization of Haiti. Instead, we get the Heritage Foundation again, keeping company with one of the primary propaganda organs of the US business elite — much like the Globe & Mail here in Canada.

Meanwhile, other mainstream media outlets have been busy manufacturing hysteria over the aftermath of the quake. There’s no question that Haitians are suffering: perhaps as many as 200,000 people are dead, the country’s infrastructure is in ruins, and there have certainly been outbreaks of horrific violence. But there is good reason to believe that, just like the stories about New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, reports of rampaging mobs are exaggerated. And, just like Katrina, we can expect that the Haiti earthquake (and the exaggerated reports of the ensuing chaos) will be used as a pretext to impose a regime of disaster capitalism on a shocked and suffering population. Project Haiti continues.

The federal government spends money on three things: transfers to individuals (Old Age Security, Employment Insurance and child benefits), transfers to provincial governments, and federally-delivered services. The Conservatives have pledged not to cut either type of transfer.

I see no reason to be sanguine about those “transfers to individuals” — EI, for example, has been systematically gutted over the years — but let’s assume for the sake of argument that the Conservatives keep their pledge and Erin Weir’s analysis holds true on this point.

In 2008-09, the last complete fiscal year, the federal government spent $108.1 billion on major transfer programs, $30.2 billion on transfers through other programs, and $69.6 billion on federal departments and agencies. If all transfers are untouchable, then only one-third of federal expenditures are eligible for cuts (i.e. $69.6 / $207.9 = 33%).

Out of that third, National Defence was $18.8 billion and Public Safety was $8.9 billion. If anything, the Conservatives would like to spend more in these areas.

These “untouchable” ministries so dear to Stephen Harper’s Conservatives are, of course, the ministries responsible for occupying foreign countries, handing over Afghan prisoners to be tortured, using security certificates to imprison Canadian residents indefinitely on the basis of secret evidence (a practice which remains legal in Canada despite recent court victories for Adil Charkaoui and Hassan Almrei), and protecting Canada from Teh Gay. But I digress.

The Canada Revenue Agency was $7.1 billion and the Treasury Board was $2.2 billion. These entities are presumably indispensable in collecting taxes and managing expenditures. Crown-corporation expenses were $8.1 billion, funding needed to deliver the mail, insure mortgages and generate Crown-corporation revenues.

Excluding these expenditures leaves only $24.5 billion from which the Conservatives could realistically cut. To put that number in perspective, it is less than half of this year’s deficit, about half of the deficit projected for 2010-11, and a few billion below the deficit projected for 2011-12. So even if the Conservatives completely eliminated the federal departments of Agriculture, Environment, Fisheries, Foreign Affairs, Health, Human Resources, Indian Affairs, Industry, Justice, Natural Resources and Public Works, they would still not save enough to balance the budget next year or even the year after that. [...]

Therefore, I tend to believe that the federal government will just try to restrict spending growth and wait for revenues to recover along with the economy. As Carl Sonnen suggested to Straight Goods, the real and imminent threat of cutbacks is from provincial governments.

Here in BC, I’m not sure what’s left to cut. During the last provincial election, the BC Liberals insisted that the deficit would not exceed $495 million. Then, as soon as the election was over, they released a budget that showed a record $2.8 billion deficit. The result? Cuts to libraries and student aid in the middle of a recession, when more people than ever need those services. An 81% reduction in arts spending (no, I’m not missing a decimal point). $8.8 million in cuts to BC’s Environmental Protection Agency. Balanced-budget requirements for health authorities which have resulted in a plethora of hard-to-track cuts to health care services. A freeze on school district budgets will have similar effects on education. A 6% increase in monthly health care fees — again, bad news for those hit hard by the recession, those on fixed incomes, and those who were already barely getting by. And that’s just since last September.

Then there’s the Olympics. Total public spending is difficult to calculate, in part because of a lack of government transparency, but also because there are plenty of projects — the Sea-to-Sky highway expansion, for example — that are only happening because of the Olympics but which will never be included in any official tally of public spending. Still, it’s been estimated that the people in power, provincially and federally, are spending something like $6 billion on the 2010 Games. That includes the creation of a $900-million security apparatus to keep those dirty protesters out of sight prevent terrorist attacks during the Games. This is what the state has chosen to spend your tax dollars on — not fundamental public services like health care and education, but a bloated and pointless spectacle.

What we’re seeing here is the ongoing erosion of the government-funded social safety net in Canada. First, there are tax cuts, which reduce government revenues. (As Erin Weir points out, the Conservative government’s tax cuts “will cost $44.4 billion per year in lost revenue by 2014-15.”) If there’s a budget deficit, it’s used to justify cuts to public services; if there’s a surplus, as we saw under Jean Chretien and Paul Martin, it’s used to pay down the debt and cuts are justified as “keeping our house in order.” Then something like the current economic crisis comes along, decimating government revenues. The result is a budget shortfall which justifies additional cuts. When the economy eventually “recovers,” it’s used as an excuse to introduce further tax cuts, which we’re told we can afford because times are good. And so on.

Who benefits from this? The same people who own the politicians who claim to speak for us: the people with money, the elite class that owns and operates the businesses most of us work for. Low taxes serve their interests, since they end up with more profits in their pockets; so does a weak social safety net, which makes for a compliant workforce (you’ll put up with lower pay and inferior working conditions if, for one reason or another, you can’t afford to leave your job). As long as essential public services are funded by governments in thrall to business interests — and in a capitalist system, all governments are ultimately in thrall to business interests — then those essential public services will always be under threat, and politicians will cut as much as they can get away with in order to please their masters.