Canada & Israel: Building Apartheid
By Yves Engler
Fernwood Publishing/Red Publishing
Toronto, 2010, 168 pages.
Most Canadians today would probably agree that their country's foreign policy is pro-Israel. Even Canada's “liberal” supporters of Israel complain that siding so explicitly with Israel damages Canada's role of a peacemaker. It signals a shift away from the country's perceived balanced approach to the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Canada
A huge police crackdown on protesters at the June 26-27 G20 Summit in Toronto last week ended in the arrests of hundreds of primarily peaceful activists. Canadian group Socialist Project issued this statement on June 30 in solidarity with the protesters targeted by police. It is reprinted from The Bullet.
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The massive police presence in Toronto over this week has been officially justified on the basis of protecting the leaders of the G8 and G20 countries meeting in Huntsville and Toronto.
The June 26-27 Toronto summit of the exclusive Group of 20 club, to which the world’s richest countries invited the heads of state of the major emerging countries, raised great expectations — but it ended as empty as previous meetings
As in London in 2008 and Pittsburgh in 2009, the Toronto G20 discussions focused on a way out of the economic crisis. But a capitalist way out — favouring creditors and great powers.
For the past two years, global financial regulation has been an elusive sea serpent, unsurprisingly resulting in no concrete measures.
While G20 leaders barely made mention of the climate crisis at the June 26-27 G20 summit in Toronto, Pablo Solon, Bolivia’s United Nations ambassador, was in town to encourage action on the “Cochabamba protocols”.
It is no surprise that Solon, also Bolivia’s chief climate negotiator, was not on the list of special invitees to G20 meetings. In April, Solon and the Bolivian government he represents organised the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth in Cochabamba.
The Canadian province of Alberta is well known as a climate-destroying behemoth. The tar sands developments in its north are the single largest source of greenhouse gas emissions on the planet.
Less well known are the ambitions of its neighbouring province, British Columbia. It shares similar fossil fuel reserves and ambitions as Alberta. Vast coal and natural gas reserves are being opened at breakneck speed.
Construction is underway or planned for accompanying road, rail, pipeline and supertanker transport routes.
The tar sands mining project in Alberta, Canada, is possibly the largest industrial project in human history and critics claim it could also be the most destructive.
The mining procedure for extracting oil from a region referred to as the "tar sands," located north of Edmonton, releases at least three times the CO2 emissions of regular oil production procedures and will likely become North America's single largest industrial contributor to climate change.
Percy Schmeisers decade-long legal odyssey has finally come to an end and hes got a cheque for [C]$660 to prove it, the March 20 Toronto Globe and Mail reported.
Below is an abridged statement by the International Trade Union Confederation
Below is a statement on repression of pro-Palestinian solidarity activists at McMaster University, in Hamilton, Ontorio, entitled “Defend the rights of student organisers! Our movement will not be silenced!”, by the Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid (CAIA) on February 19.
On May 2, at the Barrick Gold shareholder meeting in Toronto, Protest Barrick which includes aboriginal communities from Australia, the US, Latin America and Asia served the company an eviction notice. The previous day, writer and film-maker Naomi Klein opened a film night in Toronto, at which films from Chile, Nevada, the US and Australia were screened. Shareholders at the meeting were given leaflets by representatives of Australias Wiradjuri people and Nevadas Western Shoshone explaining the cyanide contamination of their land and depletion of water supplies as a result of Barricks operations. Some protesters used proxy ballots to argue their case inside the meeting. Lake Cowal, the sacred heartland of the Wiradjuri, is being desecrated by Barricks cyanide leaching gold mine. Access to the lake for traditional ceremonies has been restricted because of the mine. Wiradjuri traditional owner Neville Chappy Williams, who announced the serving of the eviction notice to the meeting, was later approached by some shareholders who said they were now considering selling their shares.
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