Welcome everyone!
You may want to don some protective gear while we poke a few hornet nests.
First stop: Smithers.
Call out to anarchists
One week before the Oct. 26 arson attack on four pipeline-patrolling RCMP vehicles in Smithers, the spokesperson for BC’s most vocal anti-pipeline group issued a public call out to anarchists. Molly Wickham, with Gidimt’en Checkpoint in Wet’suwet’en territory, said their protest group had “exhausted” various legal avenues and called on allies to help stop construction of the CGL pipeline construction.
Anarchist shutout
Wickham didn’t respond to our request for an interview. I think I know why. According the “media protocol” set out by Gidimt’en Checkpoint, only journalists who pledge to report nothing negative, get their sources pre-approved and have their stories vetted prior to publication are allowed access to the group and their camp.
All of which raises questions about the media coverage of the conflict by outlets with easy access to the Gidimt’en Checkpoint camp and its members. Speaking of which, CBC is launching a new podcast called Land Back, which promises a “deep dive into land theft in Canada.” Among the first episodes are interviews with Gidimt’en Checkpoint members, a visit to their “resistance camp,” and “a day in the life” of Wickham, “a devoted mom who faces down police raids on the frontlines of the conflict between the Coastal GasLink pipeline and Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs.”
I loved my time at the CBC, but how far the Mother Corp has fallen.
“Disgraceful,” “reprehensible,” but not quite terrorism…
Back to the torching of police vehicles in Smithers. Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth called the arson attack “reprehensible” and a “disgraceful act of vandalism” but was affronted when I asked him if there was a point at which public interest would override the rights of a small group of protesters, who call for anarchy, who don’t denounce violence, and who don’t appear to have the full support of the community they say they represent. “What are you asking Crown to do?” Farnworth said, looking incensed. “The project is going ahead. The project is permanent. Police are investigating. They will – hopefully soon – arrest those people responsible. That’s how our system works.”
Whether these two CGL-related attacks were done in support of the Gidimt’en Checkpoint protesters or not, perpetrators are skirting dangerously near the line of terrorism. Loosely, the Canadian Criminal Code defines terrorism as acts committed for political, ideological, or religious reasons with the intent of intimidating the public or people to do or not do something, which intentionally endangers public safety, a person’s life or causes serious harm or death.
According to CBC News, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) investigated whether the 2020 blockade actions constituted terrorism and determined they did not. It would be fascinating to read the CSIS terrorism assessment of the people who – whether operating together or separately, for whatever the cause – attacked a private workplace in the dead of night with axes and destroyed public safety vehicles by arson causing millions in damages.
“As the actions are ramping up, it’s only a matter of time before someone gets badly hurt,” noted Skeena MLA Ellis Ross.
[The Blue River occupation by Indigenous “land defenders” who also have do not have full support of their community, shares some similarities with the rights and title conflicts at the root of the Wet’suwet’en situation.]
Attention individuals who shed their uterine linings every four weeks
On Nov. 3, NDP MLA for Vancouver Hastings Niki Sharma stood up in the legislative chamber and somehow managed to talk about menstruating and menstrual hygiene products for 318 words without mentioning women, girls or females once. Sharma explained how government was helping end “period poverty” for “British Columbians who menstruate.” [British Columbians who menstruate?] Half of the “people who need period products” in B.C. have struggled to pay for them at some point, she said. “Everyone who menstruates, including non-binary and transgender people” should have access to menstruation products. Sharma also remined menstruators and non-menstruators alike that government had given $850,000 to end period poverty and formed the province’s very first Period Poverty Task Force.
It all sounded rather 1984ish, given at least 99.6 per cent of “those who menstruate” in BC are – I’m just going to say it – women. And, they are, presumably, at whom the period poverty campaign is aimed. And while it is true that transgender and non-binary people comprise up to 0.4 percent of all other possible menstruators over 15 years of age in the province, it is passing strange that our government can’t acknowledge the latter individuals without simultaneously denying the former. Women are the main keepers of the world’s uteruses. It’s not a brag or a political point or a challenge to anyone else’s identity. It’s just a fact.
How does acknowledging that truth diminish anyone else?
By comparison, the government of Canada international relations webpage begins its explanation of period poverty with a straightforward acknowledgement: “It’s a normal part of life for half the world’s population. Indeed, on any given day some 800 million women and girls are menstruating.”
Drug delivery for Inmate 617624
On other news fronts, Correctional Service of Canada has a courier problem. Apparently, inmates with inventive friends are using drones to drop packages of contraband onto prison grounds. As technology has improved so has drone accuracy, speed, and carrying capacity, with some able to carry several kilograms – that’s a lot of drugs, smokes, cellphones and weapons. “Some institutions across the country are seeing at least one drone drop a day — if not more," John Randle, the regional president of the union representing Canadian corrections officers, reportedly told CBC. Prison guards are struggling to keep up with the technology and need help. "But it's time for [Canadian corrections] and the federal government to take this threat to all federal penitentiaries seriously."
If the government is looking for solutions, I know an aerospace engineer they may want to talk to. “Stopping drones over prisons is pretty easy,” he said.
[If government doesn’t want a fix, that may be an even bigger story.]
On to legislative fronts…
Horgan’s farewell party
Legislative Speaker Raj Chouhan hosted a farewell-Premier-John-Horgan reception. It was a fairly low-key cross-party affair with MLAs, staff and the press gallery members milling about. No formal reporting. Very casual. Everyone was nice. Conversations flowed. The various speakers said funny, touching, entertaining things about Horgan. Lots of ‘remember when’ stories. Horgan had the best speech. He usually does. Because half the time he is shooting from the hip, riffing his thoughts, opinions, sharing stories that mean something to him, almost always finished with a grin. People who disagree with his politics laugh despite themselves. He speaks from the heart and that resonates.
Premier, you will be missed.
David Eby marks his ‘premier’ entrance… by giving everyone the week off
Soon-to-be premier David Eby is already putting his stamp on government. He iced the second last week of an already over-packed legislative session. Eby says he has a 100-day plan with many big changes afoot for housing, the environment, health care and public safety. So we’re not sure why he’d want to leave less time for Opposition questions and legislative debate.
Oh, hold on, I think we just figured it out.
For some reason, even though Eby is getting sworn in on Fri. Nov. 18, he cancelled all legislative activities during the four days immediately prior. Gone are the Nov. 14 to 17 Question Periods and legislative committee meetings which Opposition MLAs would have spent pressing ministers on important issues and reviewing new bills section-by-section. Apparently, Eby and his team need that week to work out his transition to premier and select his new cabinet, a claim BC Liberal house leader Todd Stone called “ridiculous.” Everyone has known he’s going to be premier for months, Stone said. “There is no reason why these four days should have been cut, other than to purely serve the government's own political interests.”
[Times Colonist legislative correspondent extraordinaire Les Leyne had some thoughts on the subject.]
Now, with four days left in the fall session – and rumours Eby may introduce a new housing bill – Opposition won’t have enough time to scrutinize the hundreds of clauses still outstanding on several large bills. On significant sections of these bills, “no questions will get asked – we just will simply run out of time,” said Stone. “That’s not how it's supposed to work. It's just not right.”
But it may be how it is. Not unlike the 2021 fall session when the NDP government similarly pulled “closure,” using their majority numbers to ram two huge, complicated forestry bills into law without full debate.
Welcome to David Eby’s government.
Next up, Leonard Krog country…
Nanaimo, losing its religion
Nanaimo has been proven the least religious metropolitan area in all of Canada, with five other BC towns making the top six, according to a cool dissemination of Statistics Canada data by the Nanaimo News Bulletin. On the heels of Nanaimo is Kamloops, Victoria, Kelowna, Chilliwack and Vancouver. It’s no wonder then that BC is now the least religious province in the country, where – for the first time – people unaffiliated with any religion now outnumber those connected with a faith population.
[Someone needs to dig into this – compare diverse communities like Kamloops with Victoria to find out why support for organized religion has dropped in both places.]
Religions are declining around the world and the parents of millennials and generation Zers are at least partly to blame. But while church memberships are down, devotion to earthly, environmental and social causes seems waaaay up.
Have people swapped stodgy, millennia-old religions for the modern church of social justice?
The Atlantic explored the subject, as did the BBC. Certainly, activists on both the left and the right ends of the political spectrum can be fuelled by religious-type fervour. And most – like any fire-and-brimstone religion worth its salt – predict catastrophic alternatives if the ideology is abandoned. Through this lens, maybe faithful adherence to doctrine and the number of devout followers in BC isn’t on the decline at all.
Battling oligarchs in Montreal
On the intersection of politics and religion, we found Kate Turner, a climate justice organizer from Decolonial Solidarity in Montreal. Turner was on the Gidimt’en Checkpoint call out to anarchists, doing her part to recruit supporters to attend “kill the drill” anti-CGL protests at RBC bank branches on Nov. 5. The protests took place in mostly dwindled numbers at locations across Canada. Billed as the “kick-off” of a longer term strategy to bully RBC into dropping Coastal GasLink as a customer, the hope was/is that the Nov. 5 protests will snowball into additional protests which culminate in “a national political crisis” that can only be resolved by negotiations with the [Wet’suwet’en] hereditary chiefs, Turner said.
On a podcast posted Nov. 1, Turner talked about how the common cause of oppression for “working people” the world over is colonialism and imperialism. If people could find solidarity in understanding “we’re all in this together,” she said, then “I think that it’s game over for oligarchs and the banks that are supporting them.”
Am I the only one hearing marxism with religious overtones?
Turner then shared a devotional pledge with other “settler” supporters of Gidimt’en Checkpoint: “The reason we exist is to answer a call to action from land defenders. We are accountable to the land defenders. This network is a network of settlers who are ready, willing, and able to be accountable to land defenders. So, if they change strategy, if they want us to focus in a different direction, if they want us to stop or go in another direction. That's what we're here to do.”
–Amen.
That’s all we can jam into this newsletter – so many nests, so little time!
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Until next time, drive safely, especially if you’re battling winter. It’s -13C in Dease Lake right now!
Fran
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