Photos of anti-SPP demo on Parliament Hill today

From August 20-21, Stephen Harper will welcome his American idol George W. Bush and Mexico’s President Felipe Calderon to Montebello, Quebec.

The security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) was launched two years ago by then-prime minister Paul Martin, President George W. Bush and his Mexican counterpart Vicente Fox at the so-called Three Amigos summit in Waco, Texas.

The SPP grew out of concerns that security crackdowns would cripple cross-border trade.

With juggernauts such as China and India looming on the horizon, the three countries agreed they had to act fast to stay competitive.

Now the SPP has grown into a mind-boggling array of some 300 initiatives, involving 19 teams of bureaucrats from all three countries.Its stated mission is "to keep our borders closed to terrorism yet open to trade" by fostering "greater co-operation and information-sharing" in security protocols and economic areas such as product safety.

Little-known in Canada, the accord, if fully implemented, could affect almost every aspect of Canadian life, from what drugs you can access, to whether you can board a plane and even what ingredients go into your morning cornflakes.

While you may not have heard of the SPP, you may have heard about some of the controversies it has sparked: Canada's adoption of a no-fly list; negotiations to lower Canada's pesticide standards to U.S. levels; or fears the deal will lead to bulk-water exports.

This weekend, the debate hits the headlines across the nation as the three heads of state and their advisers converge on Montebello, Que., 60 kilometres east of Ottawa, for the SPP's third annual summit.

Thousands of protesters are also expected to descend on the area, hoping to confront the "Three Banditos" about a deal they say is a secretive sellout to the cowboy capitalism and militarism of the superpower to Canada's south. Today - there was a rally on Parliament Hill

LINK: Slideshow

Conservatives persist in insulting women

Recently appointed to cabinet, Calgary MP Diane Ablonczy told The Canadian Press Friday that women can rise up the political ranks more quickly than men, but generally, politics is not a career that interests many women. “Women generally place a higher priority on caring for their family – either their own children, or sometimes grandchildren, and sometimes older parents,” Ms. Ablonczy was quoted as saying.

That explanation drew a quick and fiery response from NDP MP Irene Mathyssen, who issued a press release criticizing the Conservatives' approach to women's issues and noting the NDP caucus is 41 per cent women.

“Now they're blaming women for having the wrong priorities,” she said.

• The NDP strongly criticized Harper’s Conservatives for their persistent lack of understanding of women’s role in Canadian politics. The charge came following comments made by newly appointed junior cabinet minister Diane Ablonczy who suggested that women are less interested in a political career because their priority is caring for their families.


• Dion uses controversial powers naming veteran party activist Michelle Simson as the next Liberal candidate in Scarborough Southwest.
  Mr. Dion defended his use of the rarely used appointment power on the grounds that it will help him meet his commitment of running at least one-third female candidates in the next election.

Callwood's visionary HOA versus the subprime catastrophe

Life was a whole lot simpler when Gertrude and Joe Barron bought their first house in Hellertown, Pa., a generation ago.

The couple got a mortgage from a local bank – the same bank where Mr. Barron deposited the paycheque he earned working at the nearby Bethlehem Steel plant. And the couple dutifully made their monthly payments until the house was paid off.

The story might have ended there.

But three years ago, Ms. Barron, 77, by then a widow living on social security, unwittingly stepped into the arcane world of subprime lending, helping to set in motion a chain of events that has rocked financial markets around the world and left few investors untouched.

Until this month, few Canadians knew what “subprime” meant. Fewer still could imagine why they should even care. Common in the United States, these loans are a rarity in Canada, accounting for roughly 5 per cent of all mortgages.

But these risky loans – made at inflated rates to borrowers with inadequate income and spotty credit histories – were all the rage south of the border. Last year, they accounted for 20 per cent of new mortgages, spawning a $1-trillion (U.S.) market.

Now, the subprime market's collapse has become the catalyst for the deflation of the U.S. housing bubble, and a virulent and spreading global credit crunch.

Callwood's Vision - Home Ownership Alternatives.

Four months after her death, the small miracles that June Callwood germinated all over the city continue to blossom.

Here is one that almost nobody knew about until now.

A decade ago, Callwood helped found a non-profit corporation called Home Ownership Alternatives. Its goal was to provide modest-income families with the chance to buy a home of their own. It offered them loans, worth up to 15 per cent of the purchase price, to make a down payment. No repayment of principal or interest was required until they sold the home.

The scheme was the brainchild of Callwood's nephew, Michael Labbé, an urban planner who passionately believed that home ownership could reduce poverty and revitalize threadbare neighbourhoods.

The initiative began quietly. The founders didn't have much seed money and their approach was at odds with mainstream thinking about affordable housing.

But the formula worked.

LINK: The Face Of the Global Credit Crisis

LINK: Callwood's legacy still spreading

Quality child care – make it the law

Parliament is scheduled to resume on Sept. 17, and with it comes a final vote on Bill C-303, the NDP’s Early Learning and Child Care Act.

Take action supporting this bill right now by emailing your member of parliament.

LINK: CUPE

Half of Canada lacks clout in cabinet

Female representation stuck at 22 per cent

Women have not gained clout or numbers in Prime Minister Stephen Harper's cabinet and some critics are saying that women were the big losers in this shuffle.

The 32-member cabinet has seven women – the same 22 per cent ratio that Harper had in his past two cabinets. Women accounted for between 24 and 28 per cent of the Liberal cabinets in the years immediately preceding the Conservatives coming to power in 2006.

Moreover, there are virtually no women in the frontline ministries and none in charge of the areas that Harper identified as priorities for his government, such as crime, the economy, Canadian sovereignty and the environment. In the last cabinet shuffle, Rona Ambrose was shuffled out of the environment post and replaced by John Baird.

She says while Harper is keeping women's numbers down and putting them in "pink portfolios," Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion is on track to have one-third of his candidates be women in the next election and has vowed that they'll have the same representation in any future Liberal cabinet

LINK: TorStar

Bev Oda and Josee Verner have switched posts

Bev Oda and Josee Verner have switched posts -- Oda moving from the heritage and status of women files to minister of international co-operation and Verner taking over Oda's duties. Verner retains her responsibility as minister of official languages. Verner has mostly flown under the radar during her tenure as the minister responsible for the Canadian International Development Agency, but Oda has had to fend off calls for her resignation. She was forced to defend several of her party's decisions including $5-million in cuts to the administrative budget for Status of Women and the removal of the word "equality" from the department's mandate.

The decades in since 1967 have seen advances in racial and social equality

There was a sense of heady optimism during the Summer of Love that the flower-power generation could change the world.

But as many drifted into middle age, they must have wondered about past ideals: Saddled with mortgages, they spawned kids who watched too much TV, played too many video games and suffered from more obesity problems than any previous generation.

The baby boomers also bought more pre-packaged food, riddled with chemical additives, than ever before in history. Food packaged in non-biodegradable containers, brought home in plastic bags.

While many were first stirred to environmental activism after reading Rachel Carson's seminal 1962 book, Silent Spring, it took years before the effects of global warming became too serious to ignore, now serving as a wake-up call to the boomer generation after years of rampant consumerism.

So, 40 years later, did the boomers change the world?

In some ways they did, says University of Victoria historian Dominique Clment, who's written a new research paper titled An Anachronism Failing to Function Properly: How the Baby Boom Generation Transformed Social Movements in Canada.

Sixties youth were the front-runners of a historical time when political activism and radical ideas were pronounced, his paper says, and while the generation was not revolutionary, it had a revolutionary impact.

The boomers fought for racial and social equality, gay rights, women's rights, student rights, and campaigned against war and poverty, Clment points out."The size of this demographic bulge, combined with widespread social and economic changes unique to this period, was bound to have a profound impact on social movement activism," he says.

One of the most identifiable impacts of the generation can be quantified by looking at the proliferation of professional social movement organizations (SMOs), which he defines as a formal organization that identifies its goals with the preferences of a social movement and attempts to implement those goals.

The proliferation of SMOs in Canada in the '60s and '70s was astounding," Clment observes.

The number of women's groups in B.C. alone, for example, jumped from two in 1969 to more than 100 by 1974."The student movement and the New Left peaked in the '60s and early '70s as the boomers entered and graduated from college and university," he says."

The boomers also left their mark on the women's movement. Disgusted at the rampant sexism among student radicals, women formed the first women's liberation groups in Canada."At the same time, the first gay rights organizations were formed in Vancouver and Toronto, and a national association began in 1975.

Greenpeace started in Vancouver in 1971, the birth of the modern environmental movement, and between 1960 and 1969, four national aboriginal associations and 33 provincial organizations were born, he says.Clment points out that boomers also created African-Canadian SMOs across the country while advocates for children's rights, prisoners' rights, animal rights, peace and official languages organized in unprecedented numbers.By the mid-1980s, the federal secretary of state was providing funding to more than 3,500 social movement organizations, Clment says.................continued at link below

LINK: VanSun.com

Subsidized child care is a proven way to increase birth rate

But Canada, except for Quebec, balks at it, despite looming demographic crisis

Last month's census data confirmed several long-standing and problematic trends: a lower-than-ever birth rate, a higher-than-ever median age of nearly 40, with the West younger than the East mainly because Easterners have moved West to work in the oil boom.

Canada has always had the option of trying to encourage a higher birth rate to maintain its population, yet only Quebec has gone down that road.

Canada by and large does not provide inexpensive or accessible child care. Canadian parents, excluding Quebecers, pay on average twice as much for child care as Europeans. Barely one in five single Canadian parents has access to subsidized care.

Despite the fact that Quebec's system of generous state support for parents has proved successful in raising its birth rate, other provinces and the federal government have all pointedly - and wrongly - ignored it as an example to follow.

LINK: Montreal Gazette

Men more confident than women on workplace equity?

It seems men and white people are confident that women and ethnic minorities will have an easier time in the workplace a decade from now, according to a Business Week poll

The magazine surveyed 2,000 executives, and found that folks with privilege are much more confident that sections of the workforce that experience discrimination now, will see their experiences improve within 10 years.

A Feminist Law Professor writes: These data suggest that people who are race- and/or gender-privileged have a more sanguine view of how easy it is to “get ahead” than do those without such privilege

International Day of the World's Indigenous People

Yes folks - today is the International Day of the World's Indigenous People

I choose to celebrate our Indigineous People by acknowledging the amazing honour bestowed upon Sophia Rabliauskas recipient of the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize for 2007 (one prize awarded to each of the six continents)

About Sophia

The traditional territory of the Poplar River First Nation—1,200 members of the Ojibway indigenous people—is located on the eastern side of Lake Winnipeg in Manitoba, and forms a significant part of Canada’s boreal forest. For thousands of years, the Poplar River First Nation has carried out its traditional mandate to protect the region and its resources. However, massive industrial clear-cut logging to the south and hydro-power development on boreal rivers to the north of Poplar River land continue. First Nations territory is legally public land. As such, it is common for provincial and federal agencies to grant long-term leases to industry without consulting the First Nations who live on the land.

A leader of her Poplar River First Nation in the boreal region of Manitoba, Sophia Rabliauskas has for the past eight years worked with her people to secure interim protection of their two million acres of undisturbed forest land (three times the size of Rhode Island). In 2004, Rabliauskas along with several other community members led Poplar River in the development of a comprehensive land protection and management plan for their territory—a precedent-setting accomplishment among First Nations in the boreal. Rabliauskas’s and Poplar River’s current efforts are focused on securing permanent protection of their land from the Manitoba government. With that victory, they will seek a UNESCO World Heritage listing for a larger region of First Nations boreal forest.
Click here to email the Sophia

Goldman Environmental Prize

Grassroots environmental heroes too often go unrecognized. Yet their efforts to protect the world’s natural resources are increasingly critical to the well-being of the planet we all share. Thus, in 1990 San Francisco civic leaders and philanthropists Richard N. Goldman and his late wife, Rhoda H. Goldman (1924-1996) created the Goldman Environmental Prize. The Goldman Prize continues today with its original mission to annually honor grassroots environmental heroes from the six inhabited continental regions: Africa, Asia, Europe, Islands and Island Nations, North America, and South and Central America. The Prize recognizes individuals for sustained and significant efforts to protect and enhance the natural environment, often at great personal risk. Each winner receives an award of $125,000, the largest award in the world for grassroots environmentalists. The Goldman Prize views “grassroots” leaders as those involved in local efforts, where positive change is created through community or citizen participation in the issues that affect them. Through recognizing these individual leaders, the Prize seeks to inspire other ordinary people to take extraordinary actions to protect the natural world.

PM's hard choices replacing female ministers

Heritage Minister Bev Oda, viewed by many Tories as a weak communicator, is widely rumoured to be facing demotion to a lower-profile portfolio, such as National Revenue. The current Revenue Minister, Carol Skelton, could be dropped because she has announced she will not run for re-election.

The puzzle of cabinet-making is complicated by the fact that polls show the Conservatives have far less support among women than men – and opposition politicians will be quick to pounce if Mr. Harper reduces the number and influence of women in cabinet.

Some Conservative insiders speculate that Mr. Harper, who has only 14 women in his caucus of 125 MPs, will look to promote a backbencher such as Diane Ablonczy, Joy Smith or Lynne Yelich, or raise junior foreign affairs minister Helena Guergis to a bigger portfolio.

LINK: Globe and Mail

Feminism and women of color

In this week's Addicted to Race podcast, Carmen Van Kerckhove of Racialicious and Latoya Peterson of Alter Ego Maniacs discuss why women of color sometimes feel ambivalent about feminism.

LINK: Click here to download the mp3

“Womanist is to feminist as purple is to lavender” -Alice Walker

"Womanist and womanism are populist and poetic synonyms for black feminist and black feminism. They were coined in 1983 by Alice Walker -- African American novelist, poet, essayist, and activist -- in her collection of essays, In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens: Womanist Prose.

As Walker explained to The New York Times Magazine in 1984, "I don't choose womanism because it is 'better' than feminism...Since womanism means black feminism, this would be a non-sensical distinction. I choose it because I prefer the sound, the feel, the fit of it; because I cherish the spirit of the women (like Sojourner) the word calls to mind, and because I share the old ethnic-American habit of offering society a new word when the old word it is using fails to describe behavior and change that only a new word can help it more fully see."

Womanism brings a racialized and often class-located experience to the gendered experience suggested by feminism. It also relects a link with history that includes African cultural heritage, enslavement, women's culture, and a kinship with other women, especially women of color. As Walker also told the Times, "Feminism (all colors) definitely teaches women they are capable, one reason for its universal appeal. In addition to this, womanist (i.e. black feminist) tradition assumes, because of our experiences during slavery, that black women are capable."