On October 30, Peace Brigades International entities convened defenders from Colombia, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Kenya and Canada for a webinar titled Police violence has no borders: Human rights, land defence and police impunity.

The video of that two-hour webinar can be watched here.

In his opening comments, long-time policy analyst Russ Diabo, a member of the Mohawk nation of Kahnawake, noted:

“[When the British came] they assumed that they had the lands coast to coast in Canada. In 1876 they passed a federal law, a national law, called the Indian Act and they created a reserve system, Indian reserves, which are small pieces of land and the traditional territories were opened up to European settlement and occupation.

And that has been an issue across Canada for decades now, is basically Indigenous peoples wanting to see their stolen lands, territories and resources returned to them, at least a portion. That is what is behind most of the land conflicts in Canada.

When land defenders or water protectors object to a project or activity they are confronted when they leave the reserves, Indian reserves, usually with court injunctions followed by police action.

And in 1990 we saw in my own home community, the Mohawk community of Kahnawake, we saw the Canadian Army being brought in over a land conflict which is over 230 years old.

So, mostly land defenders have been criminalized from British Columbia through to Nova Scotia for defending and protecting their land rights.

Basically, as we say in Canada, there’s three parts to Canadian colonialism, there’s dispossession which creates dependency, and then when we fight against the dependency and the poverty we have been forced into under the Indian Act, then there is oppression which comes in the form of the courts and the police.

And right now, as I speak, we have Wet’suwet’en people opposing a natural gas pipeline, the CGL pipeline in what is now British Columbia. We have the Secwepemc people who have been opposing a Trans Mountain pipeline which Canada bought, so they are opposing a pipeline that is owned by Canada.

There have been arrests in both cases. In the Wet’suwet’en case their territory was invaded and they were forcibly removed in February of this year. The Secwepemc have seen arrests as well recently for opposing putting the pipeline under one of their salmon bearing rivers.

Right now, in Ontario, what is now called Ontario, the province, there’s Haudenosaunee land defenders at what they call 1492 Land Back Lane. They are surrounded by the police over lands that were stolen from them that they’ve occupied that was slated to be a housing development. They are opposing that housing development because it’s in what they call a red zone where 90 per cent of the lands promised them were taken and there are few lands left surrounding their community. That’s happening right now. There have been arrests there, rubber bullets shot at them.

Also, in Nova Scotia there’s Mi’kmaq fishermen going out on the water. Over 20 years ago the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that they have a Treaty right to earn a moderate livelihood from their fishery. And for over 20 years the federal government didn’t do anything about it. So, this year the Mi’kmaq started going out and doing their own moderate livelihood Treaty fishery for lobster. And in response they have been attacked by mobs of white fishermen from the commercial fishing industry and the police stood by and did nothing. They’ve only made a few arrests now, but they let the mobs attack the Mi’kmaq on their wharves. And in fact, on the water they were chased by $1 million commercial fishing boats when the Mi’kmaq are using maybe a $10,000 boat.

The last thing I would say there has been a major national inquiry into murdered and missing Indigenous women because so many Indigenous women have been murdered and gone missing in Canada. They released the report over a year ago and one of their conclusions is that Canada is committing genocide because its policies are designed to break up Indigenous families and particularly women and girls. And Canada has yet to respond to the recommendations of that report.”

Diabo’s primary interventions can be watched at the very start of the webinar (transcribed above), then at 24:24, and then again near the end at 1:44:18.

To watch the who webinar, please click here.

Along with Diabo, it features Faith Kasina (Kenya), German Romero, Victor Moreno Mina (Colombia), Juan Carlos Arce (Nicaragua) and Jose Angel Llamas (Guatemala).

While translation was provided for the live webinar, the video includes speakers in Spanish without translation (though the moderation and questions are posed in English).

A new research report highlights: “The financial sector is bankrolling the mass extinction crisis, while undermining human rights and indigenous sovereignty.”

On October 31, the Peace Brigades International-Guatemala Project posted on its Facebook page this article from El Espectador about the report.

The Guardian has also reported: “The world’s largest investment banks provided more than $2.6 trillion (£1.9tn) of financing linked to the destruction of ecosystems and wildlife last year, according to a new report.”

That article adds: “The findings in the Bankrolling Extinction report were produced by portfolio.earth, a new initiative led by finance, economics and environmental experts to better understand the role of the finance industry in the destruction of the natural world.”

And The Ecologist observes: “None of the banks assessed in the research by Bankrolling Extinction had chosen to put sufficient systems in place to monitor or measure the impact of their loans on biodiversity loss, nor do they have comprehensive policies to halt it.”

The report lists two of the largest Canadian banks: the Royal Bank of Canada and the Toronto-Dominion Bank.

Of the 50 banks listed in the report, the Royal Bank of Canada ranks 15^th and the Toronto-Dominion Bank ranks 18^th in a chart that lists in millions (USD) the loans and underwriting by banks linked to direct and indirect biodiversity impact risks in 2019.

The full Bankrolling Extinction report can be read here.

Earlier this year, the Rainforest Action Network, BankTrack, Indigenous Environmental Network, Oil Change International, Reclaim Finance and Sierra Club released a report that showed that 35 banks have poured a total of $2.7 trillion into fossil fuels in the four years since the Paris Agreement was adopted (2016-2019).

This financing included more than $481 billion from Canadian banks: the Royal Bank of Canada (at $140.6 billion), Toronto Dominion ($103.4 billion), Scotiabank ($97.7 billion), the Bank of Montreal ($82.1 billion) and CIBC ($57.7 billion).

The report noted: “The world’s fifth biggest fossil funder is Canada’s RBC.”

That Banking on Climate Change report can be read here.

On October 28, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet stated: “Environmental degradation, biodiversity loss, pollution and the climate crisis constitute some of humanity’s gravest challenges, contributing both directly and indirectly to human rights violations around the world.”

Bachelet then noted: “To effectively address the drivers of biodiversity loss, we must take concrete steps [including] protect environmental human rights defenders from harm.”

Peace Brigades International provides both protective and political (advocacy) accompaniment to threatened frontline defenders in Guatemala, Colombia, Honduras and Mexico to enable them to continue their crucial work.

Twitter photo by Kanahus Manuel.

Canada ratified the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination more than 50 years ago on October 14, 1970.

The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) is the body of independent experts that monitors implementation of the Convention.

In December 2019, the Committee called on Canada to “immediately cease construction of the Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion project … until free, prior and informed consent is obtained from all the Secwepemc people.”

The Committee also called on Canada to withdraw the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) from the traditional lands of the Secwepemc.

And yet the construction of the pipeline continues, as does the criminalization of the Secwepemc land defenders and water protectors opposed to it.

The Canada Development Investment Corporation (CDEV) is the Crown corporation responsible for managing the investments of the Government of Canada.

Notably, CDEV owns the Trans Mountain Corp. (TMC) and is financing the construction activities related to the Trans Mountain Expansion Project (TMEP).

$4.5 billion in public money was used to purchase the Trans Mountain pipeline, and $12.6 billion in public money is being used to expand the pipeline.

CDEV will hold its Annual Public Meeting on November 17 with a representative of its TMC subsidiary present to answer questions.

Questions are being accepted in advance until November 3.

CDEV and TMC should answer:

The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination has called for the construction of the Trans Mountain pipeline to be stopped, for the right to free, prior and informed consent to be respected, and for the RCMP to be withdrawn from Secwepemc traditional lands. Will you do so and uphold your commitments to the UN Convention on ending racism?

To send this question – or amend and add your own questions – to the public meeting, please click here by November 3.

Serious questions remain unanswered about the relative economic benefits of the federal government’s future fighter capability project.

Winnipeg Free Press columnist Martin Cash writes: “As part of the process, the manufacturer of the winning bid — now between Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Saab — must provide a plan whereby they will eventually invest in the Canadian economy an amount equal to the value of the contract. That’s called the Industrial and Technological Benefits (ITBs).”

“On Tuesday, Boeing released a little more detail about its ITB program should the Canadian Defence Department choose its Block III Super Hornet jet fighter, including five top-tier Canadian partners who will be part of the ITB and who will specifically contribute to production of the Super Hornet.”

Cash adds: “Boeing’s economic development consultants, Ottawa-based Doyletech Corp., estimates that if the Super Hornet is chosen … the ITB economic benefits to Canada over 40 years of service, including direct, indirect, and induced effects, is projected to be $61.1 billion creating 248,176 person years of jobs.”

And yet Cash – and the federal government – have left unexplored a comparative look at the job creation multipliers of the $19 billion purchase cost of new warplanes.

For instance, the Canadian Labour Congress has pointed out that a $17.6 billion investment in public transit could create 223,000 person years of jobs.

And given figures from a previous Auditor General report suggest that the sustainment costs of new fighter jets could be an additional $25.7 billion over 20 years, we should also look at how those public funds could be differently and more efficiently invested.

The Canadian Labour Congress has argued that a $23.3 billion investment in renewable energy would create an additional 290,000 person job years.

As such, the federal government could be asked: Will the purchase of new fighter jets create more than 513,000 person years of jobs?

Others also assert that more jobs can be created by diverting public funding from war.

In the U.S. context, Phyllis Bennis has written: “$1 billion in military spending creates approximately 11,200 jobs — but the same amount of money would create 26,700 jobs if invested in education, about two-and-a-half times as many. Or 16,800 jobs in clean energy, or 17,200 in health care.”

Similarly, research by the Costs of War Project based at Brown University’s Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs found that while $1 million spent on “defence” creates 6.9 direct and indirect jobs, the same amount invested in solar power creates 9.5 jobs, in health care 14.3 jobs, and in elementary and secondary education 19.2 jobs.

As such, we are left with questions about the process for the evaluation of the economic and job creation benefits within this acquisition program:

– When will the federal government detail the full cost of a fleet of new fighter jets over a 20-year period, rather than simply the sticker price?

– How can the public evaluate the merits of a major public expenditure without knowing the total amount that would be spent?

– What official process exists to do a comparative analysis of the industrial and technical benefits of spending billions on warplanes vs a Green New Deal?

With the federal government prepared to award $19 billion in public funds to either Boeing, Lockheed Martin or Saab in 2022 and then spend likely an additional $25.7 billion or more on service costs over the next 20 years, a response to these questions does not seem unreasonable especially in the context of a projected $1.2 trillion federal debt and the precarity of both a pandemic ravaged economy and a global climate crisis.

To watch a recent 90-minute webinar featuring Green Party MP Paul Manly, NDP MP Randall Garrison and independent Senator Marilou McPhedran discussing the proposed purchase of new fighter jets, please click here.