“The document also noted that government scientists voiced their displeasure to communications officials about the policy during meetings in June 2008. A few months later, a couple of requests for interviews with scientists in the midst of the 2008 federal election campaign were never answered, including one request that was ‘denied’ after it was forwarded to the office of former environment minister John Baird.”

“A report released [last Wednesday] by the Canadian Federation of Students–Ontario shows that rising tuition fees and student debt disproportionately affect visible minority students. The report concludes that this trend demonstrates the structural discrimination that is built into Ontario’s high fees, high debt system of post-secondary education.”

NATO massacre covered up | rabble.ca.

By Murray Dobbin | On Thursday, a number of NDP MPs denied the unanimous consent of the House of Commons required to hear a motion from a Conservative back-bencher which would have condemned Israeli Apartheid Week.

“If anyone was voting yes to Vale Inco’s offer to settle the 10-month strike by United Steelworkers, they were not admitting it out loud in the halls, the basement and the parking lot of Caruso Club on Thursday morning and early afternoon. “

–Canada’s Parliamentary Budget Officer is slowly becoming one of my favourite people on the Hill these days. With the current government doing everything that it can to hide reality behind political spin and bread and circuses, Page seems to be able to cut through. It is too bad that it is not making the headlines the way that it should.

“Rally for Steelworker Locals 6500 and 6200 on strike at Vale Inco in Sudbury, Port Colborne and Voisey’s Bay.

Three years ago, Vale – a giant multinational corporation, based in Brazil – bought Canada’s mining company Inco. Now it has forced 3,500 miners and smelter workers in Sudbury, Port Colborne and Voisey’s Bay out on strike. It’s demanding huge rollbacks in pensions, nickel bonus and seniority rights.”

-Video footage of the rally. “We know where the wealth comes from, and we know who it should belong to”. “When we bring the system down, she’ll be there to help it fall”. Some great quotes from the rally.

“Dissatisfaction with Premier Shawn Graham’s Liberal party grew to 55 per cent in February – up from 51 per cent – in the latest quarterly poll by Corporate Research Associates… Progressive Conservatives dropped to 42 per cent from 46 per cent in November… Support for the New Democratic Party increased to 18 per cent from 14 per cent in the previous poll in November.”

– The last time I prodded CRA on their methods regarding a poll on public support for nuclear power, I found their preamble and survey question to be biased. I have not looked at the methods of this poll.

“Last week, [University of Ottawa professor, Dr.] Attaran alleged that the uncensored documents suggest that Canadian officials intended some prisoners to be tortured in order to gather intelligence. If the allegation is true, such actions would constitute a war crime, he argued.”

“In response to the CP report, Defence Minister Peter MacKay acknowledged the military has “relied heavily on other departments, including CSIS” to counter the severe threat to Canadian troops in Afghanistan.”"

– More damning evidence against CSIS, and the louts who work for them.

“An internal government memo obtained by CBC confirms that Canadian authorities began formulating a plan for dealing with accusations of torture of prisoners in Afghanistan as early as March 2007 — months before such allegations first came up in the media… First drafts of the document were written in March 2007, months before the Globe and Mail reported that 30 prisoners handed over to Afghan authorities by the Canadian military were “beaten, whipped, starved, frozen, choked and subjected to electric shocks during interrogations.”

–National Graduate Caucus of the Canadian Federation of Students responds to Budget 2010.

–Canadian Federation of Students respond to Budget 2010.

–National Aboriginal Caucus of the Canadian Federation of Students’ response to Budget 2010.

–The CLC’s response to Budget 2010.

–The CCPA’s response to Budget 2010.

–National Union of Public and General Employees response to Budget 2010.

–Canadian Union of Public Employees response to Budget 2010.

–Public Service Alliance of Canada response to Budget 2010.

“The Budget contains no big surprises but is still a big disappointment. Despite the fact that unemployment is and will remain very high, economic stimulus measures effectively end after this year. A few very small new investments in jobs and skills will be made, but they do not amount to even the beginnings of a strategy to build a new economy. There will be a temporary extension of EI work-sharing, but about 500,000 unemployment claims filed during the Great Recession will still be exhausted. Corporate tax cuts continue, and are even modestly increased in this Budget, so the burden of deficit reduction will fall on government programs.”

Andrew Jackson (CLC chief economist) provides a summary of the budget analysis at rabble.

Apartheid week one-sided but not anti-Semitic – thestar.com.

Judy Rebick outlines a convincing argument for why Israel is an apartheid state:
1. Different rights for different races.
2. Separation of so-called racial groups into different geographical areas.
3. Security and Repression Matrix of Laws and Security.
4. It is an apartheid state under the definition of the UN Convention on Apartheid.

“So why are politicians including some from the NDP setting a student activity like IAW in their sites? An all party coalition of parliamentarians has been holding hearings on what they call the “new anti-Semitism,” by which they mean criticism of Israel. They heard from every University President who appeared before them that there is no rise of anti-Semitism on their campuses and yet the false rumours of such a rise persist because of the equation of criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism… In Canada, the only way to shut down the movement is to vilify it as hateful or anti-Semitic. That is what our parliamentarians are now trying to do.”

OR
(addition by Graham)

You could just listen to the Congress of South Africa Trade Unions (COSATU) which is lead by and has as its members people that fought South African Apartheid. Of all the people that should know what Apartheid is, they should. The hand-wringing that goes on in our supposed labour party is astounding especially given the embarrassing history that the Canadian state played around South Africa’s Apartheid.

–It is shameful what this government is trying to do. The vast majority of Canadians do not support the type of social conservatism that the Harper government is infusing into our public discourse. We must make our voices heard.