From the World & Comment section of the Toronto Star, Friday, October 5, 2007, page AA-AA4, an article about White House memos which seem to endorse torture:
MEMOS PUT WHITE HOUSE ON DEFENSIVE OVER 'TORTURE'
U.S. officials confirm existence of documents that appear to endorse extreme interrogation
Tim Harper
Washington Bureau
Washington - The Bush administration found itself in familiar territory yesterday, facing accusations it was covertly torturing terrorism suspects and holding them in secret "black sites."
The White House confirmed the existence of two secret memos, first reported in The New York Times, that appear to authorize the Central Intelligence Agency the ability to use its most extreme interrogation techniques, including simulated drowning, known as "water-boarding."
But it said the memos did not circumvent a U.S. law prohibiting "cruel, inhuman and degrading" treatment of suspects or an official 2004 policy that declared torture "abhorrent."
Questions about harsh interrogation techniques have become a hallmark of the Bush administration and most of those questions continue to swirl around former attorney general Alberto Gonzales who, the reports said, approved the legal opinions to bring policy more in line with the wishes of U.S. President George W. Bush.
Gonzales was driven from office last month amid charges he had politicized the justice department and compromised its independence in his zeal to accommodate his mentor, Bush.
The man nominated to succeed him, Michael Mukasey, faces a Senate confirmation hearing later this month and the question of torture policy seems certain to be raised at those hearings.
"The policy of the United States is not to torture," said White House spokesperson Dana Perino.
"The president has not authorized it, he will not authorize it. But he had done everything within the corners of the law to make sure that we prevent another attack on this country, which is what we have done in this administration."
Democrats in the House of Representatives demanded the two memos be released and promised to probe administration interrogation policy.
They said they would call Steven Bradbury, the acting chief of legal counsel at the U.S. Justice Department, identified by the Times as the author of the memos.
The revelations immediately became fodder in the Democratic presidential race.
Illinois Senator Barack Obama called the revelations an "outrageous betrayal" of this country's core values.
"Torture is how you create enemies, not how you defeat them," he said in a statement.
"Torture is how you get bad information, not good intelligence. Torture is how you set back America's standing in the world, not how you strengthen it."
Connecticut Senator Christopher Dodd said the law made it "crystal clear" that torture was illegal.
"It is 'abhorrent' that the Bush administration would publicly disavow torture, while its office of legal counsel is secretly interpreting settled law to reach the opposite conclusion," Dodd said.
John McCain , the Arizona senator and Republican presidential hopeful, who is a former prisoner of war, said water-boarding is specifically outlawed under the 2005 law. He was instrumental in the passage of that law, and his amendment prohibited the use of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.
McCain has stood firm against an administration, led by Vice President Dick Cheney, which wanted unfettered presidential powers to approve harsh interrogation.
Human-rights advocates said Congress must use the upcoming confirmation hearings to put an end to any back-door torture.
Congress should be clear - it will not confirm another attorney general who advises the president that it is okay to break the law," said Joanne Mariner of Human Rights Watch.
The Center for Constitutional Rights, which represents many of the more than 300 detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, said its clients were being tortured even as the Bush administration was publicly denouncing the practice.
"Torture is illegal, immoral, and it doesn't work. Detainee torture policies that produce faulty intelligence and exaggerated confessions result in innocent men being locked up," said Vincent Warren of the rights centre.
The Reuters news agency, citing an unnamed U.S. counterterrorism official, said a high-ranking Al Qaeda terrorist known as Abd at-Hadi al-Iraqi had been held in a secret site in late 2006.
He has since been transferred to Guantanamo Bay.
Bush acknowledged the secret detention sites in September 2006, when he transferred 14 detainees from the secret prisons to Guantanamo Bay.
Their existence, first revealed in 2005 by The Washington Post, sparked an international outcry, with some European officials charging the United States was illegally torturing people on their soil.
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Accomplices to Torture: Stop the Transfer of Detainees
From the Wednesday, November 14, 2007, Toronto Star, Ideas section, page AA8, an article about Amnesty International's report into detainee transfers conducted by Canada and other countries:
Canada's Shame
TRANSFER OF DETAINEES IS COMPLICITY IN TORTURE
Michael Byers
The world's most respected human rights organization has just accused this country of complicity in torture. Canadians should hang their heads in shame.
Yesterday, the London-based International secretariat of Amnesty International released a 38-page report into detainee transfers conducted by Canada and other members of the International security Assistance Force in Afghanistan. The report is based upon Amnesty International's own field research, as well as on-the-ground reports from other reputable human rights and media organizations.
Back in December 2005, Canada and Afghanistan concluded an "arrangement" on detainee transfers that lacked basic verification mechanisms, such as the right for Canadian officials to visit transferred detainees. Last May, under the threat of a federal court injunction, the Canadian government negotiated an improved arrangement.
But the new arrangement has failed to work. According to Amnesty International, transferred detainees remain "at substantial risk of torture and other ill-treatment."
The human rights organization cites two reports from the UN secretary general, the most recent from just two months ago, pointing to the use of torture in a "significant number of cases." It collates a number of media reports to the same effect, as well as statements from the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission. It highlights the admission, by the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade last summer, that Canadian officials had received at least six first-hand reports of torture.
Amnesty International expresses particular concern about Afghanistan's notorious National Directorate of Security (NDS), the secret policy who end up holding most of the transferred detainees.
It writes that it has "received repeated reports of torture and other ill-treatment of detainees by the NDS from alleged victims and their relatives, as well as a range of organizations including UN agencies."
One alleged victim claimed to have been taken to a room in the NDS compound in Kandahar where "the walls were covered with blood." There, he was hung from a hook on the ceiling and repeatedly beaten into unconsciousness.
As Amnesty International explains, Canada's current reliance on occasional verification visits is misplaced. Monitoring "is a technique to detect torture only after it happens, and cannot substitute for prior precautions that prevent torture from happening in the first place."
The human rights organization also criticizes Canada for downplaying the number of transfers that occur. It suggests that as many as 200 detainees may have been moved from Canadian custody, not including the many immediate transfers that take place during joint Canada-Afghan military operations.
And it expresses concerns that the Canadian government's investigation into abuse claims early this year may have been neither "competent" nor "impartial."
Amnesty International then usefully summarizes the applicable law. It points out that torture is a "grave breach" of the Geneva Conventions, "may also constitute a crime against humanity or a war crime under the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court," and is absolutely prohibited under international human rights law.
As part of this absolute prohibition, "states must never expel, return or extradite a person to a country where they risk torture or other ill-treatment."
More specifically, under the UN Convention Against Torture, countries may never transfer a person to a situation "where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be tortured." Any country that does so is, under universally accepted rules of "state responsibility," is no less culpable than the country directly engaged in the abuse.
An Amnesty International explains, the situation is analogous to a country which knowingly releases detainees in a minefield while claiming that their safety is no longer its responsibility.
The report concludes by calling - quite reasonably - for a temporary moratorium on the transfer of detainees. The moratorium would allow for their rights to be protected while a comprehensive effort was made to reform the Afghan detention system. Such reforms could include "placing staff and trainers within Afghan detention facilities in order to monitor and train Afghan detention officials."
Yesterday, the Canadian Department of National Defense responded to the Amnesty International report by stating that "Afghanistan is a sovereign country with a constitution that requires the protection of human rights, and which has the responsibility for detention of Afghans."
The response misses the point. Canada is a sovereign country, too. We have our own constitutional and international legal responsibilities that are engaged whenever our soldiers act overseas. And we had, until recently, a strong reputation as a human rights respecting state.
Amnesty International is right. It's time to stop the transfer of detainees.
Canada's Shame
TRANSFER OF DETAINEES IS COMPLICITY IN TORTURE
Michael Byers
The world's most respected human rights organization has just accused this country of complicity in torture. Canadians should hang their heads in shame.
Yesterday, the London-based International secretariat of Amnesty International released a 38-page report into detainee transfers conducted by Canada and other members of the International security Assistance Force in Afghanistan. The report is based upon Amnesty International's own field research, as well as on-the-ground reports from other reputable human rights and media organizations.
Back in December 2005, Canada and Afghanistan concluded an "arrangement" on detainee transfers that lacked basic verification mechanisms, such as the right for Canadian officials to visit transferred detainees. Last May, under the threat of a federal court injunction, the Canadian government negotiated an improved arrangement.
But the new arrangement has failed to work. According to Amnesty International, transferred detainees remain "at substantial risk of torture and other ill-treatment."
The human rights organization cites two reports from the UN secretary general, the most recent from just two months ago, pointing to the use of torture in a "significant number of cases." It collates a number of media reports to the same effect, as well as statements from the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission. It highlights the admission, by the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade last summer, that Canadian officials had received at least six first-hand reports of torture.
Amnesty International expresses particular concern about Afghanistan's notorious National Directorate of Security (NDS), the secret policy who end up holding most of the transferred detainees.
It writes that it has "received repeated reports of torture and other ill-treatment of detainees by the NDS from alleged victims and their relatives, as well as a range of organizations including UN agencies."
One alleged victim claimed to have been taken to a room in the NDS compound in Kandahar where "the walls were covered with blood." There, he was hung from a hook on the ceiling and repeatedly beaten into unconsciousness.
As Amnesty International explains, Canada's current reliance on occasional verification visits is misplaced. Monitoring "is a technique to detect torture only after it happens, and cannot substitute for prior precautions that prevent torture from happening in the first place."
The human rights organization also criticizes Canada for downplaying the number of transfers that occur. It suggests that as many as 200 detainees may have been moved from Canadian custody, not including the many immediate transfers that take place during joint Canada-Afghan military operations.
And it expresses concerns that the Canadian government's investigation into abuse claims early this year may have been neither "competent" nor "impartial."
Amnesty International then usefully summarizes the applicable law. It points out that torture is a "grave breach" of the Geneva Conventions, "may also constitute a crime against humanity or a war crime under the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court," and is absolutely prohibited under international human rights law.
As part of this absolute prohibition, "states must never expel, return or extradite a person to a country where they risk torture or other ill-treatment."
More specifically, under the UN Convention Against Torture, countries may never transfer a person to a situation "where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be tortured." Any country that does so is, under universally accepted rules of "state responsibility," is no less culpable than the country directly engaged in the abuse.
An Amnesty International explains, the situation is analogous to a country which knowingly releases detainees in a minefield while claiming that their safety is no longer its responsibility.
The report concludes by calling - quite reasonably - for a temporary moratorium on the transfer of detainees. The moratorium would allow for their rights to be protected while a comprehensive effort was made to reform the Afghan detention system. Such reforms could include "placing staff and trainers within Afghan detention facilities in order to monitor and train Afghan detention officials."
Yesterday, the Canadian Department of National Defense responded to the Amnesty International report by stating that "Afghanistan is a sovereign country with a constitution that requires the protection of human rights, and which has the responsibility for detention of Afghans."
The response misses the point. Canada is a sovereign country, too. We have our own constitutional and international legal responsibilities that are engaged whenever our soldiers act overseas. And we had, until recently, a strong reputation as a human rights respecting state.
Amnesty International is right. It's time to stop the transfer of detainees.
Friday, November 23, 2007
Chinese Journalists' Lawsuit with Yahoo Settled
Here is an article about Yahoo settling with Chinese journalists, after Yahoo provided Chinese authorities with information about the online activities of the journalists. Obviously greed in setting up business in such a new and expanding market overrode any moral misgivings about snitching on online clients to a repressive Chinese regime.
This is from the Wednesday, November 14, 2007, Business Section of the Toronto Star, page B8:
YAHOO SETTLES LAWSUIT OVER DISSIDENTS' EMAILS
San Francisco - Yahoo Inc. yesterday settled a lawsuit with two Chinese journalists who were jailed after the company provided Chinese authorities with information about their online activities.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
The two journalists and a family member sued the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company earlier this year after Yahoo HK, Yahoo's Hong Kong subsidiary, gave Chinese authorities emails containing pro-democracy literature. The jailed journalists alleged in the lawsuit that jailers have tortured them and that Yahoo was responsible.
The company has denied any responsibility and maintained it was complying with Chinese law when it turned over the emails.
The case has raised questions about whether Internet firms should co-operate with governments that deny freedom of speech and frequently crack down on journalists.
Neither side discussed terms of the settlement other than to agree that Yahoo would pay the lawyers' fees of the two journalists and the family member who sued. The three were represented by The World Organization for Human Rights in Washington, D.C.
Shi Tao, a former writer for the financial publication Contemporary Business News, was jailed under state secrecy laws for allegedly providing state secrets to foreigners.
According to the suit, the other journalist, Wang Ziaoning, was arrested in 2002 after Yahoo HK gave police information linking him to his anonymous emails and other political writings he posted online.
Yahoo lawyer Michael Callahan was summoned before the House foreign affairs committee last week to explain testimony he gave to Congress last year. He said then that Yahoo had no information about the nature of China's investigation when the company handed over details that ended up being used to convinct Shi.
Callaghan subsequently has acknowledged that Yahoo officials had received a subpoena-like document that made reference to suspected "illegal provision of state secrets" - a common charge against political dissidents.
But Callahan continued to insist that Yahoo did not know the real nature of the Chinese investigation.
This is from the Wednesday, November 14, 2007, Business Section of the Toronto Star, page B8:
YAHOO SETTLES LAWSUIT OVER DISSIDENTS' EMAILS
San Francisco - Yahoo Inc. yesterday settled a lawsuit with two Chinese journalists who were jailed after the company provided Chinese authorities with information about their online activities.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
The two journalists and a family member sued the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company earlier this year after Yahoo HK, Yahoo's Hong Kong subsidiary, gave Chinese authorities emails containing pro-democracy literature. The jailed journalists alleged in the lawsuit that jailers have tortured them and that Yahoo was responsible.
The company has denied any responsibility and maintained it was complying with Chinese law when it turned over the emails.
The case has raised questions about whether Internet firms should co-operate with governments that deny freedom of speech and frequently crack down on journalists.
Neither side discussed terms of the settlement other than to agree that Yahoo would pay the lawyers' fees of the two journalists and the family member who sued. The three were represented by The World Organization for Human Rights in Washington, D.C.
Shi Tao, a former writer for the financial publication Contemporary Business News, was jailed under state secrecy laws for allegedly providing state secrets to foreigners.
According to the suit, the other journalist, Wang Ziaoning, was arrested in 2002 after Yahoo HK gave police information linking him to his anonymous emails and other political writings he posted online.
Yahoo lawyer Michael Callahan was summoned before the House foreign affairs committee last week to explain testimony he gave to Congress last year. He said then that Yahoo had no information about the nature of China's investigation when the company handed over details that ended up being used to convinct Shi.
Callaghan subsequently has acknowledged that Yahoo officials had received a subpoena-like document that made reference to suspected "illegal provision of state secrets" - a common charge against political dissidents.
But Callahan continued to insist that Yahoo did not know the real nature of the Chinese investigation.
Women's Equality: The Persons Case
From the Saturday, October 20, 2007, Toronto Star, Ideas section, page ID4, is this article on women's rights in Canada and the famous "persons" court case:
The Persons Case
THE MOTHERS OF CANADIAN EQUALITY
Seventy-eight years ago this week, a group of 'maternal feminists' rewrote the constitution
Tracey Tyler
Legal Affairs Reporter
With wheat ready for threshing and bumblebees on the delphiniums, it was "a perfect day in harvest time," said Nellie McClung, recalling the afternoon she and four other women gathered on Emily Murphy's veranda in Edmonton to sign a petition.
The issue, destined for the Supreme Court of Canada, was whether women were "persons" under the British North America Act - then, in effect, our constitution - and eligible for appointment to the Canadian Senate.
It was the Roaring Twenties and the women were decidedly out-of-sync with Flappers and the intoxicating jazz era. Few could understand why the five, particularly Murphy, who craved a Senate seat, were so determined to win the right to serve in an institution that, even then, was considered outdated and badly in need of reform.
But the women, in some ways unlikely trailblazers, knew they were on to something bigger. And by the time it was resolved 78 years go this week, the Persons Case, as it became known, had acquired huge symbolic importance, establishing the concept of universal personhood" - quite simply, equality for women and every disadvantaged group. It's also one of the most important constitutional cases in Canadian history because it carved out the principle that the Constitution is meant to be "a living tree," growing as the country changes.
More than 50 years later, that would become the foundation for the Supreme Court of Canada's decisions extending new rights under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
The case was celebrated yesterday with annual "Persons Day" breakfasts around the country. This year's event coincided with a new book about the case by Justice Rovert Sharpe of the Ontario Court of Appeal and Toronto lawyer Patricia McMahon. Entitled The Persons Case, The Origins and Legacy of the Fight for Legal Personhood, it recreates the courtroom drama and delves into the personalities of the ideological compatriots dubbed "The Famous Five."
It's recognition that eluded them at the time. Ten days after the decision, the stock market crashed, triggering the Great Depression, and their momentous victory was quickly forgotten.
While the case and the "living tree" approach to constitutional law would gain significance with the feminist movement of the 1970s and advent of the Charter in 1982, many of the details still aren't widely known.
Ardent prohibitionists, the five were also proponents of "maternal feminism," a progressive social movement that pressed for equality of the sexes but stressed the importance of family and believed that many of society's problems, including poverty, could be solved by applying a woman's perspective.
Three of them, McClung, Louise McKinney and Irene Parlby, were in their sixties. Murphy was in her fifties.
The fifth, Henrietta Muir Edwards, was pushing 80. All had deep roots in suffragist campaigns that secured voting rights for women. Battling for entry fo the Senate would be their last hurrah.
"I think it really just irritated them that someone was saying, under our constitution, that a woman can't play that role," Sharpe said in an interview. "It just seemed kind of ridiculous to them."
The case would not have forged ahead without Ontario-born Murphy, the colourful, complex and politicially ambitious Anglican minister's wife, who penned fiction under the name Janey Canuk. The first female magistrate in the British Empire, Murphy, it seems, favoured a hands-on style in everything she did, even corresponding and visiting with inmates she sent to prison.
"I think she would have been quite fun to sit down and talk to," said Sharpe. "Unfortunately, you couldn't have a drink with her. They were all teetotallers."
The constitution gave Murphy no right to complain about sex discrimination and the legal environment was hostile to reform, with a series of English cases denying women the right to hold public office or attend university.
The federal government maintained that women could not sit in the Senate without the almost insurmountable hurdle of a constitutional amendment.
Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King agreed to refer the issue to the Supreme Court, which ultimately took the view the constitution was frozen in time; since women could not hold public office when the British North America Act was written in 1867, the Fathers of Confederation did not mean for women to become senators.
Sailing to England to appear before the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, then Canad's final court of appeal, Newton Rowell, "a former Ontario Liberal leader and constitional lawyer who was representing the five, had to convince the law lords to abandon centuries of common law.
On Oct. 18, 1929, it was Lord Chancellor John Sankey, a lifelong bachelor (and, at the time, heartsick over his mother's death) who struck the blow for equality, declaring in his judgment: "The exclusion of women from all public office is a relic of days more barbarous than ours."
Looking back, the case shows how an unpredictable brew of personal and political considerations can shape a landmark court ruling, say McMahon and Sharpe. Individuals do make a difference, for there was nothing inevitable about the decision, the authors say in the book.
"But for the unlikely conincidence of Emily Murphy's unquenchable thirst for a Senate appointment, William Lyon Mackenzie King's fondness for referring difficult questions to the courts, and John Sankey's determination to make his mark as a reforming Lord Chancellor, the result could easily have been quite different."
Five months after the ruling, King appointed a female senator - but it wasn't Murphy. There were no Senate vacancies from Alberta. Instead, the honour went to Ontarian Cairine Wilson.
During her induction ceremony, a sword got caught in Wilson's gown. Still bitterly disappointed at being passed over, Murphy wasn't above a put down. "Isn't it time that both the sword and trailing gowns be put out of the Senate?" she wrote to McClung.
After Wilson, the government showed little commitment to giving equal voice in the upper chamber. In his remaining 18 years in office, King appointed 67 Senators, not one a woman.
Among his successors, Jean Chretien holds the best record, with 33 women among his 75 appointments. Today, women hold 32 of 105 Senate seats.
The Persons Case
THE MOTHERS OF CANADIAN EQUALITY
Seventy-eight years ago this week, a group of 'maternal feminists' rewrote the constitution
Tracey Tyler
Legal Affairs Reporter
With wheat ready for threshing and bumblebees on the delphiniums, it was "a perfect day in harvest time," said Nellie McClung, recalling the afternoon she and four other women gathered on Emily Murphy's veranda in Edmonton to sign a petition.
The issue, destined for the Supreme Court of Canada, was whether women were "persons" under the British North America Act - then, in effect, our constitution - and eligible for appointment to the Canadian Senate.
It was the Roaring Twenties and the women were decidedly out-of-sync with Flappers and the intoxicating jazz era. Few could understand why the five, particularly Murphy, who craved a Senate seat, were so determined to win the right to serve in an institution that, even then, was considered outdated and badly in need of reform.
But the women, in some ways unlikely trailblazers, knew they were on to something bigger. And by the time it was resolved 78 years go this week, the Persons Case, as it became known, had acquired huge symbolic importance, establishing the concept of universal personhood" - quite simply, equality for women and every disadvantaged group. It's also one of the most important constitutional cases in Canadian history because it carved out the principle that the Constitution is meant to be "a living tree," growing as the country changes.
More than 50 years later, that would become the foundation for the Supreme Court of Canada's decisions extending new rights under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
The case was celebrated yesterday with annual "Persons Day" breakfasts around the country. This year's event coincided with a new book about the case by Justice Rovert Sharpe of the Ontario Court of Appeal and Toronto lawyer Patricia McMahon. Entitled The Persons Case, The Origins and Legacy of the Fight for Legal Personhood, it recreates the courtroom drama and delves into the personalities of the ideological compatriots dubbed "The Famous Five."
It's recognition that eluded them at the time. Ten days after the decision, the stock market crashed, triggering the Great Depression, and their momentous victory was quickly forgotten.
While the case and the "living tree" approach to constitutional law would gain significance with the feminist movement of the 1970s and advent of the Charter in 1982, many of the details still aren't widely known.
Ardent prohibitionists, the five were also proponents of "maternal feminism," a progressive social movement that pressed for equality of the sexes but stressed the importance of family and believed that many of society's problems, including poverty, could be solved by applying a woman's perspective.
Three of them, McClung, Louise McKinney and Irene Parlby, were in their sixties. Murphy was in her fifties.
The fifth, Henrietta Muir Edwards, was pushing 80. All had deep roots in suffragist campaigns that secured voting rights for women. Battling for entry fo the Senate would be their last hurrah.
"I think it really just irritated them that someone was saying, under our constitution, that a woman can't play that role," Sharpe said in an interview. "It just seemed kind of ridiculous to them."
The case would not have forged ahead without Ontario-born Murphy, the colourful, complex and politicially ambitious Anglican minister's wife, who penned fiction under the name Janey Canuk. The first female magistrate in the British Empire, Murphy, it seems, favoured a hands-on style in everything she did, even corresponding and visiting with inmates she sent to prison.
"I think she would have been quite fun to sit down and talk to," said Sharpe. "Unfortunately, you couldn't have a drink with her. They were all teetotallers."
The constitution gave Murphy no right to complain about sex discrimination and the legal environment was hostile to reform, with a series of English cases denying women the right to hold public office or attend university.
The federal government maintained that women could not sit in the Senate without the almost insurmountable hurdle of a constitutional amendment.
Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King agreed to refer the issue to the Supreme Court, which ultimately took the view the constitution was frozen in time; since women could not hold public office when the British North America Act was written in 1867, the Fathers of Confederation did not mean for women to become senators.
Sailing to England to appear before the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, then Canad's final court of appeal, Newton Rowell, "a former Ontario Liberal leader and constitional lawyer who was representing the five, had to convince the law lords to abandon centuries of common law.
On Oct. 18, 1929, it was Lord Chancellor John Sankey, a lifelong bachelor (and, at the time, heartsick over his mother's death) who struck the blow for equality, declaring in his judgment: "The exclusion of women from all public office is a relic of days more barbarous than ours."
Looking back, the case shows how an unpredictable brew of personal and political considerations can shape a landmark court ruling, say McMahon and Sharpe. Individuals do make a difference, for there was nothing inevitable about the decision, the authors say in the book.
"But for the unlikely conincidence of Emily Murphy's unquenchable thirst for a Senate appointment, William Lyon Mackenzie King's fondness for referring difficult questions to the courts, and John Sankey's determination to make his mark as a reforming Lord Chancellor, the result could easily have been quite different."
Five months after the ruling, King appointed a female senator - but it wasn't Murphy. There were no Senate vacancies from Alberta. Instead, the honour went to Ontarian Cairine Wilson.
During her induction ceremony, a sword got caught in Wilson's gown. Still bitterly disappointed at being passed over, Murphy wasn't above a put down. "Isn't it time that both the sword and trailing gowns be put out of the Senate?" she wrote to McClung.
After Wilson, the government showed little commitment to giving equal voice in the upper chamber. In his remaining 18 years in office, King appointed 67 Senators, not one a woman.
Among his successors, Jean Chretien holds the best record, with 33 women among his 75 appointments. Today, women hold 32 of 105 Senate seats.
Thursday, November 22, 2007
Canada's First Nations
It is very disappointing that Canada has joined the U.S. and Australia in not signing the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Three developed nations, shirking their responsibilities again (think Kyoto agreement as well).
Here is an article dated Monday, November 5, 2007, from theToronto Star, page AA8, Ideas, about Canada's First Nations people:
Canada's 'Dirty Secret'
First Nations still searching for a place to call their home
Sara Mainville
Lately, I have been trying to understand why I cannot live in Ontario's cities comfortably.
For the most part, I notice too much. The "you don't belong here" stare may be part of it. I receive this common "welcome" in restaurants frequented by my lawyer friends. These looks may have more to do with my informal attire than my race. But it is hard to divoce class oppression from racial tension.
One thing is fairly clear - That I grew up economically disadvantaged largely because I grew up Anishinaabe on a reserve. And my personal comfort level on the reserve is much higher than in most Ontario municipalities. This may be why I continually gravitate back to reserve life.
I have had several discussions recently with an old friend. Schooled in mathematics, Chris Belleau also has been an amateur historian of the Garden River First Nation. Chris has actuallly been schooling me. He has told me about four imperatives that our nation - the Ojibway nation - agreed to during the period of first European contact. The imperatives were to find territory to support smaller populations of Anishinaabeg (Ojebway communities); to not let the European gather us together in large members; to not show them the "shiny stuff" lest they gather among us in large numbers; and to never forget that we are Anishinaabe.
So it is no surprise that our ancestors agreed to settle in territory that would support us. Through teaties, "reserves" become our homelands. However, because of continuing land and resource development, on which the economy of Canada continues to be almost solely dependent, Canada's Indian Agents helped to expropriate a large chunk of our reserves. In my treaty, which involves most of northwestern Ontario and a small part of Manitoba, we also agreed to revenue sharing. However, reserves that were to be chosen by our chiefs were disputed by a land-hungry Ontario. In fact, Ontario fought all the way to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in England to dispute the understanding between Canada and my ancestors. Sadly, Ontario's new interpretation of our solemn treaty won out.
Another sad feature of this reinterpretation of my treaty was that our homelands were to be set aside by agreement and compromise between Ontario and Canada.
In the 19th century, the chief of Whitefish Bay First Nation sent word to Crown representatives that it "agitated his heart" that he was to be placed on lands that were largely rocks and bog. Along with not being able to exploit the lands and revenues that we agreed to share in our treaty, our huting and fishing rights were over-policed, with several wrongful convinctions made by the Ontario government. It is interesting that now I am meeting with the Ontario government as a representative of my people on the "resource sharing file."
And it is especially interesting that arguments of equity and fairness are used against our claims for revenue-sharing arrangements. Either Ontario is forgetting its own history or its politicians are simply ignoring it. It was hoped that Section 35 of the Constituion Act, 1982, would be transformative and right past wrongs done to First Nations. Unfortunately, it has done little but protect rights such as hunting and fishing that already were protected in treaties.
I am particularly troubled at how the concept of euity has been turned on its ear to argue against the "special" rights of treaty-rights holders. Treaties were agreed to exist "forever." Like constitutions, they should be held as the highest law of the land. My ancestors unfortunately never read Adam Smith or Machiavelli to understand the true nature of European-based socities. While my ancestors have tempted to right the failed relationship, I read documents from Indian Affairs' files that reveal athe small evils against "Indians" that were regarded as necessary for the greater good of Canada.
It is no wonder that the call by Louise Arbour, the United Nations High Commissioner on Human Rights, for self-cricism by Canada over its "aboriginal" policy had so little resonance in the media.
Ontario and Canada need to remove their blinders regarding justice for First Nations. Canada's long-held dirty secret has now been exposed on the world stage. Through the United Nations' Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous People, we may need to force you to move forward.
Sara Mainville is a member of the Ontario Bar and Assistant Professor at Algoma University in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont.
Here is an article dated Monday, November 5, 2007, from theToronto Star, page AA8, Ideas, about Canada's First Nations people:
Canada's 'Dirty Secret'
First Nations still searching for a place to call their home
Sara Mainville
Lately, I have been trying to understand why I cannot live in Ontario's cities comfortably.
For the most part, I notice too much. The "you don't belong here" stare may be part of it. I receive this common "welcome" in restaurants frequented by my lawyer friends. These looks may have more to do with my informal attire than my race. But it is hard to divoce class oppression from racial tension.
One thing is fairly clear - That I grew up economically disadvantaged largely because I grew up Anishinaabe on a reserve. And my personal comfort level on the reserve is much higher than in most Ontario municipalities. This may be why I continually gravitate back to reserve life.
I have had several discussions recently with an old friend. Schooled in mathematics, Chris Belleau also has been an amateur historian of the Garden River First Nation. Chris has actuallly been schooling me. He has told me about four imperatives that our nation - the Ojibway nation - agreed to during the period of first European contact. The imperatives were to find territory to support smaller populations of Anishinaabeg (Ojebway communities); to not let the European gather us together in large members; to not show them the "shiny stuff" lest they gather among us in large numbers; and to never forget that we are Anishinaabe.
So it is no surprise that our ancestors agreed to settle in territory that would support us. Through teaties, "reserves" become our homelands. However, because of continuing land and resource development, on which the economy of Canada continues to be almost solely dependent, Canada's Indian Agents helped to expropriate a large chunk of our reserves. In my treaty, which involves most of northwestern Ontario and a small part of Manitoba, we also agreed to revenue sharing. However, reserves that were to be chosen by our chiefs were disputed by a land-hungry Ontario. In fact, Ontario fought all the way to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in England to dispute the understanding between Canada and my ancestors. Sadly, Ontario's new interpretation of our solemn treaty won out.
Another sad feature of this reinterpretation of my treaty was that our homelands were to be set aside by agreement and compromise between Ontario and Canada.
In the 19th century, the chief of Whitefish Bay First Nation sent word to Crown representatives that it "agitated his heart" that he was to be placed on lands that were largely rocks and bog. Along with not being able to exploit the lands and revenues that we agreed to share in our treaty, our huting and fishing rights were over-policed, with several wrongful convinctions made by the Ontario government. It is interesting that now I am meeting with the Ontario government as a representative of my people on the "resource sharing file."
And it is especially interesting that arguments of equity and fairness are used against our claims for revenue-sharing arrangements. Either Ontario is forgetting its own history or its politicians are simply ignoring it. It was hoped that Section 35 of the Constituion Act, 1982, would be transformative and right past wrongs done to First Nations. Unfortunately, it has done little but protect rights such as hunting and fishing that already were protected in treaties.
I am particularly troubled at how the concept of euity has been turned on its ear to argue against the "special" rights of treaty-rights holders. Treaties were agreed to exist "forever." Like constitutions, they should be held as the highest law of the land. My ancestors unfortunately never read Adam Smith or Machiavelli to understand the true nature of European-based socities. While my ancestors have tempted to right the failed relationship, I read documents from Indian Affairs' files that reveal athe small evils against "Indians" that were regarded as necessary for the greater good of Canada.
It is no wonder that the call by Louise Arbour, the United Nations High Commissioner on Human Rights, for self-cricism by Canada over its "aboriginal" policy had so little resonance in the media.
Ontario and Canada need to remove their blinders regarding justice for First Nations. Canada's long-held dirty secret has now been exposed on the world stage. Through the United Nations' Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous People, we may need to force you to move forward.
Sara Mainville is a member of the Ontario Bar and Assistant Professor at Algoma University in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont.
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Imprisoned in Iran: Marina Nemat
From the Autumn 2007 issue of the University of Toronto Magazine, pages 45-46, is an article about Marina Nemat, who wrote about her experiences in Iran in Prisoner of Tehran.
THE ROAD TO FREEDOM
One a cold January evening in 1982,two Iranian Revoluntary Guards burst into the Tehran home of 16-year-old Marina Nemat and placed her under arrest. Her crime? She had criticized the Islamic government in her school newspaper and had asked her calculus teacher to teach math instead of propaganda. The young woman was taken to the notorious political prison Evin, where she was blindfolded, handcuffed and tortured, her soles whipped with a cable.
Nemat was also sentenced to execution. Set in front of a firing squad, her life was spared at the last moment by a guard named Ali. He gave her the option of marrying him him and living under house arrest. The alternative, he threatened, was to arrest her parents and execute her boyfriend. The 15-month marriage ended only after a rival political faction assassinated Ali.
Twenty-five years later, Nemat has detailed her experiences in Prisoner of Tehan (Viking Canada). After immigrating to Toronto with her husband, Andrew (the boyfriend Ali had threatened to execute), and son in 1991, the couple had a second son and moved to a house in the suburbs. But after the death of her mother, Nemat experienced nightmares and violent flashbacks. "There was a jumble of images in my head, and I couldn't take it anymore," she says. "I either had to go jump off a bridge or do something really stupid, or I had to make sense of all the memories. Being a reader, the most logical thing that came to mind was putting it on paper."
Nemat found time to write most afternoons after waitressing the lunchtime shift at Swiss Chalet. She would head over to Second Cup, buy a hot chocolate and writer in her notebook for an hour before picking up her sons from school. She didn't intend to publish her writings. But Nemat's nightmares continued, and she realized it was because many of her memories were still secret. (No one in her family - including her parents - had ever asked her about her experiences in prison.) In 2002 Nemat enrolled in U of T's School of Continuing Studies, where she took classes ranging from grammar to non-fiction, and earned a certificate in creative writing over five years. Instructors helped her revise her manuscript (there were seven drafts in total), and introduced her to an agent.
Nemat's book is now a bestseller in Canada, and has been published in 17 languages. She is writing her first novel, about an Iranian woman who has a baby while imprisoned. But her biggest success, perhaps, is creating her own psychological freedom by breaking out of "a cycle of hatred."
"I have watched good people turn into bad people - very bad people," says Nemat. "And I have watched them do terrible things to each other because they hate one another. When you watch that, you feel helpless. And if you are lucky enough, you are able to separate yourself from that hatred, you are able to overcome all the reasons to hate and pull yourself out of it. I don't know how it's done. How does a human being pull himself or herself out of the cycle of hatred? People do it all the time. I'm not the only one."
- Stacey Gibson
THE ROAD TO FREEDOM
One a cold January evening in 1982,two Iranian Revoluntary Guards burst into the Tehran home of 16-year-old Marina Nemat and placed her under arrest. Her crime? She had criticized the Islamic government in her school newspaper and had asked her calculus teacher to teach math instead of propaganda. The young woman was taken to the notorious political prison Evin, where she was blindfolded, handcuffed and tortured, her soles whipped with a cable.
Nemat was also sentenced to execution. Set in front of a firing squad, her life was spared at the last moment by a guard named Ali. He gave her the option of marrying him him and living under house arrest. The alternative, he threatened, was to arrest her parents and execute her boyfriend. The 15-month marriage ended only after a rival political faction assassinated Ali.
Twenty-five years later, Nemat has detailed her experiences in Prisoner of Tehan (Viking Canada). After immigrating to Toronto with her husband, Andrew (the boyfriend Ali had threatened to execute), and son in 1991, the couple had a second son and moved to a house in the suburbs. But after the death of her mother, Nemat experienced nightmares and violent flashbacks. "There was a jumble of images in my head, and I couldn't take it anymore," she says. "I either had to go jump off a bridge or do something really stupid, or I had to make sense of all the memories. Being a reader, the most logical thing that came to mind was putting it on paper."
Nemat found time to write most afternoons after waitressing the lunchtime shift at Swiss Chalet. She would head over to Second Cup, buy a hot chocolate and writer in her notebook for an hour before picking up her sons from school. She didn't intend to publish her writings. But Nemat's nightmares continued, and she realized it was because many of her memories were still secret. (No one in her family - including her parents - had ever asked her about her experiences in prison.) In 2002 Nemat enrolled in U of T's School of Continuing Studies, where she took classes ranging from grammar to non-fiction, and earned a certificate in creative writing over five years. Instructors helped her revise her manuscript (there were seven drafts in total), and introduced her to an agent.
Nemat's book is now a bestseller in Canada, and has been published in 17 languages. She is writing her first novel, about an Iranian woman who has a baby while imprisoned. But her biggest success, perhaps, is creating her own psychological freedom by breaking out of "a cycle of hatred."
"I have watched good people turn into bad people - very bad people," says Nemat. "And I have watched them do terrible things to each other because they hate one another. When you watch that, you feel helpless. And if you are lucky enough, you are able to separate yourself from that hatred, you are able to overcome all the reasons to hate and pull yourself out of it. I don't know how it's done. How does a human being pull himself or herself out of the cycle of hatred? People do it all the time. I'm not the only one."
- Stacey Gibson
Monday, November 19, 2007
Women Do Not Get Same Medical Treatment
I knew from past news reports that women with heart attack symptoms were less likely to have those symptoms recognized, and therefore treated, by doctors. However, here is an editorial that shows that the story is much wider and worse than I ever thought. It is shocking.
From the Comment, Editorials section of the Toronto Star, page AA6:
Despite concerted efforts to fight two-tier medicine in Ontario, new evidence suggests that it is far more prevalent than anyone believed.
But the kind of two-tier medicine highlighted in a study to be published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal next month is not a result of public versus private care. It is found to exist throughout the intensive care units of Ontario's publicly funded hospitals and shows up in the treatment that women receive compared with men.
The study of nearly 500,000 patient records at 14 Ontario hospitals in 2001 and 2002 found that although more women were admitted than men, fewer received intensive care unit, or ICU, treatment - even when their illnesses warranted it.
Severely ill women were one-third less likely to be admitted to ICU's than men with comparable conditions. And women who were treated in intensive care units tended to be discharged earlier than men and were less likely to be given crucial therapies, such as mechanical ventilation. The bottom line is that women in intensive care were 20 per cent more likely to die than men.
While decisions made by family members in end-of-life treatment may explain some of these differences, they are consistent with many other studies showing gender-based biases in medical treatment.
More research is clearly needed to pinpoint the reasons for these disparities and the root causes of gender-biased medicine.
At the same time, though, women should not have to keep dying needlessly while the health-care profession explores the reasons for the differences in its approach to women and men.
Because these kinds of biases are likely to occur only on a subconscious level, practitioners must be made aware of them by bringing them to the surface. Accordingly, protocols and checks should immediately be put in place requiring doctors and other health-care providers to ask themselves when treating women whether they would prescribe the same treatment plan if the patient were a man.
And hospitals should be monitoring treatments and outcomes on a gender basis to see if efforts to reduce the disparities between men and women are having any real impact.
From the Comment, Editorials section of the Toronto Star, page AA6:
Despite concerted efforts to fight two-tier medicine in Ontario, new evidence suggests that it is far more prevalent than anyone believed.
But the kind of two-tier medicine highlighted in a study to be published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal next month is not a result of public versus private care. It is found to exist throughout the intensive care units of Ontario's publicly funded hospitals and shows up in the treatment that women receive compared with men.
The study of nearly 500,000 patient records at 14 Ontario hospitals in 2001 and 2002 found that although more women were admitted than men, fewer received intensive care unit, or ICU, treatment - even when their illnesses warranted it.
Severely ill women were one-third less likely to be admitted to ICU's than men with comparable conditions. And women who were treated in intensive care units tended to be discharged earlier than men and were less likely to be given crucial therapies, such as mechanical ventilation. The bottom line is that women in intensive care were 20 per cent more likely to die than men.
While decisions made by family members in end-of-life treatment may explain some of these differences, they are consistent with many other studies showing gender-based biases in medical treatment.
More research is clearly needed to pinpoint the reasons for these disparities and the root causes of gender-biased medicine.
At the same time, though, women should not have to keep dying needlessly while the health-care profession explores the reasons for the differences in its approach to women and men.
Because these kinds of biases are likely to occur only on a subconscious level, practitioners must be made aware of them by bringing them to the surface. Accordingly, protocols and checks should immediately be put in place requiring doctors and other health-care providers to ask themselves when treating women whether they would prescribe the same treatment plan if the patient were a man.
And hospitals should be monitoring treatments and outcomes on a gender basis to see if efforts to reduce the disparities between men and women are having any real impact.
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