Blog for Choice 2012

For the past few years, I have been involved in blog for choice (see posts here and here).

This years' question disappoints me however. I received an email from the organizers of Blog for Choice day, and was asked to reflect on this question in my post

What will you do to help elect pro-choice candidates in 2012?

First of all, Blog for Choice day is the anniversary of the American Roe vs. Wade court decision, so it makes sense that it is a very US-centric day, but, in light of the American election in 2012, this question becomes especially important to many American pro-choice activists and much less relevant to those of us who do not live in a country that has a major election of any kind coming up (yes, I know we can continue to lobby and whatnot after an election, but that isn't helping candidates).

Anyway, the question becomes even more frustrating and problematic for people who do not support the supposedly democratic political system. I, personally, think that the electoral system is a joke... I believe that by giving us two (or three or even five) candidates, and calling a select group of people citizens and allowing them to vote, it presents the illusion that we actually have a choice. But if you look at the candidates, we are basically selecting from A, A or A.... maybe NDP or Green party candidates can sometimes make up something that almost represents choice B in Canada, but in very limited ways. The way politics is currently organized upholds heterosexist, racist, patriarchal capitalist social relations. Anyway, this critique is not new, so I won't go into any more detail on it right now.

But to answer the question, what will I do to help pro-choice candidates (or members of parliament) in 2012? Absolutely nothing. I will, however, continue to write letters to newspapers and giving presentations as well as helping to organize and attend rallies when I believe it is useful to do so (such as on this and this occasion). I will continue to blog about the importance of choice. I will also continue to call out Harper (here and here) when he makes asshole decisions that affect women's ability to access abortion all the while saying that he will not bring up the abortion debate in parliament. But I will not help political candidates because I refuse to participate and further legitimize what I think is an illegitimate system.

Also, here is a cute failbook picture because it makes me happy.

News; turning the election into a pop culture issue

Canada AM this morning ran a quick story this morning about the budget. They said that there was a possibility of a spring election if the Conservatives don't get enough support on this budget from the other parties. The consequences of this: Harper might be too busy with his campaign to go to the royal wedding, of course! The Horror!

I was in the UK last week and there was an upcoming election in Ireland. Election issues were being discussed at length... important ones... none of this but-how-will-an-election-affect-his-ability-to-go-to-a-fucking-WEDDING!

Political polls at a virtual town hall meeting

I just got a phone call from the Minister of Finance Dwight Duncan and the local Member of Parliament, Rick Bartelucci, on a virtual town hall meeting. Unfortunately, I had to go put the kids to bed before I had a chance to ask my question, but I will write about it here instead.

They asked 2 polls, and, as a student in a program called "Applied Social Research" I have no choice but to comment on these questions. They were horrible.

What is your biggest concern about the economy?
1. Jobs
2. Taxes
3. Deficit
Press 4 if your situation is worse than it was a year ago

No "other" or "none of the above".

So, if your situation is worse than it was a year ago, you cannot choose a main concern? Or if you have a concern (from this list), then you can't say your condition is worse than a year ago?

Not exactly an exclusive or exhaustive list.

What about those of us who have concerns that are not on this list. A few things come to mind... $2-4 billion in corporate tax cuts, cuts to social programs, the wage freeze for non-unionized employees that attempted to undermine union rights to bargain for a collective agreement.

What about education? That was going to be my question. Do they have any plans to make education more accessible?

I was going to start by saying something along the lines of "As a social researcher, I think that it is important to have a more exclusive and exhaustive list. How do you expect to get accurate information about what we think when you are severely limiting our response options? Is this the type of information on which you base your political platforms?"

Then I wanted to answer their poll by telling them that what matters most to me is education- tuition is going up and course options are dropping... my program has NO electives because they do not have the money to pay for it. Student loans are at unprecedented levels... I will have to pay $600 per month for 10 years when i graduate. Will they freeze (and by freeze, I mean eliminate, but I'm being realistic here) tuition and/or come up with other ways to make education more accessible?

Unfortunately, I didn't get that opportunity. Not that I expected it to make a difference for his platform, but they reported an absurd amount of people on the call, and I wanted to get the message out. Maybe I'll turn this post into a letter to the editor so that it might be read by a few more people than my blog allows.

The second poll question was better written, but I think there was a reason for that.

What do you think was our [provincial Liberals] top accomplishment?
1. Strengthening education (did they do this? I missed that memo)
2. Improving health care by getting doctors for people (what about the tens of thousands in my hometown who don't have doctors?)
3. Getting people working (again, when did this happen)
4. Cutting tax for 90% of Ontario tax payers (at what cost?)
5. Building clean, reliable energy system (some progress here, but still not enough)

They did give us more options, but this question was not to ask our opinion, but to tell us what it is that they did. To make us think that they have really accomplished something over the past few years. To advertise their supposed accomplishments.

What a joke.

Satirical campaign by OPSEU takes on corporate tax cuts

OPSEU's new political campaign tells Canadians how much corporate tax cuts are actually costing us.


Granted, it isn't as simple as every family giving up $500, but hopefully it sends a message about how substantial these cuts are. Ontario already has a very low corporate tax rate, to cut it further just seems wrong on so many levels. And I'm glad that OPSEU is still mentioning the wage freeze, because despite the fact that salaries for non-union public workers are still frozen and unionized employers are still trying to use it as a bargaining tactic, I haven't heard much about it politically or in the news in the past few months.

I'm not sure I really like the campaign, but it is good to see unions doing something to try and get a political message across. I hope it works because I really fear the likelihood of a Conservative government after this next election.

Wage restraint legislation in Ontario

I want to start by apologizing to any regular readers about the lack of posts over the last few weeks. There has been so much I wanted to write about but I feel like I haven't had a moment to breathe, nevermind write.

I am the president of a student workers union in Ontario, and there has been a threat of wage restraint legislation by the Ontario Government. All non-unionized public employees' wages have been frozen for some time now, and the government is going into "consultations" with unions where they plan to get unions to accept two years of zero compensation on their next collective agreements, with the threat of legislating this freeze if we don't agree to it. This is being presented to us as the only way to protect public services.

According to some recent surveys (both the ones conducted by unions and the ones by the government), people seem to think that workers in the public sector are highly overpaid. This is definitely not the case if you look at front line workers in comparison to University Presidents, for example. My membership last got a raise in 2003. Over that period of time, housing has gone up more than 30%, tuition has increased by 4-8% per year more often than not, and the salary of the university's president has increased by approximately 124%! Yet, it is not the president that is overpaid, it is me... and I am making less than half of what some of my peers at other universities make- and nevermind living below the poverty line, my wage doesn't even cover the cost of my education at the school where I work.

I don't believe that forcing workers to take zeros is good for anyone, even those who do earn a living wage, but my point right now in this particular post is that we also need to be careful not to make sweeping generalizations about public sector employees. One of my union colleagues at a different university spoke about how his membership went from about 100 full time janitorial and maintenance staff to about 10 full-time and about 100 part-time, the majority of whom work between 3 and 12 hours per week... I'm pretty sure they don't feel overpaid. I can make many similar comparisons throughout the sector, and I am rather sure that people in different parts of the public sector have similar stories to tell.

I am getting increasingly frustrated with how quickly some people are buying in to these assumptions. I am baffled by how the government can demonize public employees so fully that even the NDP supports wage restraint legislation because doing otherwise would fail to gain votes at the upcoming election.

This government clearly represents the economic elite in the province. And yet, they try to make us feel guilty because many of us have kept our jobs during the recession; so guilty, that we should accept concessions in order to do our part. What about not cutting $4.6 billion dollars in corporate taxes? What about actually protecting our social services by providing services that help people rather than punishing them?

I have yet to figure out how legislation that goes against the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms as well as the Labour Relation's Act is supposed to protect Canadians. To me, it is just another example of the Ontario government picking and choosing which Rights Canadians are entitled to, not unlike what happened at the G20... they just spin it the right way in the media and they come off as protecting us. The only thing that we need protection from right now are these neoliberal politicians.

Toronto Sun applauds the appointment of a white male Governor General

An editorial in the Toronto Sun is praising Harper for his choosing David Johnston to be the next Governor General of Canada. This article praises him, not because of Dr. Johnston's past career or what he can bring to the position, but because he is a white male.

An old white guy for Governor General?

How novel, and yet how brilliant of Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

In fact, we're giving him a standing ovation. Right now.

Everyone on their feet!

In an age when the federal civil service has taken affirmative action to the extreme, with preference in the federal bureaucracy given to those who are bilingual -- preferably francophone, of course -- or persons of colour, or disabled or aboriginal, the appointment of David Johnston as Canada's next Governor General is a historic breakthrough.

You, like us, have no doubt seen the federal career ads where, written in invisible ink, are the words, "white men need not apply."

Well, this appointment trumps it all.

Can we really say that we have any preference to women, persons of colour, disabled or aboriginal people within Canadian politics? Granted, the past two Governor Generals were not white men, but look at the other positions within the country.

The only female Prime Minister was appointed until an election could be held, not elected. The House of Commons is currently only 22% female. The most recent detailed information I could find on other demographics was a study conducted by Jerome Black in the Canadian Parliamentary Review, which showed that in 2000 only 1.7% of MPs were aboriginal (down from 2.3% in 1997), and 5.6% were members of visible minorities, a term which is not explicitly defined in the study, (down from 6.3% in 1997). It is not a good sign when these numbers are decreasing. Also, it seems there have only been 3 MPs with disabilities.

Looking for these statistics, I was very surprised by how little information there is on the demographics of Members of Parliament... I can find a lot on how many women are in parliament, but very few other statistics that aren't related to provinces or political parties.

I'm not even going to go into wage gaps to show how well affirmative action, which, to my knowledge, has never existed in Canada, has worked to equal the playing field, but suffice to say that white men have a much higher income than any other group (lots of info with Statistics Canada if anyone is doubting this claim- check it out now before the end of the mandatory long form in the census further skews much of their results).

It is interesting that elected officials seem to be white men, and other people tend to get appointed to their positions. It is reflective of the authority that is given to white men, especially in that as you go to lower levels of government (provincial, municipal), you get a wider representation from other groups.

I'm not suggesting that David Johnston can't do the job... I have done very little research on him and am not sure what he stands for. He might be great, however, I have my doubts... first, because he was chosen by Harper, and secondly, because I am not too fond of university administrators as a group (comes with the territory of being active in the GTA union, I guess). I just don't think we should be happy that Harper appointed someone simply because they are a white male. We see enough white men in parliament as it is.

Guest post: responding to comments on Israeli Apartheid.

My last post, which was on Toronto Pride banning the term Israeli apartheid from the Pride Parade, led to an email comment debate that, I will admit, I am not entirely capable of handling, simply because I have not been aware of the situation for long enough to have done any extensive research. A friend and classmate has been quite involved for some time and, as such, can provide some insight on this issue.

The following post, written by Eileen, is directed towards the previous debate, but also provides some important information as a stand alone piece.


The term apartheid, used to describe the occupation, is correct and has been supported time and time again by South African anti-apartheid activists including Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela.

The word "apartheid" means "apartness" in Afrikaans. It is a very new word in the first place and thankfully isn't terribly commonplace. Frankly, the fact that Western countries are able to get away with dismissing and censoring this word so hastily despite its validation speaks volumes about just how easy it is to disregard an Afrikaans word in the English world.

Language changes and the word apartheid is more than appropriate to describe the genocide of Palestine. This debate is not a new one, it's a tired, pro-zionist argument used as a distraction; if the world is scared into believing the very use of the word apartheid is an anti-semitic act, no one will be able to accurately talk about Palestine. Try to describe a painting without talking about the colour, shape, line, texture, space, value or form.

Israel is in violation of many international laws and war crimes, it is a rogue state that believes itself above the law because, aside from the Vatican, they are the only religious state and believe they have a religious right to be where they are. This is not an age-old religious clash, this is a 62 year war on Palestine. Jews, Muslims, Christians and people of many other religions lived there together for centuries, what we are seeing now in “Israel” is ethnic cleansing.

Amongst many other misinformed statements you [the commenter in the aforementioned debate] say “…many of the criticisms which are alledgedly[sic] only against the Israeli policies are in fact thinly veiled antisemitic comments.”
So tell me, as an anti-zionist Jew am I anti-semitic for calling out Israel for their war crimes? As an out queer am I homophobic because I’m ashamed of my city’s Pride committee for adopting censorship for the first time in their 30 years? I think of myself as a morally sound human being who is appalled by genocide no matter who the perpetrator.

Carving up the borders of Palestine to separate Palestinians from each other, setting up check points and road blocks, assigning special license plates, denying passports, not supplying enough medical aid, fresh protein and produce, building materials and many other bare-minimum aid supplies, not allowing Palestinian refugees the right to return, keeping 1.7 million Gazans (58% of them under age 18) in an open air prison of 360 square kilometers and using the fourth largest military in the world with Canadian and American support and weapons (including a high but unknown number of nuclear weapons) to kill 1,417 Gazans and maim thousands more in less than a month then claim everything was a success is the very definition of apartheid. These are the actions that should offend, disturb and anger you, not the word describing them.

Your initial reaction to stop arguing on behalf of Israel’s in light of the Mavi Marmara murders was correct and should have stopped you there, though Israel’s actions shouldn’t surprise anyone by now. There may be a media block but factual information isn’t totally obsolete, I highly suggest you familiarize yourself with news that doesn’t pass through many zionist filters from here on, you can start with the Goldstone report.

Toronto Pride and the term Israeli Apartheid

I just found out that the directors of Toronto's Pride Parade have banned the use of the term "Israeli Apartheid" at this year's parade. This is aimed at the group Queers Against Israeli Apartheid (QuAIA), which has been involved in the Pride Parade for several years. I think that it is interesting that Pride, a group that is all about inclusion (so much so that their theme is "you belong") is taking it upon themselves to censor a group who is making a political message that I think can be compared to the statement that Pride was making when they began 30 years ago.

Their argument is that some people believe that the name is discriminatory, anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli. I am by no means an expert on the topic of Israeli Apartheid (according to my spell check, I hardly know how to spell it), but I would like to make a few comments on this anyway.... and anyone with more knowledge who wishes to add/clarify/correct something is more than welcome to comment.

Let's start this very simply... from wiki, the crime of apartheid is "committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime." United Nations reports seem to consistently show that the current regime is comparable to apartheid in South Africa (see here)

This is not anti-semitic. Antisemitism defined (again using wikipedia, which may not be the most reliable source, but I believe is useful for this purpose) is prejudice against or hostility towards jews, often rooted in hatred of their ethnic background, culture and/or religion. I don't understand how being opposed to the oppression of a group of people based on their race/ethnicity can be confused with hostility towards a different group, some of whom happen to be part of the dominant group in one particular country.

I can only think of two explanations. First, is ignorance. Those who are confusing the term "Isreali apartheid" with antisemite do not understand the meaning of these terms or the living conditions of Palestinians in Israel. But the politicians do understand this, as do the organizers of Toronto Pride, I am sure.

The other explanation is financial. The current Israeli regime is backed by the American government. Just two months previous to this decision, the Ontario legislature passed a resolution condemning Israeli Apartheid week, which is held at several universities. Last month, the federal government withdrew $400,000 in funding for Toronto Pride, a decision that is rumored to be connected to QuAIA. Now, the Toronto mayoral candidate motioned to deny funding to the parade if QuAIA is allowed to participate, on the grounds that it would be in breach of the city's anti-discrimination policy. Directors at Pride were concerned about the risk of losing this funding.

Queer Ontario founder and spokesperson Nick Mulé states

It appears Pride Toronto has opted to appease some City officials applying pressure based on misinformation regarding QuAIA and the use of the term ‘Israeli apartheid’, rather than work directly with the community in educating the City to develop a nuanced understanding of the human rights and discrimination issues at play.

I have heard it argued that Israeli Apartheid isn't a Pride issue, as it is not directly connected to sexuality or heterosexism. This argument is used to keep leftist movements separate, which means that they are containable. When organizers at Pride are separated from those at QuAIA, which are separated from feminist organizing and from socialism, it keeps special interest groups small enough that they cannot disrupt the status quo. I would like to applaud QuAIA for becoming involved with both groups, for building that coalition, as I believe it is only through these coalitions that change can occur.

Canada not funding abortions in developing countries

Canadian Conservative government recently announced that they will not be funding abortions in developing nations. In 2009, they announced a plan to help with maternal and child health, but failed to mention that abortions are not included in maternal health and family planning.

This is contrary to the established goals of the G8 summit, and opposes Obama's policy to fund maternal health, including access to abortion.

Harper said

We want to make sure our funds are used to save the lives of women and children and are used on the many, many things that are available to us that frankly do not divide the Canadian population.

Abortions do save the lives of women and children, and we have to be careful not to put the possibility of the fetus' life ahead of the health of the pregnant woman/girl, or the quality of life implications that may go along with the pregnancy.

I'm not sure I understand what he means by the "many many things that are available to us" because abortions are available to us, and therfore should be one piece of those many many things (wow, that sentence does not make a lot of sense, but frankly, neither does his).

To my knowledge, abortions are not that controversial of a topic in Canada (although, I'm sure there are always people who support them and people who don't). I don't remember access to abortion ever being a hot politicial issue in as long as I have followed Canadian politics, other than a brief mention here and there of a referendum that was never met with much support. I really hope this isn't going to renew the abortion debate within Canada, as has been happening in the United States recently.

I do not see how a few elite white male politicians in Canada have the right to decide what counts as maternal health in countries that they have probably never so much as visited. Maybe it should be the women in these countries (or at very least, medical workers who have spent a lot of time in these countries and understand their needs) who decide which types of maternal health and family planning services they need.