Unconventional

Sunday I set the alarm for 6:30 am so I would make my way to the Lib14 convention, and arrive in time for the delegates' plenary session where a number of priority resolutions would be presented, possibly debated and then voted upon.

At the scheduled time, I was in the main hall, poised to follow the proceedings.

Resolutions 110:
A Resolution for Action for the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women
WHEREAS the effects of colonization, discrimination, stigmatization and remaining silent and inactive on the missing and murdered Indigenous women issue has contributed to the issue itself;
WHEREAS the missing and murdered Indigenous women issue has received international attention via United Nations, with a United nations Special Rapporteur spending nine days touring Canada and speaking with Indigenous individuals and organizations;
WHEREAS the Conservative Party of Canada has eliminated funding to the Sisters in Spirit Research Project and have dismissed calls from Premiers across Canada for a national inquiry on missing murdered and Indigenous women;
BE IT RESOLVED that the Liberal Party of Canada, within its first term as government, begin working with pertinent Indigenous advocacy organizations, Indigenous communities, and Indigenous families of those missing and murdered on the issue of the missing and murdered Indigenous women to allow the project to be relevant to the unique issues facing Indigenous women and girls;
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Liberal Party of Canada reinstates research funding under the heading of Sisters in Spirit to allow appropriate documentation and analysis of this on-going human rights issue and support current Indigenous organizations research and documentation on missing and murdered Indigenous women;
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Liberal Party of Canada support current Indigenous advocacy organizations to continue their work in advocating for the families and friends of the missing and murdered Indigenous women.

My friend Naomi Sayers applied her skills and her knowledge to the task of drafting a resolution that would include critical information, define the issue and provide specific redress.  The Yukon division of the LPC brought it forward.

That resolution was adopted unanimously by the plenary.

Naomi has a twitter account and she blogs.  This post summarizes her experiences, and how she feels about the challenges of aligning oneself with a political party.

We met for the first time in real life at the convention, after a year of retweeting each other, and forging online alliances.  She is just as fierce, committed and kick-ass as one senses she might be, from reading her.  And she wasn't too disappointed that I'm not as blonde or as dissolute as my Patsy Stone avatar.... I trust.

During the four days (really...? it felt like two weeks!) I took notes about myriad events and glimpses that I caught or that caught me... There may be a concluding wrap-up.

Speaking of Hot Air

Colour me shocked and stunned that the Harper crew are leading the charge in retreat when it comes to climate change, vigorously beating any stragglers who think actually dealing with a crisis is the better idea. Perhaps unrestrained global warming is the 'chess master' strategy for dealing with malnourished children and elders trying to survive in jerry-rigged shelters at -40 around a rationed-fuel fire.

Honestly, I don't know if this 'governmental' behaviour is willful ignorance or malfeasance on the part of ideologues intent on furthering their power base by callously exploiting shock doctrine. There comes a point when you start thinking 'no one making it to the hotseat of national power is that uninformed' and odds are high when you finally get some information from insiders of the corridors, it turns out they're not.

I am of course, biased. Looking at situations in isolation was punctured 40 years ago. My pinko commie socialist indoctrination was fed by a series of television documentary shows. "The Fabulous Sixties", "Here Come the '70s" (with its iconic theme song and controversial nudity in the credit graphics), "Connections", and finally, "War", the standard-setting analysis of world conflict by journalist and military/political observer Gwynne Dyer.

Dyer has many distinctions, not the least of which is incurring Conrad Black's enmity and subsequent blacklisting from all Black controlled publications. Dyer turned his attention to climate change some years ago. He and Peter Kent are well acquainted through their careers, so I offer this year old perspective presented at UBC, from a voice I trust more than what is coming out of the PMO.

Given the date of the talk, I find the context in how Dyer touches on international interest in Greece, Rome, Spain and Portugal, the countries of most concern *now* for 'threatening' the EU by their economies, very 'connective'.

He also touches on the ire still out there about him in light of his Order of Canada, Ottawa's attitude toward climate change, Alberta's attitude towards the oilsands, Kyoto, China, and what he's finding in the corridors of power out of the limelight.

It's all well and good for the powerful in power suits to take a laissez faire attitude that cuts short term costs. As Dyer notes, it's not the rich that will starve. The Arab Spring was in no small part bolstered by rising food costs among the poor as crops fail, land degrades, water vanishes, inventories are sold for debt not national survival, 'austerity' measures download more costs on to the bottom layers of society, and refugees face trail after trail of tears.

It's a sad fact of human societies that the poorest of the poor are women and it's women that pay first, foremost and deepest, everywhere in the world for the lack of sincere leadership. I donate to Heifer International. HI is so very not PETA-friendly, in that they focus on empowering poor people around the world with agrarian/husbander skills/animals, with particular recognition of educating and organizing women as agents of societal change on a personal/community level. Like Kiva, micro-loans among HI's community associations build bonds and opportunities further.

But none of this and the efforts of similar women-powered organizations (tree planting or stove design) is possible if droughts/floods/wars/ideology destroys the base sustainability of a geographic area.

Women do the majority of subsistence farming around the world. Given choice and voice, women prove over and over they do not want to populate past the supplies and effort needed to sustain and empower the children they already have. But, in place and as refugees, not only are women the major caregivers of living children at risk but, unable to access options to control their own bodies, bear the additional hardship of becoming pregnant in crises absent of support.

Harper has given us his pious crocodile tears stance on maternal and child health in the 'developing' world, but ably separates it from the consequences of his 'Underpants Gnomes'* ideological stances on climate change. I suppose it's not that different from his ability to separate consequences of governmental ennui on other maternal separations.

"The woman stone-facedly answered question after question from national media; about living in a home with no heat; about her husband who spat up blood when he tried to cut firewood; about her dream of having a place to put some nice little mementos and the dream of being able to wash her dishes.

And then the media asked her about her children. She remained stone-faced for a moment as she described how they had been taken away from her and shipped to foster homes hundreds of kilometres away because, as a mother living in a shed, she couldn't take care of them. That was five years ago. And then she started to weep - deep, painful, gut wrenching weeping. Rachel crying for her children because they were no more."

*1. Deny anything can be done by human effort to alleviate science-proven crisis. Use holdouts as a personal excuse to do nothing. Diminish anyone saying 'let's at least try and die falling forward' Point at condors.
2. ????
3. Profit!!!

That Tillman Thing.

Some facts, as reported here:

Court heard Tillman was supposed to be at a board meeting Aug. 6, 2008, but he was encouraged to go home by staff who thought he was "acting in an unusual manner."

Tillman joined the teen and his children at home. The girl bent over as she fed one of the kids, said Crown prosecutor Bill Burge. "When she stood up, the accused put his hands on her hips with his fingers in her belt loops and he pulled the rear end of the complainant into himself," said Burge. "While in that position there was physical contact that was clearly of a sexual nature. This occurred without the consent of the complainant and she told the accused, 'No."'

In my experience with legal issues regarding sexual assault, the significant element that would distinguish this action from something that could be dismissed as an unsollicited expression of affection is the position of the victim and the fact her assailant had an erection. That's likely why the police investigated, and charges were laid.

We don't know what other evidence the prosecutor would have presented at trial, because Tillman copped the plea (and a very good one, from his vantage point). He claimed he didn't want the girl to be subjected to the hardship of testifying and for his family to be exposed to the stress of constant media coverage.

Would his lawyer have tried to destroy the credibility of the complainant/victim, a common defense tactics with regard to sexual assault charges, to win his case? Perhaps merely floating that notion convinced the prosecutor that justice would not have been well served to let Tillman's lawyer use verbal and psychological assault on her in court. Particularly as one of the volatile elements of this case is that the complainant is a member of Regina's Aboriginal community, I've been told.

This case may be difficult to sort out for those who are not familiar with the horrendous history of patriarchal privilege that men of European ancestry have wielded against Aboriginal and Métis women and girls.

Those who get information beyond that published in media accounts of the Pickton trial, the murder of Aboriginal women in Winnipeg, and women who have disappeared along the "Highway of Tears" know that the judicial system is often weighed in favour of those charged with such crimes.

Tillman was treated with kid gloves. The drugs he took may have had the effect of reducing his inhibitions but they did not make him behave in a manner contrary to his impulses - or his values.

People convicted of sex offences are often required to submit a DNA sample to a national database. However, because Tillman's privacy and security concerns outweigh the public interest in having such a sample, there will be no such order, Hinds said.

Doesn't that seem like a good example of the privilege that being male and holding a powerful job with a football team will get you?

The Devil is a Christian invention and these days, he's a Moozlim.

Maisy Odjick and Shannon Alexander vanished from the Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg community near Maniwaki in September 2008, leaving behind their wallets and clothing.

Family members say they've had little help from Quebec provincial police, who initially believed the girls ran away. "Two teenagers don't just disappear off the face of this Earth with nothing. They had no ID, they had no clothes except for the ones on their back," said Odjick [Maisy's mother Laurie], as she fought back tears.

"There was no support, there was no investigation. Search teams weren't involved."

Throughout the investigation, native activists have criticized police for not taking the case seriously because the girls are Aboriginal.

If the girls' relatives had reported that the girls had been forcibly converted to Islam, perhaps an immediate Canada-wide alert would have been issued, as it has happened in the UK for this girl.

But then, Maisy and Shannon are not the pallid-skinned daughters of an Islamophobic community, are they?

Yeah - I'm being sarcastic. It's not just young Aboriginal women or girls that are at risk; any curious or vulnerable adolescent can become the target of a sexual predator or forced into service for prostitution networks.

Logue, the youth intervention co-ordinator for the Ottawa Police Service, isn’t sounding the alarm just yet. There aren’t hard numbers to support the theory, but the anecdotal evidence coming from the street is enough to prompt police and their partner agencies to discuss preventative measures.

Castille Troy, executive director of Minwaashin Lodge, fears the girls are being trafficked to other large Canadian cities and possibly out of the country. Being lured into prostitution isn’t specific to Aboriginal girls, but Troy points out a variety of factors, including urban culture shock, addictions and other mental health issues, that pull them into the dangerous lifestyle.

“There are predators out there just waiting for girls,” Troy says. “It’s an extremely dangerous situation for girls to find themselves in.”

The issue of Aboriginal women disappearing has been a cross-country concern for years. The Native Women’s Association of Canada has counted more than 510 cases of missing or murdered Aboriginal females over the past three decades.

We wrote here that Robert Pickton said that the Bible was his inspiration for his crusade against those he considered evil. A form of Christian "honour" killing of marginal women, it would seem.