I eat meat. I like the taste of it, and each day I witness my belly’s lust for the stuff dupe my mind into concordance. It’s simple. I look at a cluster of cooked chicken strands in a shawarma sandwich and it has none of the paradigmatic signs of life or pain or loss that might normally trigger my empathy; it’s as if you had asked me to empathize with the pita bread surrounding it, inanimate and functional.

I have, however, recently become something of an armchair vegetarian. When I give my brain a platform to think on the subject, it can’t come up with any sturdy justification for meat eating. And that’s not for lack of trying. As I see it, in order to get to the meat of the issue (pardon me) we need to dust off our old-timey weigh scale and consider the relative values of the following: On one side, the wellbeing and life-continuation of a sentient animal; on the other side, the enjoyment and easy nutrition of a supremely intelligent animal (so intelligent, in fact, that this animal can actually choose how it gets its calories and nutrients).

Interactive time. I’ll set a line below and you place your finger on the spot that best represents your enjoyment of meat (-5 being you hate it; 0 being take-it-or-leave-it; and 5 being it’s the high point in your earthly existence). Yes, you can use decimals.

Good. Remember your number. This next part takes some empathizing, so close your door and concentrate. Imagine, as best you can, that you’re a pig. You have a pig brain and you like apples and you get along well with your sty-mates and can even distinguish between them and enjoy their company. Place your finger (now a trotter, I suppose) on the point that best represents your feelings about your own slaughter (again, -5 being you hate it; 0 being take-it-or-leave-it; and 5 being it’s the high point in your earthly existence).

Is your first number lower than your (inverse) second number? If yes, you might be ethically opposed to eating meat. If not, you might not be giving the pig enough credit.

This is what’s kept me awake some nights, counting sheep on their way to the slaughterhouse—that there’s a clear disconnect between what I believe and what I do. I’m not comfortable with that. So how does this refer to the title then: FTW? Well, after all this mulling over the issue—chewing the cud, as it were—I revisited a news story that had piqued my interest a month ago. It’s a story that, whenever I stare down the barrel of a Polish takeout bag, my mind keeps returning to.

About a month ago, a team of Dutch scientists successfully created the first “in vitro” hamburger, that is, hamburger meat created from stem-cells that has its hands clean of suffering. When I heard the news I was struck. You could almost visualize the two opposing poles inside of me—the ethical animal and the carnal animal—perking their ears up in unison. Could I someday tuck into an aged steak, with its unctuousness and umami, knowing that the only thing that suffered was a lab-assistant who sprained his ankle tripping over a wayward protein strand? Could I own a potbelly pig pet and not have to sue for forgiveness each time I catch one of his glassy, full eyes watching me eat a strip of bacon? Might I be able to eat meat while sitting in my armchair?

Curious to get a vegetarian’s take on the breakthrough, I spoke with David Alexander, the executive director for the Toronto Vegetarian Association. “My personal response is that I think it’s an encouraging step,” says Alexander.  “I think that if we can move towards a food system that relies more on in vitro meat and less on meat from factory farms, that would be a big win”. But while he recognizes it as a positive step for meat-eaters to take, he has his reservations: “We still have to wait and see whether this is a scalable product, whether it can, as the scientists are hoping, be done in a way that’s better for the environment.”

Then, there’s the issue of the price tag. In 2008, if you had a million dollars you could get just over a half pound of the stuff. Optimistic projections put the future production price at $2.35/lb., compared to the current production price of beef, which is about $1.85/lb. In a time when Wal-Mart can blow like a tornado through small-town businesses, simply undercutting by a few cents, one wonders what hope in vitro meat has on a larger societal level.

Plus, adds Alexander: “As for the general public, there’s a gross-out factor that’s going to have to be overcome.” He’s probably right. With GMOs occupying a place in the shared psyche once held by Frankenstein’s monster, are people really going to be lining up to buy a petri dish’s worth of ground meat? Those in the natural farming movement would probably balk at the idea of in vitro meat too, perhaps rightfully so. Gastronomes may not forego a creamy foie gras for a heaping helping of red tissues. I also don’t expect support from countries where meat eating and butchery are so normalized that most don’t even see it as a moral issue.

The many caveats aside, whatever your view on the matter—whether you’re a hog-a-day kind of carnivore, or a strict vegan—we can agree that it’s bad to cause suffering. To kill is bad too. To mitigate suffering, to stifle deaths, is therefore a win, and what it’s done, at the very least, is helped raise a dialogue surrounding something many of us—certainly me—often take for granted.

Let me elaborate on what this inconvenience entails. A river of thick corrosive tar has covered backyards and driveways. It’s like playing lava—the black parts are magma and the green parts are land—only this stuff contains carcinogens. The spill’s effects on residents and the damages it has caused have yet to be assessed. But consider that the 2010 Enbridge’s 877,000 gallon oil spill into Michigan’s Kalamazoo River caused symptoms such as nausea and vomiting for nearby residents.

And the clean-up is slow. About 12,000 barrels of oil and water from the Arkansas leak have been vacuumed up so far, with no date for completion. Oil is still being removed from the Kalamazoo River spill three years ago and cleanup costs should rack up to $1 billion once it’s done.

Generally, there are about 364 pipeline leaks in the U.S. each year. Last week alone, three oil spills were  reported. There was a 2,200 barrel spill in Alberta last Monday. Two days later, fifteen gallons spilled in Minnesota. A broken pipe at Suncor Energy Inc. contaminated the Athabasca River in Alberta the very next day.

Good thing Harper cancelled 3,000 environmental screenings on the potential damages of new resource developments. Potential damages like pipeline leaks. Are you kidding me, Stephen? Environmental screenings are what keep resource developments in check, ensuring less harm done on the environment. Meanwhile, we await Obama’s decision on Keystone XL, a tidy little pipeline extending from Alberta’s tar sands to an oil refinery in Texas.

There are a lot oil spills, and they seem inevitable as long as we’re transporting oil. Oil companies keep tabs on their pipelines by running infrequent tests on them and using “leak detection technology”. And when one of them bursts, leaks, ruptures, or fails us on a huge scale, taxpayer dollars are diverted to cleaning up the mess.

That’s because we’re talking bitumen here, a peanut-butter-thick substance that is exempt from the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund—which, after a spill, pays the oil removal bill. The mentality is that bitumen isn’t oil before it makes it to the refinery, even though it can spill and cause more damage. So companies like ExxonMobil and Enbridge contribute nil to the fund that cleans up their mess. Whatever the fund doesn’t cover is compensated by the government. However, incidents like this one can result in charges on the company.

If the $5-billion Keystone XL doesn’t get Obama’s OK, that doesn’t mean the oil can’t be transported. Transportation can still be done via train, which comes with its own slew of spills. For example, a train transporting crude oil from Canada spilled 15,000 gallons of oil when it derailed in Minnesota on Wednesday.

We hardly hear about the frequent occurrence of oil spills anymore—although we should. We should be enraged. When oil spills hit this magnitude, it’s guaranteed that people and the environment suffer. Oil is being transported because there’s a demand for it. But at this point, it seems irresponsible to transport it—or even extract it.

Cambodians protest their government's new law cementing its grip on civil society and aid. Photo courtesy LICADHO.

More than two months have passed since the Cambodian government released the second draft of the controversial Law on Associations and Non-Governmental Organizations (known colloquially as the NGO law),and the country’s civil society organizations are still holding their collective breath.

The government has long called for an NGO law, though no one seems able to articulate exactly why it is needed. Official statements have been all over the map — some say it’s needed to control “illegal activities” among NGOs; other say it’s to increase transparency; some even say it’s necessary to combat terrorism.

But the release of the second draft of the law dramatically exposed the government’s phony rationalizations. The law, as highlighted in this analysis, is simply a transparent attempt to control independent civil society and stifle dissent. It’s also a blatant violation of domestic and international protections on association, assembly and speech.

Besides affecting local groups, the passage of this law would significantly undermine the efforts of international donors and NGOs working in Cambodia, including the Canadian International Development Agency. CIDA invested a projected $17.03 million into development programs in the country between 2009-2010.

Among other things, the proposed law imposes a burdensome and mandatory registration process onall NGOs and associations working in Cambodia, and outlaws those that don’t comply. Meanwhile, it gives authorities unbounded discretion to approve registration applications, with few substantive guidelines to steer their decisions. There is no appeals process if registration is denied.

In this way, the new law takes government confrontation of NGOs and associations behind the scenes, out of public view. One paperwork error, real or imagined, and the organization will cease to exist.

The proposed law is also sloppy — one example being its apparently unlimited scope. It’s unclear whether this aspect was intentional, but the International Centre for Not-for-Profit Law (ICNL) concluded that the law would require “every group of individuals who gather together with a differing level of frequency and perform the broadest variety of imaginable activities, from trekking and football fans, to chess and silk weaving groups,” to register. Failing to do so would be a violation of the law. (So would, apparently, founding an NGO or association without the required number of Cambodian citizen “founding members” required by the law — three and 11, respectively).

By impairing and even closing down local groups, the law will stifle information needed by funding bodies like CIDA, and make it more difficult to design, implement and monitor development programs. Local groups including informal networks and associations are often the best source for information on the human rights and development landscape. For example, one of CIDA’s main development goals in Cambodia is to help increase access to legal land titles, which would strengthen communities’ ability to fight land grabbing. Land grabbing is closely tied to government action and without politically independent partners, CIDA’s goals will be compromised. Moreover, CIDA endorses the idea that the promotion of civil society is vital in fostering respect for human rights and encouraging development in Cambodia.

Canada-registered NGOs working in Cambodia are also concerned. LICADHO Canada, an organization that combats land evictions in Cambodia, says that the draft law, in its current form, would mean that many of the community groups LICADHO Canada works with would be deemed illegal entities and their activities outlawed if the groups refuse to conform to registration requirements. LICADHO Canada is one of several NGOs in the region working to protect communities from land grabbing.

It may seem incongruous that the Cambodian government feels compelled to pass a specific law in order to strengthen its grip on civil society. This is a country, after all, where an activist was recently shot dead after helping his community protest a military land grab. Nearly 40 human rights defenders were imprisoned as of November 2010. The authorities are shameless in persecuting those who pose a threat to their grip on power and resources, even in the most minor cases.

But the fact that the government feels the need for new legislation indicates that they do indeed have an Achilles heel. Under current law, confronting NGOs is a messy and embarrassing business that often requires trumped-up charges. This tarnishes Cambodia’s reputation and threatens the two things that the government really cares about: Western aid money and the international legitimacy that comes with it. Cambodia’s leaders don’t want the country to become another Burma. (They also need the money; foreign aid still represents half of the national budget).

The government’s release of the second draft of the law on March 24, 2011, produced an uncharacteristically vocal and unified outcry from local and international civil society organizations. The draft law was universally condemned as the most significant threat to the country’s civil society in years. Even Cambodia’s major foreign donors chimed in, most notably the United States, which publicly stated that passage of the law in its current state could threaten aid money.

While it is too early to tell whether the outcry will ultimately impact the law, there is some reason for optimism. Many expected that the government would push the law through the Council of Ministers and National Assembly immediately after the release of the second draft, as has been done in the past with other controversial legislation. That has yet to happen.

It appears now that the backers of this law are regrouping. It is unclear what their next step will be, but this much is certain: continued opposition from Western donors, including CIDA, and international NGOs is key to preserving Cambodia’s independent civil society. Canadian taxpayers should also be concerned: if the law passes, the effectiveness of CIDA’s $17.03 million investment will be compromised by the Cambodian government’s total discretion over the operation of CIDA’s local partners.

The Cambodian government has played chicken with Western donors before, cynically manipulating their fears — China’s growing influence, the prospect of abandoning ordinary Cambodians, and the need to “engage” at all costs — in order to keep the money flowing. Too often it’s the donors who flinch.

This time should be different. Civil society teeters on the brink, and all of the proverbial chips are on the table. This is not the time to be timid; it’s time to call their bluff.

Site of the now-rejected Kanata gravel mine on land owned by the Elizabeth Metis Nation. Satellite imagery via Google.

A project that would have provided hundreds of Metis with jobs and affordable housing was quashed on Tuesday, with a 7-6 vote by the Edmonton City Council. And though it may not seem so at first glance, that decision was likely for the best. While the project’s benefits were appealing, there were some deeper problems with the proposal, especially its environmental toll. But whether you agree with the Edmonton councillors’ decision or not, the case raises a host of important questions: how to address the pressing social and economic needs of Canada’s aboriginal communities, for instance, and how to balance economic prosperity with environmental sustainability. These are thorny, complicated, politically charged issues, so it’s important to pay attention to decisions like this and how they’re getting made.

Here’s the background: Kanata Metis Cultural Enterprises Ltd., which is owned by the Elizabeth Metis community, proposed a gravel mining operation to be started up on land it bought in 2009.  According to  the  corporation’s proposal, the mine would have been operated for three to five years, created up to 300 jobs for members of the Metis nation, and yielded 1.7 million tonnes of gravel, the profits of which would have been used to fund Metis-focused social programs such as building affordable housing.

Opposition to the mine sprung up because the proposed site was right beside the North Saskatchewan River and, according to local conservationists, better left untouched. The North Saskatchewan River Valley Conservation Society posited that a gravel mine in the river valley could damage nearby wetlands and kick up large amounts of dust, harmful to area residents.

The argument against the mine was bolstered by the fact that the Edmonton Municipal Development Plan of 2010 specifically prohibits the harvesting of resources in the North Saskatchewan River Valley.

The task of the Edmonton City Council was to determine whether an exception could be made to the prohibition. Normally such a decision would be based on the potential value of the proposed project. But this particular case gave councillors much more to think about, as it raised questions about environmental protection, self-government, and aboriginal land rights (The Kanata Metis appeared to have taken on the role of standing in for Metis people across Canada, the term “our people” having been used frequently by proponents of the mine).

At a very basic level, the case could be made that Kanata Metis Cultural Enterprises should be allowed to mine the land because they own it. And although the city has prohibited activities such as mining in that area, the question of land ownership and use is complicated when it involves Aboriginal groups, self-governance being a stated priority of the Canadian government’s relationship with Aboriginal peoples. Although the mining proposal isn’t a cut and dried analogue, aboriginal communities’ autonomy is part of the mix of issues here.

Another major argument in favour of granting the Kanata Metis corporation exclusive mining rights to the area, was that the Metis nation, like many Aboriginals in Canada, are in need of assistance, and owed some form of compensation.

The 2006 census reported that the Metis employment rate amongst adults was 74.6 percent. Although this was a four percent improvement over 2001’s figures, it still placed Metis behind the non-Aboriginal population, whose employment rate was 81.6 percent. The 2006 census also reported that, as of the previous year, the median income for Metis was $5,000 lower than it was for non-Aboriginals. This inequity was even greater in Alberta, where the median Metis income was $6,600 lower than non-Aboriginals’.

Evidently a job-creation project with a focus on Albertan Metis deserves some thought, especially if it is also going to contribute funding to housing and training programs, as the Kanata Metis corporation said the mine would have.

But while the local Metis population would have benefited from the gravel mine, how should that be weighed against the environmental costs?

While campaigning in favour of the mine, Archie Collins, a councillor of the Elizabeth Metis settlement, described the Metis people as “stewards of the land,” a cliché about indigenous peoples often invoked by interested parties, aboriginal or otherwise, that portrays aboriginals as inherently protective and understanding of the earth and environment.

There are already conservation laws to which aboriginals are exempt because of their cultures’ unique relationships to nature. Hunting and fishing regulations, for example, do not apply to aboriginal Canadians, on the grounds that their cultural traditions, which include hunting and fishing, supersede Canadian laws.

Gravel mining, however, is not part of the Metis cultural tradition. It would have been undertaken only as a commercial opportunity, which makes it quite different from the hunting and fishing examples. Collins’s “stewards of the land” image, while romantic, does not exactly jibe with digging up a river’s watershed in search of gravel.

There is no doubt that the Kanata Metis Cultural Enterprises mine would have brought some needed material prosperity for Edmonton-area Metis. There is even less doubt that the Metis — like all Canadian aboriginal peoples — are owed some manner of reparations after a long history of oppression and marginalization. But there are better ways to help than the North Saskatchewan River gravel mine. There are definitely less environmentally damaging options. In the end Edmonton City Council made a tough choice, but it was the right one.

Media determinists of all stripes have hailed the role of Twitter, Facebook and other social media in prompting the recent pan-Arab revolts. Though it could be argued that these revolts were bound to happen eventually, the catalyst isn’t likely social media — it’s food.

One of the main causes of the French Revolution was a combination of a mismanaged economy and climate change that resulted in soaring bread prices. The Egyptian uprisings have been compared to the French Revolution by many columnists (and the comparison dismissed, as well). On the same note, The Daily Telegraph declared the events in Tunisia and Egypt to be “food revolutions.”

The cost of food is on the rise, with devastating impacts across the Global South. At the start of a recent podcast episode, NPR’s Planet Money discussed the rising cost of wheat, which makes up roughly 70 percent of bread prices in Egypt but only two percent in the U.S.

The Western world tends to feel less impact in fluctuation of food commodities because so much of the cost of food goes to packaging, marketing and processing. In addition, Western countries have stockpiles of grain unimaginable in the developing world.

Planet Money also gives a comprehensive breakdown of just how crazy worldwide changes in food costs have been and what’s causing them. As one of our most basic needs, food plays a huge role in security and diplomacy.

After wheat prices jumped 25 per cent in one day in 2008, the UN held a food security summit in Rome and urged governments to invest in agriculture. The conference’s final declaration warned of disastrous crises that were not just looming, but well under way.

Food and famine has driven much of the world’s relations with North Korea. Meanwhile China — estimated to supply North Korea with 40 percent of its food — faces its worst drought in 60 years.

Last summer’s Russian forest fires resulted in a shortfall of tonnes of grain, prompting Putin to halt wheat exports for both 2010 and 2011 harvests. This summer we’ll learn the impact of this change, along with the effects of flooding in Pakistan and Australia, as well as natural disasters in numerous other countries.

Meanwhile, the cost of food continues to reach historic highs, which Bill Clinton believes could worsen if companies use too many crops for biofuels.

Unless climate change gets under control and we use food resources more efficiently, we can expect more such revolutions in the years to come.

[Creative Commons photo by Flickr user adactio]

The Plan Canada campaign encourages potential donors to invest in girls by arguing that females will naturally work to help others and inspire social cohesion. “Because I am a girl I will take what you invest in me and uplift everyone around me,” one poster states. The kicker of the campaign is “Are you the one?” Although the appeal for donations is intended to be universal one, it capitalizes on the notion that girls passively wait for their saviours.

The campaign is cut from the same pink material as the ubiquitous movement to find a cure for breast cancer. (Like the breast cancer campaign, Plan Canada also distributes its logo on pink T-shirts to increase awareness of Because I am a Girl.) For her book Pink Ribbons Inc., Queens University professor Samantha King investigated how the campaign expunged the “stigma, secrecy and shame” associated with the disease by recasting its victims as noble survivors. The Pink Ribbon movement blasts representations and symbols of “hyperfeminity” and casts sufferers as “wife,” “mother” and so on. In so doing, King explains, the campaign has reimagined a disease that challenges a woman’s ability to breastfeed, reproduce and hold together the nuclear family into one that celebrates this ability.  The Pink Ribbons marketing strategy teaches that women will valiantly uphold their social roles in spite of the disease, and that’s a trait that corporate sponsors enthusiastically applaud.

These pseudofeminist campaigns do not demand social and economic transformation. They simply ask for a little bit more, and even that request is one they feel the need to justify. They do so by appealing to old-fashioned ideas of what constitutes femininity and depicting females as deserving and grateful.

The appeals are safe, and their targets are too. The Pink Ribbons campaign seeks a pharmaceutical “cure”; it doesn’t, of course, investigate the relationship between pharmaceutical hormones, estrogen-mimicking plastics, industrial pollution and breast cancer incidence. The Plan Canada campaign refers to early marriage and the withdrawal of girls from school, but glosses over any questions about the effects of global capitalism and the market logic that displaces communities, devalues women’s labour and education, and forces families into the kind of poverty that necessitates early marriage.

The campaigns speak to the depoliticized nature of charity, but the way they sanitize and corporatize feminism is also insidious. Movements that truly fight for females don’t reinforce gender roles—they sabotage them. From the suffragettes who, 100 years ago, launched a window-smashing campaign in response to police brutality against female activists, to the radical feminists who are mobilizing against U.S. wars today, these movements are disruptive and uncompromising. Their slogan would be something more akin to this: Because I am a girl, I am tired of asking nicely.

Child miners are forced to work the mines by the warring groups in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Photo courtesy: ENOUGH Project, Flickr Creative Commons.

As I type this, I am complicit in the funding of rape and war.  You probably are too–sitting on your laptop, listening to your mp3 player, texting on your smartphone–even if you don’t know it.

But that could all change with the passing of Barack Obama’s sweeping financial reform legislation by Congress in July. While the story made headlines across the United States and pundits and politicians debated its potential ability to clean up Wall Street, largely lost in the 2,300 page document was a landmark piece of U.S. legislation that is geared towards transforming a place as far removed from Wall Street as possible—the Democratic Republic of Congo, the rape capital of the world.

Tucked into the “Miscellaneous Provisions” section of the bill, the new U.S. law will require all publicly-traded and electronics companies to disclose the source of the minerals contained in their products and the steps they are taking to ensure that they are “conflict free.”

The DRC is a resource-rich nation with large deposits of tantalum, tin, tungsten, and gold, all of which can be found in every cell phone, laptop, iPod, digital camera and most other pieces of modern technology in the world. If it stores a charge, vibrates, or has gold-coated wiring, chances are it’s got these four minerals in it.  The provision, then, will affect thousands of U.S. companies, including technology giants Apple, Hewlett Packard and Dell.

Activists, U.N. experts and non-governmental organizations have become increasingly vocal about concern that armed Congolese groups—including the Congolese army, rebel militias, and groups from Uganda and Rwanda—are financing themselves with minerals from eastern Congo.  In what’s been called Africa’s World War, the DRC has been mired in violence for more then a decade.  The war began following the 1994 genocide in neighbouring Rwanda and has claimed the lives of roughly 5 million Congolese, displacing another 2 million from their homes. Hundreds of thousands of women and young girls have been raped, as soldiers on all sides of the conflict have utilized systematic sexual violence as a weapon.

As with conflict diamonds, the legislation recognizes the direct correlation between our consumer appetites and the violence plaguing the Congo. While it stops short of placing an embargo on the purchase and use of the minerals, American manufacturers must now be forthright if they do so, essentially saying: “this cell phone helped fund rape and war.”

One U.K.-based advocacy group is taking the initiative to distance our consumer goods from conflict minerals one step further. Global Witness filed suit against the British government last week for failing to recommend that U.K. companies face United Nations sanctions for purchasing conflict minerals from the DRC. UN Security Council Resolution 1857, passed in 2008, calls for a travel ban and asset freeze on all individuals and entities supporting illegal armed groups in the DRC through illicit trade in natural resources. Resolution 1896 strengthened this by calling on UN member states to bring individuals and corporations forward for sanctions.

While the British government has refused to recommend the companies accused by advocacy groups for sanctions and has disputed the evidence brought against them, it has affirmed their countries commitment to the UN resolutions and to ethical mining.

The U.S. and U.K.’s support for due diligence and ethical mining relations with the DRC—lip-service though it may turn out to be—is more then we can say for our country. Canada has not only opposed valuable mining reform but has worked to undermine the DRC itself.

Canada delayed the World Bank and International Monetary Fund’s proposed $12.3 billion debt relief for the DRC, intended to mark the country’s jubilee anniversary of its independence. The decision was delayed following a request from Canada due to a legal dispute between Kinshasa and Vancouver-based mining company First Quantum Minerals Ltd. over mining rights. The proposed debt relief eventually went through, despite Canada’s tacit opposition as the lone abstaining vote.

While Harper claims that the DRC’s transfer of operating licenses violated international law and he used the podium of the G20 to frame the blocking of debt forgiveness as his stand for good governance, the actions of Canadian mining companies in the DRC has largely gone unquestioned by our government.  A UN Security Council report on the illegal exploitation of natural resources of the DRC found that First Quantum, along with several other Canadian corporations, were in violation of OECD guidelines of ethics and that their actions had led to an “economy of war”. That the Canadian government would stand alone on the world stage and hold Congo’s debt relief in limbo in defence of the mining rights of a company found to be acting illegally to pillage the natural wealth of the DRC makes it clear that our government is closer aligned with the mining sector then the international community.

Our government’s opposition to accountability within the mining sector is not without its own calculus—we are, more so then most other nations, particularly invested in global mining projects. The world’s largest source of equity capital for mining companies undertaking exploration and development can be found in the financial markets in Toronto and Vancouver; in 2008, exploration and mining companies based in Canada accounted for 43 percent of global exploration expenditures and 75 percent of the world’s mining companies were headquartered in Canada.

Canadian policy therefore has a vested interest in the mining sector, since Canadian companies play a major role in it globally.

But that doesn’t mean that Canada can’t follow the suit of our neighbours to the south and legislate for more ethical mining practices. When our MPs return to the House of Commons for the fall session, among the first bills on the agenda will be Private Member’s Bill C-300, the “Responsible Mining Bill.” Introduced by Liberal MP John McKay in 2009, the bill seeks to implement stricter guidelines for corporate social responsibility, to ensure that mining companies receiving funding from the federal government comply with internationally agreed-upon standards of human rights and environmental protection.

It comes down to responsibility: holding companies responsible for the goods they produce and the way they produce them. Of course, this is simply one small step to end the violence in the DRC—the war did not begin over minerals and this will not bring about its end. Every dollar in our society is a vote, though, and the the idea behind initiatives like Bill C-300 and the legislation in the U.S. is that civilian purchasing power, combined with government pressure, can enforce corporate accountability to stop funding the militarization of the region. This action is merely one in the arsenal that is required to stabilize the DRC. But it is an important one.

Protestors march down Toronto's Yonge Street as part of anti-G20 All Out In Defense of Rights Rally, Monday June 21 2010. Photo by Jesse Mintz.

The Toronto Community Mobilization Network kicked off its themed days of resistance to the G20 on Monday with activists converging around a mixed bag of issues including income equity, community control over resources, migrant justice, and an end to war and occupation. It’s an ambitious start­ for the week-long campaigns. On their own, each issue is complex. So wouldn’t combining them create one massively hopeless problem? Not necessarily.

Uniting the struggles sends a clear message:  justice for one means justice for all. Organizing in solidarity weaves together the various conditions of oppression and injustice affecting populations around the world. It gives us a deeper understanding of these conditions, and how to act against them.

In effect, you can’t talk about income equity without addressing migrant justice. The fact is, so-called developed states have built their economies on the labour of underpaid and overworked “temporary” migrant labourers. A recent Stats Can report suggests that throughout the 31 countries that make up the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (compare these to the countries that have ratified or signed the UN Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Their Families, or to the G20 roster for that matter), the “temporary migration of foreign workers has increased by 4 percent to 5 percent per year since 2000.”

The same report states that over 94,000 non-permanent residents worked in Canada full time (30 hours per week or more) in 2006. Many came to this country as part of temporary foreign worker programs, such as the Live-in Caregiver Program or the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program. Activists, academics, journalists, filmmakers, politicians—pretty much everyone—have denounced the current state of both programs for their exploitative policies, racist legacies and harmful social effects. And it only seems to be getting worse for migrant workers as third-party recruiters become increasingly popular.

The fact that business is booming for recruiters means there’s a pool of people willing to put up whatever money they have for the promise of work abroad.  And here’s where we connect the dots from migrant justice to ending war and occupation and restoring control of resources to the people—what has compelled, and continues to compel, the estimated 214 million migrants of the world to leave their home countries in the first place? That’s what migrant justice group No One Is Illegal wants us to think about:

Government and public discourse fails to address root causes of forced migration. On the one hand, because of free trade policies—including Canadian free trade agreements—and structural adjustment programs, governments throughout the global South have been forced to adopt neoliberal policies that have restructured and privatized their land and services, resulting in the displacement of urban and rural workers and farmers. On the other hand, capital mobility has led corporations to create millions of low-wage jobs and to seek vulnerable workers to fill them, both in sweatshops in the global South and exploitable labour sectors in the global North.

Sure, not all migrant workers are explicitly forced to come to Canada as a labourer, as one analyst with the Fraser Institute griped in an interview with The Dominion, but then again lots of people are. Forced migrants are refugees, asylum seekers, internally displaced and trafficked people, as well as survivors of developmental displacement, environmental and manufactured disasters.

Huge construction projects like dams, roads and airports squeeze people out of their homes. Stephen Castles, the former Director of the Refugee Studies Centre at Oxford University, writes that many of these initiatives are funded by the World Bank and displace as many as 10 million people annually. Though World Bank offers compensation for resettlement, Castles concludes:

Millions of development displacees experience permanent impoverishment, and end up in a situation of social and political marginalization.

People displaced by environmental change, by industrial accidents, and toxins generally face similar fates.

That’s why war and conflict, immigration and refugee flows, jobs and wages, and global economics are, together, a “focus” of protest. Far from being separate and unrelated problems, they’re inextricably entangled. And the solutions will be too.

Participants at the 2009 World Social Forum in Brazil help keep the world safe. Copyright Vanderlei Almeida/Getty Images.

While the prime minister has been trying to do damage control for his G20 agenda, activists and organizers of all stripes have been busy building social justice movements. Sometimes movement-building involves bickering over listservs about who gets to the carry the banner, but sometimes it also involves holding massive, multi-day, multi-issue summits. Left Forum might be over, but there’s plenty more where that came from. Here is a rundown of summits happening this weekend and beyond.

The People’s Summit
June 18-20, Toronto
The People’s Summit is very similar in content to the US Social Forum (see below for details), but slightly different in structure. The People’s Summit is being held as an open, democratic alternative to the G8/G20 Summits taking place in Huntsville and Toronto next week, and has been put together by individuals, unions, student groups, NGOs, community groups, and others. The cost of participating in workshops and events is sliding scale, and there are events for children planned throughout the weekend as well. “Holding Canada Accountable” is going to be a hot topic, in addition to the usual suspects of Environmental Justice and Human Rights, among others. This weekend’s full schedule of musical events, rallies, marches, and panels kicks off tonight with a launch party – “Stories and Solutions from North and South”, featuring Maude Barlowe, Jessica Yee, and others. If you’re in Toronto, put on your combination party hat/thinking cap and head down to the Carlu to pay-what-you-can at 6:30.

Gender Justice Summit
June 18-20, Toronto
Oxfam is hosting the GJS alongside the People’s Summit, with the intention of putting a spotlight on the interrelatedness of women’s rights, climate change, and the economy, as well as fortifying the messages of hope and resistance with walk-the-walk proof that change is possible. Summit participants will “have the opportunity to hear Oxfam’s international program partners from Africa and Latin America discuss their work on the themes of gender based violence, humanitarian response, maternal health, climate change, and food security in plenary discussions, dialogue circles and workshops.” Topics include framing gender equality as a human rights issue and discussing the roles men can take to help achieve gender justice around the world.

Vancouver People’s Summit
June 20, Vancouver
The VPS is partnering with Vancouver’s Car Free Day and is trying to do something different, planning “live music, performance, art, food and a village of civil society groups, activists and independent media, because nothing builds community and strengthens networks better than a massive street party — without cars!” Two smaller summits focusing on women’s rights and climate justice will be held over “mini-eat-ins”, which I hope involves eating tiny vegan cookies and drinking tiny mugs of fair trade coffee. Events are free for all.

Reel Solutions Film Fest
June 21-24, Toronto
Ok so it’s not a summit. That doesn’t mean this scrappy four-day film fest being held at the Toronto Underground Cinema should be left off of this list. Scheduled to run after the People’s Summit and throughout the Themed Days of Resistance, the Reel Solutions Film Fest features documentaries about opposition to environmental disasters in Canada, Southern resistance to Canadian mining companies, and the hideous and long-ranging consequences of war. Heavy content, maybe, but your head and your heart will thank you later. 20$ will get you a series pass, and individual screenings are 8$, but no one will be turned away for lack of funds.

The U.S. Social Forum
June 22-26, Detroit

The 2nd USSF takes place in balmy downtown Detroit, three years after 12,000 people attended the first forum in Atlanta. Organizers say:

The purpose of the USSF is to effectively and affirmatively articulate the 
values and strategies of a growing and vibrant movement for justice in the
 United States. Those who build towards and participate in the USSF are no 
longer interested in simply stating what social justice movements
 “stand-against,” rather we see ourselves as part of new movements that reach
 beyond national borders, that practice democracy at all levels, and understand 
that neo-liberalism abroad and here in the US is not the solution.

Their ABC slogan (ABC stands for Assemblies, Brigades, and Caravans) brings an interesting element to the forum, stressing continued participation in the community after the forum, as well as encouraging a sprightly, bike-buoyed disbursement of ideas throughout the country in the days and weeks following.
Registration, which costs between 10$ and 100$ depending on one’s income, grants access to workshops, plenary discussions, and screenings. The forum focuses on tying local Detroit issues to those affecting the rest of the US. Detroit has been hit especially hard during the economic crisis, and many of the problems faced in other US cities are amplified there. That also means there is lots of room for positive change. Detroit isn’t too far away, so jump on your bike/car/train/bus so you’ll get there in time to learn about the ABCs of resistance.

The Children’s Social Forum
June 22-26, Detroit
Running alongside the USSF is the Children’s Social Forum, which includes teaching kids about unions, street theatre, and making connections between issues that affect them at home and issues that affect people throughout the world. Kids these days, getting their own forums! Here’s hoping that the lessons taught at the CSF lead to the creation of dozens of mini-Naomi Kleins armed with sharp pencils and crayons.

Protesters gather outside Union Station dressed as an oil spill in demonstration against Harper's environmental policy, June 17, 2010. Photo credit: Jesse Mintz

Unless you have been living under a fake rock beside a fake lake, chances are you’ve heard about this G8/G20 business in some way, shape, or form. The reasons why many people are protesting, however, may not be as clear. That’s probably because there isn’t any single issue uniting all protesters. And, despite what you may have heard, there is no one type of person who protests. Not all protesters are communists or socialists, not all are anarchists or against the government, and not all are ‘hapless hippies’, as one recent article stated.

You don’t have to be a feminist to believe that the Harper government’s paltry track record with domestic policies towards women has discredited any maternal health discussion led by our government. You don’t have to be a civil liberties advocate or an anarchist to oppose the spending of 1 billion dollars to turn Toronto into an military zone, complete with barricades, checkpoints and closed circuit security cameras monitoring our every move. And you certainly don’t have to be an environmentalist to doubt the Canadian government’s willingness to combat global warming and to turn a blind, or worse, defiant eye towards the Tar Sands issue.

While outrage over the price tag of the summits is pretty easy to understand, it’s the other issues on the table in front of us today in Canada, in our cities, and throughout the world, which are harder to untangle. It may require a lot of breath, but now is the perfect time to demand firm commitments instead of half measures and excuses on issues such as the environment, Indigenous rights, women’s and queer rights, the end of systematic economic injustice, justice for migrants and non-status people and an end to all wars and occupations. The interconnectedness of these issues shouldn’t be a problem–it should just provide more fuel for your fire.

Here are the reasons why everyone–not just the anarchists, hippies and commies–should give a damn and make yourselves seen, heard and understood in the week before the summits.

1. Gender justice: the Canadian government has pledged 1 billion dollars over 5 years for maternal health initiatives. This number stands in stark contrast with the 1 billion spent on security over the three days of the summit. The sad reality is that any initiative tabled by Harper will be a half-hearted one at best as he has refused to advocate the same rights for the women of the global south–specifically, the right to a safe abortion–as women enjoy in Canada. In addition, our government’s inability (or refusal) to understand the link between the health and status of women, children, the queer community, climate change and the failing global economy further, hinders any potential progress for these already marginalized communities.

2. Creating a just global economy: the road the current G8/G20 leaders in conjunction with the IMF and World Bank are taking us down will simply repeat the economic mistakes of the past. The economic crisis must impel leaders to implement a more sustainable development model worldwide. There are currently roughly 50 million people living below the poverty line–that is less then $1.25 U.S. a day–and this summit must be seen as an opportunity to push for fair economic trade regulations to help those in the global south.

3. Indigenous rights: The policies of the G8 have consistently marginalized indigenous populations around the world facilitating the transfer of wealth and power from the global south to the political elite. Domestically, indigenous populations have been dealing with the effects of globalization and neo-liberal economic policies that have ravaged their land and exploited their communities. Indigenous women and children are hit especially hard by ‘economic reform’ and budget cuts, and some Indigenous communities in Canada do not even have access to clean water.

4. Environmental justice: The summit presents the first opportunity since Copenhagen for world leaders to meet and reevaluate their commitments to reducing carbon emissions and aiding poorer nations in their attempts to adapt to climate change. Canada received the Fossil Award at Copenhagen as the nation that has done the most to impede global action on climate change. The summit must be used as an opportunity for us to ensure that our government knows that its environmental policy will not stand.

5.  Imperialism: The G8 nations are responsible for roughly two-thirds of the world’s military spending. G8 nations are engaged in a self-serving global war on terror that militarizes the world. Domestically, Harper has increased our defense budget in the wake of massive cuts to public services, such as feminist-minded NGOs and arts programs.

These protests cannot be for the select few; they must be the voice of the many. There isn’t one issue that concerns and unites all people–but that’s okay. These issues fall under the same banner of demanding justice and rights from our government, for us and for others throughout the world, and that in and of itself, is quite a mandate.

We are no longer dealing with “Canada the good”; and we can no longer afford to be silent.  So please, give a damn.