Sandra Finley

2018-03-14 Canadian court awards $2.6 billion in Sino-Forest fraud case, Reuters

 Uncategorized  No Responses »
Dec 222018
 

Wednesday’s decision followed a July ruling by the Ontario Securities Commission that Chan and his top executives “engaged in deceitful or dishonest conduct” that they knew constituted fraud and violated securities law.

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I am interested in Corruption, and the effectiveness of Canadian courts.   Need to do follow-up.  What happens?  Does the $2.6 billion ever get paid out?  Who are the players?

2012 –  accountancy Ernst & Young, one of the firm’s auditors, agreed to pay C$117 million to settle its part in a shareholder class action involving the firm. It later agreed to pay an C$8 million penalty to the Ontario Securities Commission, but admitted no wrongdoing, for its audits of Sino-Forest.

What are the consequences for Ernst & Young?   (“EY”)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_%26_Young  

2013 – EY agreed to pay federal prosecutors $123 million to settle criminal tax avoidance charges stemming from $2 billion in unpaid taxes from about 200 wealthy individuals advised by four Ernst & Young senior partners between 1999 and 2004.[18]

Ernst & Young (doing business as EY) is a multinational professional services firm headquartered in London, England, United Kingdom. EY is one of the largest professional services firms in the world and is one of the “Big Four” accounting firms.

Revenue Increase US$34.8 billion (2018)[3]
Owner Ernst & Young LLP.

The overall “owner” is a law firm.  That’s convenient.  I wonder how many other “settlements” have been negotiated for the criminal elements in the overall organization?

EY operates as a network of member firms which are separate legal entities in individual countries. It has 250,000 employees in over 700 offices around 150 countries in the world. It provides assurance (including financial audit), tax, consulting and advisory services to companies.[4]

 

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Canadian court awards $2.6 billion in Sino-Forest fraud case, Reuters

Matthew Miller

3 Min Read

BEIJING (Reuters) – A Canadian court has awarded plaintiffs $2.63 billion in a civil case against Sino Forest Corp co-founder and CEO Allen Chan, a decision that’s certain to lead to more litigation over one of the biggest cases of securities fraud by a listed Chinese firm.

Ontario Superior Court Justice Michael Penny, in a 174-page judgment handed down late Wednesday, found that Chan engaged in fraud, breach of fiduciary duty, and negligence. He awarded damages in the amount of $2.63 billion. He also awarded $5 million in punitive damages.

Chan “abused his unique position” to “orchestrate an extremely large and complex fraud, resulting in the loss by Sino-Forest of billions of dollars”, wrote Justice Penny.

Sino-Forest, the failed timber firm, was a publicly traded company listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange, before short seller Muddy Waters LLC published a report in 2011 accusing the company of being a Ponzi scheme riddled with fraud, theft and undisclosed related-party transactions.

Between 2007 and 2010, the company raised more than $2.1 billion and C$800 million in Canada’s debt and capital markets.

Sino-Forest’s collapse became the symbol for a series of offshore-listed Chinese firms accused of similar fraud that subsequently collapsed, including most recently China Huishan Dairy Holdings (6863.HK).

Wednesday’s judgment is the first to definitively state that Sino-Forest was a fraud headed by Chan.

“Mr. Chan, rather than directing Sino-Forest’s spending on legitimate business operations, poured hundreds of millions of dollars into fictitious or over-valued lines of business where he engaged in undisclosed related-party transactions and funneled funds to entities that he secretly controlled,” Justice Penny wrote.

The litigation was brought in 2014 by Cosimo Borrelli, who was appointed Trustee of the SFC Litigation Trust and argued that Chan and executives Albert Ip, Alfred Hung and George Ho organized a massive fraud.

Borrelli did not respond to a request to comment on Thursday. But a source close to the case said that the Canadian court decision would facilitate other legal claims against the auditors, valuers, and other directors of the company.

In 2012, accountancy Ernst & Young, one of the firm’s auditors, agreed to pay C$117 million to settle its part in a shareholder class action involving the firm. It later agreed to pay an C$8 million penalty to the Ontario Securities Commission, but admitted no wrongdoing, for its audits of Sino-Forest.

Wednesday’s decision followed a July ruling by the Ontario Securities Commission that Chan and his top executives “engaged in deceitful or dishonest conduct” that they knew constituted fraud and violated securities law.

Reporting by Matthew Miller; Editing by Stephen Coates

“Unsettling Canada”, excerpts; Also, the obituary of its’ author Arthur Manuel.

 Uncategorized  No Responses »
Dec 192018
 

“Unsettling Canada“, by Arthur Manuel, should be required reading, it’s a “page turner” to boot.  I don’t have time just now to write more.  The article below tells some of the story.

A companion book, easy to read, also enlightening:

The Haida Gwaii Lesson,  A Strategic Playbook for Indigenous Sovereignty, by Mark Dowie.   See

2004-11-18   Supreme Court of Canada decision, Haida Nation v. British Columbia, Terri-Lynn Williams, Haida Gwaii lawyer, sucessfully argued aboriginal title/right, tree farm licenses.

– – – – – – – – – – – – – –

QUOTES FROM “Unsettling Canada“:

P. 125,  Chapter 10, The Battle in the Forest

. . .  The lumber industry was, in fact, a big contributor to our poverty.  In British Columbia, it is one of the most profitable industries, yielding   (to be completed)

(will do more, later)

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THE GLOBE & MAIL:

B.C. aboriginal leader Arthur Manuel fought tirelessly for rights

Open this photo in gallery:

Arthur Manuel at Standing Rock, North Dakota, in December 2016, with his daughter Kanahus Manuel.

Tupac Enrique Acosta

JODY PATERSON
Special to The Globe and Mail

Arthur Manuel was born into indigenous activism. Working with the seeds his father, George, first sowed in the 1970s in the early days of Canada’s indigenous rights movement, the tireless B.C. aboriginal leader was on the front lines of the international fight for aboriginal title and self-determination right up until he drew his last breath.

“Art went into hospital on Jan. 5 and went from talking about organizing his next meeting to being on a respirator,” said his spouse, Nicole Schabus, a law professor at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops, B.C. “He was sending people messages about the February meeting on the very day he went into the intensive care unit. He had been in North Dakota at Standing Rock just a couple weeks before that. He didn’t know how sick he was.”

Those who have worked alongside Mr. Manuel during a lifetime of indigenous activism were in awe of his commitment, strategic thinking and persistence, says indigenous policy analyst and long-time friend Russ Diabo. “Like his father, he definitely wasn’t in it for the money,” Mr. Diabo says. “The Manuel family is the closest thing we have in Canada to the Mandela family in terms of what they have sacrificed and contributed to First Nations rights.”

Mr. Manuel died of congestive heart failure on Jan. 11, at the age of 65. His shattered family and friends around the world say the Secwepemc Territory leader is irreplaceable. Ms. Schabus says his unexpected death galvanized his many supporters to carry on his legacy of activism. The Vienna-born Ms. Schabus first met Mr. Manuel in Geneva, Switzerland, in the late 1990s, when Mr. Manuel took his concerns with the Canadian treaty process to the United Nations to make the case that the process contravened UN principles regarding self-determination.

Community organizing was such a big topic of conversation at Mr. Manuel’s funeral on Sunday in Kamloops that one visitor noted to Ms. Schabus later that the service felt more like an educational opportunity than a funeral, especially with so many of the country’s highest-profile rights activists in attendance. (Mr. Diabo says the service was a powerful call to action, “more like a symposium.”)

Arthur Manuel was born Sept. 3, 1951 to Marceline (née Paul) of the Ktunaxa Nation and Grand Chief George Manuel of the Secwepemc Nation. He grew up on the Neskonlith reserve in the B.C. Interior, and went on to be educated at residential schools not because the government ordered him to, but because his impoverished father told his son he’d have to pick between residential school or a foster home. “[Arthur] didn’t have an easy life as a child,” Ms. Schabus says.

Mr. Manuel was at residential school when he first started organizing, to protest the terrible food. By his 20s, he was president of the national Native Youth Association. Over the years he went on to be a four-term elected chief of the Neskonlith Reserve, six-year chair of the Shuswap Nation Tribal Council, spokesperson for the Interior Alliance, and co-chair of the Assembly of First Nations’ Delgamuukw Implementation Strategic Committee.

He continued as a spokesperson for the Indigenous Network on Economies and Trade until his death, and was a director with the Seventh Generation Fund for Indigenous Peoples. He was a popular interview subject in the indigenous media; numerous video interviews can be found online of the unassuming and soft-spoken Mr. Manuel arguing passionately for indigenous self-determination and title.

Mr. Manuel’s father was president of the fledgling National Indian Brotherhood in the early 1970s – the foundation for what ultimately became the Assembly of First Nations – and of the World Council of Indigenous People. Arthur followed his father into indigenous activism from a young age and raised his own five children to do the same.

His twin daughters, Mayuk and Kanahus, have both served jail time for land-use protests at the Sun Peaks Resort, near Kamloops, in 2000 and 2001, and they continue to be involved in actions related to land use and resource management in their nation’s traditional territory. Arthur’s sister Doreen Manuel is a filmmaker who teaches and co-ordinates the Indigenous Independent Digital Filmmaking program at Capilano University.

Mr. Manuel’s family first attracted media attention in B.C. in the mid-nineties, when he and his then-wife, Beverly Manuel, owned a gas station and store on the Neskonlith Reserve. They successfully fought the federal government’s plan to create a complicated “coloured tag” system for cigarette sales, an attempt by Ottawa to combat cigarette smuggling by sorting buyers by race.

But it was his family’s long protest against Sun Peaks Resort that brought him the most headlines. Angered by the ski resort’s expansion plans and water-main construction on Neskonlith territory, Mr. Manuel and his supporters organized road blocks and protest camps for more than a year around the resort, 56 kilometres northeast of Kamloops. The case was in and out of B.C. Supreme Court for many years after that.

The foundation of Mr. Manuel’s activism was fighting for indigenous people’s rights to acquire and control traditional lands and the resources they hold.

He rejected the modern-day style of treaty negotiation, believing that it was more likely to lead to municipal-style governments under federal and provincial control rather than free indigenous nations controlling their own lands. Canadian law recognizes the inalienable right of indigenous people to their land, and Mr. Manuel pushed back hard against a B.C. government treaty strategy that envisioned First Nations agreeing to give up those rights in exchange for getting a treaty.

“It was the rise of the B.C. treaty process and the push to terminate Aboriginal title throughout British Columbia in the early nineties that drew Arthur into the struggle in a way that he would never turn back from,” wrote Dawn Morrison, chair of the Working Group on Indigenous Food Security for the B.C. Food Systems Network, in Mr. Manuel’s memorial booklet.

Mr. Manuel made the point in all his public presentations that as long as indigenous people in Canada control just 0.2 per cent of the land base, aboriginal poverty will never be addressed.

“Self-determination is the international remedy for colonialization,” he told CBC Radio in an interview about his 2015 book Unsettling Canada: A National Wake-up Call. “The big issue is to deal with this 0.2 per cent so we can become more self-sufficient in our own territories. The land is big. There’s no reason why indigenous people should be totally impoverished generation after generation after generation when the land is that large.”

Mr. Manuel co-authored the book with his lifelong friend Ron Derrickson, a Kelowna developer and six-time elected chief of the Westbank First Nation who is known for being one of the wealthiest indigenous people in the country. (Mr. Derrickson funded much of Mr. Manuel’s international travel, and recently described his friend as “the most intelligent person I’ve ever known.”) The book won the 2016 Canadian Historical Association Aboriginal History Book Prize. The pair’s second book, Settling Canada, is expected to be released in April.

In addition to his writing, Mr. Manuel typically worked long into the night on organizing. “We all don’t have his endless energy,” Ms. Schabus says. “I lived with him. I saw that he was constantly working. But he was also a good dad and a good granddad. He was a good sle7e, which is Grandpa in his language. He used to come home from a meeting saying he didn’t want his grandkids to have to experience the same struggle.”

The Manuel family’s principled activism came at a price. Ms. Schabus recalls nights after the Sun Peaks protest when she and Mr. Manuel struggled to comfort his four-month-old grandson after his daughter Kanahus was jailed for four months for her part in the protest and wasn’t allowed to take the baby with her. The family was vilified as trouble-makers in some media accounts, and in the late nineties, Mr. Manuel often found himself on the wrong side of other indigenous leaders who supported the proposed B.C. treaty process.

For much of the past 15 years, Mr. Manuel’s activism focused increasingly on the international community. In 2009, he returned to Geneva to petition the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination to review the B.C. treaty process. In 2003, he sided with the U.S. lumber industry in front of the World Trade Organization to successfully argue that logging on traditional aboriginal territory constituted a form of trade subsidy because the real owners of the land weren’t being compensated. Frustrated with his inability to sway the thinking of Canada’s federal and provincial governments, he opted to ignore them instead.

“Going to Ottawa is a waste of time,” he told Red Rising Magazine in an interview published last summer. “You have to quit crying on the shoulder of the guy who stole the land. … Take lawful action, but back it up by going all the way to Geneva.”

But even while on the world stage, he remained committed to regional activism, according to those who knew him. The February meeting he was organizing at the time of his death was to plan the next steps for stopping the expansion of Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline, which runs 1,150 kilometres between Strathcona County (near Edmonton), Alta., and a marine terminal in Burnaby, B.C.

“He gave us the map,” Ms. Schabus says of her late spouse’s recent work. “We’ve just got to keep pulling the pieces together. My world is shaken, but at the same time I’ve learned so much from these years with him. We must keep it going.”

In the hours after his death, friend and fellow activist Naomi Klein tweeted: “Arthur Manuel had a beautiful and transformational vision for the world we need. But he died fighting in the world we have. Heartbroken.”

Mr. Manuel leaves behind Ms. Schabus; sisters Emaline, Martha, Doreen and Ida; brothers George, Richard and Ara; children, Kanahus, Mayuk, Ska7cis and Snutetkwe; and nine grandchildren. He was predeceased by his son Neskie Manuel, who died in 2011.

2018-12-18 I was asked for my take on former President of Ecuador, Rafael Correa, the large loans from China

 Julian Assange, Wikileaks, Chelsea (Bradley) Manning, Arjen Kamphuis  No Responses »
Dec 192018
 

From: Dianne

I am needing extra information on Ecuador and more info on Correa and of course the Assange case and I know that you were working in that direction a while back.  I see the attached article is blaming Correa for taking big loans from China.

Indigenous peoples denounce ongoing land rights violations in Ecuador

mongabay.com

Indigenous people in Ecuador say their territorial rights are being systematically violated, according to a top United Nations official.

REPLY

Hi Dianne,

Re your question:  article is blaming Correa on taking big loans from China

I can tell you some things.   But I have to be careful about objectivity in sorting through the information:

my introduction to Rafael Correa was through his actions in support of Julian Assange.   Correa is fearless;  he may have saved Assange’s life.   I have sketchbook information  of some of what Correa accomplished for the Ecuadorean people.   And have a sense of how he infuriated the powers-that-be.

I can offer a hypothesis as to why  Indigenous Ecuadoreans might be critical of Correa.

Indigenous people were vocal and critical about Correa’s failures in the Amazon forests.  At first it seems incongruous.   For example, Correa was determined that the pillagers would pay.  Under Correa the Constitutional Court upheld US$9.5 billion in fines levied against Chevron-Texaco for the damage it did in Ecuador’s Amazon.   (Correa’s successor, Lenin Moreno, is un-doing a lot of what Correa accomplished;  the fines will not be paid.)

Hypothesis:  The issues related to resource extraction for Ecuador’s indigenous people and Canada’s first nations are the same.  To me, you can understand the seeming-incongruity in Ecuador (indigenous people critical of Correa who has championed environmental issues in the Amazon Rain Forest)  by understanding the issue as it exists in Canada.

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A President of Ecuador, or a Premier or Prime Minister in Canada can actively support sustainable logging, for example – – protection of the environment.

But that’s not the basic issue.  The basic issue is Indigenous Sovereignty.

The Manuel family in Canada has been incredibly effective in leadership on this issue in Canada,  but also in helping to organize indigenous peoples around the Planet.  It is likely that Ecuadorean indigenous people have participated in the international meetings of indigenous people, the same ones as organized and attended by Canadian First Nations.

I hypothesize that Correa was acting in the same frame-of-reference that most Canadian leaders still embrace.   They can’t envision what Haida Gwaii, for example, has accomplished.  It’s new, pretty unique, and interesting.

Ref:  The Haida Gwaii Lesson, A Strategic Playbook for Indigenous Sovereignty, by Mark Dowie, 2017).

I haven’t posted excerpts from the book, but hope to.

In Haida Gwaii it’s a fait accompli, although still a work-in-progress.   The book “Unsettling Canada“,  is very good,  the same issue, but as it exists in other parts of Canada.

I have posted excerpts from it:   Unsettling Canada, excerpts; Also, the obituary of its’ author Arthur Manuel.

Your question is about the China role.  Wikipedia quotes Correa re China:

“On this point he (Correa) mentioned that in the year 2006, 75% of the Ecuadorian petroleum went to United States, in exchange for nothing. “Now we have 50% of the committed petroleum with China, in exchange for thousands of millions of dollars to finance the development of this country.[183]”

  • Correa took loans from China,  Yes.  Sold oil rights to China (how DARE Ecuador do that?!  That oil belongs to the colonizing empire, to Chevron, to the Americans),  AND

Ecuador’s national emergency response system which also has capability in face-recognition technology (surveillance), has a drone component, etc. is Chinese-built and funded.  (There’s no evidence the Ecuadorian government has used these advanced technologies for ends beyond typical crime control.)

What you have is numbers of countries (Ecuador (under Correa), Bolivia, Chile, some African countries gone over to the CHINESE for technologies, long-term contracts, that the Americans would see as threatening to American interests.

CONSEQUENCE:  You may know better than I the South American countries that have undergone regime changes, from left-leaning, to ones “supportive” of the Americans (like the change in Ecuador from Correa’s leadership to current President Moreno’s – – an about-face).   I could be wrong, of course, but to me the EHM (American empire) is at work, trying to re-take control;  they got to Moreno.   With that goes all the dirty tricks – – smear campaigns, intimidation, show of force (the U.S. Southern Command military ship on the Ecuadorean coastline).   The American military-industrial-congressional complex is master of the techniques.

The problem for the Americans is that “the game is up” so to speak.  Too many people know how they operate.  So now the propaganda doesn’t work as well as it used to;  they are reduced to show of and use of force.  I think we are experiencing a change in the balance-of-powers in the world.

Thoughts regarding the article you read:

  •  a top United Nations official, Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, the U.N.’s special rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples – – in the article, she is speaking on behalf of the indigenous people of Ecuador.  She believes what she said.  But there are complexities.  The primary one is explained above.  She is coming from an entirely different plane.  The indigenous people of Ecuador, like other indigenous people around the world,  through the United Nations, and through, for example court cases in Canada, have established rights.  They have aboriginal title to land that was illegally appropriated by colonizing nations.  To me, there’s a bit of propaganda about Correa she’s picked up, mixed in with what she’s saying.

For national leaders like Correa, in order for these countries to escape the poverty and domination that has plagued them under American colonialism,  they have to find alternative sources of capital – – Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, the U.N.’s special rapporteur, does not factor that in.

  •  She “ is urging the Ecuadoran government to form a “truly plurinational and multicultural society” in accordance with its constitution and international law.

This is the same battle being fought by First Nations in Canada.  The Constitution Express was a movement organized in 1980 and 1981 to protest the lack of recognition of Aboriginal rights in the proposed patriation of the Canadian constitution by the Trudeau government.  A group of activists led by George Manuel, then president of the Union of BC Indian Chiefs chartered two trains from Vancouver that eventually carried approximately one thousand people to Ottawa to publicize concerns that Aboriginal rights would be abolished in the proposed Canadian Constitution. When this large-scale peaceful demonstration did not initially alter the Trudeau government’s position, delegations continued on to the United Nations in New York, and then to Europe to spread their message to an international audience.  Eventually, the Trudeau government agreed to recognize Aboriginal rights within the Constitution. Contemporary activist Arthur Manuel calls the Constitution Express the most effective direct action in Canadian history, as it ultimately changed the Constitution.1

The First Nation, or Indigenous People, or Aboriginals might have the right IN THE CONSTITUTION,  but they have to fight on, to achieve implementation or activation of the right.  In my experience it’s not Governments that uphold Charter Rights.   Citizens have to battle to defend the rights.

The Constitution of Ecuador was enacted in 2008.  Rafael Correa was President.  There was a lot of opposition from the entrenched powers.  As I understand things, I doubt that Ecuador would have a solid Constitution and protected rights,  if not for the determination of Correa.   See the URL  (“Background“) below, for a few details.

The work to figure out HOW to create a “truly plurinational” society requires a huge amount of talk and dedication.

  • “The Government” who Tauli-Corpuz  refers to, would be the Government under President Correa.   His last term ended in 2017.
  • Look at what Correa accomplished.   Between 2006 and 2016, poverty decreased from 36.7% to 22.5% and annual per capita GDP growth was 1.5 percent (as compared to 0.6 percent over the prior two decades). At the same time, inequalities, as measured by the Gini index, decreased from 0.55 to 0.47.[6]

( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rafael_Correa)

  • Correa did outrageous things.  In campaigning for President  “he described himself as the head of “a citizen’s revolution” against the established political parties and corrupt elites,[28. . . as the leader of a second independence movement devoted to freeing Ecuador from American imperialism.[28]” He got elected!
  • Correa was very effective in his efforts to throw off the mantle of American hegemony, not only for Ecuador,  but by helping unite South American countries in their own independent organization.  He helped empower governments in Central and South America.

You know that the wrath of the Americans will come down upon him.  It will start with smear campaigns.  He has to be discredited.  Somewhere,  exaggerated claims about Correa’s relationships with the Chinese will be planted.

Today, working with President Lenin Moreno (Correa’s successor), the U.S. has a lot to dismantle.

See (2018-11-06 Background for “US Navy Ship (US Southern Command) Lands On Ecuador’s Shore to Give Free Medical Care”).

Among other things,  (I titled this “Sticking your finger in the eye of the bully”)

Can you imagine how the U.S. reacted?  – – Correa effectively removed Assange from the clutches of the CIA, NSA, Pentagon,  when he gave Assange asylum in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London.

THEN, Correa Doing what “developed countries” would do,  if the culprit wasn’t the U.S. – – took a principled stand re Edward Snowden   2013-06-28   Ecuador suspends preferential trade with US over Snowden affair

  • Correa was wary and smart:  he left Ecuador before they could arrest him.  He would be in jail, or equally likely, dead – – had he not fled.

(John Perkins quotes from a conversation with Correa in which he asked Correa about the EHM and jackals:  Correa said he had been approached by the EHM.  Correa was aware of the dangers in what he did; he was aware of the assassinations of Roldos and Torrijos (Ecuador and Panama) by the CIA-jackals)

–          CLASSIC TOOL #1:  start a smear campaign against dissenting leadership.   Correa was accused of various things, arrest warrants issued;  his lawyer reported that Interpol did not react because of insufficient evidence.

–          I believe that the Americans got to Correa’s successor, Lenin Moreno.  Much of what Correa accomplished is being undone, as mentioned.  The people of Ecuador remain vocal and active supporters of Correa.  They’re out on the streets protesting various Government actions (under Moreno), but with scant attention from Western media.

–          The vigils for Assange, by respected people (Hedges, Ellsberg, McGovern, and so on) also acknowledge and endorse Correa.  To me, they would not be doing that if Correa lacks integrity.

Anyhow, the way I piece things together:  Correa is straight.  As with all of us, some of his decisions will have been poor ones.  The attempts to discredit and take him down are predictable, given the eyes he stuck his finger in.  The powers that be don’t like that.  Correa has exhibited amazing courage.  The same with Assange.

Any questions?!

Sandra

2016 “Unsettling Canada, A National Wake-up Call”, by Arthur Manuel & Grand Chief Ronald Derrickson

 Occupy Movement  No Responses »
Dec 192018
 
Return to INDEX
A paste-together of information about a superb book.
 
 
RELATED: 
I happened to read “The Haida Gwaii Lesson; A Strategic Playbook for Indigenous Sovereignty” (2017), by Mark Dowie.  It’s short, and very interesting.  Read about it at:

The “Lesson” turned out to be a primer for the next book that kind of fell into my lap, a riveting story well told – – read about it below.  And about its remarkable author, Arthur Manuel, at

“Unsettling Canada”, excerpts; Also, the obituary of its’ author Arthur Manuel.

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From Good Reads:

 

“There is room on this land for all of us and there must also be, after centuries of struggle, room for justice for Indigenous peoples. That is all we ask. And we will settle for nothing less.”  Arthur Manuel

 

“All the government has to do to begin real and substantive negotiations with Indigenous peoples is to follow the recommendations of its own Royal Commission, which repudiated the racist and internationally discredited doctrine of discovery and recognized our right to self-determination.”  Arthur Manuel

 

Scott Neigh

An important book by an important Indigenous movement leader who died unexpectedly at the beginning of the year. A mix of history, memoir, and analysis. Well written, very readable. A great window into some of the most important political events in this country in the last half century, and some political ideas that will be crucial as we collectively shape the next half century. And though it wasn’t at all news to me, I still felt quite affected by his matter-of-fact presentation of the relentlessly awful colonial behaviour of the Canadian state — no less now than in his father’s generation, even if the tactics and rhetoric have changed some, and no less under Trudeau’s suave Liberals than when Harper’s ham-fisted and more openly racist Conservatives were at the helm. A must-read for any settler serious about supporting Indigenous struggles and about seeking a version of reconciliation that isn’t just a re-packaging of colonialism.

 

Jane Kirby rated it –  it was amazing

I read this because Idle No More was urging people to.  I didn’t expect I would

1) learn so much or

2) find it so engaging and interesting.

This should be required reading.

 

Claire Thompson rated it – really liked it

I learned a lot about first nations issues (land claims, Gustafson Lake standoff, the Oka Crisis, P. Trudeau’s White Paper, protest at Todd Mountain/Sun Peaks) . . .

Alan rated it – it was amazing

If you’re afraid of the future you should read this book. This book holds lessons for all non-indigenous people, and every one of us needs to read this to understand that the future can be a place where justice can happen for us all.

 

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Unsettling Canada: A National Wake-Up Call by Arthur Manuel and Chief Ronald Derrickson describes the victories and failures, the hopes and the fears of a generation of activists fighting for Aboriginal title and rights in Canada.  Unsettling Canada chronicles the modern struggle for Indigenous rights covering fifty years of struggle over a wide range of historical, national, and recent international breakthroughs.

Arthur Manuel has participated in the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues since its inception in 2002. Since 2003, he has served as spokesperson for the Indigenous Network on Economies and Trade (INET). Working through INET, Manuel succeeded in having the struggle for Aboriginal title and treaty rights injected into international financial institutions, setting important precedents for Aboriginal title and rights in Canada. Manuel is a spokesperson for the Defenders of the Land.

Author of the book’s Afterword, Grand Chief Ronald M. Derrickson has been elected chief of his Westbank First Nation six times and is one of the most successful First Nations business people in Canada. He was made a Grand Chief by the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs in recognition of a lifetime of political and economic leadership.  Naomi Klein provides the Foreword.

The volume has the occasional black and white photograph, references, and an index. This is an important contribution to the current literature about First Nations’ perspectives on their roles in the political and sovereignty movements across Canada from the 1950s, the White Paper, the Red Paper, Constitution Express, Oka, RCAP, Delgamuukw, Sun Peaks, international lobbying, the Fourth World, and Idle No More.  An important call to action for all Canadians from a respected First Nation leader and activist.

 

2011-03-30 Plans to export water, though unpopular, keep springing up

 Bottled, For-Profit Extraction, Export, Commodification  No Responses »
Dec 182018
 
RENATA D’ALIESIO

A few weeks ago, Gerry White slipped into the pilot’s seat of his helicopter and took off for a remote lake in Newfoundland.

He flies there a couple of times a year, sometimes to salmon fish in the area, but often just to glimpse the business venture that never came to be.

A dozen years ago, Mr. White’s proposal to annually withdraw one-quarter of Gisborne Lake’s water and pipe it to a harbour for export via tankers was quashed. The plan was one of a handful in the 1990s that touched off intense national wrangles over whether Canada should treat its water like other tradable natural resources, such as trees, coal and petroleum.

The answer then from most Canadians was a resounding no, and federal and provincial politicians took heed.

Today, as federal politicians fan out across the country to wage an election campaign, there is little appetite to reignite a debate on water exports, as was suggested by former prime minister Jean Chrétien last week. Mr. White, though, maintains it’s only a matter of time before Canada begins trading water.

“There will be a day,” said the long-time Newfoundland land developer and construction entrepreneur. “It will eventually come because it’s needed.”

Despite persistent public opposition, the export debate has never entirely receded in Canada. At an international water conference in Toronto last week, Mr. Chrétien – whose government pushed in 1999 for a prohibition on bulk water trade – suggested a new national conversation on the matter is needed, noting the country exports oil and gas. On which side of the debate he would stand, Mr. Chrétien said he doesn’t know.

“When you look at the debate, countries who are lacking water are next to countries that have water. Imagine the difficulties of this problem,” the long-time federal leader told reporters. “It’s why some people say that there might be war over water in the future.”

Canada, of course, lies next to a country whose economy is the largest in the world and whose population is 10 times greater than ours. Parts of the United States have struggled with intermittent water shortages for decades.

In once-booming Las Vegas, for instance, more than $150-million (U.S.) has been doled out over the past 12 years in rebates to encourage businesses and residents to rip out their water-thirsty lawns. In central and southern Florida last week, officials declared a water shortage after one of the driest winters on record; residents have been ordered to limit their outdoor water use.

Canada, on the other hand, is considered rich in H{-2}O, containing 6.5 per cent of the world’s renewable fresh water. However, some regions, such as southern Alberta and the Okanagan Valley in British Columbia, grapple with supply strains.

Proposals to transfer water to the U.S. from Canada stretch back to the 1950s. One early plan suggested damming northern James Bay to divert water through a network of canals to the Great Lakes and eventual transfer south of the border.

Canadians’ resistance to exporting water isn’t the only thing that has stopped these schemes. The infrastructure required to collect, transport and handle a liquid denser than light crude oil is extremely costly. The estimated price tag of the James Bay project was $100-billion.

With Canada’s lakes and rivers seemingly off limits to large exports, Alaska has become the staging area for water entrepreneurs. The state is the only American jurisdiction that allows bulk exports, opening its waterways in 1992. Of the eight applications received by the state, only one has been approved, but it’s unclear when or even if exports will flow from Blue Lake reservoir.

Alaska businessman Terry Trapp, one of the bid’s proponents, said negotiations are continuing with potential customers in China and the Middle East. Many years after the process began, the cost of infrastructure remains a major obstacle.

“It sounds like a simple thing, but it’s something that has never been done before,” said Mr. Trapp, who owns a water-bottling company. “In terms of the countries that need [water] most don’t have the infrastructure in place.”

British Columbia NDP MP Peter Julian has a few words of advice to Americans who might still be eyeing Canada’s fresh water: Look to conserve.

“We’re seeing shortages across the United States because they don’t have an effective water stewardship policy in place,” said Mr. Julian, the party’s international trade critic. “To say that allowing companies to sell water is going to fix that or in any way help the current situation would be foolish.”

In Canada, MPs of all political stripes are in no mood to entertain water exports. Mr. Chrétien’s call for a debate was essentially rejected by the NDP, the federal Conservative government, and the party he led for nearly 13 years, the Liberals. All said they oppose large water exports.

“The vast, vast majority of Canadians are against the idea of exporting our water in bulk,” said Quebec Liberal MP Francis Scarpaleggia, noting most of the nation’s renewable water flows north, away from large population centres. “It could cause irreparable damage to ecosystems. Moving water around brings invasive species from one basin into another.”

Mr. Scarpaleggia, the party’s water critic, said Canada should instead look to export its scientific and technological expertise to developing countries coping with water scarcity – a growing problem in many regions of the world, particularly the Middle East and North Africa.

Last year, the Harper government introduced a bill designed to strengthen existing protections against bulk water removal, though some critics contended it had loopholes. That bill, however, was never debated in Parliament and is one of several pieces of legislation that died on the order paper because of the election call.

As the international panel on water conflicts neared an end last Tuesday in Toronto, Mr. Chrétien made note of the contentious proposal to export water from Newfoundland’s remote Gisborne Lake. Mr. Chretien, who was prime minister at the time of the proposal, recalled he was shocked by Canadians’ emotional opposition to the trade plan.

“Whenever we have a question on water it’s always a huge controversy,” he told the audience of leading water experts and policy-makers.

“But when you look at the reality, here we have a lot of water,” Mr. Chrétien added, before posing this question: “Are we able to share this benefit we’re having that others don’t have?”

1999-10-02 Newfoundland agrees to ban water export, with Ottawa’s help, CBC

 Bottled, For-Profit Extraction, Export, Commodification  No Responses »
Dec 182018
 

The Newfoundland government has endorsed Ottawa’s request that provinces ban bulk-exports of fresh water, but the feds will have to enforce the ban themselves, says the province’s environment minister.

Oliver Langdon, Newfoundland’s environment minister, says it will be up to the federal government to prevent existing proposals from going ahead.

“It is our opinion that the federal government is the only government which can assess whether this project creates a precedent which could impact on Canada’s sovereign right to control its resources,” Langdon said.

A Newfoundland company called the McCurdy Group has already looked into exporting water from Gisborne Lake in southeastern Newfoundland.

Langdon says the company’s plan to sell the water of Gisborne Lake meets all of the province’s environmental standards. But the environment minister says the development won’t go ahead until Ottawa deals with the national trade implications the project might have.

He says the province’s decision to sign the permanent national ban gives the project a yellow light.

“This decision effectively prohibits the Gisborne Lake project from proceeding without federal consent,” he says.

The McCurdy group started the Gisborne Lake project three years before Ottawa called for the export ban. Langdon says it isn’t fair to change the rules on the company now.

Last week Premier Brian Tobin hinted that the federal government should compensate the company if it stops the development. Langdon echoed the premier, saying the province’s work is done.

“I want to let you know that the province has taken its reponsibilities in this matter seriously and our role is now complete,” he said at Friday’s announcement of Newfoundland’s signature.

Langdon’s announcement is a blow to Ottawa’s attempts to stop any bulk-export of water. The federal government hoped the provinces would not only sign on to the ban but also stop developments from going ahead.

= = = = = = = = =

Oct 1, Govt of Newfoundland Press Release:

Minister Langdon said the national debate on bulk water export has been intense. “The debate has been highlighted in this province because of a proposed project to export water in bulk from Gisborne Lake.”

“We must apply the existing rules and regulatory process fairly to the Gisborne Lake project and its proponent, the McCurdy Group,” explained the minister. “This project was registered under the provincial EA process three years ago, consistent with the policies of the day, and well before the call for a national moratorium was made by the federal government in February of this year.”

“Following thorough assessment, the province has concluded it must conditionally discharge the Gisborne Lake project from the provincial environmental review process, but this does not mean project approval,” said Minister Langdon.

While the provincial environmental review has not identified any technical or environmental grounds to prohibit the project, Minister Langdon said the Gisborne Lake project cannot be considered simply on a stand alone basis.

“This government has significant questions about the implications of the project on Canada’s trade and national environmental policies. These are federal responsibilities that can’t be dealt with under the provincial review process.”

Minister Langdon has written to the federal Minister of Environment calling on the federal government to comprehensively address the trade and national policy impacts of this project as part of its own ongoing review of the Gisborne Lake project.

“This government believes that it is the federal government’s responsibility to decisively assess the implications of the Gisborne Lake project from a national perspective,” said the minister. “The issues which are most pressing relate to federal responsibilities like trade, and national and international environmental issues like global water shortages and climate change. It is our opinion that the federal government is the only government which can assess whether this project creates a precedent which could impact on Canada’s sovereign right to control its resources.”

Minister Langdon said government’s decision effectively prohibits the Gisborne Lake project from proceeding without federal consent.

2018-11-24 Six Nations and Wellington Water Watchers join forces at Nestle protest, Guelph Today

 Bottled, For-Profit Extraction, Export, Commodification  No Responses »
Dec 182018
 
Six Nations youth organize
by: Tony Saxon
– – – – – – – – – – —

Roughly 200 people protested outside the Nestle Waters water bottling plant and head office in Aberfoyle.

Protesters gathered at the nearby Puslinch Community Centre then marched down to the top of the long driveway leading to the water bottling here were speeches, spoken word performances, chanting and traditional songs were sung.

Makasa Looking Horse organized the event, which began earlier in the day at Six Nations.

“It’s important because Nestle is stealing the aquifer underneath us, taking 3.6 million litres of water without our permission,” she said.

“I care about it because it’s our future generation’s water, not a corporation’s water.”

Rob Case, chair of Wellington Water Watchers, said it is important to have other groups involved in the local fight.

“I think it shows that this is a pretty far-reaching, broad-based, kind of universal effort to organize and protect groundwater and keep it in the control of people. Putting people before profit,” Case said.

He said the majority of Six Nations homes don’t have clean water piped in to them, yet nearby Nestle is taking water for profit.

“Up the river, still in the Haldamond Tract that is still in Six Nations treaty territory, water is still being bottled up by Nestle for shareholder profits. There’s just some kind of irony in that.”

He said Wellington Water Watchers was there Saturday to support; however, the Six Nations protestors chose to voice their concerns.

Nestle had security parked further down the long driveway keeping an eye on Saturday’s protest at their front entrance and an unmarked police car watched from a distance.

At one point protestors made their way down the driveway, approaching company security, but then they turned around and returned to the top of the driveway adjacent to Brock Road without incident.

“We’re going to greet them with love anyway because our relatives that make bad decisions need to be welcomed into the community that is making the right ones,” said indigenous activist Eryn Wise of Seeding Sovereignty.

“As indigenous peoples, even though we know it’s not our jobs to be emotional support folks for everyone else, we end up doing it because we are caretakers, we are land defenders and we are people that are going to save this planet,” Wise said.

2018-11-09 Province (Ontario) seeks to extend moratorium on bottled water taking permits, Guelph Mercury Tribune

 Bottled, For-Profit Extraction, Export, Commodification  No Responses »
Dec 182018
 

by Chris Seto

GUELPH — The province is asking the public to weigh in on whether it should extend a moratorium on granting permits for bottled water companies to take groundwater.

In December 2016, the former Liberal government placed a moratorium on any new — or expanding existing permits – to take groundwater to produce bottled water. It’s set to expire at the start of 2019.

Besides no new permits given, the order also prevents facilities from conducting pumping tests to see if groundwater in a given area could be used as a source for bottled water.

The current Ontario government is asking members of the public to submit comments about the issue and complete a one-question survey about their proposal to extend the moratorium until the start of 2020.

By extending the moratorium for an extra year, it “will give us time to further advance the ministry’s understanding of the water resources in the province, with a particular focus on groundwater takings by bottling facilities,” the government proposal reads.

With drought conditions seen in southern and eastern Ontario in 2016, and with the projected population and economic growth, and with the anticipated impacts of climate change, the concerns around water security in the province have intensified, the proposal reads.

Robert Case, board chair of Wellington Water Watchers, said the proposal is a step in the right direction and is much better than prematurely ending the moratorium, but the province didn’t go far enough.

“I think that the government should just move toward a phase-out of this industry,” he said, adding bottled water industries don’t add much value to communities they operate in.

“Up in Centre Wellington it’s already come in conflict with the community needs for access to water for a growing population.”

He’s referring to Nestlé Waters and the company’s purchase of a well near Elora in 2016 at the former Middlebrook Water Company site. The Township of Centre Wellington made an offer on the property but lost to Nestlé in the end.

2018-11-19 Layoffs at Nestlé’s Aberfoyle water bottling plant, Guelph Mercury

 Bottled, For-Profit Extraction, Export, Commodification  No Responses »
Dec 182018
 
Nestle Waters

– Jessica Lovell/Metroland

An untold number of people who work at the Nestlé facility south of Guelph are losing their jobs.

When contacted regarding reports that Nestlé Waters Canada had laid off workers at its bottling plant and head office in Aberfoyle, the company’s corporate affairs director, Jennifer Kerr, emailed a statement.

The company “has been facing some business challenges over the past year,” it said.

“From a North American perspective, we are evolving our business to better align our current operations to meet our future needs and position our company for long-term success. In Canada, the beverage industry is highly competitive and we are constantly evaluating our business and making adjustments.

Province seeks to extend moratorium on bottled water taking permits

  • Critics of Nestlé say province’s proposed fee hike for water taking not enough

  • Fees for bottlers of water jump from $3.71 to $503.71

“In 2018 we have faced some strong headwinds, including unprecedented cost increases. As a result, we have had to make the decision to make a permanent reduction in our workforce,” it said.

The statement went on to say that “impacted associates” were being offered severance packages and “outplacement services” to help them transition to new jobs.

Kerr declined to answer any questions, including the number or types of jobs lost.

“Our of respect for our employees privacy we are not releasing the number of or positions of impacted employees or any further information,” she said.

According to information provided to the Mercury Tribune a couple of years ago, the company employs more than 300 people in Puslinch Township.

In 2016, Nestlé purchased the Middlebrook well near Elora, beating out the municipality with its bid, but provincial moratorium on new water-taking permits or expansions for water-bottling operations has prevented the company from using the well.

Kerr would not say whether the moratorium, which the province is now looking at extending, had impacted the company financially.

In 2017, the province increased the fee for water bottlers by $500 per million litres of groundwater, raising it from $3.71 to $503.71 per million litres.

Under the conditions of an expired permit, Nestlé is allowed to take 3.6 million litres of water per day at its Aberfoyle facility.

2018-12-16 ‘It’s essential to life’: Ofwat’s Rachel Fletcher sets a new course for water (The Guardian, Observer)

 Water  No Responses »
Dec 162018
 

by Will Hutton

The regulator’s chief executive has a striking social agenda for utilities once notorious for focusing on profit

Rachel Fletcher: “It does not chime with people that the relationship between them and their water supplier is transactional.”

Rachel Fletcher

When a regulator looks at you unblinkingly and says she wants the companies she regulates to understand they are part of a social contract, you catch your breath. Yes, replies Rachel Fletcher, chief executive of water regulator Ofwat, as I press her about the term “social contract”. The news is “out there” even if not “fully baked”, she says.

Fletcher speaks deliberately, choosing her words with care in a slight Scottish burr. Water is “essential to life – not just another commodity,” she says. “It does not chime with people that the relationship between them and their water supplier is transactional.”

The water industry is at an inflexion point, she insists. Gone are the days when loopholes would allow a company like Thames Water, under its previous owners, to load up with debt, financially engineer high returns and route the resulting dividends through tax havens. The whole episode was a “wake-up call to the sector”, she says.

Ofwat has closed those loopholes and she argues that the water industry – including other big private names such as Severn Trent, United Utilities and Anglian Water – is in the throes of a makeover. Most, but not all, of its chief executives no longer see their role as simply running water through pipes, conforming with the letter of regulation if not the spirit and aiming to maximise short-term profits.

They “can and must play a broader role”, says Fletcher, and understand that they are part of a water system that must be curated as the foundational “natural capital” on which they depend, along with being integral parts of the communities they serve.

“Social contract”, “natural capital”, “serving communities” – these are not concepts any regulator in the wake of the Thatcherite privatisations would have promoted. That was a world in which private was good, public bad and all regulation light-touch. Fletcher acknowledges that whatever immediate gains there were after privatisation – leakage rates fell, for example – regulators then took their eye off the ball.

She wants to see the companies declare their business purpose in social-contract terms, putting the customer at the heart of what they do. An extraordinary 1.5 million people in aggregate were consulted one way or another – for example through youth panels, questionnaires and online forums – in the formulation of water companies’ business plans for 2020-25, which are now being reviewed. She calls for that clear purpose, reflecting the consumer interest, to be embedded in the companies’ culture and organisation.

Fletcher adds: “There are pockets of really good stuff – on the environment, bonuses, delivering to customers and community.” But it is not yet reaching every corner of the industry, she says.

She balks at going so far as creating a national water grid – at least for the moment

Nor is this just trendy environmentalism or woolly communitarianism. She points out that the National Infrastructure Commission calculates that the cost of running emergency water supplies in 2050 will be £40bn a year, given the likely impact of climate change on the industry. Even in the next decade, water shortages are likely to become pressing. Three new towns are planned along the new Oxford-Cambridge corridor, where the population will expand by 3 million. Yet parts of eastern England are “drier than Israel”, says Fletcher. A way has to be found to ensure that the water-rich parts of the country are connected with the water-poor – yet today the privatised companies only trade 4% of their water elsewhere.

It is obvious that each water company responding individually makes no sense. Fletcher balks at going so far as creating a national water grid – at least for the moment. But there does need to be “a national framework” to ensure water can be moved to where it is needed – and the framework will depend on water companies accepting that preventing any part of the country suffering shortages is part of the social contract, just as much as keeping rivers clean or planting trees to ensure better run-off.

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What of their shareholders, about to see surpluses deployed in this way? They understand too, Fletcher says. But she accepts she “still has a job to do to align interests of owners with what we are proposing for customers”.

She is not yet calling for water companies to write their purpose into their articles of association and establish themselves as public benefit companies (I declared an interest as co-chair of the Purposeful Company Taskforce, which advocates public benefit companies); rather, she wants a water company to hold itself to account as if it were one. Nor is she a promoter of stakeholder capitalism, although she recognises that everything she is pushing for comes under that label.

Meanwhile, the Labour Party’s plan for industry nationalisation sits in the background: the problem, she acknowledges, is that while most consumers register high trust in their local company, that trust is not transferred to the sector was a whole. That is what has to change, and quickly.

She is, though, a woman on a mission. Along with most people in the water industry, Fletcher claims she gets out of bed each morning to “make a difference”. Over the next five years we will see if she has succeeded.

 

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