Briarpatch articles from November 2003

Briarpatch archives from November 2003

Swim with us.(Openers)
November 1, 2003... Our 10th annual Swim-a-Thon is coming up and to celebrate this anniversary we are adding a new water-sport to our Olympic fund-raisers. By popular demand the new event will be a Slide-a-Thon! Yes, our nonswimming supporters can now take pledges...

Info on tap.(Openers)
November 1, 2003... For the past year the Saskatchewan labour movement has been working to ensure that the provincial election is a contest based on politician's willingness to address issues of importance to workers. Unionized workers told a Sigma Analytics poll...

Buy nothing day.(Openers)
November 1, 2003... Adbusters is inviting your participation in the annual 24 hour moratorium on consumer spending on November 28. This is the "opening day" of the Christmas shopping frenzy and Adbusters wants to remind everyone that "Over consumption is the...

Ecovillage starts with a school.
November 1, 2003... "We want to try to have natural housing come out of the closet a bit," says Brandy MacPherson, board member and co-founder of One United Resource (O.U.R.), a group which is building an ecovillage near Shawnigan Lake on Vancouver Island. ...

e-X-citing changes planned to our dubious democracy: Canada's bogus voting system.
November 1, 2003... Over the past six months, more than eight million Canadians have dutifully cast their ballots in six provincial elections. In Manitoba and PEI, the governments won another term. In Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, the ruling parties hung on by a...

Countdown to homelessness: a look at the ticking time bomb of BC's time limits on social assistance.
November 1, 2003... Of all the changes the BC government has made to social assistance, the most radical is the introduction of welfare time limits. The rule kicked-in April 1, 2002, and limits "employable" people without children to only two years of social...

The insecurity and inhumanity of security certificates.
November 1, 2003... "Hello Mother." It's Hassan Almrei's voice on the phone. He is talking to me through the bullet-proof glass in the visiting room at Toronto's Metro-West Detention Centre. I'm not Hassan's real mother. She is in Syria, terrified for her son,...

Capitalist roots of poverty.
November 1, 2003... October 17th is a significant day. It's a day for anti-poverty activists and coalition partners to celebrate our accomplishments, reflect on our strategies and prepare for ongoing campaigns. But I think it would be a better day if we could...

Sweet potato lie: agents of the new colonialism are using fabrications (in more ways one) to impose GM crops on farmers and consumers.
November 1, 2003... The biotech industry is struggling mightily to get genetically modified food crops accepted around the world. For giant agriculture-chemical companies like Monsanto, it is a win some/lose some kind of battle. Monsanto appeared to win recently...

Kan Kun: the Mayan phrase for nest of vipers: an appropriate place for international trade ministers to meet to discuss furthering neo-liberal trade policies.
November 1, 2003... Cancun is a resort, conceived and created by international bankers, where previously only a few fishers plied their craft. A contrived city of transplanted workers: serving others in absurd luxury as they themselves live in squalid conditions...

International tides are turning: is this the end for the WTO?
November 1, 2003... Since the discussions at the World Trade Organization (WTO) meetings in Cancun collapsed, governments, civil society and industry continue to seek answers to the now critical question, "What is next for the WTO?" Given the little mainstream...

Cotton pickin' subsidies: cotton symbolizes the battle that occurred between rich and poor countries at the WTO meeting in Cancun.
November 1, 2003... "Oh, I wish I was in the land of cotton." So begins the popular Confederate song from America's civil war era. I don't imagine a lot of Canadian farmers today spend much time thinking about the land of cotton, but you can bet there are farmers...

SAPs are sapping the life out of the majority world: look beyond subsidies for the root cause of a lot of the inequality in the world-look at the structural adjustment programs.
November 1, 2003... Commentators, from the left and right, on the recent World Trade Organization ministerial meetings in Cancun seemed fixated on the harm wealthy nations' farm subsidies are having on the world's poor. The tone of these pundits has been such that...

Paul Martin: CEO For Canada?
November 1, 2003... Murray Dobbin James Lorimer & Company Toronto, 2003. Paul Martin is virtually guaranteed to be the next leader of the Canadian Liberal Party and he is therefore virtually guaranteed to be Canada's next Prime Minister. In Murray Dobbin's...

Dubya speak ... (without the speaker in his ear).
November 1, 2003... One of the common denominators I have found is that expectations rise above that which is expected.--Los Angeles, Sept. 27, 2000 Listen, Al Gore is a very tough opponent. He is the incumbent. He represents the incumbency. And a challenger...