During the day I panhandled for food and smokes, and at night I stayed wherever I could find a quiet and safe spot on the streets such as in a park or in a doorway. I felt alone, scared, and lost in the cracks and in the crowd. I could not sleep at night because there was no privacy, only constant harassment—whether it was the police, private security, drunk people leaving the bars, violent men, or somebody trying to rob me. A few guys tried to get me to do sex-work on the street for them, but I refused.

While I was panhandling, people would always hassle me and yell at me to move away from their store. I would often get sworn at or told to get a job. I felt judged by the people walking by and I was so ashamed of myself. I wish I could have made them understand how hard it really was. It was overwhelmingly difficult just to survive and I would never want to be homeless again. There are approximately 11,000 homeless across BC, with 3,000 people homeless across the Lower Mainland.

I had been on the street for a few months when someone told me to go to the Downtown Eastside to access support and services. I found a welfare worker who helped me get into the Bridge Shelter, where I stayed for one month, after which I got into Bridge Housing in June 2001.

I had to start all over again to establish my life. I found the Downtown Eastside Womens’ Centre. When I first walked in the doors, I did not want people to know me or know where I came from. But I met some friends who told me about the different activities available and I joined various programs and groups. Being a part of the DTES Power of Women Group showed me how to stand up for myself and others, which helped me regain my confidence and I began to feel good about myself again.

One of the issues I have continued to raise my voice against is that of police brutality in the Downtown Eastside. This is just one of the many stories that inspired me to take action.

I had been living in a supportive housing building for women for about nine years. As opposed to private single-resident-occupancy (SRO) housing, one of the benefits of supportive housing run by non-profits is that it maintains the confidentiality of the tenants who live there. Unless it is an emergency or a tenant has called 911, the police can only enter with a warrant.

One day the police arrived at my building looking for a tenant. They did not have a warrant and no one had called 911. The building staff refused the police access into the tenant’s room. I was sitting in the lobby of our building and witnessed the whole incident. At first the female officer got agitated and was demanding that they be allowed into the tenant’s room. The staff did not give in, which just made the police officers angrier, stating that they had a right to go inside. I saw one officer go towards the staff member to grab her arm. I ran out to try to inform people about what was taking place and to get some help.

When I returned, the staff was in handcuffs and had been taken outside. I heard them saying that they had arrested her and would charge her with obstruction of justice. By that time a crowd had gathered and staff from next door at the Downtown Eastside Women’s Centre had also arrived. Eventually, the arrested staff member was let go.

This whole incident made me very angry. There are so many stories of police arrogance and violence, and most are worse than what happened to this staff member. In this situation they were not even following their own protocol. I was scared that if this could happen to a staff member what could happen to someone like me who has less authority in this neighbourhood? It made me feel very powerless and vulnerable, especially as the incident occurred in my own building.

I have lost faith in the police. I fear that if I ever needed them to help me, they would turn on me instead. They do little to protect against actual violence, like all the murdered and missing women. Instead, they are violent towards us, frequently arresting people for minor things like jaywalking, or harassing people who are just standing on the street. It deeply frustrates and angers me that we let the police use their power and badges in such negative ways, and that society allows them to power-trip and do what they want. I imagine a Downtown Eastside where we are free from the arbitrary beatings and the brutality of the Vancouver Police Department, and so I and others fight to make this possible.

Karen Lahey is proud to be a survivor. She has been living in the Downtown Eastside for the past 11 years. Because of the DTES Power of Women Group, she can now publicly speak in front of a crowd and in front of cameras. She likes to help other women find their voice.

This story was originally published on the Vancouver Media Co-op as part of the Downtown Eastside Power of Women “In Our Own Voices” writing project. For more information and to read more stories, please visit http://vancouver.mediacoop.ca/author/dtes-power-women-group

In the last days of January 2012, the jury returned a guilty verdict for all three accused on four counts of first-degree murder. Police uncovered damning statements, primarily from Mohammad Shafia, the patriarch and murderer-in-chief of this plot, which recorded no sorrow.

But as Shafia’s statements fill the newspapers, what we don't hear is the story of the four victims. Shafia said that they had to be murdered because of their "treason" in supposedly violating his "honor", and that of Islam. What he saw as betrayal, however, was a brilliant story of resistance and expression.

A breathtaking exhibit in this trial was a journal kept by Rona Mohammad Amir, 52, the first wife of Shafia, who was discarded for her infertility and later murdered along with the three children of the second wife. Written in a beautiful Persian prose, it describes an educated woman, who was just 20 when the 1979 revolution signaled an era in which a proliferation of woman's rights, and other social progressive policies, took place in Afghanistan. The Kabul in which she spent her youth was called "Paris of the East", a city with a young female population, known both for their university degrees and liberal fashion sensibilities. Her own polygamous father, a retired colonel, had welcomed the waves of modernization. Rona could wear whatever she wanted and was fond of cheering for her favorite basketball teams in the stadiums. Those days ended in 1981 with an arranged marriage to a young man from a rich family, who gave her an extravagant wedding ceremony at Kabul's Intercontinental Hotel.

One would need a novel to delve more into the story of how this ‘family’ found new members; how it traveled around the world to Pakistan, India, the UAE, Australia and finally Canada; how the very-rich Shafia (whose business included buying a shopping centre in Montreal for two million dollars) decided to run his family according to his own sick notion of “Islam,” a notion that (as Kurdish-Iranian Feminist scholar, Shahrzad Mojab testified) is discarded by millions of Muslims around the world as a backward tribal code that has nothing to do with the religion.

Never resting, the eldest girl Zainab, 19, made recurring attempts to escape with a Pakistani boy whom she loved were not tolerated. Sahar, 17, loved nothing like taking cellphone pictures of herself and her large beautiful eyes. And Geeti, 13, never got a chance to go beyond her first teen year.

These voices of resistance are the true honorable voices in this story, a story which, when finally told, will defy all clichés about Afghan women. Both those that the patriarch Shafia had in mind, and those apparent in the sensationalized racist accounts that have filled the newspapers in this country.

Arash Azizi has spent countless hours covering the Shafia case for Shahrvand, a Toronto-based Persian publication.

This article was originally published by the Toronto Media Co-op.

Nova Scotia power monopoly Emera announced it is once again delaying the massive Muskrat Falls project, estimated to cost $6.2 billion. The feasibility of the project, which stands to bring hydroelectric power from Labrador, via undersea cable to Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, and the Eastern seabord of the United States, has of late been brought into doubt. This is the third delay for the multi-thousand megawatt project. Many wonder whether the project is necessary, since Hydro Quebec is willing to sell energy for cheap and the link up between Quebec and the Canadian Maritimes would be significantly cheaper.

As of noon on Jan. 2, the 100 richest CEOs in Canada had already made the salary of an average Canadian worker, according to the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. The same report showed that in 2010, the top CEOs in Canada made 189 times more than the average Canadian worker, raking in an $8.38-million versus $44,366.

Consultations into Enbridge Inc.'s Northern Gateway oil pipeline began in northern British Columbia. Over 4,000 people have signed up to intervene at the consultations, which are now expected to last two full years. Minister of Natural Resources Joe Oliver released an open letter the day before the consultation process began, warning against the influence of foreign money and radicals in the process. Prime Minister Stephen Harper repeated that the pipeline, which would transport oil from the Alberta tar sands to a port in BC for export to Asian markets, is in Canada's national interest.

Since Minister of Natural Resources Joe Oliver's statement, environmental organizations opposing the pipeline have reported tens of thousands of dollars in new donations and an equal surge in people signing onto campaigns and petitions against the pipeline.

Newly uncovered documents revealed that the Canadian government sees environmental and Indigenous groups as adversaries in the development of the tar sands industry, and the department of Aboriginal Affairs and the National Energy Board, which is overseeing the consultation, as allies.

The First Nations alliance against the Gateway pipeline grew to over 100 nations when Indigenous communities from Alberta and the Northwest Territories signed on to the Save The Fraser declaration in January.

Nova Scotians rallied in Halifax and Cape Breton against hydraulic fraction to extract natural gas in the province. Opponents to fracking, as the process is commonly known, point to its link to incidents of well-water and soil contamination as reasons the provincial government should put a stop to the controversial practice. One speaker said that in an area of Nova Scotia, up to 60 homes had lost their well water following the start of seismic testing for natural gas.

Mexican journalist and government whistleblower Karla Berenice García Ramírez filed a final request for refugee status in Canada. The writer and her family have faced death threats after she leaked thousands of pages documenting corruption and graft at Mexico's National Council for Culture and Arts. In rejecting her previous requests for refugee status, the Canadian government stated that Mexico is safe and democratic, reducing the need to grant refugee status to their citizens.

“Crackdown was the word of the year in 2011," said Reporters Without Borders as it released its 2011/12 Press Freedom Index, pointing to 12 months that saw journalists pitted against government and police forces throughout the uprisings in the Middle East and protest camps in Europe and North America. The report singled out Honduras, Mexico, Pakistan, Iran and Iraq for violence against journalists, and impunity for perpetrators.

Montreal police shot and killed Iranian-Kurdish refugee Farshad Mohammadi following an altercation with police. Mohammadi, who was homeless, allegedly cut a police officer with a utility knife. He had put the knife in his pocket and was walking away when police shot him from behind. It was the second time the police have shot and killed a homeless man in Montreal in the past seven months, leading to renewed calls for better services for the city's street-involved population and for an independent review commission to investigate police violence. Currently, such investigations are assigned to other police forces.

Lawyers for the Ontario Provincial Police filed an appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada over a ruling that officers, in the event of a fatal shooting of a suspect, cannot have their notes vetted by a lawyer before they are turned over to investigators . The OPP's lawyers claim the ruling, which was made in a legal battle led by the mother of Levi Shaffer, who was killed by OPP officers, violates officers' fundamental legal rights.

Mining company Vale suspended activity at its five mines in the Sudbury region of Northern Ontario following the death of mine worker Stephen Perry, 47. Perry died in a mine while loading a rock face with explosives, and investigations are ongoing. This is the fourth fatality of a Canadian Vale employee in the past seven months.

Diamond mining company De Beers lobbied government officials to allow them to drain a lake in the Northwest Territories, decimating local fish habitat, in order to move forward with its Gahcho Kue diamond mine.

The chief of the First Nation community of Attawapiskat, which is facing a severe housing crisis, called for revenue sharing from the nearby De Beers diamond mine, near James Bay in Ontario. While the community does receive fixed payments from the company, "Great riches are being taken from our land for the benefit of a few... Our lands have been stripped from us and yet development on our land area in timber, hydro and mining have created unlimited wealth for non-native people and their governments," said Chief Theresa Spence.

About 50 anti-racist protesters rallied outside of a Vancouver court house during the hearing of neo-Nazi Shawn MacDonald, a member of the Blood and Honour white supremacist organization. MacDonald is facing charges for attacks between 2008 and 2010 on an aboriginal woman, an Hispanic man and a black man. Other members of Blood and Honor are also being charged with the 2009 assault of a Filipino man who was set on fire while he was sleeping outside on a couch.

US President Barack Obama blocked the Keystone XL pipeline, which would have transported tar sands oil from northern Alberta through the US to refineries in Texas. Obama said that the decision was not based on the environmental impact of the pipeline but rather due to the Republican-controlled House of Representatives forcing the government, in late December, to produce a decision on the pipeline within 60 days.

Newly released documents revealed that then-industry minister Tony Clement played a role in selecting which projects were granted money via the 2010 G8 Legacy Fund. The fund provided money for construction projects to be built in the lead up to the G8 meetings held in the Muskoka region. Clement, who is the MP for the region and now Secretary of the Treasury Board, claims his office had nothing to do with the decisions, but critics have accused his office of using the money to gain political favor among constituents.

Mandy Hiscocks and Leah Henderson, two of the six co-accused who accepted plea deals in November to end the so-called G20 Conspiracy trial, were sentenced to 16 months and 10 months of prison, respectively. None of the six people who accepted plea deals were convicted on conspiracy charges, and their 11 other co-accused saw all charges dropped. "I want to tell you that I was arrested because I am seen as a threat. I want to tell you that you might be too," wrote Henderson in an open letter before being sentenced.

In Montreal, the People's Commission Network announced that 68 organizations across Canada have signed on to a campaign of non-co-operation with CSIS, Canada's federal spy agency. “[CSIS' actions] creates a climate of fear and insecurity, so people stop wanting to get involved in community organizing of any kind because they feel it will attract unnecessary attention,” said a representative of the South Asian Women's Community Centre, which has joined the coalition.

"Visits [by CSIS] are meant to create psychological profiles, to instill distrust and to create tensions within groups and communities,” said Marie-Ève Lamy, a spokesperson for the People's Commission Network, which has spearheaded this campaign. Lamy added that the coalition believes visits from CSIS agents also aim to aggravate divisions among groups and individuals, discourage participation in social movement, isolate individual activists or community members – actions that do not actually make people any safer.

The idea for the coalition came about when members of the People's Commission Network (PCN), which organizes around questions of abuse in Canada's anti-terror laws, began hearing a growing number of accounts of unannounced visits by CSIS agents to people's homes in the lead-up to the Vancouver Olympics and the G20 meeting in Toronto, both held in 2010.

While the PCN and other organizations were already familiar with CSIS' tactics—visits from the spy agency were nothing new—the renewed and more widespread visits caused concern, especially since stories were surfacing of CSIS agents appearing at people's workplaces, and questioning family members and neighbours of people involved in anti-Olympic and anti-G20 organizing.

Such visits can be destabilizing and frightening, said Lamy. "People don't know their rights towards secret services, given that all their activities are secret. From that came the idea of a community notice suggesting complete non-collaboration if visited by CSIS."

Now two years later, while the visits have diminished in frequency, their impacts remain. Representatives from Montreal's South Asian Women's Community Centre (SAWCC), migrant rights group Solidarity Across Borders, Tadamon! (which focuses on international solidarity in the Middle East, particularly with Palestinians), and the Central Committee of Metropolitan Montreal of the Confédération des Syndicats Nationaux, the largest regional council of Quebec's second largest union, all spoke about how they are advising members to no longer collaborate with CSIS agents.

"We feel that CSIS is preying on our community's insecurities, vulnerabilities,” said Dolores Chew, of the SAWCC. “The countries we come from already have a tradition where people feel they have no other option but to comply with police and the authorities. and we know from our experience that CSIS uses fear, sowing seeds of mistrust, turning people one against the other."

That history of sowing divisions has been apparent for decades in the labor movement, according to Francis Lagacé of the CSN. Canadian security agencies have had a history of infiltrating labor and social movements, he said, pointing to Marc-André Boivin who infiltrated and spied on the CSN for 15 years for the RCMP and CSIS, as well as the spy agency's targeting of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers in the lead up to the 1991 postal workers strike.

Most concerning, said Legacé, is the agency's history of making something out of nothing:

"They don't know the difference between organizing and conspiring. [...] [CSIS officers] collect info, and once they hear our answers, imagine that we know 'something,' something on we-don't-know-what. They imagine that it's useful info, they create plot, they continue to interview more and more people and they create a climate of fear and suspicion between people."

CSIS was involved in gathering information on protests, along with the RCMP and other law enforcement agencies, in the lead-up to the Toronto G20 meetings and protests. Of the 17 people eventually charged with conspiracy following those investigations, 11 saw their charges dropped, and of the six facing jail-time, none were found guilty of the original conspiracy charges.

Concerns about CSIS' actions are not confined to Canada's borders either. Singh, Chew and Amy Darwish of Tadamon! all warned that the spy agency's actions abroad should make Canadians think twice about cooperating with them.

“It's important to recognize that CSIS is not our friend,” said Signh. “We can look to renditions to torture, through cases like Abdullah Almalki or Maher Arar [or] the treatment of Omar Khadr at Guantanamo, where he was interrogated by CSIS, and they we complicit in his torture there.”

Almalki and Arar both faced rendition, detention and torture in Syria based on suspect information gathered by CSIS and provided to the Syrian government. Khadr was arrested at age 15 by US soldiers in Afghanistan in 2001 and has been detained in the Guantanamo Bay prison ever since. There are allegations he has been tortured while in custody, and human rights groups say that as a minor he should have been treated as a child soldier under the Geneva Convention.

Despite these incidents, information sharing between CSIS and international intelligence agencies known or suspected to use torture continues.

“It maintains intelligence sharing agreements with 147 other agencies, including not only Israel's Mossad, but also the Mukhabarats or secret police of Egypt, Syria and Morocco,” Darwish explained. “This can not only cause complications for people when they travel overseas, but can also put community members and their families at risk.”

The result of CSIS' actions, the coalition alleges, is a chilling effect on anyone who considers joining a social movement, getting involved in community organizing, or speaking out publicly on issues contrary to the federal government's concerns.

“[CSIS' actions] creates a climate of fear and insecurity, so people stop wanting to get involved in community organizing of any kind because they feel it will attract unnecessary attention; it creates a chilling effect,” said Chew who added that the impact doesn't just stop with the peopel who receive visits. "There are many people who would like to be here from my community but who won't come forward. You don't speak out for your rights generally; it creates fear, intimidation.”

CSIS has defended it's actions in the past, saying that their investigations are necessary to ensure the safety of the Canadian public and for our national security and interests. CSIS, though, is not charged with setting those interests, leading some to question to what degree changes in the political wind can impact their investigations.

According to Darwish, the fact that CSIS is mandated to collect information about the influence of foreign interests on domestic activities in Canada provides a pretext for unfairly targeting groups, particularly those who support “national liberation struggles or anti-colonial movements abroad.”

She characterized CSIS' definition of what constitutes Canadian interests and what poses a national security risk as “very narrow” and “influenced by political priorities and interests.”

“In fact, even the Security Intelligence and Review Committee, which is CSIS' own oversight body, has claimed that CSIS has a regrettable attitude that supporting Arab causes can be suspicious,” she said.

Domestic activities also raise questions of the agency's impartiality and whether its actions can be seen as separate from political priorities, said Singh.

“The surveillance of Indigenous communities is one example among many showing that CSIS does not play a neutral role. [...] It's highly politicized and the state determines who the enemies are,” he said. “And historically, the very origins of policing in Canada, the Northwest Mounted Police and eventually the RCMP, was to quell native rebellions and was in the service of Canadian colonialism.”

Echoes of this can be seen today, panelists said, in the government's use of terms like “enemy of the government” in internal documents, publicly characterizing environmental groups as “radicals,” as Natural Resource Minister Joe Oliver recently did, or dividing society into sectors such as government “allies” and “adversaries,” as revealed in recent government documents.

Such heavy-handedness and political labeling may come to backfire, though, said Lamy. She said the Conservative government's continued attempts to equate dissent with criminality will lead to the label of “radical” being applied to a growing number of groups from wide range of society. The result, she believes, will be that “the feeling of solidarity will grow larger and larger, because the label [of “radical”] will be stuck to more than anarchists or anti-capitalists or Indigenous movements, but will be applied to a variety of groups that work on questions of social aid, welfare, even women.”

The ultimate goal of this new coalition, and the ongoing campaign against cooperating with CSIS, the speakers said, is to build a greater capacity for self-defense within communities when faced with harassment or interrogation from the spy agency. “[This campaign] is done in the spirit of support and understanding and dialogue,” said Singh. “It's trying to build community-based trust between our different groups and it's there that we can provide proper security versus any kind of threat.”

To that end, the coalition will continue to approach groups across Canada to join the campaign against cooperating with CSIS, as well as share information on what people should do if they or others in their community are approached by the service. Lamy also said that an annual march against what is seen as CSIS' myriad abuses could be in the works for the future.

“[We want to make] sure this gets out across the country and that there are clusters and nodes in every city and town that are getting endorsements and breaking that fear of CSIS,” said Singh.

Tim McSorley is a Dominion editor and member of the Montreal Media Co-op.

Disclosure: The Dominion editorial collective has endorsed the PCN's non-cooperation campaign.

“We are expecting this government to negotiate a new agreement that doesn't sell the whole farm,” says Miller. “That means that one company doesn't have full control over [the crown land].” It would also mean that the company takes on more responsibilities than simply managing wood supplies and creating jobs, he says. Rather, the company would need to uphold the spirit of the Natural Resources Strategy by managing Crown lands to the highest standards possible, and consulting the public on how the land is managed, argues Miller.

Phase 1 of the Natural Resource Strategy (NRS), in 2009, was the last example of public consultation, and the only one ever undertaken by the Dexter government. Many blame this recoil from a decades-old tradition of government-public interaction on the fact that when the Nova Scotia public spoke up—which they did in the thousands in the case of the NRS—they demanded something the Dexter government didn't want to hear: stewardship and accountability of the province's forests, and public involvement in the process. If there were a time to make amends with the original intent of the NRS, Dexter might seize the day and revisit the land lease that now needs their attention.

“The logic of ever-shrinking workforce, ever-expanding, ever-increasing harvesting [suggests that] the government should tear up that old lease, and develop one that's modern and based on current conditions,” including the public's expectations that Crown Land should be managed to the highest level, says Miller's co-worker, EAC Wilderness Coordinator Ray Plourde. “We should not have to compensate any new owner that's going to scoop up that mill for pennies on the dollar in a bankruptcy fire sale.”

Fire sale aside, the provincial government has committed to earmarking 12 per cent of Nova Scotia land, by 2015, as protected areas, under the provincial Environmental Goals and Sustainable Prosperity Act of 2007. This puts the government in a difficult position: if the lease is not revised, the push to protect 12 per cent of the land could end up in direct conflict with Stern's stake, meaning the government would need to compensate the company for the property it would lose. Miller and Plourde agree that protected areas need to be exempted from the land lease before the deal with Stern is finalized.

As well, with the current state of Nova Scotia's “big three” pulp mills, one being in receivership (Newpage), one being responsible for one of Canada's worst environmental disasters (Northern Pulp and Boat Harbour), and one having just seen workers forced to give up many concessions, while CEOs walked away with 8 million in payoffs and the company given tens of millions in taxpayer bailout money (Bowater), it may well be time to give the smaller players in the forestry business a chance at bidding for Crown Land, according to Miller.

“There's already some existing manufacturing infrastructure in Eastern Nova Scotia. There's a series of value-added hardwood mills,” he says. “They've traditionally been shut out of any allocation of wood from Crown Land. This is a perfect opportunity for them to have access to that wood.”

“Smaller lease arrangements could be made for those local industry players that already exist,” says Plourde. “Hardwood mills that are making things like fine flooring, door and wall moldings, wainscoting, trim, and so on and so forth. They employ more people per unit of wood harvested, and they make a value-added product, so it's economically much better for the province. It would also allow for new enterprises to emerge, because they'd have some wood to access.”

Dexter actions have made it clear that the "big three" won't fail. The future of forestry in Nova Scotia suggests that now is the time to set the conditions for "small successes" that don't involve either extreme environmental degradation or a steady, continuous, flow of taxpayer bailouts.

Miles Howe is an editor with the Media Co-op and a member of the Halifax Media Co-op. This article was originally published by the HMC.

Saulnier also noted that Canadians’ real purchasing power is down—average yearly wages increased by 2.7 per cent in the past year, which was slightly less than the inflation rate of three per cent.

The plunge in real purchasing power was worse for Nova Scotians than the average Canadian. Their wages increased by just 0.4 per cent, while inflation was four per cent—meaning that buying power actually fell 3.6 per cent, points out Larry Haiven, professor of management at St. Mary’s University.

“The average Canadian earned 15.8 per cent more than the average Bluenoser,” Haiven said.

Some groups, including the Nova Scotia Chambers of Commerce, have been calling for tax cuts to make the province "more competitive" for businesses.

But Saulnier disagrees.

“Cutting taxes by adjusting for inflation or raising the personal exemption or otherwise tinkering with the progressive tax system (making it less progressive), is not the answer,” she said.

Saulnier was responding to recent comments from anti-tax activists like Kevin Lacey of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation about “bracket creep,” the phenomenon whereby workers receive wage increases tied to inflation, but then enter a higher income tax bracket as a result.

“Any such initiatives that are across the board benefit the wealthiest the most,” Saulnier said. “Adjusting for inflation would not benefit those who are far under the bottom tax rate—the same people who need it the most and those who are the most likely to spend it, thus stimulating the economy.”

At a recent public lecture organized by the CCPA, tax specialist Neil Brooks of Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto noted that Nova Scotia currently has the most progressive income tax system in Canada, meaning that the highest-income earners are taxed at a higher rate.

Low wages, and consequent low tax revenues, are also a reason why “the government struggles to pay for needed services” in Nova Scotia, Saulnier said.

“Plus, given how little workers have actually seen their wages increase, I am not sure who we are worried about moving into a higher tax bracket,” he added.

Professor Larry Haiven acknowledged that “as real earnings drop, a cut in taxes starts to look good.”

But tax reductions are a low-hanging fruit that fails to get to the crux of the problem, he said.

“[P]eople don’t immediately think ‘what services will I lose?’”

Haiven co-authored a 2008 study that suggests rising inequality should be of far greater concern than tax increases to Nova Scotians struggling to make ends meet.

Governments “have been cutting taxes frenetically, frantically, for the past 25 years. Governments across Canada are taking in about $250 billion less than they did 15 years ago,” Haiven told the Media Co-op in 2009.

And while Nova Scotia’s economy grew by 62 per cent between 1981 and 2006, according to the report, average weekly earnings actually declined five per cent.

“Where is that money going? It’s obviously going into the hands of a few,” Haiven said.

The CCPA’s national office recently released its annual report on compensation of the 100 richest CEOs in Canada, who last year saw a 27 per cent increase in their average earnings from the previous year. The report notes that this means Canada’s top CEOs made 189 times more than the average worker, and by noon on January 3 that year, had earned as much as the average worker’s annual salary.

This article was originally published by the Halifax Media Co-op.

Ben Sichel is a teacher and a writer and editor with the Halifax Media Co-op.

Double-edged Agreements

There are several elements of this agreement that should be unravelled. The Harper government, in 2011, announced several “tax information exchange agreements” (TIEA) with tax haven states. These agreements, signed in the maelstrom of steps taken towards international “cooperation” supported by the OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development), purport to tame the secret banking practices of these states of convenience, who welcome fraudulent types of every ilk.

But, all pretensions aside, these agreements actually blindly favour the function and development of offshore tax havens. They do so by allowing, among other things, for wealthy Canadians or Canadian corporations to register their assets and activities in any of these offshore signatory countries, and then return their assets to Canada without needing to pay taxes. Funds from Canadian business can now be rerouted to Bermuda, where they can stop-over and tie themselves into tax-evasion and avoidance strategies, like transfer pricing and mis-pricing.

It is now easier, and “legal,” for billions of dollars generated by the Canadian economy to hide behind these laws. The use of tax havens allows the financial class to avoid taxation, taxes which finance the very public institutions and services from which they benefit.

Skirting the Public Regulations

The TMX states that it is the Canadian Income Tax Act itself that recognizes the Bermuda Stock Exchange. Gregoire Duhamel, author and financial consultant, notes in his guide Les paradis fiscaux, “Bermuda's very advantageous fiscal policy allows non-resident investors to trade shares and form investment funds, without needing to pay any tax.” To some this does not appear to be a problem.

In addition, the Bermuda Stock Exchange is not responsible to any public institution, except perhaps the ludicrous Bermuda Monetary Authority (BMA) which, on its Internet site, appears more preoccupied with vaunting the merits of the different business entities that can be created within its tax haven than it is with explaining how it prevents possible misuse of its laws.

It is worth noting that it is the kind of liberal creation of investment funds and hedge funds which is allowed by the Bermuda exchange that helped provoke the economic crisis of 2008. So with these new agreements, the Canadian government recognizes an institution that is in fact dedicated to circumventing the very rules that the Canadian government itself put in place.

From Halifax to Bermuda

By considering both aspects from which the Toronto Stock Exchange stands to benefit from this context, we come to understand that the officers of the TSX, read:TMX,the principal centre of Canadian trade, will have every latitude to facilitate Canadian financial activity in the Bermudan tax haven.

There will be no financial framework to hamper investments or stock speculations, only the knowledge that those Canadians financially able to participate in this merry-go-round of investment and speculation will be able to repatriate their funds back to Canada at any time, tax free.

Perhaps the most glaring example of doing business in Canada while benefiting from the lax regulations of Bermuda comes from the government of Nova Scotia.

By handing over management responsibilities of its own agency, Nova Scotia Business Inc., exclusively to the private sector, the government of Nova Scotia has actually allowed for the creation of a satellite accounting agency with a direct link to Bermuda. Hedge funds and insurance companies are managed in Halifax, but are created and based out of Bermuda, and thus are able to circumvent Canadian laws and institutions.

Whitewashed Money

The pseudo “Tax Information Exchange Agreements” (TIEA) were signed in principle to allow Canadian political authorities to collect data from so-called "secret Bermudan banks" in the case where a Canadian is suspected of fraud. In reality, they do not risk upsetting to any degree the massive money laundering operations made possible by the existing opaque financial liaisons.

According to a report submitted to the Dutch Minister of Finance by Brigitte Unger from the Utrecht School of Economics, in 2006 Bermuda was the second most popular money laundering destination for funds coming from illicit or criminal activities. In the fight against money laundering, the Canadian government demonstrated in 2010 that its politics were nothing more than complicit, when it signed, on the sly, a free-trade agreement with Panama. Panama is the most important money laundering destination for drug money in the world.

By radically integrating its own politics and financial institutions with those of tax shelter states, Canada has transformed itself, without ambiguity, into a tax haven. France-Offshore.fr, a website for financial consultants who specialize in “creating offshore corporations,” ranks Canada among its “offshore jurisdictions.” The site also notes that “Canada is not an offshore country, but we know how to turn a corporation created in Canada into an offshore one.”

This is how.

***

Alain Deneault is the author of Offshore, Tax Havens and the Rule of Global Crime (New York : The New Press, 2011) and Faire l'économie de la haine (Écosociété, 2011) and a member of “Québec d'Attac” and the “Réseau international pour la justice fiscale”. Translation from the French by Miles Howe.

Please do not dry cigarettes in the Microwave. Thank you, Staff

Please do not open window – it will fall out. Thank you, Staff

Squash stew for breakfast – enjoy! - Your Staff

Welcome to my new home. Welcome to a Halifax Shelter for Homeless Women.

Hannah, making dinner for her daughter, has been unable to find affordable rental accommodation that also accepts children in Halifax, which is where she moved after she lost her job in Cape Breton. “I borrowed the money to take a bus here, just because we figured there were more jobs in the Halifax,” Hannah explains. She had not expected that when she arrived, she would be unable to find housing that she could afford, with or without her child. And she still can’t.

Hannah has now become a member of an exclusive club, which, for want of a better label, might be called the CAE Club—the “Chicken and Egg” Club, where I too am now an unwilling member.

You may be part of the CAE Club because you need housing to get a job—a place to get dressed, receive mail, communicate with employers, store your belongings, do laundry, have meals. But you need a job in order to get that place and pay for that home. That job will provide the rent to get a place to live, or to satisfy a landlord that you are working and can afford your rent. For many of us at a shelter, the question of getting a job, or getting a home first, no longer makes any difference. We currently no longer have resources to make either happen.

In 1998, the Big City Mayors Caucus of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) declared homelessness in Canada a national disaster.

That was thirteen years ago.

By conservative estimates, there are over 200,000 people in Canada who are homeless today, according to organizers of November’s Housing and Homeless Conference in Halifax. Women, youth, and families are the fastest growing groups in the homeless and at-risk populations.

In the kitchen on this rainy night, my chemistry-text-loving friend, Denise, and I are now looking for the best place to put her cane so I don’t keep tripping over it. Denise represents another audience needing shelters; she has a health issue. In her case, a stroke that she suffered a year ago. Denise’s subsequent inability to walk unaided was something that her new husband could not cope with. In spite of some great health care agencies which worked with the couple to create Denise’s successful transition from a wheelchair to her cane, “he just didn’t expect to be looking after me,” says Denise of her husband. He kicked her out of a home where her name was not on the rental agreement. Her husband since left the province, along with their car and bankbook.

I remember Lenore, another health “victim” at another Halifax shelter with a similar story, but she faced even greater problems—she not only could not walk properly, but a stroke had affected her speech. Lenore’s move to a shelter came after she discovered that the mortgage for the home she shared with her partner of 20 years did not include her name, and he “no longer wanted me anyway,” she says. She could not afford to hire a lawyer or use Legal Aid options, none of which she qualified for. Lenore did, however, qualify for her current shelter residence which is where I got to know her, and where I finally discovered someone who could beat me at a game I had ruled all my life: I am no longer the Maritime Scrabble Queen.

I asked Stephanie, a staff member at a Halifax shelter, what the hardest part of her job was: “The hardest part of my job is telling a homeless woman who is already facing the worst day of her life, that she has to move, whether she has a place to go or not. Her time to use a shelter for a roof over her head has run out. Whether she has a place to go or not, there is someone who also now needs that her space.” There is no longer a "room at the inn."

I continue to be amazed at how “up” most residents are in these situations which are so often just unbearable: no home, sometimes limited food, cramped surroundings. It seemed to go without saying that residents usually give incredible support to others also living at the shelter. A house-mate will offer an exhausted young mom some down time from her cranky baby. Today, one the residents who has stayed at the shelter the longest dropped a pile of books off by my bed after a great discussion about best authors; she had seen how much I enjoy a good read. This weekend, I also received an unsolicited Tim Hortons’ gift card when another housemate passed along the card which had been given to her to share.

There are, of course, downsides to living at a shelter and, for me, noise is my greatest challenge. I am used to a pretty quiet life, but that does not necessarily fit with the in-the-gene-pool gift of gab we Maritimers are inevitably born with. Nor is waiting to do laundry, or the other rules that can come with communal living. Still, there are success stories celebrated at women’s shelters every day—and celebrate we do.

A former shelter roommate, Barb, has just been accepted into a community college chef program and her application for financial support, allowing her to move forward with her life, was also approved. The mother sharing the kitchen with me, Hannah, thinks she has found an apartment where children are allowed, although she will need another roommate to help with the rent.

I’m about to take this evening’s dinner to the living room and join in a twelve-woman, lively discussion about the Grey Cup game and the Lions’ victory. Yes, this is a women’s shelter. And yes, a sports-focused conversation about football may not be what one expects in a place for homeless women. But surprises are definitely part of my current life. I am just looking forward to the happy surprise of having a new home again, but I am so glad I have this shelter, and the amazing company of these new friends, until that home finally happens. And it will. To date, staff tell me, no one has ever been here forever.

*The author's name has been changed.

L.D. Steeves is currently living in a shelter for women in Halifax.

This article was originally published by the Halifax Media Co-op.

Rainville was sentenced to four months of house arrest at the Sagatay Toronto men’s shelter, on top of the time that he has already served. The Crown is currently appealing his sentence.

“I know at the core of my gut that I didn’t do anything wrong,” Rainville told The Dominion. “This is how the state is going to react,” he added. “We need to band together and stay solid, even in the face of it.”

Still ongoing is the trial of Kelly Pflug-Back, whose original charges included assaulting police with a weapon and conspiracy, though these charges have been dropped.

“There was nothing to suggest that I assaulted a police officer with a weapon,” Pflug-Back told The Dominion. “They just wanted to slap that on to my case as a way to really crack down on me and keep me on house arrest.” She continues to face charges of mischief, which she is still waiting to have resolved.

While serving more than a month in pre-trial detention, Pflug-Back was denied medical treatment for her chronic polyautoimmune disorders, which include thyroid disease and fibromyalgia. “They violated my right to access medical care. They violated my right to freedom of movement,” she told The Dominion.

Following her detention, Pflug-Back was put under stringent house arrest and was forced to be under the direct supervision of her parents while outside of the home. Once again, this made access to medical treatment nearly impossible. “They violated my right to not be subject to arbitrary detention,” said Pflug-Back. “I was basically under the same kind of conditions as someone accused of manslaughter.”

According to Pflug-Back, a plainclothes homicide detective made an appearance at each of her court dates. “The police were really taking [my case] personally. They had bought into this portrayal of me as being this rabid cop hater. It hurt their feelings, you know? You have to have a little compassion.”

Greg Rowley is also charged with “on the ground” offenses, but could not be reached by The Dominion before this article went to print.

Emomotimi Azorbo, who is described as an “apolitical person,” was confronted by police at the G20 as he was crossing the street. Azorbo, who is deaf, did not hear the police were shouting at him. He was then targeted by police for noncompliance. “There was a bit of resistance when police handcuffed him because he didn’t know what was happening,” Azorbo’s lawyer Howard Morton said in an article published in The Lawyers Weekly.

Azorbo was denied an unbiased, non-police sign language translator while in custody. Despite his treatment in detention, the charges of assaulting a police officer and resisting arrest are being pursued against him—charges that Morton resolves will “embarrass” the Ontario government.

On December 13, Sterling Stutz, who had her charges withdrawn as part of the “main conspiracy group”, stood in front of Old City Hall in Toronto at a support rally and media event for defendant Julian Ichim. “The police spent over a billion dollars on policing for the G20, they arrested over a thousand people, and what they got was a handful of charges,” Stutz told the crowd that had gathered for the rally. “These arrests were basically bought with that money.”

Stutz was among those attending court in support of Ichim, who is facing charges on three counts of disobeying a court order for having posted his personal account of interactions with an undercover police officer.

The officer operated under the alias “Khalid Mohammad” (the officer’s real name is Bindo Schowan) as a participant in social justice groups for more than a year in advance of the G20. Ichim posted his account of Schowan’s impacts of the community during the publication ban that forbade the publishing of identifying information relating to undercover officers.

In his blog, Ichim describes his story of befriending the undercover, referring to Schowan only by his pseudonym. Two days after publishing the blog post, Ontario Provincial Police officers arrived at Ichim’s house with an order that he withdraw his post. Ichim refused. “I wasn’t caught at a protest for causing trouble, but was sitting home quietly telling my story on the internet,” he told the crowd at the rally.

Dan Kellar is in a similar situation as Ichim. He faces charges after publishing a blog post on www.peaceculture.org. He is facing two counts of criminal defamation and one count of counsel to assault, also stemming from a blog post about G20-related incidents. The charge of counsel to assault relates to one particular line in the post that reads “spit in [the undercover’s] footsteps and scoff at his existence if you see him.”

Kellar is still awaiting the resolution of his charges.

Byron Sonne faces charges of possessing explosive substances. The security consultant denies having malicious intent. Sonne first appeared on the police radar for photographing the G20 security perimeter. The support team for Sonne declined a interview request with The Dominion, explaining that it's proving risky for them to speak publicly at this juncture in the trial.

According to numbers released by the Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General in December, of the over 1,100 people arrested at the G20, 330 people appeared before the court. Of them, 201 had their charges dismissed or withdrawn. In all, 32 people have plead guilty, 39 people have seen resolution through diversion programs, and 34 are still awaiting resolution to their charges.

Shailagh Keaney is a writer and community organizer currently based in occupied Neutral territory in Southern Ontario.

The Renard Diamond Project is one of 11 mega-mining projects proposed as part of the Plan Nord. Unlike most of the other mining projects, the $675 million Renard project is the only mine venture whose development involved a serious public partnership approach—the rest of the projects are private sector initiatives.

The Renard Diamond Project got its start in 1996 in the Nord-du-Quebec region, about 600 kilometres north of the great Lac-St-Jean, as a 50-50 joint-venture between Diaquem—a wholly-owned subsidiary of crown corporation Quebec Society for Mining Exploration (SOQUEM)—and Ashton Mining of Canada Inc—a wholly-owned subsidiary of Rio Tinto plc.

Founded in 1965, SOQUEM is a holdover from the “maitres chez nous” (masters in our own house) economic doctrine which saw the creation of many Quebec-owned corporations. At one point, SOQUEM was an exploration powerhouse, employing more than 1,500 people and at the forefront of geologic mapping.

After 45 years in the business, SOQUEM’s mandate has shrunk to supporting specific projects only. In the first quarter of 2011, SOQUEM—now a 50-employee entity—was swallowed up by the mammoth Investissement Quebec (IQ), the Quebec government's investment arm.

Fifteen years down the risky road of exploration, the Renard Diamond Project promoters discovered a field of kimberlite intrusions—volcanic rock known to contain diamonds—with a mineral reserve of 18 million carats. Exploration risks stem from the fact that anomalistic (diamond containing) geological formations are hard to find, and expensive to analyze.

Ashton Mining was bought out and the Renard Project is now under the Stornoway Diamond Corporation flag. “Excluding potential deposits, we evaluate the life duration of the project at at least 25 years,” Ghislain Poirier, Vice President Public Affairs at Stornoway told a local newspaper last winter. The plan for the mine includes two 100-meter-deep open pit mines, one 600-meter-deep open pit mine and several underground mines. The Renard mine would be Quebec’s first diamond mine.

Stornoway released its conclusive feasibility study in November 2011. According to the company, the mine will begin commercial production by 2016. Mine permits, community hearings and negotiations with the Cree Nation and other local communities have yet to be completed.

Public money for a private mine

Beyond the celebratory press releases, the course of events in the boardrooms and corporate headquarters linked to the deal has been anything but usual. In December 2010, a sudden and unexpected transaction occurred. Just as the public finally stood to make a return on the $57 million it invested in exploration, IQ sold its stake in the Renard project to Stornoway.

The transaction left IQ with a minority share of Stornoway, and a meager two per cent revenue royalty on net smelter returns on future production. Three senior IQ administrators joined Stornoway’s 11-member board. IQ also agreed to provide Stornoway with an additional $100 million to fund mine construction.

“They're just being nice to the company,” said MiningWatch Canada’s Jamie Kneen.

IQ spokesperson Chantal Corbeil refused to comment on the rationale behind this divestment.

“They are not allowed to reveal what's being discussed on the board, not even to Cabinet,” said Kneen of the three IQ board members now serving Stornoway. “The public is not represented in this mining project,” he said.

Before the Renard mines produce a single diamond, the people of Quebec have already spent $157 million, and been left without representation that will guarantee a return on their investments in the actual mine development. But according to IQ’s Corbeil, the good news is that IQ owns 37 per cent of Stornoway, and if the company is successful, the government will cash in royalties and taxes. Royalties of two per cent on net returns amount to very little. Had the royalty been applied to both net returns and extracted value, it could have amounted to a more significant sum.

Without diving too deep into economic detail, it's worth noting that 100 per cent of exploration costs are tax deductible in Quebec, and a significant portion of them are reimbursable. In other words, beyond the $157 million already committed, additional fiscal incentives are handed to Stornoway through tax credits and exploration reimbursements.

Diamonds will come out of the ground at the Renard mine site until the company signs an agreement with the Cree of the Otish region. Stornoway is currently negotiating an Impact and Benefits Agreement (IBA) with the Cree Nation of Mistissini and the Grand Council of the Crees.

“The Cree Nation has adopted a mining policy,” said Cree negotiator Abel Bosum. “This policy makes clear what our conditions are for supporting a mining project on Cree land. It also sets out who needs to be part of negotiations to make a mining project work: The Cree Nation, the local Cree community and/or the Cree users of the land.”

In addition, Route 167 will need to be extended 243 kilometers, from the town of Mistissini to the Otish Mountains. Finally, a 165-kilometre Hydro-Quebec transmission line will also have to be built, connecting the Nikamo sub-station to the future Renard sub-station.

Premier Charest has already made an infrastructure announcement through which Plan Nord is to pump $287.6 million into Route 167. Stornoway is expected to put $44 million into the pavement effort.

Proponents of this infrastructure spending argue that these expenses will also benefit a conservation megaproject, carried out by the Ministry of Sustainable Development, Environment and Parks (MDDEP) in collaboration with the Mistissini Cree Nation, which plans to establish the 11,000 square kilometre Albanel-Temiscamie-Otish National Park, at the end of Route 167.

This major northern infrastructure spending bumps public expenditures to $444.6 million.

Figures for the cost of setting the electricity line to power the Renard project are not yet public, as Hydro-Quebec is still in the process of completing its pre-project study. Details of preferential electricity rates—a standard Hydro-Quebec practice—are not available yet either. It is expected, as announced in the Plan Nord, that Hydro-Quebec will pay the bill. The exact corridor and final design of the 165-kilometre line, should be ready by the fall of 2012, as confirmed on the phone by Richard Simard, manager of community relations at Hydro-Quebec.

“I can't tell you the cost, I don't have the cost,” the Hydro-Quebec manager told The Dominion, when pressed for an estimate of total expenditures. “But one thing's for sure,” Simard said.

“As far as I can remember, this is the first time that we build such a long line.”

Old Rules for a New Game

The Renard mine site is just one project encompassed by the ambitious Plan Nord, which covers a territory of 1.2 million square kilometers, encompassing crown, Cree, Innu, Inuit and Naskapi lands.

“The Cree support the Plan Nord for now,” said Abel Bosum. But even the largest official Cree organization is not giving the government a blank check on Plan Nord.

“We support it, [on] the condition that we can conclude a reasonable and fair settlement on governance issues, that the Cree vision of the Plan Nord in different sectors—even beyond mining—be taken into account and that we participate in its planning and development in the respect of the Cree way of life,” Bosum told The Dominion by phone. Bosum invoked section 22 of the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement to underline the fact that his nation, like other northern First Nations, has the right to a review process on major projects, and expects proper consultation.

The scope of Plan Nord and its potential impacts on rural and Indigenous communities is mind-boggling, as is the money to be made: its release is timed with growing demand and higher prices for precious metals. What may come as a surprise, however, is that the laws and regulations that will guide mining activities under Plan Nord are more than 140 years old.

The Mining Act of Quebec, first minted in 1880—and almost untouched since—prioritizes mining activity over other types of land use.

“The law is wrong because it has priority over many other laws on land development,” said Ugo Lapointe of the Coalition for Better Mining in Quebec. “What we denounce are the great powers that are given to mining corporations, compared to the power of municipalities, First Nations and citizens."

Quebec’s mining law is currently under review. A new Quebec-wide standard known as Bill 14 is about to be adopted though it satisfies neither opposition parties nor civil society groups.

If the rules of the game seem old fashioned, consider the royalty regime. The government recently increased the royalty rate from 12 per cent to 16 per cent of net profit on a mine-by-mine basis: an improvement, it may seem, but only on the surface, since net profits are lowered with accounting tricks, as the Auditor General of Quebec revealed in 2009.

Building an economic strategy as big as Plan Nord around antiquated rules of the game has led some to speculate that the Quebec government is stuck in a colonial model of development.

“Mining in 2011 continues to be a colonial development, like in 1870,” said Martine Ouellet, Parti Quebecois spokesperson and Official Opposition critic on mining and shale gas. “It's pitiful to watch the Liberal Party [of Quebec] perpetuate this colonial development to the advantage of foreign multinationals, instead of to the benefit of the Quebecois.”

The mass transfer of funds from public to private hands isn’t unique to the Renard Diamond Project. Plan Nord's first action, which covers the years from 2011 to 2016, proposes making $2.1 billion in investments. Of the total, $500 million will be taken from the pockets of IQ and dumped into private sector projects.

The next months will reveal how much more money will be pumped into the Renard Diamond Project, further calling into question the economic strategies behind Plan Nord.

Frederic Dubois is a reporter and interactive documentary maker. Questions? Comments? Drop us a line: info@mediacoop.ca.

“We have more young folks here this year than ever before,” says Lucia Stephen, ACORN conference coordinator. “It’s nice to see a more well-rounded demographic since a new generation of farmers is needed in the Maritimes.”

Statistics Canada data tell us that the average farmer in Nova Scotia in 2006 was 53.2 years old, which is also a rough national average.

The event showcased some of the innovative methods by which a new generation of Atlantic Canadian farmers and organic food producers are bypassing the industrial food system and supplying high-quality products to their communities.

Lounder apprenticed in CSAs in Ontario and New York before returning to her native Nova Scotia, where she has been running her CSA for two years. She has taken an unconventional path to growing that tailors her winter CSA on the Noel Shore to suit her diversified lifestyle. “Distribution starts in the middle of October and runs until the middle of February, so, unlike the classic market garden, I’ve broken up my work,” explains Lounder. “I grow in the spring and summer, harvest in the fall and do distribution in the winter.”

Lounder, who spoke at the conference, is a musician and a civil servant in addition to being a farmer, so finding a balance has been imperative. “Being able to split up my workload has been really beneficial to me. I started my seedlings in March in my backyard in the city...I was able to go to work, come home, check on my guys, water them, and kind of maintain both lives.”

The CSA model, explains Lounder, brings the consumer and grower together, and yields benefits to both parties. “In this type of vegetable system, the consumer invests at the beginning of the season their full dollar amount, regardless of what’s going to happen actually in the season. The grower therefore has so much more support and security; and there’s a social support, people know and they care about the farm and about the farmer.”

“I really think there’s a renewed energy and I think some of the more senior people within the food movement are realizing that maybe we’re getting to a point where we can really start creating some change,” says Av Singh, Organics and Rural Infrastructure specialist at Agrapoint. Singh has attended several ACORN conferences in the past and usually knows most of the people attending; this year he recognized roughly half of the attendees. “The turnout, the energy, it’s helping break that mindset where oftentimes our more experienced farmers are saying ‘Hey, we tried that, it doesn’t work.’”

It’s been working for Jessica Ross, who runs both a bread and preserves CSA in Halifax.

She rents a space from a bakery and bakes in the commercial operation’s downtime—thereby avoiding the need to own her own kitchen and equipment—and delivers her product via bicycle to between forty and sixty homes. She also has a table at the Historic Farmers’ Market.

“I generate about 30 hours per week of bread work for most of the year between the delivery and Farmers’ Market. I’ve avoided having to invest a lot in equipment and infrastructure through sharing and renting; and the bicycle delivery means I don’t have to rely on a storefront or commercial space,” Ross explains.

Ross has also been running a preserves CSA, or CSP, for the past two years with Katherine Marsters, co-founder of the Halifax Honey Bee Society. “We decided to use the CSA model and ask people to pay us $300 and receive in exchange a winter’s worth of preserves come November.”

They collect half the money in July, which constitutes their canning budget for the season; in November each shareholder receives 60 jars of goods, including stewed tomatoes, jams, pickles, fruits in honey syrup, and salsa. They supplied 20 families this year, canning over 1000 jars of preserves made from local fruits and vegetables.

“It’s been a great way to have a food business without having a conventional path, which is, as I mentioned, to have a storefront and a lot of commitments financially.”

Sandie Troop believes the CSA model can significantly lessen food waste. She and her husband Danny run Bruce Family Farm, a beef CSA, in Annapolis County. Through direct marketing and allowing their customers to tweak their monthly boxes, the shareholders receive an amount of product suited to their eating habits.

Food waste is a telltale illustration of our culture’s detachment from our food and farmers. A 2010 study by the George Morris Centre, a not-for-profit agricultural research group based in Guelph, Ontario, estimated that Canadians could be wasting up to $27 billion worth of food per year.

“When we get a new member we try to talk to them and get an eater’s profile—how big is their family and what do they normally eat. Some months we have a couple members that’ll just want six pounds of hamburger [the standard is ten per month] for that month, and I feel we’re better off selling you a bag of what you’re going to eat than a bag of what I want to sell you,” relates Sandie.

The Troops have also introduced a trading system into their CSA that allows members to trade box items to suit their particular tastes or food needs at a given juncture. “If you want four T-Bone steaks but don’t want your four pound roast, you can trade one for the other; four T-Bone steaks don’t weigh four pounds but the value is about the same. We try really hard to work with the members of our CSA to find out the kinds of meat they want to eat and to help them find ways of getting what they like to have.”

The conference, aptly themed Farms and Communities Growing Together, addressed this need for communication between farmers and the communities they serve.

“We’ve seen for the past few decades now that the industrial food system doesn’t work,” posits Singh, who is devoted to revivifying rural communities through championing community-oriented small-scale farming.

“If we continue to use the old models, we’ll continue to see rural exodus. I think we have to start looking at more creative ways of creating different models of retention. So, whether that’s more ownership over farms by community members, or communities taking a more active role, where community members are saying ‘here’s what we value and here’s how we’re going to support you.’ That allows for young farmers to say ‘it’s worth it for me to stay here.’”

“And Nova Scotia is in a good position for small-scale community agriculture because we don’t have a lot of big farms,” he adds.

But we need more farmers.

According to Statistics Canada, farmers constitute less than two percent of the country’s population.

“A food-secure vision, both locally and globally, may require food producers to represent ten or more percent of the population. In some countries, governments are quickly realizing that a cheap urban labour force from a depopulated rural landscape is not as ‘cheap’ as once thought and are now looking at incentives for having rural citizens return to once again produce food,” explains Singh.

Steven Wendland is from Harmony, Nova Scotia. He likes pie.

This article was originally published by the Halifax Media Co-op

More than 5,600 people were arrested across North America in relation to the Occupy movement, and physical occupation spaces were wiped out of major cities. On the West Coast, a powerful “Occupy the Ports” movement blocked port traffic on December 12 in Oakland, Los Angeles, Tacoma, Seattle, San Diego and Vancouver. Elsewhere, an “Occupy Foreclosed Homes” movement emerged in major American cities, where occupiers assisted former home owners in at least temporarily reclaiming their living spaces.

Tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets in Russia as independent monitors roundly criticized the national elections—which saw Vladmir Putin re-elected as President—as being rigged. Mikhail Gorbachev, former leader of the Soviet Union, called for the election results to be declared void. Alexei Navalny, the anti-corruption blogger who spent most of early December in a Russian jail, is being proclaimed one of Russia's promising new potential leaders.

Nine million dollars was slated to be spent on permanent barricades at Parliament Hill in 2012.

The pre-trial of Bradley Manning, the man suspected of leaking the US diplomatic cables and the Iraq war logs released by Wikileaks, wrapped up in a makeshift military court at Fort Meade army base in Maryland. Manning has been held in solitary confinement since July 2010. The US Army's legal team argued that Manning's behaviour has damaged American national security, that he should face a court martial, and that there is enough evidence to now force the extradition of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. David Coombs, Manning's lawyer, argued that the US government is greatly overreacting in trying his client, and that Manning has brought no harm to national security. "The sky has not fallen, is not falling, and will not fall," said Coombs during the trial.

The state of Pennsylvania announced that it will not pursue the death penalty against Mumia Abu-Jamal, convicted of the 1981 murder of police officer James Faulkner. Instead, Abu-Jamal will receive a life sentence without the possibility of parole.

Three-quarters of voters within the Tunisian Parliament opted to elect as president formerly-exiled activist Moncef Marzouki. Among parliamentarians, a strong minority left their ballots blank in protest. “We wanted a strong president—not laws that overly favor the prime minister and give the position tremendous powers. We refuse to vote for a president without a limited mandate,” said Samir Bettaib, one of several members of the assembly who were skeptical of how temporary the interim government really is.

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released a report concluding that natural gas wells controlled by Calgary-based natural gas giant Encana were responsible for contaminating drinking water in Wyoming. Encana, a major player in hydraulic fracturing, publicly denouncing the EPA's findings, and the methods by which they were reached. The EPA refused to back away from its findings. Encana's stocks tumbled throughout the course of the month.

December 2011 saw the US finally “withdraw” its forces from Iraq. Some see this as a sign of American weakness. Others read this as a precursor to further Middle East power moves. The eight-year war has cost billions of dollars, tens of thousands of lives, and has contributed to crippling the American economy.

American Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited Myanmar, also known as Burma. It was the first visit to Burma by such a high-ranking member of the American cabinet in over 50 years. In mid-October, more than 200 Burmese political prisoners were freed, which has led to a “flicker of hope” that the US might relax sanctions against Myanmar. Amnesty International notes that Myanmar still holds 1-2,000 political prisoners, who should be released immediately, according to the international human rights watchdog organization, and not as part of a "process."

North Korea's “Great Leader,” Kim Jong-Il, died. American food aid to the country was put on hold, despite pleas from North Korean officials, as the exact make-up of a successor regime was solidified. Kim Jong-Un, Jong-Il's youngest son, was later proclaimed Supreme Leader of North Korea. The country's New Year's resolution was to become a "powerful and prosperous" nation in 2012.