Public Service Alliance of Canada BC

JUSTICE FOR OMAR KHADR
Vigil and Public Forum
Monday, January 11, 2010

By refusing to seek the repatriation of its national, Omar Khadr, from US custody in Guantanamo Bay, the Canadian government is betraying human rights principles and perpetuating injustice, while also failing to offer a remedy for its own participation in the violation of human rights.

On Monday, January 11 the public is invited to learn more about this case and why a broad range of civil liberties, human rights, social justice and legal organizations across Canada demand the repatriation of Omar Khadr.

The evening will begin with a brief vigil at Victory Park (West Pender and Hamilton) beginning at 5:45 pm, followed by a walk to SFU Harbour Centre, where a free public forum will get underway at 6:30 pm in the Segal Centre room.

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The United Nations’ Human Rights Day marks the anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 by the UN General Assembly. The UN has announced that this year’s celebration will focus on non-discrimination.

Human rights are a priority for PSAC, which has a long history of defending human rights and fighting discrimination. The union has been at the forefront in promoting employment equity, pay equity and harassment-free workplaces and has been involved in the development and review of human rights legislation and jurisprudence. PSAC’s commitment to human rights includes integrating anti-oppression and equity analyses at all levels of its activities.

PSAC remains diligent in monitoring and denouncing all forms of discrimination, especially in the face of rising social conservatism. In the last few years, the mainstream media and the government have been relentless in their attacks against Canada’s values of equality and inclusiveness enshrined in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and human rights laws. The federal Conservative government, in particular, has been dismantling the very systems that promote human rights and equality.

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The next Human Rights Committee meeting will be held on November 17, 2009 at 5:30 p.m. at the PSAC Regional Office at 200-5238 Joyce Street, Vancouver.

• The Agenda
• Election of Chairperson and Co-chairperson
• Human Rights Day December 10th Activities
• Upcoming December Social Gathering
• Setting Goals and Objectives for Upcoming Year
• “Made in L.A.” movie debrief from Tracy and Wanda.
• Bank Statements

Annonuncing the VIHRC logo creation contest! Enter your logo today …

Come up with a creative logo that best describes the VIHRC in a visual way.  This logo could be used on all VIHRC promotions, posters and correspondences internally or externally either in workplaces or outside of workplaces.

Why a logo?  It is confirmed that a logo creates the familiarity of what an organization is all about or a product you are getting.  For example, when you see a logo for hockey team, Vancouver Canucks.  It hits home for you (if you are a local fan).  So you know what you are getting or have a sense of ‘belonging’ to.  Other example is a product such as Coke.  When you see Coke, you know what it will taste like… you know what it is about and it perhaps makes you feel good when you see the logo of Coke.  Let’s do that with the VIHRC logo.  Let’s make people who belong to any of designated groups i.e. Persons with Disabilities feel like they belong to VIHRC and that VIHRC represents them!

Any PSAC-BC member can participate in the logo contest.  Bonus points will be awarded if the member is from a local that is affiliated with the VIHRC.

Please submit entries electronically by November 2nd, 2009 to the PSAC Victoria Regional Office: mackenr@psac-afpc.com or jacksod@psac-afpc.com . Call (250) 953-1050 or  1-866-953-1050 for more information.

source: The Globe and Mail

Some Chinese-Canadians who saw Campus Giveaway never forgot their reaction

The television segment lasted about 11 minutes, an exposé of the takeover of Canadian classrooms by foreign students.

A section of a university lecture hall filled with non-white faces was shown.

The documentary, which aired on television 30 years ago this month, had unintended consequences.

It awoke what had been, until then, a silent community.

A history of the Chinese in Canada includes such benchmarks as building the railroad; defending against rioters in 1907; paying the head tax; enduring the Exclusion Act; bravely contributing to the war effort; gaining the franchise in 1947; and, oddly enough, protesting against a single episode of a current-events television program.

Some who watched back then have never forgotten their initial reaction.

Victor Wong was studying science at the University of British Columbia when Campus Giveaway aired on the popular program W5 (today known as W-Five ).

“It touched many of us,” he said Tuesday. “The message was: Because of your skin colour, or your ethnic heritage, you don’t belong here. You’re just taking up someone’s space.”

Sid Tan was also studying at UBC in 1979.

“They were calling a bunch of Canadians foreigners. It was quite disgusting and quite off the mark,” he said. “I remember it as a galvanizing experience.”

Anthony Chan, a communications professor born in Victoria, recalls the shock.

“We’re going, ‘Huh?! They’re saying we’re foreigners. They can’t be serious.’ ”

The report alleged that Canadian students were being prevented from studying medicine and engineering because foreign students were occupying their rightful place in university classrooms. Much of the segment focused on the plight of a student from Ontario who was thwarted in her aspiration to study pharmacy at the University of Toronto.

Joseph Wong missed the episode when it originally aired on Sept. 30, 1979. He was completing a residency at a hospital when he watched Campus Giveaway on a videotape a few weeks later.

“My reaction was so vigorous I’ll never forget it,” he said. “How could this happen in Canada? We’re living in a country without discrimination, I thought.”

He had already booked tickets for a flight to Calgary to visit his mother-in-law. He brought with him the videotape, which he showed at a meeting on New Year’s Eve, 1979, in Calgary, and on New Year’s Day, 1980, in Edmonton. He then flew to Vancouver for a showing four days later.

The tape made the rounds to small audiences in Regina, Ottawa, and Montreal, as well as in smaller Ontario cities such as Waterloo and Sarnia.

A community known for “not wanting to ruffle any feathers,” in Dr. Wong’s words, formed Ad Hoc Committees of the Council of Chinese Canadians Against W5 in 16 cities, from Victoria to Halifax.

In late January, four simultaneous protest marches were held. About 2,000 marched on CTV’s offices. “Red, brown, black, yellow and white,” they chanted, “all Canadians must unite.”

The protesters were told Canadian universities had only 85 foreign medical students, 66 of them from the United States.

As well, university officials disputed W5 ’s numbers, stating the number of foreign and visa students had been multiplied by a factor of five.

Even 30 years later, Dr. Wong is baffled by the airing of footage in which any Asian face was presumed to be non-Canadian.

“All the yellow-coloured students they showed were [naturalized] Canadians, landed immigrants or permanent residents, or local-born Chinese Canadians,” he said.

The committee had identified all of the unnamed students shown in the report. Not one was a foreign student.

W5 aired an on-air apology that tiptoed around the committee’s complaints.

It was rejected by the committee. Finally, in April, CTV issued a statement Globe columnist Dick Beddoes described as “a retraction, an apology, a confession of error, a disorderly retreat.”

Murray Chercover, the network’s president and managing director, wrote: “Right after the program was broadcast our critics – particularly Chinese-Canadians and the universities – criticized the program as racist: they were right, although it was never our intention to produce a racist program.

“There is no doubt that the distorted statistics combined with visual presentation, made the program appear racist in tone and effect.”

With the apology came the offer to fill an 11-minute segment on an upcoming W5 episode.

It aired in December. A survey of 25 job placement agencies found 17 casually agreeing to send only Caucasian employees, while only three flatly refused a request violating provincial and federal laws. The segment was titled, White and Bright .

“It was a beautiful victory,” Dr. Wong said.

Mr. Chan, who is now a professor at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology at Oshawa, traces his own family roots in Canada to the arrival of his grandfather in 1881. His mother was born in Vancouver, his father, like himself, in Victoria. He devoted a chapter of his book Gold Mountain (New Star, 1983) to the W5 scandal.

In retrospect, he sees 1979 as a pivotal year for the Chinese-Canadian community. Many had been working on the resettlement of the Vietnamese boat people, most of them ethnic Chinese, at the time Campus Giveaway was aired.

“It was time,” he said. “Things just coalesced. Thank you very much, W5 .”

The politics have reverberated in the 30 years since, as Chinese-Canadians won election to Vancouver city council, to the mayoralty of Victoria, to the Legislature and to Parliament. Some active in the W5 protests have gone on to become filmmakers, provincial-court judges, and activists in the campaign for redress of the hated head tax.

At the time of the protests, Dr. Wong, a landed immigrant, was identified in a newspaper story as someone who had “yet to become a Canadian.” He immediately filled out the requisite paperwork. He looks forward next year to celebrating 30 years as a proud citizen of what he calls “the fairest society on Earth.”

Aboriginal rights are respected here: working together to build our strength

June 21 marks the summer solstice, which has been celebrated for centuries by many Aboriginal communities. In 1996, the Parliament of Canada proclaimed June 21st as National Aboriginal Peoples’ Day.

National Aboriginal Peoples’ Day is an opportunity for PSAC to express solidarity with Aboriginal Peoples and support the call for a better life for all Aboriginal Peoples. This is also an opportunity to recognize and celebrate the contributions of Aboriginal Peoples in our communities and our union.

The federal government has failed to address the injustice of Aboriginal poverty, including lack of access to education, employment, housing, water, health care and other basic social services.

More than 12 years ago, the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples made extensive recommendations to improve the situation of Aboriginal Peoples, however, these recommendations were either ignored or ineffectively implemented.

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presented by Patty Ducharme, National Executive Vice-President, Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC)

Thank you for once again inviting us to appear before this Committee to testify regarding hiring practices and employment equity in the federal public service. Today, we would like to provide our views on recent events impacting on employment equity, including some of the information that has recently been provided to this Committee by other witnesses.

On March 23, 2009, the Office of the Chief Human Resource Officer of Treasury Board, or OCHRO, released its report on Employment Equity in the Public Service of Canada covering the last two fiscal years. That report shows that the federal public service is still lagging far behind in achieving a representative workforce, especially when it comes to racialized workers. Unfortunately, the Report did not receive very much attention, since it was released on the same day that Maria Barrados, President of the Public Service Commission, testified before this Committee, indicating that PSC has re-calculated its figures on hiring and has now determined that the number of racialized new recruits is twice as high as they had previously reported. The release of those new figures took us by surprise, to say the least.

Continue reading the brief at the national website.

OTTAWA, Ontario (June 2, 2009) – The Honourable Chuck Strahl, Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development and Federal Interlocutor for M�tis and Non-Status Indians today announced that the Government of Canada will not appeal the British Columbia Court of Appeal’s ruling on the Sharon McIvor case and that it will proceed with amendments to the Indian Act as ordered by the Court.

• Visit ainc-inac.gc.ca for a backgrounder on the McIvor case.

“After careful consideration and review of the decision, we will proceed with the necessary legislative amendments,” said Minister Strahl. “This Government has taken many actions over the years to ensure Aboriginal people enjoy the same rights, protections, and equality as other Canadians. Proceeding with those amendments as ordered by the Court is another step in that direction.”

On April 6, 2009, the British Columbia Court of Appeal ruled that certain registration provisions of the Indian Act are unconstitutional as they violate the equality provision of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The Court suspended its declaration for 12 months – to April 6, 2010 – to give the Government time to amend the Indian Act.

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Vancouver Island Human Rights Committee meeting

• April 14, 2009, 5:30PM
• PSAC Regional Office,210-1497 Admirals Road

Proposed Agenda

1. Terms of Reference
2. Constitutional Letters-Update
3. Logo Contest

Please RSVP to Mandi Schubert no later than April 9th so the Potluck can be coordinated.

Every year, the PSAC marks March 21, the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, as an important day. With an upsurge of labour migration, the growing racially visible population, the further marginalization of Aboriginal peoples and the continuing fear of �terrorism� in Canada, the PSAC again calls for national and international solidarity among the labour movement and social justice groups against racial discrimination.

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February is Black History Month, also known as African Heritage Month. It is a time for PSAC members to highlight and acknowledge the immense benefits that the labour movement and Canada in general have achieved through the contributions of Black people and people of African heritage.

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December 10 is a day to reflect on the status of human rights in Canada and around the world.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by the United Nations 60 years ago � the first of its kind to recognize civil, social, economic and political rights as universal human rights. The Declaration affirms the inherent dignity and worth of every person in the world, without distinction of any kind. It represents a landmark achievement in world history, incorporating concepts of non-discrimination, equality, fairness and universality that apply to everyone, everywhere. Today, it continues to inspire activism for human rights and social justice all over the world.

To reflect the vision of the Declaration as a commitment to universal dignity and justice, the theme for this year’s Human rights Day is �Dignity and justice for all of us.�

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PSAC Statement on the International Day of Persons with Disabilities � December 3, 2008

The 2008 theme of the International Day of Persons with Disabilities is “Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities: Dignity and justice for all of us.”

This has been a significant year for people with disabilities all around the world. In 2008, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities into force, after being ratified by 20 countries. This year also marks the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

According to the United Nation’s Secretariat for the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, approximately 10 per cent of the world’s population, or 650 million people, live with disabilities. Eighty per cent � more than 400 million people � live in poor countries. There is a strong link between disability and poverty. In the Global South, 80 to 90 per cent of working-age people with disabilities of are unemployed and in the West, it is estimated to be between 50 and 70 per cent. Ninety per cent of children with disabilities in the Global South do not attend school. (more…)

via BC Federation of Labour

Dear Sisters and Brothers:

The B.C. Federation of Labour is supporting women who are making a journey from British Columbia to Ottawa in honour of missing and murdered women across Canada. This Walk is supported by Amnesty International, B.C. Federation of Labour, BCGEU, ILWU Local 500, United Native Nations, Native Women’s Association of Canada and countless other organizations across Canada.

This important walk begins in Vancouver, BC on June 21, 2008 and ends with a huge event in Ottawa on September 15, 2008 where there will be a full day session on Parliament Hill and presentation of a petition. On June 21 in Vancouver, an event is being organized to launch the walk and more details will be provided.

These women need your help, and we are asking unions, labour councils and communities along their route to pitch in and help support this important Walk. Even if you are not en route, you can help by sending a donation to support the walkers.

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From Libby Davies

Dear friends,

Recently the Conservative government in Ottawa tried to sneak controversial changes into the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA) through the House of Commons via C-50 (the Budget Implementation Act). These sweeping changes give enormous powers to the Minister to decide which categories of immigration applications will be processed, and which would be ignored or discarded. It also restricts several kinds of applicants based on humanitarian and compassionate grounds that Canadian sponsors can use to bring their relatives into Canada, and gives the Minister extraordinary powers to deny visas to those who meet all the immigration criteria and have been waiting for years to have their cases conclude. NDP Immigration Critic Olivia Chow has done excellent work in opposition to these unfair and misguided changes. To learn more about the changes, visit her website.

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Transsomatechnics: Theories and Practices of Transgender Embodiment
A Transdisciplinary International Conference, May 1- 3, 2008, SFU Harbour Centre

Keynote Speakers and Plenary Speakers

Cabral, Mauro – Bio, “My Name is Truth”, Trans Issues within Human Rights Frameworks
Murray, Samantha – Bio, Banded Bodies: The TransSomatechnics of Obesity Surgery
Noble, Bobby – Bio, Transed-Nationalisms: On the Limits of Whiteness
Najmabadi, Afsaneh – Transing and Transpassing Across Sex-Gender Walls in Iran
Namaste, Viviane – BioKnowledge for whom?  Trans Women, HIV and the Field of “Trans Studies
Pugliese, Joseph – Transpositions of Transsomatechnics
Sullivan, Nikki – Bio, The Matter of Transsomatechnics

My name is Kiran Arora and I am a Ph.D. student at Syracuse University, in the Marriage and Family Therapy department. I am conducting a research study which seeks to understand the impact of political violence in Punjab India, on Sikh diaspora in Vancouver.

Specifically, I would like to understand your views on what it means to be living in Vancouver, Canada as part of the Sikh diaspora. Further, I would like to understand how the political violence in Punjab, India has impacted you, your relationships and your position in the world, as a member of the Sikh diaspora in Vancouver.

This study will be pioneering in the field of Marriage and Family Therapy because this topic area has not been studied before. Bringing forth the unique experiences of the Sikh diaspora will be informative for those working in the mental health field. It will also allow the unique stories and voices of Sikh diaspora to take space in academia, where these voices can be acknowledged, and understood.

I am looking for potential volunteers for my study and hope that you will consider participating. If you wish to participate you must meet the following criteria:

1. You must be born outside of India, to parents who were born in India.
2. You must have experienced (first hand or second hand) some of the events affecting the Sikh community in the 1980’s and 1990’s.
3. You must reside in Vancouver.
4. You must self identify as a Sikh.

Participation in this study would be completely voluntary and you may withdraw at any time if you choose to participate. Your confidentiality is of utmost concern, and measures have been put into place to ensure that your confidentiality is protected.

I would be happy to discuss this with you in detail on the phone. The format of this study will be interviews, where I would be interviewing you for 90 to 120 minutes.

If you are interested in this study, please phone/email me. I will give you further information at that time, and also answer any questions or concerns you may have.

Kiran S.K. Arora
kiransarora@gmail.com
315.383.5400 – Syracuse, N.Y.
604.719.1871 – Vancouver, B.C.

March 21 is a time to remember those who fought against racism and for equality and human rights. We must honour them by taking up the torch and continuing the struggle, especially at a time of relentless neoconservative efforts to roll back our gains.

A more recent example of these efforts is the Harper minority government’s refusal to participate in the upcoming United Nations International Forum to Against Racism, Racial Discrimination and Xenophobia.

A further look at the Harper government’s record on human rights and equality makes it obvious that the Conservatives have no interest in fighting racism and discrimination.

In two years of government under the Conservative Party, it has:

• eliminated the Court Challenges Program,
• eliminated the Law Reform Commission,
• scrapped valuable literacy and equity programming to communities, including Aboriginal communities,
• reduced social development programs under the Human Resources and Social Development Canada (HRSDC),
• reduced programs that facilitate cultural awareness under Multiculturalism,
• refused to recognize Aboriginal rights in Canada and in the international forum, and
• detained racialized people under security certificates without proper due process.

Furthermore, the Conservative government, in its pursuit for corporate profits over the universal welfare of Canadians, continues to make cuts to quality public services and to privatize these services. It ignores the historical role that quality public services have played in Canada in ensuring equality and human rights.

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Rights, Not Wrongs: The role of unions in creating a better world

A joint conference for human rights activists in the labour movement sponsored by the BC Federation of Labour and the BC Teachers’ Federation. The conference will focus on emerging human rights issues, featuring leading BC human rights specialists in First Nations, peace, anti-poverty, women’s rights, antiracism, international issues and many more.

• Fairmont Hotel Vancouver
• April 3-5 2008
• Keynote Speaker: Stephen Lewis, Friday April 4th @ 7:30PM

Organized by the BCTF Committee for Action on Social Justice and the BC Federation of Labour Human Rights Commitee. For more information, visit www.bctf.ca or www.bcfed.ca. Download the Rights not Wrongs poster (pdf).

OTTAWA – The picture of employment of historically marginalized Canadians in the federal public service is not as rosy as the government would like to have us believe, says the Public Service Alliance of Canada, a union representing more than 100,000 federal public service workers.

“The report submitted by the Canada Public Service Agency to Parliament on Employment Equity support many of our arguments that we presented earlier this week to the Senate Standing Committee on Human Rights,” says Ed Cashman, the PSAC Regional Executive Vice-President for the National Capital Region.

• Read the report submitted to Parliament here (pdf)

For example, the government claims it is meeting its targets with respect to the representation of persons with disabilities relative to their labour market availability. However, the number of persons with disabilities who are hired into the government is below their labour market availability rate.

“In other words,” says Cashman, “the federal government is meeting its legal obligation not through proportional hirings but through injury and illness of workers already on the job. Some workers become persons with disabilities through the course of their careers.”

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