Our friends with the Occupy London Ontario Media Team have been doing some great coverage of the lockout at the Catipilliar plant. The corporation is trying to slash the wages (by 50%) and benefits of workers with an offer they know can never be accepted by the workers, and seems to be planning to move the plant to the United States to take advantage of ununionized workers. A major rally is planned for January 21st.
In this video (lockout update, January 9th 2011) Tim Carry from Canadian Auto Workers [CAW] and Nancy Hutchison from Ontario Federation of Labour [OFL] visit the lines. Hutchison said: "its frustrating that this government keeps giving handouts to corporations and in return these corpotations just slam workers one by one by one and shut the doors and lock out workers when they have made them so profitable"
Occupy London Media Team also did videos on how the Unions were told to remove porta-potties that strking workers were using. One of the sticking points in bargaining is that the company no longer wants to pay into the solidarity fund that CAW pays into to support broader social struggles such as the Occupy movement. Occupy London Ontario camped out in solidarity with the striking workers. Although it was -25 outside, Jess from Occupy London said: "We had the tent set up and I took a nap and I woke up and there was a woodstove there, and there was a table with all kinds of soup and cookies".
HALIFAX—As has been happening at Occupy sites across North America, police moved in on Occupy Nova Scotia on October 11, seizing tents, supplies and protesters.
This video tracks the progress of Occupy Nova Scotia, from when it began on October 15, to its relocation out of respect for veterans on Remembrance Day, to the eviction, and beyond. The video also explores how day to day operations worked on the site, from consensus decision-making, to keeping safe, to feeding a hungry crowd.
Occupy Nova Scotia is currently not occupying a site in Halifax, but General Assemblies are continuing, and participants say the movement is far from over.
This video was produced by Glen Canning, a contributor to the Halifax Media Co-op. For more coverage of the Occupy movement across Canada and worldwide, visit http://mediacoop.ca/occupy.
VANCOUVER-On Saturday, October 24, the people at Occupy Vancouver moved from the eternal process of the general assembly to the exciting world of direct action.
The "Run on the Banks" action marks an escalation on an occupation that's been busy building infrastructure. This was not an official Occupy Vancouver action but an offshoot, as stated on occupy Vancouver's twitter account.
About a thousand trouble makers made their way through the streets of Downtown Vancouver with the intention to occupy corporate banks and encourage folks to close their accounts.
And that they did. This Royal Bank of Canada was the first target, with about 50 people jamming the lobby while some withdraw their cash.
At the Bank of Montreal people shut down their account and moved to other options.
But the cherry on top was the Occupation of TD, or Toronto Dominion Bank, right next to the Occupy Vancouver camp at the Art Gallery. A home stereo was cranked to the max and the people rocked out on top of teller desks and furniture.
An idea was floated around to continue occupying through the night, but the group could not reach consensus, and the process ultimately disrupted the party.
The police quietly moved in and occupied the spots where tellers once stood to protect their corporate masters. Finally the group decided to move out en-masse and avoid arrest.
This piece was originally produced for the Vancouver Media Co-op. Franklin López is a Vancouver based filmmaker and creator of Submedia.tv.
Stop the Flows is the working title for subMedia.TV's next project. Over the next five years we will document resistance movements that are working towards stopping the flows of hydro carbons, mineral extraction, natural resources and capital, through grassroots and underground organizing. We will publish our dispatches as we complete them with the goal of compiling them into a feature length documentary to be released on 2016.
In this dispatch we look at how members of the Unis’toten nation are pre-empting the construction of 4 pipelines through their traditional territories
To help make these reports a reality, please visit STOPTHEFLOWS.com
For more background on BC's oil infrastructure visit the links below:
On Tuesday August 3rd, dozens of Vancouverites, led by the DTES Power of Women Group, held a protest outside the office of the Ministry of Child and Family Development. Members of the Vancouver Media Co-op filed this report.
Five representatives of five organizations in El Salvador that form part of the National Coalition Against Mining, known as La Mesa, were in Washington, DC last month to accept the Letelier-Moffitt International Human Rights Award. The recognition comes at an interesting time as the group's successes in blocking mining exploitation in their small country, have brought about a unique legal situation. Namely, a Canadian mining company is suing the government of El Salvador for $100 million, through a US subsidiary under the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). The Real News followed the group of activists around Washington, DC, and interviewed the CEO and president of the company behind the suit, Pacific Rim. Produced by Jesse Freeston.
In the surroundings of San Marcos, Guatemala, the gold and silver mine of the Canadian Goldcorp Inc. which operates in Guatemala under the name Montana Explorada, has been ready for extraction since 2004. This is yet another blow for the environment and health of the communities of San Miguel and surroundings.
On Monday January 25, Montreal played host to a major international conference to discuss the continuing relief efforts in Haiti. In attendance were Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive as well as foreign ministers from Canada, US, France, and Brazil, international banks, as well as relief organizations and UN representatives. Demonstrators outside the conference expressed skepticism that the international powers who have coordinated humanitarian efforts will respect Haitian sovereignty and interests during reconstruction.
The London Tar Sands Network and London Rising Tide hold the inaugural Tar Sands Oilympics in Trafalgar Square, London.
Corporate contenders RBS, Shell and newcomer BP compete for the chance to wreak environmental havoc in their scramble for Canada's tar sands.
In the process they will lay waste to vast areas of boreal forest, poison First Nations communities and push the planet towards catastrophic climate change. The race for the most polluting fossil fuel resource on the planet is on. Forget the Winter Olympics in Canada, the real competition for the future of the planet is here.
Organizers and residents of the Olympic Tent Village in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside give a press conference on the day after the tent city is set up.
Residents of a neighbourhood in Vancouver that is often referred as the countrys poorest postal code set up a tent encampment in a vacant Downtown Eastside lot to advocate for housing and to shelter the neighbourhoods homeless population.
This documentary feature examines the history of housing in Vancouver and the impact of the 2010 Olympic Games on the city's homelessness and poverty. The film features interviews with legal experts, activists, and people affected by the housing crisis, with particular focus on hotel closures, evictions and the criminalization of dissent.
Vancouver 2010 Olympics protesters march past the Vancouver Art Gallery to BC Place where the 2010 Olympic Opening Ceremony is taking place and meet a wall of Vancouver police.
During today's tent city action in Vancouver the VMC caught up with Larry Hildes, an attorney for the National Lawyers Guild. We asked him why he had broken ties with BC Civil Liberties
The Olympic Resistance Network has called for a convergence to protest the Vancouver Winter Olympics. This video explains some the reasons why these activists have organized the first ever anti-Olymopic summit.
Assembly of First Nations national chief Phil Fontaine's news conference in Vancouver on Feb. 18 was disrupted by an anti-Olympics native protester who dumped red apples on the podium. The red on the outside, white on the inside B.C.-grown fruit symbolizes aboriginals who adopt white peoples' values and culture.
The first Poverty Olympics were a light-hearted affair with an important message at Carnegie Centre in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside ghetto on Feb. 3. Activists used the satirical event to warn organizers of Vancouver's 2010 Winter Olympics that time is running out to fulfill the five-year-old housing and environmental promises.
Honduran coup regime's claims about 60 percent turnout at free and fair elections is revealed as fraud. Also implicated in the video are the wide array of media outlets and governments that have unquestioningly accepted the electoral data of a regime that overthrew the last elected president.
Honduran coup regime's claims about 60 percent turnout at free and fair elections is revealed as fraud. Also implicated in the video are the wide array of media outlets and governments that have unquestioningly accepted the electoral data of a regime that overthrew the last elected president.
With more than a full year before the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics begin, the games have already encountered stiff opposition. A range of groups have expressed their disagreement with the way that the Olympics are being run on Canada's west coast. Their concerns include: environmental destruction, the rights of low or no income residents, lack of transparency and consultation in decision making, and development on indigenous land that has never been surrendered to Canada.
In February 2009, editors of the Dominion newspaper established Canada's first democratically-run news media co-operative in Halifax, Nova Scotia. New chapters will be sprouting up across the country to offer a progressive and community-based alternative to the corporate news model.
Roy Gutman, Foreign Editor of McClatchy Newspapers says Obama's announcement last week of his strategy in Afghanistan is unprecedented and is a "very good start." He says the problem has been that, "the United States has not had an integrated strategy for stabilizing Afghanistan and Pakistan."
Mavis Leno of Feminist Majority on the need for Obama to focus on the rights of Afghan women. Mavis has been the chair of the Feminist Majority Foundation's Campaign to Stop Gender Apartheid in Afghanistan since 1997.
President Obama's highly anticipated new strategy for what the Pentagon now calls AfPak - Afghanistan and Pakistan - is full of grey areas. Most extra troops will be deployed to poppy-growing areas, not to fight al-Qaeda, the President's stated number one objective. The President talks about building trust - but as the US cannot trust the Pakistani ISI, the Pakistani people don't trust the US or even their own government.
The Real News Cafe: Recorded live at the Gladstone in Toronto, a Real News panel takes on the Afghan war This is the first segment of a multi-part series on the Afghan war. Other segments will follow throughout the week.
Sharmini Peries speaks with Senior Analyst Aijaz Ahmad about the dangers of the long-term US involvement in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Ahmad says the only way for Obama to proceed in the region is to withdraw US military presence there and strengthen regional powers for a stable Afghanistan.
Last winter we decided VBS had to do a story on the Oil Sands of Alberta. So far no American media outlet had comprehensively covered it and even the local press's approach has left a lot to be desired.
This is a site that stopped updating in 2016. It's here for archival purposes.
The Dominion is a monthly paper published by an incipient network of independent journalists in Canada. It aims to provide accurate, critical coverage that is accountable to its readers and the subjects it tackles. Taking its name from Canada's official status as both a colony and a colonial force, the Dominion examines politics, culture and daily life with a view to understanding the exercise of power.