Category: Media

Sun News : Mohawks march across international bridge to protest border

In the news: Mohawks march across international bridge to protest border.

CORNWALL, Ont. – Mohawk chiefs marched across both spans of the Seaway International Bridge on Friday to hand-deliver a request for a meeting with Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

The rally of an estimated 400 people stopped traffic on the bridge between Cornwall and the U.S. for more than three hours, as residents protested the border that splits their territory.

“These are your divisions,” said Chief Richard Mitchell, while speaking to Cornwall, Ont., Mayor Bob Kilger in the centre of the traffic circle. “…We should have the right to travel back and forth without impediments.”

The Mohawk leaders also met with Steve MacNaughton, a regional director of the Canadian Border Services Agency, offering a letter that outlined their concerns with the port-of-entry. They asked that the missive be passed along to Harper, as a first step towards a meeting to revisit treaties between the government and Haudenosaunee Six Nations Confederacy, which includes the Mohawks.

A chief from the Bear Clan said they didn’t walk across the bridges to “make trouble,” but as a reminder that the land still belongs to their people.

Full story.

The FBI is allowed to operate in Canada — RT USA

The FBI is allowed to operate in Canada — RT USA.

In the news: The foiling of what is alleged to be an attempted terrorist attack targeting a passenger train traveling from Toronto to New York is raising questions about the authority of United States officials to operate abroad.

Officers with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police announced earlier this week that the US Federal Bureau of Investigation and US Department of Homeland Security played an instrumental role in the apprehension of two foreign men suspected of plotting an attack against a Via Rail passenger train going from Toronto, Ontario to New York City.

“We are alleging that these two individuals took steps and conducted activities to initiate a terrorist attack,” Jennifer Strachan, criminal operations officer for RCMP Ontario, said during Monday’s press conference.

The suspects, 30-year-old Montreal, Quebec resident Chiheb Esseghaier and Raed Jaser, 35 of Toronto, are being held in Canada while authorities examine what a preliminary investigation has led them to consider thus far an al-Qaeda-supported terrorist attack. But as officials north of the border try to get to the bottom of the alleged plot, Canadians are also questioning the role of US authorities in the apprehension of the men.

via The FBI is allowed to operate in Canada — RT USA.

Federal budget cuts could hurt border agency’s fight against gun smuggling, MP says | Toronto Star

In the news: Federal budget cuts could hurt border agency’s fight against gun smuggling, MP says | Toronto Star.

OTTAWA—Front-line border officers are confiscating fewer guns than they did a decade ago and ongoing budget cuts could make it even harder to stem the tide of illegal firearms onto Toronto streets, a New Democrat MP says.

The Conservative government, which has made law-and-order the central plank of its agenda, is being pressed to do more to combat the smuggling of handguns to Canada from the United States.

“The proliferation is enormous . . . they’re used in crimes. They’re used by youth,” NDP MP Mike Sullivan said Friday.

Full story.

Homeland Security’s proposed new Canada-U.S. border fee prompts alarm in New York

In the news: Homeland Security’s proposed new Canada-U.S. border fee prompts alarm in New York. | Canada.com

The U.S. government is proposing to charge a new fee for every vehicle or pedestrian crossing the U.S.-Canada border — an idea that has prompted fierce objections from New York lawmakers who claim the levy would stifle transboundary commerce and undermine recent efforts to ease the flow of people and goods between the two countries.

The Canadian government, too, is raising alarms about the proposal, with an embassy spokesman in Washington telling the Buffalo News that “we’re confident that any study would conclude that the considerable economic damage any fee would do would greatly outweigh any revenue generated.”

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Canadian and U.S. natives vow to block oil pipelines – Yahoo! News

In the news: Canadian and U.S. natives vow to block oil pipelines – Yahoo! News.

OTTAWA (Reuters) – An alliance of Canadian and U.S. aboriginal groups vowed on Wednesday to block three multibillion-dollar oil pipelines that are planned to transport oil from the Alberta tar sands, saying they are prepared to take physical action to stop them.

The Canadian government, faced with falling revenues due to pipeline bottlenecks and a glut that has cut the price for Alberta oil, say the projects are a national priority and will help diversify exports away from the U.S. market.

But the alliance of 10 native bands – all of whose territories are either near the crude-rich tar sands or on the proposed pipeline routes – complain Ottawa and Washington are ignoring their rights.

They also say building the pipelines would boost carbon-intensive oil sands production and therefore speed up the pace of climate change.

“Indigenous people are coming together with many, many allies across the United States and Canada, and we will not allow these pipelines to cross our territories,” said Phil Lane Jr, a hereditary chief from the Ihanktonwan Dakota in the state of South Dakota.

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Reality show filmed immigration raids, B.C. advocates say – British Columbia – CBC News

In the news: Reality show filmed immigration raids, B.C. advocates say – British Columbia – CBC News.

Immigration activists in Vancouver are protesting the arrest of eight migrant workers who they say were picked up by border agents and filmed for a reality TV series during a raid on a construction site on Wednesday.

Construction worker Gord Beck says he was working on a condo complex at Victoria Drive and 20th Avenue when armed border agents arrived in black SUVs.

Beck says they stationed officers at corners to keep people from running, and swept the site, top to bottom looking for undocumented workers.

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The US-Canada Border’s Constitution-Free Zone | The Nation

In the news: The US-Canada Border’s Constitution-Free Zone | The Nation February 7 2013

Before September 11, 2001, more than half the border crossings between the United States and Canada were left unguarded at night, with only rubber cones separating the two countries. Since then, that 4,000 mile “point of pride,” as Toronto’s Globe and Mail once dubbed it, has increasingly been replaced by a US homeland security lockdown, although it’s possible that, like Egyptian-American Abdallah Matthews, you haven’t noticed.

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Idle No More targets North America’s busiest border – Windsor – CBC News

In the news: Idle No More targets North America’s busiest border – Windsor – CBC News.

People participating in the Idle No More movement plan to target the Ambassador Bridge next week.

Members of the movement are organizing what they call “an economic slowdown” in Windsor on Jan. 16. Organizers insist it’s “not a blockade.”

“We don’t want to inconvenience people too much. But we want to be in places that are going to get us noticed and allow us to get our information out,” said organizer Lorena Garvey-Shepley.

She then quoted a sign she once saw at another Idle No More demonstration.

“Sorry for the inconvenience, but we’re trying to change the world,” Garvey-Shepley said.

Full story

Idle No More Ceremony Planned for US-Canada Border | Indian Country Today

In the news: Idle No More Ceremony Planned for US-Canada Border January 5

The meet-up at the famous Peace Arch monument – described as a “peaceful prayerful gathering of Indigenous women, supported by our Indigenous men, standing united – will see Indigenous activists and supporters rally their drums, songs and prayers for change on both sides of the border.”

“It’s a peaceful, prayerful action,” Kat Norris, spokesperson for the Indigenous Action Movement, told Indian Country Today Media Network. “We, the organizers, want to ensure that we are going into this with good and strong hearts. Doing this at the border, with our relatives from the other side of the border joining, we’re making a statement that support comes north and south, and east and west to join this. It’s a symbol of support for Idle No More and everything it stands for – and for Chief [Theresa] Spence.”

Organizers of the border gathering emphasized the event is a ceremony, not a blockade or disruption.

“It’s a ceremony with smudging, drumming and singing,” Norris said. “We’re following protocol – the other side will sing a welcome song. We will sing our song and why we’re there (…). There are many stories my mother and grandmothers shared of visiting our relatives. That border divides our families.”

Norris said that crossing the border has painful significance for many Indigenous Peoples, who once freely roamed through their territories before the arrival of Europeans or enforcement of their boundaries.

“It’s also a symbol that we do not see the border as an actual border,” she said. “It’s a man-created border. Historically, as Indigenous people, we’re supposed to be able to cross the border freely; our people did: they travelled all over Turtle Island. Every time we have to cross a border, it hits our hearts. It only reminds us of what we once had.”

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Decision expected this month in landmark B.C. cross-border pollution case | canada.com

In the news: Decision expected this month in landmark B.C. cross-border pollution case | canada.com.

TRAIL, B.C. — On a beach in northeast Washington state near the Canadian border, Patti Bailey grabs a handful of what looks like sand and rolls the dark grains through her hands.

It’s slag, the grainy waste from the Teck Resources (TSX:TCK.B) lead and zinc smelter in Trail, B.C., about 10 kilometres north of the nearby Canadian border.

“They’re little time bombs and they’re releasing zinc, copper, arsenic and other metals into the environment,” said Bailey, an environmental planner for the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation.

A Washington state judge has ruled that Teck is liable for the costs of cleaning up contamination in the Columbia River south of the border from decades of dumping slag and effluent from the company’s Trail operations.