Critical Perspectives and Reflections

 Author: Bill Lee Toronto march in solidarity with Standing Rock, November 5, 2016 - Photo: Barbra Nahwegahbow There may be something going on in the Indigenous anti-Colonial social justice struggle. Indigenous friends and students and other social justice campaigners seem to think maybe. It seems to me there is and it involves not only the various actions we are seeing (we'll get to those in a minute) but a significant analysis, determination, sophistication and discipline with which they are being carried out.     Maybe it is just me, but are not more and more Indigenous people and their allies refusing to accept statements of good intentions from corporate and government leaders? Are there not a number of significant resistant actions going on these days? Of course the big news, though until recently rather under reported in the corporate media), is the resistance at Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, the standing up against the ridiculous attempt by ...

     Author: JOHN CLARKE /Ontario Coalition Against Poverty Ontario Government will soon be announcing plans for a Basic Income pilot project somewhere in the Province. There is a lot international interest in this development, especially among those who adhere to the notion that BI could be implemented as a redistributive and progressive antidote to the austerity agenda and the war on the poor. The Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP) that I am part of, has come out in opposition to Basic Income. I understand that there are those on the left who sincerely believe that a progressive BI model is attainable. We don't look to denounce or insult people who take that position but we do hold an opposing view that I, frankly, have yet to see it responded to on its merits. With the six points I set out below, I am endeavouring to show the basis for the position we are taking. 1. Capitalists can increase the rate of exploitation and profit if there are more workers ...

(By a research team comprising Patrick Carpenter, Angela Johnston, Neil Joseph, David Neshinapaise, Charnele Sondezi, Jim Ward, Loretta Watetch) August 2016 1.    Introduction We are Community Health Worker students taking courses at Anishnawbe Health Toronto.  Our class in the Introduction to Social Sciences course has six students, all of whom are Indigenous.  The instructor for the course (Jim Ward) is not.  One aspect of this course is to study methods of social research and a practical aspect is for us to conduct our own study.  As a class, we decided to do an exploratory study on homelessness.  All members of the research team, including the instructor, have experienced homelessness in the past.  The study topic grew out of this experience and a general interest in finding out what the current situation is in Toronto. At the  outset, all seven team members carried out archival research regarding what are seen to be th...

 Author: Bill Lee May 14, 2016 A while ago I read my colleague Jim Ward's piece ( http://criticalperspectivesblog.blogspot.ca/2015/01/towards-concrete-strategy-for_26.html ) in Critical Perspectives and found it interesting and provocative. It is a brave person, particularly for a non-Native person like Jim or I to put forward a strategy on such a sensitive, complex and long standing issue. I would like to make a few comments taking issue with this well written piece however . First, I didn't get the sense that Saul was saying that Aboriginal people were, "finally getting their act together" a statement which would imply that Indigenous folks had just been sitting around being dysfunctional. While I think Saul gets a bunch of stuff wrong in The Come Back, he at least understands how the colonial historical and ongoing, onslaught has undercut Indigenous efforts to live whole and meaningful lives. Indigenous people have been attempting to heal and resist the par...

 Author: Cecelia Lee May 24th 2016 We all have rights and responsibilities as citizens of Canada. For some of us as members of the Catholic Church we also have particular rights and responsibilities relative to our faith. These include a moral responsibility to own up to and follow through on our obligations to those whom we have wronged. I recently wrote a blog about people in the trades particularly, who were behaving in a way that suggested they were trying to avoid paying taxes, a responsibility of us all. Now we are hearing of the Catholic Church, or more properly organizations (orders and nuns, priests and brothers) trying to weasel out of paying their negotiated share in recompense for the abuse done to residential school survivors. It appears this has had the effect of lessening the commitments from other Christian denominations. Those commitments were based on the amount promised by the largest offender, the Catholic Church. Is recompense not a moral responsibilit...

Author: Bill Lee                                                                         May 2, 2016 There has been a great deal of comment and discussion regarding how Canada has failed in terms of dealing effectively with Indigenous people. We, rightly, hear talk of racism, and of a "past"  injustice of the residential school system and many other issues. There is one issue however that rarely is addressed and which many Canadians do not seem to see. The land of Canada was occupied and lived in when the first Europeans landed here. Subsequent to landing and being assisted in many ways by the existing inhabitants, European pop...