April 3, 2016
CBC News
TPP ‘worst trade deal ever,’ says Nobel-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz – Trans-Pacific Partnership should be revised to advance interests of citizens, not corporations, he says
Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz thinks there is too much advantage for the corporation in the Trans Pacific Pact and not enough for the citizen. The Pact has Canada’s signature but has not yet been ratified. Stiglitz was speaking in Ottawa at a conference on the TPP whose worse problem is the right of multinational to sue the Canadian government and to effective do business without environmental regard. He wants a deal re-worked with European countries who object to the investment provisions. http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/joseph-stiglitz-tpp-1.3515452
Hill Times / Broadbent Institute Progress Summit – Rachel Aiello
Equal pay ‘biggest economic stimulus we could possibly have’: Steinem
Opening speaker and feminist Gloria Steinem identified equal pay for comparable jobs for women as a single source of considerable stimulus for struggling economies. “For women of all races and ethnicities and groups to be paid the same as a white guy who is doing the same job or comparable job would be the biggest economic stimulus we could possibly have.” http://www.hilltimes.com/2016/04/01/equal-pay-biggest-economic-stimulus-we-could-possibly-have-steinem/55705?ct=t%28RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN%29&goal=0_8edecd9364-ec1fd36b6b-90770637&mc_cid=ec1fd36b6b&mc_eid=9dd5d0d66d
Ottawa Sun
Firing superintendent won’t cure what ails the Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre – A quick fix won’t fix OCDC
Plus ça change…The real scandal is not that the Ottawa Carleton Detention Centre has women sleeping on a mattress on the floor of shower cells, nor even that the Ontario Minister for Corrections has had to recant a denial that it happened. The real scandal is that the exact same scenario, including the dismissal of the Superintendent, played out in 2006 and ten years later it is still not corrected. http://www.ottawasun.com/2016/04/02/firing-superintendent-wont-cure-what-ails-the-ottawa-carleton-detention-centre
Toronto Star – Joanna Smith
Fort St. John ‘a dangerous place for our women,’ indigenous activist says
This article offers a context for the struggle of one small community to cope with what appears to be a larger missing and Indigenous women rate that the town’s size would suggest. The article looks through the lens of three women among the list still, according to the RCMP, on the active list of investigation. http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2016/04/03/fort-st-john-a-dangerous-place-for-our-women-indigenous-activist-says.html
Toronto Star – Andrea Gordon
Families ‘devastated’ by changes to Ontario autism program – Overhaul means hundreds of children 5 and over no longer eligible for intensive treatment funded by the province
Autistic children has been long recognized as one of the most difficult circumstances for parents to cope with. Ontario has just introduced changes to Ontario’s provincial funding for the Intensive Behavioural Intervention. In fact, as of May 1 the province will no longer fund the intervention for children over the age of five years. Services for autistic children have been notoriously slow but this news is devastating to many at wit’s end to cope now. http://www.thestar.com/life/2016/04/01/families-devastated-by-changes-to-ontario-autism-program.html
Media Alert: CBS 60 Minutes on Sunday, April 3 has a segment on a recent bi-partisan US delegation which toured German prisons. The delegation included both VERA Institute of Justice reps and John Jay College reps as well. Delegates said: “In one prison we visited, there were no recorded assaults between inmates or on staff members from 2013 to 2014.”
Australian Broadcast Corporation (ABC) –
Peter Dutton hails release of last children in mainland immigration detention
Immigration Minister Peter Dutton has announced that the last of immigrant children held in mainland detention have been released. Australia has seen one crisis after another as advocates protest the detention of children. About 50 children remain in detention on the off shore island of Nauru and government says that some of these just released may still be deported. Critics also accuse the government of re-classifying some facilities to allow the claim of no children in detention. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-04-03/last-children-in-mainland-detention-released-into-community/7295044 Related article: N.Y. Times Sunday Review – Elizabeth Rubin Locked Up for Seeking Asylum http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/03/opinion/sunday/locked-up-for-seeking-asylum.html?_r=0
Toronto Star – Jacqueline Briggs
Shameful anniversary should spur action on Aboriginal justice crisis
This year we acknowledge the 50th Anniversary of the first realization that the Indigenous people of Canada are vastly over=represented in Canada’s federal and provincial prisons, at the time – August, 1967, characterized as “of serious magnitude.” The Supreme Court has established the Gladue decision but little else has changed, witness the latest report by Howard Sapers, the Correctional Investigator. http://www.thestar.com/opinion/commentary/2016/04/03/shameful-anniversary-should-spur-action-on-aboriginal-justice-crisis.html