July 27, 2021
Governor General of Canada – Mary Simon – Ningiukudluk
“As part of the installation ceremony, an Inuk elder lights the qulliq in the Senate Chamber. The traditional Inuit lamp represents light and warmth of family and community.”
Related article: Toronto Star – Louise Bernice Halfe, First Indigenous Parliamentary Poet Laureate
Parliamentary poet laureate’s poem on the installation of Mary Simon as Governor General of Canada https://www.thestar.com/politics/federal/2021/07/26/parliamentary-poet-laureates-poem-on-the-installation-of-mary-simon-as-governor-general-of-canada.html?li_source=LI&li_medium=thestar_politics
Installation Speech by Hon. Mary Simon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwnKLRB3B3o
Universal Basic Income Works…
Canada’s First Basic Income Bill: C-273 Sign the petition below and tell your MP to vote YES.
The link provides a connection to both the UBI Works site and to the text of Bill C-273 which is the first basic income proposal ever for the House. “On February 22, 2021, Member of Parliament Julie Dzerowicz introduced Bill C-273, our first ever bill towards a national Guaranteed Basic Income. The bill entered Second Reading on June 14, 2021… Bill C-273 requires Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland to create a national strategy for a Guaranteed Basic Income, including potential partnerships with provinces to determine how best to structure and implement a Basic Income.” (Emphasises original) https://www.ubiworks.ca/basicincomebill?nm_recruiter_id=12028019 Related article: Elizabeth Fry (Ottawa) – How is basic income connected to criminal justice? (A 35 second video) https://twitter.com/EFryOttawa/status/1419706313689473026?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet
Toronto Star – Atkinson Series
Bill C-273 requires Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland to create a national strategy for a Guaranteed Basic Income, including potential partnerships with provinces to determine how best to structure and implement a Basic Income.
This link is essential to understand the disproportionate impact of shut downs from Covid-19 on women’s employment and the ripple effect that augmented the economic distress for certain ignored industries such as the hair / beauty salon business. The stats and the graphics are excellent for a visualized portrait of the current status. (Part one of a five part series to come.) https://www.thestar.com/news/atkinsonseries/2021/covid-19-womens-work.html Related article: Global News – Emerald Bensadoun ‘Shadow pandemic’ of femicide looms, experts warn as Canada prepares to reopen https://globalnews.ca/news/8040778/femicide-domestic-violence-increasing-2021-canada/ (Preliminary Report from Canadian Femicide Observatory for Justice and Accountability’s (CFOJA))
TVO – Luke Ottenhof
Writing in the margins: The story behind Kingston’s Prison for Women magazine
The link, though dated, is noteworthy in providing a history of penal writing among women in Canada and access to the efforts to collect those writing from all over Canada. (There are also penal magazines from men. Cf below.) “Prisoners are not just passive recipients of penal policy and action but have always been active in their resistance to it and active in suggesting change,” says Munn. “The women who were involved in the publication of Tightwire were activists and resisters and people who deeply contemplated incarceration and penal justice overall.” https://www.tvo.org/article/writing-in-the-margins-the-story-behind-kingstons-prison-for-women-magazine Related article: The BC Tyee – Aly Laube Writing in the margins: The story behind Kingston’s Prison for Women magazine https://thetyee.ca/Culture/2020/08/17/Reviving-Canada-Prison-Press/ Related article: Justin Piché Journal of Prisoners on Prisons https://press.uottawa.ca/books/journals/journal-of-prisoners-on-prisons.html
Prison Policy Initiative (US) – Leah Wang and Katie Rose Quandt
Building exits off the highway to mass incarceration: Diversion programs explained
The authors picture a highway with exits or off-ramps as the response to the various by-products from mass incarceration. Simply put, the more viable exits, the less use of law and prison for problems that cannot be solved by law and prison. “The further someone travels down the highway, the more collateral consequences they will experience: a police encounter that may turn dangerous; the trauma of being booked; their mugshot published on the internet; massive amounts of time spent away from work and family for jail time or court appearances; the financial burden of bail and court costs; and a criminal record that generates numerous other challenges like exclusion from the workforce, ineligibility for public benefits, disenfranchisement, and denial of the right to serve on a jury.” Interesting and helpful graphics as well. https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/diversion.html
Sanford Social Innovation Review – Jim Freeman
Rich Thanks to Racism: How the Ultra Wealthy Profit from Racial Injustice
This is a book review that explains how the wealthy have profited from sustaining systemic racism. “I introduce the concept of “strategic racism,” which is when efforts to defend or expand systemic racism result in greater economic or political power for oneself. Perhaps the quintessential example of strategic racism is the pushback against criminal justice reform in the US. For example, there has been a determined effort to portray the killing of George Floyd, Daunte Wright, and so many other Black and Brown people as anomalies, or as the result of a few “bad cops.” The reality, however, is that they are the predictable results of a vastly oversized, overbroad, and violent criminal justice system that is being used within Black and Brown communities as a catch-all solution for an enormous variety of public health and safety issues. And as should be obvious by now, they will continue to occur until we collectively decide to eliminate this particularly virulent form of systemic racism.” https://ssir.org/books/reviews/entry/what_really_makes_us_safe
The Observer (Sacramento, CA) – Genoa Barrow
Del Paso Heights Center Advocates for Neighborhood Wellness
Here’s a new name for RJ – neighborhood wellness. “Dr. Gina Warren and Marilyn Woods’ (have a) mission to disrupt intergenerational trauma and poverty in Del Paso Heights and the areas surrounding the 95838 zip code. The work is really about bringing together various groups already linked inter-generationally and historically presence to each other in this district – a weaving of otherwise silo existence for the individual groups. https://sacobserver.com/2021/07/del-paso-heights-center-advocates-for-neighborhood-wellness/
Chatelaine Magazine –
The Story of the Alberta Woman Who Got 18 Years for Killing Her Abusive Husband
After three decades of physical abuse, Helen Naslund lost it. After a long week of abuse, threat, and drunkenness from her spouse, “Helen retrieved a .22-calibre revolver stored in a cabinet in their farmhouse, where, for 26 years, she had endured countless violent, alcohol-fuelled fits of rage from her husband, often with a gun in his hand. As Miles slept, she shot him, ending his life—and perhaps saving her own. In that moment, one long nightmare ended for her and another began. Nine years later, in October 2020, after pleading guilty to manslaughter, Helen was sentenced to 18 years in prison. It’s one of the longest sentences in Canadian history given to a woman who killed her abusive partner.” https://www.chatelaine.com/living/helen-naslund/