A motion at today’s Halifax Board of Police Commissioners meeting to appoint a community advisory committee to explore defunding the police was moved in camera. The question to ask is, who are the commissioners really working for?
Stacey Gomez, Asaf Rashid, Jessica Tellez and Wanda Thomas explain how racist immigration policies keep migrant workers temporary. “In Nova Scotia, approximately 2000 migrant workers arrive each year through Temporary Foreign Worker Programs, to plant and harvest crops, and to process our agriculture, as well as seafood products. Abuse of migrant workers is rampant in Nova Scotia and across Canada. The recently released report Unheeded Warnings includes accounts from migrant workers in Nova Scotia about being coerced into speaking positively of their employers during a government inspection under threat of deportation. Other workers report having racist slurs used against them when they spoke out about poor conditions. We’ve also received reports of migrant workers being unlawfully prevented from leaving Nova Scotia farms.”
Media release: Like all African Nova Scotian communities, North Preston, the largest Indigenous African Nova Scotian Community, has been besieged with racism and injustice.
On July 14, 2020, NS PPWG steering committee member El Jones was asked by Halifax Board of Police Commissioners (“HBPC,” “the Board”) Chair Natalie Borden to lead a committee for the purpose of recommending a definition of “defunding the police.”
n response, we proposed that we convene a committee to tender research and consultation on defunding the police in Halifax. We envision this process as being much broader than simply crafting a definition, as any definition that is not adequately supported by research and consultation will be of limited utility.
Kendall Worth: “Winning the award and not having to make plans to be at my brother’s place made me feel I was living my life with a sense of self-worth for once. That is what I believe is the best birthday present I can give myself this year.”
Dr. OmiSoore Dryden:”Perhaps we can focus on why colonialism, racism and anti-black racism are fights that continue for queer and trans folks, be committed in taking actions to combat and disrupt and then, maybe then, we can come together to celebrate.”
Provincial governments everywhere, including Nova Scota, have introduced legislation that removes workers’ rights to collective bargaining. Not one of these union-busting laws will likely survive a Charter challenge. But that’s not the point, writes Larry Haiven.
On June 7th and on June 29th letters were sent by a number of Nova Scotian Senators to Ministers Blair and Furey regarding the pressing need to establish a joint federal/ provincial, equally led, public inquiry into the recent Nova Scotia mass shootings and related events.
The Senators are expanding their call to action to include Ministers Lametti, Monsef and Regan to further highlight the importance of ensuring that a feminist lens is employed as part of this investigation so as to ensure that a fulsome picture of the events that led to this atrocity are understood and ultimately addressed.
A new poem by Angela Bowden. It’s very good. You should read it.
On Tuesday July 21, join us for a day of action to fire the NSCAD Board and reinstate Aoife!