Sorry, we're all out of health care.

Contributed by Tasia Alexopoulos

 

The latest in the long line of Conservative cut backs is one that I don't think a lot of us saw coming.  National Defense, Health Canada, the CBC, Federal Penitentiaries. There have been a lot of surprising cuts in their quest to cut almost $5 billion in spending.

The Harper Conservatives are making cuts to the Interim Health Program, which provides "limited, temporary, taxpayer-funded coverage of health-care benefits to protected persons, including resettled refugees; refugee claimants; and certain other groups who are not eligible for provincial or territorial health insurance." The newly reformed program, which comes into effect June 30 2012, effectively ends supplemental health-care benefits, makes medications and immunizations available only in the case where there is a risk to public health or safety, and will provide health care coverage for services and products that are of an urgent nature. (you can read the entire news release here)

Jason Kenney, Immigration Minister, said in his press release that the government does not "want to ask Canadians to pay for benefits for protected persons and refugee claimants that are more generous than what they are entitled to themselves.” He's talking about dental and eye care, two things that are absolutely essential to health and are not covered by Canadian public health care.

According to Minister Kenney, this reform will also take the "incentive" away from people who "may be considering filing an unfounded refugee claim in Canada" and will "allow us to protect public health and safety, ensure that tax dollars are spent wisely and defend the integrity of our immigration system all at the same time." The cuts will save a projected $100 million dollars over the course of five years.

Because people flee to Canada to get eyeglasses, Minister Kenney, and applying for and waiting on a refugee claim is a walk in the park."There just isn't affordable treatment for cavities in my nation, I think I'll make an unfounded refugee claim in Canada!"

Does Jason Kenney really think that Canadians are so stupid that they'll fall for this? Trying to whip up fear over a "wave of refugees" flooding the country to abuse our health care system because of our "lax" immigration and refugee policy is completely ridiculous and unfounded. Canada accepts about 38% of its refugee claims. He's making it sound like people who are waiting on a refugee claim decision are basically on vacation, which is insane. Many people attempting refugee status live in constant fear of being deported, are homeless or living in shelters, have little to no money, no family, no support, don't speak english, face extreme barriers to education and health care, not to mention being the victims of crimes here in Canada.

What makes the least amount of sense(and most sense, considering the we're talking about the Conservative government)is that a decision that makes such an enormous impact on women and children seeking refuge could be made so lightly. The United Nations Refugee Agency estimates that about 47% of 21 million refugees and displaced persons are women and children constitute about 44% but both are heavily underrepresented in accepted claims. 

Canada is a signatory of the 1951 UN Convention of the Status of Refugees and until 1993 did not have a set of guidelines for dealing with gender-based claims. Because the Convention arose during the post-World War II and was heavily influenced by the Cold War it reflects very specific concerns: protecting individuals from state persecution based on their personal beliefs or identity.  Defining refugees so specifically led to the "traditional view of the asylum seeker as male" and "narrow and rigid interpretations of what constitutes persecution(Valji, Hunt, Moffett, Agenda 55 2003). Women were often overlooked or left out in favour of individual male asylum seekers, and specific persecutions that women faced due to their gender were left completely out of the equation. Understandings of gender based violence and discrimination is much more sophisticated now, but women still experience the refugee claims system much differently then men do.

Conflict and war are also much different now than they were in the 1950s and it is not always the State that people need to be protected from. People can claim refugee status for many different reasons now: race, religion, political opinion, nationality, or membership in a particular social group(such as women) or a particular sexual orientation. There are also persons in need of protection whose removal to their own country would result in a danger of torture, a risk to their life, or a risk of cruel and unusual treatment and punishment.

Despite this progress, many people are denied and sent back to their countries of origin. Even though there are guidelines for assessing cases that are not traditional, the system still depends on employees to pay attention to said guidelines and carry them out fairly. 

According to a study by Constance MacIntosh on the Canadian Refugee system, between 2004-2009 of the 135 refugee claims brought by women based on domestic violence and abuse, 98% were denied by the adjudicator. From 2005-2008 100% of refugee claims based on domestic violence were denied. The majority of the decisions were made based on women being unable to prove that their home countries could not (or would not) protect them from further abuse.

MacIntosh writes:  "These decisions—that women were lying about their experience, or else that their state could in fact protect them—paint a picture that contradicts the trends identified by international bodies who study violence against women. For example, the United Nations General Assembly’s 2006 assessment was that the “most common form of violence experienced by women globally is intimate partner violence”  and that “it is clear that violence against women remains a devastating reality in all parts of the world, and the implementation of international and regional standards to eradicate such violence is therefore an urgent priority.” The UN essentially identifies domestic violence as a worldwide crisis that is being perpetuated by the failure of states to take effective action."

Upon judicial review, 44% of those decisions were deemed not reasonable. This extremely high rejection rate indicates that the Refugee Protection Division adjudicators were not properly considering or adhering to a set of Gender Guidelines that were drafted by the Chairperson of the Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB), which were designed to help in the decision-making where gender-based claims have been made.

For five years, almost 100% of women seeking asylum due to domestic violence were rejected and sent back to dangerous situations, where many of them are killed or face more violence for having left at all. This is in direct opposition to the Gender Guidelines that Canada has pledged to utilize. This means some people are just not doing their jobs properly.

Women and children also experience, in most cases, a heightened risk of being sexually exploited (especially in conflict or war zones). We now understand that rape has been used as a systemic tool of war and is not, as previously thought, just a symptom of conflict. Women and children(boys and girls) are often kidnapped or taken by military or rebel forces and used for sexual and physical labour.

Women also seek asylum based on personal safety issues such as forced marriage, threats of murder or disfigurement based on their sexuality or sexual identity. There has been an increase in people from Mexico seeking asylum due to drug wars in the country. A report that came out in March concluded that "as a result of government strategy, violence has escalated to levels previously unknown in Mexico, with policemen, soldiers, drug dealers and an increasing number of innocent people being killed every day." Homicides of women in Mexico are so rampant that they even have their own Wikipedia page.  Despite this,  Mexican asylum seekers are very often denied and had an 82.9% rejection rate in 2011. 

These are the women who wait in Canada for their claims decision, these are the women and children(and men) who receive basic health care on our tax dollar.  The people who may get to see an eye doctor if they understand how to access that system, or maybe get to have painful dental problems taken care of. As a signatory of UN Conventions and as a nation that has pledged to try to help refugees, Canada has a responsibility to ensure that people who are waiting are treated humanely. If Canada doesn't want to treat refugees like human beings, then we should stop accepting refugees at all. 

Why is Jason Kenney demonizing the people who are most helpless? Maybe he should be focusing on corruption in his Department instead. Remember Steven Ellis? The immigration adjudicator(and former city councillor) who told his claimant that she would be accepted if she performed sexual favours on him? He got 18 months in prison for his crime. Or what about Diane Serre, a Citizenship and Immigration manager was was "running a for profit business by accepting bribes and gifts in exchange for fast-tracking immigration." The people entrusted with making sure the immigration and refugee process runs smoothly, fairly, and legally are taking bribes and trading refugee status for sexual favours.

This isn't just a cut to save money. This is one part of the Harper Conservatives drive to make it practically impossible to immigrate or get refugee status in this country. The government introduced Bill C-31 in February which, if pushed through, will allow claimants to be "further invalidated, criminalized and endangered. The burden of the bill’s impact will fall on women, queer- and trans-identifying individuals and their families, and those fleeing from "safe" countries that are Canada's trade partners."

Bill C-31 would force refugee hearings to be expedited to 15 days, down from the previous 2-3 months. Meaning that within 15 days of arriving, refugees have to find shelter, legal counsel, interpreters, and "prepare to deliver their personal stories of hardship, loss, trauma and violence before an Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) member at their first hearing, all in an unfamiliar environment and language."

The Bill also penalizes people who arrive in Canada through irregular process, otherwise known as "illegal", despite the fact that those people are most likely to be in desperate need of safety from persecution.  This doesn't take into account that many people who arrive in Canada illegally are unaware that they are doing so, and are promised a safe route to Canada in exchange for money. In most cases these people are forced to travel in extremely dangerous quarters and often will die before they reach their destination either from starvation, dehydration, or drowning.

Most hideously, Bill C- 31 doesn't contain a clause to prevent minors from being detained and imprisoned in Canada and can be separated from their families for any amount of time. 

So Minister Kenney wants Canadians to believe that he's saving our money for us, that Canadians don't want to spend their hard earned tax dollars on refugees and (more so) that we shouldn't have to. But this cut is really just another example of why so many of us were scared of a Conservative majority. Do Canadians really want to have an immigration/refugee system more akin to that of the United States'? Do we , on one hand, give lovely private health insurance policies to bureaucrats with our tax dollars but on the other hand we want to deny the neediest people in the world the basic human right to health care? We pay for Stephen Harper's $45'000 trip to New York City, his Broadway tickets and baseball games. And Bev Oda, well the first thing out of her mouth during any diplomatic trip apparently is "MAKE IT RAIN!" We pay for Oda's limousines and luxury hotel stays, but Jason Kenney doesn't think we should have to pay to have refugee children immunized?

A Canada that doesn't support basic human rights is not a Canada that I can be proud of and I just won't accept that it reflects what tax payers want. Does hoarding our resources so that we can spend them on fighter jets later on make us a better nation in the eyes of the Conservatives? When we as a country contribute to many of the reasons that people are refugees in the first place, we have to take responsibility for it. We have to remain compassionate and clear headed, not fearful and prone to scapegoating. I don't mind paying taxes so that people who have nothing, who are trying to find safety in Canada, can have a bit of health care while they wait. But, I guess the Conservatives would like us to believe that other taxpayers would rather spend that extra $100 million over five years on the fanciest glasses of orange juice for the most useless politicians. Jason Kenney can say he is "defending the integrity of our immigration system" all he wants, but every day that man sits as Immigration Minister is another day of corruption and regression.

my brain automatically knows canadian facts because i was born here.

there's a newly designed test for people who would like to become citizens of canada. apparently officials decided the old test was "too easy" so they made it "more hard."

then they also decided that a 60% pass wasn't good enough, a canadian citizen should at least get a 75% on the exam.

so people started failing the test more, which creates more of a backlog for the system, which forces officials to change the rules/the tests/the procedures/ etc over and over again.

you can read all about it here in the toronto star but what i really love about the situation is the emphasis on cheating.

spokeswoman karen shadd told the star that the test questions were being shuffled more often to end what they "believe" to be "rampant cheating under the old system."

she goes on:

“In the past, with the old test, some people would buy the answers from unofficial sources...After paying for the answers, they would memorize them in order to pass the test. This accounted, in part, for a much higher pass rate.”

in other words the "wannabe citizens" found out the facts that they needed to know to be canadian, then they learned those facts, then they had the answers for the test.

i remember doing something similar, but i guess when you're "born" a canadian citizen you get to call that "learning" and not "cheating.

it's about time

seriously, the recent admissions on the parts of the vancouver police and rcmp are not really news to anyone who has been following the picton case in any way at all.

those missing women didn't have to be missing at all, maybe some of them would still be alive today if the police hadn't treated them, the people who were missing them, and the people who knew about (and reported) picton like garbage.

i agree that there needs to be a public inquiry, because what that inquiry says about how the police acted in this case (and how is was a gross and egregious abuse of their position as "police") will have a lot to say about Canadian society as a whole and how most people didn't give a shit about those women until this became a huge "Serial Killer" case.

also, maybe a public inquiry will light a fire under the police's ass to try to find out what happened to all of the other missing women they've been ignoring for years.

letting a boatload of refugees stay in canada? why wouldn't we?

since when do the "majority of canadians" not want to allow refugees into the country?

harsha walia reminds readers that "there is more reason to be mistrustful of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney and Public Safety Minister Vic Toews than of the migrants."

Their regime has advanced an agenda of corporate bailouts and economic austerity; ballooning military, police and prison budgets; unmitigated resource extraction and environmental destruction; and an immigration policy that is moving toward the repressive Australia and Arizona models of accepting fewer refugees and jailing more asylum seekers and undocumented migrants.

These politicians sell us strange paradoxes - military occupation as liberation, refugees as terrorists."

it always blows my mind when people bang their drum for canada occupying afghanistan but then say that refugees and immigrants shouldn't be allowed into the country. but then, of course they do that. occupations like those in afghanistan reaffirm the military might and colonial status of canada, the "this is for the women and children" bullshit is just a more convenient banner to carry.

remember refugees?? remember what that means?? refugees don't just go "hey, you know what family? canada looks nice, let's pack up and move there."

no, usually they don't pack and usually it isn't a decision. these people have to leave their country of origin because they can't remain there any longer safely.

sri lanka, for instance, is a country whose government is under investigation for war crimes against tamils. it is a well known fact that tamils are persecuted in sri lanka and atrocities have been documented widely. according to walia's article, canada has accepted more than 90 % of refugee claimants from sri lanka in the past two years.

you know what, canada? we've had a lot of shitty things happen the past few years in this country. mainly because we were stupid enough to allow a conservative government to happen.

let's just calm down and think for a second about the kind of country we really want to be. do we WANT to be australia??? the united states? maybe the people who do want regressive policies like australia and the united states should move to those countries because the rest of us think that turning away a boat of refugees is just gross.

Conservatives to repeal metric system

in response to the conservatives latest move, which we consider to be pure genius, hans has decided that it's time to start reporting the real news.

meet the first installment of PNN- Pamphleteers News Network(now all we need is a logo and some catchy intro music):

Harper government announces plans to repeal mandatory use of metric system

Hans R.

Hot on the heels of the controversy surrounding government’s decision to end mandatory reporting of the census long-form, federal Conservatives have announced plans to introduce legislation that will end mandatory use of the metric system.

Deputy Minister of Industry Tony Spumante rebuffed criticisms that repealing the metric system would lead to confusion and reduce the government’s ability to rely on evidence-based policy-making. “We feel this represents a balanced, made-in-Canada solution,” he said in a press conference on Friday. “We’ve received numerous complaints from Canadians who don’t like the metric system. Other people like it. Our American partners would prefer us to switch to miles and pounds. In order to fairly represent the diversity of Canadian public opinion, we feel the reasonable middle-of-the-road solution is simply to repeal mandatory use of metric and leave it up to the individual to use whatever measurement system they want.”

He noted the new legislation was in line with other ongoing Conservative initiatives to promote deregulation in government policy. “Canada’s New Government has deregulated health and safety standards, labour standards, the telecommunications industry, and now measurement,” he declared proudly. “Research indicates deregulation is the best way to promote industrial growth.”
He also emphasized that it would remain up to the individual to use whichever system they preferred. “If a hard-working Canadian wants to measure their success in miles and pounds, who are we to intrude in their private lives and dash their dreams?” he went on. “That sort of liberal, socialist rhetoric simply doesn’t resonate with the majority of Canadians. The era of big government is over.”

Reaction from the business community was mixed but cautiously optimistic. While some industry associations expressed concern that eliminating the metric system could lead to confusion and disarray, particularly in international trade, others saw it as opening new opportunities. “We think there’s potential, particularly in online sales,” said Biff Cardigan, spokesperson for the Industrial Manufacturers’ Association of Canada. “After all, if a customer purchases 20 units of hairspray online, but it’s up to the vendor to decide what unit of measurement to send them 20 of...we think there’s distinct potential for maximizing the profit margins of Canadian companies.”

The legislation will be introduced in the fall session of Parliament.

"you don't get there by playing from the rule book. you stack the aces, you load the dice"

Guest blogger C on how the rich are getting richer and the poor are eating kraft dinner every night.

I actually liked the StephenGgordon article C is writing about, but I didn't love how he ended it:

"The extreme concentration of income to such a small number of high earners is unhealthy in a democracy. But a proper remedy must be based on a plausible theory of how high earners managed to acquire the bargaining power to extract such high salaries and to fend off tax increases. And we don't have one yet."

That just ain't true. There are plenty of theories about how racism and sexism, a society stratified by class, and a 'lean towards the rich' tax schema has led to the concentration of wealth in the hands of a very few privileged people.

There is actually a list of transnational corporations that owe taxes in canada--like, millions and millions of dollars in back taxes. They just don't pay and they don't get punished for it. Why? well that's what happens when corporate dudes and politician dudes are one in the same. They're family, they're married into the family, they're bros, they went to school together, whatever. When you've got someone scratching your back with gold plated fingernails you don't turn around and make them pay their backtaxes. Something like that is very obvious.

Anyways, on to the guest blog, which is very good:


"Stephen Gordon has a great opinion piece in the current issue of Canadian Business. In it he cites research from McMaster University’s Mike Veall revealing that top 0.5% of earners in Canada, those making greater than $250,000 per year, have somehow managed to increase their share of total income from 5.3% to 10.4% between 1982 and 2007. Put simply, this data reveals that the highest wage-earners in Canada have extracted 5.1% of the total income available to all Canadians from lower-wage brackets over the past two and a half decades.

I’m pleased to finally have hard proof that the rich continue to get richer in Canada while the poor and middle classes get poorer. A concept that older generations steadfastly deny is happening, likely because they’ve convinced themselves it couldn’t possibly have happened on their watch.

There have been several books published in the past decade or so talking about how the “rise of the creative class” or the “information technology revolution” has brought balance to the income classes of Western countries. “Experts” have been saying for years that with a certain amount digital savvy combined with an active imagination, anyone from anywhere can earn enough to live comfortably in Canada.

Of course, if you ask the millions of young adults in this country who still can’t afford the luxuries their parents already had at their age, like a home, a car or even a healthy meal every night of the week they’ll almost certainly call bullshit on the “information technology revolution”. Sure, they can operate a personal computer and find useful solutions to problems in the workplace but that doesn’t seem to be rocketing them up the corporate ladder like they were told it would.

The hard truth is that there’s only so much money circulating in any economy, which means there’s only so much money to be made. As long as older generations with old money continue to hoard their wealth, then younger folks won’t be able to increase their own wealth, regardless of how hard they work for it.

Governments will tell us that higher taxes levied on the rich, combined with more social programs for everyone else will ensure we all have access to the bare minimum. Aw shucks, thanks. In reality, the rich will always find clever new ways to evade taxes while taking advantage of social spending meant to assist lower classes.

Our employers will tell us if we work as hard as we can we will eventually be rewarded for it. If by “work hard” they mean day, night and weekend, and if by “reward” they mean our incomes will just barely keep up with inflation and cost of living increases, then this is absolutely true.

We’re only beginning to see a new class system emerging in developed economies. One that resulted from a massive population boom, that not surprisingly, turned public policy and economics in the favour of the greedy majority for as long as they’re alive, and likely even longer. Generations that follow this bubble, who knows how many, will pay for the insatiable appetites of the old and rich for decades to come. Furthermore, they may never gain access to the luxuries that those older generations still maintain they are absolutely entitled to.

My cynicism towards work and money are usually met with suggestions that I’m lazy and ungrateful, which is true, but why would I work my ass off trying to get ahead when it’s become all too obvious that I’ll never get back as much as I put in?"

"no real or imagined relationship with the Canadian people."

Another guest blog from C.

I tend to agree with what he's saying here, mainly because Stephane Dion was my number one sweetheart and I thought it was really sad when he was unseated by Ignatieff and his scary smile. also, I'm pretty sure michael ignatieff is a vampire. But this is besides the point for now.

Read on below for some astute observations on Canadian politics right now:

The Liberal Party of Canada’s insatiable hunger for power is emerging again as party leader Michael Ignatieff dismissed talks of a coalition with the NDP as “absurd”.

One would think, given the successful formation of a coalition government in Britain as well as Harper’s current communications crisis surrounding the lot of “Message Event Proposals” currently circulating through the media, that Ignatieff might just be looking at his best opportunity to unseat the minority Conservatives to date.

Alas, perhaps the only political group more determined than the Conservatives to concentrate power in the PMO is the Liberal party. This was never more apparent than a few years back when Paul Martin, determined to wrestle the leadership from his predecessor Jean Chretien, began slowing eroding loyalty by creating damaging divisions between Liberal party members. It was the infighting that resulted from these efforts that continues to plague the party today, even more so than the fallout from the sponsorship debacle. Too many power-hungry Liberal politicians jockeying for position have created an ideal climate for Stephen Harper’s skilled messaging strategists to pick apart the lowly, aimless Grits.

Even more recently Stephane Dion paid the price for his so-called “lack of leadership” when his party turned on him for exploring an alliance with Elizabeth May and the Green Party. I’ve fully believe all the talk that “Dion was not a leader” actually meant that “Dion was not a politician”, a plainly obvious fact that endeared him to me even more. Never mind that he actually had a platform that he was passionate about and that he was the only true embodiment of Liberal values since Jean Chretien. Unfortunately he didn’t do enough favours for his Liberal colleagues. He didn’t stroke their massive egos enough and he was devoured for it. And with Dion went the Liberals last best effort to unseat Stephen Harper.

As a result, today we have a minority Conservative government slowly but surely imposing right-wing policy on a too-complacent opposition. Examples of this trend continue to pile up. Whether it’s the government’s refusal to take responsibility for misleading the public about torture in Afghanistan (remember when Harper was a glowing beacon of accountability), or when they shit on the arts community and Toronto Pride, or the ongoing saga to abolish the long gun registry, the Conservatives continue to sell themselves as a centrist government while behaving like the reformists they truly are.

What better time to bring together the true centre-left of the Canadian political spectrum to create a proper and effective opposition? The Conservatives continue to manufacture countless opportunities to fuse NDP and Liberal values into strong, truly Canadian policy initiatives that would represent a stark contrast to Conservative policy, or lack thereof. Unfortunately, Michael Ignatieff isn’t willing to concede his delicate and incredibly limited power for the better of the country.

I said I’d never vote for Michael Ignatieff for two reasons: First, he wasn’t elected by his party members but rather elevated to the leadership in what essentially amounted to a coup against Stephane Dion, and secondly he has no real or imagined relationship with the Canadian people. He’s a social elite who lived outside the country for the better part of his adult life. The notion that he is capable or deserves to be Prime Minister of Canada, even in the context of a coalition, is truly absurd.

.

come on conservatives, reign them in already.

edmonton mp peter goldring is in deep shit today for being a complete idiot of epic proportion.

he sent out a pamphlet in december in which he stated he would "set the record straight" on metis leader louis riel.

goldring calls riel, the founder of manitoba and defender of metis culture and rights, a "villain" with blood on his hands. apparently finding out the there was a proposal to build a statue of riel on parliament hill drove goldring off the deep edge because he feels like that would condone "civil disobedience."

well.. yeah. it might. the red river rebellion and the north-west rebellion are legendary and louis riel paid for both with his life. being one of the only sanctioned resistance figures taught in canadian history, louis riel probably sparks a lot of politics in a lot of people and so it follows that his statue could represent some of that. riel also shaped canada's geographical boundaries and helped to protect cultural traditions and histories that makes the prairie regions so unique.

unfortunately for goldring noone is interested in taking his side on this one--especially his own party, the conservatives. the prime minister's office and several colleagues have denounced his stance, which makes him look even more bat shit crazy.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/edmonton/story/2010/02/19/mb-louis-riel-newsletter-villain-manitoba.html#ixzz0g60hbNRV

SSHRC funds earmarked for business related degrees, or, we be fuct

Using the impending economic recession to further the master plan of making the University a factory for pumping out business people and science research for corporations? Best idea ever!
On January 27th, the Conservatives unveiled their budget, in which they have apparently decided to redefine "Social Sciences and Humanities."

In "Further Developing a Highly Skilled Workforce," the budget outline indicates that starting in 2009-2010 an additional $87.5 million (over three years) will be provided to federal granting councils. $35million (80%) will go to the NSERC (National Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada) and CIHR (Canadian Institute of Health Research) while $17.5 million (20%) will be allocated to SSHRC(Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council).

At first sight this seems amazing: it is the equivalent of an addition 500 doctoral scholarships which are valued at $35,000 each, as well as an additional 1,000 master's scholarships valued at $17, 500.

Whaaaaat? The Conservatives are going to throw some of that change at us humanities and social sciences students? holla!

Hold up, and read a little further before you start planning to apply and obtain a SSHRC to buy 'textbooks' or 'groceries,' and to be able to complete your PhD

"Scholarships granted by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council will be focused on business-related degrees."

.....

What? "Business-Related"? Actually, they just mean business.

This is only the most recent in a series of steps towards the corporatization of academia-not a new process- but one which seems to have been accelerated in light of economic instability.

As though the integrity of the University hasn't suffered enough with casualization of labour across the boards, the consistent and systematic cut backs in wages and benefits for those who do the majority of the teaching within the University, and the undermining of the right to strike with the recent back-to-work legislation at York University(which redefined Teaching Assistants, Contract Faculty, and Graduate Assistants as "essential services" and forced them back to work approximately a week before the University Administration would have been obligated to give students a refund for the 85 days they were out of school - a decision that the Administration made when they decided to cancel classes during the strike rather than allowing them to proceed)

This is a huge blow to the already underfunding and highly unsupported humanities and social sciences. What's worse is that while the public and media at large felt entitled to comment on the strike situation at York University ad nauseum, this proposal to steal funding from the arts and put it into a field already flush with cash is being completely ignored.

Teachers and students who care about the quality of education they provide and about job security for those who will come after them get called down in the media as lazy and greedy, as robbing students and holding them hostage, as lucky even to have jobs in the first place.

The government is allocating funds to degrees that do not need those funds. The Conservative government is turning their backs on research that that won't line their, and their friends, pockets, and it is robbing future social sciences and humanities students.

During her acceptance of her Governor General's Award for Poetry, Jan Zwicky commented that:

"It is notable that evidence of bad judgement in the area of military expenditure produces the odd sign and shake of the head but no demand that each and every military project be explained to the disgruntled. Even more interesting is the fact that tax-supported subsidies to hugely wealthy transnational corporations rarely raise an eyebrow, even when those subsidies are used to deplete permanently our resource base or to underwrite industries we know create harmful pollution. Why are we often more critical of state support for the arts than of state support for corporate projects we know are bad for us?

...One of the reasons I think we are sometimes critical of support for the arts is that art ... can make us uncomfortably aware that economically expedient answers may not always be true....Art can challenge us in this way because, as Plato understood, it connects us as thinking beings to our bodies and emotions, and so forces us to acknowledge truths that are not easily represented in an economic calculus ...When we engage with it, we are forced to reflect on the degree of our own integrity, and in so doing, we may be led to see that we must change our lives"

Zwicky thanks Canadians for supporting the arts in general, saying that "the meaning of that support extends far beyond honour to an individual or individual work. It is, I believe, a symptom of our moral and political health. It signals our willingness to question the universal validity of rationalizations that appeal only to the bottom line, and celebrates our interest in the flourishing of individual conscience."(http://ring.uvic.ca/99dec10/view2.html)

Funding Humanities and Social Sciences is crucial not in spite of economic instablity but because of the kinds of economic problems we are experiencing. Developing a "highly skilled workforce" means that there is a wealth of diversity in terms of skills and it shouldn't require a narrowing of skills that are valued to those that are business-related. These kind of narrowing has not only been an integral factor in the lead up to the recession but will almost certainly contribute to its worsening.

what can you do?
sign a petition, of course:

http://nikiashton.ndp.ca/node/62

or, if you're not lazy you could go ahead and write to the people making these decisions.

our illustrious and doughy leader, Prime Minister Stephen Harper
Harper.S@parl.gc.ca


Minister of Industry(The governing Council of SSHRC reports to the Parliament through the Minister of Industry)
Honourable Tony Clement

Minister of Canadian Heritage
Hon. James Moore
Moore.J@parl.gc.ca

Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff:
Ignatieff.M@parl.gc.ca
Critics--
Industry-- Marc Garneau
Garneau.M@parl.gc.ca
Youth--Ruby Dhalla
DhallR@parl.gc.ca

NDP Leader Jack Layton:
Layton.J@parl.gc.ca
Critic--
Post-secondary education-- Niki Ashton
Ashton.N@parl.gc.ca

Bloc Québécois Leader Gilles Duceppe:
Duceppe.G@parl.gc.ca
Critics
Industry-- Robert Bouchard
bouchr1@parl.gc.ca
Youth-- Nicholas Dufour
dufouN1@parl.gc.ca
(etudiants quebecois, ecrivez-les en francais, svp.)

President Chad Gaffield
SSHRC
350 Albert Street
Box 1610
Ottawa, ON
K1P 6G4
chad.gaffield@sshrc.ca

Student federations:

Fédération étudiante universitaire du Québec (FEUQ): feuq@feuq.qc.ca
Association pour une solidarité syndicale étudiante: executif(à)asse-solidarite.qc.ca
Canadian Federation of Students: web@cfs-fcee.ca

National media such as the Globe and Mail, the National Post, Southam papers, CBC, CTV, and Global, can all be contacted via their websites.