Grannie Alma's Rage Page

Easter. Resurrection. Death. What a tragic confluence for the families of those killed in Afghanistan on Easter Sunday. All death is tragic; all loss is a heavy burden. But this loss, at this time, is especially poignant. And it need not have been.

Again, Canadians must ask: Why are we in Afghanistan? Why are young Canadians paying with their lives, their bodies and their mental health for a pointless war we were dragged into to fit a political agenda? Why are Canadian and Afghan families continually paying the emotional cost of this unnecessary war?

Why is Canada being reshaped into a militaristic nation that glorifies the savagery of war with its attendant civilian casualties? Why have we abandoned our honourable role as peacekeepers who might bring some calm to a tragedy such as Darfur, and opted instead for a role as aggressors and occupiers?

Why is a parallel being drawn between Vimy and Afghanistan? The First World War and this war in Afghanistan were both pointless and avoidable. We cannot change the past, but we need not repeat it.

Let us indeed honour those young Canadians who died in the tragedy of Vimy; let us also honour those young Canadians being killed in Afghanistan. The heroes of Vimy can only be honoured in their death; we can honour today's troops by bringing them home alive.

Let us use these committed and courageous Canadians in ways that uphold Canada's proud and honourable tradition of rejecting war as the only solution.

Alma Norman,

Ottawa

Today's paper proclaims that Libs and Cons blast Layton for his "fearmongering" over StarWars. Ministers Graham and Pratt both take great pains to reassure Canadians that this proposal will NOT lead to the weaponization of space, and if it does it is "not something we will be part of."

But there are documents which show that weaponization of space is precisely what the US has in mind. Are Ministers Pratt and Graham really so naive as to think that the government which lied about WMD in Iraq because it was determined to go to war is now telling them the truth about BMD?

Do they really believe that anything Canada might say will be taken seriously - if listened to at all? Do they really want Canada to be drawn more deeply into US foreign adventures including the next preventive war?
Let's be clear that the tail of the dog never decides where it goes.

Well, not really quiet as our voices are loud and clear. We've been like termites digging away at rotten structures:

Singing with the Lubicons as they walked for Justice on Parliament Hill - no surprise that the Grannies were the only non-Native group taking part.

Singing for the homeless who were sheltering under the Terry Fox overpass this summer. Two of our Grannies who spent a night under the bridge with them realized for themselves how uncomfortable, noisy and disruptive the experience is. Imagine having to walk several blocks to a 24 hour McD to find a toilet. And some Grannies need this pretty frequently!

Imagine competing with the noise and lights of the street cleaning vehicles as you try to find a more comfortable spot on the concrete. Imagine living in the same clothes for days at a time. Imagine being homeless.

Here's what one of the Grannies wrote for her Synagogue Bulletin after that experience:

At least 12,000 people here in Ottawa lack affordable housing. As winter approaches, hundreds will somehow survive on our cold streets, sheltering under bridges, over heat vents, or in inhospitable doorways. Others will sleep on vinyl mattresses in noisy, often dangerous hostels or shelters, hoping they won't be attacked or robbed. Others, mainly families with children will share a hotel room with another family. These children will go to school hungry, tired, emotionally disturbed

Other families live in decrepit apartments which they too often have to leave, either because they cannot pay the rent - having perhaps lost their minimum wage job , or because the landlord wants to demolish the building and replace it with higher rent units. Children of such families often have a record of spotty school attendance, moving as they too often do from district to district.

In all such cases, the crowded conditions and financial uncertainties lead too often to domestic violence, to alcoholism, and to other forms of abuse. Not surprisingly, these children will often be too tired or hungry or emotionally upset to learn. In too many of these instances, children do poorly at school, or dropout without finishing, and end up on the streets.

The problem of homelessness is a social problem which affects us all. People do not CHOOSE to live on dirty mattresses under the Terry Fox bridge; they do not CHOOSE to sleep under a piece of plastic in a doorway, having to sneak into the Rideau Centre or some other place that might be open to use a toilet. Most homeless people - not all - are homeless for reasons beyond their control: they have emotional or mental problems; they left abusive situations; or they can't live on whatever income they have.

One of the MAJOR causes of homelessness is the decision to put people with mental/ emotional problems on the street WITHOUT
SUFFICIENT SUPPORT SYSTEMS. They need and deserve decent housing, and many of them also need emotional support and life skills help. They do NOT need people to hold their noses in disgust and wish they would just disappear.

We followed this up with a visit to City Hall in support of National Housing Day, where we marched the corridors of power leaving info sheets for the mayor and councilors as we sang. Most politicians weren't there unfortunately, but the media was, and their office staff, so our presence - and message - was well noted.

Unfortunately both of these took place on the same date, so our small group divided as some Grannies couldn't go to both. Not surprisingly we were a hit in both events.

These took place just prior to the Municipal elections, so we took the opportunity to share our VOTE SONG with the Social Workers:

Now this was a fun event. Along with several other groups we visited CSIS barricaded stronghold, which we marched around singing, There were wonderful costumes and skits, including ours, which involved a starring role for our papier mache Matilda, being pushed along in a stroller by a CSIS agent who'd captured her. ( Poor Matilda is a bit clumsy and couldn't get away fast enough.), When we examined her to see what they'd done we found she'd be infected a with long tapeworm bearing the names of "terrorists" and other dangers, like security certificates. Anyway, we rescued her, singing our CSIS WARNING SONG and BRING ON THE CLOWNS, as we spirited her away. We'd co-opted a young protester to act as the CSIS agent, who did a superb job (gosh, maybe he's a REAL CSIS agent! Omigosh.)

It seems that CSIS had told everyone to stay home that day so there was no one at the Fortress except us Grannies and other shit disturbers, and more police than protesters. Not a big demo, but worth doing and loads of fun. Sometimes ridicule is the best tool.

This was one of those fun events because we were singing to young people who are the future of Protest and Dissent. We sang 10 songs, divided into roughly 5 categories with a different Gran introducing each category: Historical background of Grannies, Peace, Environment, Health, Civil liberty and Dissent -ending with a perennial song favourite "The F WORD".

The questions afterwards were wonderful - very thoughtful and encouraging -Grannies in the making!

I would like to put another perspective on the Homeless protest featured in the CITY section on Saturday under the heading PROTEST SCARES TOURISTS.

I am an elderly middle class woman who spent last Wednesday night with those Homeless people in order to see the situation for myself. I saw NO violence or drugs or aggressiveness, except from the two policemen who came down at about 9:30 and harrassed both the organizer, Jane Scharf, and some of the homeless people who were peacefully lying or sitting around. They roughed up and arrested a harmless old drunk, and when I remarked that this seemed like harassment to me, turned on me for criticizing how they were acting.
Fortunately there was merely a battle of eyeball to eyeball and the aggressive young policeman blinked first. Except for that incident I never, throughout the entire night, felt threatened or frightened by the people who sleep under that ramp.

Yes, the site is untidy; there are sleeping bags and sleeping mats scattered about. And yes, the street people are often unkempt. This is what happens when there is a lack of affordable housing with proper toilet and laundry facilities, and people have to sleep wherever they can find space.

I have no doubt the tourists would prefer not to see the homeless. So would I. The solution surely is not to hide the homeless where they can't be seen, but to end homelessness, by dealing with the issue of affordable
housing. As one young man said to me, "If I work for minimum wage I don't earn enough to pay for a place to live."

What should embarrass us is not that the homeless among us are visible, but the fact that our wealthy society condones homelessness. Surely Decent Affordable Housing is everyone's right.

Excerpt from Jack Layton’s speech to the Federation of Canadian Municipalities
Winnipeg, May 30, 2003 - 4 Jun 03
from NDP website

Paul Martin acted on tax cuts…in fact, they cut corporate and income taxes by $100 billion in 2000. To put that into perspective, they could have solved the entire infrastructure deficit and had $43 billion left over. And he acted fast on housing…he abolished the national housing program in a blink of an eye…and seven years later, finally cut a multi-year cheque for $680 million.

This from the guy who said trust me, once the deficit thing is solved, then we’ll start building a country again.
Trust me, he said, I don’t want to make the most draconian cuts in Canadian history. But trust me, he said, when we fix this thing, then we’ll be that much more able to do the things we really want to do.

Fact: After the deficit was gone, Paul Martin spent less on communities than when he started cutting.
Fact: After the deficit was gone, Paul Martin spent less on Medicare than when he started cutting.
Fact: Less on the environment. Less on education. Less on housing.

Trust me, he said, as he listened to the Alliance on tax cuts – instead of the people in this room on communities…trust me. And now he’s saying it again.

Trust me, I care about cities. Trust me, I’ve got ideas. Trust me, I’ve changed, I’m not the man I was…and that $450 million that municipalities pay Ottawa in GST every year?, well, oops, too bad you trusted me on that one.

Just yesterday, he asked you to trust him…that he would give some of the gas tax to municipalities. Let’s remember what happened the last time Paul Martin made a promise on the gas tax.

In 1995, Paul Martin increased the gas tax by 1.5 cents. He says he didn’t want to…but that the deficit made him do it. But he said it was temporary, and that as soon as the deficit was gone, the tax would come off. Well, it’s still there, and none of it goes to municipalities.

He may have found his road to Damascus, but you’re still paying to pave it.

Why, for instance, did he come out against a multi-year infrastructure program? He did, you know. Said Ottawa couldn’t commit itself to five-year funding programs. Trust me, he says, I know best. This is a man who has never built a sewer, never built a transit line, never built an affordable home. Paul Martin only knows how to tear down.

He did not say Ottawa couldn’t commit itself to multi-year targets when it was cutting provincial transfers …didn’t say it when he was cutting taxes…but when it comes to building a country, suddenly, Paul Martin says multi-year funding won’t work.

The last federal budget was a slap in the face to communities. Far from investing more, communities will receive less when the budget is fully implemented than you do today.

At the rate of investment in the budget, the infrastructure deficit will be paid off in 190 years.

To illustrate just how bad the budget is, if each community received an equal share, Toronto could build 25 centimeters of subway. They could pave eight meters of Davie Street in Vancouver…or pay for 0.017% of the Halifax harbour clean up.

If the entire amount was spent on only on clean water, Winnipeg could have bought its new water plant. Too bad for every other community here.

No wonder communities are tired…tired of patronizing attitudes from “higher” levels of government that know best. Tired of watching the rest of the world innovate while we stagnate.

I’m sure Mayor Murray has told you about the refurbishing of Winnipeg’s pride – the Golden Boy that sits on top of Manitoba’s Legislative Building. But as one golden boy regains his shine, another is losing his.

I’ve been building communities for 20 years, and if you want to talk about an urban agenda, be my guest.
If you want to engage in a real debate on cities, come on in.
If you want to fight the next election on how to make life better for people who call communities home, bring it on.

Because this isn’t a Liberal leadership coronation where puff passes as policy. This is the defining issue of our time – and I have some ideas of my own.

Cities and communities are not a box to be checked off as politicians do the “vision thing”…they’re central to how we build the country we want…they are, quite simply, where the social, economic and environmental solutions we seek take root.

Grannies and Criminal "Justice"
By Alma Norman
Ottawa Raging Grannies
June 2003

The account by a young activist who was jailed for her part in the CANSEC protest, and whose case was later dismissed, has reawakened my concern that Grannies should be more actively involved in the move to improve our system of criminal "justice" The word "justify" would be so apt, if it didn't have another connotation.

I'm quoting below some pertinent comments from Angela's letter, with her permission:

"On April 10th of this year I received three criminal charges for sitting in front of an Ottawa Congress Center door distributing pamphlets to anyone who tried to enter. The center was hosting a Weapons of Minimal and Mass Destruction fair called CANSEC and our pamphlets were about the real impact of Canada's profitable $5-billion-a-year war industry and what those weapons are used for.

"It turns out that there was no case against my three co-accused and myself, and the three charges were finally withdrawn at my pre-trial just last Thursday. I could have told them they had no case against me at about 10:05 am on April 10th or at any of the other three times I had to appear in court on this matter. Word in the courtroom at my pre-trial was that it was the arresting officers' 'higher-ups' who ordered our charges. Even the Crown attorney seemed a little dismayed. While we were waiting for the judges return, the Crown stated in a level audible two rows back that "This is a case when the officer had more common sense than his superiors". I would argue about the 'common sense' of the officer who charged me, but at least now I don't feel like a conspiracy theorist when I tell people that we were targeted for a punitive arrest.

"I know it doesn't make it all go away for my co-accused, especially one who lost his school placement over it, but we are all pretty happy and were doing a dance outside of the court room. We had been charged with mischief under five thousand, obstructing a peace officer and unlawful assembly.

"So now I guess I'll have to find a creative purpose for my 26 hours in jail, 23 shivering in a freezing cell filled with crusty fecal matter, with puke on the wall and with the last 'tenants' used tampons. The paddy wagon will make me forever more sympathetic to why my cats hate their cat carrier – although I hope it's nothing like the feeling of being shackled to a nauseous stranger in a tiny, pitch dark, tin box while waiting for transport.

"I hope this means that I can be more effective in pre-action preparation and post-action support. It also reinforced that I'm lucky enough to be part of this wonderful community of friends, activists, a lawyer, a cat sitter, and … OK, this is not the Oscars. I'll leave it simply that I'm lucky to be so heavily supported by other activists and I never felt like I was alone, even in jail. Which brings me to the useful part of it all on a personal level.

"There were other women in the jail. One was a friendly woman who was basically picked up for prostitution. She had very old scars on her face. She had been trying to make $40 for food. She said she had a craving for chicken wings and pizza. She had no support. The other woman was panicked that her stuff was in a hotel room and she had no one to call to get it out before the manager took it. The police taunted her in particular. She had successfully charged a police officer with assault and is now picked up on a regular basis. She does not make long term plans, like renting an apartment. She returned to Ottawa where her mother and son live near by, but even one guard advised her to move away again and change her name. And it was true, we walked together shackled and each guard knew her by name and gloated at her capture as she walked by them. She is apparently an alcoholic and the police claim they saw in the market drunk. She claims it was a lie and demanded a test. I could hear her being processed and could not tell if she was drunk or not – which asks questions about why she was picked up on sight. It didn't matter though. They found drug-use equipment, but not until they were going through her stuff, and at the police station. I could hear the jubilation upon the discovery.

"I also met a very young woman who was eight and a half months pregnant. I'm a vegetarian. Vegan actually. I had been given, and eaten the ham sandwich on Wonder bread. I was grumbling the whole time about it to myself, but sure the pig would understand. I particularly hate ham as I had a traumatizing experience as a child with a dead pig. I asked this pregnant woman, who had been in custody for a month, if she was given more food. She said yes in a cheery voice. She was given two sandwiches a meal. I didn't ask if she got more than powdered Tang to drink. (In the detention center there are no longer term prison programs, even though people are held there for some time before they are found guilty or innocent in a trial.) She had been in there because it took a month to get her released to wait for her court/trial date. I never asked the question 'what are you charged with' or why she had not simply been released to wait for trial after her arrest. It seemed just rude and I wasn't curious. What could make our society feel that it was better for her child to be under-nourished and her, eight and a half month pregnant, to sleep on a metal bench under fluorescent lights. I wondered if anyone who she knew or loved was working as hard to get her out.

"I had been counting down the hours, and knew that I could do 24 if I rode it out and tried to stay warm. I knew that if I was held too long, there was a community of activists behind me that would scream. Our supporters' presence was definitely felt and complained about by the police officers who 'hated f#@*ing protesters', but just laughed at by others who came to tell us that our friends were having a barbeque without us. I said they would be there in the morning – and there they were.

"I hope that the sex-trade worker with the scars, the woman battling alcoholism, and the young mother and child are doing well. I can't imagine how their time in prison helped society or their personal battles. I'll have to be careful to make sure mine was put to good use. Angela Pinchero"

There is a move in Canada and elsewhere to introduce another approach, which is called "Restorative" or "Transformative" justice, which is based to a great extent upon the traditional aboriginal approach to dealing with wrongdoers. Unfortunately it hasn't received a great deal of interest or support from the community at large and has been largely ignored even by such groups as the Grannies. My hope is that we will begin to realize that our concerns over Poverty, Homelessness, Racism, Family Violence, and Health Care are inextricably linked to our criminal justice system, which is unequally experienced by the "outsiders" in our community - the poor, the homeless, the mentally ill, the minorities - and that reform of that system should be an important ongoing issue for Grannies.

If you're interested in a more detailed discussion around this issue, you can find it in an article entitled "Tzedek Tzedek Tirdof" which I wrote after some years of visiting inmates in the Prison for Women (P4W) in Kingston - click here for Part I of the article; click here for Part II. The title, quoted from the Hebrew Bible, means "Justice, Justice You Shall Pursue", but the article itself is in English and, although written for a Jewish audience, deals with the issue in very general terms.

If anyone would like to discuss the issue or the article in more detail, please e-mail me.

Paul Martin frightens me. It’s not because he’s a Libcon – we’ve had a LibCon government for the past 10 years. But it was at least a CANADIAN Libcon. Paul Martin sounds increasingly like the Voice of America. How clever of those manipulators in Washington to get a candidate for Prime Minister of Canada to put forward their policies.

Paul Martin is staking his claim for the job on his willingness to involve Canada ever more deeply in US foreign policy and military adventures. He’s willing to jettison Canada’s proud and honourable history of seeking international cooperation and peaceful resolution of conflict in order to get a lift on the American military bandwagon. When the US starts its next war can we expect to see Canadian soldiers under Paul’s followership, part of the invasion forces to enhance the power and glory of America the Beautiful? He’s willing to by pass the United Nations, because the US doesn’t like it; he’s willing to involve Canada in the deadly game of Star Wars, which will allow the US to dominate space.

We know Paul is not stupid, So he is either terribly naïve and really believes that the US administration which is run by the Pentagon does NOT mean to militarise space - OR - he has so little faith and trust in Canada’s courage to stand by its own values that he’s prepared to be blackmailed into supporting a programme that is disastrous for the world and lethal to Canadian sovereignty.

Oh for a leader with vision, and faith in Canada, who sees us taking the lead in a process to ban weapons in space. Oh for a leader who will see Canada once again as a respected and self respecting member of a WORLD community.

INSULT TO FIRST NATIONS PEOPLE
The editor
THE CITIZEN
April 28, 2003

On Monday April 28 about 1500 First Nations people from across Canada came to Ottawa for a rally on Parliament Hill. The Purpose: to protest Minister Nault’s new Bill to replace the Indian Act. Speaker after speaker explained why this proposed legislation was unacceptable to Native people. But unfortunately it seems that no one from the CITIZEN was there to hear them.

Not only is this disinterest by the media an insult to the First Nations people who came to Ottawa to exercise their democratic right to protest, it is also a sad commentary on the priorities of our so-called "local" paper. What a pity that this local paper didn’t think it important enough to photograph and report on an event which took place right here in the centre of Ottawa.

Am I being cynical in wondering if the indifference is due to the fact that the protesters were First Nations demanding justice in their own country? Just a reminder that this whole event took place on Algonquin Land.

So Canada will join in a US attack only if the UN backs it. Well, well. How naïve can we get. What does UN backing really mean?

Most UN members are small, desperately poor countries in need of enormous financial help to deal with even a few of their problems. Buying votes has a long and dishonourable history; why should we assume the tactic will not be used in this instance? The US has enormous wealth which might just be able to help in exchange for a vote. So, votes are bought and Democracy wins ????

So, the UN supports the US attack. Poor countries hope ( and probably wait) for their payment. Canada trots along too (Blackmail maybe ?) And the Iraqi people???? Well, too bad about them.

After all, when money talks, you better listen, especially when it’s backed by bombers, missiles, and the latest and best in the technology of destruction.

NO WAR is by far the simplest, most economical and planet saving solution. How about using that vote buying money for what is really needed: clean water, basic education, public health, food for the starving.
Let’s GIVE PEACE A CHANCE.’