A Letter to the Prime Minister

Dear Mr. Harper/ Ms Finley:

Polls consistently show that the majority of Canadians want the American war resisters to be allowed to remain in Canada. As you are well aware, a majority in the House of Commons also voted to allow the war resisters to stay.

Mr. Harper, did you not once state (on April 13, 2005), in the House of Commons, "The Prime Minister has the moral responsibility to respect the will of the House"?

As a Canadian, the very least I expect is that my own Prime Minister respect the concept of democracy. That means you have a moral obligation to implement the House of Commons motion to allow the war resisters to stay in Canada, and also to stop the deportation of war resister Corey Glass on July 10.

Three days remain until war resister Corey Glass is to be deported.
Phone or email Prime Minister Stephen Harper (613.992.4211, pm@pm.gc.ca) and Minister of Citizenship and Immigration Diane Finley (613.996.4974, finley.d@parl.gc.ca, finled1@parl.gc.ca).

On Tipping, and Workers' Rights

As one of my first jobs, I bussed tables at a busy restaurant downtown. Although never a server myself, I worked closely with the servers, and as part of the payment structure of this particular restaurant, received a cut of the servers' tips, which - during a lunch rush with seven servers - was often substantial. In Ontario, restaurant servers can be paid below minimum wage because they receive tips to supplement their income. At restaurants that are expensive and/or busy, servers can make a great deal of money.

Working in foodservice, I became acquainted with advantages and disadvantages of this system, including: the injustice of diners who don't tip fairly (either because they are stingy or because they may be from countries where restaurant servers are not tipped); the use of tips to show appreciation or displeasure; and servers who are rude to customers and wonder why they earn less than their coworkers. (An aside: I've read that Americans think Canadians are lousy tippers. But where I worked - in Eaton Centre, where a large part of the clientele are tourists - servers regarded the American tourists as lousy tippers. Maybe it's a problem with tourists in general?)

Recently, I met friends for dinner and drinks on a patio at a pub. The place wasn't full, but it was busy with a large party inside. Our server was polite and amiable, but... absent. Throughout the night, we had to flag him down for every request or refill; he was completely cooperative, but not attentive. He did the bare minimum; at no time did he check in to see how we were, ask how our food was, or find out if we wanted anything else.

A little background here: all five of us are socialists, and are well aware of the struggle for workers' rights. Many socialists will support workers' rights unconditionally. So at the end of the night, when I suggested an adequate but not generous tip, one of my friends pointed out that restaurant servers are underpaid, and that the tip should not be contingent on the quality of service. I was caught off guard by this view, but becoming involved in activism in general has taught me to challenge and question the same old opinions I have held for many years. Should servers be given a standard tip, regardless of how they perform their duties?

Pro
• Consider other professions: lawyers, doctors, teachers, non-commissioned sales people, plumbers, and construction workers, to name a few. All are paid a standard salary - some with performance-based perks (as a private school teacher, I received some pretty nice gifts at xmas and year-end). But none are dependent, daily, on their customers' - or anyone else's - behaviour, for their pay. Why should restaurant work be any different?
• Servers' tips are frequently divided, with shares going to other employees who don't have contact with the customers. Should cooks or dishwashers be punished because the server might be incompetent?
• Should a worker in a shitty job in a shitty workplace be punished for being unable to smile? The right-wing viewpoint that anyone in capitalist society can climb to the top doesn't jibe with the reality of the worker living below the poverty line (often an immigrant, or a single mother - or both) who works two or three jobs to make ends meet, and doesn't have the time or resources to hit the pavement to find something better.

Con
• There is a class of worker - typically actors or college students - who may also need their money for basic living expenses, but who come in with certain expectations and perhaps a sense of entitlement as to what they "deserve" out of life. This is a gross generalization, but what I refer to is the type of person who can easily look for a different line of work if need be. They are not desperate to make ends meet, and often their income is blown on luxuries. A number of people I've worked with spent much of their disposable income on recreational drugs. It is often this type who seem to think the tip at the end of the meal is mandatory, rather than voluntary. That very attitude is something that gets my back up, and leaves me struggling to decide how much to pay at the end of the meal.
• The system is imperfect, but so are many of our society's structures. Those who take on a job as a restaurant server know at the outset what the payment system entails, and have to realize that the gratuity portion of their income is never guaranteed.
• If every customer paid a full 15% to every server, regardless of quality of service, it would remove any incentive for servers to do their jobs well.

Back to the case of my recent pub night: it could be that management erred by not ensuring enough staff were on duty, in which case it is the management that should be blamed for poor service, and not the servers. (It seemed to me that the restaurant was well staffed.) But a short-staffing situation can be partly rectified if the server explains the situation to the customer, which I have witnessed on occasion, and a warning to the customer can be very good PR: it sets up the customer's expectations in advance, calls attention a difficult situation, and prevents the build-up of resentment through the stay.

This past weekend, we had an annual Pride pub meet (at the same pub every year). The place is always busy on Pride Saturday, and there is never enough staff. Yet a friend commented on the fact that he has noticed how the staff are always cheerful despite conditions, and the service is always more than adequate. In addition to being gay-friendly, they are always efficient and more than accommodating to help us squeeze a large group onto their busy front patio. For this kind of service, I am always happy to tip generously. Shouldn't there be a distinction for this kind of service?

In thinking this through over the last week or so, what I realize is that there are two situations: the underpaid worker who needs the tips for actual survival, vs. the young, able-bodied person who seeks a server position with the specific intent to earn part of their income tax-free, and is not willing to adjust behaviour to the often heavy demands of such a job. It's not that hard to recognize the distinction between the two. I already make a point of generously tipping the former in most cases, although I'd still have trouble leaving a full tip if the service were really nasty. In the case of the latter, though, I am not convinced that anyone deserves to be given the free "pass go and collect $200" card.

I don't think we should follow tradition for its own sake. In an imperfect system, I think I've settled on a happy medium. But I'm open to other ideas...

Day of Action: July 2

The majority of Canadians support the Iraq war resisters' bid to stay in Canada. The majority in parliament voted to allow them to stay. Yet Stephen Harper has not moved to implement the motion. Doesn't he believe in democracy?

It was our actions - phone calls to Stephane Dion and Liberal MPs - which finally got the Liberals onside in this fight, which led to the victory in the House of Commons. Now, we need to do the same with Harper and the Conservatives. And the clock is ticking: Corey Glass is scheduled to be deported on July 10th, unless we can move the Conservatives to act.

I made my first phone call to Stephane Dion during the earlier campaign, and was surprised at how easy it was. Someone took my comments and said they would be passed on. They didn't ask me for any personal information. The call was over in about a minute.

On July 2, please call! It can make all the difference. Tell them to:
• stop deportation proceedings against Corey Glass and all US Iraq war resisters, and
• implement the motion adopted by Parliament to allow US Iraq war resisters to apply for permanent resident status.

Minister of Citizenship and Immigration Diane Finley:
• Ottawa office 613.996.4974
• constituency office 519.426.3400
• minister@cic.gc.ca
• finled1@parl.gc.ca

(Thanks to Laura at wmtc for the information.)

Introducing John McCain

For those of you like me - for whom any tv appearance by American Republican politicians necessitates changing of the channel to anything else (even desert-island reality tv) - you may not have listened closely to John McCain. One thing is certain: if McCain gets into the white house, depite the damage he'll do, he will provide us with four more years of Bush-style amusement. Take a look here (it's just over 3 minutes), and in particular, note his comments about the economy in the second half.




Yike.

Happy Pride!

As Pride Week begins in Toronto, I have to comment on a recent incident in the music world. Last week, at a concert in Norway, a spectator threw a shoe at Queens of the Stone Age frontman Josh Homme (is that really his name?). He responded by calling the spectator a "chicken shit fucking faggot". After news media labelled him "homophobic", he released a statement which the media referred to as an "apology", but which in reality is anything but. In his words:

"My gay family & friends, as well as myself, KNOW I am not a homophobe. For years now I've known gay is not a choice; one's skin color doesn't determine one's intelligence level; & red hair doesn't mean you're someone's stepchild. You see, it's not the words, it's their intent. I never said, nor suggested, that being gay is wrong, but apparently, based on your outrage to my flu-infused rant, you do!"

Blaming illness, he launched this rambling rant (the above is just a short sample) against the critics who called him "homophobic". He also plays the "I have gay friends" card, and attributes the criticisms to being PC, implying that on this basis, the entire issue can and should be dismissed.

The thing is, the key to the problem is right in his statement: "it's not the words, it's their intent". Homme intended to insult and degrade the spectator, and he used the word "faggot" to do so. When you use a derogatory term like "faggot", you derogate the people it refers to, and for no reason other than that they are gay. The implications of the word do not vanish simply because you say you mean well, or because you have friends who are gay.

Homme says all the right things - that being gay is not a choice, that being gay is not wrong, and that it is genetic (something we are all increasingly aware of - see the latest news about the study of brain symmetry in gay men and straight women). And I do accept that he is not to be lumped into the category of men who physically attack gays. But his words indicate a disconnect - one that his gay friends would do well to note.

The gay community long ago took ownership of the word "faggot", in retaliation for its use as a slur. Gays can use the term without negative connotation, and sometimes with affection. Straights with close ties to the gay community can sometimes use the word in the same sense, but its use in this sense can be easily misunderstood and should be done with extreme caution.

The sad thing here is that Homme is concerned only with attacking his critics, instead of dealing with the people who have been offended - some of whom are undoubtedly his fans. Would it have killed the guy to have simply acknowledged that he had hurt some people, and to have said he was sorry?

And for those who are still unsure: if he had used the word "nigger", we wouldn't even be bothering to have this debate.

Have a good Pride Week.

Creating Terrorism

Canada's current, sensational "Paintball 18" case of alleged terrorism continues to look more and more like the Project Thread fiasco (outlined in my previous post). It looks less like a (gasp) sleeper cell every day, and more like an excuse to create headlines.

Police mole paints altered picture at terror trial
Crown will have a tough time arguing campers were serious threat

June 17, 2008
Thomas Walkom
Toronto Star

Alter the perspective and everything changes. In the first full-fledged trial coming out of the case of the Toronto 18, the Crown is arguing that a youth (who cannot be named) participated in a "shocking and sensational" terrorist plot "to cause harm and death by attacking innocent lives."

But in a Brampton courtroom yesterday, RCMP informer Mubin Shaikh – the government's star witness – acknowledged that while this particular youth may have been an unsuccessful shoplifter (he was caught – twice), he knew nothing about alleged schemes to blow up buildings or behead politicians.

Rather, Shaikh said, he knew the young man as a quiet, shy, considerate teenager – a recent convert to Islam – who wanted to please the alleged ringleaders of the alleged plot but who, in the main, was just trying to fit in.

And he described the antics of those attending a Washago training camp as a comedy of errors, where the alleged jihadis melted holes in the soles of their running shoes, locked one vehicle's keys in the car, almost set a sleeping bag on fire and – instead of keeping a low profile – did doughnuts in a Canadian Tire parking lot.

This is the same Mubin Shaikh who said last week that this alleged training camp was actually quite serious and not just an exercise in "picking daisies."

But that was when he was being questioned by Crown prosecutor John Neander.

Yesterday, under questioning from defence lawyer Mitchell Chernovsky, Shaikh agreed that, really, nothing much happened during the December 2005 camping trip.

He said a recorded lecture on jihad played to the group of teens and young men was so boring that some dozed off.

He said the so-called military training consisted of getting the campers to march up and down a road to keep warm.

He said that when an illegal handgun was used for target practice, the youthful campers were "freaked out" by the noise.

He agreed that the campers wore camouflage outfits mainly to protect their clothes during paintball games.

Last week, Shaikh testified that one of the alleged ringleaders gave a long allegorical speech in which he spoke of the need for Muslims to bring down "Rome" – which the RCMP informer said was a reference to the U.S.

Yesterday, Shaikh acknowledged that many of those present – including the person now on trial – wouldn't have a had a clue what the speech meant.

And he summed up the Washago adventure with these words: "Nobody knew what they were doing ... Idiocy seemed to be a constant theme."

For the man on trial, now 20, this may be crucial evidence.

The Crown argues that his actions, including shoplifting, were part of a conscious effort to support terrorism.

But Shaikh described the youth as someone who was never told anything about anything and who was valued by the so-called ringleaders mainly because he worked hard.

By way of contrast, Shaikh has maintained that the ringleaders themselves were trying, in their own inept way, to concoct a dangerous plot.

That theory will be tested when the remaining 10 adults who still face charges come to trial – probably some time next year.

But when that does happen the Crown may find it difficult to argue that an enterprise described in part by their own star witness yesterday as "idiocy" represented a serious terrorist threat.

Terrorism in Canada: A Primer (Part 1)

In August 2003, 24 Muslim men in Toronto were arrested by Canadian law enforcement in a joint RCMP/CIC operation dubbed "Project Thread". The police alleged that the men, all students of the Ottawa Business School (actually in Scarborough, a Toronto suburb), were linked by a common "thread", hence the not-so-clever name (not so clever, as the "thread" would quickly unravel).

News media in Canada and around the world quickly trumpeted the story. Terrorism in Canada! The police had a "van load" of evidence, confiscated from the accused men's premises. The men would surely be found guilty. The evidence was solid, we were told.

I was dismayed. Was this really happening in my beloved country? Apparently so, as much as I wanted to deny it. So I reluctantly resigned myself to the fact that we appeared to be entering a scary new era.

But unlike some of my friends, coworkers, and acquaintances, I was not ready to simply condemn the accused. My parents were victimized during WWII, when rampant, government- and media-sanctioned wartime racism led to the unjust imprisonment of the entire Japanese-Canadian community. The one thing my parents have taught me is not to discriminate on the basis of race, or appearance. So - guilty these men might be, but first I wanted to see the irrefutable evidence.

And irrefutable the evidence appeared to be - especially post 9-11:
1) The accused had "airplane schematics".
2) Some had photos of "strategic landmarks".
3) One had a photo of himself at an "Al-Qaeda training camp".
4) One was taking flying lessons, and had filed flight plans taking his plane over the Pickering Nuclear facility just outside Toronto.
5) One man was spotted "scouting out" a nuclear facility.
Put this all together, and it sounds frightening indeed. It certainly seems undeniable. On this basis, many Canadians likely formed opinions about the men's guilt.

Less than a week later, the above evidence and the accompanying "van load" had fallen apart:
1) The "airplane schematics" were actually promotional posters of airplanes. A father of one of the accused worked for Lufthansa, and gave his son the posters for his walls. Most of the men - students, remember - did not have much money, and certainly not for luxuries such as artwork for their apartment walls.
2) The photos of "strategic landmarks" were souvenir posters of the CN Tower.
3) The photo of one man at an "Al-Qaeda training camp" was actually a vacation photo of the man on a hunting trip.
4) One man had come to Canada to fulfill his dream of becoming a pilot. Student pilots are only allowed to fly single-engine aircraft, and single-engine aircraft are not allowed to fly over water. Thus, flight plans for student pilots routinely follow the shoreline. Guess what? If you follow the shoreline of Lake Ontario from Toronto, it takes you over the Pickering Nuclear plant. This is a common flight plan for students and the information is not a secret.
5) The man who was supposedly spotted "scouting out" a nuclear facility was later determined to be in Pakistan at the time he was allegedy spotted.

A week after the arrests, a spokesperson for the RCMP admitted that there was no reason to suspect that any of the accused was in any way involved in terrorism. A happy ending?

Not at all, unfortunately. Despite evidence and conclusions by the police that there was no case here, the men continued to be held in prison for weeks or months. They were terrified, and were mistreated by guards and other prisoners. These men were imprisoned indefinitely, without charges (an exact parallel with the Japanese-Canadians during WWII). And Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) sought to deport all of them, as a result of their enrollment in the Ottawa Business School.

What was the crime here? The men were seeking to improve their education and better their chances at employment. One already had an MBA, but was taking a computer course because he had been advised that the IT field was burgeoning and would help his job search. But after they had enrolled, the Ottawa Business College stopped holding classes. It was taking tuition money and handing out diplomas. It was engaged in fraud. For this reason, CIC set out to deport the men. That's right: these men were victims of fraud, and they were being deported specifically because of it.

Evidence of discrimination? Leading up to the arrests, the police had obtained the Ottawa Business School's records. Of 400 people enrolled in the school, the only students investigated were Muslims with the name "Mohamed". No other students were investigated, nor was the owner of the business school, despite orchestrating the fraud. During the initial arrests, as the men were pushed to the floor and had guns held to their heads, they were asked, "Are you Pakistani? Are you Muslim?"

The police and the media had both played into post 9-11 Islamophobia, and for the most part, the public bought it. The terrorism accusations were front-page news. Yet a week later when the accusations were abandoned and the terrorism cases became simple immigration cases, there was little discussion in the media. The damage had been done, and little attempt was made to undo it.

What happened in the Project Threadbare case is despicable, and casts doubt on the reputation Canada has for welcoming immigrants and being a place of multi-culturalism. It should make us all question how committed we are to diversity and tolerance. And given the blatant violations of human rights, it should be clear that we need to take action to prevent this from happening again. Unfortunately, it has already happened again, and there is no sign it is about to stop. (More coming in Part 2.)

For more information on Project Thread, and the campaign which sought justice for its victims, Project Threadbare, don't miss this film, coming up this week:

THREADBARE
Thursday, June 19th, 2008
7:00 - 9:00 PM
Mississauga Library, Noel Ryan auditorium
(Mississauga City Centre)