Dear Everyone,

A quick introductory note – I wrote this way back on July 3rd 2006, just after Canada Day. I tried to post it, but bumped into problems with the urls that are in the document, so I've removed them, and just put in general references. If you want a full reference for something, please sign the Guest Book or make a comment, and I'll be happy to send it to you.

Well, Canada Day/Weekend 2006 has come and gone. Canada Day is fun here—lots of picnics, music and dance concerts, art events, and general happiness—much of it sponsored by our federal government. However, when I thought about what our government has done over the past couple of weeks, which is spend over 15 billion dollars on new military equipment, I couldn't quite bring myself to simply celebrate our country's 139th birthday.

But I didn't find any events that spoke to the myriad of human rights abuses our government is engaging in. So, I decided to create my own event. With my friend Smadar, I put together a small handout to give to people at the happy events. We worked on it all day last Friday, and by Saturday – Canada Day —it was ready to go. We put 2 on a page, copied, cut the page in half, and went down to Harbourfront Centre where lots of terrific activities were happening. We handed it out to anyone who would take it, and gave out a total of 1600. Many people expressed interest and said they were glad we were doing this. And while the handout doesn't include everything, the idea was to be encouraging about the possibility of making our voices heard. This is what we gave them:

HAPPY CANADA DAY 2006!

We congratulate ourselves for all the good things in Canada. This is great, BUT . . .

Did you know that

• Canada has just voted AGAINST a UN Human Rights Council declaration 'to protect the rights of INDIGENOUS PEOPLES around the world, including their land claims and resources.'?
Reference: The Washington Post (had the most complete article at the time), plus many others

• Canada uses secretive SECURITY CERTIFICATES to indefinitely imprison non-citizens who might be linked to terrorist groups? Detainees can be held without trial, and be shipped off to a country where they would be tortured or killed. Our government does not have to provide evidence, and an appeal is not possible.
See website for homesnotbombs plus others

• Canada's military role in AFGHANISTAN is not really about peacekeeping? We are in the coalition to kill Taliban people, and abroad we are now viewed as part of the U.S.-led war machine, no longer as a peace-oriented nation.
See website for Canadiancontent plus many others

• Canada wants to join the U.S. in its REJECTION of the ENVIRONMENTALLY FRIENDLY Kyoto Protocol and trust the polluters to clean up their own mess? Canada is 28th out of 30 (almost at the bottom) industrialized nations in polluting – greenhouse gas emissions, energy and water consumption, nuclear wastes, and others.
See website for David Suzuki's organization plus many others
If you find these violations of Human Rights as appalling as we do, please write to your MP to express your concern. You matter! Each letter is worth about 1000 people!
How to find your MP and his/her contact information: Go to the official Canadian government website click on Contact your MP – left margin click on Find your Member of Parliament, using either your postal code or the name of your MP.