It is my first full day home after a long shift in Ottawa, from June 1-18. The COVID-19 pandemic has been nearly over-shadowed these last few months by issues of racism and police violence. It is almost one month since the killing of George Floyd, an unarmed, handcuffed, innocent black man by the Minnesota police. The anger and cries for justice in the face of anti-Black racism have not lost momentum. On the contrary, Black Lives Matters protests have spread the message globally that racism must end.

For any Canadians who felt these issues did not touch us, the recent killings of indigenous people in New Brunswick are a wake-up call. Chantel Moore, a young Tla-o-qui-aht woman, had only recently moved from her home on Vancouver Island to be closer to her own mother and small daughter when she was killed by Edmundston, NB police. Seven days later, Rodney Levi, a local Mi’kmaq First Nation father of three, was killed by RCMP. I happen to know people who knew both Rodney and Chantel. What they seemed to have in common, in addition to being shot by police, is that both were well-loved. Their deaths are unexplained, shocking and unacceptable.

The video of the brutal attack on Chief Alan Adams, also released this week, further undermine any confidence in the RCMP and its treatment of indigenous people and people of colour.

On Wednesday, I held a press conference on Parliament Hill to repeat our call for a full inquiry into the RCMP as an institution, as well as into the systemic racism in police forces and the RCMP in particular. Watch video of entire press conference here: Greens call for inquiry into the RCMP.

We must ensure zero tolerance for racism from the RCMP and from local forces. In that press conference, I revealed further evidence of the degree to which the RCMP is racist as an institution. Detailed ATI revealed that the RCMP dishonestly rigged the bidding process for their new Communications Centre in Nova Scotia to deny the Millbrook First Nation a fair chance at winning the contract. This one example speaks volumes to me. For any entity to pull such a transparent bit of “cooking the books” means they believe they are unaccountable and above the law. This cannot be allowed to go uninvestigated. (see details of this contract here: Greens demand full inquiry into RCMP ) Most media focused on the uproar over Jagmeet Singh being ejected from the House. I think the focus must stay on the real issue.

As we try to navigate issues of diversity and race across Canada, the Green Party leadership race is also trying to level the playing field to ensure support for intersectional equity-seeking candidates. I have to apologise to those of you who received a fund-raising letter from the Annamie Paul campaign. I deeply regret the long time lag between assisting Annamie and the other candidates for whom assistance is planned. I know it created the impression that the letter from me was an endorsement. It is not. I am not endorsing Annamie Paul, nor will I endorse anyone in this race. My commitments to Annamie’s team are now complete.

Within the next few days, I expect that the party will allow me to write all our members a fund-raising email to assist other candidates. I am committed to do any fundraising events with the intersectional equity-seeking candidates upon their request.
We are working through difficult issues.  We are innovating. We are “walking the talk”; of truly supporting candidates from equity-seeking backgrounds. We have made mistakes. We will likely make more.  There is no “add water and stir”; handbook for taking a party that is overwhelmingly white and actually leveling the playing field of politics.  Politics has for generations been primarily the domain of straight white men.  That is changing, but it is a slow change. It leaves many people still looking in at a parliament where it is hard to find people who share their life experiences. This must change.

The leadership race is challenged by taking place in a pandemic. Events have to be on line. We are so grateful to Fair Vote Canada for hosting the first virtual event of the campaign – the first of several debates. This debate will focus on Electoral reform and the need for proportional representation. The benefits of fair voting are never far from my mind. I focused on PR as part of my speech this week in the House. response to the supplementary estimates. Please register at this link and tune in (https://www.fairvote.ca/greensdebatedemocracy/) for the first of the debates between and among the ten candidates for leadership. I will co-host with my immediate  predecessor, Jim Harris. We are both excited and positive about the strong field of diverse candidates. One of these ten candidates will be the tenth leader of the Green Party of Canada and take us to new heights in the next election!

Also never far from my mind is the worsening climate emergency. Wednesday, June 17th was the one year anniversary of the passage of the House of Commons motion that we are in a climate emergency. Watch my five minutes of questioning of Environment Minister Jonathan Wilkinson. I contrast the government’s response to the COVID-19 emergency and the pressing climate emergency. Elizabeth May: When will the government take the climate crisis as seriously as it is taking the COVID-19 pandemic?

Stay well and safe.

Much love to all,

Elizabeth

This weekly newsletter is published by Elizabeth’s EDA in Saanich-Gulf Islands. You can sign up for it here.

E-petitions open for signature
 e-2447 Open competition for research funding (closes June 23)
 e-2450 Legalize the transportation of CBD products across the Canadian border (closes June 26)
 e-2624 Include long-term care in the public health system (closes July 3)
 e-2416 Mandatory labelling of food containing GMOs (closes July 4)
 e-2655 Extend work permit timit limit for international students (closes July 10)
 e-2471 Grant the RCMP Funding for Body Cameras (closes July 16)
 e-2534 Amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (closes August 14)
 e-2565 Request that Israel immediately lift the blockade on Gaza (closes September 4)
 e-2583 Implement a Guaranteed Livable Income (closes 19 August)

 e-2615 Divest CPP from fossil fuel investments (closes October 3)

The post Good Sunday Morning – June 21 appeared first on Elizabeth May.

I had to call out Donald Trump for his “incendiary response to a wounded, grieving nation” quoting The Rt. Rev. Mariann Budde, Episcopal Bishop of Washington D.C. Trump is dangerous. I wrote that two weeks back about his unhinged advice in the face of COVID-19. I said it again this week in response to his coded-language which for years has given oxygen to White Supremacists. I called on other Members of Parliament to call him out for his tweets – fomenting violence. I did not however demand that Justin Trudeau do so. I am very aware that the US now poses a real danger to Canada. Keeping our border closed for all but essential traffic really matters. It would not be wise to pick a fight with this infantile bully and risk the health of Canadians in doing so. We must be prepared to assist refugees from the U.S. (you can find the link to various press releases and a press conference in which Greens spoke to this at the end of this letter).

The killing of George Floyd was quickly followed by more acts of Anti-Black Racism – in the United States and in Canada. In the United States, acts of police brutality caught on cell phone video after cell phone video – a steady barrage of
horrific visuals – big white cop wrestling little black girl to the ground next to a chain link fence, National Guard marching up a sleepy suburban street shouting at people on their porches and then opening fire with non-lethal force. Protester after peaceful protester kicked and punched by multiple officers, in city after city – over 100 journalists targeted. The black news reporters arrested blocks from where their white colleagues were left alone.

And in Canada, just this week, we have been horrified by the unexplained but suspicious death of a young Black woman, Regis Korchinski-Paquet, falling from her Toronto apartment balcony with no one with her in her last minutes other than a reported eight police officers. On Thursday, the death by police gun fire in Edmundston NB of Chantel Moore, 26 year old Indigenous woman from Tla-o-qui-aht Nation of Vancouver Island. In Iqaluit, a staggering Inuk man deliberately bashed with the door of the white RCMP truck, before being hustled into the truck. This week marked the one year anniversary of the release of the Report on the Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. It is one year and still the government has not responded to the reports multiple recommendations.

One key recommendation was an end to “man camps” – the remote work camps for construction of pipelines. In spite of COVID-19, the governments of Alberta, British Columbia and Canada give these places a free pass. Worse, we have the resumption of work on the TMX pipeline, with our money. It is now a Crown Corporation prepared to spend over $10 billion to build a pipeline for the export of a product with no market. Our corporate media reports the largesse of TransMountain as though it is a philanthropic private entity — funds to community projects in the Kamloops ($700K) and $500K to Thompson Rivers University (over a 20 year period, a paltry $25,000/year) for academic awards. “The company has also signed a mutual benefits agreement with the local Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation to provide employment and business help to the community,” reports the Globe and Mail. Not one word that this is all public money that should have been available to every First Nation – and not as a reward for agreeing to a pipeline. The First Nations that are still in court fighting this project fight against the Government of Canada – not Kinder Morgan in Texas.

To add the ultimate insult, Alberta Energy Minister Sonya Savage recently gloated that now was a great time to build a pipeline because protests were banned due to COVID19.

The coming week promises to be eventful. We will see as many of six bills trying to get through the Unanimous Consent hurdles in Parliament on Wednesday, while earlier in the week our Green Caucus will release details of how we see the world
in a shared renewal and rejuvenation, or a “new evolution” as recently described.

Stay well and safe. Be a good ally.
Love and prayers for the world,

Elizabeth

This weekly newsletter is published by Elizabeth’s EDA in Saanich-Gulf Islands. You can sign up for it here.

Statements and Press Releases

• Echoes of Tiananmen Square: Greens condemn China’s latest assault on democracy in Hong Kong

Press Conference

• Press Conference: Elizabeth May comments on US anti racism protests

In Their Own Words​

• Elizabeth May: We Cannot Tolerate Racism, but We Know it’s Here
• Jenica Atwin on CTV News: Mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic
• Elizabeth May: Good Sunday Morning – May 31
• Elizabeth May Wants Canada To Accept U.S. Asylum Seekers Now That Country ‘No Longer Safe’ (Huffington Post)

Petitions

Petitions tabled by Green MPs this week

• Uphold UNDRIP and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s Calls to Action
• Call for an investigation on organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners
• Marine Protected Areas

E-petitions open for signature

• e-2525 Eliminate fossil fuel subsidies (closes June 15)
• e-2447 Open competition for research funding (closes June 23)
• e-2450 Legalize the transportation of CBD products across the Canadian border (closes June 26)
• e-2624 Include long-term care in the public health system (closes July 3)
• e-2416 Mandatory labelling of food containing GMOs (closes July 4)
• e-2471 Grant the RCMP Funding for Body Cameras (closes July 16)
• e-2534 Amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (closes August 14)
• e-2565 Request that Israel immediately lift the blockade on Gaza (closes September 4)
• e-2583 Implement a Guaranteed Livable Income (closes 19 August)
• e-2615 Divest CPP from fossil fuel investments (closes October 3)

The post Good Sunday Morning – June 7 appeared first on Elizabeth May.

Elizabeth May (Saanich—Gulf Islands)
2020-06-02 12:31

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

This is indeed a difficult day. It’s a difficult week. These have been difficult weeks.

I stand here and want to begin by acknowledging that we are all on the traditional territory of the Algonquin peoples, and again to say meegwetch, on a day like this when we’re focusing on something so painful that really is beyond partisanship and that should bind us together as people who say we cannot tolerate racism, not in this country. But we know it’s here.

As the Prime Minister just said,“Racism never has a place in this country”.

But we know it’s here and we know it’s living with us.

We are facing, in this pandemic, two dangerous, invisible viruses. One is COVID-19 and the other one we’ve tolerated far too long, which is race-based hatred, hate speech and anti-black racism. Yes, black lives matter. I want to do nothing but just chant it in this place until we all stand together and say, “Black lives matter.”

What we are seeing in the murder of George Floyd is exactly as my colleague from the Bloc Québécois said:
“ George Floyd is not a victim of racism; he is another victim of racism”.

There is victim upon victim upon victim.

These victims have names. We must not forget their names.

The first time a black man was killed when his last words were “I can’t breathe” was in 2014, with Eric Garner. His mother did interviews this week. Imagine what she’s going through, because George Floyd died on video also saying, “I can’t breathe”, and the people who were stopping him from breathing, his killers, are the police. In the case of Eric Garner, the policemen were fired but never charged. In George Floyd’s murder, at least one killer has been charged, but it doesn’t do anything to ease the pain, nor, as my friend from the NDP said, does it quench the thirst for justice, because that’s what people are crying out for. They’re crying out for justice.

The names just keep cascading. I had to look it up because I thought, when was it that the poor young man who was jogging was murdered by the father and son in the pickup truck? He was murdered by a retired policeman and his son in their pickup truck, in February. Breonna Taylor of Louisville was murdered in her own home by cops who thought she might have drugs there. They searched, and she didn’t.

What on earth allows this to keep happening over and over again?

I looked at a site called “Just Security” and I thought these words from reporter Mia Bloom, who happens to be Canadian, were pretty clear on what puts you at risk of death in the United States of America, but also in Canada: “driving while black, jogging while black, reporting while black, bird watching while black, selling lemonade while black” can get you killed.
The killers far too often are wearing a uniform. I want to go back to the words “reporting while black”, because this is something else we’ve seen in the last four days that we’ve never seen before, which is the deliberate targeting of reporters by police. Over 100 reporters have been injured in the United States in the last four days. One woman lost her eye. These are serious injuries. Sometimes reporters get in the way of riots and whatnot, but this is different. This is another element altogether.

It seems that, in this place, when we have speeches and pretty words to denounce racism, we do it in a kind of cycle. After Colten Boushie’s murder, we talked about anti-indigenous racism. We talked about the threat to our indigenous brothers and sisters across this country who also face racism on a daily basis. We talked about the fact that they are disproportionately in our prisons.

Just within the last day, the report came down on the killing of Dale Culver in Prince George at the hands of the Prince George RCMP. This indigenous young man was 35 years old, and he was pepper-sprayed until he couldn’t breathe. There will be charges in this case. That’s the recommendation that just came down.

We go through sequential moments where we can say Islamophobia is not okay. Six Muslims at prayer in Quebec City were murdered. We can all stand up and say we denounce Islamophobia. Or we can denounce anti-trans violence against individual trans people who are murdered.

We denounce anti-Semitism when we see anti-Semitic graffiti scrawled on the door of an Ottawa rabbi’s home. We denounce it, but can we get to the root of it?
As the honourable leader of the Conservative Party mentioned, in recent days we’re seeing anti-Asian racism on the increase.

We’re seeing all this happen and we want to be good allies. We want to be a good ally to the family of Regis Korchinski-Paquet. We want to be a good ally.

I am a woman of privilege. I got it by mere random accident of birth. I was born to white parents. Privilege is being white.

We have to study our privilege. We have to acknowledge our privilege and we have to know, as the Prime Minister said, we’re not perfect, but it doesn’t give us a free pass to ignore that we have to stand up and we have to speak out.

I am sitting so close to my friend here, our minister, Ahmed Hussen—I say your name out loud, but your tweets brought me to tears—that this fine man faces racism in his own riding, that his three beautiful black boys have people turn away or clutch their purse or they’re a little worried when the kids are around. It sounds exactly like what the Prime Minister just called the “microaggressions” that many of us might not even see.

We can look at our own conduct and our own behaviour. In looking at these things, there is something I want to say, when we look at all these things that are happening and we wonder, what we can do about it. When we see a bully, when we hear hate speech, we have to speak up. We have to speak out and we have to say that the President of the United States is fomenting hatred and violence and it’s shameful and shocking that he would grab a Bible, then use tear gas to clear peaceful protestors on a Washington street so that Donald Trump could pose with a Bible in front of an Episcopal church.

The Episcopal Bishop of Washington had this to say, because she is a good ally:
In no way do we support the President’s incendiary response to a wounded, grieving nation. In faithfulness to our Saviour who lived a life of non-violence and sacrificial love, we align ourselves with those seeking justice for the death of George Floyd.

That’s what we must do in this place. We must acknowledge and speak up for justice for the missing and murdered indigenous women and girls, the report on which languishes a year later.
We must stand up for justice and we must examine something very worrying. In 2006, the U.S. FBI warned that white supremacist groups were targeting police forces and joining them. If we’re looking for real action, things we can do in this place, I call on us to have an inquiry and an examination to root out white supremacist groups in Canada and identify them for what they are, a terrorist threat in our midst. We must make sure they’re not in our police forces, because if there is one thing scarier than a white supremacist with a gun, it’s a white supremacist with a gun in uniform.

Please, God, there are things we can do. Please, God, we love each other, take care of each other regardless of the colour of our skin, and pray for the United States of America. It’s a country being ripped apart, and the ripping and the tearing is being done by people who should at this very time be consoling and leading and inspiring.

Pray. Pray for Canada. Pray for each and every one of our beautiful black baby girls and boys, the indigenous baby girls and boys, the Asian kids. Wherever you look, reach out and be a good ally. Stand up and say, “With my body I get between you and the cops.” We have to be good allies. Right now, they’re just pretty words.

Thank you for listening.

The post Elizabeth May on killing of George Floyd, racism in Canada appeared first on Elizabeth May.

The post Press Conference: Elizabeth May comments on US anti-racism protests appeared first on Elizabeth May.