Greyhound vs Via Rail

Interesting experience I had this week. So, I needed to book a last minute trip from Ottawa to Kingston. Stupidly I listened to advice and booked on Greyhound as opposed to Via Rail, as I normally do. So, I book a ticket for a particular day and time on Greyhound from Ottawa to Kingston. The price was negligibly lower than Via's would have been. Bizarrely on their website Greyhound tells you that just because you have a ticket for a particular service does not mean you will actually get on that service. It's first come first served. In other words, they might sell the 100 seats on a particular bus 20,000 times and leave 19,900 people in the lurch, they'd find out at the bus station, and Greyhound would try to put them on a 'later service'. Suffice it to say, there was no later service on the day that I planned to travel.

Well, I decided to take my chances. Expecting disastrous service at that stage I wasn't too surprised that the ticket did not actually print when I clicked the relevant weblink (the link was 'broken'). I tried on and off throughout the day, it never worked. Eventually I called Greyound's call centre where some smartie pants told me that I must print off the ticket. I asked him to try himself. He tried (me patiently waiting on my mobile phone), and eventually advised that they had a 'technical problem' (sounds like Air Canada, doesn't it?).

Incredibly, he then told me that he had to cancel my booking. I asked what that meant and he enlightened me me by telling me that he would cancel the ticket and I would get my credit card reimbursed during the next 7-14 days (!!!!), and that I would have to go to the bus station and purchase a new ticket. I asked whether that would mean a higher price, he confirmed that that likely would be the case.

So, everything here is Greyhound's fault. Their technical fault, their ticket cancellation, their requirement to purchase a more expensive ticket while having to wait 7-14 days to get the money back for the ticket they never issued. Does that strike you as possibly a fraudulent business practice? You sell on-line tickets you don't actually have, you eventually cancel them last minute and force customers to purchase a higher-priced ticket. Herewith added to my 'no go' list: Greyhound.

Compare this to Via Rail. I called them and asked whether I could use my Via points (Preference) to book a complimentary ticket for the next train available from Ottawa to Kingston. A pleasant person picked up the phone next to instantly (not the useless 'pick 1 for', 'pick 2 for', 'pick 3 for' that Greyhound keeps you occupied with), confirmed my details, booked my ticket, voila I had a valid booking, all in less than 5 minutes. No hassles, delightfully competent service. Another excellent experience with Via Rail. Love these people!

Apologies for the brief hiatus

Folks,

I have been away for a week on Barbados. Sand, palmtrees, lukewarm water and rum ain't exactly my cup of tea, so I's worried about being bored out of my mind. Thankfully I got plenty of lifts around the porous island, but still, a week was more than enough. My suspicion about life on such places was kind of confirmed. All pretty to look at, but the reality is nonetheless dead boring. I've had a great time though and took my fair share of photos. Good enough for a week-long trip, but imagine you had to live there. Invariably there's an overwhelming number of God people, so there were training sessions preparing people for the Rapture on offer. How cool is that? In case you didn't know, it's coming on October 21, 2011. Oi wei. I uploaded my photos on a low-to medium-level size only, so they're not print quality. Feel free to browse. - We flew on JetBlue, and it's been a great experience. Highly recommended, just don't expect any service from their ground staff in Barbados. They're badly trained and pretty much useless. Other than that, beats air Canada at any time, both in terms of in-flight experience and in terms of price (by a long long stretch).

Well, coming back home I face more US brabrabra. Obama's Supreme Court nominee is rumored to be a lesbian woman. Bill O'Reilly, funny man at Fox News, decided that we've a right to know as she might have to vote on gay marriage. I kinda wonder why the same logic shouldn't apply to heterosexual, bisexual and other-sexual members of the court?

Bizarre Canadian court ruling on airfares - celebrating your obesity!

The Globe and Mail reported a day or two ago that a Canadian court has ruled that Air Canada (the yuk factor outfit still operating as Canada's flag carrier) and Westjet (another Canadian airline), can't charge disabled people two airfares if they require their carers to fly with them. I think one can argue about this, but at least I can see how the court could reach the conclusion that charging such passengers two airfares is probably unjust.

What bugs me is that the same ruling is also seen to apply to seriously overweight people. The judgment is basically this: if you are too big for one regular seat, the airline must provide you free of charge with two seats. This is the most bizarre judgment I have ever seen (I'd love to know the judge's weight on this one ...). Here's the problem: for most overweight people (if not for all of them), the decision to eat too much or too many fattie things has resulted into them being overweight. They are by and large responsible for their predicament. Disabled people cannot usually be held responsible for their disability.

So, what would be unjust about charging the overweight crowd for the extra space that they need, and possibly even for the extra fuel needed to transport their fat around the world in an aeroplane? At the end of the day what we are doing as airline passengers is to purchase SPACE on a plane going from A to B (frequently via C, D, and E), as well as the right to truly horrendous 'service', food for purchase, the right to look at armrests and similarly amazing goodies.

My view on this issue would be that if you need more space than the average passenger you ought to be charged for the extra space. Some accommodation is frequently rightly made for very tall people (they didn't choose to grow that tall), so we often find them sitting in emergency exit rows. All that is sensible, but why people's wrong eating habits should be beneficial to them in terms of the space airlines must now provide to them without being permitted to charge them extra, completely escapes me.

Wrong verdict, and wrong message sent out to society. I need to reconsider, obviously. Perhaps I should aim to gain quite a bit of weight before I board my next intercontinental flight, so that even in economy an airlines must provide me with plenty of space. All that this means, in the real world, is that people of average size must subsidize the space overweight people require (free of charge). That is unjust. It is so evidently unjust that one wonders in which dreamworld the judges reside that passed this judgment. If anything, as a society we have a strong public health interest in encouraging people to lose weight. It's good for them and it's good for our health care bill. Perhaps uncomfortable plane seats could be a good start!

Ode to Via Rail

There's great news in Canada. That miserable excuse for an airline, Air Canada, is closing quite a few of its bases. Terrible enough for its employees, but no doubt the chickens come home to roost for an organisation that has made offensively bad customer service the hallmark of its operations. These days there's plenty of desperate airlines out there and customers don't have to put up with Air Canada's nonsense. I wonder how many Canadians, quietly or not so quietly, are pro-actively boycotting Air Canada (as I do) after one too many bad experiences.

Anyway, compare that to Via Rail, that delightful Canadian rail company. I love Via Rail to bits. Mind you, the trains are not what us spoiled Europeans expect in terms of high-tech and speed, but they take you faster to your destination than a trip in the car, the food is nice, service usually impeccable, and they're remarkably frequently on time. Unlike Air Canada, which these days thinks nothing of cancelling your long-haul flight a few hours before your departure, using 'Act of God' as its rationale for not reimbursing you for additional expenses and inconvenience, Via staff here in Kingston were hugely apologetic for a 10 min delay of a Toronto - Montreal train. - 10 min... that's nothing.

The only nasty thing Via Rail has done recently is to replace a delightful red wine (Ontario produced at that) that came in little glass bottles with overseas made Tetra Pak products. Now, if that's done for environmental reasons, let's get some facts straight: transporting wine all the way from Spain to Canada is probably environmentally worse than using Ontario made produce. Also, 90% of bottles these days are being reccycled in Canada, while much less of the Tetra Pack stuff is finding its way into recycling schemes. In short: it is doubtful that the 'green' Tetra Pack scheme Via has come up with works.

However, unlike Air Canada, which happily SELLS you stinking hamburgers on long distance flights, Via Rail offers sandwiches these days that even have your 1:5 portion of veggies included. Good on ya Via. The other thing about Via is hat their frequent traveller points system actually works. I called them the other day and asked that some of my accumulated miles be used for a free trip to Montreal. No problem, did it on the phone in less than 5 min. Try the same with Air Canada frequent flyer miles. Almost certainly you won't be going where you'd like to go. But then, that's even true if you buy a ticket from that outfit. Guess what, Via didn't even levy fuel, taxes, looking-at-train and touching-seat surcharges on my free trip, as Air Canada would have done.

So, people, use the train whenever you can. It's environmentally friendlier than any other alternative that we have currently and you don't have to put up with the kind of crap airlines like Air Canada heap on you.

Airlines taking us for a ride - oops, flight!

You know, like most people who have to fly for work related reasons - I hate air travel sufficiently to not fly in order to get to a vacation destination - I have got used to the ongoing offensively lousy customer disservices that outfits like Air Canada inflict upon the traveling public. So I'm used to flights getting canceled for no good reason other than that it was an 'act of God' (hello, can't us humanists at least get a slightly more intelligible explanation?), or that on long-distance flights they offer a dry roll wrapped around one slice of cucumber in lieu of a vegetarian breakfast, stuff like that. Yes, I got to be honest: the more of them go bankrupt the better off both the environment and the remaining traveling public will be.

Here's one gripe I have, however, and I hope regulators will step in soon to stop their shenanigans in that regard. Melbourne's THE AGE newspaper reports today that JAL is planning to levy a 1000 A$ fuel surcharge on flights from Down Under to Europe. Truth be told, I don't care what they charge. My gripe is that in order to compare like for like, airlines should be forced to quote one price for the trip from A to B and that's that. What is all this gimmickry including fuel surcharges, taxes, looking at planes twice, toilet fees, utilisation of seats etc? It's ridiculous. Of course, if you want to fly an airplane from A to B you need - hint - fuel. So, buy it and include it in your price, but spare me the ridiculous surcharges. If you're too incompetent to budget properly, don't make that my problem, just get out of business! I mean, they also have other cost factors, like running their planes, salaries, etc etc. Surely there is nothing in principle different between these costa and fuel costs or 'taxes', hence all of that should be included in one final price, and that is what the airlines should be forced by regulators to quote.

Otherwise it's a bit like a baker charging me a gas surcharge on the baked cake she's selling me, or a doctor adding a heating surcharge for the time that I spent in her heated waiting room. It's plain bizarre. Nearly as bizarre as Northamerican mobile phone companies charging you 'long-distance' fees for calls on the continent. Like, hello, don't you people understand the concept of satellite based communications. There is no such a thing as a long-distance call in any meaningful way on a mobile phone, yet these arbitrary charges are SOP of mobile phone operators in Canada. Oh well, getting off my soap box for this weekend. Enjoy yours. And remember, use the bicycle if you can.

Ooops, our oil reserves are finite - what a surprise

Quite funny, the Green movement has told us (well, at the time I was a very active part of it) some 20 years ago that we're running out of oil, and that - among other things - we need to reconsider our predominant modes of transport (a 1 ton vehicle to transport a 70kg body to the supermarket around the corner; academics like myself flying frequently to a far-flung corner of the world to give a 15-20 min presentation that could have been presented just as well by audio-videolink - but hey, what else do we have to feel good about ourselves :-).

It goes without saying we Greenies were variously called tree-huggers, stupid, romantic, naive or a combination of these things. Well, we were right, of course, our resources on this planet are very much finite (hence the idea that we need continuing economic growth to be happy is so remarkably and so obviously silly, yet it drives everything that we do).

So, fast forward to mid 2008. The oil price has reached breathtaking heights, and while we should be mostly concerned about the impact this will have on the affordability of food products, if you watch TV (presumably on your giant flat screen TV, which happens to have replaced ovens in many homes because they're emanating so much heat) you will be forgiven for thinking that the oil price issue is really about airline survival and the Hummer (the ridiculous GM car still produced for the Homer Simpson types of the real world - reportedly men with really really small penises). There is some good news, though, airlines shut down plenty of planes; here is hoping that Air Canada might fall by the wayside altogether, but things are not looking promising because the airline has long since begun to treat its customers particularly badly, so it might survive longer than some of its better behaved competitors.

There's also some huha about GM shutting down car factories in various countries. The truth is, of course, that this is a small reason for celebrations as it will bring us closer to keeping much-needed energy reserves for longer. Of course, for some bizarre reason, those in power (let's call them our 'representatives') do not seem to bother about putting efficient public transport systems in place. I live currently a lot of the time in Kingston, a medium-sized city in Ontario. The public transport system does arguably not even deserve the name system. The bus stops don't display information as to the route of the buses that happen to stop there on the odd occasion, indeed, even information about when buses can be expected to stop there (it's called a timetable in Europe) is not on display. Surely it can't surprise then that people take their giant American car out for a ride to the supermarket. So, decades after we knew we couldn't go on like we did, we chose collectively to stick our head in the sand and voted for GM's Hummer, Chrysler's 300C (incidentally a car driven by Barack Obama the supposedly so clever US Senator trying to become the next President of the USA), and my all-time favourite car, the Maserati Sedan.

Ok, I'm getting off my soap box now. Guess all I'm saying is, ask yourself more often what the impact of your action on the environment and future generations is. If your action is incompatible with a high-quality environment and existing future generations of people, don't do it unless you really have no choice (slight inconvenience isn't the same as saying that you really have no choice).

Conflict of interest declaration: I can't drive, so decent public transport would make a big difference to my life.

Letter from jailed Queen's University Lecturer to Ontario Legislature

I am replicating Bob Lovelace's Letter to the members of the Ontario Legislature as a matter of public record:

Letter to the Legislators of Ontario

May 11, 2008

I am writing this letter to you from the Central East Correctional Centre in Lindsay, Ontario. I have been imprisoned here during the last three months for contempt of court because I said I cannot obey an njunction which conflicts with my duty under Algonquin law to protect our land.

I am writing because I believe you are honest men and women who work in the best interests of your constituents and for the betterment of Ontario. Is it to your intelligence and compassion that this letter is addressed. What I write may shock and anger you. It will certainly cause embarrassment. My hope is that what you read here will engender in you the same commitment to justice that I have felt within these prison walls and throughout my life.

On February 15th of this year, I was sentenced to six months in prison and fined $25,000. Co-Chief Paula Sherman was also fined $15,000. She is a single mother and a grandmother and the sole supporter for three dependents. She cannot and will not pay the fine and will have to report to jail on May 15 to serve a 90 day prison sentence. Our offence was declaring our intention to peacefully protect our homeland after 30,000 acres had been staked for uranium exploration. The staking had been done without our knowledge or consent and the claims were registered by Ontario's Ministry of Mines without notification. Extensive deep core drilling was planned for last summer without consultation or accommodation.

In June of last year, the Council of the Ardoch Algonquin First Nation requested the exploration company remove their personnel and equipment. When they complied, we secured the area with the help of our non-Algonquin neighbours. In July, the company, Frontenac Ventures Corporation, sued us for $77 million, and in August obtained an injunction ordering unfettered access to our lands. Since their still had not been any consultation, as required by Supreme Court decisions, we refused to remove the security barrier, and found ourselves convicted of "contempt" by your court.

Although the context behind my imprisonment is useful, this letter is not about mining or the out-dated Ontario Mining Act. There is already much public discussion now going on about toxic mining and the need to protect citizens' rights. This letter as well is not about Aboriginal rights or the protection of our homeland, although our Indigenous rights and responsibilities contribute to the discourse. This letter is a case against colonialism, the dysfunctional heritage that we share; the colonialism that informs every aspect of our current relationship and will undo our security and undermine the future for all citizens in this province. Democracy and colonialism can not walk hand-in-hand for long before the disparity in justice, economic opportunities and morality so sickens human spirits that we will all live without hope of becoming the nations we wish to be.

For many years in my intellectual life I tried to understand why, as Indigenous people, we were destined to suffer under the oppression of colonialism. I wanted to know if some natural law at the beginning of time had proclaimed it so, or if it were an accident of conditioning, or if it were essential to social order that made such suffering a necessity. I believed that if I could only know how it had come to be then I would be satisfied with the justification, or understand how you fix the mechanics.

As the years have carved away my curiosity, I have at last concluded that it does not matter how colonialism came to be or who is at fault. I do not care if I ever know how colonialism took root in this world. Now, I just want to be free of it. I want to know that succeeding generations of First Nations children will not be looked upon as inferior, that their birthright and home will not be stolen, that they will have the advantage of dreaming their own dreams and following their own visions. And as much as I want my own children to be free, I want your children not to suffer the moral uncertainty that comes with living well because others are oppressed.

You are legislators. You have the responsibility for writing the laws and policies that frame colonialism and give it social and political structure in Ontario. Unwriting colonialism is not a political process. One party or coalition can not do it alone. Ending legal colonialism is not for partisans. It requires a consensus among law makers who regard justice and humanity above competition for popularity. Those of you who will work for just change will believe in the rightness of your laws as strongly as I believe in the rightness of Algonquin law. When you decide to erase colonialism from your laws you will be risking your future as much as I have risked mine. They are your laws that embody colonial oppression of Aboriginal people and although we can offer guidance, it will be you as legislators who will choose to be, or choose not to be, the burden of innocent generations of come.

The present and accepted course of de-colonization has failed. It has failed both in letter and in spirit. We are living an illusion that Canada and the Provinces no longer oppress First Nations. Nothing in this lie could be further from the truth. If it was so, when did this reversal take place? Was it withConfederation? No - Confederation marked the transition from an ambivalent British Crown to a purposefulextermination of everything Indian. Was it during the Canadian centre of repressive laws that alienated Aboriginal people from their lands and customs? No. Did revisions of the federal Indian Act reverse the national strategy of "taking the Indian out of the Indian child" or save thousands of Indian children from the "sixties scoop"? No. Have decisions of the Supreme Course recognized original jurisdiction or simply redefined domination in more tolerable terms? Did the Royal Commission on Aboriginal People and hundreds of other studies inform the Nation and change public attitudes? No. Did patriating the Constitution in 1982 succeed in defining the rights and jurisdiction of Aboriginal Nations as it did for the Federal and Provincial governments? No! Please, honestly, ask yourselves, when such a historical turn around occurred and when substantial changes in legislation were written which would have allowed the transition to take place.

Freedom does not come in increments. Colonialism will not give way through wishful thinking or half-measures. In the past, politicians, clergy and intellectuals argued that Aboriginal people were not ready for "civilization" and needed the guiding hand of the colonizer. This ideology is nothing more than self-serving paternalism. Freedom is not something that Aboriginal people should have to earn. If freedom were to be bought, then we have paid for it a thousand fold. Freedom comes when the gate is opened wide or broken down. If there is anyone who has not been ready for Aboriginal people to take their rightful place in Canada, it is you, the colonizer. Until you actively and explicitly make colonialism illegal then it will always be you who are not ready.

The forces that guard colonialism are large. The federal and provincial governments employ hundreds of lawyers, bureaucrats and academics to discredit Aboriginal claims and put Aboriginal people in their place. They work on land claims, court cases and public policy in an effort to limit the Crown's obligations and liability to Aboriginal people. When have Ontario lawyers defended an Aboriginal right or vigorously advanced Aboriginal claims? They just don't do that.

Colonialism will remain firmly entrenched as long as we work in an adversarial system in which communities that have been undermined socially, economically and politically for over two centuries must play by their opponents' rules on a field with a precipitous incline. I have watched as a generation of great minds have been squandered on both sides of this rivalry because intransigent bureaucrats and partisan politicians have been afraid to let "the thin edge of the wedge" change public policy and institutionalize just treatment of Aboriginal citizens. It is not for want of informed and competent negotiators that Canada and Ontario have a slew of unsettled claims and associated conflicts; rather it is the law makers' lack of political will, fairness and honesty in putting an end to the immoral advantage of colonialism.

Let me give you a clear and recent example of how Aboriginal people experience negotiations. In October of last year, Judge Cunningham of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, who presides in the suit brought by Frontenac Ventures against my community, suspended the hearing for twelve weeks in an effort to get all the parties talking. Ontario, Frontenac Ventures and the two First Nations agreed to a prioritized list of issues and to jointly choose a mediator. At that point, we removed our security barrier and permitted Frontenac Ventures to carry out unobtrusive survey work.When the discussions began, the corporation did not attend or send a representative. Instead they installed security guards at the site. Ontario's representatives consistently refused to discuss the issues outlined in the predetermined agenda which included as the first item, Ontario's legal responsibility to consult with First Nations communities before development of a resource begins. Ontario negotiators rejected out of hand three comprehensive settlement proposals put forward by Ardoch. Ontario negotiators demanded that we inventory our "values" for the staked land, but refused to accept the description of these "values" when expressed in cultural context or with their meanings in Anishnabemowin, our language. When it was apparent that time was running out in the 12 week process, the lead Ontario negotiator, who had been a former Deputy Minister of Northern Development and Mines, conceded that Ontario's duty to consult should be met. He agreed with Ardoch that a broad range of possible outcomes should be considered. He also agreed that the consultation process could conclude with an end to uranium exploration. Ardoch had favoured such an open consultation from the beginning of negotiations. Having arrived at an agreement that a plan of "appropriate consultation" would be submitted to Judge Cunningham we proceeded to discuss the framework for the consultation process. A week later, after substantial collaboration on the framework, Ontario's lead negotiator advised us that there had never been an intention to halt exploration and that exploratory drilling would be taking place during the proposed consultation process. We could either agree or face the court and charges of contempt.

This experience seems to be universal across the country. It has not changed much since the starvation tactics used by Sir John A. Macdonald in negotiating the early numbered treaties. While Aboriginal people cling to the hope that the Crown administrators will be merciful and accept some limited fashion of constitutionally protected rights, bureaucrats and their Ministerial masters do everything in their power to extinguish those rights and uphold the colonial state. Legislators and governments are not solely responsible for maintaining the immoral practice of colonialism. Even the Supreme Court of Canada, often praised for its progressive decisions on Aboriginal rights, is a principle defender of the sovereign privilege of domination. Supreme Court decisions, while recognizing the historical and legal validity of Aboriginal rights, limit the scope and practice of those rights in favour of "larger" Canadian interests. An analogy of the dilemma is listening to the stories of an abused child in an Indian residential school, patting her on the head and then telling her not to disobey the priest. Such is the sanctimonious hypocrisy of your highest court. These same courts permit Canada's governments to ponder for years on the policy implications reflecting these half-hearted concessions, rendering the entire legal process of protecting Aboriginal rights an exercise in "too little, too late".

Ontario has been consistently guilty of regarding Aboriginal rights as an inconvenient demand on the moral character of a tolerant society. But Aboriginal rights are your laws, not ours. They originate in English law as the doctrine of "continuity" and find substance in such documents as the Royal Proclamation of 1763. Section 35 rights in the Canadian Constitution are an attempt to address the fundamental denial of the existing laws of Aboriginal Nations and to bring into sovereign Canada a sense of Aboriginal belonging. But we have had our own laws and governance and the Crown, through the doctrine of "continuity" has never had the right to overrule them. Our laws do not involve a concept of "rights". In our cultures, mutual respect and benefit are understood as imperatives for survival. Aboriginal cultures regard law as a complex set of responsibilities to the land and in human relations. The emphasis is on protecting sustainability and avoiding conflict. When Europeans first came to settle in the Ottawa valley in 1800, this is what our ancestors asked of them: to share the land and get along. Through 150 years of French and 100 years of English contact, the doctrine of "continuity" was practiced. We must be clear that recent constitutional commitments in section 35 to "recognize and affirm" Aboriginal and treaty rights are Canadian law. Our leaders at the time asked for much more.

The disparity between your laws and ours' represents the gap between lip service and Aboriginal peoples' ambition to restore our homelands and cultures. Without a sense of moral clarity and comprehensive entitlements, section 35 of your Constitution is almost meaningless. It gives you as legislators no standard or instruction upon which to write anti-colonial legislation. As such, it gives Canadian courts nothing with which to reconcile the past and even less with which to arbitrate the future. Courts will continue to define Aboriginal rights as subservient and Aboriginal title as third class.

As a colonized people we must accept a share of the responsibility for our condition. Like you,we have internalized colonialism. We have allowed it to inform the way we see the world and ourselves. Too often we have turned to the colonizing governments for support. Too often we expect you to solve our problems or blame you for our inadequacies. Too often we are satisfied with handouts rather than partnerships or ownership. We have come to accept colonial labels such as "status" and "non-status" as definitions of who we are. We let these labels divide our families and communities. Our leaders have accepted foreign forms of governance which undermine our unity and foster corruption. We have come to accept that blood quantum, shades of skin colour and even levels of education determine our Indianess. Far too often we have given up, given in to self-hate, self-abuse and the abuse of others. Like you, we have to confront colonialism on our own terms, for it is just as immoral to accept victimization as it is to benefit from oppression.

Ontario's education system is a primary instrument in ensuring that colonialism remains unchallenged. Many Ontarians know nothing of how generations of Aboriginal children were victimized by church and state. Ontarians posses only a vague understanding of how land was overrun by settlement in the 19th century and Aboriginal people were forced to sign unconscionable treaties and land sales in return for modest protection. As far as understanding the evolution of colonial laws, almost all citizens are ignorant. Even the real suffering of their own immigrant ancestors as slaves, indentured servants, child labour and cannon fodder have been sanitized for the popular glorification of Ontario's history. Many of these immigrants were escaping colonialism in their own homelands, just as refugees today come to Canada to find a better life. But they acquire no real history about themselves and at best only an "honourable mention" of Aboriginal realities. Without an honest and fully informed education system, your job of challenging and changing colonial laws is as difficult as ours in changing the attitudes of ignorant neighbours.

Almost all of you have either publicly or privately condemned the Aboriginal people who protest and obstruct economic and civic activity. At best you have expressed complacent tolerance and an admission that Aboriginal dissatisfaction may have some merit. Ontario's civility rests on its affluence, not on its moral intelligence or character. It is this artificial civility that Aboriginal protestors challenge. Each time a road is blocked, exploration for minerals is halted, or forestry is interrupted, Aboriginal activists are raising the prickly question of Ontario's morality. Each time a protest forces a political "spin" to be re-spun, law makers are confronted with the ineptitude of their own professional history. You may not like the politics of confrontation but I would rather see Shawn Brant block the 401 than Ovide Mercredi begging at the gates of Meech Lake, or Phil Fontaine writing Steven Harper's apology for the abuse of residential schools.

The affluence of Ontario has been acquired from the sacrifice of our ancestors' health and the wealth of our homelands. If immobilizing the power of that affluence is the only way to expose the evil of colonization then you need to brace yourselves. Aboriginal people and our thoughtful neighbours are sick and tired of colonialism. People of all races who hunger for justice, who understand the sacredness of creation and the folly of greed will find expression in tearing down colonialism. Aboriginal protests are not so much about past grievances. They are about the effects of present dispossession. Aboriginal activism is about changing the course of the future. During the last week of May, Aboriginal people across Canada will be preparing for the National Day of Action on May 29th. Many people will come to Queen's Park. They are coming to talk to you. Throughout that week you will have the opportunity to listen to Aboriginal people and their friends express their fears and aspirations for the future. You will also hear their complaints. If you are wise you will listen. If you are as courageous as they are, you will allow what you hear to inspire your actions. If you are thankful for the Creator's gift of life, you will extend your hands in peace and friendship. It is up to you if you choose a partnership with Aboriginal Nations to begin the arduous task of rewriting Ontario's laws to exclude colonial principles. But if you choose to do nothing, or to condemn us, then please do not make excuses or false promises. In the days leading up to May 29th, the media will extol the Canadian virtue of tolerance. In the days following, the media will sensationalize the "criminality" of Aboriginal defiance. You will see large pictures of masked warriors but little honest context. As you look with trepidation into the masked faces remember that those of us who wear no masks have been faceless as well, all of our lives. The real news will be in the conversations that you will have in the midst of demonstrations and at the edge of the barricades.

As much as I would like to be with you and my brothers and sisters at Queen's Park at the end
of May, I will be here in prison. Throughout my life, I have advocated the path of non-violence
as the only means of restoring our cultural integrity and our belonging within creation. Freedom, at last, is a state of spirit. Even within the walls of this cell, my spirit can heal and grow and under the burden of oppression, all of our spirits can rise up. My spirit, like a seed, can wait throughout the long winter and come to life again when there is room to grow. Non-violence does not mean timidity. Those of us who have chosen a life of non-violence vigorously fight against the oppression and injustice that is sustained by violence. Colonialism, the laws that uphold it, the police actions that take down barricades and disrupt peaceful protests, are violence. Freedom flows around violence like water in a stream flows around a fallen log. Freedom is beautiful like the colours of the earth. Violence is ugly. My spirit will be with all of you at the end of May in peace and friendship.

My immediate thoughts are with my community and the threat of extensive deep core drilling. There is also the humiliation that Ontario is unwilling to allow our community into the decision-making process before further encroachment occurs. And there is the constant anxiety of what an open pit uranium mine will do to our land, our health and the health of our neighbours down stream. My heart aches in the memories of fishing along that river; the blueberry picking on the ridges and the winter solitudes of Arty's trapline. For two hundred years, colonists have been taking out land. I wonder every day when it will stop.Because I do not have that answer I will begin a fast on May 16 and I will fast until I have an answer. I will not be fasting as a political statement or to extricate some concession from Ontario. In our culture we fast to purify our bodies and free our spirits. We fast in anticipation of a vision of things to come and to prepare ourselves to accept a great challenge. If my fast over the next few weeks brings attention to the defense of our community I will welcome the growing interest. I will also be praying hard for the protection of Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug and all of the communities struggling to survive. If in some small way my fast contributes to the non-violent struggle against Canadian colonialism, then all the better. I have no expectation of the Premier or his Ministers. The gun is to our head not his. I will pray that their hearts and minds become clear and that we will meet soon to work together to find solutions to the mess we are in. When I began this letter I wrote that you might be shocked, angered and certainly embarrassed. If reading my thoughts made you uncomfortable, I am not sorry. It was my intent to shake you out of your complacency and indifference. Aboriginal people do not want your platitudes. We want change. We want an end to colonialism. We want legislation that protects our rights and recognizes our original jurisdiction. What you did yesterday in the name of justice for Aboriginal people is not enough. No matter what happens now, we will walk tomorrow's road together; you must ask yourself how you have that journey to be.

In the spirit of Peace and Friendship, mutual respect and benefit, I wish you to be well in your work, your play and your dreams.

Migwetch,

Robert Lovelace
Retired Chief
Ardoch Algonquin First Nation

You don't want to go to Barbados today ...

Not sure about that one? Why wouldn't one want to go to Barbados today? Well, my friend (let's call him John Doe) is flying today from Toronto to Barbados, coughing and sneezing like there's no tomorrow, happily spreading the flu virus across the (sadly main) cabin. So, if you happen to be unfortunate enough to be on that flight, and you forgot or chose not to (like he did) get your flu shots in time, you're fairly likely to find yourself sick like the proverbial dog in a few days, probably half-way thru your vacation on the island.

Fair enough, you might say, that isn't nice, but there's probably other sick people on that flight. However, that response is surely begging an interesting moral question: should he (and them) have canceled their trip in order to prevent innocent other air travelers from getting infected by the flu virus? I think that there can be no doubt, passing knowingly such an infection on to other parties in a confined space such an airplane for the duration of several hours constitutes a case of harm to others. Nobody on the plane volunteered to be subjected to that sort of infection risk and almost certainly everybody (not already vaccinated) on that particular flight would have preferred not to have been on that flight, considering the risk of reasonably serious disease. It's not that the flu is 'just' a nasty illness keeping us sick for 10-14 days, no, it actually kills a lot of people each year. Up to 1500 people die each year of flu related complications in Canada alone. Worse, those people infected on the plane, doing what people usually do when they go on Caribbean vacations (eg drink, increase the skin cancer risk by means of roasting in the sun for no good reason, have sex), will almost certainly ensure that folks on Barbados will also pick up the flu from them. A lot of people will get sick as a result of Mr Doe's decision to board a flight to Barbados today.

Well, before the divorce papers arrive in the mail, what reasons could be deployed against this analysis: For starters, the volenti non fit iniuria principle can probably be deployed. After all, we all know prior to boarding planes that there's bound to be some irresponsible passenger or other who dragged his infectious illness onto the plane. Unlike with multiple drug-resistant TB, of course, we can actually protect ourselves against the flu reasonably well, and at low risk for ourselves, simply by getting vaccinated. So, if we board a plane anyway, voluntarily and unprotected, this can arguably be read as consenting to the risk of catching an infection. That doesn't mean that we want it, but we surely didn't go out of our way to prevent it from happening. Another reason in support of Mr Doe's decision to fly anyway, is that most airlines will almost certainly not reimburse for tickets canceled that late in the day, so he would have suffered a substantial financial loss had he chosen to stay in bed. Corporate policies in other words, incentivise people to follow courses of action that are detrimental to public health. Quite possibly some employers might have required him to take his leave anyway, as scheduled, instead of taking sick leave.

All of that is regrettable. Surely we should have policies in place that reward people like Mr Doe for behaving responsibly and in a slightly more caring manner toward fellow travelers. That we do not is remarkably short-sighted.

Air Canada - your incompetent airline

I thought KLM is one of the worst outfits gracing our skies (well, I am excluding US airlines, of course), but I have since discovered that AIR CANADA is by far the worst outfit disgracing our skies. It is basically a state subsidized organization run very much incompetently, and with no concern for its customers. Its customer complaints people churn out message after message generating platitudes explaining why its failings are 'acts of god', 'bad weather', 'name your preferred excuse of the day'.
I failed a few weeks back to get to Hong Kong because 'weather' supposedly prevented my flight to Hong Kong from leaving. It goes without saying, plenty of flights left my airport, despite the 'weather', but hey, AIR CANADA's excuse generating software is routinely up for some unintelligible explanation or other. According to its excuse generating software (presumably sent from an overseas based excuse generating computer) 'bad weather' permitted flights to leave at 6 am, and at 8 am, but the very same bad weather prevented the 7 am flight from leaving. It goes without saying that this is utter bollocks (utter bollocks is a short for 'AIR CANADA customer disservice department's unintelligible explanation').
A friend tried to leave on AIR CANADA for an overseas trip yesterday. The weather was actually really bad, and one would have expected the flight to be canceled. AIR CANADA operates another dysfunctional 'service', one in theory at least informing people (NOT) about flight cancellations. So, he calls em up and asks whether his flight is still scheduled to fly out that day. Dutifully AIR CANADA 'informs' him that his flight is on time and that he should go to the airport. Upon arrival there he's told that there were NO flights that day, due to the bad weather. So, he had to scramble last minute to catch a train to Toronto's airport to fly from there. Reimbursement for the flight not operated? Reimbursement for unnecessary taxi fares to the aiport based on AIR CANADA's advice (ie we are flying)? Of course not. The only thing AIR CANADA is truly good at is a prompt response saying 'weather related' or 'act of god' (the airline's standard response should, of course, be: 'due to our incompetence'). So, my friend got an 'act of god' response in lieu of an explanation for why the airline dragged him to the airport when it hadn't operated a single flight from that airport on that day.
One can only hope that the Canadian government will stop sinking tax payers' money in what is obviously a dysfunctional national carrier (it doesn't seem to carry too many passengers to their booked destinations anyway...).
My advice, avoid booking AIR CANADA at all cost. I won't be boarding its planes again. My idea about boycotting particularly bad airlines is to boycott them for a period of, say, five years, hoping that either they'll be bankrupt by then and out of business, or replaced by a more competently run operator, or that they'd have improved their operations to such an extent that they'd be given another chance. So, AIR CANADA, come January 01, 2012 I might reconsider you. Hopefully though, there is an alternative carrier available to me by then.