October 27th, 2009 Andrew Cash
By Andrew Cash
A flash of deja vu hits me as i sit in the beautiful Victoria College Chapel at U of T on October 20 last week listening to the Council of Canadians’ Maude Barlow talk about free trade.
My first awareness of this human rights champion was during the great debate in the 80s over Canada’s free trade deal with the U.S. I can’t help feeling a little nostalgic for that simple time when the story was a bit clearer: you were either for or against closer ties with our huge neighbour to the south.
But Barlow and fellow panelist Sid Ryan tell the almost 200 people in attendance that while 20 years ago there were very few bilateral trade deals, there are now 2,600 around the world. Read the rest of this entry »
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October 20th, 2009 Andrew Cash
The tireless folks at The Stop have come up with a fairly chilling little on line tool called Do The Math that compares our ideas of what it costs to live with health and dignity in Toronto with what a person actually makes on minimum wage or receives on Ontario Works. It takes a few minutes to fill out the survey that asks you to estimate the various costs from shampoo to cable, food, rent etc that are incurred in an average month. I filled out the survey skimping on a number of things. For example I didn’t include any car costs and listed entertainment and recreation at $50 bucks a month which includes cable. My total was $1980 a month. If you want to get really basic and cut out the entertainment and recreation you’ve got it down to $1780. But, according to the site a person working 35 hours a week at minimum wage makes $1429. And that is the best case scenario for many folks. If you are a single person on Ontario Works you’re getting $572. If you are on Ontario Disability Benefits you are getting an income of $1429.
I urge everyone to go to the site and do the math. It is quite sobering.
Posted in All Blog Posts, General, Human Rights, Politics, Toronto | 1 Comment »
September 17th, 2008 Andrew Cash
Special report: banning handguns in Canada
By Andrew Cash
Cons shooting holes in global gun-control efforts
If you’re wondering whether you’ve missed any gun talk thus far in the federal election, don’t worry. Not a single rhetorical shot’s been fired – yet.
One reason the issue is taking its time is that the Tories have put a muzzle on their gun-loving supporters in hopes of wooing urban voters with a piano-playing, cardiganed teddy bear.
But in rural areas, these Reformers in Tory blue continue to play the gun card, fanning the still seething flames of anger over the Liberal gun registry.
In one Tory election mail-out to the rural Ontario riding of Leeds-Grenville, a friendly-looking farmer is pictured beside the headline “Gun criminal, hmmmm not likely.” The flyer goes on to promise the scrapping of the long gun registry.
This urban-rural mixed message parallels yet another of the Tories’ duelling hypotheses – that it’s possible to crack down on crime and still allow the amassing of private firearms.
They may be law-and-order freaks, but that hasn’t stopped the Stephen Harper government from letting legal laggards off the hook with a general amnesty for anyone whose gun licence has lapsed, thus leaving hundreds of thousands of guns unlicensed and making the registry less accurate.
But there’s such a stockpile of Tory weapon-control transgressions.
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March 27th, 2008 Andrew Cash
Taking on the new empire
Tibet backers at China’s Consulate show protest focus has shifted from once-mighty U.S.
By Andrew Cash
As I walk up St. George to the Chinese Consulate on Tuesday, March 25, a chill runs through me, and not because winter has made an unwelcome late-March comeback.
I’m thinking of something a friend of mine said recently: “Once China takes over the world as the dominant superpower, we’ll all be pining for the days of the American empire.”
Sitting on the frozen sidewalk across the road from the consulate, 40 supporters of the Tibetan freedom struggle are staging a week-long hunger strike (from 10 am until 4 pm). Such gatherings are becoming a common sight here.
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October 11th, 2007 Andrew Cash
Burma calling
Should we boycott China for propping up brutal regime? Activists can’t decide.
By Andrew Cash
While peaceful buddhist monks are getting bludgeoned to death in the streets of Burma and an international cry for help has brought a thousand people out on the streets tonight, October 6, I’m sorry to confess I’m thinking more about whether I’ll be able to catch any of this evening’s Leafs game.
But in spite of my irrational preoccupation, I do notice on arriving in front of the Chinese Consulate on St. George that the red-T-shirted crowd is giving off a very different vibe than your average Toronto demo.
There is anger here, but it feels reluctant, like it doesn’t come easily. It’s the slogans, too: “Free The Monks,” “We Love Peace” and in particular “Use Your Liberty To Promote Ours,” coined by Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, that draw me out of my privileged mega-sport stupor and land me back on the concrete.
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June 28th, 2007 Andrew Cash
Indian in us all
The elephant in the room of my family history is same one haunting the Canadian family
By Andrew Cash
There must be an aboriginal guy out there with the same name as me.
That’s my initial reaction to an invitation I receive in the mail to participate in a Statistics Canada survey on the living standards of native Canadians.
And in fact there is an Aboriginal guy with my name. Me. But it takes the disembodied voice of the StatsCan official to convince me of the fact. “Why are you sending this to me?” I ask the polished voice on the other end of the phone line.
After all, I’ve never identified myself as Aboriginal. Sure, my paternal grandmother was half Mohawk, born on Tyendinaga near Deseronto. But what am I doing on this list?
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