This week's list of articles, news items and opinion pieces that I see as must reads if you are looking for a roundup that should be of interest to The Left Chapter readers.
This list covers the week of October 22-29. It is generally in order of the date of the article's release.
1) A Toronto imam was accused of hate-preaching against Jews. But that wasn’t the whole story
Jennifer Yang, The Toronto Star
Ayman Elkasrawy’s controversial prayers sparked outrage and condemnation from many, including members of his own faith. In the aftermath, he reached out to the Jewish community to educate himself and learn from his mistakes. Still, a key question remained unanswered: did he really say what he was accused of saying?
Read the full article.
2) Sexual Harassment is Old News for Women in Trades
tradeswomn musings
In the wake of harassment allegations against sexual predators including movie moguls and our president, tradeswomen applaud women who are telling their stories and rising up against this outrage.
Women in male-dominated occupations have been fighting this fight for as long as we can remember. We’ve been on the front lines of the feminist movement for decades defending our sisters, supporting legislation to protect women against sexual harassment and helping employers and unions see their responsibility on this issue. We and our fight have been invisible except to each other. Every female construction worker has experienced harassment and all of us can say #Metoo.
Read the full article.
3) CAMI Strike 2017: After Another Setback Can Unifor Move On?
Herman Rosenfeld, The Socialist Project Bullet
A four-week strike at the CAMI assembly plant, that began on September 17th, ended on October 16th. Members of Unifor Local 88 voted 86% in favour of the tentative agreement bargained with the stand-alone GM plant. Located in Ingersoll, Ontario, close to London, it is a former joint venture between Suzuki and GM. CAMI assembles hot-selling Chevrolet Equinox crossover vehicles.
Read the full article.
4) Why did Masuma Khan’s post invite censure from Dalhousie if free speech is so vaunted?
Shree Paradkar, The Toronto Star
Dalhousie University is facing scrutiny for investigating a student leader's polarizing social media comments as a group of law professors and a civil liberties group accuse the university of censoring political speech.
Read the full article.
5) Please turn up the volume on the #MeToo outrage
Susan G. Cole, NOW Magazine
Don’t buy the argument that smaller abuses aren’t harmful – there is a spectrum of abuse, and it has to be acknowledged.
Read the full article.
6) Quebec Gov't To Keep Crucifix Despite Banning Niqabi Women From Public Transit
Huffington Post
A crucifix that is prominently displayed in the room where members of the Quebec national assembly hold their regular sittings is staying put.
Read the full article.
7) Catholic school sex-ed plan as advertised won't ever be taught, premier says
The Canadian Press
Alberta Premier Rachel Notley says an alternative sex education curriculum being crafted by Catholic school officials will never be taught if it arrives as previously advertised.
Read the full article.
8) Labour leaders rally at Union Station to demand transit services be kept in public hands
Muriel Draaisma, CBC News
A handful of labour leaders launched a campaign at Toronto's Union Station on Tuesday morning to stop what they say is the privatization of public transit projects.
Read the full article.
9) James Toback: 200 more women allege harassment by director, reports LA Times
Gwilym Mumford, The Guardian
Julianne Moore among new accusers as paper says it has received hundreds of stories of unwanted sexual attention from Toback, who has denied earlier allegations.
Read the full article.
10) Fashion must now move on from female exploitation – and Terry Richardson
Namalee Bolle, The Guardian
The Harvey Weinstein scandal has triggered a wave of allegations, revelations and even confessions, via the #metoo campaign, across media and entertainment. I’m not the only one working in the fashion business wondering whether this will finally signal the end of our own disgraceful “hush hush” culture surrounding harassment.
Read the full article.
11) Woody Allen Keeps Telling Us Who He Is. Women Should Listen.
Kali Holloway / AlterNet
Someone should invent a word for that moment when you realize an artist you love is a terrible person. The term could be used to succinctly describe the painful transition between before and after, that fracture in time separating carefree consumption from morally weighted knowledge. It would define the general discomfort of watching Last Tango in Paris versus the full-on horror of learning Bernardo Bertolucci and Marlon Brando conspired to commit verité sexual assault against Maria Schneider to get an authentically humiliating take. It would sum up the sudden creepiness that emanates from Cliff Huxtable with awareness that serial sexual abuser Bill Cosby is actually ensconced in that sweater. It’s the disturbing realization that sexually predatory thug Harvey Weinstein was involved in so many iconic films and incidents of sexual harassment dating back decades, it casts a shadow over an entire industry. Or the insight that R. Kelly—who will never face charges because this country doesn’t believe black women can truly be victims, as Weinstein also proved—was genuinely trying to sell us all on age-of-consent laws being useless.
Read the full article.
12) 'I will never not speak out again': Cindy McCormick killed in murder-suicide, says friend
Bobbi-Jean MacKinnon, CBC News
As Jennifer Gordon struggles to cope with the slaying of her best friend, Saint John dentist Cindy McCormick, in Alberta last weekend, she has made a promise to herself.
"I will never not speak out again," she said. "I will never stay silent."
Read the full article.
13) Revealed: oil giants pay billions less tax in Canada than abroad
Martin Lukacs, The Guardian
Canada taxes its oil and gas companies at a fraction of the rate they are taxed abroad, including by countries ranked among the world’s most corrupt, according to an analysis of public data by the Guardian.
Read the full article.
14) MINNEAPOLIS CITY COUNCIL CANDIDATE IS A SOCIALIST WHO GETS THINGS DONE
Zaid Jilani, The Intercept
A Group of about 20 Minneapolis residents huddled outside a downtown building on a recent Friday, some wearing T-shirts emblazoned with messages, like “Tax the Rich” and “Minneapolis Needs a Political Revolution.”
Read the full article.
15) A Harvey Weinstein Moment for the Restaurant Industry?
Jen Agg, The New Yorker
In September of 2015, I organized a conference in Toronto to discuss gender inequality in the restaurant world. Titled Kitchen Bitches: Smashing the Patriarchy One Plate at a Time, the conference was the first of its kind, and it came in the wake of several instances of women in the Toronto restaurant industry speaking out about the discrimination and harassment they’d faced.
Read the full article.
16) Ontario makes it illegal to protest outside and near abortion clinics
The Canadian Press
It will soon be illegal to protest outside and near abortion clinics in Ontario.
The legislature passed a bill Wednesday to create zones around the eight clinics in the province of between 50 and 150 metres in which anti-abortion protests, advising a person not to get an abortion, and intimidation or interfering with a woman's ability to access the services will be banned.
Read the full article.
17) Quebec police officers accused of trading money and drugs for sex with aboriginal women placed on leave
Postmedia News
Police officers trading money and cocaine for sex, a missing persons case that collected dust for months, and allegations of wanton cruelty against vulnerable women.
These are what indigenous people say they have encountered first-hand in their dealings with the Sûreté du Québec in the remote mining city of Val d’Or.
Read the full article.
18) Social media brings Pakistan's persecuted women rare justice after the violence
Farhad Mirza and Sophie Hemery, The Guardian
Sarah Gill, Suman Ali – aka Acid Survivor – and Khadija Siddiqi represent a growing movement using the internet to demand justice for the shocking crimes they have suffered. Will it trigger long-awaited change in Pakistan?
Read the full article.
19) Why deny the Ukrainian Nazi connection?
David Pugliese, Ottawa Citizen
The Russian Embassy in Ottawa has created quite the controversy with its latest tweets about Nazi monuments in Canada.
Read the full article.
20) Podemos Leader Pablo Iglesias Calls Catalan Independence Illegal
Left Voice
The repression of October 1 may be small compared to the immense repression that Rajoy could bring down on the Catalan people as a result of this independence vote and concrete move to separate from the Spanish State. Iglesias turns his back on those workers and students who are in the streets celebrating right now, and who may tomorrow be in the streets facing the Spanish police. All progressives must position themselves in opposition to Article 155 and against the repression of the Spanish State. Podemos must put its immense political weight on the side of the workers and youth instead of leaving the Catalan people isolated to face off against the Spanish State and its imperialist backers. They must call for a huge movement against Article 155, against repression, and against a possible occupation of Catalonia by the Spanish armed forces.
Read the full article.
21) The war against Pope Francis
Andrew Brown, The Guardian
Pope Francis is one of the most hated men in the world today. Those who hate him most are not atheists, or protestants, or Muslims, but some of his own followers. Outside the church he is hugely popular as a figure of almost ostentatious modesty and humility. From the moment that Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio became pope in 2013, his gestures caught the world’s imagination: the new pope drove a Fiat, carried his own bags and settled his own bills in hotels; he asked, of gay people, “Who am I to judge?” and washed the feet of Muslim women refugees.
Read the full article.
22) Marital rape myths have no place in Canadian law
Jennifer Koshan, Melanie Randall and Elizabeth Sheehy, The Globe and Mail
Since 1983, it has been a crime in Canada to sexually assault one's spouse. Yet marital rape too often remains effectively decriminalized, as shown in a recent Ontario decision. In R. v. H.E., an Ottawa man was acquitted of sexually assaulting his wife. Justice Robert J. Smith found that "the accused probably had sex with his wife on many occasions without her specific consent, as both he and she believed that he had the right to do so." With respect to the incident that led to criminal charges, however, the complainant testified she had told the accused to stop several times, and the judge found her to be credible. It is difficult to see how the accused could have honestly believed that his wife was consenting in these circumstances. It appears the accused was acquitted because he did not understand the law of consent, despite the fact that ignorance of the law is no defence.
Read the full article.
23) Judges failing women again on sex assault cases
Vicky Mochama, The Toronto Star
Companies and institutions will have to reckon with how they have created environments for predators to thrive but is the criminal justice system is ready for this change?
Read the full article.
24) 'An insult to women': Roman Polanski retrospective causes outrage
Agence France-Presse, The Guardian
French feminists have voiced outrage over a planned retrospective of the films of director Roman Polanski, who has been accused of several sexual assaults, calling it “an insult” to women following the Harvey Weinstein scandal.
Read the full article.
25) How Terry Richardson created porn ‘chic’ and moulded the look of an era
Richard Benson, The Guardian
The photographer, now ostracised by the fashion industry after many allegations of sexual harassment, shaped an aesthetic of exploitation.
Read the full article.
26) Iceland's centre-left opposition takes narrow majority in parliament
France 24
Icelanders, angry over a string of political scandals, ousted the centre-right government in an election that could pave the way for a young charismatic opposition leader to form a left-leaning coalition, final vote counts showed on Sunday.
Read the full article.
While this piece is from before the period covered, it is important and we are including it as we missed it before:
27) POLICE REPORTEDLY CLAIM A BROOKLYN TEEN CONSENTED TO SEX IN CUSTODY. THAT’S IMPOSSIBLE.
Natasha Lennard, The Intercept
On September 28, attorney Michael David filed notice of a claim against the New York Police Department, the City of New York, and two unnamed police officers, referred to as John and Jim Doe. These plainclothes cops, alleged the claim, “brutally sexually assaulted and raped” his 18-year-old female client. David told me that within a day, he needed to amend the claim: The officers had been identified by police in the press as Brooklyn South narcotics detectives Richard Hall and Edward Martins.
Read the full article.
See also: Bill 62, Harvey Weinstein, Climate Change and more -- The Left Chapter Sunday Reading List October 15 - 22
See also: Harvey Weinstein, Sidney Crosby, Cuba and more -- The Left Chapter Sunday Reading List October 8-15
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