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Living nightmare for transgender inmate at all-male prison

On hormone therapy since 2008, Bilyk’s features are increasingly feminine, and that has resulted in more attention from male inmates. She has been in prison since 1987 serving a life sentence for second-degree murder after a house robbery she took part in led to the death of the female homeowner.
On hormone therapy since 2008, Bilyk’s features are increasingly feminine, and that has resulted in more attention from male inmates. She has been in prison since 1987 serving a life sentence for second-degree murder after a house robbery she took part in led to the death of the female homeowner.

Nastasia Laura Bilyk calls it a living nightmare.

A transgender inmate, who identifies as a woman, is doing time in the all-male Mountain Institution, a federal prison located on the outskirts of Metro Vancouver.

Now, she has filed a complaint with the Canadian Human Rights Commission in hopes of changing things for herself and for all transgender inmates. She wants to force federal prison officials to recognize the gender she identifies with and treat her accordingly.

In Bilyk’s affidavit, filed with her complaint, she describes her life.

She says she is kept in solitary confinement for her own protection. While at the federal Ferndale Institution in B.C. she was repeatedly raped, the affidavit says. Bilyk did not identify any assailants to prison authorities but she was moved to a treatment centre, and then to Mountain Institution where she received counselling, the affidavit says.

And even in isolation, Bilyk is not safe. In the affidavit she recounts a three-week stretch when she only showered twice because the ward lacked privacy and forced her to bathe with men nearby.

On hormone therapy since 2008, Bilyk’s features are increasingly feminine, and that has resulted in more attention from male inmates. She has been in prison since 1987 serving a life sentence for second-degree murder after a house robbery she took part in led to the death of the female homeowner.

Worse than the harassment, fear, and threats of physical violence, the affidavit continues, is the pain Bilyk feels when someone fails to acknowledge her as a woman.

“Now, staff usually use female pronouns, but sometimes I am still referred to as a man,” it reads. “It makes me want to cry and scream.”

Those conditions amount to “discrimination”, claims the complaint filed with the commission on December 4. That document argues the country’s federal prison system, Correctional Service Canada (CSC), “fails to accommodate transgender prisoners”.

The complaint was filed by Jen Metcalfe, executive director of Prisoners’ Legal Services (PLS). “The only remedy that we will be looking for is policy reform,” she said.

The policy in question is correctional services directive 800-5, which states that transgender inmates in a pre-op phase of treatment will be held in a facility based on an individual’s physical attributes.

In an email response, a correctional services spokesperson would not comment on Bilyk’s complaint.

“The Correctional Service of Canada cannot accommodate your request for an interview. As this complaint is currently being processed it would be inappropriate for CSC to comment at this time,” Avely Serin wrote.

A growing number of provinces are changing their policies for inmates diagnosed with gender dysphoria, the condition where someone’s emotional and psychological identity is the opposite to their biological sex.

In January, Ontario’s provincial prison system became the first in Canada to make it official policy to place pre-op transgender inmates in facilities based on their gender identities.

On Nov. 15, B.C. became the second.

Now, representatives for the governments of Alberta and the Yukon Territories say their correctional systems are revising policies for transgender inmates to follow Ontario’s lead.

The Canadian Human Rights Commission will now consider whether Bilyk’s complaint should be sent to the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal.

If the complaint is deemed valid, it will be forwarded to the tribunal for a hearing and a final determination. Correctional services officials will be able to challenge the complaint.

If the rights commission decides in Bilyk’s favour, it would put pressure on federal prisons across the country to change.

In B.C., Bianca Sawyer was the first person transferred from a male to female facility under B.C.’s revised policy. In an interview at Alouette Correctional Centre, a provincial prison for women, she explained the relief she felt upon arriving there.

“It was a calming euphoria,” she said. Sawyer contrasted that feeling to years spent in prisons where she was constantly surrounded by male prisoners.

Sawyer is in jail for six counts breach of probation, possession of stolen property under $5,000, and uttering a forged document. She was previously convicted for committing 10 bank robberies.

She recounted strip searches conducted by male guards, the fear she felt showering in a room full of men who knew she identified as a woman, and constant verbal abuse from both inmates and prison staff.

Sawyer, who with Metcalfe’s help played an instrumental role in B.C. Corrections revising its policies, went on to recount worse stories about two transgender inmates she knew during four years she spent at Mountain Institution.

“They were made to give lap dances and sexual acts for people’s birthdays,” Sawyer began. She recalled inmates standing in line waiting for oral sex. Sawyer noted there was usually something traded in exchange, such as a food item. But she emphasized that doesn’t mean the act was consensual.

“There was nothing that they could really do,” Sawyer explained. “I mean, they could go cry to the guards, but where are they really going to go?”

Sawyer said a transfer to a federal facility remains her greatest fear. “I don’t want to be treated like they were,” she added.

It’s unknown how many transgender inmates there are in federal facilities and provincial prisons across the country.

In response to requests for numbers sent to each prison authority in Canada, most jurisdictions sent emails saying they did not keep track (B.C., Manitoba, and Quebec) or that they held no transgender inmates.

In Ontario, 63 inmates identified themselves as transgender during intakes between April 2014 and March 2015. On Nov. 14, there were 12 transgender inmates in the province’s custody. Alberta reported it held 16 transgender prisoners as of Nov. 27. Saskatchewan said it presently has one.

Corrections Canada said it could not provide a number. Metcalfe says she has worked with eight transgender inmates in federal custody.

This article originally appeared in print in the Toronto Star and online at TheStar.com on December 14, 2015.

Vancouver groups go old school to mobilize the youth vote for Canada’s #elxn42

The Zolas’ Zach Gray has lent his voice to Turn Up YVR, which aims to improve the woeful voter-turnout rate among 18- to 34-year-olds. Travis Lupick photo.
The Zolas’ Zach Gray has lent his voice to Turn Up YVR, which aims to improve the woeful voter-turnout rate among 18- to 34-year-olds. Travis Lupick photo.

Call it rock the vote or a magical mystery tour, but whatever was happening aboard a bus cruising down Kingsway last Saturday (October 10) was a very fun way to participate in democracy.

Zach Gray of Vancouver indie-rock band the Zolas played guitar and belted out their hit song “You’re Too Cool” while enthusiastic backup vocals were provided by the Boom Booms’ Aaron Ross, Geordie Hart, and Tom Van Deursen.

“Every morning chipping away,” Gray crooned with everybody singing along. “’Til the walls fall down!”

That bus was the third like it to snake around Vancouver that rainy afternoon. The vehicles met crowds of young music fans at Broadway and Cambie Street, people piled in, then the groups toured from one advanced polling station to the next to help the passengers vote and get a jump on the October 19 federal election.

Just before embarking on the last ride of the day, Gray said he’s optimistic that 2015 will see young people break from their reputation for apathy. The reason he’s so sure is Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper.

Gray explained that although people can feel overwhelmed by the amount of information usually required to make an educated voting decision, that isn’t the case this year. “This is the first election in my lifetime where it’s this obvious who to vote against,” he said.

The campaign Gray joined on the bus, Turn Up YVR, is a nonpartisan initiative that’s encouraging everyone to vote regardless of the party they support. But there was one refrain the Straight heard repeated on those buses again and again: anyone but Harper.

On that note, here’s an interesting pair of statistics: in the 2011 federal election, Conservative candidates received a total of 5.8 million votes, and in 2015, there are 5.8 million eligible voters who are between 18 and 29 years of age.

If it’s true that young people are more likely to vote against Harper, they could see him removed from office quite easily. If they voted.

Of course, we know that many do not. According to Elections Canada, in 2011 only 39 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds left the couch for the polls, and for 25- to 34-year-olds, that number was only 45 percent. For comparison’s sake, 75 percent of the 55- to 64-year-old crowd voted in 2011. Elections Canada data shows roughly the same results for the 2008, 2006, and 2004 general elections. In those years, not once did even 50 percent of Canadians aged 18 to 34 make it to the polls.

Despite the depressing math, a plethora of individuals and organizations are working around Vancouver this week to get young people involved in politics.

A few hours before that bus ride with the Zolas and the Boom Booms, the Straight caught up with Vancouver singer-songwriter Dan Mangan, who was also at Broadway and Cambie to help with Turn Up YVR. He conceded many before him have tried and failed to get young people to vote.

“What makes us think this will work?” Mangan asked with a laugh. “We’ve seen four years of majority government with Harper and it’s pretty scary,” he said.

This election cycle, Mangan is also leading a campaign of his own, Imagine October 20th. Similar to the anyone-but-Harper sentiment expressed by Gray, the stated objective there is not to elect the Liberals or NDP but instead to remove the Conservatives from power.

“It’s also about painting the whole process with a more optimistic tone,” Mangan said. “I think there is so much mudslinging and attack ads in the political sphere that what we want to do is think about what a breath of fresh air eating breakfast on October 20th would be with Harper gone forever.”

Music is just one of a number of tools that young people have deployed this year in the hope of getting their peers to the polls. South of the border, pundits have dubbed America’s 2016 presidential contest the “Snapchat election” because candidates such as Hillary Clinton and Rand Paul have reached out to millennials using that mobile app. But here in Canada, 2015 youth-voter drives are consciously going old-school.

In a telephone interview, Aaron Bailey, president of UBC’s student union, the Alma Mater Society, said that perhaps the biggest impact
on youth engagement this election is coming from a partnership between universities and Elections Canada.

For the first time, Elections Canada facilitated student voting with advanced polling that opened on 39 campuses across Canada from October 5 to 8. The pilot program let people vote where they attend school regardless of the riding in which they were registered, removing what many visiting students view as a significant barrier to participating in national elections.

“All they needed was…[approved ID] and then they could vote anywhere,” Bailey said. “Which was huge, just making it so convenient for students so that they didn’t really have an excuse not to vote.”

According to Elections Canada, more than 70,000 people voted that way, though that preliminary figure also includes ballots cast at a number of community centres that ran a similar program.

On the phone from SFU, Simon Fraser Student Society president Enoch Weng and VP external relations Kathleen Yang said the same Elections Canada program was a big hit at SFU. “All of our social-media channels have been used to promote that,” Weng said.

Yang, however, emphasized that “social media alone is never enough.” She said the student society decided to focus on face-to-face events; for example, SFU’s main campus hosted an all-candidates debate for Burnaby North–Seymour. “We had four candidates participate,” she said. “Of course, the Conservative candidate declined.”

(Conservative candidates across Canada have largely boycotted riding debates and refused media requests, which the Toronto Star and other papers have reported is part of a partywide policy. The Conservative party did not respond to repeated Straight requests for an interview on the subject of the youth vote.)

Alex McGowan, VP external for the Kwantlen Student Association, framed the issue of low voter turnout as a matter of chickens and eggs. Do candidates ignore young people because they don’t vote in large numbers, he asked, or are youths apathetic because politicians don’t speak to their issues?

Regardless of the answer, McGowan continued, Kwantlen hoped to address the problem by facilitating meetings where students and candidates could get to know one another. He explained that although voter drives often rely on digital tools such as Instagram and email blasts, Kwantlen’s goal this year was to use real-world encounters to convince students and politicians of one another’s relevance.

“There’s been a demographic shift where now the millennial generation, 18 to 35, is the largest potential voting bloc, larger than the baby boomers,” McGowan said. “That means young people have a lot of potential, a big weight, and if they come out and vote, policies will start to be aimed at them.”

Meanwhile, a number of organizations are reaching out to youth with strategic-voting initiatives that aim to prevent left-leaning (often younger) people from splitting their votes among the Liberals, NDP, and Greens. Those groups suggest people vote for whichever candidate it is in their riding who stands the best chance of defeating their Conservative counterpart. The largest and best organized is Leadnow, which bases its national recommendations on polling data collected for specific contests.

There are also a number of less conventional voter drives targeting young people. For example, Vancouver resident Karilynn Ming Ho launched a Change.org petition that’s calling on Canadian hip-hop superstar Drake to encourage his fans to vote. At the time of writing, it had more than 8,000 signatures. There is also a chain of Vancouver marijuana dispensaries that is using an upcoming Snoop Dogg concert to attract attention to the October 19 election. But perhaps the biggest stir has come from Shit Harper Did (SHD), a troupe of Vancouver comedians that has attracted national headlines with its entertaining and well-researched lampooning of the prime minister.

In a telephone interview, SHD writer and coordinator Emma Cooper agreed that the group has successfully tapped into the youth vote like few other organizations in Canada. She said that was no accident.

“We’re very research-based,” Cooper said. “The whole point is that it looks fun. But you work really hard to make jokes and to target and make humour that engages young people. It’s about looking and seeing that people are not voting, seeing the research that proves that, and asking what they are going to respond to.”

Despite a Facebook page with more than 50,000 likes and YouTube videos with six-figure views, Cooper conceded that SHD faces the same million-dollar question as most modern-day campaigns: how to turn online clicks into real-world votes.

“We’re not going to tell you how to vote,” she said, acknowledging the contradiction there with a laugh. “We’re just doing whatever we can to inform people with our reach and our competitive advantage, where we have a huge online community that is kind of in this positive place because we’ve made a bunch of jokes.”

On the phone from UBC, Bailey answered the same question with a more pointed response. “There is no excuse and no opportunity to complain among young people unless they actually take the time to educate themselves and vote,” he said.

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This article was originally published in print and online at Straight.com on October 14, 2015.

Marijuana advocates warn NDP plans for decriminalization would leave organized crime in control

On July 1, Vancouver police scuffled with advocates for marijuana reform at the annual Cannabis Day demonstration at the Vancouver Art Gallery. Pot TV photo.
On July 1, Vancouver police scuffled with advocates for marijuana reform at the annual Cannabis Day demonstration at the Vancouver Art Gallery. Pot TV photo.

In November 2001, Kash Heed stood before the Senate Special Committee on Illegal Drugs and outlined why his police department had essentially stopped arresting people for marijuana possession.

“It was de facto decriminalization,” the retired commanding officer of the Vancouver police drug squad told the Straight. “I took a lot of heat from the RCMP for doing that.”

Published in September 2002, the committee’s final report is a serious document more than 800 pages long.

“In our opinion, Canadian society is ready for a responsible policy of cannabis regulation,” it concludes. “A regulatory system for cannabis should permit, specifically: more effective targeting of illegal traffic and a reduction in the role played by organized crime.”

Thirteen years later, the committee’s recommendations remain ignored and the report is all but forgotten.

As for Heed, who also served as B.C. solicitor general, he said he’s come to see problems with the position he took back then in favour of decriminalization; mainly, that it doesn’t go far enough.

Heed explained decriminalization would put an end to police busting people for smoking a joint. But he quickly added the illegal supply of marijuana would remain unaddressed.

“We’ll continue to have the murders, the kidnappings, the home invasions,” he said. “All of the violence that’s related to that black market will continue.”

“Decriminalization will do nothing to deal with that aspect of it,” Heed concluded. “Decriminalization is good business for organized crime.”

Ahead of this October’s federal election, two out of three leading political parties have pledged to reform laws concerning the prohibition of recreational marijuana. The New Democrats’ Thomas Mulcair has promised to pursue that policy criticized by Heed, arguing decriminalization is the best first step for marijuana reform and one that can occur while the issue receives further study. Meanwhile, the Liberal party led by Justin Trudeau has said it wants to fully legalize and regulate the drug.

In separate interviews, a number of prominent advocates for marijuana reform told theStraight they have nearly as many concerns about decriminalization as they do about the current system of prohibition.

While some aspects of decriminalization are similar to legalization, activists called attention to the most obvious difference between the two: the space it leaves for organized crime and the violence that follows.

Jodie Emery was an early supporter of Trudeau’s plan to legalize cannabis. She explained the NDP’s version of decriminalization only pertains to the demand side of illicit marijuana sales, leaving the supply side as it exists today. On the other hand, Emery explained, legalization would likely involve a regulatory system that would institutionalize the production and sale of cannabis similar to Canada’s existing systems for tobacco.

“The NDP’s decision to just look at reforming policy—to have another long investigation or discussion about reforming the laws—means that the criminal control of the market will remain in place, that gang violence will not be addressed in Surrey or anywhere as long as marijuana remains illegal,” Emery said.

John Anderson, a former B.C. Corrections officer and member of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, described decriminalization as “a victory for organized crime”.

Dan Werb, director of the International Centre for Science in Drug Policy, explained the changes legalization would bring that decriminalization would not.

“In the case of B.C., we estimated that over $500 million in retail sales is going into the hands of organized crime every year,” Werb said. “If you remove that market, it is the most effective way of kneecapping organized crime and reducing the power of organized crime.”

Even the RMCP—a conservative organization that generally avoids even the appearance of disagreements with Ottawa—may be warming to the idea of reform.

In a telephone interview, Cpl. Scotty Schumann, a media relations officer for Surrey RCMP, confirmed drugs have played a “primary role” in a spate of more than three dozen shootings that have occurred in Surrey since last spring.

Asked how the legalization of marijuana could affect gang violence, Schumann replied: “I suspect that if marijuana was legalized, that would reduce the amount of black market activity surrounding marijuana. I would just be speculating on how that would affect the outcome. But I guess when you look back to alcohol prohibition, certainly, when that was removed, I think it benefited the country.”

There are few jurisdictions comparable to B.C that have legalized marijuana. One is Colorado, where recreational cannabis became legal on January 1, 2014. According tonumbers published by the city, from 2013 to 2014, robberies in Denver declined 3.3 percent, aggravated assault increased 1.2 percent, and homicides dropped 24.4 percent.

The Colorado experiment is still in its early days. There is however substantial research that shows existing police enforcement policies have little overall positive influence on violence related to drug dealing.

For example, a 2011 paper authored by academics with UBC and the B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS reviewed 15 studies that examined law-enforcement agencies’ effects on gang violence. It found that 14 of them recorded an “adverse impact” and 10 showed a “significant association between drug law enforcement and drug market violence”.

That is, police enforcement of drug laws did not reduce violence but actually led to increased numbers of incidents.

Holding front seats for the violence Surrey has experienced this year are Sukh Dhaliwal, the Liberal candidate for Surrey-Newton, and his NDP incumbent rival,Jinny Sims.

In a telephone interview, Dhaliwal noted he’s historically voted in favour of tough-on-crime legislation. But he argued where marijuana is concerned, it is time for change.

“Every parent is concerned about this gang activity and this gang war going on right now,” he said. “One way we can work to ending this war is to take that criminal element out. And this evidence-based policy—legalizing marijuana—will get that element out. And decriminalization, as the NDP is saying, would keep that factor in.”

Dhaliwal called it a “smart on crime” approach.

In a separate interview, Sims didn’t disagree with the Liberals’ plan in principle. She criticized its potential execution.

“Nobody denies—except for maybe the Conservatives—that our marijuana laws need to be modernized,” Sims said. “But we need to base our decisions on evidence and public health principles.

“It’s not a simple matter of just coming out one day and saying, ‘We’re going to legalize marijuana’,” she continued. “That could lead to major transition problems.”

Neil Boyd, director of the SFU school of criminology, cautioned legalization won’t automatically translate into the evaporation of B.C.’s illegal marijuana trade.

“Regulation isn’t going to be easy,” he said. “How are you going to get rid of the black market? You have to set the price carefully.”

(A 38-page Liberal party policy document acknowledges those types of concerns. “To be successful and prevent organized crime from maintaining a black market, the price of legal marijuana must be lower than it is now,” it reads. “At the same time, the product’s quality must be at least as good – if not better.”)

Boyd said that while the NDP’s plan fails to address the problem of organized crime, the Liberals have yet to explain the details of their plan.

“Decriminalization, to many people, seems a safer approach,” he said. “I think that is mistaken. But I understand the logic. There is a fear that with legalization, we’ll have promotion.”

Boyd suggested it is unlikely legalization would ever take the form of unfettered distribution for marijuana as if it were a harmless product like milk or eggs. He argued Canada should follow examples for how it regulates controlled substances such as tobacco and alcohol.

“We’ll want to regulate it in the public interest,” he said.

This article is part of a series.
Part one: Liberals and NDP promise marijuana reform but pot crimes could still haunt Canadians for decades
Part two: Decriminalization versus legalization: marijuana advocates scrutinize competing plans for reform
Part three: Marijuana advocates warn NDP plans for decriminalization would leave organized crime in control

Follow Travis Lupick on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

This article was originally published in print and online at Straight.com on September 19, 2015.

Liberals and NDP promise marijuana reform but pot crimes could still haunt Canadians for decades

Burnaby father Trevor Holness still feels the impact of his pot conviction after Vancouver police busted him more than 20 years ago with a third of a gram.
Burnaby father Trevor Holness still feels the impact of his pot conviction after Vancouver police busted him more than 20 years ago with a third of a gram.

It was 20 years ago that Trevor Holness was arrested for marijuana possession in Vancouver. He had just turned 18 and was out with friends at the annual fireworks celebration on English Bay, Holness recounted in a telephone interview.

Today he lives in Burnaby as a family man with a career and a mortgage. But Holness conceded that back then, he was “a bit of a delinquent”.

“I was pulled aside during an altercation between my friends and some other friends,” he said of that night. “And I was arrested.”

Police found a 250-millilitre bottle of liquor and 0.34 gram of marijuana. They recommended a number of charges that eventually saw prosecutors offer Holness a deal: take the charge for marijuana, do one day in jail, and authorities would forget about the rest.

“I pled guilty,” Holness said. “I wish I never did.”

Holness argued that the true penalty he paid was not the one night he spent imprisoned. “It was that charge,” he said, explaining that the record of the crime has hurt him over and over again.

In 2006, for example, he was denied security clearance for a construction job at Vancouver International Airport. He’s afraid of U.S. customs officials and has missed business trips that would have advanced his career. More recently, the drug charge complicated an insurance plan tied to his mortgage. On job applications, Holness is asked if he’s bondable or has ever been convicted of an offence.

“I’ve had to check those boxes and there have been jobs that I didn’t get because of that,” he said.

For this series, the Georgia Straight interviewed a half-dozen British Columbians caught with marijuana by police.

In September 2012, RCMP officers were looking for a stolen boat along the Fraser River when they stumbled on Matt Roan. He admitted that he and a friend were there smoking pot. Neither was arrested but both learned later that their names were listed in police databases alongside a drug offence.

In May 2013, Ucluelet resident Adam Rodgers woke up to find his home surrounded by officers with guns drawn. His five young children still have nightmares, Rodgers told theStraight. “Over three plants.”

In February 2015, Sarah Bowman purchased cannabis with a prescription at a Vancouver dispensary. On her way home to New Westminster, RCMP caught her smoking on the street. Like Roan’s, her transgression was recorded in the RCMP’s computer system but she was released without charge. “Shaking and terrified,” Bowman added.

Holness was caught with one-third of a gram of marijuana in 1994. He emphasized that police 20 years later are still handcuffing Canadians for crimes related to cannabis, and he warned that those people could be living with the consequences two decades from today. Holness suggested the laws that criminalize marijuana inflict far more harm than the drug itself.

That’s despite two out of three leading parties in this October’s federal election having pledged to reform marijuana laws as soon as they take office. At an August 20 campaign stop in Vancouver, NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair told the Straight he would decriminalize pot “the minute we form government”. A few months earlier and also in Vancouver, Justin Trudeau promised a Liberal government would legalize recreational marijuana “right away”.

For victims of prohibition like Jodie Emery—whose husband, Marc, spent almost five years in a U.S. prison for selling marijuana seeds—it raises a question: if by this time next year marijuana possession is no longer a crime, why are law-enforcement agencies still busting people, with repercussions that last a lifetime?

From 2003 to 2012, the B.C. Ministry of Justice recorded charging 44,522 people under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act for crimes related to cannabis. (The Straight is waiting on freedom of information requests for more recent data.) But B.C.’s prisons are not overcrowded with inmates serving time for petty marijuana offences.

According to the ministry, during the first six months of 2015, only 327 people spent time inside a B.C. Corrections institution solely for a drug crime. An additional 1,069 British Columbians were convicted of a drug offence but handed probation or released on a conditional sentence.

However, groups such as the B.C. Civil Liberties Association have warned that the digitization of information means that even a congenial encounter with police can result in devastating consequences. And there continue to be a lot of marijuana seizures that fall into that category.

As few as seven percent of B.C. marijuana violations result in charges, according to a 2011 analysis published by the University of the Fraser Valley. But according to Justice Ministry numbers, from 2003 to 2012 B.C. police recorded 173,157 offences related to cannabis, every one of which remains in police databases today.

All of these numbers have grown since Prime Minister Stephen Har­per’s Conservative government assumed power in 2006. If a Liberal or NDP administration is elected this October, they should decline significantly but to varying degrees, depending on who takes office and how reforms are implemented.

Dan Werb is director of the International Centre for Science in Drug Policy and the lead author of an August 2015 report that summarized existing research related to marijuana use and the consequences of proposed regulations.

“There is no evidence that our current system is doing anything but making life more miserable for people who use cannabis,” he said in a telephone interview.

Werb told the Straight the NDP’s plan to decriminalize and the Liberals’ plan to legalize are different from one another to a much greater degree than most people understand. (Exactly how the two policies differ will be explored in depth in subsequent articles in this series.)

He explained that although both decriminalization and legalization involve significant reforms on the demand side—repealing laws that prohibit the drug’s possession, for
example—it is only legalization that also brings changes on the supply side.

“When we think about decriminalization, I actually find it to be really problematic,” Werb said. “What decriminalization does not entail is effectively changing the structure by which cannabis is produced or sold.”

In June 2015, the City of Vancouver responded to a proliferation of marijuana storefronts by adopting a legal framework and regulations that Mayor Gregor Robertson has said will bring order to an illegal industry that the federal Conservative government has ignored. The Liberals’ Hedy Fry and the NDP’s Constance Barnes have had a front-row seat to this experiment. In this October’s federal election, they are the top contenders for Vancouver Centre, a riding that is home to more cannabis dispensaries than any other in the country.

In separate interviews, Fry described the current situation as closer to decriminalization. She criticized it for that reason and argued that what is needed is a higher degree of regulation, which she said Trudeau’s plan for legalization will provide. Meanwhile, Barnes argued that what has happened in Vancouver is “legalization without a plan”. She said that is what the Liberals are now threatening to apply to the entire country.

“The use of cannabis is not going away,” Barnes said. “But I do not support going forward with any kind of legalization until we have a plan in place. And at this point right now,
I do not see any plan. It is putting the cart before the horse.”

Fry maintained that legalization will address people’s common complaints about Vancouver dispensaries.

“Decriminalization has been going on and it hasn’t really worked,” she said. “By legalizing it, we can control the substance.”

Holness said he’s waiting for that day. “I’ve never felt any animosity towards police,” he noted. It is the politicians, he said, he holds responsible.

This article is part of a series.
Part one: Liberals and NDP promise marijuana reform but pot crimes could still haunt Canadians for decades
Part two: Decriminalization versus legalization: marijuana advocates scrutinize competing plans for reform
Part three: Marijuana advocates warn NDP plans for decriminalization would leave organized crime in control

Follow Travis Lupick on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

This article was originally published in print and online at Straight.com on September 2, 2015.

Date set for committee to hear complaints against CSIS at secret hearing in Vancouver

In February 2014, BCCLA executive director Josh Paterson (far right) appeared alongside Will Horder, Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, and Ben West, to protest what they allege is illegal government spying on pipeline foes. Travis Lupick photo.
In February 2014, BCCLA executive director Josh Paterson (far right) appeared alongside Will Horder, Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, and Ben West, to protest what they allege is illegal government spying on pipeline foes. Travis Lupick photo.

A group of B.C. environmentalists is about to have its day in court in a high-profile case against the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS).

Beginning in Vancouver on August 12, the Security Intelligence Review Committee (SIRC), an oversight body, will begin hearing a February 2014 complaint that alleges CSIS illegally spied on activists and First Nations people.

In a telephone interview, B.C. Civil Liberties Association executive director Josh Paterson said rules for the hearing are so secret and restrictive that even he—one of the lawyers involved in the case—doesn’t know if he’ll be allowed to remain in the room for the full length of proceedings.

“Nobody can attend other than witnesses who are testifying,” Paterson told the Straight. “I’m not sure there has ever been one [hearing] like it in Vancouver. We think it is a pretty big deal.”

The BCCLA’s complaint pertains to documents released in November 2013 in response to an access to information request. It describes those files as evidence CSIS cooperated with the National Energy Board (NEB) to monitor activists who opposed the construction of the Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline, a project that is subject to the NEB’s review.

The complaint alleges that in doing so, CSIS officers violated several sections of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Those include provisions stipulating freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, and freedom of association, as well as freedom from unreasonable search. (The complaint also targets the RCMP, though that aspect of the legal action is being handled separately.)

In addition, the complaint against CSIS claims that the spy agency violated sections of the 1985 Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act that forbade the collection of information on “lawful advocacy, protest or dissent”.

Paterson said the case is about bringing to light the actions of a secretive security agency that may be breaking the law.

“We allege that CSIS acted illegally in spying on community groups,” he said. “That in doing that, CSIS violated their constitutional rights. This hearing is about getting to the bottom of that.”

SIRC and CSIS did not respond to requests for interviews by deadline.

This article originally appeared in print and online at Straight.com on August 5, 2015.

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In Canada, officials keep close watch on environmental activists

Protesters are led to a police van after being detained by RCMP officers during a demonstration against the proposed Kinder Morgan pipeline protest on Burnaby Mountain in British Columbia on November 20, 2014. Ben Nelms / Reuters photo.
Protesters are led to a police van after being detained by RCMP officers during a demonstration against the proposed Kinder Morgan pipeline protest on Burnaby Mountain in British Columbia on November 20, 2014. Ben Nelms / Reuters photo.

This article was originally published online at Al Jazeera America on August 5, 2015.

VANCOUVER, British Columbia — On July 16, James McIntyre, 48, was shot and killed by police outside a public meeting about a proposed hydroelectric dam in Dawson Creek, a small town in northeastern British Columbia. The dam, called Site C, is controversial among environmentalists and First Nations people, and the night McIntyre was shot, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) were responding to reports that a protester was disrupting the meeting.

Little is known about the circumstances surrounding his death, but in a video taken immediately after the shooting, his blood can be seen pooling on the sidewalk and dripping into the street. Eventually, two officers approach his slumped body and place restraints on it while a third policeman keeps his gun drawn.

A day after the shooting, it emerged that McIntyre was not the person who interrupted the meeting, though he was reportedly wearing a Guy Fawkes mask and holding a knife. Five days after McIntyre’s death, Minister of Public Safety Steven Blaney responded to questions about the incident at a press conference in a Vancouver suburb.

“I’ve said clearly in the past, there are many ways, in this country that enjoys freedom, to express our democratic views,” he said. “I invite those who want to express their views to use democratic ways. Those who don’t expose themselves to face the full force of the law.”

According to Sean Devlin, an activist who has spent the last two years working on a documentary about Canadian government surveillance, both the shooting and Blaney’s remarks are consistent with a larger government crackdown on environmental activists. “They are using violence to intimidate those who oppose [projects like the Site C Dam],” Devlin said, adding that what the country’s conservative government tolerates as legitimate dissent is shrinking.

Nowhere is this tension felt more acutely than in British Columbia, where the province’s premier, Christy Clark, has staked her legacy on transforming the region into a global hub for liquefied natural gas. In addition to megaprojects like the Site C dam, two pipelines are under discussion that would carry massive amounts of heavy crude from the Athabasca oil sands in central Alberta to the coast of British Columbia. The scramble for natural resources has turned Canada’s westernmost province into a battleground for conservationists, and First Nations people have led the way in fighting these efforts.

The environmental movement in British Columbia is diverse and gaining public support. It enjoys the backing of Vancouver’s mayor, for example, and rallies attract thousands, including families. Occasionally, there are confrontations with police. In November 2014 dozens of people were arrested when they refused to leave a protest camp erected to prevent survey work related to a proposed pipeline expansion. But that incident eventually ended peacefully, without violence or accusations of police brutality.

Meanwhile, evidence has slowly revealed that several Canadian security agencies are monitoring the activities of pipeline opponents, demonstration organizers and First Nations people involved in related activities. Documents released in response to freedom of information requests present a picture of state surveillance that activists say is stifling dissent. In the wake of McIntyre’s death, these tensions have only heightened.

Widespread surveillance

One afternoon in March 2015, Tim Takaro, a professor at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Columbia, and a self-described activist, was out for lunch with his teenage daughter when her cellphone rang. On the other end was an RCMP officer who wanted to know her father’s whereabouts.

After she handed the phone to him, the officer said he was calling about photographs Takaro took of a property owned by Kinder Morgan, an oil pipeline company. Takaro acknowledged that one week earlier, he had had a brief interaction with a security guard working for Kinder Morgan. But the incident was nothing serious, Takaro recounted. He was simply asked to stop taking pictures. Takaro thought it was all a misunderstanding until the officer continued to press him. “Then he said, ‘We also saw your car at a protest in November,’” Takaro continued. “And then, ‘But don’t worry, there are no criminal charges.’”

“It was definitely intimidation,” Takaro concluded.

Over the last several years, stories like Takaro’s have corroborated documents released through freedom of information requests that outline the extent to which law enforcement agencies are monitoring environmental activists. These files are notable for the language they use to describe protesters and the level of detail they include on the activities of organizations and the lives of their members.

An RCMP internal document dated December 2012 compares the First Nations movement Idle No More to “bacteria,” warning, “it has grown a life all of its own all across the nation.”

“There is a high probability that we could see flash mobs, round dances and blockades become much less compliant to laws,” it continues. “The escalation of violence is ever near.”

Two years later, a separate RCMP intelligence assessment warns, “violent anti-petroleum extremists will continue to engage in criminal activity to promote anti-petroleum ideology.” The 44-page document, made public by Greenpeace in February, calls attention to British Columbia, saying, “there is a coalition of like-minded violent extremists who are planning criminal actions to prevent the construction of the pipeline.” Yet with rare exceptions, there are almost no reports of existing environmental groups engaging in illegal actions. When asked for examples, RCMP representatives usually cite a series of attacks that occurred in the 1990s. (These were the actions of one man, Wiebo Ludwig, who in 2000 was convicted of sabotaging oil and gas infrastructure in northern Alberta.)

In March, declassified documents revealed that the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, Canada’s equivalent of the CIA, was involved in helping local law-enforcement agencies track protesters, particularly in British Columbia. That memo also described the role of the Government Operations Centre, another federal agency, in compiling a “risk forecast” report for the 2014 “spring summer protest and demonstration season.” A previously released Government Operations Centre document includes details of more than 800 demonstrations throughout Canada since 2009.

The names of well-known Canadian environmental groups appear in these documents. Among them are Greenpeace, Tides Canada, the Sierra Club, the Georgia Strait Alliance, the Wilderness Committee and Idle No More.

Creating paranoia

In November 2014, David Lavallee, a Vancouver-based filmmaker, used a small unmanned aerial vehicle to record footage of an oil tanker marine terminal that serves as the endpoint for a Kinder Morgan oil pipeline. Lavallee is producing a documentary about unconventional energy sources such as the oil sands, and the facility he videotaped receives significant amounts of diluted bitumen from Alberta.

Two days later, he received a voice mail from a local RCMP detachment. That was followed by a visit from two local police officers and a visit from officers with the RCMP’s anti-terrorism unit.

In a subsequent telephone call, an officer warned him, “What you are doing could be seen as a precursor to terrorist behavior,” Lavallee said.

“I’m not a terrorist,” he told them. “I’m a kindergarten teacher.”

Lavallee wasn’t surprised when he learned about the Dawson Creek shooting, saying that it was only a matter of time before a violent confrontation occurs between protesters and police. “If you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail,” he said.

Clayton Thomas-Muller, a former organizer with Idle No More, now works as an campaigner on indigenous issues for the climate change group 350.org. Documents made public by the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network in October 2014 reveal that the RCMP has monitored his activities since at least 2010.

“A known member of the Indigenous Environmental Network will be heading to northern B.C. tomorrow,” reads a reference to Thomas-Muller that appears in an RCMP occurrence report dated July 7, 2010. “We would like to anticipate and monitor any protests in order to keep you informed if these protests happen in your detachment areas.”

On the phone from his home in Winnipeg, Thomas-Muller said he suspected that the government was monitoring him. He recounted how RCMP officers often acted as if they were familiar with him when they saw him at public demonstrations, making clear they knew his name and face.

“These things are designed to create paranoia. They are designed to create mistrust. They are designed to affect your confidence in your cause,” he said.

The Canadian Ministry of Public Safety and the RCMP refused repeated requests for interviews. The Canadian Security Intelligence Service did not respond to emails or voice mail messages. An emailed statement supplied by RCMP spokeswoman Annie Delisle claims the force respects the public’s right to peaceful demonstration. “Security operations balance individual rights and freedoms with the need to maintain public safety, peace and good order,” it reads.

Stewart Phillip is the president of the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs and a prominent figure in the province’s environmental movement. He described the federal government’s monitoring of environmentalists as part of its focus on the development of the Alberta oil sands and pipelines.

He called attention to the controversial anti-terrorism legislation Bill C-51, which was passed into law on June 18. He warned that several aspects of Bill C-51 could be used against environmentalists. For example, the bill broadens the definition of an “activity that undermines the security of Canada” to include anything that targets the country’s “economic or financial stability” or “critical infrastructure” — including energy projects such as pipelines.

Activists such as Takaro worry that this legislation could be used to expand what he sees as overreaching federal oversight. “The thing that is most concerning to me is that with Bill C-51, my taking a picture could actually be construed as a criminal act, because it could be construed as interfering with critical infrastructure,” he said.

“If they are really after you,” Takaro continued, “you’re not paranoid, right?”

This article was originally published online at Al Jazeera America on August 5, 2015.

Ten days training in Toronto, then on to Malawi

I left Bhutan on June 8. A few days in Kathmandu, Nepal. Then it was back to Vancouver. A week or so there. Then, June 18, Toronto. June 28, we leave for Blantyre, Malawi.

I’m in Toronto with Journalists for Human Rights, an international ngo that promotes human rights through media development. They’re sending me to Blantyre—Malawi’s second-largest city—to work with a newspaper called the Daily Times. I’ll be in Malawi right through until the end of December.

Malawi is one of the world’s “least developed countries”. The United Nations Human Development Index ranks it 156 out of 170 listed nations. But on the Institute for Economics and Peace’s Global Peace Index, Malawi places just 39 from the top —higher than any other African nation save Botswana.

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The Guardian’s calling it “Vancouver’s kiss of life”


Photo Rich Lam / Getty Images.

The Guardian‘s Douglas Haddow has written a real nice piece about a photograph that came out of Vancouver’s June 15 riot.

It begins:

Vancouver, “the world’s most livable city”, has been devastated. Not so much by the riotous violence that came soon after the Canucks lost the Stanley Cup, but by what the international media’s coverage of the carnage may mean for the city’s image.

City hall, the province of British Columbia, and indeed the federal government of Canada, are worried that potential tourists will no longer think of Vancouver as a city of yoga pants, sushi and skiing, but of mayhem and fire.

Despite all the sorrow and disgust expressed by Vancouverites over the PR fallout, one image, absent of violence or destruction, has come to define the riot.

Continue reading “The Guardian’s calling it “Vancouver’s kiss of life””