Alert! Radio
Episode 152 (April 15th 2010)
Former Chief Arthur Manuel exposes what lies behind Tom Flanagan’s proposal to convert reserve lands to private property. Professor Darlene Juschka tells why she and 15 other University of Regina faculty members oppose the Project Hero program on their campus. John Clarke, organizer of the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty, explains how Ontario’s 2010 budget penalizes the poor. Mitch Podolak’s Music is the Weapon features songs of resistance that focus on Latin America and Iraq. Download this episode (26.2 MB)
Show Notes
Converting reserve lands to private property?
In a recent speech to the Frontier Centre, a right-wing policy group, Tom Flanagan University of Calgary Political Science professor and former chief of staff to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, has floated the idea that giving Aboriginal people the right to own property on reserves could help cure poverty of First Nations people. Read more about his argument here. Arthur Manuel is a former Neskonlith chief and spokesperson for the Indigenous Network on Economics and Trade. You can read Manuel’s article, “Land and Rights in Canada”, here. Also, check out this video interview with Manuel talking about Defenders of the Land here.
Project Hero
16 University of Regina professors have signed a letter to University of Regina president Vianne Timmons protesting the university’s support for Project Hero. Under the program, which the school launched several weeks ago, children of members of the military who died while on active duty receive free tuition for four years, as well as $1,000 for books. Rick Hillier, a co-founder of Project Hero and one of the most controversial figures in the recent military history of this country, was the first to introduce “Project Hero” at a Canadian post-secondary institution, just after he took up the post as Chancellor of Memorial University of Newfoundland. Since then, a number of other public Canadian universities have come on board. The professors’ opposition to Project Hero has sparked a storm of public comment, mostly opposed to the professors’ stand. Read a response to these reactions here and here.
OCAP & the 2010 budget
Ontario’s Finance Minister brought down the Ontario provincial a few weeks ago. Like all governments in this country and elsewhere, its main concern is to hold down the deficit. The Ontario Coalition Against Poverty has argued that Ontario’s 2010 budget unfairly targets and penalizes the poor. Read a background report here and read up on OCAP’s demands here.
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