SPP : Interview with Dave Coles

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The Harper Index interviews Dave Coles

Coles, the union leader who exposed the police provos at Montebello, previously expressed some exasperation with the media preoccupation with rocks and tear gas. He'd rather see a little more attention paid to why he was at Montebello in the first place :

"It's all about Canada's energy security
There is no pipeline from the Alberta tar sands to refineries in eastern Canada. All production, to get to eastern Canada, must go through the United States of America. Ninety nine percent of all Canadians, including most politicians, don't understand that. The stuff should be processed in Canada so we get the economic value from it, and the jobs, and society gets to determine the overall value we will get from it. Harper and his gang want it sold and shipped directly to the States. Canada, and especially Alberta, get the pollution, and the U.S. gets the jobs.
When Canadian raw crude oil has to go through the U.S. before it can get to any eastern refineries, including the big Irving refinery in St. John, New Brunswick, don't we have the right to ask "What about Canada's energy security?"

The same applies for electricity. There's no east-west grid, it's all north-south. Ontario is landlocked from Manitoba. All we want to do is make sure these questions get asked so Canadians see how these questions are dealt with.
The SPP should be dealt with in the House of Commons. Politicians should be the ones dealing with it, not the corporate elite."

Police provocateurs at peaceful demonstrations is the sexy news story alright and it's important, but equally important is why those thugs were sent in there to discredit opposition to SPP.

As Coles says :"If the real reason the Council of Canadians and we were there were understood, the public would be up in arms about the SPP."
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The Revolution will be YouTubed...

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Sockwell Day in the Globe&Mail :

"The thing that was interesting in this particular incident, three people in question were spotted by protesters because were not engaging in violence," Mr. Day said. "
They were being encouraged to throw rocks and they were not throwing rocks, it was the protesters who were throwing the rocks. That's the irony of this," Mr. Day said.
Mr. Day added the actions were substantiated by the video that he has seen of the protests."
Because they were not engaging in violence, it was noted that they were probably not protesters. I think that's a bit of an indictment against the violent protesters," Mr. Day said."

Substantiated? Not so much. But irony? Oh yeah.

The local Global TV news out of Vancouver Island obligingly ran large portions of Paul Manley's YouTube and the Quebec Prov Police surviellance video to accompany Mr Day's statement on the 6-o-clock news last night. Both clearly showed union leader Dave Coles' repeated demands to one QPP undercover cop to drop his rock and not cause trouble while another undercover was shoving Coles around.

QPP Inspector Marcel Savard complained on the same TV newscast that the video didn't show events prior to the shoving and rock-wielding incident.

That's right! I'd forgotten about the lead-up to this. Here's Dave Coles' As It Happens interview back on Wednesday :
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"I didn't know they were police right away but I knew they were agitators because earlier they had been trying to get the young kids down on the road to cause trouble."

Memo to Doris : Paul Manly's video and the various clones it has inspired have now registered nearly 200,000 hits on YouTube.
Congratulations on hanging it so firmly around the neck of your government.
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Still on the milk carton ...

It must have seemed like a terrific idea at the time.

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Three guys with their faces hidden by identical kerchiefs, one of them holding a rock the size of a friggin melon, headed off towards a line of Surete du Quebec police in full riot garb. Union leader David Coles intercepted them, first demanding that they take their rock and bugger off, and then when they refused he demanded that they reveal their faces.

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At this point they still had the opportunity to just walk away and blend back into the crowd again with their identities intact, as any sensible member of Black Bloc would certainly have done. Instead the video shows they approached the same police line they had earlier appeared bent on attacking and disappeared into it to be taken into custody. WTF?

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RossK first sent me the video days ago - here's one of his many good posts on this - but for a complete listing of everybody's coverage since then, Dr Dawg has the video, the stills, and a ton o links.

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UPDATE : CALL OFF THE AMBER ALERT
From the Quebec Provincial Police via RossK:

"Following the diffusion of a video extract on Internet site Youtube.com, possibly implying members of the Safety of Quebec at the time of the Summit of Montebello, the latter would like to bring certain precise details. After having analyzed its contents, in addition to taking note of the vidéos recorded by the police bodies, it is able now to confirm that these individuals are police officers of the Safety of Quebec."

Major props to Paul Manly of Nanaimo for putting up that YouTube. You can bet we never would have heard about this otherwise. And hats off to labour leader Dave Cole for having the guts and leadership to call them out without losing his cool and the smarts to hold a press conference about it.

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Loved this bit from the QPP :

"The police officers were located by the demonstrators at the time when they refused to launch projectiles."

Refused to launch projectiles? I dearly hope that's a translation problem and not just more Quebec Provincial Provocateurs ass-covering bullshit. This ain't over.

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SPP : "No SouPP for you!"

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Remember back here when I told you the John Birch Society, a Swift Boater, and the Minutemen were holding a presser in Ottawa to announce their solidarity with the anti-SPP protesters? A rightwing Canadian blogger or two reacted by complaining that I obviously didn't think the Birchers were good enough to protest with the rest of us.

Turns out the Birchers don't think we're good enough to protest with them. From the JBS website :

"The decision to send out the riot police, some armed with tear gas, was made late this morning. As groups of protesters shouted slogans phalanxes of officers arrived and completely cordoned off the area of the Chateau" where the summit is being held, said the report.
Such rent-a-mob activity at the summit should not be confused with legitimate and principled opposition. Anarchist and communist mob violence of this sort, which has
been on display at previous high-level meetings of heads of state, typically serves to discredit legitimate, peaceful protest and opposition. As such the John Birch Society condemns violent protest activity..." yada, yada, and yada.

So who are these "anarchist and communist" types who are bringing down the whole "legitimate and principled" tone that the John Birch Society is itself so world-renowned for? This "rent-a-mob" group who would "discredit the legitimate peaceful protest" Birchers strive so hard for?

Check out their embedded CSNews link :
Canadian Communists March AgainstBush.
***snerk***snigger***It's the Canadian Labour Congress***snort***

No direct link to the Birchers from here - You can crank that particular ol' Google yourself.
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U.S. Congress votes on the SPP

For the first time on Tuesday, the US Congress voted 362 to 63 in favour of an amendment "prohibiting the use of funds to participate in a working group pursuant to the Security and Prosperity Partnership".

Apparently Congress would like to see something more closely resembling congressional oversight over at the US Department of Transport [Ed. : Think - a really really big road]

The previous day another amendment to the Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, not yet voted on, stated "None of the funds in this act shall be made available for the Security and Prosperity Partnership."

Gosh, imagine that. Discussing it in the House and voting on it and everything.
When are we going to see something like that up here?
So far all we have is Peter MacKay saying : "I don't think SPP should be viewed in a conspiratorial way."

Hey, me neither! I think something as important as trading away sovereignty over Canadian policy and resources ought to be done right out in the open.

Linda McQuaig :

"Some might consider putting Canadian needs first to be the job of the prime minister. But apparently not Harper. And yet he'll be the one in charge of protecting our interests in Montebello next month when Bush pushes for an even deeper Canadian commitment to satisfying America's insatiable energy appetite."

GovTrack link
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SPP : Stupid Papineauville Policy

Does the Municipality of Papineauville, Quebec have any idea of the irony of pronouncing the authority of the US Army to deny the Council of Canadians the right to protest deep integration with the US on Canadian soil?

From the Council of Canadians :
"The Municipality of Papineauville, which is about six kilometres from Montebello, has informed the Council of Canadians that the RCMP, the Sûreté du Québec (SQ) and the U.S. Army will not allow the municipality to rent the Centre Communautaire de Papineauville for a public forum on Sunday August 19, on the eve of the so-called Security and Prosperity Partnership Leaders Summit.

The Council of Canadians has been told that the RCMP and the SQ will be enforcing a 25-kilometre security perimeter around the Chateau Montebello, where Stephen Harper will meet with George W. Bush and Felipe Calderón on August 20 and 21."

The US Army will not allow the municipality...?
A 25K security perimeter? WTF?

From the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms :
2. Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms:

• a) freedom of conscience and religion;
• b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication;
• c) freedom of peaceful assembly; and
• d) freedom of association.

No mention in there anywhere of these rights being subject to the whims of the US Army.
Note that Papineauville evidently didn't feel the authority of the RCMP was sufficient unto itself here.
Or have we officially given up bothering to distinguish between the policies of the RCMP and those of the US Army?

UPDATE : From Thursday's Ottawa Citizen :
"Mr. Patterson [of Council of Canada] said Frederic Castonguay, the town's general manager, reported that Guy Cote, of the Quebec police force in Montreal, had told him the council "is an activist organization opposed to the summit and that it would not be wise to have us set up in the community centre."

Mr. Castonguay yesterday confirmed he had been called by Mr. Cote, who told him that the police and U.S. army need the community centre as a base of operations for summit security."