Niagara Region Council Blocked #Palestine #Ceasefire Motion From Agenda - and Even Blocked Any Debate on Removing it!
The Delegate Speeches That Were Blocked Are Being Uploaded to
YouTube Playlist:
Please Keep Checking Back For More Videos
Surprise Attack! Revolution carried through by small conscious minorities
Kabul in the Republican Revolution of 1973
Thursday, January 25, 2024
Hypocrisy + Double Standards = Anti-Palestinian Racism by Niagara Elected Officials
Several #Niagara Region Councillors say tonight's resolution in support of Palestine has no place because it's outside the Region's mandate or will be divisive and harmful.
But the Region already supported Israel and Ukraine, yet Palestine support is out.
This is a double standard and hypocrisy that can only be explained as racist.
Two of these Councillors have been outspoken against racism but like so many humanitarian concern ends sharply when it comes to Palestinians.
Lincoln Councillor Rob Foster told the St. Catharines Standard that the Region shouldn't be dealing with international conflicts.
St. Catharines Councillor Laura Ip, who chairs the Region's Diversity Equity Inclusion Advisory Committee, made a blog post saying the resolution in support of Palestine has “no place” on Regional Council.
St. Catharines Mayor Mat Siscoe, who is also a Regional Councillor, told former St. Catharines Mayor Walter Sendzik in an interview on CKTB 610AM the motion has nothing to do with the Regional mandate and will be divisive so shouldn't even be on the agenda.
Yet Councillor Ip criticized the Palestine motion as having “no weight or bearing on what will actually happen,” a clear double standard for all three voting for the Ukraine motion and even allowing it.
St. Catharines City Council passed a resolution in support of Ukraine supporting military escalation, which I also delegated against.
Niagara-on-the-Lake unanimously passed such a resolution.
These motions were divisive too and had nothing to do with municipal mandates, a clear double standard by Mayor Mat Siscoe.
Just a little bit up the highway from Niagara, Mississauga and Brampton City Councils UNINAMOUSLY passed resolutions supporting a ceasefire in Palestine.
If it's relevant for these two Ontario cities why is it not relevant for Niagara?
The Region already stepped firmly into the Israel-Palestine conflict when Chair Jim Bradley issued a statement October 11 in solidarity with Israel and Niagara's Jewish residents, lighting the Region's headquarters in the colours of the Israeli flag.
But despite getting nearly 100 emails asking him to also light up in the colours of the Palestinian flag for the nearly 500 residents of Palestinian descent there is not a word, even though so many disproportionately more Palestinians are being killed by Israel (including children sheltering in UN schools).
This is a double standard and lack of basic humanity.
The same day Mayor Mat Siscoe sent St. Catharines Councillor Robin McPherson (of my ward) to speak on behalf of the City of St. Catharines at a pro-Israel rally.
The City of St. Catharines already took a position and condemned one side of the violence, but when it comes to calling for a real, binding ceasefire to END the violence it's suddenly off-mandate and divisive.
But the Palestine resolution DOES have to do with the municipal mandate because it calls for removing the cap on Palestinians so they can be reunited with their families in Niagara.
These refugees will need services from the Region, which has been recognized by Council when it came to Ukrainian refugees.
This cap is causing panic and stress in the race to get approved to safety.
Councillor Ip repeated the misleading statement from Minister Marc Miller that there is no “hard cap” on Palestinian refugees when his own ministry's news release on January 9th said it's even worse: the program expires even before 1,000 people if they aren't approved by next year.
Why is this a divisive, hateful issue as two Councillors said?
Because so many don't recognize the basic humanity of Palestinians.
Palestinian lives don't matter and are disposable to too many.
This is also a bandwagon attack on Palestine solidarity.
We see:
* A Hamilton MPP who is a Black woman with a disability excluded from the legislature she was elected to for refusing to jump on this bandwagon.
* Calls for deporting anyone expressing support for Palestine.
* Fines, arrests, police brutality for protesters supposedly protected by the Charter.
Condemning a resolution in support of Palestine as out of bounds is part of the same crackdown on solidarity with Palestinians and complicit with anti-Palestinian racism and ongoing settler colonialism.
You can't acknowledge that you are on Indigenous land and be silent when Palestinians are suffering the same colonial settler violence.
You can't be anti-racist except when it comes to Palestinians.
Friday, December 15, 2023
Dec. 15 Niagara letters: Greater spending on Niagara transit needed (St. Catharines Standard letter to the editor)
Regionalization of public transit has improved service and more spending is needed, says reader
Article was updated
Invest more in transit
Re: Transit a 'pig in a poke,' Letters, Dec. 11
The above is misleading because it suggests Niagara Region Transit's budget is increasing because of hiring staff, and says, “Let taxpayers see the expenses line by line,” when they already can in extensive reports.
Transit should be where we invest more money and expand services.
The letter writer says making transit regional was supposed to improve service. It has. OnDemand reaches places without a regular bus, and co-ordinating between cities saves riders lots of time.
But this is not enough. As a rider told regional council at its Nov. 30 budget meeting, we need to “break out of the cycle of underinvesting to keep the loudest voices happy.”
Instead, council is looking to make dangerous cuts, and the transit commission is looking to cut paratransit and OnDemand, which are used by the most vulnerable people who have no other option.
Saleh Waziruddin
Thursday, December 7, 2023
Letter to Niagara Regional Council against making rules for delegating more difficult
Dear Councillors,
The current procedural rules already make it very difficult if not impossible to delegate effectively because by needing to submit a delegation by the Friday morning before a Regional Council meeting we don't know of key developments happening before we can submit our delegation. Key committee meetings, reports, and proposals may not happen until closer to the Regional Council meeting on the Thursday after the deadline to submit a delegation.
The new rule changes from the Procedural By-law Review Committee amending Section 13.5 make delegating more difficult by moving the deadline for delegating in extenuating circumstances further back two days. If it's an extenuating circumstance we might not know until the afternoon of the meeting.
There should be a normal, not extenuating, opportunity for people to request delegating to Council up to and including the afternoon of the Council and Committee meetings so that we don't have to play guessing games of what will happen in the days before the meeting to figure out what our delegation content will be. Normalizing delegation requests closer to the meetings help make delegations better informed and prepared when requesting to speak to Council.
Thank you,
Saleh Waziruddin in St. Catharines
Saturday, July 1, 2023
Interview with Free Falling in Niagara on behalf of Niagara Region Anti-Racism Association
Interview on behalf of the Niagara Region Anti-Racism Association with Emma Ansah of EA Public Relations and Free Falling in Niagara https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHIK8ElIv4Q
Wednesday, May 10, 2023
Niagara Region weighs diverse opinions on diversity, equity and inclusion committee (St. Catharines Standard)
Niagara Region weighs diverse opinions on diversity, equity and inclusion committee
Corporate services committee recommends sticking with the current structure for advice
/https://www.stcatharinesstandard.ca/content/dam/niagaradailies/uploads/Sawchuk_Bill.JPG)
There were bound to be some growing pains when Niagara Regioncouncil established its first diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) advisory committee last term.
Wednesday, the Region’s corporate services committee approved staff recommendations for improvement process before the municipality establishes this term’s committee.
The most pressing issue was whether council needs to divide the advisory committee in two: one for anti-racism issues and a second for LGBTQ issues.
Saleh Waziruddin of Niagara Region Anti-Racism Association made the case for separate committees.
“A combined DEI committee can’t do all the work needed by anti-racism and 2SLGBTQQIA+ committees,” Waziruddin said. “The committee will have people representing all kinds of diversity and not just experience with racism or 2SLGBTQQIA+ issues.
“This means, for example, that anti-racism recommendations will need to be first approved by people who don’t have the lived experience before they even get to council. It’s an unnecessary barrier to getting the vital advice you’re seeking.”
However, the staff report survey of 14 Ontario municipalities with current or planned DEI advisory committees showed only one municipality, Peel, has the staff to serve multiple diversity-related advisory committees.
The rest have one combined diversity-related advisory committee with subcommittee structures, called action tables, to delve more deeply into pressing concerns.
“The municipality which has multiple committees outside of Niagara has 10 full-time equivalent staff in their DEI office, compared to two DEI related full-time equivalent staff at Niagara Region,” the report said.
The second issue the corporate services committee debated was who would best serve as committee chair — a councillor or a citizen member.
St. Catharines Coun. Laura Ip said she initially believed a citizen should take the chair’s role.
“Based on our procedural bylaw alone, I changed my mind,” Ip said. “The chair manages the meeting, so I felt that we were losing the input of a community member by making them chair.”
Waziruddin said a community member should serve as the chair.
“The work of committees will still come to council for your approval, but the needed leadership will be missing,” Waziruddin said. “Representation does matter, and the way to do that is with a resident as chair.”
Sabrina Hill, a St. Catharines resident, was chair of the DEI advisory committee for part of the last term. She said advisory committees are something Niagara needs.
“From my understanding, the Region used a complex matrix to score each potential member for their various committees and recruited some of the very best residents from across Niagara, and in the end those people did good work,” Hill said.
“Through adversity we found incentive. Through research we found reason, and through diversity we found compromise.
“Speaking from personal experience in the short time I served on two advisory committees in the last term, despite the roadblocks of a pandemic and a shortened term, we as a group of diverse and enthusiastic residents managed to accomplish a lot.”
Bill Sawchuk is a St. Catharines-based reporter with the Standard. Reach him via email: william.sawchuk@niagaradailies.com
Thursday, May 4, 2023
Hate incident investigations nearly double in Niagara for second straight year, police report (St. Catharines Standard)
Hate incident investigations nearly double in Niagara for second straight year, police report
41 investigations conducted by Niagara Regional Police in 2022, up from 21 a year earlier
/https://www.stcatharinesstandard.ca/content/dam/niagaradailies/uploads/Benner_Allan.JPG)
Hate-related investigations by Niagara Regional Police nearly doubled for the second year in a row, likely fuelled by local reaction to international events as well as increasing anti-racism awareness.
According to the NRP’s recently released annual report on hate crimes, 41 investigations were conducted in 2022 — almost doubling the 21 investigations conducted a year earlier.
Only 10 hate incident investigations were conducted in 2020, and 11 in 2019.
Seven criminal charges have been laid so far stemming from the 41 investigations last year.
The report, presented at last week’s police services board meeting, said none of the charges met the threshold to be classified as hate crimes.
However, Saleh Waziruddin from Niagara Region Anti-Racism Association said spray painting the N-word on a school named for a Black freedom fighter and at a Caribbean restaurant ought to have warranted more severe charges, referring to St. Catharines incidents at Harriet Tubman Public School and Caribbean Eatery restaurant on June 11.
Waziruddin said two high school students in Ottawa were charged with public incitement of hatred, mischief and criminal harassment after a similar vandalism incident.
“That wasn’t a problem for Ottawa, why is it a problem here?” he asked. “Here, the police or the Crown is saying it doesn’t meet the threshold, but in Ottawa it did meet the threshold. It doesn’t feel like were being treated fairly here.”
The NRP report, prepared by Staff Sgt. Matthew Hodges from the special investigative services unit, attributed much of the increase to the police service’s Stop Hate Niagara awareness campaign introduced last year summer via social media and through the distribution of pamphlets that encouraged residents to report hate-motivated incidents.
“It will be important to pay close attention to this indicator in the coming years to determine whether hate/bias incidents are increasing in our community, or the public is developing a better understanding and/or an increased level of comfort reporting incidents to police,” the report said.
Although the awareness campaign likely resulted in increased reports of hate incidents, Waziruddin said it falls far short of capturing the full scope of the problem in Niagara.
“There’s still a lot more that aren’t reported. We know that because of the incidents that we see that people are reluctant to report because of fear of escalation,” he said.
Mischief and graffiti targeting the Ukrainian community related to the war in Europe also contributed to the increase.
In June, several homes flying the Ukrainian flag in a show of support of the country defending itself from the Russian invasion were hit by vandals, as police investigated reports of flags being torn down, vandalized vehicles and the letter Z spray painted on driveways.
In at least one instance, a note was left behind written in Russian that made disparaging statements against the Ukrainian people, said Ukrainian Canadian Congress Niagara (UCCN) president Irene Newton.
Since then, however, Newton said reports of vandalism related to the Ukrainian community have all but stopped.
“There may have been a few minor instances that occurred, but it’s been pretty rare,” she said. “People are still flying their flags … but no one has come to us and said it’s happening again, or anything of that nature.”
Hodges’ report said the majority of hate incidents last year were related to mischief and graffiti, while harassment was the second most common offence.
Members of the Black community were most frequently the targets of hate incidents, while among religious group the Jewish community was the most victimized, primarily through graffiti such as swastikas, the report said.
Waziruddin said he was disappointed with the scope of the report presented this year, saying it didn’t include the same level of detail that was available in past years.
Allan Benner is a St. Catharines-based reporter with the Standard. Reach him via email: allan.benner@niagaradailies.com
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)