Update:900 Million Dollar Lawsuit Against Canadian Gov

[Priest]

BREAKING NEWS: RAPPER NIPSEY HUSSLE CANADIAN TOUR DATES CANCELLED. TURNED AWAY AT THE BORDER!

While Canadian fans were still buzzing over Nipsey Hussle’s tour about to start, promoters all over Canada received news that the entire tour had been canceled due to border complications.

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Toronto Star, July 18, 2001

OTTAWA (CP) - Wilson Pickett's management group says the renowned blues musician may never play Canada again after he was allegedly strip-searched for drugs at Ottawa airport, CBC Radio reported Wednesday.

Pickett, 60, is known for songs like In the Midnight Hour and Mustang Sally and travelled here last weekend to play at Bluesfest.

Mark Monahan, the event's executive director, said the treatment Pickett experienced makes it difficult to attract musicians to Canada.

''What it means is that musicians don't want to come here,'' Monahan told CBC. ''When someone gets treated like that, it just leaves a bad taste in people's mouths. Then the word spreads and it makes it more difficult for us to attract artists.''

Musicians are often treated differently at the border than other travellers, Bluesfest organizers say. Canada Customs would not comment on the specifics of the Pickett case, but a spokesperson said all travellers are subject to the same rules.

The legendary musician, nicknamed the Wicked Pickett, was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991.

http://www.oocities.org/capitolhill/...psearched.html

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Canadian Press, Jan. 19, 2004

Halifax - Halifax's chief of police apologized to Kirk Johnson on Monday and admitted the heavyweight boxer was discriminated against when an officer stopped and seized his car five years ago, leaving him stranded on the side of a highway.

Frank Beazley said he was sorry for the difficulty the high-profile incident caused Johnson and his family after the black athlete was pulled over in April 1998 for allegedly not having the proper papers for his car.

"I accept the finding that Mr. Johnson was discriminated against and recognize that this has been a humiliating, stressful and painful experience," Beazley said.

"I regret the effect this incident and the inquiry has had on the black community."

But the head of the police association issued a very different statement Monday, insisting that Const. Michael Sanford acted appropriately and did not let race affect his judgment when he stopped Johnson.

Det.-Sgt. Bill Hollis dismissed the opinion of the police chief and the chairman of a human rights commission that found Sanford discriminated against Johnson at least in part because of race.

Hollis denied the veteran officer was guilty of racial profiling after he spotted the 1993 black Ford Mustang, noticed the car's Texas plates, allegedly saw two black men inside and seized the vehicle.

"He made the stop because of his training and experience, not because of racism or profiling or stereotyping," Hollis, head of the Municipal Association of Police Personnel, said moments after Beazley issued an official apology.

"(The association) stands behind Sanford and remains steadfast in our belief that racial profiling is neither condoned nor tolerated by our members."

Hollis said the 450-person association, which has 37 black members, will accept new training to improve racial sensitivity, but he maintained that Sanford should have responded the same way if faced with a similar situation.

Johnson launched the discrimination case after he and his cousin Earl Fraser, who was driving the vehicle, were stopped by Sanford. The boxer accused the officer of pulling the pair over for "driving while black."

Sanford insisted he hadn't seen the colour of the men's skin as he passed them, but Philip Girard, the head of the inquiry, found race was a factor in Sanford's decision to stop the car.

Girard also found Sanford treated Johnson dismissively after the boxer produced his registration and insurance papers from Texas, where he has been living.

Sanford, who will not be disciplined, misread the date on the insurance and didn't recognize the registration sticker on the windshield, leading him to believe Johnson was without valid documentation.

Five police cars arrived on scene and a tow truck later came to take away Johnson's car.

Victor Goldberg, Johnson's lawyer, said he was dismayed by the police association's response and worried that little would change in a force he argued was tainted by systemic racism.

"They don't seem to get it," Goldberg said from his Halifax office, adding that Johnson was training in Dartmouth and not available for comment. "You have to wonder how there can be change if the rank and file don't think there's a problem. They're just worried about their reputation."

Girard ruled that Johnson, 31, is entitled to damages of $10,000, a much smaller sum than the $25,000 Johnson was seeking. Girard also awarded $1,000 to Fraser.

Girard said he didn't believe the Halifax police force is rife with racism. However, he ordered the force to hire two people to complete an assessment on whether race sensitivity training is needed.

Beazley said the force would accept the suggestions by offering Sanford and other members training that deals with stereotyping issues. They will also review sensitivity training to see if it needs to be improved.

The force will also look into ways to gather information on the role race plays in stopping cars. A consultant will be brought in to determine what needs to be done to deal with racial training.

http://injusticebusters.org/04/Halifax_police.htm

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42, said she felt humiliated, powerless and violated after being forced to strip and let customs agents to examine her rectum. (Simon Gardner/CBC)


A mother travelling with her four-year-old son is outraged that she was roughed up and strip searched at the Ottawa International Airport — an experience her travel agent says is all too common among black travellers.

Charmaine Archer, 42, returned home Tuesday night from a four-day trip to her grandmother's funeral in Jamaica. After customs officials pulled her aside and searched her belongings, she was told she would need to be strip searched because traces of drugs had been found on her toothbrush.

"I said to her, 'No way, that's not going to happen.' I said, 'You guys are going to have to arrest me,'" she said.

Her son was taken out of the room and she was told to turn around while she was handcuffed. She began screaming and crying, Archer said, but did not assault anyone or try to flee.

Border officials threw her to the ground, knelt on her shoulder, and then took her into another room and told her to call a lawyer before proceeding with the search, she recalled.

"I had to lift up my breasts, take off all my clothes, squat and cough and turn around and open up my rectum for them to see up inside,"

Archer told CBC News. "I was humiliated, I felt powerless, I felt violated, and just think it was a total overuse of power because there was absolutely no reason for them to behave that way with me."

After customs agents found nothing, they let Archer leave and rejoin her son and her husband, who had come to the airport to pick them up.

Archer said she has never had any run-ins with the law. When she asked why she was targeted for a search, she was told it was because she booked her tickets at the last minute, travelled only four days, and "obviously couldn't afford it" because she paid for half the tickets using her credit card.

While rifling through her belongings, a customs agent told her that traces of heroin and THC, the active ingredient in cannabis, were detected on her toothbrush.

Border guards also told her she travels too often, she said.

Archer said she goes to Jamaica once a year.

"It was definite racial profiling," Archer said, adding that the customs officials were all white and she didn't see any Caucasians being pulled aside. Officers may also have believed her weight made it easier for her to hide drugs on her body, she said.

The Canada Border Services Agency told CBC News that it does not use racial profiling. It declined to comment on Archer's specific case, citing privacy concerns, even after she gave the agency permission to release information about her to CBC News.

Ottawa airport has reputation: travel agent
Kerwin Dougan of Voyages G Travel, the agency that sold Archer her tickets, said the Ottawa airport has a bad reputation for targeting blacks.

Dougan said he has worked as a travel agent for two decades and heard dozens of cases similar to Archer's, mainly among black clients. That's why he encouraged Archer to go public with her story.

"The majority of Caribbean descent people coming through the Ottawa airport are randomly picked, randomly body searched, randomly harassed," he said, adding that many people he knows would rather drive to airports in Syracuse, Montreal and Toronto to avoid the hassle.

One problem may be that Ottawa is a smaller airport where customs agents are not as busy, he suggested.

"People always say in this world that Canada is not racist," he added. "I'm sorry, I sit behind this desk and I see it."

http://article.wn.com/view/2009/12/1...m_allegations/

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MICHELE LANDSBERG TORONTO STAR SAT, FEB.26 '00 PAGE L2

Black historian Howard Sheffield had to blink back tears. His lesson to a Collingwood grade two class had just been acclaimed "the best visit of the year".

As Sheffield, whose family arrived in Collingwood in 1857 via the Underground Railroad, recently told The Star, "A few years ago, no-one knew we [the black community] were up here. They didn't seem to want to know that we had been part of Collingwood from the beginning."

They didn't seem to want to know.

That's precisely the point made by feminist legal scholar Connie Backhouse in an interview a week earlier, when we discussed her recently published book Colour-Coded, A Legal History of Racism in Canada 1900-1950 (University of Toronto Press). "Canada has a mythology of racelessness," she said, "despite remarkable evidence to the contrary." Like snow blandly smoothing out the landscape, a blanket of whiteness seems to obliterate our true history.

Despite a long past of bigoted attitudes, acts and laws ---
segregated schools didn't end in Ontario till 1965 - all mention of race is normally "whited out" of the legal records and history books. Backhouse quotes poet Dionne Brand, who once expressed astonishment at Canadians' "stupefying innocence". In the U.S., Brand said, "there is at least an admission of the fact that racism exists and has a history."

Maybe it's time that black history month was followed up with white education month? "We also need to know that there have always been Canadians who fought against racism," Backhouse said. "Usually, we gloss over the racism of earlier decades by saying we have to judge people by the standards of the times. No! There's plenty of evidence that others did reject racism and fight back." In other words, we should measure past deeds by the highest, not the lowest, standards of earlier times.

Backhouse's lively new history is at pains to point out that racism is not primarily about "isolated acts ...by individuals". Instead, it resonates through institutions like the legal system, through popular culture, through intellectual theory so accepted it seems immutable.

In 1930, when the white-hooded Ku Klux Klan rampaged through Oakville to burn a giant cross and break into a house to separate, forcibly, a supposedly "black" man from his presumably "white" fiance, they were praised by the media and complimented by the police chief, who shook their hands and recognized them as prominent Hamilton businessmen. The Toronto Star praised the "show of white justice" and the way the Klan had "escorted" the young woman "courteously and quietly" - though it backed down a bit later when it revealed the man was really of Indian ancestry. The Globe, The Hamilton Spectator and The London Free Press all echoed the tone of approval.

Only the local black leaders, Reform rabbi Maurice Eisendrath and William Templeton, white editor of the Guelph Mercury, crusaded passionately against the Klan's racism. When the Klan leaders were feebly charged with "wearing a disguise by night", only one of them was convicted and lightly punished.

Backhouse's book is packed with prickly revelations. When, in 1924, a Chinese cafe-owner in Regina challenged a law forbidding him to hire white women, most of Canada's liberal and progressive leadership seems to have gone mad with sexual frenzy. Chatelaine Magazine, magistrate Emily Murphy, the local Council of Women and the Regina Women's Labour League all spouted racist paranoia about the perils of white women in the clutches of "yellow" men.

Petite and elegant Viola Desmond, a black beautician and businesswoman from Halifax, was bodily dragged out of a New Glasgow movie for the crime of sitting downstairs in a seat she had paid for. She was manhandled, bruised and jailed overnight (she sat bolt upright all night, wearing her white gloves) before a travesty of a trial. Her later legal challenge of Canada's colour bar failed dismally ---and that was 1946.

Eliza Spero, a Mohawk widow and mother of eight, whose oldest son died in the trenches of World War One, went to court to protest the seizing of her costly seine net from reserve fishing grounds near Belleville. She, too, lost. A racist judge contemptuously dismissed Mohawk sovereignty and the guarantees offered by the Simcoe Deed. Still, in 1921, Spero had fought for sovereignty and her rights and was aided by an idealistic white lawyer.

If we want to break through the Canadian mythology of "racelessness" and come to grips with the whole of our past, both the splendid and the rotten, we could do no better than open Backhouse's book and, with open hearts, begin to read.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/csocwo...253Cbr%2F%253E

[Priest]

Hip-hop artist Dramatik sings a protest song during demonstration against the music genre being targeted by police and Régie des alcools.


Cite five liquor licences that banned their music


Montreal hip hop artists gathered Tuesday to protest what they say is an effort by authorities to ban their music from certain bars and clubs, and thereby criminalize an entire subculture.

More than 50 protesters and performers congregated at noon outside the Montreal courthouse, home to offices of the Régie des alcools, des courses et des jeux. The impetus was the case of a West Island bar that was made to stipulate it would not play hip hop as a condition of receiving a temporary liquor licence. Activists, calling themselves the Montreal Hip Hop Movement, said the practice is commonplace.

"We cannot take the fact that they're still typecasting this music, this culture, treating it like something that is to be feared and rejected," said Dice B., a local hip hop personality and radio host. "If they have a problem with individuals, they should go after those individuals, not the whole culture."

Banning hip hop because street gang members listen to it is like stopping bars from playing rock music because the Hells Angels are fans, said community activist Will Prosper.

He called on the Quebec government, Montreal's mayor and the police to put a stop to "this discriminatory practice towards a group of artists practising their hip hop and urban music."

Their ire stemmed from the convoluted case of Le Pionnier bar, a Pointe Claire institution and music venue formerly known as Clydes, and, before that, The Pioneer. When the new managers tried to obtain a temporary liquor licence from the Régie des alcools, the licensing board checked with the police, as it always does. Police raised warning flags, saying Le Pionnier recently tried to stage a tribute show for a dead rapper, not knowing that he had ties to street gangs and the show could have turned violent, indicating management was not aware of potential problems.

Régie lawyer Joyce Tremblay said the licensing board, in conjunction with the police, wrote up a list of conditions permitting the bar owners to get a 90-day permit quickly, including a no hip hop rule. Montreal police deny they had anything to do with a hip hop ban.

"I don't think it's for police to decide what music people listen to," Commander Iannan Tuony said. "I don't think it's even legal." Police are concerned with safety, and all bar owners are free to hire extra security or install metal detectors if a threat is feared. Both the police and Tremblay said bar owner Diane Marois willingly signed the conditions, saying she didn't want trouble and was more interested in hosting jazz and blues shows.

Conditions calling for music restrictions are usually based on noise complaints, not content, Tremblay said, adding that Le Pionnier was an isolated case.

But Fo Niemi of the Centre for Research Action on Race Relations said his group had found five instances in the last four years where the Régie, in conjunction with police, listed banning hip hop music as a condition for obtaining a liquor licence. Montreal bars Le Medley, Le Parking, QZone, 1234 and Vision were affected.

Because bar owners are hesitant to go to court or human rights commissions for fear of repercussions, Niemi suggested setting up a working committee to ensure safety in clubs "without having an outright ban of a musical realm, because it could have serious repercussions on the hip hop artists and the whole black culture in general."

It wouldn't just affect the black community, performer Dice B noted. The majority of young hip hop fans, and even performers on the French side of the spectrum, are white, he said.

"If you criminalize that music, you are marginalizing your kids. And they are the future."

http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/...861/story.html

[Priest]

Yesterday, Cam'ron and Vado were preparing to spread their Harlem cheer to a crowd of fans in Montreal when border patrol agents barred them from entering the country. Citing both rappers' criminal pasts, the duo was stuck at a Toronto border crossing and eventually told to turn around.

"Been sittin in customs for the last hour, hopefully they let me threw. Stay tuned," tweeted Cam during the incident. "They just told [Vado] he has a felony, he cant come in da country and my dj either. I'm waitin to here to see what they tell me." After he was denied entry Killer Cam explained why. "This some real bulls---!! " he wrote. "We just was here a couple months ago! Sayin i had machine gun in 03. F---- makin s--- up."

Cam then sent out a hilarious video to dwell on the situation a bit more. He was clearly in a bummed-out mood. "See the flag," he said. "They shut me down... Oh, man. There goes the flag. This the country that did it to us. Montreal, we sorry, Toronto customs stuck us here."

The ban from Canada was also particularly odd as both Cam and Vado performed in Toronto over the summer at a party called The Caribana Bash.

http://www.theboombox.com/2010/12/17...y-into-canada/

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Toronto - "Racial profiling has no place in our society. We have to stop debating the issue and start acting on it," was the key message delivered today by Chief Commissioner Keith Norton at the release of the Ontario Human Rights Commission’s report on the effects of racial profiling.

Entitled, Paying the Price: The Human Cost of Racial Profiling, the Report is based on over 400 personal accounts of experiences with profiling that individuals shared with the Commission during the course of its Racial Profiling Inquiry held earlier this year. The Report looks at the human cost of racial profiling on individuals who have experienced it, their families and their communities and the detrimental impacts of this practice on society as a whole.

"When we launched our inquiry, we found that existing research undertaken both here and in jurisdictions outside Canada provided adequate evidence that racial profiling does occur. Right from the start, I have said that what has been noticeably absent from public discussion on this issue is the effect that racial profiling has on those directly impacted by it, and on Ontario society," stated Mr. Norton adding that, "The Report is not another statistical study; it focuses on personal experiences of profiling incidents in a number of contexts."

The purpose of the Commission’s racial profiling inquiry is twofold: to give a voice to individuals who have experienced profiling, and in doing so, raise awareness of the negative consequences of profiling among people who have not been impacted by it. Ultimately, the Commission hopes to bridge the divide between those who deny the existence of profiling and communities that have long felt that they are being targeted.

To this end, the Report provides recommendations aimed at ending the practice of profiling where it already exists, improving the monitoring of situations where it is alleged to occur, and preventing incidents of profiling from occurring in the first place. The Report also sets out the Commission’s commitment to undertake a large public education initiative and to move forward with its project on race that was initiated earlier last year.

"The Commission hopes that the Report will serve as a useful educational tool for individuals and organizations as well as those in positions of influence and authority in helping them understand and address the problem. Racial profiling is wrong. These individuals have had the courage to come forward with often very personal details of their experiences. It’s time we got the message and acted to eliminate this practice," continued Mr. Norton.

The Ontario Human Rights Commission defines racial profiling as any action taken for reasons of safety, security or public protection that relies on stereotypes about race, colour, ethnicity, ancestry, religion or place of origin, rather than on reasonable suspicion.

http://ohrc.yy.net/en/resources/news...-17.8048765200

[Priest]

Local hip-hop promoter and Sony/BMG Canada head honcho Jonathan Ramos says that Almon might have a point about rap artists and the border. In recent years, he's been forced to cancel shows by Dead Prez, The Roots, Ghostface Killah, Nas and Common, among others, due to troubles with customs and immigration officials. The main problem, he says, is the lack of consistency that arises when individual border guards are left to make decisions as to who enters the country.

"Our border people have a terrible reputation internationally. Entertainers, anyway, consider Canada harder to get into than any country in the world," said Ramos, although he concedes, "it's gotten better. The profile of the average border guard has changed radically. There are now people of colour and females, when before it used to be, from my experience, a 45-year-old white guy who lived somewhere along the border. So whenever they saw anybody, some indie-rock dude with grimy hair who climbed out of a van, immediately they were, like: `Drugs.' Now we sometimes get people who say: `Hey, man, could I have your autograph.'"

http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/article/172284

[Priest]

Just arrived in Canada. Immigration treated us like criminals.. Other than that Toronto is beautiful. Amazing city....

http://twitter.com/llcoolj/statuses/206971696450764801

[Priest]

Due to unforeseen circumstances, and at the request of the Toronto Police and the Toronto Gang Unit, we regret to announce that our NXNE “SmashMouth Mentality” showcase scheduled for June 13 at Rivoli has been cancelled. For any inquiries regarding this matter please direct all messages to Brenden Hewko of SmashMouth Entertainment – Brenden@SmashMouthEnt.com .

It baffles me why the Toronto police have shut down tonight’s show. I have personal relationships with at least 6 of the acts on this bill, the promoter and booking agent Brenden of Smashmouth Ent. This would have been an amazing POSITIVE Hip-Hop show supporting the Toronto scene and up and coming artists on the bill. There have been way more gangster shows in the past month and they have went on with no problems at all….so why tonight’s show?

http://thecomeupshow.com/2012/06/13/...lity-showcase/

And THIS is the M.O of canadian police, because they've been given the green light by the prime minister stephen harper, to supress hip hop from making any progress, this is definitely not the only show that canadian police have shut down

[Priest]

PRESS RELEASE: United Nations Questions Canada’s Treatment of African Canadians


On February 22 and 23 2012, the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (“CERD”) considered Canada’s nineteenth and twentieth periodic reports on the government’s efforts to combat racial discrimination.

The African Canadian Legal Clinic (“ACLC”) prepared an alternative report, met with Committee members and was present at the CERD meetings to ensure that Canada was made to account for issue of anti-Black racism and the continued disadvantaged position occupied by African Canadians.

According to the Clinic’s Executive Director, Ms. Margaret Parsons, the ACLC drew the Committee’s attention to “growing rates of poverty, increased rates of incarceration, and high rates of anti-Black hate, as well as the complete absence of reliable disaggregated race-based data, and the phenomenon termed the ‘school-to-prison pipeline.’”

The Committee members, all of whom are experts in the field of human rights and racial discrimination, raised a number of concerns with respect to Canada’s treatment of it’s African Canadian population.

Mr. Anwar Kemal, the Committee’s Rapporteur for Canada, noted the glaring absence of disaggregated statistics from Canada’s state report while Ms.Fatimata-Binta Victoria Dah, the expert from Burkina Faso, urged the government to be careful not to exclude data that will make it more difficult for the State to report on its implementation of the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Racial Discrimination. This concern was also echoed by other Committee members who drew attention to and questioned the government’s recent decision to abolish the mandatory long-form census.

Mr. Pastor Elias Murillo Martinez, the expert from Colombia, questioned Canada on the extent to which the historical contributions of African Canadians are reflected in school curricula and upcoming commemorations such as the bicentennial of the War of 1812.

Mr. Patrick Thornberry, the expert from United Kingdom, questioned Canada on the high rates of suspension, expulsion and drop-outs and pointed to the success of the Africentric school in the Toronto District School Board as a possible best practice in this area.

Finally, Ms. Anastasia Crickley, the expert from Ireland, congratulated Canada on the adoption of its National Action Plan Against Racism in 2005, noted that this action plan ended in 2010, and questioned what Canada is doing to address the structural racism and the power imbalance with respect to Canada’s racialized groups today.

Many of the Committee members raised concerns about the overrepresentation of African Canadians in the criminal justice system and urged Canada to take immediate action to address this glaring disparity

Almost half of the Committee’s time was devoted to questioning Canada on issues relating to its African Canadian community. Ms. Parsons expressed great disappointment at the lack of attention paid to these issues by the Canadian delegation in its response to Committee questions and by the Canadian media in its coverage of this session.

http://www.aclc.net/?p=599