G7: PETITION: Tell Trump he’s not welcome in Cana

G7: PETITION: Tell Trump he’s not welcome in Cana

Postby Oscar » Tue Mar 20, 2018 10:29 am

MPs seek to put travel ban law against human rights violators on G7 summit agenda

[ https://canadians.org/blog/mps-seek-put ... mit-agenda ]

March 20, 2018 - 8:38 am

A group of Liberal MPs as well as an all-party group of MPs are asking Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to put Magnitsky-style laws on the agenda of the G7 summit in Charlevoix, Quebec this June 8-9. Magnitsky-style laws give countries the power to impose travel bans on human-rights abusers around the world.

The Globe and Mail reports, "Liberal MPs are preparing to send a letter to Trudeau urging him to prioritize the adoption [by all G7 countries] of Magnitsky-style laws at the G7 leaders’ summit... An all-party group of MPs also hopes to send a similar letter to Mr. Trudeau and [Foreign Affairs minister Chrystia] Freeland this week."

That article adds, "Three of the G7 countries – Canada, the U.S. and Britain – already have Magnitsky-style laws in place; France, Germany, Italy and Japan do not."

In October 2017, five years after the US Congress passed the Magnitsky Act, the House of Commons passed its own version of the legislation: Bill S-226, the Justice for Victims of Corrupt Foreign Officials Act.

The CBC has explained, "[The Magnitsky Act was] named for a lawyer [Sergei Magnitsky] who died in Russian custody [in 2009] as he was investigating corruption [by Russian officials]. These laws target the property - the assets, the holdings, the wealth - of corrupt officials 'who have committed gross violations of internationally recognized human rights'."

In November 2017, the Trudeau government named 52 people in Russia, Venezuela and South Sudan under S-226.

Last month, the BBC reported, "Human rights group Amnesty International has accused Donald Trump of 'hateful' politics and of being a threat to human rights. 'President Trump takes actions that violate human rights at home and abroad', the group said." Salil Shetty, the Secretary-General of Amnesty International has stated Egyptian president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte, Chinese president Xi Jinping, Russian president Vladimir Putin, Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro, and US President Donald Trump "are callously undermining the rights of millions".

The Trudeau government has already named the Venezuelan president under its Magnitsky-style law. And Canada's foreign minister stated last month, "Canada fully supports the announcement by Peru, as host of the upcoming Summit of the Americas, that Nicolas Maduro, the President of Venezuela, is not welcome to attend."

It does not appear that the Trudeau government has taken similar actions against other leaders named by Amnesty International - Putin has not been named under Canada's Magnitsky law, and Trudeau met with Duterte in the Philippines in November 2017, as well as Xi and Trump several times.

Columbia University Professor Hamid Dabashi has argued that Trump's bombing of Iraq and Syria (which United Nations war crimes investigators said caused a "staggering loss of life") "may or may not amount to war crimes - that is for legal scholars and a court of law to decide [but] they are certainly evidence of hate crimes, which if it were targeted towards one person it would be a matter of criminal investigation." Amnesty International has further stated that Trump's decision to ban travel to the United States from six Muslim-majority countries was "transparently hateful".

On January 13, The Council of Canadians launched a petition saying that Trump should not be welcomed into Canada for the G7 summit given his racist characterization of Haiti and other countries, his misogynist views, his failure to unequivocally condemn white supremacist hate, his racist travel ban that targeted Muslims, his characterization of climate change as a hoax, and his characterization of Mexican immigrants as criminals. To date, 22,791 people have signed the petition. To add your name, please click here: [ https://secure.canadians.org/page/18583/petition/1 ]


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[ https://canadians.org/blogs/brent-patterson ]
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Re: G7: PETITION: Tell Trump he’s not welcome in Cana

Postby Oscar » Thu May 10, 2018 9:00 am

The Council to take part in mobilizations vs the G7 summit in Quebec

[ https://canadians.org/blog/council-take ... mit-quebec ]

May 9, 2018 - 6:36 am

(PHOTO: The 200-foot long banner deployed by the Swiss-group Campax this past January at the time of the World Economic Forum in Davos.)

Various actions are now being organized in Quebec City by different groups to protest the G7 summit that will take place in a luxury hotel in La Malbaie (about 150 kilometres north-east of Quebec City) behind a $3.8 million 10-foot high, 3.7 kilometre long fence anchored in cement posts sunk 18 inches into the ground:

• Thursday June 7, 6 pm - Popular and unitary march against the G7 and for the opening of all borders - Parc des Braves
• Friday June 8, 7:30 am - Perturbation Action - location to be announced
• Friday June 8 - Perturbation Day - the Montreal Gazette reports this as "unspecified summit disruption activities" - everywhere in the National Capital Region
• Saturday June 9, 10 am to 3 pm - an Alternative Forum - this will happen in front of the National Assembly building
• Saturday June 9, 3 pm - Unitary protest - National Assembly building

The Anti-G7 Resistance Network/Réseau de résistance anti-G7 (RRAG7) website is a good source of information including about buses from Montreal to Quebec City, housing, dates of organizing meetings, and more! Other organizing groups include the Coalition for an alternative forum to the G7 and Regroupement d'éducation populaire en action communautaire des régions de Québec et Chaudière-Appalaches (RÉPAC). [ https://antig7.org/en ]

The Council of Canadians has long argued that these G-summits are undemocratic, neo-liberal, an infringement on free speech, and outrageously expensive. We are also noting this G7 summit would be US president Donald Trump's first visit to Canada.

1- Undemocratic: The G7 summit will only include the richest countries in the world (and not, for instance, the 54 countries in Africa or the 12 countries in South America). We have argued that G-summits should more inclusively be G-195 summits (all countries represented in the United Nations General Assembly).

2- Neo-liberal: The G7 is a forum, like the World Economic Forum or the World Trade Organization, that serves to reinforce neo-liberalism. George Monbiot has written, "So pervasive has neo-liberalism become that we seldom even recognize it as an ideology. [It includes] massive tax cuts for the rich, the crushing of trade unions, deregulation, privatization, outsourcing and competition in public services" and investor-state provisions in 'free trade' agreements. RRAG7 says, "The G7 is proving to be one of the neo-liberal states' symbolic meetings that legitimize the richest 1% of the world's population by creating and maintaining social and economic inequalities."

3- An infringement on free speech: The RCMP has confirmed that a so-called 'free speech area' will be located in 'a vacant lot' beside the Musée de Charlevoix which is almost 2 kilometres from the Fairmont Le Manoir Richelieu, the luxury hotel where the G7 will be meeting. Our argument is that all of Canada should be considered a 'free speech zone' and that it's a violation of democratic rights for people who want to protest on key issues of our day to be kept out of sight of leaders making decisions about their lives (notably, G7 decisions about climate change that affects us all).

4- Expensive: The two-day summit in La Malbaie will cost about $605 million, with $259 million to be spent on security. We have said it would be more cost-efficient for them to take place at the UN Secretariat Building in New York (where the costs of security measures would be minimized because of a consistent location). The Toronto Star editorial board agreed with us in 2010 when it wrote, "At root, the G8/G20 summits are about a handful of leaders pressing the flesh together. That needn’t cost the earth, or require legions of retainers. These affairs are sinking under their own weight. It’s time to lighten the load.”

5- Trump in Canada: Justin Trudeau's objectives for the summit include "advancing gender equality and women’s empowerment" (it defies credibility that Trump could contribute to this discussion); working together on climate change, oceans and clean energy (Trump has described climate change as a hoax, has submitted formal notice to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement and has opened almost all US coastal waters for oil and gas drilling), and "building a more peaceful and secure world" (Trump has tweeted his nuclear-launch button is bigger than the North Korean leader's button).

The Council of Canadians will be releasing information about the actions we will be undertaking at the time of the G7 summit in the weeks to come.

To join with the 23,097 people who have signed our petition against Trump attending the G7 summit, please click here:
[ https://secure.canadians.org/page/18583/petition/1 ]


Brent Patterson's blog
Political Director of the Council of Canadians
[ https://secure.canadians.org/page/18583/petition/1 ]
Oscar
Site Admin
 
Posts: 9079
Joined: Wed May 03, 2006 3:23 pm


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