On Tuesday, Jan 27th, 2009, Financial Minister, Jim “Mr. Big-Shot Money Bags” Flaherty announced Canada’s 2009 Federal Budget. Now the celebration and applause didn’t quite meet that of US President Barack Obama’s inauguration last week, but hey, our country isn’t facing a $10 TRILLION dollar debt. So GO CANADA!
Back to business! As Members of Parliament waited anxious in their comfy seats, holding onto their lucky charms hoping for all the things they wished would be on the budget, Mr. Flaherty took a deep breath, a unusually large drink of water and read out the large document telling everyone that Canada’s government would be going into…. a deficit. MP’s fell back into their seats and rolled their eyes. Some were wondering “that doesn’t sound like more money for me” or “wait, didn’t Mr. Harper promise at election time we WEREN’T going into a deficit?”
OOPS! Guess the trick is on all those that voted our minority government back into power. Mr. Harper must have been very persuasive to have received all those votes from people that were being fed “un-truths” (lies is a harsh word).
So what exactly was on this years budget? More money to increase jobs? Better healthcare? Perhaps even some scrums of money for the arts & culture community? Well…. I don’t want to say no, cause I’m sure in the fine print there’s at least a sweet looking $100 for each, but those three weren’t our top priorities. Chucks!
Mr. Flaherty’s budget will be devoting $4 Billion to improve infrastructures and regional projects. This will make room for new jobs, which is good, but is this where we need $4 Billion? Hmmm… The repairs and improvements to universities and colleges (construction) are getting $2 Billion devoted to them. Not bad, improved infrastructure is crucial, but hopefully opening more schools, hiring more teachers and increasing their salaries are also included in this. Our green movement is only getting $1 Billion in spending, not enough I’m sure for a lot of Canadians, but hey, the grass is always greener on the other side. Bad joke! And finally, other major programs that are receiving money include; repairs and construction going to community centers, sports facilities and hockey arenas, more infrastructures in smaller communities and close to another billion heading towards Canada’s Infrastructure & Innovation Foundation.
Is it just me or am I seeing the word “I-N-F-R-A-S-T-R-U-C-T-U-R-E” a lot!
Now the opposition, formed by the NDP & the Bloc were quick to vote against this budget and needed Mr. Ignatieff (Liberals) to join their clubhouse party to attempt to take down Steven Harper, again, and potentially cause another election. TIME OUT! Another election! I can already feel the anger and annoyance of every Canadian. Thankfully, the new-guy, Mr. Ignatieff sided with Mr. Flaherty’s budget, but would like some modifications made prior to his full agreement. Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! The Liberals have finally found their guy to lead them back to the promise land! Jean Chretien must have done a few dance moves and even yelled a “WOOHOO” when he heard this announcement on the news.
Please note: There are many more details included in this budget. Even the history and how Canada’s parliament got here has been a messy roller-coaster ride. Even though the Liberals made their move and neglected to join the opposition and form a coalition, there is still a lot of work and details to be changed to this budget. Canada’s political situation is very unclear right now, and I, as a Canadian citizen my whole life, have never felt as nervous about our future as now. There will be change, there will be good and hard times, but “the day is always darkest before the dawn.” (anonymous)
So, what does this all mean? New budget? Deficits till 2013 (read here for why), Liberals back on track? Harper no longer sleeps with the night-light on? Are all these rumours true? Why is every sentence in this paragraph a question? Find out next time…
Check out Who We Are, which is still in beta, but has a pretty interesting blog growing up…
And if you’re a filmmaker, or know one, consider submitting a piece to the site… the deadline for submissions has been extended until January 31, so you still have a bit of time… here’s some more information from the Who We Are team…
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Call for videos
What is this call for videos exactly?
The WhoWeAre.ca platform provides the Canadian public the opportunity to watch, upload and share videos about identity and cultural diversity in Canada.
If this subject is something you can relate to, why not share your own experience or someone else’s by directing a short video for our website.
Submit your video idea now and if selected you’ll get an okay to shoot and direct your video. Upon submission, you will receive a 1000$ grant.
Who can participate?
The call for videos is open to everyone, professionals and non-professionals who are willing to direct a video about the Canadian cultural mosaic or submit an existing one on the same topic. The candidates must be at least 14 years of age and older.
What are the criteria for this project?
About the format:
The video has to be short - between 2 and 5 minutes,
and can be documentary style, animation, or experimental.
You should be submitting a proper proposal with suggested treatment.
About the content:
The content can either be in French or English
(French and English subtitles are also accepted).
The content has to be audacious, original, relevant, and related to immigration.
About the direction:
The direction has to have editorial, artistic and narrative qualities.
Thank you so much for your time, Have a great day!
So I’ve started producing a small speculative documentary on Bill C-61. It’s going to be a 6-7 minute piece on “what could’ve happened” or “what would’ve happened” had the legislation passed back in 2008 prior to the Federal Election. Now first thing someone asked me is “What on earth is a speculative documentary?” Well I answered that for you just a few lines above, so already 1 for 1, but the second question I was asked was “How are you going to show something that never happened?”
A speculative documentary (Spec Doc) is supposed to be about a time in history, an event, a change of some sort. It is close to a fictional piece, but it has to have some relevance to history and not fabricate too much. Spec Doc’s are either produced for educational purposes, for political protestation or sometimes for personal production. My Spec Doc, “C61″, is a good blend of all three, and will demonstrate the severity of this bill, had it ever passed in Parliament.
For those of you, slightly unaware of what Bill C-61 was, or is, here’s a quick historical summary.
Our Spec Doc will demonstrate through interviews with popular media arts & culture guru’s such as Michael Geist, Lawrence Lessig and the man-on-the-rise, Brett Gaylor. Interviews with these three men shall not only be inspirtational but also will be a lot of fun. These men will be asked questions about the past bill, but will also have to pretend to believe the bill was passed in order to “play along” with our idea for film.
Our team really wants to include the interviews with these men, as well as with small-time and possibly big-time artists, musicians, actors and filmmakers. Including the money-makers of this film will only be a section of the piece, as we plan to uncover the horrible events that would have happened to students, professors and everyday citizens had this copyright law passed.
We are still in the pre-production phase, but interviews have been set up and it’s a matter of days before we start getting our footage. If the three of us were not all in University (Concordia), we would prefer to make this a longer piece and devote more time to it, but we have to face reality that we have three to four other challenging courses that needed some time devotion as well.
So, this will be the first of several blogs about this production. Our team is very excited, motivated and eager to put together a stellar piece and be proud of our work. If possible, once the production stage is in full swing, we may update some sneak previews onto our blogs, but stay tuned later in March for the final work.
There have been many bloggers, protestors and complaints over this law. Please click on any of the following links to read about what others think.
By the way, check out the CITIZENShift dossier on Autonomous Media for a host of interesting and cool media on the topic of copyright/left/creative commons.
On December 19th, a six-month truce between Israel & Hamas was broken after accusations that Israel had not lifted the Gaza Strip Blockade. Following this, Hamas offered to renew the broken truce and try to rebuild the peace that was starting to establish between Israel & Palestine.
Israel did not see eye-to-eye with Hamas on this issue, and on the 27th of December launched a military attack against Hamas. The victims of Palestine, and Hamas, saw this as an act of terror and demanded support from the UN. Israel believed they had reason to open fire against Hamas in order to defend themselves from Hamas rocket-fire.
This war carried through the Gaza for days. Many of Gaza’s main cities were bombed and became hosts for war, terrorism and much death. Towns, buildings and families were destroyed during this massacre and fellow nations felt the blow of this war as well. Certain countries, like Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates had large events (such as New Year’s celebrations) cancelled for solidarity with Palestinians.
Thousands have protested in rage against this war, and human rights group, Amnesty International, has called legal action be taken against Israel and went as far as accusing them of war crimes. Israel’s military was ordered by the UN Security Council for immediate cease-fire and withdrawl from Gaza. All fifteen member states were in favor of this, except for the United States, which was under George W. Bush’s power at the time. Perhaps now with Barack Obama bringing change, the United States can get on board with the rest of the UN Security Council and help Israel help itself.
January 18th, twenty-two days after the first rockets were fired by Israel, a cease-fire agreement was reached. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert believed Israel’s goal of stopping rocket-fire into souther Israel had been more than successfully achieved and that Hamas had been badly beaten. After all this violence, more than 1,300 Palestinians were killed, and more than half were innocent women and children.
During these excrutiatingly hard times in Gaza, many Middle-Easterns that reside oversea’s or in other locations blogged about their opinions and views of this massacre. Many groups, organizations and funds were setup in respect to this horrific war and there are still many hard feelings about this attack.
I’m quite sure I don’t need to tell you the significance of today’s date. Chances are, wherever you are in the world, you already know. Today is Barack Obama’s inauguration - and the world is watching.
Here’s a montage featuring photographs of people of various countries around the world reacting to Obama’s win on November 4th 2008.
As Canadians, we have a tendency to pay close attention to American culture. Knowing that the United States is Canada’s closest neighbour and a dominant force in global politics, this is by no means surprising. As the days of Obama’s presidency unfold, many Canadians will become more and more curious about what the future holds in terms of Canada-USA relations. When Obama visits Canada during his first foreign trip, what issues will be most prominent?
The environment? NAFTA? Energy? Arctic sovereignty? The war in Afghanistan?
But as we watch American Politics through a Canadian lens, let us not forget our political climate - and the state of OUR nation. Who will Barack Obama be speaking with during his trip to Canada?
Might I remind you, that our parliament has been suspended since early December, when prime minister Stephen Harper with the help of Governor General Michelle Jean, postponed a no-confidence vote from his opponents that he was likely to lose! Our parliament has been suspended until January 26th, when Stephen Harper will present his budget to parliament.
Consider this a friendly reminder, my fellow Canadians, once the excitement around Obama’s inauguration settles, it will be time to re-focus our attention back to Canadian politics.
Yesterday, Creative Commons and Al-Jazeeraannounced a groundbreaking new partnership: the Qatar-based news agency initiated a Creative Commons repository where it will be posting broadcast quality news clips. All clips will be downloadable and hi-res, and will be licensed under CC-BY, or Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License, which is the most flexible CC license and means that as long as you cite the source, you can do just about anything you want with the material.
The first nine clips that have been uploaded, and are hosted on blip.tv, all cover the ongoing battle between Israel and Gaza. Whether you agree with Al Jazeera’s news coverage or not,this is a major step in the direction of allowing corporate-produced footage to be shared and re-use in a huge variety of ways. With this new step, bloggers, documentary filmmakers, remixers and ordinary folks with a computer and some time can take, reshape and comment on footage of important current events.
It’s clear that the folks at Creative Commons hope this is the sign of things to come, with CC CEO Joi Ito writing that “Al Jazeera has set the example and the standard that we hope others will follow.”
Which leads to an interesting question: will other TV news networks follow suit?
Well here it is… my first blog. Believe it or not, I’m kinda nervous! So let’s cut down to the chase. I’m a third year film production student at the University of British Columbia and right now I’m interning at the National Film Board of Canada. How lucky am I?! Read the rest of this entry »
Unfortunately, Montrealers also have another emotion during the winter season, bitterness. The icy colds that visit Montreal for 2-5 months every year are unwelcomed, unappreciated and well frankly, people are sick of it. But it could be worse! Think about it! Global Warming is knocking at our planet’s door. Earth’s core temperature increases every so slightly annually. In a few decades or so, Montreal could be rid of its horrid winters! Its icy rain, its -30 to -40 degree Celcius days and nights and could enjoy a bit warmer weather. Of course, there’s a catch. When we start loosing our bitterly cold winters, that’s when our summers will become so unbearable, people will demand for winter to come sooner every year. Irony eh, such a kick in the teeth.
So I propose to many Montrealers, don’t complain or moan or curse at Mother Nature for choosing Montreal as her favorite place to dump her ice and cold winds. Just accept it, live with it and find a way to keep warm. Personally, I would much rather keep my planet from extreme global warming than have -5 degree Celcius winters. If you don’t like the weather conditions from December to February in Montreal, then perhaps a different city, province or even country would best suite you. Just a suggestion.
So here are some tips on how to keep warm during the cold winter season. Perhaps this will put you in a better mood.
If you have had any personal experiences with extreme winter cold (ie Ice Storm ‘98) please feel free to share with us and provide others with your best tips and ways to stay warm.
OK, land claims.
A year or so ago I watched Nettie Wild’s Blockade which is about the gorgeous Gitksan land in British Columbia caught up in land claim issues.
This November I saw No More Smoke Signals at Concordia University about the Lakota in South Dakota - more land claims.
And today (better late than never) I read about the corruption surrounding the Ipperwash Provincial Park land claim dispute and the death of a Chippewas protestor Anthony O’Brien “Dudley” George.
The various governments seem to be trying to find some resolutions but I keep hearing about promises that aren’t kept. UGH. Land = Money. And when money is involved it always has to get so ugly.
I feel overwhelmed knowing that these are just a few examples of land claim disputes around the world ….
Montrealer in her mid-twenties.
Freelance journalist and photographer,
with an interest in human rights and sustainable living.
Has a cheerful disposition.
Tynesha is CITIZENShift's summer intern from Concordia University's Communication department (Mtl., QC). Brimming with interests, she states "I enjoy school, I sing in a choir and I am also involved in community radio and volunteer work with youth. In the future, I look forward to developing a company that merges my three great passions in sound, community engagement, and music."
David Widgington was the event coordinator for the Citizen Media Rendez-vous 2010 (http://citizen-media.ca). He is a mobile journalist (MoJo) who is well-versed in community radio, video and print and web-based media practices. He has a particular interest these days with diaspora communities returning to Southern Sudan since the end of the war. He is script-writing a documentary project on the subject. (http://southsudaninfo.net).
