Tag: RCMP

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Ted Smith, Dimitri Lascaris February 20, 2022

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Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded February 12th and 20th, 2022

The Victoria Cannabis Buyers Club discovered last week the cost the province’s Community Safety Unit sees fitting for it to pay for the crime of providing British Columbians with medicines they cannot find elsewhere. Following raids led by the CSU in 2019 and 2020, the Buyers Club now faces fines approaching $6.5 million. It’s a price too far they say.

Ted Smith is a long-time justice activist and co-founder of the Victoria Cannabis Buyer’s Club, which for more than twenty-five years has provided cannabis-based products to people with terminal cancer and other incurable medical conditions. He says, though they were waiting for the CSU shoe to drop, the Club was still unprepared for the ridiculous amount announced. Nor were they ready for what followed: GoFundMe® disallowing their legal defense fund, and now webhost, Go-Daddy going and removing the club’s website – reportedly at the request of the CSU.

Ted Smith in the first half.

And; there’s a crisis in Canada. It’s not the one you’ve likely been watching on the news nightly, but a greater crisis of confidence in the institutional foundations not only in this country, but across the western world. From the French Gilets Jaunes and Spain’s Indignados, to the January 6th insurrectionists and Ottawa Freedom Convoyistas, there is an unmistakable whiff of tiki torch in the air. And, perhaps it’s the promise of pitchforks to come that has Neoliberal, globalized leaders like Emmanuel Macron and Pedro Sánchez, and Justin Trudeau stabbing at the panic button? In Trudeau’s case, the Canadian prime minister’s minority government Februrary 14th declared a “public order emergency” and in an unprecedented step enacted the federal “Emergencies Act”. This in response to a “fringe” group of truckers blocking streets in the nation’s capital.

Dimitri Lascaris is a lawyer, journalist and activist, and former front-runner for the leadership of the Green Party of Canada. He calls the Trudeau government move “draconian & anti-democratic legislations” that he says “should not even exist“.

Dimitri Lascaris on the Liberal government’s St. Valentine’s Day massacre of Canadians’ civil rights, and the necessity to support dissent, even when you don’t agree with the dissenters in the second half.

But first, Ted Smith and the perils of practicing compassionate care for the sick and dying in Canada’s “legal marijuana” environment.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio and serves as a contributing editor to the web news site, http://www.pacificfreepress.com. Check out the GR blog at: http://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.ca/

 

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, John Helmer, Molly Murphy, Dr. Jen Gobby January 20th, 2022

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Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded January 15th and 16th, 2022

Last week, Russian and American diplomatic representatives met in Geneva for talks ostensibly aimed at forestalling an escalation of political manoeuvrings into open warfare over NATO expansion into states bordering Russia, and America’s demand Russia return military units standing at the ready on their frontier with Ukraine back to barracks. Different now to long ongoing diplomatic friction between the nations, is a palpable sense of surrender on the Russian side – that is, the apparent abandonment of the hope America and its allies are capable of a reasoned solution.

John Helmer is a journalist, author, broadcaster, former political advisor to government, and principal behind the news website, Dances with Bears. Among Helmer’s many books titles are, ‘The Lie That Shot Down MH-17’ ‘Skripal in Prison’, ‘The Man Who Knows Too Much About Russia’, ‘Hitler Didn’t Die in Berlin – He Moved to Melbourne Where He Runs the State Government of Victoria: A True Covid-19 Thriller’, and his latest, The Dances with Bears Comic Book’. His recent article, ‘Is Geneva 2022 Munich 1938 without Chamberlain’s Piece of Paper? How to Read the US Paper for Peace in Our Time‘ breaks down the current diplomatic breakdown.

John Helmer in the first half.

And; you may have noticed police in Canada look a lot like soldiers these days. Especially if you’re within an “exclusionary zone”. It’s a place where the police uniforms go green as the law goes grey, and where citizens opposing extractivist business as usual get the “insurgent” treatment.

Molly Murphy describes herself as “a front line activist, builder, settler, and mother of three“. She’s also a BIPOC social justice warrior who counted as one among the more than 1,200 citizens arrested at Fairy Creek, (just up the road from Victoria). She’s also co-author of the Mudgirls Manifesto, and author of the recent Briarpatch Magazine article, ‘The C-IRG: the resource extraction industry’s best ally‘.

The piece is a disturbing exposé of the RCMP practice of collusion with industry, and was produced in association with Research for the Front Lines, a new initiative, led by activist, researcher, educator and author, Dr. Jen Gobby. Research for the Front Lines “connects grassroots communities and organizers on the front lines of the fight for environmental and climate justice in Canada with researchers with skills, time, and labour to offer.”

C-IRG at Work, Fairy Creek Photo Colin Smith. Briarpatch

Jen Gobby and Molly Murphy taking to the Front Lines in the second half.

But first, John Helmer and another front line, between America and Russia.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, and serves as a contributing editor to the web news site, http://www.pacificfreepress.com. Check out the GR blog at: http://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.com

 

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Dr. Pablo Ouziel November 27, 2021

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Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded November 27th, 2021

Democracy, or what passed for it in the west is on the ropes. The decline of political dominance globally, vast wealth disparity domestically, and now the economy killing strictures accompanying the Covid-19 pandemic have combined to produce the perfect sturm und drang for society on the brink.

Pablo Ouziel is an associate fellow at the Centre for Global Studies at the University of Victoria and a visiting fellow in the Department Politics and International Relations at the University of Southampton. His book, ‘Democracy Here and Now: The exemplary case of Spain‘ is published by University of Toronto Press and due out in Spring 2022. He’s currently residing outside Barcelona.

Today, Pablo Ouziel, and charting the state of global democracy.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live every Thursday between 11-Noon Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, and on the internet at: https://cfuv.ca. He also serves as a contributing editor to the web news site, http://www.pacificfreepress.com. Check out the GR blog at: http://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.com

 

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Sleydo Molly Wickham, Jackie Larkin November 25, 2021

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Welcome to Gorilla Radio. It’s Sunday, November 21, 2021 and outside the busyness of the modern world is pressing against the window panes as if nothing has happened.

The plagues and pestilence, conflagrations of forests and atmospheric torrents are all present, all a part of this waking dream, yet we stumble for the reason behind the rising waters, and sliding mud and rock; that remains peripheral, an unaddressed root of our unraveling. Instead, the blinkered death march progresses unabated, desperate for the abyss.

Canada’s paramilitary police attacked again land defenders of the northern interior in colonial British Columbia at the Morice River last week. The RCMP raid meant to terrorize and demoralize the people resisting TC Energy’s Coastal GasLink pipeline took hostages, arresting at least 15, including journalists. Sleydo’ Molly Wickham was among those seized. She’s described by independent news outlet, The Narwhal as “a wing chief in Cas Yikh house of the Gidimt’en clan.”

Wickham says, after warning Coastal Gaslink a 2020 eviction order would be enforced, the road to a 500-strong work camp was dug up. Police say their “enforcement operation” was necessary to protect the “health and wellness” of the isolated workers.

Similarly, Fairy Creek on southern Vancouver Island is the focus of RCMP enforcement efforts to dislodge those standing in the way of the business of rampant environmental defilement. There the public has ponied up nearly 4 million loonies to protect the private profits of the Teal Jones lumber company. In both instances, broadly defined court orders have been used by the federal police to set up “exclusion zones”, where those deemed in contravention are arrested under “contempt of court” charges.

More than a thousand arrests have been made at and around Fairy Creek in over the last year. Again, context is lacking in the reportage permitted from the zones of contention due to a combination of restricted access for alternative media, and the inherent reluctance of corporate and state news producers to challenge the status quo.

On today’s show, a look back at two instances of persistent resistance to the colonial occupation of “British Columbia”.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing every Thursday between 11-Noon Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, and on the internet at: https://cfuv.ca. He also serves as a contributing editor to the web news site, http://www.pacificfreepress.com. Check out the GR blog at: http://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.com

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Yves Engler November 4th, 2021

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Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded October 30th, 2021

Next week, Canadians will again gather in towns and cities across the nation to commemorate Armistice Day, (November 11th, 1918) and celebrate the fulfillment of The Great War’s promise to be the “End of All Wars”. But you needn’t worry about putting to knee the youth of the land and painfully instructing them on the glorious horrors, or forgotten methods and meaning of human warfare. The promise was a lie. And the wars and the lying about war persist a century and more later – obviously. Less obvious to even the most engaged citizens of this Canada however is the depth and breadth of the lies sustaining both the country’s military and militarism in the country. The reasons for that dearth of Canadian incredulity are many, but primary among them is the dismal grasp of history here.

Yves Engler is a Montreal-based political activist, essayist, lecturer, and author whose eleven books – mostly on Canadian foreign policy – are joined now by a twelfth title, ‘Stand on Guard for Whom? A Peoples’ History of the Canadian Military.’ Yves is preparing now for the far western swing of his book tour, which will see him presenting in Nanaimo, Victoria, Duncan, and Vancouver from November 10th to 14th.

Today, Yves Engler and revealing, remembering, and recognizing the pervasiveness of Canada’s militarist past and present.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live every Thursday between 11-Noon Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, and on the internet at: https://cfuv.ca. He also serves as a contributing editor to the web news site, http://www.pacificfreepress.com. Check out the GR blog at: http://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.com

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Richard Boyce, Alan MacLeod October 14, 2021

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Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded October 9th, 2021

Forest defenders are into their second Autumn staring down all Canada’s rule of law has to throw at them at the Fairy Creek front line. They’ve managed, over the last 15 and more months, to strip the provincial NDP government of the last vestige of its “green” credentials, and revealed the British Columbia court capable of little better justice than meted out by its colonial antecedents*. The resistance to the clearcutting of old growth forest policies the NDP are defending has too revealed to Canadians and the greater World watching events unfold the brutality of the province’s contracted enforcers, the RCMP.

Richard Boyce is an award-winning filmmaker who has spent most of his professional life chronicling environmental, social, and indigenous sovereignty issues – all issues at issue at Fairy Creek. Richard’s film titles include ‘RAINFOREST – The Limit of Splendour‘ and ‘Coastal Tarsands – Journey to Deleted Islands‘. He’s also the creator of the multi-media website, Vancouver Island Tree Stories.


Richard Boyce in the first half.

And; I’d like to be the first to announce Cuba’s long-awaited liberation from America’s sixty plus-year campaign to overthrow its revolution; but I guess I’ll have to wait. The new(ish) president Biden has carried on with the hawkish Cuba policy of his loonie predecessor – and even gone him one loonier. La Villa del Humor is the latest, (and suspected American-sponsored) antic hoping to bring regime change to the Caribbean island; and despite the jovial name its effort is dead serious.

Dr. Alan MacLeod is an educator, essayist, staff writer at Mintpress News, contributor to Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, and author whose latest book is, ‘Bad News From Venezuela: Twenty Years of Fake News and Misreporting’. His recent article at Mintpress, ‘Private Facebook Group that Organized the July Protests in Cuba Plans Biggers Ones Soon‘ exposes the methods and players behind Villa del Humor and its not so hilarious theatrics.

Alan MacLeod and Florida’s Cuba regime-change industry hoping for a hit in the second half.

But first, Richard Boyce and the impending countdown to destruction for Vancouver Island’s last remaining primeval forests.

NOTE: *Just hours before Richard and I spoke October 9th, British Columbia’s Supreme Court reinstated the court injunction Supreme Court Justice Douglas Thompson had quashed on the grounds, “… [A]ctions of the RCMP at the injunction site have put the court’s reputation at risk.”

The RCMP is free again to arrest in its manner any it deems in contravention of the original injunction pending an appeal against Justice Thompson’s earlier ruling. Richard and I discuss the ruling in an unprecedented “breaking news insert.”

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live every Thursday between 11-Noon Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, and on the internet at: https://cfuv.ca. He also serves as a contributing editor to the web news site, http://www.pacificfreepress.com. Check out the GR blog at: http://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.com

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Selam Gebremeskel/Meron Dejene, Bill Johnston June 3, 2021

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Welcome back to Gorilla Radio’s Home Edition, recorded on the dates, May 31st and June 1st, 2021

Last November, the federal government of Ethiopia, in concert with the dictatorship of neighbouring Eritrea, launched a military invasion of Tigray. Since, millions have been displaced and millions more are in dire need of humanitarian assistance in what the Biden administration said last week is shaping up to become the greatest manufactured disaster since the Ethiopian famine of the 1980’s.

Last week, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Mark Lowcock told the UN Security Council, president Abiy’s troops and its allies have, as well as committing “mass rapes and murder“, “attacked, obstructed or delayed [deliveries of] life-saving assistance… and killed at least 8 aid workers since November“.

Selamawit Gebremeskel is an Ethiopian emigre who has lived in Canada for nearly thirty years. Selam, now a health care professional in Victoria, has relatives in Tigray caught up in a war the government there is waging against its civilians.

Tigray, Call It Genocide
https://www.theelephant.info/op-eds/2021/05/29/tigray-call-it-genocide-prosecute-its-leaders-and-end-it/

Selam Gebremeskel and Meron Dejene in the first half.

And; Day 295 of Direct Action against timber company Teal Jones’ clear-cutting of the Fairy Creek watershed was marked by more than 2,000 blockaders joining the nine months-long campaign in defiance of a BC court injunction and the massive presence of Canada’s paramilitary federal police, the RCMP. Despite scores of protesters arrested to date, or perhaps because of it, the size of the blockade has continued to grow. And the stakes are high. According to the Rainforest Flying Squad in the face of biodiversity and climate crises the logging of old growth forests must stop. It’s just as British Columbia’s own Old Growth Strategic Review Panel recommended last year, but the cutting continues.

Bill Johnston is a retired officer of the Canadian Foreign Services and active Green Party member. He and partner Jan have been traveling up island to participate directly in the blockade. They were up there Saturday, just two of the more than two thousand that showed up to slow up the clear-cuts.

Bill Johnston and the fight to save Fairy Creek in the second half.

But first, Selam Gebremeskel, Meron Dejene and Ethiopia’s engineered catastrophe in Tigray.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live every Thursday between 11-Noon Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, and on the internet at: https://cfuv.ca. He also serves as a contributing editor to the web news site, http://www.pacificfreepress.com. Check out the GR blog at: http://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.com

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Bill Johnston May 31, 2021

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Welcome back to Gorilla Radio’s Home Edition, recorded May 31st, 2021.

Day 295 of Direct Action against timber company Teal Jones’ clear-cutting of the Fairy Creek watershed was marked by more than 2,000 blockaders joining the nine months-long campaign in defiance of a BC court injunction and the massive presence of Canada’s paramilitary federal police, the RCMP.

Despite scores of protesters arrested to date, or perhaps because of it, the size of the blockade has continued to grow. And the stakes are high. According to the Rainforest Flying Squad in the face of biodiversity and climate crises the logging of old growth forests must stop. It’s just as British Columbia’s own Old Growth Strategic Review Panel recommended last year, but the cutting continues.

Bill Johnston is a retired officer of the Canadian Foreign Services and active Green Party member. He and partner Jan have been traveling up island to participate directly in the blockade. They were up there Saturday, just two of the more than two thousand that showed up to slow up the clear-cuts.

Today, Bill Johnston and the fight to save Fairy Creek.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live every Thursday between 11-Noon Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, and on the internet at: http://cfuv.uvic.ca.  He also serves as a contributing editor to the web news site, http://www.pacificfreepress.com. Check out the GR blog at: http://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.ca/

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Ken Stone November 26, 2020

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Welcome back to Gorilla Radio’s home edition recorded on this date, November 26th, 2020.

Eighteen years ago this month, a group of Hamiltonians joined together in efforts to avert a calamitous war. The Hamilton Coalition to Stop the War were not alone in that; in cities around the World tens of thousands fretted and strategized and organized, trying to stand between the United States and the object of its next “war this time”, Iraq.

That collective effort to belay the disaster failed, but the Coalition has continued working to bring to a halt the “generational wars” George W. Bush promised following the 2001 attacks on New York City and the Pentagon.

Ken Stone is a long-time antiwar activist, serving as an executive member of both the Syria Solidarity Movement and Hamilton Coalition to Stop the War. In 2016 Ken participated in the Second International Tour of Peace to Syria, sending back home his column, Dispatch from Syria. Those dispatches are now collected in the book, ‘Defiant Syria: Dispatches from the Second International Tour of Peace to Syria’.

Today, Ken Stone and searching still for a Canadian route to peace.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live every Thursday between 11-Noon Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, and on the internet at: https://cfuv.ca. He also serves as a contributing editor to the web news site, http://www.pacificfreepress.com. Check out the GR blog at: http://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.ca/

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Ken Stone, John Philpot, Janine Bandcroft November 26, 2020

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Welcome back to Gorilla Radio’s home edition recorded on this date, November 26th, 2020.

Eighteen years ago this month, a group of Hamiltonians joined together in efforts to avert a calamitous war. The Hamilton Coalition to Stop the War were not alone in that; in cities around the World tens of thousands fretted and strategized and organized, trying to stand between the United States and the object of its next “war this time”, Iraq.

That collective effort to belay the disaster failed, but the Coalition has continued working to bring to a halt the “generational wars” George W. Bush promised following the 2001 attacks on New York City and the Pentagon.

Ken Stone is a long-time antiwar activist, serving as an executive member of both the Syria Solidarity Movement and Hamilton Coalition to Stop the War. In 2016 Ken participated in the Second International Tour of Peace to Syria, sending back home his column, Dispatch from Syria. Those dispatches are now collected in the book, ‘Defiant Syria: Dispatches from the Second International Tour of Peace to Syria’.

Ken Stone in the first half.

And; On December first 2018, Meng Wanzhou, Huawei executive and daughter of the Chinese telecom giant’s chairman, was detained, interrogated, and arrested at Vancouver International Airport. She has been living ever since under house arrest in one of her Vancouver properties as the courts there hear arguments for her extradition to the United States for fraud.

John Philpot is a Montreal-based defence attorney in International Criminal Law. Long active in Palestinian and African support organisations, and the peace movement, Philpot is too a distinguished panel member of the Cross-Canada Campaign to Free Meng Wanzhou.

John Philpot and Canadians standing up for Canadian Justice in the Meng Wanzhou case in the second half.

And; CFUV Radio broadcaster and host of Plant Powered Radio, Janine Bandcroft will be here at the bottom of the hour with the Left Coast Events bulletin of some of the good things ou can get up to in and around Victoria, and virtually, in the coming week.

But first, Ken Stone and searching still for a Canadian route to peace.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live every Thursday between 11-Noon Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, and on the internet at: https://cfuv.ca. He also serves as a contributing editor to the web news site, http://www.pacificfreepress.com. Check out the GR blog at: http://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.ca/

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Dimitri Lascaris July 29, 2020

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Welcome back to Gorilla Radio’s continuing efforts, NOT broadcast live from CFUV Radio in the basement of the Student Union Building at the University of Victoria, but emanating live-to-tape via skype from our home-based … studio on this date, July 20th, 2020.

The Green Party of Canada is in the midst of a leadership contest, the nine contenders doing their utmost to campaign in these Covid-challenged times. Dimitri Lascaris is one of those nine candidates and he’s been on the island this past week, taking his message for the future of the Greens to both current and prospective party members. Lascaris is a lawyer, activist, and journalist whose vision for the party promises to, in his words:

“Defy the powerful. Confront injustice. [and] Unite progressives.”

Today, Dimitri Lascaris and emboldening Canada’s Greens.