This morning, I learned that my application to participate in the Green Party of Canada leadership race has been accepted following a successful appeal from a decision of a vetting committee.

My campaign team and I are overjoyed at this opportunity to fight for the values we hold dear: social and environmental justice, diversity, non-violence, and participatory democracy. We’re excited to be part of a diverse and dynamic field of candidates, and we look forward to continuing to collaborate with them during this race.

This process has proven that the Green Party does politics differently. Unlike the secretive vetting process used by other parties, I was given the identity of the vetting committee members and a list of their concerns. During my appeal, I was given the opportunity to submit a written statement, and to participate in a candid discussion with the appeal commitee.

I applaud the appeal committee’s decision to place its trust in party members. This outcome sends a strong message to progressives across this country that the Green Party is the home of grassroots democracy. I encourage everyone in this country who wants to be part of a progressive, democratic party to join the Green Party today.

I’d like to thank the many party members who spoke passionately about the need for a fair process. I am also grateful to my fellow candidates, who offered their support both publicly and privately. This party’s commitment to democracy and collaboration runs deep.

Finally, I would like to express my gratitude to my partner and two children, who were a source of strength for me during the appeal process.

From today our campaign moves forward, more ready than ever to champion the causes of social, environmental, and economic justice in Canada and around the world.

April 18, 2019

With the support of Ontario’s right-wing Premier, Doug Ford, a staunchly pro-Israel member of Ontario’s legislature is pushing a private member’s bill designed to silence critics of Israel.

The proposed law, Bill 84, is a frontal assault on the rights to free speech, free assembly and free association.

It cannot withstand constitutional scrutiny. Continue Reading ›

On February 3, 2019, Canadian Ministers Chrystia Freeland and Marie-Claude Bibeau published this statement in which they claimed that Venezuelan forces had burned ‘humanitarian aid’:

Today, a New York  Times expose confirmed that this claim is false.

Will Freeland and Bibeau now issue a retraction and apology?

[For the record, Max Blumenthal revealed this claim to be false well before the New York Times did so.]

On February 23, “Hands Off Venezuela” rallies were held in cities around the world.

For The Real News Network, I attended one such rally in Ottawa, Canada.

At the Ottawa rally, protesters marched from Justin Trudeau’s office to the United States embassy demanding that Western leaders keep their “greedy hands” off of Venezuela’s resources.

My report on the Ottawa protest can be watched and heard here:

https://therealnews.com/stories/hands-off-venezuela-rallies-held-in-cities-around-the-world?fbclid=IwAR17LpWp1-DqpusAbCm4bAbQM955Fh5ilclPTghhnui95KrNrxjjdR27_dM.

My thanks to my daughter Lena, who shot the video for this report.

Following his recent appearance on the far-right Rebel Media, during which he vilified Justin Trudeau’s government for showing a modicum of compassion to Palestinian refugees, Hillel Neuer of UN Watch has launched a mendacious attack on me and Professor Michael Lynk.

Professor Lynk is the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT). He has meticulously documented Israel’s severe human rights abuses in the OPT, and has therefore drawn the ire of the relentlessly pro-Israel UN Watch.

Apparently, Neuer’s prodigious ego remains bruised after this past summer’s convocation at McGill University. For reasons that no one in the Palestinian solidarity movement can fathom, McGill University decided earlier this year to confer an honorary doctorate on this shameless apologist for Israeli apartheid. In protest, I and two other Palestinian solidarity activists, Yves Engler and Paul Tetrault, disrupted Neuer’s acceptance speech during McGill’s convocation:

Now, Neuer and UN Watch, the pro-Israel propaganda organ that Neuer leads, are calling for Professor Lynk to denounce me after Professor Lynk and I shared a stage at a recent Symposium on Israel/Palestinein Winnipeg.

Continue Reading ›