The Daily GRRR! - May 1st, 2015 - Waves Through Walls: Prison Radio

The Daily GRRR!
HEADLINES for May 1st, 2015 
1. May Day 2015 - Solidarity With Workers, Status For All.
2. Canada's Jails Fail To Prepare Prisoners for Release
3. Canadian Prisons Torturing Prisoners With Solitary Confinement
4. Mumia's Health Still Critical as "Mumia Gag Law" Struck Down.
5. Don't Frack Ontario!
6. Waterloo Region Kids Are Sharing Child Porn
7. New Toronto Police Chief Defends Illegal Carding Policies
8. Hamilton Police's "ACTION" Squad-1 Under Investigation

Midway Music: Hamilton's Lee Reed with the tune No Kanada

Feature is a read of Mychal Denzel Smith's April 9th piece for thenation.com titled Abolish the Police. Instead, Let’s Have Full Social, Economic, and Political Equality.

The Daily GRRR! is on weekdays from 9-10am on 100.3fm CKMS in Waterloo, Ontario, and http://soundfm.ca on the web.

The Daily GRRR! is a project of the Grand River Media Collective and is supported by the Community Radio Fund of Canada and CKMS

Opening Mumia is the piece entitled Mumia's Message to the Movement.

Transcript:

Welcome, I am your host Dan Kellar and you are listening to The Daily GRRR! Waves Through Walls: Prison Radio, on 100.3fm, CKMS in Waterloo, Ontario. Soundfm.ca on the web, today is Friday May 1st, 2015.

We are broadcasting from the centre of the Haldimand Tract, the occupied Grand River Territory of the Haudenosaunee (Six Nations).

The Daily GRRR! is a project of the Grand River Media Collective; and is supported by the Community Radio Fund of Canada and CKMS.

The intro music for this episode was from the opening buildup from The Rebel Spell's tune The Tsilhqot'in War

The audio clip that kicked off the show is from Mumia Abu-Jamal with his piece entitled Mumia's Message to the Movement. Check prisonradio.org for more of Mumia’s podcasts and for more on Mumia's current health crisis.

Today’s feature is a read of Mychal Denzel Smith's April 9th piece for thenation.com titled Abolish the Police. Instead, Let’s Have Full Social, Economic, and Political Equality.

Before we get to that let's start with today’s headlines:

1. May Day 2015 - Solidarity With Workers, Status For All.
Today is May Day, the international day of struggle for the rights of workers and against the capitalist economic system which controls so many aspects of our lives. In Toronto, migrant justice group No One Is Illegal is holding their 10th annual "May Day of Action for Status for All" with a demonstration being planned to start at 5pm at Nathan Philips Square.

The group's website states "Every year on May 1st grassroots organizations in Toronto rally and march to mark International Worker’s Day, for migrant and worker’s rights and in support of Indigenous people’s struggles. Themed around the most pressing issues of the day and committed to people’s struggles against oppression and exploitation, May Day unites people’s struggles for self-determination and liberation. We continue this tradition in 2015, rallying and marching against colonial and capitalist attacks on our communities here and Canadian imperialism’s plunder and attacks on peoples across the world."

The event in Toronto will see a rally at City Hall followed by a lively snake march through the downtown, followed by an artistic revolution at St. James Park.

Check http://maydaytoronto.nooneisillegal.org/ for more info on the demonstration and why people are out on the streets this May Day!

2. Canada's Jails Fail To Prepare Prisoners for Release
In a Damning report, canada's auditor general has stated that corrections canada is not properly preparing prisoners for release, writing: “Although the crime rate has decreased, and new admissions to federal custody have not increased, the total male (non-aboriginal) offender population grew by 6 per cent” between 2010 and 2013. This increase is primarily due to prisoners being held for longer portions of their sentences.

The Toronto Star writes: 'The audit noted that legislation passed by Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government in 2011 and 2012 had increased the time that offenders spend in custody before being released on parole.
The 2011 legislation eliminated Accelerated Parole Review, a form of early release available to non-violent, first-time offenders. The 2012 legislation extended the waiting period — to 12 months from six months — for a parole eligibility hearing after an offender had been denied parole."

The report also found that the increase in prisoner numbers has meant a 91 million dollar a year cost to the federal prison budget, a boon for the prison industrial complex.

3. Canadian Prisons Torturing Prisoners With Solitary Confinement
The soon to be unemployed canadian prison watchdog Howard Sapers has released more information on solitary confinement which shows disturbing trends across the country. Sapers has reported on widespread use of solitary confinement to a point that it "runs counter to the stated goal of Corrections Canada".

With Saskatoon paper the Star Phoenix writing about Saper's report: "On any given day, between six and eight per cent of Canada's 15,000 federal inmates are in segregation cells, and about one-fifth of them will spend more than 120 days there, Sapers said. About half of the segregated inmates spend 30 days in such confinement, he said."

In Saper's recent report, one horrifying story came to light. That is the 6,273 day "segregation" of a prisoner whose identity and location has been kept a secret. The 17 years of segregation has involved being locked in a cell for 23 hours a day.

With such wide scale use of solitary confinement, Sapers said "It is very difficult, if not impossible, to prepare people for release into the community if you're keeping them locked in a cell for 23 out of 24 hours a day."

4.Mumia's Health Still Critical as "Mumia Gag Law" Struck Down.
Imprisoned journalist and Black Panther Mumia Abu-Jamal has been returned to the infirmary at SCI Mahony and has been refused visitors or personal medical staff despite the jail failing to diagnose Mumia with diabetes before he fell into a coma.

While prison officials have now blocked visitor access to Mumia, there was a major victory in the court case fighting recent legislation which effectively gagged prisoners. The so-called "Mumia Gag Law" was struck down by a State judge.

For more on both situations, we turn to a report from Free Speech Radio News

5. Don't Frack Ontario!
Legislation aimed to ban fracking in the province will be voted on by Ontario's legislature on May 7 despite the current Liberal government's laid back approach to the dangerous extractive method.

The Council of Canadians notes that upon the introduction of the legislation by NDP MPP Peter Tabuns "The Wynne government immediately rejected the bill. Natural Resources Minister Bill Mauro said there’s no fracking in Ontario, so there’s no need for a ban – but he knows that his government has been encouraging fracking exploration. In fact, the Ontario government has been doing geological surveys for industry – for free!"

In an effort to sway liberal MPP's into supporting the ban on fracking in Ontario, the Council of Canadians have created a petition they encourage people to sign. You can read it at the link from today's show.

6. Waterloo Region Kids Are Sharing Child Porn
As the children of sexually restrained parents protest the changes to the woefully outdated sex education curriculum in Ontario, their pubescent kids are busy sharing naked photos of themselves over social media with their smartphones.

The Waterloo police announced they will not be charging any of the 21 kids involved in the naked picture sharing despite the breaches of child pornography laws citing the ignorance of the children involved.

A weeks long investigation was sparked when a teacher became aware of students, aged 11 to 14, sharing explicit photos of themselves on social media. New sexual education curriculum introduced by the liberal government would discuss many of the issues brought up in this case. The changes have been harshly opposed by well funded socially conservative parent groups.

7. New Toronto Police Chief Defends Illegal Carding Policies
As Mark Saunders, the new chief of the Toronto police came out in favour of "carding", saying on Thursday that stopping the practice would lead to an increase in crime, Toronto councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam demanded on twitter that the new head cop "prove it".

Carding has been criticised as a racially charged practice which disproportionately targets young men of colour, particularly young black men, with Toronto based journalist Desmond Cole recently relating his story of being stopped more than 50 times by the police.

While civil and human rights complaints continue to mount against the carding policies, the TPS have continued to defend the practice, all the while holding in secret the 3 legal opinions they have been given regarding carding.

8. Hamilton Police's "ACTION" Squad-1 Under Investigation
All of the members in one of the units established to "curb crime rates" four years ago have been taken off active duty as ACTION squad-1 has come under investigation for writing false tickets.

The officers of ACTION, who wear yellow jackets as they patrol Hamilton's downtown, have handed out more than 23,000 tickets since 2010. However, this new investigation has uncovered whole books of tickets that were written but never given to anyone. The Hamilton Spectator notes "the tickets were logged with the courts and counted in police statistics but were never handed out."

So much for relying on crime statistics provided by the police...

Thats all for the headlines, now for some
Midway Musichere is Hamilton's Lee Reed with the tune No Kanada

And we are back, you just heard Lee Reed with the tune No Kanada
off of his album The Butcher, The Banker, The Bitumen Tanker

You are listening to Waves Through Walls edition of The Daily GRRR! Today is May 1st, 2015, my name is Dan Kellar and we are now moving into the feature portion of our broadcast.

Today’s feature is a read of Mychal Denzel Smith's April 9th piece for thenation.com titled Abolish the Police. Instead, Let’s Have Full Social, Economic, and Political Equality.

That was a read of Mychal Denzel Smith's April 9th piece for thenation.com titled Abolish the Police. Instead, Let’s Have Full Social, Economic, and Political Equality.

This has been the The Daily GRRR! for May 1st, 2015. We are on weekdays from 9-10am on 100.3fm CKMS in Waterloo region, and http://soundfm.ca on the web. Check out all our past shows and other Grand River Media Collective work on our webpage http://grandrivermc.ca

This is likely the last Daily GRRR! for a while as our funding has expired and we are still in the process of obtaining further cash. Thank you for tuning in over the past year and stay tuned in with the CKMS newsroom as new projects are launched over the summer.

The Daily GRRR! has been supported by the Community Radio Fund of Canada and CKMS.

Stay tuned in for more Grand River Radical Radio after we close the podcast.

Thanks for Listening and have a Smashing May Day!

All Power to the People!

END OF SHOW