2006-04-21Staff Report 2 "By Cikiah Thomas Please review the article ""Tories still working on cost of crime plan"" and take note of the direction of Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government in solving the problem of crime - only a one-way street, that is, expansion of the Prison Industrial Complex - for this ultra right-wing Tory government. Who will populate this new expanded prison industry? Make no mistake it will be us, Afrikan people. Why would any government want to spend $ billions to build new prisons when there is overwhelming statistical evidence telling us that crime has been reduced substantially in Canada over the past 10 years? The answer to the problems of Black youth violence is programmes to address poverty, racism, social and economic exclusion. Afrikans in Canada have taken major initiatives to study the problems and offer major alternative solutions, but, instead of talking to us, the government prefers to take the advice of similarly minded bureaucrats whose social reality has very little in common with ours. Who did Prime Minister Stephen Harper put at the helm of this initiative for expansion of the Canadian Prison Industrial Complex? None other than the well-known out-of-touch and white supremacist, Stockwell Day. Stockwell Day has demonstrated his bias and conservativism over and over again. This time we cannot sit back without challenging his insane policy initiative to put our people in jails to make money for his millionaire friends. Stockwell Day is arguing that government will save money, even if they are forced to build more jails! How this will be achieved is beyond reason. Maybe, it can be demonstrated by some new science developed by Stockwell Day. Sociology studies from all over the world have indicated that harsh penalties do not reduce crime. The Prison Industrial Complex is a new form of enslavement for Blacks, mainly men between the ages of 18 and 40, who are held in maximum-security penitentiaries. Among the reason for this is to provide free labour for multinational conglomerates and to prevent us from organizing to fight the capitalistic racist system that has us in bondage. The recent high profile Black youth shootings in Toronto provide an excuse for people like Stockwell Day who have long advocated anti-Black policies and would love to wipe Black people off the face of the earth if given a chance to do so. The Global Afrikan Congress will put Stockwell Day on notice that we will not be silent in the face of his initiatives to build new maximum-security facilities to enslave our people. We want to discuss real solutions to the problems of social marginalization and at the same time we want to discuss reparations for the crimes White people committed against our ancestors. Afrikans in Canada must rise, organize and resist the racial oppression to which we are subjected." 2006-04-21Staff Report 2
