Plea Deal News Roundup, and Bill C-10 actions this week

[Laura McDonald]

We've been collecting all the news stories & info we come across about yesterday's plea deal on a page on our website: http://kwcs.2010resistance.ca/plea - so keep checking that and our facebook page for updates!

I also want to let everyone know about two events this week opposing Bill C-10, an issue KWCS members are very passionate about. One is a rally on Saturday which some of us are speaking at, and the other is tomorrow at MP Peter Braid's office in uptown Waterloo, part of a series of 200+ actions happening across Canada.

Prisons Have Failed!
Anti-Prison Rally and March
Rejecting Bill C-10 and Remembering Ashley Smith
November 26, 2011 Kitchener City Hall 

1-3pm:  Poverty Makes Us Sick! Really Free Market (coats, clothes, books, toys, gifts, house wares), Music, Speakers, Info, Kids Corner (face painting, art, activities), Books For Prisoners, G20 Charges Update, 
Food Not Bombs community meal 

3:15pm:  Rally and March to locations of the Prison Industrial Complex / Colonial Enforcement.

Bring your banners, noise makers and related literature!

Bill C-10, ironically titled the Safe Streets and Communities Act, introduces mandatory minimum sentences for minor offenses.
It continues to develop on the racist and sexist policies of the Nation State Canada.  
The bill seeks to fill the newly available cells created by the Harper Regime's prison expansion initiatives. 
The Harper Regime aims to be able to incarcerate 22, 450 human beings in Federal Prisons by 2014 (up from 4,500 in 2008).  
We are being denied funding allocation for health care and education while corporate-fascism is being funded with our tax dollars.   

http://ccla.org/omnibus-crime-bill-c-10/
http://parl.gc.ca/HousePublications/Publication.aspx?Docid=5124131&file=4
http://openparliament.ca/bills/41-1/C-10/
http://whyprohibition.ca/blogs/jacob-hunter/stop-bill-c-10-make-canada-safer-not-meaner

Ashley Smith died at the age of 19 in a segregation cell at the Grand Valley Institution for Women, in Kitchener.  
Having been denied a transfer to a psychiatric facility and on suicide watch, Ashley tied a ligature around her neck and, while members of the staff watched, asphyxiated to death.  
Prison failed Ashley.  Prisons succeeded in its one and only function: murder. A new inquiry is being opened. We will remember Ashley in quiet moments and in direct resistance. 

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Stop the Omnibus, Bill C-10!
Thursday (tomorrow) November 24, 2011; 1pm
MP Peter Braid Office, 22 King St South, Waterloo

http://www.leadnow.ca/stop-the-crime-bill

1. 10 reasons to oppose Bill C-10, Trinda L. Ernst, President, Canadian Bar Association: http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorialopinion/article/1086785--10-reasons-to-oppose-bill-c-10
2. Texas conservatives reject Harper's crime plan - 'Been there; done that; didn't work,' say Texas crime-fighters (CBC): http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2011/10/17/pol-vp-milewski-texas-crime.html
3. Tough on crime bill will hurt First Nations, Atleo says: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/story/2011/11/16/north-atleo-crime-bill.html
4. Provinces wont foot bill for crime legislation, McGuinty warns PM: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/provinces-wont-foot-bill-for-crime-legislation-mcguinty-warns-pm/article2222867/
5. Leadnow petition: http://www.leadnow.ca/keep-canada-safe
6. Avaaz petition: http://www.avaaz.org/en/stop_harpers_cruel_crime_bill/
7. Bill C-10 in full: http://www.parl.gc.ca/HousePublications/Publication.aspx?Docid=5124131&file=4