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Student group in Vancouver Raises the Alarm Over Extractive Industries on Campus

By Katherine Dodds On September 28, 2014 | 2 Comments

Guest Blog by Sam Stime, Calling on Corporation Blog readers to sign our petition!

For a year, students at UBC and SFU have been raising the alarm bells about the federally-funded and mandated Canadian International Institute for the Extractive Industries and Development, the CIIEID, now housed at our universities. After extensive due-diligence, we’ve rolled out a petition calling on the decision-makers at our universities to review the poorly informed decision to host the extractive industry think-tank, and to take the precedent-setting step of dismantling it.

The petition is available here. The students’ blog StopTheInstitute.ca provides extensive background to problems around Big Mining, Canadian diplomatic support for Canadian extractive companies overseas, and a narrative of the students’ rigorous search for information from the completely opaque CIIEID. The petition is getting attention from citizens, NGOs, and academics across Canada, who recognize this institute as a threat to academic freedom & integrity, as corporatization of the universities in its most heinous form, as an academic cloak concealing a predatory industry, and as a menace to the well-being of communities and to the local decision making processes of sovereign nations. To date, hundreds of stakeholders have signed on to the petition, including dozens of faculty at the coalition universities.

In stating what is expected of the university, the student blog doesn’t beat around the bush. Cards promoting the line-in-the-sand petition don’t either. Text accompanying an image of a gaudy masquerade mask reads, “Cute mask. But claiming to ‘alleviate poverty’ by promoting Canadian mining overseas isn’t fooling anyone.’ It goes on to assert, “This new mining institute is a threat to academic independence, and a threat to many countries’ own resource governance decisions. It’s way too problematic to host at our universities. Together, we’re asking the highest authorities at UBC, SFU, and EPDM to close it. Please sign the petition today.”

With the atrophy observed among directors, managers, and other key staff (all mention of them having been removed from the CIIEID ‘people’ page in the last months), students are now confident that the charade is nearly over.

The petition has stimulated a critical examination of whether it’s really appropriate for such a mining institute to be hosted at our universities. It’s urged self-reflection on Canadian complicity in abuses and exploitation outside Canada’s borders, and challenged our own assumptions about our right to acquire others’ resources, even at the cost of their own sovereign decision-making.

Tag(s): Mining, The Corporation

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Katherine Dodds AKA "Kat" is the founder of HelloCoolWorld.com, the grassroots team behind The Corporation, and is featured in a "Grassroots Marketing" segment on The Corporation DVD set. She is dedicated to harnessing the power of the film to rein in corporate abuse through the development of the Campaign 4 Corporate Harm Reduction.

Shadows of Liberty - our Feature campaign PERK for #OffTheCouch

By Katherine Dodds On July 02, 2014 | 0 Comments

Give To Our#OffTheCouch campaign at the $150 level and we'll send you the Shadows of Liberty DVD!

This amazing film is a must-see for anyone who cares about independent media. The Corporation's Mark Achbar describes the film as "taking up where Manufacturing Consent Left off" and "the best films on this topic so far."

Filmmaker Jean-Philippe Tremblay takes a journey through the darker corridors of the US media, where global conglomerates call the shots. For decades, their overwhelming influence has distorted news journalism and compromised its values. The film reveals ugly truths about the news media: censorship, cover-ups and corporate control.

Tracing the story of media manipulation through the years, Shadows of Liberty poses a crucial question: why have we let a handful of powerful corporations write the news? Media reform is urgent and freedom of the press is fundamental.

Check out the Democracy Now! interview with Director Jean-Philippe Tremblay.

"We decided to do this film with DocFactory and the Bertha Foundation because we’re dedicated to independent media. The goal was really to make films that change the world. And it became obvious to us that the media is one of the most, if not the most, important subject that we need to deal with today."

~ Jean-Philippe Tremblay (from the Democracy Now! segment)

Check out their website and take action! ShadowsofLiberty.org Currently they are in the midst of a US Grassroots Screening Tour.

Community Producer Mukund Menda doubles your dollars!

By Katherine Dodds On June 20, 2014 | 0 Comments

Off the Couch Attracts International Support!

We've had contributions from all around the world -- Switzerland, Austria, Germany ... and now Dubai! We were thrilled when long-time fan of the film, Mukund Menda, contacted us about being a Community Producer. Based in Dubai, he's contributed greatly to our campaign and is already planning how he's going to help us get the film in schools in the UAE where he lives and works.

And, we're delighted to say that thanks to Mukund, (pictured on the left through his new avatar), you can double your dollars while also helping to get The Corporation free into 1,000 schools. All gifts given this weekend will be matched! Get your gift matched now & you could win a prize!

We asked Mukund about a cool project he founded - Care For Laborers. Here's what he had to say:

"Care for Laborers is a platform to exchange and implement ideas to improve the quality of life and happiness of workers in the G.C.C. & South Asia."

I asked him what inspired him to do this work:

"When I started my efforts to spread awareness and to improve the quality of happiness and thus lives of lower income workers in 2007, an expatriate told me that I shouldn’t bother helping the laborers in Dubai and rather to go and do charitable activities in the countries of origin of these workers. That I should go to the towns where these workers come from and where people don’t even have any opportunity for a source of income and future for their children. I was also told it is better to do charity quietly and not make any publicity about it."

"We must all truly ‘be the change we wish to see in the world’ the famous words of Mahatma Gandhi. ‘Everything is possible’ the mantra of the great leader, humanitarian and visionary ruler of The Emirate of Dubai, Vice President and Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates, HRH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum. A mantra proven on countless occasions."

"Charity starts at the home and my home is in Dubai in the Arabian Gulf. Dubai is a city I love, and I have a great affinity for all the people who call it home (long term expatriates and U.A.E. nationals alike). Dubai cares about the world and has amazing initiatives like Dubai Cares. Yes, people are working here and making money to support their families of course. Although many a time they live a life of loneliness away from their families, friends and loved ones, the community as a whole should organize more activities and take the time out to help those less fortunate than themselves."

"If you chose to promote any fair and just cause without offending anyone or breaking any laws, you will garner more support and more change and awareness only by doing so more openly. As more people become aware about something and are reminded as often as possible, a critical mass of people with awareness can be reached; only then can real and permanent improvement occur for just and righteous causes." ~ Mukund Menda

Shout Outs to Our Campaign Supporters!

By Katherine Dodds On May 21, 2014 | 0 Comments

Things are heating up for THE CORPORATION RE-LAUNCH.

We're thrilled that rabble.ca and People's Co-op Books have joined us!

Get your tickets now to our VANCOUVER screening! It will also be the launch of our crowdfunding campaign on dana.io. All money raised from ticket sales, donations and of course online donations will help us get the film FREE to 1000 schools.

Dreaming of the Difference The Corporation Film can Make...

By Katherine Dodds On May 19, 2014 | 0 Comments

Get your tickets for May 26 Vancouver Screening + Panel + Party! RSVP on Facebook Press Release below.

Corporations are not the architects of my dreams. Corporate globalization is not my religion, though it be worshipped all around me. Profit over every other earthly concern is not my way of doing business.
~Kat Dodds, Hello Cool World founder/Campaign director for The Corporation

In these dark days of climate change, it sometimes feels like a waking nightmare with facebook feeds flashing before my eyes: Youtube visions of factories burning; tales of terminator seeds; the drones of PR as the call to war; waters rising; unceded territories the scene of corporate crimes, citizens rights eroding through government spying; and even oil spilling on the streets of LA — The plundering of our planet does seem apocalyptic.

There is a devil, and it is in the coporate institutions very DNA.

And the devil's advocates say only they can solve the crises they create.

We need to change the entire game.

The Corporation film, and audiences response to it, has given an albeit secular soul to my work. Working with this head & heart felt film alongside the people who made it, has spanned much more than the past decade. I formed Hello Cool World at the turn of this century so that we'd be ready to build the grassroots campaign to launch the film. Which is why we at HCW are a small, collaborative grassroots motley crew of do-gooders.

And now, we need to do gooder, again.

Which is my dream now: To re-launch the film through our activist and educators communities to re-awaken our collective spirit of resistance and rebuild our faith in each other to solve our problems as citizens, as friends, as communities, to reclaim the soul of democracy, which is solidarity.

Who's coming along on this ride?

XO kat

HELP US GET THE FILM FREE INTO 1000 SCHOOLS!
CROWDFUNDING CAMPAIGN COMING SOON...

Get your tickets for May 26 Vancouver Screening + Panel + Party! RSVP on Facebook

Fans - give us feedback to fuel the revolution: Survey