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Schedule
Thursday Opening
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November 18, 2004
Horowitz Theatre, Students' Union Building
Conference Registration 6:00 pm
Film Screening: The Corporation 7:00pm
screening
co-sponsored by the
Center for Constitutional
Studies
One hundred and fifty years ago, the corporation
was a relatively insignificant entity. Today, it is a vivid, dramatic
and pervasive presence in all our lives. Like the Church, the
Monarchy and the Communist Party in other times and places, the
corporation is today's dominant institution. But history humbles
dominant institutions. All have been crushed, belittled or absorbed
into some new order. The corporation is unlikely to be the first
to defy history. Based on Joel Bakan's book The Corporation: The
Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power, the film is a timely,
critical inquiry that invites CEOs, whistle-blowers, brokers,
gurus, spies, players, pawns and pundits on a graphic and engaging
quest to reveal the corporation's inner workings, curious history,
controversial impacts and possible futures. Featuring illuminating
interviews with Noam Chomsky, Michael Moore, Howard Zinn and many
others, THE CORPORATION charts the spectacular rise of an institution
aimed at achieving specific economic goals as it also recounts
victories against this apparently invincible force.
Friday Keynote
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November 19, 2004
Horowitz Theatre, Students' Union Building
Conference Registration 6:30 pm
Linda
McQuaig 7:30 pm
It's The Crude, Dude: Oil and the Public Good (or
Bad)
Journalist, columnist and bestselling author Linda
McQuaig has developed a reputation for challenging the establishment.
In September, Linda's most recent book, It's the Crude, Dude:
War, Big Oil and the Fight to Save the Planet, was released. The
book is a blistering and urgent look at the powerful role that
oil plays in shaping the international political landscape. With
all the drama and intrigue of a thriller, the book explores the
disturbing alliance that has developed between Big Oil and Washington.
With her trademark analysis and insight, Linda McQuaig looks at
the effect that this relationship has had in shaping United States
foreign policy. The book also underlines the reality that no nation
has more to lose in the high-stakes game of Big Oil politics than
Canada.
Saturday
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November 20, 2004
Maier Learning Centre - E.T.L.C.
Morning Plenary I
10am - 12pm
Steven
Shrybman, public
interest and international trade lawyer
In the Public Interest:
the Legal Fights to Save/Destroy Medicare
Recently
the battle for the future of medicare has opened up on new front
- in the courts. Among the cases currently underway or recently
decided is a pending decision by the Supreme Court of Canada in
"Chaoulli", a case invoking the Charter of Rights and
Freedoms to challenge Quebec's ban on two-tier delivery. Recently
the Federal Court dismissed an application by the CUPE, the Canada
Health Coalition, and other groups and unions seeking orders requiring
the federal Minister of Health to monitor and enforce the Canada
Health Act in light of reports by Auditors General documenting
the failure of several Ministers to do so. As of this writing
litigation is also pending before Ontario's Superior Court challenging
approvals for two P3 hospitals to proceed in the Province. Steven
Shrybman, who has been involved in each of these cases, will provide
an overview of this litigation and discuss their common themes.
Lunch Break
Noon - 1pm
Saturday Concurrent Sessions
1pm - 3 pm
Concurrent I
Public Spaces: Inhabiting the commons
Brian
Fawcett, Writer
Public Space and
Marketplace
We know who owns public space-at least theoretically.
But who owns today's marketplace? Are the two converging, and
what are the political and social consequences of that convergence?
Brian Fawcett conducts an open-ended investigation of these questions
based on his two recent books.
Judy
Garber, Associate Professor, Political Science,
U of A
Streets as Political
Spaces
Among various kinds of spaces, streets may have the strongest
symbolic and historical connection with the publicness, openness,
and pluralism of cities. The term "street politics"
conjures up democratic or radical politics--thus, we have seen
this term used in connection with antiglobalization protests.
What is the connection between politics and the street? Are the
antiglobalization protests that take place in city streets attentive
to urban issues? Is it even clear in cities today what kinds of
spaces "count" as streets?
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Concurrent II
Public
Sphere: Renewing the power of the public
Dennis
Soron, Researcher, Globalism Project, U of
A
The Poverty of Privatism:
Renewing Faith in Public Action
This talk explores the origins of (and possible solutions to)
the problem of "privatism" in contemporary culture -
that is, the growing tendency of people to disengage from the
sphere of politics and public participation, and to orient their
main energies around the private domain of career, family, personal
consumption, and self-advancement. Reversing this ongoing process
of depoliticization will require more than simply cajoling the
more cynical and apathetic among us into becoming more civic-minded.
It will require struggling to transform a whole range of social,
political, and economic arrangements that now leave us feeling
powerless and isolated, and
provide us with few meaningful opportunities for addressing the
problems we face in a public, collective manner.
Trudy
Govier, Paul and Esther Esau Distinguished
Visiting Professor's Chair, Menno Simons College
Building Peace from
the Pieces
Are there forces more powerful than bombs and tanks? Is
there power in 'people power' or 'cooperative power'? What is
the evidence? How could we think of such power as useful in a
world torn by war and violence?
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Concurrent III
Public Security: Public rights in an age
of insecurity
Curtis
Clarke, Associate professor and Coordinator
of Criminal Justice Program, Athabasca University
Policing Alberta's
Oil Patch: Public Interest and Security
Today, private security firms, like the private sector generally,
have become responsible for tending to public interests and supplying
public goods. The state, with varying degrees of enthusiasm, has
turned to business and the market as mechanisms to provide public
goods such as education and health care. In the realm of security,
private security firms have been delegated responsibilities that,
in certain settings, effectively make them the key providers of
perhaps the most basic public good, public safety. This concern
of accountability, while broadly stated, is in fact of particular
interest to governance and security initiatives unfolding in the
context of Alberta and its petroleum industry. This paper examines
the evolution of these relationships in the context of what is
referred to as the nodal governance of security.
Jim
Gurnett, Executive Director, Edmonton Mennonite
Centre for Newcomers
Feeding Fear and
Eroding Rights
The hastily created "anti-terrorism" legislation
of 2001 and the wide ranging associated activities that have become
part of life in Canada in the time since are dangerous for all
but particularly for very vulnerable people coming from dangerous
parts of the world, or seeking to do so, to rebuild lives in Canada.
It is time for a serious consideration of how we went down this
street. The talk will also touch on the general dangers of a "security"
agenda for people with little power in the community.
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Concurrent IV
Walmart: Is it in the public interest?
This workshop is designed to raise awareness
around the impact of Walmart on local communities both here and
in the developing world. Participants will gain valuable skills
for use in the resistance or simply be persuaded to alter their
shopping habits and convince others to do the same.
Facilitator: Fiona Cavanaugh, Education Co-ordinator, Change for
Children
This event is co-sponsored by the Alberta
Federation of Labour, Human Rights and Solidarity Committee
as part of its International Solidarity Conference.
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Concurrent V
Global Visions Film Screening
THIRST (62 min)
Sugar: The Rules of the Game (33 min)
Break
3:00 - 3:30 pm
Afternoon Plenary II
3:30pm - 5pm
Joel
Bakan, Author
of The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit
session co-sponsored
by the Center
for Constitutional Studies
The Politics of Corporate
Social Responsibility
Is
corporate social responsibility (CSR) the solution, part of the
solution, or part of the problem for stopping corporations from
causing harm? Bakan argues that CSR is at odds with the corporation's
true institutional nature, and that we should be skeptical of
it, especially when it is invoked to defend deregulation and privatization.
Parkland Public
House 8pm
Conference Social
C ash Bar, Food, and Music!
Featuring Edmonton's own:
AA Sound System
4th Floor Lounge in Education North
Building
11210 87 Avenue
University of Alberta
Tickets are included in your conference
registration fee and are available at the door for a price of $5.
Event co-sponsored
by APIRG
Sunday
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November 21, 2004
Maier Learning Centre - E.T.L.C.
Morning Plenary III
10am - 12pm
Mark
Starowicz,
CBC, creator and executive producer
The Digital Deluge and the Survival of Canadian Identity
Once, Canada faced an unprecedented threat. It was
not an invading army; it was a phenomenon the Dominion had never
experienced. A new technology which redefined everything * politics,
religion, entertainment, and economics. It was, literally, the
greatest revolution in communications since the Gutenberg Press:
Radio. The liberation this technology brought was exhilarating.
But its effect on Canada was devastating.
Lunch Break
Noon - 1pm
Sunday Concurrent Sessions
1pm - 3 pm
Concurrent VI
Public Services: Who is being served?
Ellen
Gould, International trade researcher, Council
of Canadians and Public Citizen
Bringing the Public
back into Public Policy: Trade Activism and Public Service Campaigns
Trade agreements effectively privatize and deregulate
public services, but trade negotiations are carried out in a context
that is intentionally severed from democratic policy-making processes.
Proponents of trade agreements say that they have the advantage
of binding the hands of government on a permanent basis. However,
this attempt to remove areas of public policy from the public
domain has backfired. This presentation will analyze two grassroots
campaigns where trade arguments played a key role in the promotion
of public services.
Blair
Redlin, Research Representative, Canadian
Union of Public Employees
Secretive, Risky
and Unaccountable: Why Public-private Partnerships are Bad For
Democracy
Public-private partnerships (P3s) are increasingly
the "flavour of the month" for provision of public infrastructure
and services in Canada. But, because governments which use P3s
must rely upon private sector companies for management and delivery
of services which were formerly delivered or managed by public
servants, the rules of the private sector marketplace are increasingly
the rules that are governing public affairs in Canada. Concepts
such as "commercial confidentiality", "protection
of investor rights", "tax avoidance", and "investor
confidence" are supplanting more democratic notions for public
service such as openess, accountability, responsibility of elected
officials and public involvement. Blair Redlin's presentation
will canvass some recent, often alarming, examples of the trend
to secrecy and unaccountability that P3s have imposed on the Canadian
public sector.
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Concurrent VII
Public Domain: Commodification of knowledge,
education and culture
Susan
Crean,
Writer and activist, Creators Rights Alliance
Who Owns Culture?
The Draining of the Public Domain and the Rise of the Cultural
Industries
This talk will address the implications of the plundering
of the public domain currently occurring (through privaltization
and appropriation), the public (and private) revolt against copyright,
and the global pressure on creators to abandon their rights. Of
particular concern to creators is the disappearance of moral rights
in the world of piracy and commodified culture, a phenomena which
has major implications for the public domain.
Jerrold
Kachur, Associate professor, Education Policy
Studies, U of A
American Imperialism and
Cultural Commodification: The War Against Terrorism as an Economic
Policy for Intellectual Properties
This presentation discusses the New American Foreign Policy and
the War on Terrorism as a way to use the hard-power of the military
to open up economic markets for cultural commodities, in this
case, related to higher education. The author explores the triangle
of international relations among Canada, Afghanistan, and the
USA and how information infrastructure (e.g. computer networks
and software), educational goods (e.g. commercialized research)
and education services (e.g. online learning) provide the means
for Americans to fight terrorism and make money at the same time.
The author argues that the right to preemptive self-defense (The
Bush Doctrine) and the more 'humanist' version of soft-multilateralism
(Nixon-to-Clinton security strategies) enable the soft-power of
American cultural imperialism to work in many tacit
ways as a form of creeping commodification.
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Concurrent VIII
Expanding the Public: Who is "We"?
Donna
Coombs-Montrose, Office of Human Rights,
Non-Academic Staff Association
Expanding the Public:
Defining the "We"
In the struggle to assimilate into mainstream Canadian
society, many immigrants have expressed the feeling of exclusion
from the concept of "we". Are we succumbing to the prejudices
of a conservative minority? Does our foreign-born have a vested
interest in safeguarding or protecting the 'public good'? Are
immigrants considered an integral part of the "we"?
How can second-stream Canadians be empowered for 'the public good'?
Sara
Dorow, Assistant professor, Sociology, U
of A
Bordering on Difference:
The Promise and Problematic of Defining Community
Zygmunt Bauman (1999; 2003) has pointed out that borders
between communities are constantly re-drawn, their frontierlands
sites of both mutual understanding and perpetual squabbling. Increasingly,
this means that some human lives are "superflous" to
global capitalism. What does this mean for defining and imagining
community? How do "we" understand communities across
local/national/global borders? I interrogate these questions,
with examples drawn from transnational productions of kinship,
and from service-learning experiences.
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Concurrent IX
Public Good(s): Public resources and public
interest
Gordon Laxer, Director, Parkland Institute
Not for Sale. Decommodifying
Public Life and Nature
Today, everything seems to
be up for sale: babies, children's labour, the genetic code to
life, even water. If everything is turned into a commodity, it
would erode the basis of social existence, undermine democracy
and threaten life itself. This paper explores the building of
a transformed Canada and world, through strategies to decommodify
many aspects of what are now marketized commodities. The goal
is to turn 'labour' back into people with rights, to transform
marketized health care and education into public services for
all citizens, and to reclaim 'resources' as nature.
Diana
Gibson, Research Director, Parkland Institute
Water - In Whose Interest?
Of all our natural resources, water is the most threatened by
rampant commodification globally. Are pricing tools really an
acceptable solution for protecting our water? This presentation
will discuss the impacts of pricing and private sector involvement
in water and will stimulate debate on alternatives - strategies
that could ensure the sustainable management of this limited resource
while protecting access to safe drinking water as a human right
regardless of means.
Break
3:00 - 3:30 pm
Closing Plenary
3:30pm - 5pm
Elaine
Bernard,
Executive Director of the Labor and Worklife Program
at Harvard Law School
Workers as the Public
How do we move from vision to practice? Who will speak for the
public good, and how can we organize to promote a widespread appreciation
of civic entitlement and social responsibility? Workers and workplace
relations must play a crucial role in organizing democratic communities
of interest. As more of our relations become mediated through
markets, it is essential that we reassert a claim for public interest
and communal concerns. Only by extending democracy to the workplace
can democracy and civil society flourish.
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