Ontario Activists Champion Homes Not Bombs

by Matthew Behrens

Five men attending the Hamilton, Ontario, international air show last Father's Day, June 20, placed themselves in front of an American A-10 Thunderbolt and unfurled a banner declaring "Human Rights Violations + NATO Bombs = More Human Rights Violations." Other signs they held read "Homes Not Bombs," "Food Not Bombs," and "These Machines Kill People." The A-10 anti-tank aircraft are responsible for most of the hundreds of tons of depleted uranium bullets used in warfare to date, principally in Iraq and the former Yugoslavia.

As the men began conducting a worship service, police arrived on the scene. One officer asked how long the men would remain there, and was told they would leave "as soon as you remove these war machines from Canadian soil." Police then arranged for the early removal of the men instead, who were charged with trespass and removed from the air show. When they appeared for trial in December, the charge was dismissed. Plans are already underway to shut down the next Hamilton air war show in June, 2000.

The demand for Homes Not Bombs resonated with a campaign during the war against Yugoslavia when Hamilton peace activists sought to convert the city's historic downtown armory into housing for the poor. The campaign was also added to organizing throughout the province of Ontario to draw the links between poverty and militarism in Canada, exposing the myths of Canada as peacemaker and Canada as the "best place to live in the world," a status not shared by over 5 million Canadians forced to live in poverty while the War Department sucks up the largest discretionary use of Ottawa's national budget at some $10 billion annually.

These efforts built up to Friday, November 12, when a significant part of downtown Ottawa, Canada's capital, was shut down by a mass nonviolent action in front of the War Department. At the largest Canadian anti-war civil disobedience action in almost a decade, fifty-four nonviolent resisters were arrested and hauled off by Ottawa riot police, fifty of them criminally charged with mischief and obstruction of police for attempting to call for a massive affordable housing strategy and an end to the spending of untold billions on the military.

The action occurred almost a year after homelessness had been declared a national disaster, a year in which the federal government failed to commit a single dime to construction of new affordable housing. In contrast, Ottawa spent $482 million to bomb the people of the Balkans, an amount which could have built 12,000 affordable housing units.

The Prime Minister was asked about the action while touring Africa, and numerous federal politicians spent the day trying to downplay the effects of an action which captured live national media attention.

The action had two aims: to convert the War Department to the Housing Department, and to construct a civil society on the adjoining Mackenzie Bridge representing all those parts of Canadian communities that have been devastated by budget cuts while the War Dept. continues to thrive. The group demanded a 1% solution (increasing overall budget spending by an additional 1% on construction of affordable housing) and a commitment from Canada not to take part in the newly revived U.S.-led Star Wars nuclear war first strike program.

It was not like a traditional demonstration, as there were no speeches, no chanting, no fist waving, and chest pounding. Rather, it was a gathering marked by a wondrous calm as people set up: a home replete with couches, chairs, a fridge and stove, TV, lamps, and other fixtures to represent the crucial need for affordable housing in Canada; a greed-free day care with cribs, stuffed animals, games, and chalk for redecorating; a rainbow web made of various materials stretching across the bridge; a community organic garden, complete with farm animals and gardening tools; a free school for discussion and thought about what constitutes a civil society; a Food not Bombs free serving of warm and nutritious food; and a renovation crew tooling up for the departmental conversion.

Trials for the resisters are expected to begin this spring.

Members of Hamilton Action for Social Change invaded a WalMart with Santa, elves and Raging Grannies. They methodically removed all the war toys, violent video games and guns from shelves and placed them in plastic garbage bags and, when the bags ran out, garbage cans which they borrowed from the home and garden section of the store. Media refused to cover the event because they were threatened by WalMart with trespassing charges if they did. After the violent toys were taken to a storage room, Santa and crew walked out unarrested and unharassed.

For more information, contact Homes not Bombs at P.O. Box 73620, 509 St. Clair Ave. West, Toronto, Ontario M6C 1C0. (416) 651-4514; tasc@web.net