Elections this weekend in British Columbia and Brazil: Who gets thrown under the bus for the sake of development?

by Jim Hodgson

I write today from northwest Chiapas, part of the traditional territory of the Zoque Indigenous people in southeastern Mexico. But I am thinking of friends and family in the Canadian province of British Columbia, who will elect a new provincial government today, and of the people of Brazil who will choose a president Sunday.

In all of these places, politics have become sharply polarized. The right attacks even the concept of Indigenous rights as an impediment to private property and to their notions of development – usually tied to ecologically-destructive resource extraction. They also attack 2SLGBTQIA+ people, especially trans people. And the left, rather tepidly in my opinion, defends the rights of Indigenous people, ecological protection and the rights of queer and trans people.

Today, let’s look at my home province, so-called British Columba, a land where virtually no treaties were signed during colonization.

Orange Shirt Day, Penticton, Oct. 30

In the B.C. provincial election, two acronyms have been bandied about. DRIPA and SOGI. Conservative politicians say they’re bad: threats to your property on the one hand and to your family on the other. And the relatively progressive government has not shown much courage in defending these policies.

What are they?

In this piece by Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, president of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs (UBCIC), DRIPA is explained.

In times like these, First Nations and our rights are often the first to be thrown under the bus. In the territory known as British Columbia (B.C.), this has resulted in politicians placing a target squarely on the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) and the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (DRIPA). Lost in all the related bluster and rhetoric is what UNDRIP and DRIPA actually are and are meant to do, and what those who seek to weaken or do away with them are asking British Columbians to give up.

Understanding UNDRIP and DRIPA

UNDRIP is an international human rights instrument. Developed through a series of forums beginning in 1982 and ending with the UN General Assembly voting to adopt UNDRIP in 2007, it is the product of more than 20 years of international deliberations, diplomacy, and compromise between UN member States and Indigenous Peoples’ representatives.

UNDRIP does not create new rights, nor does it extend any unique privileges or entitlements to Indigenous Peoples. Rather, it expresses long-standing international human rights norms in the specific context of the world’s Indigenous Peoples. Grounded fundamentally in the inherent right to self-determination enjoyed by all peoples, it is intended to protect the collective human rights of the more than 470 million Indigenous People worldwide that may not be adequately addressed in other human rights instruments that emphasize individual rights, and it also further elaborates on specific individual human rights with particular emphasis on the rights of Indigenous women and children.

Stated simply: UNDRIP recognizes and is meant to protect broadly accepted, basic human rights. Indigenous rights are human rights.

DRIPA, on the other hand, is a provincial statute which the B.C. legislature passed unanimously in 2019. The purpose of DRIPA is to advance the domestic implementation of these rights in B.C. DRIPA made B.C. the first jurisdiction in Canada to formally adopt UNDRIP as its framework for reconciliation, as the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada explicitly called for. Since then, DRIPA has played a key role in enabling First Nations to take our rightful place at the decision-making table while facilitating economic growth and prosperity. …

There are legitimate questions about how DRIPA should operate, how its obligations should interact with existing law, and what role courts should play when conflicts arise. But those questions should not be allowed to obscure the fundamental question at the heart of this debate: whether the rights of First Nations will be treated as enduring human rights or as political concessions that can be suspended whenever they become politically inconvenient.

Summerland’s first Pride March, June 18.

And SOGI – sexual orientation and gender identity – is explained here by Wilbur Turner, president and executive director of Advocacy Canada (a Kelowna-based 2SLGBTQIA+ advocacy organization).

SOGI 123 was introduced in BC schools in 2016, ten years ago. It is a set of resources to help schools be safe for every student, and it was never a stand-alone curriculum. Researchers at UBC’s Stigma and Resilience Among Vulnerable Youth Centre, led by Dr. Elizabeth Saewyc, evaluated it using BC Adolescent Health Survey data from more than 98,000 students in grades 7 to 12 across 482 schools. They found that SOGI 123 reduced bullying and sexual orientation discrimination for students in the rainbow community and for their heterosexual classmates too. “We’ve now got 10-year evidence that it works,” Saewyc said.

Thousands of students have now graduated after spending most of their school years with these resources in their classrooms. The sky hasn’t fallen. What has happened is that more kids feel safe at school.

British Columbians face real problems this fall, from housing and health care to the cost of groceries. Let’s get serious about those, and leave the kids out of this culture war.

I’ll write about Brazil’s election in days to come. In the meantime, for excellent updates check out posts from Panamerican Dispatch.

The struggle over the new world (dis)order

by Jim Hodgson

The first hours of the annual parade of world leaders at the UN General Assembly Sept. 22 showed again the sharp disagreement between the leader of the United States and many other leaders over multilateral cooperation and unilateral abuse of power.

In his speech, Donald Trump threatened to “annihilate” Iran, proclaimed his nation’s supremacy, and declared that “to the victor go the spoils.” He also called Cuba “a failed state,” though any “failure” is due to his country’s decades of interference, embargo and sanctions.

Trump’s speech followed those of UN Secretary General António Guterres (left) and Brazilian President Luiz Inácio (Lula) da Silva (centre), who both emphasized the need for multilateral cooperation in the face of the ecological, political and humanitarian crises that confront humanity. Guterres also called for debt relief that is timely and effective.

“In the face of a global catastrophe more than 80 years ago,” Guterres said, “the United Nations was created as an act of defiance. The defiance of people who refuse to surrender the future to fear. The defiance against the self-defeating notion that might makes right. The defiance of countries that know our futures are bound together. The defiance of hope.”

Lula, who seeks re-election in October, warned that countries should not interfere in the internal affairs of other nations. In the current campaign, Trump has openly backed Flávio Bolsonaro, son of a disgraced former president. Trump previously interfered in elections in Honduras, Argentina and Colombia.

Lula urged world leaders to take stronger action in response to intensifying global conflicts and called on the UN to recover its capacity for dialogue and mediation. He added that it is time to choose between multilateralism or global fragmentation.

“Concessions to the law of the stronger have surpassed all limits. This is not idealism, but pure realism,” he said. “War is not the continuation of politics by other means; it’s the complete breakdown of politics.”

In his speech, Trump said Mexico was the “epicentre” of drug-trafficking in Latin America and that it had ceded some of its territory to the cartels. 

A day later, President Claudia Sheinbaum responded with irony: 

“I could say that it is very difficult to live next to a country with such a high level of consumption of illegal drugs. Or I could say that it is very difficult to live next to a country that produces so many weapons. But I won’t say that because we have a good relationship.”

(Sheinbaum did not attend the General Assembly; Mexico’s remarks were delivered Friday by Foreign Minister Roberto Velasco, who emphasized collaboration with other countries and reform of UN structures.) 

Trump gathers his “Shield of the Americas”

Since Trump returned to the White House in January 2025, the United States has tried to dominate its neighbours in the Western Hemisphere. The early 19th-century Monroe Doctrine (now dubbed “Donroe”) is revived to limit perceived threats in the region.

Over the past 13 months, the U.S. military has killed at least 230 people in about 70 air strikes on boats in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific Ocean. In January, U.S. forces kidnapped Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his spouse Cilia Flores, and now holds them in a prison in Brooklyn across the East River from the United Nations building.

In April, U.S. and Ecuadoran soldiers launched an effort to dismantle a drug-trafficking group. On Sept. 24, U.S. troops and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration assisted Ecuadoran authorities in arresting more than 30 people with alleged ties to Mexico’s Jalisco New Generation Cartel.

During the high-level General Assembly session, Trump gathered leaders of the 14 countries allied with him in his so-called “Shield of the Americas.” 

They pledged coordinated action against 24 organizations designated as “narco-terrorist.” The declaration calls for sanctions, intelligence sharing, security cooperation and a commitment to invoke the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance, or Rio Treaty, to consider collective military action against the groups.

New Canadian aid to Palestine and Haiti (but not Cuba)

Canada’s foreign minister, Anita Anand, also emphasized multilateral collaboration in her speech. Canada’s foreign policy, she said, is guided by establishing autonomy in strategic fields to limit superpower coercion, along with aspirations to lead middle powers.

“Great powers are walking away from global economic co-operation, dismantling economic integration,” Anand said. State sovereignty “has been treated with disdain.”

“We are facing serious challenges in the global order,” Anand said.

“We will lead other middle powers to act collectively and decisively, because middle powers are playing a key role in building the framework for the new international order — which is being established as we speak.”

Earlier in the week, Prime Minister Mark Carney pledged $100 million in aid for Palestine in an effort to preserve “the possibility of a two-state solution.”

The funding includes $80 million in humanitarian aid, while the rest is development funding for security initiatives, including top-up funds for a multi-year project to train police in the West Bank. 

Anand announced $25.4 million in new Canadian funding for Haiti to support security, governance and community resilience in Haiti. But there have been no new funding announcements for Cuba since commitments earlier this year of $13.5 million to the Pan-American Health Organization, the World Food Program and UNICEF for programs in Cuba.

(Images: http://www.lajornada.com.mx)

Cuba warns against ‘law of the jungle’ as its foreign minister denounces U.S. pressure

by Jim Hodgson

Even as Cuba’s foreign minister rose to speak Saturday in the United Nations General Assembly, CBS News reported that the U.S. Army Reserve is considering how it can support the military’s Southern Command in coming months.

James LaPorta of CBS News reported that the reserve is looking at providing support units, including police forces and medical personnel, to the Southern Command, which covers Latin America south of Mexico, the waters around Central and South America, and the Caribbean, including Cuba.

The memo reviewed by CBS doesn’t say for what operation the troops would be needed “in 90 to 120 days,” but LaPorta reported that “multiple U.S. officials” said the planning is for a potential operation aimed at Cuba.

“Lies!” Image: Trump speaks at UN as Cuban delegation walks out. By Avilarte in Juventud Rebelde, Sept. 27, 2026.

Days earlier, U.S. President Donald Trump told the General Assembly that Cuba was a “failed state” and that he was seeking a “fundamental change” on the island, declaring that “freedom will be coming to Cuba.”

The speech Saturday by Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla was partly a rebuke to Trump, but he also called for the United Nations to be preserved and strengthened while becoming “more democratic and effective” and closer to the peoples it serves.

“We are convinced that the current course of international relations, of disrespect for international law, contempt of the United Nations, and the imposition of the unilateral will of the most powerful on other countries, through intimidation and coercion, is dangerous and unsustainable. The law of the jungle cannot be the future of humanity,” he said.

Image and headlines from Cubadebate.

Rodríguez repeated that Cuba remains willing to engage in dialogue with the United States to seek resolution of bilateral differences, but without “interference or pre-conditions.

Actions you can take:

  • Before October 11: if you are in Canada and have not done so already, please sign this House of Commons petition. It will be presented in the House by opposition Members of Parliament on October 12.
  • Common Frontiers and its allies have revamped their Take Action so that you can press the Canadian government to support Cuba in a UN General Assembly vote on October 27 or 28 to end the U.S. embargo against Cuba. Canada must also increase humanitarian aid to Cuba.
  • If you are in any other country, please write to your representatives and/or foreign minister to press for support to the Cuba resolution in the UN General Assembly and to increase aid to Cuba.

U.S. military lays groundwork for potential action around Cuba [Section adapted from the CBS report cited above.] 

Earlier this year, U.S. forces conducted reconnaissance operations on the seafloor and maritime approaches that surround Cuba, multiple U.S. military personnel told CBS News. Separately, U.S. airpower components were placed on heightened readiness and directed to pre-stage personnel for potential deployment. Those plans, however, did not come to fruition.

CBS News reported in May that U.S. intelligence officials were assessing how Cuba would respond to possible U.S. military action. 

In July, CBS News reported that U.S. military planners had examined a range of options for possible action against Cuba, including an Army-led air assault involving thousands of U.S. soldiers to be carried out by the 101st Airborne Division, the only unit trained for such a task. 

U.S. officials who spoke to CBS News in July stressed that the briefings were not an indication that the president or the Pentagon had decided to go forward with an operation.

“Siege warfare:” unilateral coercive measures

Meanwhile, the Trump regime has continuously upgraded its sanctions on Cuban government entities and officials.

For an excellent description of how the Trump administration is using “starvation and misery” to achieve regime change in Cuba, please read Joy Gordon’s long analysis in Lawfare. She concludes: “what the U.S. is doing to Cuba is illegal, it is indefensible, and it is indecent.”