On December 28 Ripudaman Singh Malik and Ajaib Singh Bagri, both Sikh religious leaders in British Columbia, appeared in a Vancouver court for bail hearings after being charged in October with murder and conspiracy to commit murder in the alleged bombing of an Air India plane that exploded off the coast of Ireland in 1985. Three hundred and twenty-nine people died in the disaster.

The charges against Malik and Bagri are the result of a 15-year police investigation by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS). According to press reports the evidence to be presented against the two men is mostly based on wiretaps, police informants, and reports from India's political police. CSIS describes the Air India explosion as an act of "Sikh separatist terrorism" and "the work of Sikh extremists campaigning for a separate homeland in India's Punjab state."

Supporters of Bagri and Malik in the Toronto Sikh community have formed the United Defense Council (UDC) to raise funds for legal costs. On December 26 the UDC raised $70,000 to contribute toward the defense effort at a $100-a-plate dinner. Eight hundred tickets were sold for the event and 300 people attended.

Balkar Singh Heir, a founding member of the UDC, explained in a press report that the UDC condemns acts of terrorism and sympathizes with the families of those who died in the Air India disaster. Heir said he believes the two accused men are victims of a plot against Sikhs by the Indian government. The Indian government is opposed to the Sikh political movement that calls for independence for the state of Punjab from India.

"These two men are just ordinary people like the rest of us and we want to be sure there's ample defense for them," said Amarjit Singh Mann, a member of the UDC.

Ottawa is preparing draft legislation that would allow CSIS to effectively strip international fund-raising organizations in Canada of their charitable status. CSIS alleges that there are 50 violent "terrorist" groups operating in Canada, some of whose fundraising activities are given legitimacy because their registration with the government as charities allows them to issue tax receipts for donations, and exempts them from paying taxes. The Toronto Star reported that CSIS is targeting charities that raise money in "ethnic communities" that have ties to "every major regional conflict from the Middle East to Sri Lanka."

Already targeted to be denied its charitable status is the Federation of Associations of Canadian Tamils (FACT). CSIS and the U.S. State Department claim FACT is a Tamil Tiger front that goes beyond "legitimate" political expression. The Tamil Tigers are a rebel group fighting for an independent homeland in the north and east of Sri Lanka. The proposed federal legislation would allow CSIS to recommend revoking charitable status to organizations in secret court proceedings where evidence and names of informants would not be made public.  
 
Factory raids target immigrant workers
The Department of Citizenship and Immigration has stepped up factory raids in the Toronto area. A November 30 Toronto Sun article headlined "57 Illegal Aliens Nailed" reported on workers at Erie Meat Products arrested in a November 29 raid.

Immigration officials said that workers from Ghana, Grenada, St. Lucia, and Jamaica were charged with working without government work permits, and claimed that they had not undergone immigration health checks. These officials said that this had been their fourth factory raid in five weeks with 100 arrests.

The RCMP said it had joined the raid at Erie Meats because the meat packers "use knives" in their work. Immigration department spokesperson Anthony Iozzo said that these workers posed "a health risk to Canadians" and that health officials were called to the plant to investigate whether the chicken and beef products in the plant were safe, because some of the immigrants could have tuberculosis or other communicable diseases.

Less than a week after the raid at Erie Meats, a public health scare was promoted in the media with a report that a Caribbean man who had immigrated to Canada in 1999 had violated immigration health restrictions because he had "drug resistant tuberculosis." So far 35 people who allegedly came into contact with him have been diagnosed with tuberculosis. Immigration officials say they are preparing stiffer health restrictions for immigrants entering Canada.

Highlighting Ottawa's long history of discrimination against immigrants, Shack Jang Mack, 93, Quen-ying Lee, 89, and her son Yew Lee launched a $1.2 billion class-action suit against the federal government because of the racist head tax collected between 1885 and 1923 from 81,000 Chinese immigrants. The plaintiffs also claimed damages caused by Ottawa's Chinese Exclusion Act, which banned thousands of Chinese family members from Canada until 1947.

John Steele is a meat packer and member of the United Food and Commercial Workers union.  
 
 
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