With all the attention that the Occupy Movement has drawn to income and wealth inequality (among other things), some may be surprised to find that an annual income of approximately $47,500 U.S. will put you in the top one per cent globally (check your standing here).

But with 1,210 billionaires in the world, the fact is, most people are poor and a relative few are very, very rich. This letter is to all of us in the top one per cent.

If you can cut through the racism, ignorance, and half-baked opinions of pundits, politicians and sound-bite media, most folks will realize that Attawapiskat and many other First Nations have been labouring under the repression of colonialism far too long.

The antidote for poverty is self-determination and no one can give you that. You have to stand up and take action yourself to make it happen. Colonialism does not give way on its own; it must be defeated through vigorous and enlightened opposition.

The following 24-hour chronology was compiled by David Heap, from London, Ontario, one of the delegates on board the Canadian Boat to Gaza, The Tahrir, which set sail from Turkey at the beginning of November with the aim of penetrating the longstanding Israeli blockade around Gaza.

Friday, Nov. 4, at approximately 8:00 a.m.

The Tahrir and the Saoirse enter Israel's unilaterally declared 100 nautical mile military exclusion zone. We are in fact in international waters up until and after we are boarded.

12:30 p.m.

First spotted large military vessels (frigates?), one to port two to starboard.

12:30 p.m. to 13:00 p.m.

As we honour today the men and women who have fought and died in uniform, it is important that our remembrance of them not be taken as an endorsement of war or a celebration of all things military. For many people, soldiers in uniform do not inspire feelings of pride but memories of horror, destruction, and death. Some of us are survivors of war or refugees. Others of us who were born here are Canadians because our parents or grandparents or great-grandparents fled the violence of wars in faraway lands.

On the streets in New York City, popular protests are on the move, speaking to the dreams and demands of so many across the world.

Today, the Occupy Wall Street movement is on fire, from the thousands marching down Manhattan's boulevards demanding economic justice, to the inspiring voices practicing direct democracy in popular assemblies at Liberty Plaza.

Economist Lester Brown, in the latest book of his Plan B series, states that "socialism collapsed because it did not allow the market to tell the economic truth. Capitalism may collapse because it does not allow the market to tell the ecological truth." In its frenzy for more consumers and an apparently equal frenzy to ravage ecosystems, capitalism ignores the obvious truth that human overpopulation may already have reached plague status.

Monday is polling day in the Northwest Territories. Here in the NWT, when we vote, we have no firm idea who will be our premier. We cannot vote for or against any particular political philosophy or party platform. We can neither re-elect a government whose policies we support, nor oust one whose actions we reject. We can only vote for a candidate running in the particular riding in which we live. This time 'round there are 48 candidates for 19 seats, with three acclamations.

Never in our collective lifetime have we seen such an outpouring, so much emotional intensity, from every corner of this country. There have been occasions, historically, when we've seen respect and admiration but never so much love, never such a shocked sense of personal loss.

Jack was so alive, so much fun, so engaged in daily life with so much gusto, so unpretentious, that it was hard while he lived to focus on how incredibly important that was to us, he was to us. Until he was so suddenly gone, cruelly gone, at the pinnacle of his career.

To hear so many Canadians speak so open-heartedly of love, to see young and old take chalk in hand to write without embarrassment of hope, or hang banners from overpasses to express their grief and loss. It's astonishing.

Did Finance Minister Kevin Falcon or any of the Liberals learn anything from the HST referendum?

Premier Christy Clark promised that the referendum would take place just like a normal election, but she then allowed third-party advertisements without disclosure. We'll never know how many millions were spent on trying to convince people to vote for the HST, but we know the government spent $7 million. It wasn't just the advertising campaign that failed any reasonable test of transparency; information provided by the government and its "independent panel" couldn't be verified. One of the lessons the Liberals should learn from their HST failure is that transparency is essential in order to earn public trust.

The second last time I saw Jack Layton was at a garden party at Stornoway in late June. Speaking under a vast white tent as desultory raindrops punished the exiled mass of smokers, he declared his and Olivia's new house, the residence of the leader of the official opposition, to be "the people's house."

Shortly afterwards I caught him on his way out and sheepishly asked for a photo. I can't say why really, I suppose I was overcome by the emotion of the moment. In seven years and something like 20 meetings and conversations, it was the first time I posed for a picture with him. I remember mumbling apologies for being so sycophantic, which he brushed off with his usual generosity of spirit.