Category Archives: Canada

Are You a Multi-Issue Extremist? How Activism is Becoming Terrorism

Canada, Politics
Share
Defend Our Coast rally - Oct 22, 2012, Victoria, BC (image: Utopia Photo Blog).
Defend Our Coast rally – Oct 22, 2012, Victoria, BC (image: Utopia Photo Blog).

Are You a Multi-Issue Extremist?

If you read this site regularly, and subscribe to the claims and advice of Rafe Mair, you probably are. Because the 81 year-old Mair is British Columbia’s most well-known and well-loved Multi-Issue Extremist (MIE).

The now long-established CSIS “Counter Terrorism Strategy” has defined individuals who express dissent toward any number of issues in this way.

In particular, people who are committed to opposing unbridled oil and gas development, defined as “activist groups, indigenous groups, environmentalists and others who are publicly critical of government policy.”

Many people who feel the current rush to massively exploit Canadian resources is the wrong path, also feel the same about farmed salmon,GMO’s and private river power expansionism. To name but a few of the Multiple Issues people are concerned with today.

In all likelihood, those of you sharing these views are “Multi-Issue Extremists”, and you have a working file at CSIS.

Many of you have also probably expressed your concerns about these issues on the Internet or attended protest events such as the Defend our Coast event last fall, which included a “pledge” of “civil disobedience.”

And this is where the rubber hits the road.

Since the upset of the May 14th provincial election, many people endeared to “defending our coast” are ready to double down on their efforts.

There have been escalating calls for civil disobedience as a result of the current election, coupled with the realization that the protest options available to British Columbians are now severely limited on a whole array of pressing issues.

Recently, the unwarranted surveillance of average citizens has come into the spotlight. Most activists are aware that this practice has been in place since 9/11 and some are aware that they existed well before. Defense Minister Peter McKay confirmed in the House this past week that he approved secret electronic eavesdropping in 2011.

The laws ushered in by 9/11 had sunset clauses and were targeted toward “terrorism.”

However, since the most recent American “terrorist” event, the Boston Bombing, the Harper government has brought back into effect “sunsetted” anti-terrorist legislation.

Those of you who pledged a commitment of civil disobedience during the Defend our Coast event did so at a time when these laws were not in place, so you should pay particularly close attention to the CSIS “counter-terrorism” initiative and its focus on MEIs and what it all means now that they have been reintroduced.

Because, as of today, most of the millions of Canadian citizens “surveiled” without their knowledge have little if anything to be concerned about, besides the outrageous violation of privacy such practices entail.

However, those of us who have committed to the good fight and pledged to massive civil disobedience have much to be concerned about. In fact, as it stands today, you can be arrested right now, and your electronic footprint and pledge to undertake civil disobedience is all that they require.

You can be taken from your home, without charge, for up to three days. Your release will be conditional, and if you do not agree to the conditions – such as no longer participating in petro-insurgency – you will not be released and could be detained for up to a year.

Yes, you! Right now, you can experience “preemptive arrest” and “preventative detention” under the CSIS counter-terrorism classification of MIE, for what you have already done and what they already have on you. All perfectly legal.

But surely this is all hypothetical – powers that exist on paper that our government wouldn’t dare implement in reality. Unfortunately, the government’s record over the past several years suggests otherwise.

According to The Guardian, in 2011, “a Montreal, Quebec man who wrote letters opposing shale gas fracking was charged under Canada’s Anti-Terrorism Act. Documents released in January show the RCMP has been monitoring Quebec residents who oppose fracking.”

In February, we learned through a report from two Canadian academics, based on documents they obtained through Access to Information, that prominent ENGOs like Greenpeace and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) have been classified as “Multi-Issue Extremists”. The report observed, “Intelligence agencies have blurred the categories of terrorism, extremism and activism into an aggregate threat matrix.”

Industry is apparently getting into the act too. According to a Desmog Blog story this past week, “Documents recently obtained by Bold Nebraska show that TransCanada – owner of the hotly-contested Keystone XL (KXL) tar sands pipeline – has colluded with an FBI/DHS Fusion Center in Nebraska, labeling non-violent activists as possible candidates for ‘terrorism’ charges and other serious criminal charges.”

Meanwhile, according to this Dominion story, the Canadian government has been orchestrating briefings for energy companies by CSIS, the RCMP and other agencies to share sensitive information involving activist threats to industry.

So while we are all fixated on the most recent American whistle blower’s “revelations”, we should be directing some of that attention to our own government and gaining a better understanding of the terrain we intend to traverse.

Share

Harper’s War on Science

Canada, Climate Change, Climate Science, Politics
Share

The story, by Joyce Nelson, is re-published from Watershed Sentinel.

If Canadians knew the full extent of the Harper government’s  war on science, they would be clamouring for the reinstatement and full funding of dozens of federal scientific programs and hundreds of scientists axed over the past year. Since the passage of omnibus budget Bill C-38, the Harper Cabinet has moved at blitzkrieg speed to make these cuts.

Canada’s Information Commissioner, Suzanne Legault, agreed at the end of March to launch an investigation into the extensive muzzling of federally-funded scientists at the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO), Environment Canada, Natural Resources Canada and other federal agencies (1). Her decision comes after a February 20th complaint formally filed by Democracy Watch in partnership with the Environmental Law Clinic of the University of Victoria, which called for a full investigation and was accompanied by a 128-page report, Muzzling Civil Servants: A Threat to Democracy. That report documents systematic silencing since 2007 of federal scientists involved in research on climate change, the Alberta tar sands, fish farms, and other areas (2).

But the muzzling of scientists is only one aspect of Harper’s war on science. Far more troubling is the actual elimination of scientific programs and the firing of scientists. Jim Turk, director of the Canadian Association of University Teachers, puts it well: “The Harper government wants politics to always trump science. It wants its political views to dominate even if science shows that it’s wrong.”

The NDP’s Megan Leslie is even more caustic: “This government has abandoned evidence-based policy-making to pursue its own brand of policy-based evidence-making.”

The New Inquisition

According to information provided to me in March by the Professional Institute of Public Service Canada (PIPSC) – the union which represents federal scientists and other professionals employed by 38 federal government departments – 5,332 of their members have already either lost their jobs or been transferred to other duties. That number includes 139 scientists/professionals at Environment Canada (cut by $53.8 million), and 436 scientists/professionals at Fisheries and Oceans (already cut by $79.3 million, with $100 million more in cuts announced in the latest March 2013 budget). Thousands of unionized support staff have also been cut from these, and other, departments.

Harper claims that his drastic cuts to most federal agencies are necessary in order to eliminate the deficit before the next federal election. But as business writer David Olive recently observed, “Harper’s ultra-low corporate tax [15%] deprives Ottawa of $13.7 billion a year according to Finance’s own estimates. That’s enough to wipe out the deficit in two years without cutting a single program.”

Canada now has the lowest corporate tax rate of G8 member nations. Indeed, according to a 2013 study by the World Bank and the International Finance Corporation, of 185 countries examined, only seven countries have a lower corporate tax rate than Canada.

The DFO has been especially hard hit by Harper’s  war on science, with three rounds of cuts and another three to come. The entire ocean contaminants research program has been axed, including laboratories and research stations across Canada. World-renowned scientists have been fired, including Dr. Peter Ross, an expert on contaminants’ effects on marine mammals.

Working out of DFO Institute of Ocean Sciences in Sidney, BC for the past 13 years, Dr. Ross is known for his path-breaking research on dioxins in pulp mill effluent, the effects of flame retardants on beluga whales, the impacts of pesticides on wild salmon, and the effects of industrial contaminants on orca whales.

Dr. Ross told Desmog Canada, “If someone is saying that we have to cut 5 per cebt from every department, that’s one thing. But when you turn around and cut 100 per cent of a program, to me that indicates something more than fiscal restraint. It argues in favour of a targeted reduction of a program for some other reason.”

More than a dozen scientific programs important to Canada’s environment and oceans health have been targeted and dismantled over the past year, while others have been slashed to the bone (2).

The Terrible Toll

DFO’s Habitat Management Program – which monitored the effects of harmful industrial, agricultural and land-development activities on wild fish – is gone. DFO’s teams of experts on ocean contaminants in marine mammals, on marine oil pollution, and on oil spill countermeasures have all been disbanded. Gone too is the Centre for Offshore Oil, Gas and Energy Research – the only agency with the ability to adequately assess offshore projects. Nine out of 11 DFO marine science libraries will be shut. And the Experimental Lakes Area is closed.

At Environment Canada, the Polar Environment Atmospheric Research Laboratory (PEARL) in Nunavut, involved in monitoring the Arctic ozone hole discovered in 2011, has been closed. Similarly, the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences, Canada’s main research foundation on climate change, has been axed. The Canadian Centre for Inland Waters – the most important science monitoring agency for the imperilled Great Lakes – has lost key staff members. Cuts to the Action Plan on Clean Water, which funds water remediation, makes communities more vulnerable to toxics.

Harper’s war on science has also eliminated the Hazardous Materials Information Review Commission, the independent agency that ensured fracking companies complied with regulations. And by dismantling the Smokestacks Emissions Monitoring Team at Environment Canada, the government has eliminated “the only Canadian group capable of writing and supervising credible testing methods for new and existing rules to impose limits on pollution from smokestacks”.

In other cuts that are environment-related, the Cereal Research Centre in Winnipeg – which developed popular spring wheat varieties for Western Canada – is set to close in April 2014. Even the National Research Council’s world-renowned Canada Institute for Scientific & Technical Information (CISTI) has been cut drastically. These are the people who solve issues such as responding to pandemics, and maintaining food and product safety. Gary Goodyear, Minister of State for Science and Technology, has consistently defended the Harper government from accusations of a  war on science by emphasizing the $5.5 billion that the Feds have provided to the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI), including another $225 million to the CFI in Economic Action Plan 2013 released on March 21.

The Canada Foundation for Innovation

The CFI – the key decision-maker for all science funding in Canada – has a governing body of 13 members, seven of whom are appointed by the Minister of Industry (Christian Paradis). These members then select the other six members.

This governing body then appoints seven of the 13 CFI Board of Directors, receives reports from the Board, appoints auditors, approves the Annual Report, sets strategic objectives and makes final decisions about what science projects will be funded, including at universities. According to the CFI website, the Members are “similar to a company’s shareholders, but representing the Canadian public.”

But a look at the CFI Members indicates that it is a highly politicized body (including a founding trustee of the Fraser Institute) that is making the decisions about what science to support with its $5.5 billion in taxpayer dollars.

For example, CFI Co-Chair David Fung is so thoroughly embedded in China-Canada business/trade collaboration that he may as well be seen as a de facto vice-president of CNOOC (China National Offshore Oil Corp.).

The other Co-Chair, Roland Hosein, is a vice-president of GE Canada, a company that is thoroughly engaged in promoting “energy export corridors” and water-privatization efforts across Canada, including the Global Energy Network Institute (GENI) and (with Goldman Sachs) the Aqueduct Alliance.

Meanwhile, the Board of Directors of the CFI includes the president/CEO of the Montreal Economic Institute (a perennial advocate of bulk water export), and an executive for Husky Energy (whose Hong Kong billionaire owner Li Ka-Shing is buying up water/utilities around the globe).

Otherwise, both the CFI Members List and the CFI Board are packed with corporate biotechnology representatives.

So Harper’s war on science has some obvious goals, including getting rid of all federally-funded science that would impede water export, as well as any science standing in the way of aquaculture, tar sands and natural gas export.

As Maude Barlow and renowned freshwater scientist David Schindler wrote in The Star Phoenix, “The Harper government is systematically dismantling almost every law, regulation, program or research facility aimed at protecting freshwater in Canada and around the world.” Harper even killed the Global Environmental Monitoring System, an inexpensive project that monitored 3,000 freshwater sites around the world for a UN database.

The “One-for-One” Rule

In 2010, the Harper government created the Red Tape Reduction Commission, a little-known advisory body overseen by Treasury Board’s Tony Clement and packed with private-sector members. They came up with a strategy for “reducing the regulatory burden on businesses to better enable them to make needed investments in productivity and job creation.” Called the “one-for-one” rule, the measure “requires regulators to remove a regulation each time they introduce a new regulation that imposes new administrative burden on business.” The Harper government adopted the “one-for-one” rule in January 2013, with Treasury Board bragging that “Canada will be the first country to give such a rule the weight of legislation.”

Of course, the Harper government has already wiped out most federal environmental regulation with omnibus budget bills C-38 and C-45. And now, with the  war on science, a few beancounters left in federal departments will be tasked with choosing which rule to eliminate if a new regulation is added.

That kind of stupidity is what has made the Harper Conservatives (and Canada) look truly medieval to much of the scientific world.

Now the Harper government is scrambling to look “green” and “scientific” in order to get U.S. approval for its Keystone XL dilbit export pipeline and to bolster various trade issues (including the Fuel Quality Directive) pending with Europe. But having axed so much environmental and climate science, including the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences, and having fired hundreds of scientists across the land, the Harper Cabinet looks like nothing less than the New Inquisition dressed in a cowboy hat.

Joyce Nelson is an award-winning freelance writer/researcher and the author of five books.

 

(1) Information Commissioner To Investigate Muzzling of Federal Scientists

At the end of March 2013, Canada’s federal Information Commissioner, Suzanne Legault, agreed to launch an investigation into the muzzling of federally-funded scientists at the departments of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO), Environment Canada (EC), Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) and other federal agencies.

Sporadic mainstream media reports since 2008 have attempted to highlight the muzzling of Canada’s scientists, who have been prevented from giving interviews with journalists and speaking freely about their taxpayer-funded research. In February 2012 BBC News reported the findings of Canadian journalist Margaret Munro: “The Postmedia News journalist obtained documents relating to interview requests using Canada’s equivalent of the Freedom of Information Act. She said the documents show interview requests move up what she describes as an ‘increasingly thick layer of media managers, media strategists, deputy ministers, then go up to the Privy Council Office, which decides yes or no’.”

The Privy Council Office (PCO) supports and takes its orders from the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), but it has a certain degree of power in its own right. The Clerk of the Privy Council is Wayne G. Wouters. The President of the Privy Council is Denis Lebel (Minister of Transport, Infrastructure & Communities; Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs; and Minister of the Economic Development Agency of Canada for the Region of Quebec). There are four other Harper Cabinet Ministers in the PCO: Marjory LeBreton (Leader of the Government in the Senate); Peter Van Loan (Leader of the Government in the House of Commons); Gordon O’Connor (Minister of State and Chief Government Whip); and Tim Uppal (Minister of State for Democratic Reform).

Just how thoroughly Suzanne Legault will investigate this chain of command in terms of the muzzling remains to be seen.

(2) Environmental Science Axed by the Harper government (2012-2013)

Department of Fisheries & Oceans

Programs discontinued:

• Species-at-Risk Program

• Ocean Contaminants & Marine Toxicology Program

• Habitat Management

• Experimental Lakes Area (Northern Ontario) *St. Andrews Biological Station (New Brunswick)

• Centre for Offshore Oil & Gas Energy Research

• Kitsilano Coast Guard Station

Budget slashed:

• Institute of Ocean Sciences (Sidney, B.C.)

• Freshwater Institute – Winnipeg

• Oil Spill Counter-Measures Team

• Canada Coast Guard

• Maurice-Lamontagne Institute (Quebec)

• Marine Science Libraries

Environment Canada

Programs discontinued:

• Environmental Emergency Response Program

• Urban Wastewater Program

• Polar Environment Atmospheric Research Laboratory (Nunavut)

• Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences

• Smokestacks Emissions Monitoring Team

• Hazardous Materials Information Review Commission

• National Roundtable on the Environment and the Economy

Budget slashed:

• Environmental Protection Operations

• Compliance Promotion Program

• Action Plan on Clean Water

• Sustainable Water Management Division

• Environmental Effects Monitoring Program

• Contaminated Sites Action Plan

• Chemicals Management Plan

• Canadian Centre for Inland Waters (Burlington, Ont.)

Natural Resources Canada (NRC)

Budget slashed:

• Reduced science capacity for oversight and research

National Research Council

Budget slashed:

• Canada Institute for Scientific & Technical Information

Transport Canada

Budget slashed:

• Transportation of Dangerous Goods (pipeline and tankers oversight)

• Transport Canada Aircraft Services

Other

Programs discontinued:

• Arctic Institute of North America’s Kluane Research Station

• The Global Environmental Monitoring System

• Cereal Research Centre (Winnipeg)

• Canadian Environmental Network

• Prairies Regional Office: Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency

• The Research Tools and Instruments Grant Program

• Grants Programs administered by Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC)

Budget slashed:

• The Centre for Plant Health (Vancouver Island)

• Canadian Science Centre for Human and Animal Health (Winnipeg)

• Horticulture Research & Development Centre (Quebec)

• Plant Pathology Program (Summerland, B.C.

• The Great Lakes Forestry Centre (Toronto)

• The National Water Research Institute (Burlington, Ont.)

• Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration

Share

Spinning out of control?

Canada, Politics
Share

It can hardly come as a surprise to anyone that governments – like corporations – employ spin to portray their actions in the best possible light (and to cast their opponents in the worst possible light). Nor is it news that many corporations – and the PR companies they employ – operate a revolving door for helpful politicians.

So, should it come as any surprise to learn, as Joyce Nelson reveals in the current issue of Watershed Sentinel, that Peter Kent was appointedas a senior lobbyist by PR giant Hill & Knowlton while he was running as a Conservative candidate in 2008?

Of course, Hill & Knowlton (the company behind Enbridge’s justifiablyspoofed ‘Pathway to the Future’ ad campaign) had no way of knowing their man Kent would win his riding and be appointed as the Harper government’s environment minister in January 2011.

That said, they – and their various tar sands clients – must have been pleased with his opening salvo. As Nelson reports, within hours of his appointment Kent was telling CTV: “I’m not going to stand by while outsiders slander Canada, Canadian practices and values and our ethical oil products.”

Kent’s performance to date has alarmed many environmentalists. They point out that the oil and gas industry already has its own minister (Joe Oliver) and that Kent’s real job, as Keith Stewart of Greenpeace has observed, “is to be the champion of environmental protection within government.”

Good luck with that.

In January 2013 Greenpeace passed on to CBC News a letter (obtained through an access to information request) which revealed that in late 2011, the oil and gas industry had requested changes be made to the National Energy Board Act, the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, the Fisheries Act, the Navigable Waters Protection Act, the Species at Risk Act, and the Migratory Birds Convention Act.

As Nelson reports, the letter, addressed to Environment Minister Peter Kent and Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver,  came from a group called the Energy Framework Initiative (EFI), an umbrella group for major Canadian oil, gas and pipeline associations “The purpose of our letter,” EFI wrote, “is to express our shared views on the near-term opportunities before the government to address regulatory reform for major energy industries in Canada.”

The letter continues: “The basic approach embodied in existing legislation is out-dated. At the heart of most existing legislation is a philosophy of prohibiting harm; ‘environmental’ legislation is almost entirely focused on preventing bad things from happening rather than enabling responsible outcomes. This results in a position of adversarial prohibition, rather than enabling collaborative conservation to achieve agreed goals.”

Well, yes, historically the focus of environmental legislation actually was environmental protection. Apparently no more.

At the time, the CBC reported: “Within ten months of the request the industry had almost everything it wanted.” Omnibus bills C-38 and C-45 rewrote the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, gutted the Fisheries Act and the Navigable Waters Protection Act, and changed the National Energy Board Act and the Species at Risk Act.

Nelson observes: “In a real democracy, this incriminating letter would be a major news story across the country. But in the mock democracy of Harperland, the letter has effectively disappeared.” It’s difficult to disagree with her.

Smoke and mirrors

In 1953, Hill & Knowlton launched a PR offensive designed to convince government regulators and the public that there was no provable link between tobacco smoking and cancer. A team of supposedly independent scientists (bought and paid for by Hill & Knowlton on behalf of the tobacco industry) encouraged the public to “smoke without fear”.

As Nelson reports, “that same PR strategy (and often, the same group of scientists) has since been used to challenge scientific evidence on acid rain, destruction of the ozone layer, toxicity of DDT, second-hand smoke, and climate change – thereby delaying regulatory action, muddying the science, and confusing the public on environmental issues. Under this strategy, established science becomes just another competing ‘side’ in an issue, while corporate financed scientific studies or bought scientific opinion are granted equal weight by the media.

“But in Canada, that time-tested Hill & Knowlton PR strategy is being taken much further by the Harper cabinet itself, including Peter Kent, with government scientists being muzzled, fired en masse, and even their research facilities dismantled and destroyed.”

The line between spin doctoring and propaganda (assuming there is one) can be so fine as to appear invisible.

Joseph Goebbels once infamously stated: “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.”

The Nazi propaganda minister went on to say, even more chillingly: “The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.” (Emphasis added.)

Welcome to Harperland.

Miranda Holmes is an associate editor of Watershed Sentinel magazine. Image © Greenpeace August 2012. To read Joyce Nelson’s exposé of Hill and Knowlton’s role in promoting the tar sands, go to www.watershedsentinel.ca.

Share
Why Justin Trudeau may be more dangerous than Harper

Why Justin Trudeau may be more dangerous than Harper

Canada, Politics
Share
Why Justin Trudeau may be more dangerous than Harper
Adrian Wyld/CP

Justin Trudeau just may be Canada’s most dangerous man.

He of the throngs of adoring supporters, the pretty new face that promises to resurrect “Canada’s party”.

The key positions he’s taken thus far – supporting the sellout of our strategic energy resources to the Chinese Government, giving away our sovereignty through the Canada-China Trade deal, new pipelines to expand the Tar Sands – hardly vary from those of Prime Minister Stephen Harper. They just look and sound far more attractive coming from Canada’s prodigal son.

And that’s what scares me.

Trudeau’s latest decision to out-Harper Mr. Harper on boosting the proposed Keystone XL pipeline to Texas gives us a sobering sense of where the young Liberal leader is headed. Perhaps more troubling is the question of what he actually believes – or whether these positions derive from polling data, focus groups, and a cynical drive to get elected at all costs (more on that in a moment).

In his first swing out west following a successful leadership bid, Trudeau took the time to praise Alberta Premier Alison Redford’s efforts to secure access for Keystone by talking up improved “environmental sustainability” in the Tar Sands (exactly how, we’re left to wonder, beyond a carbon tax proposed by Redford).

“I’m very hopeful despite the political games being played by the NDP…that we will see the Keystone pipeline approved soon,” Trudeau proclaimed.

If Bay Street and the energy sector see that Trudeau is prepared to fulfill the same key objectives as Harper, they will not think twice about swinging their support back to the Liberals. This latest statement on Keystone signals that Mr. Trudeau is truly open for business. For this reason, while backing Keystone may be unpopular with certain segments of the Canadian public, it could prove a shrewd political move in the long-run.

Harper is uncharacteristically weak at the moment. There is the infighting within his usually locked-down caucus, the cratering polling figures (a recent Nanos poll has the Liberals leading the Conservatives for the first time in years, at 34 to 31% support), and an authoritarian image that is becoming increasingly problematic. He and his embattled foot soldiers, the likes of Joe Oliver and Jason Kenney, have had a very bad month.

Oliver overplayed his hand a couple of weeks ago when he attacked the world’s most respected climate scientist, the recently retired James Hansen of NASA, while on a “diplomatic” mission to Washington to build support for Keystone.

The tone-deaf Oliver ranted that Hansen should be “ashamed” of “exaggerating” the effects of climate change and impacts of the Tar Sands, apparently missing the irony of attacking his hosts while trying win them over. The comments, which backfired severely, were picked up by everyone from the New York Times to the UK’s Guardian. Hansen shot back, aptly branding Oliver a “Neanderthal”.

On this score, Trudeau seems to understand something his Conservative opponents don’t – i.e. cultivating buy-in for Keystone requires more sophisticated framing and at least a modicum of tact with our southern neighbours.

Meanwhile, the most likeable and politically adept figure in the Harper Government, Immigration Minister Kenney, finds himself embroiled in the growing scandal over his government’s foreign temporary worker program. The seriousness of this political pitfall is evident in the unusual backtracking Harper is doing on the program.

He’s right to do so. The problem for Harper with issues like this one, the buyout of Canadian energy company Nexen by Chinese state-owned CNOOC, and the botched fighter jet program, is the way they rile his base. Unpopular with small “c” conservatives, they drive division within Harper’s tenuous right-wing alliance.

With these troubles brewing on the home front and attack ads aimed at Trudeau falling short of the effect they had on his predecessors – Michael Ignatieff and Stéphane Dion – things are shaping up nicely for Harper’s young challenger.

The question is, what does this mean for Canada?

If all Mr. Trudeau represents is a better-packaged version of Harper’s economic vision, then how will the Canadian public and environment – not to mention the planet – be any better off?

The thing that has always bothered me about Justin – ever since his entry onto the public scene at his famous father’s funeral – is that he’s never appeared to stand for anything real. Years later, even following a lengthy leadership race and literally thousands of media clips and public appearances, I still don’t know what core principles motivate his drive to lead the country. He speaks in platitudes, clever but meaningless tweets – which is partly what makes him so effective with social media and our soundbite-obsessed mainstream press.

He is our version of Robert Redford’s character in The Candidate.

Evidently, if Justin stands for anything, it’s selling out Canada’s strategic resources and exploiting the climate-destroying Tar Sands. Where his father tried and failed to build a made-in-Canada energy policy, the younger Trudeau is going in the opposite direction.

Even that, though, I suspect, is more a reflection of his willingness to shape-shift his policies into whatever form advisers tell him will track best politically.

With Harper, by contrast, we have a sense that his zeal for expanding Canada’s fossil fuel industries through foreign ownership is something in which he believes on a deep, ideological level. I’m not sure which is better – the guy who believes in something I and many other Canadians patently don’t, or the guy who probably doesn’t but is willing to say he does, just to get elected. If these are our two choices, then I’m ready for a third.

Real leadership means fighting for real principles, even when they’re unpopular. Great politicians find a way to sell good ideas to the public and media.

Justin Trudeau does none of these things. But, boy, does he look good not doing them.

Share

Audio: Rafe Mair talks WATER + POWER Tour on CBC Kamloops

Canada, International, Politics, Western Canada
Share

Common Sense Canadian co-founder Rafe Mair appeared on CBC Kamloops Tuesday morning to discuss his upcoming tour, titled “WATER + POWER: The Future of BC’s Energy, Environment and Democracy.” A former Socred MLA and Environment Minister from Kamloops, Mair returns to his old community this evening to kick of afour-city tour in the lead-up to the BC election on May 14. “This is not like ordinary elections,” Mair told host Shelley Joyce. “We now are facing these enormous pipeline and tanker problems and we’re facing the bankruptcy of BC Hydro.”

The discussion – which begins at 7 pm on April 23 at the Desert Garden Seniors’ Centre in Kamloops – will cover everything from proposed oil and gas pipelines to fracking, Site C Dam, Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) and private river power projects…to an alternate vision for managing BC’s resources and economy to the benefit of the public and environment.

AUDIO here

Click here for more event details.

Share

Experimental Lakes: Latest Victim of Harper Govt’s Anti-Science Ideology

Canada, Politics, WATER
Share

Machiavelli would approve. So would Stalin, Mao Zedong, the ayatollahs of Iran, Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe and Bashar al-Assad of Syria. George Orwell would proudly place the audacity of information control in the Ministry of Truth, the agency in his dystopian 1984 novel in which Big Brother uses the Thought Police as the instrument that determines right from wrong, good from bad, wise from foolish, fact from fiction, reality from illusion.

Reality is shaped by information. Control information and reality is controlled. Eliminate information and the blank slate of public consciousness is vulnerable to suggestion and manipulation. Reality is, in effect, an immensely valuable but incredibly fragile commodity, forever changing as information changes. Little wonder, then, that those with a special interest in power also have a special interest in controlling information.

This would be an academic subject befitting a university class on ethics, philosophy or politics if it were not surfacing in Canada because of the Privy Council’s muzzling of scientists associated with the federal government through employment or grants. The strictures on what scientists can publicly say or publish, put in place by the Prime Minister’s office, have been tightening in recent years. In 2011 scientists protested and collectively complained that they could not speak openly to Canadians about their research and findings without receiving prior approval from the upper echelons of government—a dramatic break from the traditional freedom that is an assumed liberty in an open, modern and democratic society. Now the strictures are tightening further.

“As of February 1st this year,” writes Elizabeth May in Island Tides, (Feb. 28/13), “new rules were put in place requiring that scientists working on projects in conjunction with DFO in the Central and Arctic Region to treat all information as proprietary to DFO and — worse — await departmental approval before submitting research to any scientific journals.” A week later, on February 7th, additional rules were imposed requiring that “now they must obtain prior consent before applying for research grants” (Ibid.).

In Elizabeth May’s assessment of the tightening controls on scientists and their research, the process and its intent is obvious. “The tightening of control over science must be established far earlier in the process. Stop research from being submitted to journals. Stop scientists from collaborating with others. Stop scientists from applying for research grants. Stop science from happening at all” (Ibid.). This tragedy is compounded by strictures that constrain scientists from complaining about the constraints placed on them.

An American scientist, Dr. Andrew Muenchow, who has been doing important collaborative research with DFO in the Eastern Arctic since 2003, has refused to accept the new conditions, politely calling them a “potential muzzle”. The dissemination of crucially important information fromDr. Kristi Miller on viral diseases arriving in Canadian waters from salmon farming has been obstructed by the government authorities. Scientists researching ozone depletion, Arctic ice melt, pollution and species loss have been silenced. These are typical examples of the control of information by the Privy Council, an adjunct of the Prime Minister’s office. And it contrasts dramatically with the earlier protocol in which, “Data and any other project-related information shall be freely available to all Parties to this Agreement and may be disseminated or published at any time” (Ibid.). The Iron Curtain and the Berlin Wall have appeared in Canada as a blackout on any scientific studies that may conflict with the direction of government’s agenda.

This is not a mere scientific issue. Although science should be the basis upon which governments make many important legislative and policy decisions, open and free scientific research is the most obvious measure of an open and free society, one in which evidence is given precedence over ideology, and decisions are weighted and made as rationally and intelligently as possible from the best available information. Control information and decisions can be shifted toward ideology, the unexamined opinions that drift away from enlightened guidance toward blind bigotry.

Granted, governments make decisions and devise legislation based on their particular ideological bent. But this ideology must be guided by credible information. And a substantial portion of this information now comes from scientific research, collaboration, study and findings. Opinion untempered and unguided by science lacks credibility because it isn’t connected to an empirical measure of circumstances. Ideology that is untested and incompatible with evidence is medieval, for it bears little relationship to reality. Government strategy and legislation founded on uninformed opinion will invariably be flawed and dysfunctional. Even worse, the result is a burden of liabilities, faulty strategies, defective laws and missed opportunities that can be incredibly costly to a country, to its citizens and to the environment that sustains them.

The laws of science don’t change to suit political and economic agendas. Pretending that greenhouse gas emissions are not changing weather, that the Arctic is not warming, that pollutants don’t harm ecologies, and that crucial ecosystems are not under threat is denial bordering on the delusional and pathological. Scientists don’t invent what is happening to our world; they measure, witness and report to us. Muzzling their effort silences evidence and increases our vulnerability to environmental ruin.

As Elizabeth May so eloquently concludes, this suppression of the free exchange of scientific information in Canada “is the 21st Century equivalent of the Dark Ages. This is book burning and superstition run rampant. This is the administration of a steady, slow drip of poison to a weakening democracy” (Ibid.).

Share

RBC CEO’s Open Letter Shows Foreign Worker Issue Touching Nerve with Canadians

Canada, Economics, Politics
Share
0 RBC CEO’s Open Letter Shows Foreign Worker Issue Touching Nerve with Canadians
RBC CEO Gord Nixon

An open letter issued to Canadians by Royal Bank of Canada President and CEO Gord Nixon (read here) apologizing for his company’s decision to shift 45 Canadian jobs to imported temporary foreign workers from India reflects a growing concern over the issue.

Immigration Minister Jason Kenny reacted to the scandal, stating, “The rules are very clear. You cannot displace Canadians to hire people from abroad.” And yet, RBC maintains it was acting in accordance with the rules. “The question for many people is not about doing only what the rules require – it’s about doing what employees, clients, shareholders and Canadians expect of RBC,” Nixon argued in his letter.

RBC’s predicament is just the latest incident calling into question the Harper Government’s foreign temporary worker program, which permits Canadian companies to pay imported employees from other countries 15% less than equivalent Canadian workers.

The issue was brought into focus earlier this year with the controversy over a Chinese-owned mine in northeast BC planning to import 200 foreign labourers. The move prompted the Construction and Specialized Workers Union to launch a federal lawsuit, alleging that the company made no real effort to offer the jobs to Canadians first. Even BC Liberal Jobs Minister Pat Bell chimed in on a Vancouver radio program, calling the Harper Government’s foreign temporary worker policy a failed program.

We have been reporting on this issue over the past year, raising questions about the Government and corporate resource sector’s claims of labour and skill shortages to justify a now estimated 380,000 foreign temporary workers in Canada – despite mounting evidence that it’s more about savings on labour and exerting downward pressure on Canadian wages across the board.

Herewith Gord Nixon’s open letter to Canadians:

RBC has been in the news this week in a way no company ever wants to be.

The recent debate about an outsourcing arrangement for some technology services has raised important questions.

While we are compliant with the regulations, the debate has been about something else. The question for many people is not about doing only what the rules require – it’s about doing what employees, clients, shareholders and Canadians expect of RBC. And that’s something we take very much to heart.

Despite our best efforts, we don’t always meet everyone’s expectations, and when we get it wrong you are quick to tell us. You have my assurance that I’m listening and we are making the following commitments.

First, I want to apologize to the employees affected by this outsourcing arrangement as we should have been more sensitive and helpful to them. All will be offered comparable job opportunities within the bank.

Second, we are reviewing our supplier arrangements and policies with a continued focus on Canadian jobs and prosperity, balancing our desire to be both a successful business and a leading corporate citizen.

Third, our Canadian client call centres are located in Canada and support our domestic and our U.S. business, and they will remain in Canada.

Fourth, we are preparing a new initiative aimed at helping young people gain an important first work experience in our company, which we will announce in the weeks ahead.

RBC proudly employs over 57,000 people in Canada. Over the last four years, despite a challenging global economy, we added almost 3,000 full-time jobs in Canada. We also hire over 2,000 youth in Canada each year and we support thousands more jobs through the purchases we make from Canadian suppliers. As we continue to grow, so will the number of jobs for Canadians.

RBC opened for business in 1864 and we have worked hard since then to earn the confidence and support of the community. Today, we remain every bit as committed to earning the right to be our clients’ first choice, providing rewarding careers for our employees, delivering returns to shareholders who invest with us, and supporting the communities in which we are privileged to operate.

I’d like to close by thanking our employees, clients, shareholders and community partners for your input and continued support.

Sincerely,

Gord Nixon President and Chief Executive Officer, Royal Bank of Canada

Share

HST and Pipelines: The Elephant in the Cabinet Room

Canada, Politics, Western Canada
Share

There is an elephant in the cabinet room and it can only be dealt with if the occupiers of that room don’t oppose any of the proposed pipelines to run through BC – this thanks to the Campbell/Clark HST mess.

In simple terms, we owe Ottawa $1.6 BILLION by backing out of the HST. It’s not brain surgery – any deal Prime Minister Harper makes to lessen this burden will require Premier Clark to not oppose the pipelines.

What other explanation can be made when you consider how quickly and enthusiastically she supported David Black’s proposed refinery in Kitimat? How is the bitumen to get to this refinery? By carrier pigeon?

Going back to the beginning of her premiership, Clark has shown sympathy for pipelines, albeit opaquely at first, until she moved to the position that if the money’s right, no problem. Of course she will demand that the pipelines be built very carefully and that any leaks are promptly taken care of by “world class” methods and, of course, Enbridge will – cross its heart and hope to die – promise that this will be done.

In reality, it’s down to money. There is now a price tag on her approval and that will, she supposes, make it all better for those nutty citizens who are so opposed to “progress”.

The Campbell/Clark government is utterly without a soul. Social costs are paid grudgingly. They love building things, no matter what the environmental cost will be. They are astonished that so many British Columbians regard the Pacific Salmon and the waters in which they reside as sacred. They think that all they must do is approve a project in principle then run it through a phony economic and “environmental assessment” process and they’ve been good little boys and girls.

This government assumes the corporations are telling the truth when they promise to practice according to the rules, so they never police and enforce rules. If a corporation does disobey the rules, they need have no fear, because even if the government does inspect, there won’t be any fines or other punishment – in fact with fish farms, when they were fined for breaches of the rules by an NDP government, they were instantly refunded when the Liberals took over. Indeed, the minister in charge used to warn the fish farms when the enforcers were going to visit!

The NDP policy re: pipelines is timid to say the least. We will see their actual policy when they lay out their platform in a couple of weeks.

What we know for sure is that Enbridge – indeed all corporations that wish to destroy our environment further – will jump for joy if the Liberals win.

And when that happens, the British Columbia we know and love will no longer be protected, for this surrender to large government and corporate interests will be the precedent by which further and more serious incursions will be approved by our political masters.

Postscript: The latest buzz word for those who support the despoliation of our land, which includes the Federal Conservatives and Provincial Liberals to a person, means that there must be a trial before the hanging. It denotes a cute little pas de deux, where the government says OK – but only after an environmental “process”. A little thought shows that we are deprived of saying we don’t want the damned thing in the first place.

There is no better example l know of this than the proposed McNab Creek gravel quarry. We are all invited to suggest environmental safeguards instead of being asked if we want it at all.

Here is one of three salmon spawning rivers in Howe Sound and we’ll throw that away for a gravel pit!

If you were to ask the local MP to help stop it he would say it must go through the “process”, which is a sham like the old Soviet Union “show trials” were.

Share

Rafe: We Continue to go Backwards at an Unsustainable Rate

Canada, Politics, Western Canada
Share

Old men cannot help feeling sad – not just at the physical ramifications, the illnesses you know will come all too soon or the fact that the fateful day is not far off. It’s not even the mistakes made, the people hurt by what you’ve said and done or the opportunities missed. These things are balanced off by the knowledge that your fate is that of every living thing in the world and your family. To have the love of my life, four children (one deceased), eight grandchildren, and one great grandchild balances the unbalanceable equation.

For me, the truly horrid part is to see that not only have humans learned no lessons, we continue to go backwards at an unsustainable rate.

We have freely elected governments in both Ottawa and Victoria that not only refuse to understand the consequences of their deliberate, greedy ways, but actually believe that their actions are helpful to mankind. They have all, I assume, been taught to tell the truth but they consistently lie, such that one cannot accept a word they say. Worse, they have created an atmosphere where everyone, especially big business, must also lie – although which came first I cannot say.

The past week has been especially hard for this old guy to handle. The premier of the province tells us that an oil refinery in Kitimat will blow our troubles away. We should now consider the proposed Enbridge Pipeline to be a blessing as if the diluted bitumen to pass through the pipeline is now not a worry. She tells us that the “Prosperity Fund”, from Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) revenues, will put, someday soon, $100 BILLION into our kitty for safe keeping. How unhelpful it is to point out that LNG is a glut on the market or alternatively will, at the best, offset the egregious fiscal harm done the province since the Liberals took power in 2001.

We have a federal government utterly bent on having this pipeline approved and have sent a lawyer off to convince First Nations that lots of Wampum will come their way if they just ignore their centuries old commitment to the environment.

The basic point is essentially this: when large corporate profits are at stake, the environment, our natural inheritance, means, dare I say it, fuck-all – a naughty phrase but it, better than any other, sums up this utterly uncaring attitude of those put in authority over us. It’s not that they don’t care – they do care about political funds and corporate profits while ignoring our inheritance and what should be our legacy for our descendants.

What really struck me this week was the resignation from the Sea Shepherd Society of Captain Paul Watson, who has been designated a “pirate” by the US District Court of Appeals, which made the point that the critical importance of your crusade cannot permit you to enforce your own penalties.

As I sit here by my computer this Thursday morning, I’m wearing a Sea Shepherd pullover – I put it on, eerily, before I heard the news of his departure from the organization’s anti-whaling fleet. I have been on Sea Shepherd’s Board of Advisors for over 20 years – I’ve known Paul for more than 30.

I’m not going to trouble you with Paul’s many activities but simply say that, yes, Paul did try to protect the oceans of the world, contrary to the wishes of corporations and their captive governments. For the vast majority of cases, he tried to enforce international law when no one else would. He looked at Japan killing hundreds of whales a year for scientific purposes with all the animals – surprise! surprise! – ending up as sushi in exclusive restaurants and tried to save these whales.

He tried to enforce laws against stripping shark fins away and throwing the poor creatures back in the water for a slow, painful death, so that Chinese gentlemen could get a hard on. He tried to enforce international laws against killing seals so that fancy women in Europe could wear mink coats. He went to the Faroe Islands to stop the annual “harvesting” of Pilot Whales for no better reason than they’ve always done it. (You might find it interesting to note that on the back of a Faroe bill is an engraving of a man clubbing a whale to death).

Let me try to put this in perspective. There have seldom been fundamental rights granted or enforced without the presence or threat of force. The barons at Runnymede, Martin Luther, Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, the protection of minorities, and the list goes on. It’s interesting to note that in his 30-plus years, Watson caused no injuries, much less death.

I’m not making a case for Paul – he can and does speak for himself and what he believes in.

What distresses me is that governments, acting in our name, put fish farms, desecration of farmland, destruction of our rivers, pipelines and tankers, ahead of what really should count in life while so many of us vote for them.

As Pogo said in the famous cartoon of the 40s and 50s, “we’ve met the enemy and it is us.”

Share

Harper Government Takes Muzzling Scientists to New Extreme

Canada, Climate Change, Climate Science, Politics
Share

Machiavelli would approve. So would Stalin, Mao Zedong, the ayatollahs of Iran, Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe and Bashar al-Assad of Syria. George Orwell would proudly place the audacity of information control in the Ministry of Truth, the agency in his dystopian 1984 novel in which Big Brother uses the Thought Police as the instrument that determines right from wrong, good from bad, wise from foolish, fact from fiction, reality from illusion.

Reality is shaped by information. Control information and reality is controlled. Eliminate information and the blank slate of public consciousness is vulnerable to suggestion and manipulation. Reality is, in effect, an immensely valuable but incredibly fragile commodity, forever changing as information changes. Little wonder, then, that those with a special interest in power also have a special interest in controlling information.

This would be an academic subject befitting a university class on ethics, philosophy or politics if it were not surfacing in Canada because of the Privy Council’s muzzling of scientists associated with the federal government through employment or grants. The strictures on what scientists can publicly say or publish, put in place by the Prime Minister’s office, have been tightening in recent years. In 2011 scientists protested and collectively complained that they could not speak openly to Canadians about their research and findings without receiving prior approval from the upper echelons of government—a dramatic break from the traditional freedom that is an assumed liberty in an open, modern and democratic society. Now the strictures are tightening further.

“As of February 1st this year,” writes Elizabeth May in Island Tides, (Feb. 28/13), “new rules were put in place requiring that scientists working on projects in conjunction with DFO in the Central and Arctic Region to treat all information as proprietary to DFO and — worse — await departmental approval before submitting research to any scientific journals.” A week later, on February 7th, additional rules were imposed requiring that “now they must obtain prior consent before applying for research grants” (Ibid.).

In Elizabeth May’s assessment of the tightening controls on scientists and their research, the process and its intent is obvious. “The tightening of control over science must be established far earlier in the process. Stop research from being submitted to journals. Stop scientists from collaborating with others. Stop scientists from applying for research grants. Stop science from happening at all” (Ibid.). This tragedy is compounded by strictures that constrain scientists from complaining about the constraints placed on them.

An American scientist, Dr. Andrew Muenchow, who has been doing important collaborative research with DFO in the Eastern Arctic since 2003, has refused to accept the new conditions, politely calling them a “potential muzzle”. The dissemination of crucially important information from Dr. Kristi Miller on viral diseases arriving in Canadian waters from salmon farming has been obstructed by the government authorities. Scientists researching ozone depletion, Arctic ice melt, pollution and species loss have been silenced. These are typical examples of the control of information by the Privy Council, an adjunct of the Prime Minister’s office. And it contrasts dramatically with the earlier protocol in which, “Data and any other project-related information shall be freely available to all Parties to this Agreement and may be disseminated or published at any time” (Ibid.). The Iron Curtain and the Berlin Wall have appeared in Canada as a blackout on any scientific studies that may conflict with the direction of government’s agenda.

This is not a mere scientific issue. Although science should be the basis upon which governments make many important legislative and policy decisions, open and free scientific research is the most obvious measure of an open and free society, one in which evidence is given precedence over ideology, and decisions are weighted and made as rationally and intelligently as possible from the best available information. Control information and decisions can be shifted toward ideology, the unexamined opinions that drift away from enlightened guidance toward blind bigotry.

Granted, governments make decisions and devise legislation based on their particular ideological bent. But this ideology must be guided by credible information. And a substantial portion of this information now comes from scientific research, collaboration, study and findings. Opinion untempered and unguided by science lacks credibility because it isn’t connected to an empirical measure of circumstances. Ideology that is untested and incompatible with evidence is medieval, for it bears little relationship to reality. Government strategy and legislation founded on uninformed opinion will invariably be flawed and dysfunctional. Even worse, the result is a burden of liabilities, faulty strategies, defective laws and missed opportunities that can be incredibly costly to a country, to its citizens and to the environment that sustains them.

The laws of science don’t change to suit political and economic agendas. Pretending that greenhouse gas emissions are not changing weather, that the Arctic is not warming, that pollutants don’t harm ecologies, and that crucial ecosystems are not under threat is denial bordering on the delusional and pathological. Scientists don’t invent what is happening to our world; they measure, witness and report to us. Muzzling their effort silences evidence and increases our vulnerability to environmental ruin.

As Elizabeth May so eloquently concludes, this suppression of the free exchange of scientific information in Canada “is the 21st Century equivalent of the Dark Ages. This is book burning and superstition run rampant. This is the administration of a steady, slow drip of poison to a weakening democracy” (Ibid.).

Share