Some Heavy Lifting

H/t Theo Moudakis

Will Hysteria Or Rationality Prevail This Fall?

As we wind ou way through the dog days of summer, it is a truism that no one will pay attention to politics and the upcoming election until after Labour Day. That may well be, but the Green Party is seeking to allay fears that its climate action plan would result in massive job loss for those working in fossil-fuel industries.

Green Party Leader Elizabeth May has unveiled a multi-pronged plan to help workers in the gas and oil sector transition to a renewable energy economy, working to allay fears that her climate action plan would bleed jobs as she ramps up pre-election campaign efforts.

The Green worker transition plan, which includes skills retraining programs and massive retrofit and cleanup projects designed to create employment, fleshes out details from the Green Party's climate action plan called Mission: Possible, that was released in May.

A canny move in anticipation of the fear-mongering about the Greens that will inevitably increase as their momentum in the polls grows, May wants to spread the message that there will be plenty of work for those who will be displaced as we decarbonize. Her platform includes

- Investing in retraining and apprenticeship programs to refocus the skills of industrial trade workers for jobs in the renewable energy sector.
- Start[ing] a massive cleanup of "orphaned" oil wells; some of which can be transformed to produce geothermal energy.
- Creat[ing] a national program to retrofit all buildings to optimum energy efficiency.

May said the party's plan for retrofitting buildings would create four million jobs for tradespeople such as carpenters, electricians and plumbers, and said there is an "immense economic opportunity" in moving to green jobs.

"People may think when we talk about climate emergency that we're hoping to have people be afraid. People are already afraid. We want to give them hope and the tools to know that their future is secure."

While rabidly partisan 'progressives' will no doubt continue advocating a surrender to 'group-think', insisting that a vote for anyone but Trudeau is a vote for Scheer, it is to be hoped that independent, critical thinkers will base their voting decisions on more measured, less hysterical grounds.

Time will tell.

Post-Partisanship (A.K.A., This Will Inflame Many)

In a move sure to enrage those 'progressives' who see a vote for anyone other than the Liberals as an attempt to subvert the natural order, Green Party head Elizabeth May says that she would consider supporting the Conservative Party or anyone else should the upcoming federal election result in a minority government:

“People change their minds when they see the dynamic of a way a Parliament is assembled and maybe think, ‘Killing carbon taxes isn’t such a good idea if the only way I get to be prime minister is by keeping them,’ ” May said.

“I think it’s really important to communicate with Canadians how our democracy works and that a minority Parliament is the very best thing, if, and this is a big if, you have parties and MPs in Parliament who are committed to working together,” she added.

“By ‘working together’,” CP adds, “she specifically means to slow climate change with policies that drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions, don’t build any more oil pipelines, and replace fossil fuels with renewable energy as fast as possible.”

May's declaration comes at a time when there are many within the environmental movement, including Greens themselves, who are upset about her plan to continue with the tar sands rather than rely on imported oil:

Earlier this month, [Alex] Tyrell [leader of the Green Party of Quebec] launched a website, GreensRising.ca, urging May to change the platform to support a “rapid shut down” of the tar sands/oil sands in the first mandate of a Green government, “while investing heavily to support the estimated 140,000 people who work in the industry,” the Star states.

While I find May's idea about continuing with the tar sands quite disconcerting, she defends it by saying it

“would also halt all new development of fossil fuels in Canada—including multi-billion-dollar natural gas export projects—and stop all oil and gas imports from other countries. ... In their place, May proposes that Canada use energy that’s already produced here for domestic needs while the country shifts to 100% renewable energy. By 2050, the Greens would ensure all bitumen produced in Canada would be used only for the petrochemical industry, but May said the country will need to stop burning fossil fuels ‘well before’ that.”

No political party is perfect, and while I don't support May's idea about the tar sands, I do applaud her willingness to play well with others. In a political landscaped riven by hyper-partisanship, it is good to see someone with a vision that goes beyond simply acquiring power for its own sake. The common good, so long sacrificed on the altar of venal, craven ambition, may once again give people a modicum of hope for the future.

Shifting Patterns

We now can say what we couldn’t say four years ago: a vote for Green isn’t automatically a wasted vote. If you vote with your heart and you vote Green, you might actually get a Green and so that shows a momentum shift, with greater credibility than there was four years ago.

- Shachi Kurl, executive director of the Angus Reid Institute

Being a tribalistic species, probably one of our biggest challenges is to rise above our natural affiliations, be they cultural, sociological, religious, political or ideological. We tend to identify strongly with our own kind; if we are Liberals, we look upon the Conservatives and NDP with suspicion; if we are Catholic, the road to salvation lies in that dogma, all others regarded as not-quite-legitimate. But now, facing the greatest crisis the earth has ever seen, can we override the many things that separate us in order to work for the common good and the salvation of humanity?

That is the hope of Elizabeth May and her Green Party. Mitch Potter writes:

A polling surge shows upwards of 10 per cent support nationwide and, perhaps more importantly, surveys suggest a substantially higher portion of Canada’s restless electorate — dispirited by hyperpartisanship in Ottawa as the global climate crisis becomes undeniable reality — are, for the first time ever, open to voting Green. If not for themselves, for their kids.

One recalls that in the last federal election, Justin Trudeau's appeal was to young voters, who responded enthusiastically to his message of hope. Now that his patina is tarnished, an opportunity for electoral gains has opened for the Greens:

What the Greens see now is an unprecedented number of Canadian millennials, as they arrive as the most potentially powerful voting cohort, demanding aggressive climate action now — something on the scale of the Green New Deal proposed south of the border by Democratic rising star Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

With the unprecedented gains made by the Green Party in the European parliamentary elections, Elizabeth May is hopeful of a critical mass of seats in Ottawa. And her message should resonate with those voters massively disaffected by the partisanship that cripples politics today:

May’s party laid its bold ambitions bare last month, unveiling “Mission Possible” — an all-hands-on-deck approach that would strip divisive politics from the climate crisis, empowering an inner cabinet of all parties to guide the country through stringent new emissions targets, including net-zero by 2050.

Canada’s Greens say their plan echoes the war cabinets of Mackenzie King and Winston Churchill, when the need for victory transcended partisanship. Such all-party collaboration is appropriate and necessary, May argues, in the face of a threat greater than any war Canada has known.

And there are signs of a significant shift in public perceptions:

In the Greens’ favour, polling suggests that four months out, the party has a degree of momentum that presently eludes its rivals. One Abacus Data snapshot last weekend showed May and her party eclipsing the NDP in many parts of the country, suggesting a “rapid ascent of the Green party in both vote intent and, more importantly, vote consideration.”

Will Canadians do what is necessary to ensure the election of a sufficient number of Greens to have an impact in Ottawa? There is no crystal ball that can offer us a glimpse of the electoral future, but the increasingly ominous and destructive path of climate change demonstrates a horrifying future that we would be supremely foolish not to avoid with all of the means at our disposal.

Just Another Trudeau-Hater, Eh?

You decide (heh, heh, heh).

H/t Theo Moudakis

BDS, May And Israel’s Occupation

The title for this post I took from the online flurry of letters that brought out the usual voices in The Star. I will reproduce a number below that both support and demonize the movement to sanction Israel for its depraved mistreatment of Palestinians in the occupied territories. I remain convinced that words will accomplish nothing in this long and ongoing heartache. Only strong and principled action has a chance of success. For that reason alone, no concerted effort to label people like me and others who support the cause as anti-Semitic will have any effect whatsoever.

Re: May shouldn’t run away from boycott, Opinion Aug. 22

Thank you very much for your publishing Linda McQuaig’s powerful piece. As a Jewish-Canadian, I am deeply concerned about our collective failure to hold Israel accountable for its war crimes, human rights violations and ongoing military occupation of Palestine. Support for Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) is not only growing among campuses, church and union groups, it is also increasing in our Jewish communities.

Why have we been silent? Why have we not understood that it is not anti-Semitic to criticize Israel. It is, in fact, pro-human rights and taking the collective wisdom of our peoples’ histories of being persecuted. Tragically, we know the impact of global silence in the face of state terror.

Those of use who care deeply about Palestinian human rights were thrilled to see the Green Party take a courageous stand in support of BDS. I am very hopeful that Elizabeth May will support this position. This is not a radical position. It is simply taking a very obvious, peaceful stance against violence.

Unfortunately, people who publicly criticize Israel (including journalists and Jewish people) are subject to violent threats and accusations of anti-Semitism.

Much gratitude to Linda McQuaig for her excellent commentary and her courage to speak out about such an important issue. And thanks to the Star for printing this. Although you will likely receive pushback from pro-Israel folks, please know you that you are giving voice to a position supported by many of us.

Alisa Gayle, Toronto

Canada needs a principled position that respects Canadian values of human rights and the rule of international law. If BDS is one efficient way to lead to that end, then there is a well-justified reason to support this movement.

Dr. Nabil Tabbara, professor, Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry, University of Western Ontario

The problem with Ms McQuaig and her fellow travelers’ support of BDS is that it singles out Israel, not just in the region but amongst the nations of the world, and does nothing to move along the peace process. To say that the solution to the 100-year conflict lies solely on one side can only be rationalized by someone wearing blinders.

Ms May’s thoughtful rejection of supporting this movement should be praised. Ms McQuaig is the one to be admonished for her stance.

Morris Sosnovitch, Toronto

I agree with writer Linda McQuaig. The leader of the Green Party should not only stay but work as hard as ever that her party does not become the hijacked home base of the anti-Israel bashing club that singularly focuses on Israel and excludes all others.

The solidarity with Palestine is all well and fine except that there is only silence for the people of Sudan and Syria who we see slaughtered daily on a scale that is horrific and cruel.

The military occupation over Palestinian lands will end when there is trust and a true commitment in place to build peace based on a two-state solution by both sides. Peace will never flow by punishing and demonizing one side in a complicated two-sided conflict.

Elizabeth May needs to stay to fight for the soul of her party. She needs to ensure that the Green Party remains committed to real principles and not false narratives.

Martin Gladstone, Toronto

Linda McQuaig’s article presents several incorrect statements and a false narrative. BDS is not a “peaceful way to protest” Israel’s perceived misteps – it is an odious attempt to delegitimize the State of Israel. Palestinians live under Israeli occupation because Jordan refused to stay out of the Six Day War, forcing Israel’s hand to take the West Bank from Jordanian occupation. And the author fails to state that West Bank Palestinian Arabs enjoy far more rights than anywhere else in the Middle East.

David E. Bronfman, Toronto

I see the Star has stooped to a new low. This article exposes your proclivity to show your anti-Israel bias. To defend the BDS movement is exactly the same as calling for the destruction of the State of Israel, the only country of almost 200 in the world that is censured for destruction.

Marek Machtinger, Thornhill

The suggestion that the BDS movement is anti-Semitic is rooted in a narrative created by those who support the 49-year-long illegal occupation of Palestine. The ongoing violations by Israel of international human rights and humanitarian laws, the Fourth Geneva Convention and UN Security Council and General Assembly resolutions are why the majority of Green Party members and others support BDS.

The desperate situation in Palestine has been thoroughly documented by reputable human rights agencies such as Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and Defence for Children International.

This year the Israeli government has significantly reduced the water supply to Palestinians. In addition, in comparison to 2015, the Israelis have increased the rates of arrests of Palestinian children and youth and increased their destruction of Palestinian homes leaving Palestinian children homeless.

Those in the media have the responsibility to read the evidence regarding the situation in Palestine compiled by internationally credible non-governmental agencies before they accuse the BDS movement of anti-Semitism.

Rev. Steve Berube, co-chair, United Network for a Just Peace in Palestine and Israel

Elizabeth May Goes Where Trudeau Fears To Tread

Some would say that to link the terrible losses in Fort McMurray to climate change is insensitive and political. Of course, they would be wrong, since climate change is not an ideological issue, however much the deniers try to frame it. It is a fact.

While Justin Trudeau calls making such a link unhelpful, (not to mention politically costly), Elizabeth May refuses to tow the tread the safe and narrow path.

Prompted by questions from reporters at a news conference, May said that scientists cannot link specific events to climate change, but noted that the disaster was following a pattern.

“The fact that the forest fire season has arrived so early in northern Alberta is very likely a climate event - very likely related to extreme high temperatures and very low humidity, very low precipitation and it is, as we saw in the quote from one of the firefighters - it’s a firestorm,” she said. “It jumped a highway, it jumped a river. It’s a devastating tragedy right now and I think our focus is always on the right now: to think for the firefighters, for first responders, for people who are losing their homes. It’s a disaster. But it’s a disaster that is very related to the global climate crisis.”

Predictably, there is hell to pay for such candour, as her comments provoked

a vicious backlash after they were reported on social media websites from critics who accused her of exploiting the tragedy to advance a political agenda.

But truth is truth, as

... her comments were consistent with assessments from climate scientists that have predicted increasing extreme weather events linked to rising heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels.

The Trudeau government was also advised by bureaucrats when it was sworn in last November that wildfires were getting worse. The bureaucrats at Natural Resources Canada told its new minister, Jim Carr, that governments across the country hadn't provided enough funding to help communities prepare for the worst.

One hopes that the disaster in Fort McMurray is soon brought under control. Unfortunately, the larger crisis confronting all of us continues unabated.

Distracted Thinking

I am something of a creature of routine. For example, all things being equal, my early morning ritual consists of retrieving the Toronto Star from my mailbox and reading the front section while enjoying my breakfast. It is during this reading that I often get my idea for the day's blog post. Firing up the computer, checking email and going to my blog dashboard are my next steps, assuming no exigencies have arisen requiring my attention elsewhere.

A requisite part of these quotidian activities is a certain amount of focus and concentration, perhaps one of the reasons I don't scan the entire paper during breakfast. If reading a political column, for example, I have to concentrate so as no to misread the writer's intent. Without that focus, distraction and digression would undoubtedly result. Of course, as I get older, that concentration becomes harder to maintain. It is the way of all flesh, I suspect.

It seems to me that as a nation, perhaps as a species, we allow ourselves to be far too easily distracted by the bauble, by the sensational, by the essentially meaningless, while failing to note or appreciate far more important underlying realities.

Take the overreaction to Elizabeth May's 'performance' the other night at the press gallery dinner. The fact that she dropped the 'f' bomb, and not the context of its use, is what everyone talked about, to the point, quite hypocritically in my view, that some say she should resign as Green Party leader.

In today's Star, Thomas Walkon offers some perspective:

First she said she was surprised that previous speakers hadn’t acknowledged that the dinner was taking place on land claimed by the Algonquins.

“What the f--- was wrong with the rest of you,” she said.

This, incidentally, was one of only two times she used vulgarity in what has been labelled a profanity-laden speech.

Then she noted that the prime minister, as usual, wasn’t attending. Maybe he fretted about being hit by flying bread rolls, she mused, before suggesting that such fears were unfounded because “there’s got to be a closet here somewhere.”

I confess I found that rather amusing, in a mean sort of way.

May then turned her attention to Omar Khadr:

“Welcome back Omar Khadr,” she said. “It matters to say it. Welcome back. You’re home. Omar Khadr, you’ve got more class than the entire f---ing cabinet.”

And in fact he does. Khadr’s response to being jailed almost half of his life for the crime of being a child soldier has been gracious and measured. The Harper government’s response to Khadr has been anything but.

Despite that very important context, all anyone could talk about was May's language and whether or not she was drunk.

Our predilection to think trivially, to be overwhelmed by the sensational while ignoring the substantive, serves the ruling class very well. Gwynne Dyer's most recent column, I think, addresses this issue within the context of anti-terrorism laws passed by both France and Canada:

Left-wing, right-wing, it makes no difference. Almost every elected government, confronted with even the slightest “terrorist threat”, responds by attacking the civil liberties of its own citizens. And the citizens often cheer them on.

Last week, the French government passed a new bill through the National Assembly that vastly expanded the powers of the country’s intelligence services. French intelligence agents will now be free to plant cameras and recording devices in private homes and cars, intercept phone conversations without judicial oversight, and even install “keylogger” devices that record every key stroke on a targeted computer in real time.

Things are almost equally as grim here in Canada:

The Anti-Terror Act, which has just passed the Canadian House of Commons, gives the Canadian Security Intelligence Service the right to make “preventive” arrests in Canada. It lets police arrest and detain individuals without charge for up to seven days.

The bill’s prohibitions on speech that “promotes or glorifies terrorism” are so broad and vague that any extreme political opinion can be criminalized.

In both countries, the sensational, (the threat of death by terrorist) stoked by respective governments to cultivate a compliant response from their citizens, ignores a very important factual context:

France has 65 million people, and it lost 17 of them to terrorism in the past year. Canada has 36 million people, and it has lost precisely two of them to domestic terrorism in the past 20 years.

That seems to have worked for France:

The cruel truth is that we put a higher value on the lives of those killed in terrorist attacks because they get more publicity. That’s why, in an opinion poll last month, nearly two-thirds of French people were in favor of restricting freedoms in the name of fighting extremism—and the French parliament passed the new security law by 438 votes to 86.

It appears to have been less successful here:

And the Canadian public, at the start 82 percent in favour of the new law, had a rethink during the course of the debate. By the time the Anti-Terror Act was passed in the House of Commons, 56 percent of Canadians were against it. Among Canadians between 18 and 34 years old, fully three-quarters opposed it.

Should Canadians feel superior? Not really. After all, Bill C-51 is now the law of the land, and we can be certain that the 'terror card' will be played relentlessly in the Harper campaign for re-election.

Time for a crash course in Critical Thinking 101.

Oil Spills And The Harper Brand

Time for a brief follow-up to Elizabeth May's fine dissection of how Harper environmental cuts contributed to the slow response to Vancouver's English Bay oil spill. In today's Star, Tim Harper repeats and reflects upon the facts May addressed.

Denunciations are flying fast and furiously from the likes of May, B.C. Premier Christie Clark and Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson. Of course, predictable denials of culpability are coming from the likes of Industry Minister James Moore (“Politicians piling on by spreading misinformation is unhelpful,’’) and Natural Resources Minister Greg Rickford (“I won’t engage in speculation,’’ “it’s not helpful to finger point,” “I think we should all concentrate on the cleanup").

Here are the facts that set the rhetoric into perspective:

The Conservatives closed the Kitsilano Coast Guard station.

The city of Vancouver says it was not informed of the leak until 12 hours after it was detected, but the federal government disputes that.
It took six hours for the Coast Guard to get booms in place in response to the leak, but a former commander of the closed station, Fred Moxey, told the Vancouver Sun the response would have been six minutes if the station was still open.

The closed station was within hailing distance of this leak, something that should have been so easily contained, occurring in calm waters in an urban area.

Conservatives also closed the Vancouver Environment Canada station of Environmental Emergencies and the Marine Mammal Contaminants Program within the department of fisheries and oceans.

Conservatives also closed regional offices of the emergency in Vancouver, Edmonton, Toronto, Montreal, Dartmouth, N.S., and St. John’s. It has been replaced by a 1-800 number which rings in Gatineau, Que., and Montreal, says Green Party Leader Elizabeth May.

We can, of course, look forward to a full-court press from the Harper regime in order contain the damage to its brand the anemic and belated response is causing.

One can only assume that will take the usual form: vilification of all Harper critics, the only strategy this hateful regime seems to know.

Got An Oil Spill? Call This 1-800 Quebec Number

Every time I hear Elizabeth May speak, my respect for her deepens. Watch as she explains how the response time to Wednesday's oil spill in English Bay was hampered by Harper cuts and that fact that cleanups has been privatized.

The Harper Attack On The Environment - Part Two

Continuing the series I started the other day, here is another excerpt from Science Under Attack, a chapter in Elizabeth May's memoir Who We Are.

Much of that chapter is devoted to the science of climate change, a science that, although constantly under attack by the ignorant and the well-funded climate-change denial industry, is essentially irrefutable. The foundation of its credibility, of course, is research. It is that research that the Harper regime has been systematically hobbling since it came to office:

March 2012 marked the end of all funding for the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences (now the Canadian Climate Forum). The funds put in place in 2000, $110 million over ten years for autonomous research funding in Canada's major universities, had been spend expanding our understanding of the climate crisis in its multi-faceted disciplines of inquiry.

As reported in The Star at the time of its closure,

the Harper government promised a new program to replace the foundation. It committed itself to delivering $35 million to the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) of Canada over five years...

But, for reasons that were never explained, that funding never materialized. The result?

The ensuing funding gap has caused many university-based climate and atmospheric science activities to collapse. With scientists already reeling from draconian cuts to Environment Canada, widespread layoff notices have resulted in a brain drain the like of which has not been seen for a generation. Rather than “attracting world-leading talent,” Canada is quickly divesting itself of its best and brightest.

Stay tuned for the next installment on the Harper wrecking crew.

The Harper Attack On The Environment - Part One

I am currently reading Elizabeth May's Who We Are: Reflection On My Life And Canada, a political memoir in which her love for her adopted country, Canada, is apparent on each page.

Since we are now in an election year, I believe it incumbent upon all of us to remind as many as possible of the terrible record of the Harper rule these past nine years, a record that should alarm everyone for so many, many reasons. To this end I plan to regularly post small excerpts from May's chapter entitled Science Under Attack. Although most of what I will use is likely well-known to progressives, the abuses of the regime are so numerous that it is sometimes hard to recall all of them. Hence, this ready reference. As well, each post will include some relevant links.

The Attack Begins In Earnest

The position of science advisor to the prime minister was eliminated in 2008. By 2012, the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy (NRTEE) was also eliminated...it was the last governmental advisory body on science, nature, or sustainable economics. Ironically, after Brian Mulroney established the NRTEE, its existence was used as an excuse to eliminate the Science Council, the Canadian Environmental Advisory Council, and the Economic Council. When Harper killed the NRTEE, his environment minister, Peter Kent, said it had been rendered unnecessary by the advent of the internet.

There is, of course, much, much more to come.

A Very Impressive Lady

Every time I hear Elizabeth May speak, I am struck by the balance and wisdom of her words. A very impressive lady, she clearly has real leadership qualities:

Elizabeth May On The Harper Contempt For Democracy Act

If you are like me, you may prefer reading the transcript to viewing the video of Elizabeth May's eloquent condemnation of the odious 'Fair' Elections Act. In any event, both media are effective in conveying her disdain for the gross affronts to democracy contained in what I term The Harper Contempt For Democracy Act.

We're The Real Opposition Party - No, We are - NO, WE ARE

While the federal Liberals have adopted an interesting strategy by teaming up with Elizabeth May to introduce amendments that could delay the passage of the Conservative government’s omnibus budget bill, their childish boast that “We very clearly indicated that we are the real opposition here because we found that the best way to deal with this ...." tends to undermine any claim to superiority over the NDP.

Poisonous partisan politics, something Harper Inc. loves.

Elizabeth May's Current Projects

Although I detect a subtext of sarcasm running through the article, Jane Taber's recent piece on Elizabeth May is well-worth a read, as it illustrates a woman involved in a worthwhile battle to encourage political engagement on the part of young people. As well, her concerns about the electromagnetic radiation from cellphones, which some have used to try to suggest a certain wackiness, is well-founded, if recent research is any indicator.

It is good to see an MP who can think independently and critically, an increasingly rare occurrence in our presently poisoned political landscape.