While Harper Fiddles, Canada Burns

There have been so many developments on the climate front of late that, collectively, give us a pretty stark warning and yet the media, the public and our political leadership are tuning out. We seem to be culturally embracing a sort of Andean fatalism that seems to precede abrupt civilizational decline. Perhaps we’re hampered by the fact that it’s a moving target that repeatedly exceeds our ‘worst case scenarios’. Far from being pessimists we constantly underestimate the onset of climate change even as severe events increase in frequency, intensity and duration. Maybe that’s why Harper (and his rivals) aren’t coming forward with any meaningful responses. They’re all avowed fossil fuelers and, having staked out that turf, any significant reduction in Canada’s GHG emissions would have to be borne by every other sector of the economy and the Canadian people. Who would risk the public wrath when pretending to act and doing nothing remains an option? There’s a rank and dangerous cowardice that runs through the Conservatives, the Liberals and the New Democrats alike. God save the Queen. The Canadian people can fend for themselves.


The other day came news of a mysterious crater in Siberia that Russian scientists determined was caused, not by a meteorite, but by an eruption of subsurface gas released by thawing permafrost – a global warming event. We’ve known for several years that the ancient permafrost that girds the high north was “perma” no more. The tundra was drying out, catching fire, and exposing the permafrost below that it once shielded. The permafrost was a sink for massive quantities of the potent greenhouse gas, methane, or, as the energy industry calls it, natural gas.

On the heels of the Russian crater story comes a report from Climate Central about fires spreading unchecked across the Northwest Territories.

“The amount of acres burned in the Northwest Territories is six times greater than the 25-year average to-date according to data from the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Center.

“Boreal forests like those in the Northwest Territories are burning at rates "unprecedented" in the past 10,000 years according to the authors of a study put out last year. The northern reaches of the globe are warming at twice the rate as areas closer to the equator, and those hotter conditions are contributing to more widespread burns.

“The combined boreal forests of Canada, Europe, Russia and Alaska, account for 30 percent of the world’s carbon stored in land, carbon that's taken up to centuries to store. Forest fires like those currently raging in the Northwest Territories, as well as ones in 2012 and 2013 in Russia, can release that stored carbon into the atmosphere and contribute to global warming. Warmer temperatures can in turn create a feedback loop, priming forests for wildfires that release more carbon into the atmosphere and cause more warming. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's landmark climate report released earlier this year indicates that for every 1.8°F rise in temperatures, wildfire activity is expected to double.”

The Climate Central report indicates that the massive amounts of airborne soot from these forest and tundra fires could accelerate the melting of the Greenland ice sheet far faster than we had ever imagined, perhaps by the end of this century. Ice, being white, reflects most solar energy back into space. Soot, being black, absorbs the solar energy and it passes into the ice beneath, causing melting. The melt run-off should wash away the soot except that these fires just keep adding more soot. And, of course, the fires that generate the soot also release ever more greenhouse gas into the atmosphere. Forest fires release the CO2 from the trees. Tundra fires release CO2 and expose the permafrost below that releases methane.

As for the Greenland ice sheet and the prospect of losing all or most of it by the end of this century, here’s what you need to bear in mind. When that ice sheet is gone, and it will eventually, it will create 23-feet of sea level rise. You’ve probably seen plenty of graphics of what three or four feet of sea level rise will mean around the world. The reality is that we tend to build our major cities where there’s navigable water. In Canada that’s Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver. With Lake Ontario at 75 metres above sea level, Toronto should be safe from inundation but Montreal, on the St. Lawrence and at 6 metres is vulnerable and, as for Vancouver, well let’s just say that False Creek, Coal Harbour and Burrard Inlet will be a whole lot bigger and the Lower Mainland an awful lot smaller.

So, with the prospect of runaway climate change steadily worsening, with major population centres and critical infrastructure at increasing risk, surely this must be at the very top of our Lord and Master’s priority list, right? What’s that, no? His priority is flogging as much of the world’s highest-carbon oil as quickly as he can push through the pipelines and supertanker ports to carry it, really? Surely the opposition parties are going to shut this down as soon as the voting public gives Harper the boot, right? Wrong? Oh dear. Maybe it’s time to caulk the dinghy.


MoS, the Disaffected Lib.

Has Harper Betrayed The West? A Mound Of Sound Guest Post

Recent summer flooding across southern Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba seems to be bringing the reality of climate change home to the people of the prairies and it’s drawing some unwelcome attention to prime minister Harper.

Look, it was bound to happen. You can’t have once-a-century weather disasters arriving every two or three years for very long before even the doubters stop listening to climate change deniers. That, from a glance at some prairie newspapers, seems to be happening at the moment. Postmedia science scribe, Margaret Munro, writes that these summer floods are the new reality for much of western Canada. Reginal Leader-Post columnist, Murray Mandryk, writes that Saskatchewan has to catch up to the fact of climate change.

“But don’t take my word for it. Ask someone like hydrologist John Pomeroy – Canadian Research Chair for Water Resources and Climate Change at the University of Saskatchewan – who has studied the issue for years, including intensive study of the drainage of Smith Creek, which flows near Langenburg along the Manitoba-Saskatchewan border.

“’We have to stop doing what we are doing,’ Pomeroy said in an interview from Alberta, where he is currently studying the impact of mountain run-off into the South Saskatchewan River.

“’Things are happening and they are happening much faster than anyone imagined.’”

Munro highlighted Dr. Pomeroy’s remarks about how the pro-oil/anti-science Harper government has gutted federal hydrology, climate and flood management programmes, leaving the provinces to fend for themselves.

“By July, Smith Creek is usually ‘bone dry.’ Last week it hit a new high as 24.5 cubic metres of water a second roared down the stream.

“[Pomeroy] says heavy winter snow had saturated the soil, which was made even wetter by unusually heavy spring rains. Then the frontal system came up from the US, stalled over southeast Saskatchewan in late June, ‘and pushed it over the top.’ The system dropped more than 150 millimetres of rain in a few days – almost as much rain as normally falls in southeast Saskatchewan all year.

“He says the change in the past decade has been remarkable.

“’Everything we know about hydrology of the prairie appears to be different,’ he says. ‘We never have saturated spongy soils with flow running off farmers’ fields in the midsummer. Never.’

“The situation calls out for a national Canadian strategy and program to improve flood prediction and water management, Pomeroy says, pointing to the US which has more comprehensive systems.

“He says recent cutbacks and, in some cases, the ‘gutting’ of federal hydrology, climate and flood management programs have left the country ill-prepared.

“When it comes to the flood forecasting problem, he says, ‘every province is left on its own, with some doing better than others.’”

Coastal British Columbians know how Harper has betrayed us and left our environment defenceless. Harper has moved the west coast oil spill emergency centre to Montreal. He has shut down many of our Coast Guard stations. He has axed entire departments of Fisheries and Oceans once responsible for monitoring our coastal waters and the health of our marine species. He has stripped navigation regulations and done everything asked of him to facilitate hazardous oil tanker traffic. To us, the fact that Harper has gutted federal hydrology and flood management programmes, leaving the prairie provinces defenceless. is old hat. This is simply another illustration of Harper’s rank ideology at work in betraying the West for the sake of Big Oil only this time it’s Harper’s natural constituents caught in the crosshairs.

Reality is catching up with Harper and even the usually reliable, centre-right media are beginning to speak out. Doubters and deniers are beginning to sound utterly unconvincing, shrill, desperate. Pomeroy might have coined a suitable epitaph for Harper’s conservatism when he said, “Things are happening and they are happening much faster than anyone imagined.”

A Guest Post From The Mound Of Sound

Steve Harper and his chums have transformed cognitive dissonance from an affliction into an art form. Harper’s prime directive, his overarching quest, is to get as much Athabasca bitumen as possible to foreign buyers as quickly as pipelines and tanker ports can be built. Now square that single-minded purpose with the report just released by Beelzebub’s own government that “Canada faces greater frequency and intensity of extreme weather as a result of climate change, as well as increased risks to human health from pollution and the spread of disease-carrying insects.”

“Reducing greenhouse gas emissions is necessary to lessen the magnitude and rate of climate change, but additional impacts are unavoidable, even with aggressive global mitigation efforts, due to inertia in the climate system” the report said. “Therefore, we also need to adapt – make adjustments in our activities and decisions in order to reduce risks, moderate harm or take advantage of new opportunities.”

It may strike you as odd, this dire warning coming from a government intent on increasing Canadian emissions through a targeted five fold expansion of the Tar Sands while spending next to nothing on adaptation initiatives and risk reduction. As Calgary languished underwater last summer, the World Council on Disaster Management held its annual conference in Toronto. One speaker was Dr. Saeed Mirza, professor emeritus at McGill University. Focusing on what he called decades of neglect of Canadian infrastructure, Dr. Mirza said that Canada needs to invest hundreds of billions of dollars, possibly upwards of a trillion dollars, on repair and replacement of our essential infrastructure. Like most of these warnings, it comes with the added caution that, if we don’t overhaul our core infrastructure soon, we will pay dearly for our neglect later.

It’s important to bear in mind that, while early onset climate change is already here, as even the Harper government’s report admits, it is going to worsen through the remainder of this century and, quite probably, for a good era past that. The extreme weather we’re seeing today is expected to become more extreme – in frequency, duration and intensity – with each passing decade. A report released Tuesday by Risky Business, a climate change research initiative established by Michael Bloomberg, Hank Paulson and Tom Steyer, put a physiological dimension on what we’re facing. “As temperatures rise, towards the end of the century, less than an hour of activity outdoors in the shade could cause a moderately fit individual to suffer heat stroke,” said climatologist Robert Kopp of Rutgers University, lead scientific author of the report. “That’s something that doesn’t exist anywhere in the world today.”

The body’s capacity to cool down in hot weather depends on the evaporation of sweat. That keeps skin temperature below 95 degrees Fahrenheit (35 Celsius). Above that, core temperature rises past 98.6F. But if humidity is also high, sweat cannot evaporate and core temperatures can increase until the person collapses from heat stroke. “If it’s humid you can’t sweat, and if you can’t sweat you can’t maintain core body temperature in the heat, and you die,” said Dr. Al Sommer, dean emeritus of the Bloomberg School of Public Health at John Hopkins University and author of a chapter on health effects in the new report.

While climate change is plainly the greatest threat facing mankind this century, a genuinely existential threat, it’s one that triggers indifference, acquiescence or resignation in far too many of us. The potential enormity of climate change in all its dimensions – environmental, economic, political, societal, military – is almost too much to grasp. This saps us of the collective will needed for timely action on adaptation and mitigation initiatives. We are firmly immersed in the “boiling frog” syndrome. We don’t like to dwell on the future or hear accounts of what we have in store for our grandkids and their children. The burden of rising to the challenge, even if we don’t really know what that burden is, seems inconvenient, something that can surely be deferred for now. Yet if we don’t rise to this challenge, if we don’t begin to understand climate change in all its dimensions, we probably won’t be able to take advantage of the best remaining options available to us before they’re foreclosed. And that would be cowardice and an utter betrayal of our grandchildren and the generations to follow. We may have limited powers to make life better for them but we still have enormous powers to make their lives vastly worse.

Calling Stephen Harper

It is always heartening when young people get involved in issues that should matter to everyone:

It's Not Either/Or

Those who have more than a passing acquaintance with federal politics are likely aware of the false premises and logical fallacies Stephen Harper and his wrecking crew regularly use to advance their mad agenda. There was, of course, the famous Vic Toews' declaration about either standing with the government or with the child pornographers. Of course that kind of absolutism, the assertion that choices are black and white, no nuanced thinking required, betrays a deep contempt for the electorate, clearly an indicator the regime views us as simpletons fit only for the manipulation that such reductionist thinking cultivates.

It was recently on display once again when Stephen Harper met with his climate soul mate, Australia's Prime Minister Tony Abbott. Both agreed they would take no action against climate change that would imperil their respective economies, implying, of course, that the choices are stark.

Fortunately, as is regularly the case, there was ample criticism of this fallacious approach to the world's most pressing and dire crisis; and as usual, Star readers weighed in with their acerbic and insightful comments on Harper's nonsense. All of the letters are excellent, and I hope you will have an opportunity to read each one. Below, I reproduce just a few of them:

Re: PM lauds Australia for fighting carbon tax, June 10

Our prime minister seems to think that jobs and economic growth will trump any serious attempt to tackle climate change. This is a great example of no leadership and a complete dismissal of job creation and growth in new technologies that will happen as we move to a more sustainable situation.
One thing is certain: there will be job creation in casket making if we do not get serious soon about carbon emissions. Where are the leaders who will stop living in the past and embrace the future!

J.B. Ross, Orangeville

It’s a shame that our prime minister believes that a carbon tax will hurt the economy and cost jobs. B.C.’s carbon tax has clearly shown that this is not the case. And the U.S. Congressional Budget Office recently concluded that a carbon tax could benefit the U.S. economy.

But even if the government has an aversion to a carbon tax, from building renewable energy to increasing energy efficiency to building modern transit systems, there are so many ways to cut emissions and create jobs.

The prime minister is setting up a false choice. We do not need to choose between action on carbon and a strong economy. We need to choose both and get on with it.

Keith Brooks, Toronto

The Conservative lack of action on climate change will hurt jobs and the economy. When discussing climate change, Harper said that no country is going to take actions that will deliberately destroy jobs and growth. He, like Tim Hudak in Ontario, has his head in the sand.

Look at Germany, the economic powerhouse of Europe. Its fight against climate change has increased its renewable electrical energy from about 6 per cent in 2000 to 25 per cent in 2012, with 370,000 jobs in that sector. Two-thirds of these are due to government legislation on renewables.

Nearer home, B.C. reduced CO2 emissions by 17 per cent in five years, through a carbon tax that returned the money to the taxpayers, without hurting jobs or growth.

The National Roundtable on the Environment and the Economy has stated that if nothing is done immediately to address climate change, a Canadian family of four will be paying up to $10,000 per year in weather damage by 2050. This will cause enormous human suffering and take money and jobs away from productive employment.

All parties except the Conservatives have policies to address climate change. The economy cannot afford a Conservative government in either Ontario or Canada.

Linda and Alan Slavin, Otonabee

Canaries In The Coal Mine, Dinosaurs On The Hill

We are still out West, but I can't resist putting up a few letters from The Star that raise awareness not only of environmental perils but also, concomitantly, of the dangers of saurian political representation, as epitomized by the current regime in Ottawa:



U.S. coal cut tests Harper, Editorial June 3

Agreed, it’s time for Canada to take action too, and not continue our vague intention to regulate.

Our government’s commitment to the premise of regulating emissions sector by sector seems directly in opposition to traditional conservative values. It requires more legislation to enact, and more bureaucracy to monitor, than any other system for reducing emissions. Economists, environmentalists, even oil firms, as noted in this editorial, all agree that pricing carbon is the correct move.

The carbon fee and dividend system is revenue neutral, would require very little bureaucracy to enforce, and would allow the market to power a change. Doesn’t this seem like ideal environmental legislation for a conservative government?

It’s enactment would certainly show the U.S. that we’re taking serious action alongside them. Now is the time to get on board with reducing emissions, or soon we’ll be playing catch up in the energy sector, with no one to sell our high-emission oil to.

Jack Morton, Toronto

Thanks for your article on U.S. President Barack Obama’s carbon regulations aiming to reduce CO2 from power plants in the U.S. by 30 per cent by 2030. This is a good start, however it’s nowhere near where we need to go.

We need to cut fossil fuel dependency by 80 per cent by 2050 — for all sources, not just power plants. We have used up our carbon budget, and the rising temperature of the earth does threaten the survival of humanity, and many other species.

It would really help the transition to a sustainable future if a fee and dividend carbon pricing system were implemented. This would put a price on the pollution of carbon and would encourage the development of clean tech, renewables, and conservation.

I urge Justin Trudeau and Tom Mulcair to say this is what they will do, and then work together to do this when a new government is formed. As informed citizens we must let our politicians know this is what we want them to do.

Lyn Adamson, Toronto

Forecast: Very Cloudy Indeed

Mike de Sousa is a former Post Media reporter now operating his own website continuing his investigative work into energy and the environment. He is well-worth paying attention to.

His latest piece, Government’s weather forecasters shouldn’t discuss climate change, says Environment Canada, while perhaps not breaking any new ground, is a potent reminder of how inimical the Harper regime is to science as it continues to ignore climate change in its mad pursuit of policies promoting and facilitating tarsands' extraction.

Succinctly expressed, Environment Canada doesn't permit its meteorologists to comment on climate change because it lacks 'expertise':

“Environment Canada scientists speak to their area of expertise,” said spokesman Mark Johnson in an email. “For example, our Weather Preparedness Meteorologists are experts in their field of severe weather and speak to this subject. Questions about climate change or long-term trends would be directed to a climatologist or other applicable authority.”

Officially, these scientists cannot be trusted to connect the dots that their years of study would seem to entitle them to do:

...the department’s communications protocol prevents the meteorologists from drawing links to changing climate patterns following extreme weather events such as severe flooding in southern Alberta or a massive wildfire in Northern Quebec in the summer of 2013.

While Environment Canada's official position is that their employees are eminently satisfied, de Sousa includes a link to a union-sponsored survey that paints an altogether different picture. Here is a snippet of the responses:

“I am outraged by the Orwellian restriction of information under the current government. I cannot see any justification for preventing scientists from speaking about publicly-funded, published research to the media. The data were paid for by all Canadians and in my view belong to all Canadians. For us to work in the public interest, we need to be able to express our findings to non-scientists through public presentations and news media.

“The development of carefully crafted "Values and Ethics" codes across government are resulting in silencing the scientific community for fear of breaching their "Duty to Loyalty" (and are becoming synonymous with gag order).”

And there is this sad surrender:

“Leaving public service for academia. Won't have a muzzle anymore.”

Writes de Sousa:

The quotes from government scientists were released in support of the union’s internal investigation into allegations of muzzling of federal scientists. Its survey found that 90 per cent of federal scientists and professionals felt they couldn’t speak freely in public about their work and that 24 per cent had been asked to exclude or alter information for non-scientific reasons.

There is much more worth reading in this investigative piece. Mike de Sousa's website is surely one worth bookmarking for regular visits.

Don't Let A Culture Of Defeat Hold You Back

That's right, folks. There are untold opportunities to enhance both your gross domestic product and your wallets through the scourge gift of oil spills, as oil pipeline company Kinder Morgan recently explained. But of course, that 'leftie' Rachel Maddow looks a gift horse in the mouth as she continues to spread her dangerous ideas:

Happy Earth Day

I truly wish there was something to celebrate. Take a look at my previous post and the commentary from the Mound of Sound that accompanies it; then watch this short video.

Their commonality? A rapacious industry and an economic system that disdains impediments to their profits, and a federal government (a.k.a. the Harper regime) at their compete disposal.

Words Fail Me Here

Unequivocally evil is the only phrase I can think of to describe this ecological and environmental outrage. Read the story and draw your own conclusions:

Ottawa removing North Pacific humpback whales from list of ‘threatened’ species

A Tale of Intimidation At TransCanada Corporation

Despite the best efforts of the Harper government to make its own addiction to the fossil fuel agenda the Canadian people's as well, increasing numbers are voicing their concern and opposition to the expansion of the Alberta tarsands through new pipelines. And evidence is mounting that those concern are wholly justified and not simply the hysterical reaction of 'lefties, eco-terrorists and the enemies of growth' that the Harper cabal would have us believe.

The 1,047 pipeline incidents in Canada between 2000 and 2011, although only a small part of the tale, provide ample reason for that wariness and suspicion.

Now there is even more reason to worry. As reported in the Toronto Star, there has been an ongoing and concerted effort by TransCanada Corporation, the country's preeminent pipeline company, to silence employees raising safety concerns about the company’s existing and brand new North American pipeline infrastructure:

They include warnings on the original Keystone pipeline, plagued by at least 35 incidents in the U.S. and Canada since it launched commercial operations in June 2010, and they also raise questions about the company’s testing and welding procedures on its infrastructure in Ontario as well as other lines that have reported at least four separate ruptures and four separate leaks to the federal regulator, the National Energy Board, in recent months.

Records released by the Senate energy and environment committee show cases where engineers were told in internal emails to stop searching for potential pipeline defects.

Reminiscent of the O-ring alerts ignored prior to the doomed Challenger shuttle mission, the records tell a sordid but hardly surprising tale of corporate intimidation, suppression and termination. Only one target, engineer Evan Vokes, responded to Star requests for comment:

“Please stop the investigation you seem to be doing on your own,” wrote David Taylor, a TransCanada manager of materials and engineering, in a June 27, 2011, email to Vokes. “This discussion has been going on for over a month, you need to accept where we are and become aligned with where we are going as a company.”

Vokes, a man of obvious integrity, refused to heed the increasingly threatening tone of the emails, and he was ultimately fired in 2012 without cause after he informed the company he would complain to authorities. Before his termination, however, he did what any man of deep conscience would do. He persisted:

... a few months before he lost his job, Vokes sent out a written warning to managers about the dangers of allowing the installation of a pressure vessel — a pipeline component generally used in compressor stations — on a natural gas line serving the oilsands industry near Fort McMurray.

A few weeks earlier, his manager, David Taylor, warned Vokes that there could be consequences if he continued to critique safety oversight weaknesses of TransCanada operations.

Taylor had issued other warnings previously:

“Also there is no need to comment about other projects and infer that they did something wrong,” said Taylor in an email to Vokes on Aug. 10, 2009. “As we chatted on Friday those things can and generally do come back to haunt you down the road!”

You can read the full story of TranCanada's corporate malfeasance and how it thwarted the efforts of some of its other employees to promote greater safety by clicking on the Toronto Star link provided at the start of this post.

Of Course We Could Ignore This

But are we willing to pay the ultimate price?

Apocalyptic Scenes

While the fossil fuel companies and the governments that protect them continue to draw in record profits and conspicuously blockade any amelioration of carbon output, the real world pays the price:

If Only We Could All Take This To Heart

Then where would the Harperites be?

It's Definitely Not Democracy

That's the conclusion fundraising expert Harvey McKinnon draws in this interview during which he discusses the Harper regime's targeting of groups that oppose the Tory policy of environmental despoliation, about which I wrote previously.

McKinnon also offers this startling information: Statistically, one in 100 charities are audited each year. This Revenue Canada has gone after seven out of 12 charities this year. According to a statistician on his staff, the odds of this happening randomly are one chance in a billion.

Draw what inference you will from that.




H/t Occupy Canada

Another Informed Star Reader

Christine Penner Polle of Red Lake offers some observations that I suspect few but the most ardent ideologues would dispute:

Re: Ottawa plans cuts to climate programs, March 12

Have we Canadians fallen down the rabbit hole? We are living in a Mad Hatter world where our federal government is slashing funding to Environment Canada’s climate change efforts at the same time scientists are raising the alarm about the threat of an unstable climate to our civilization, and where even staid, small “c” conservative institutions such as the IMF and the IEA are urging swift action to decrease emissions from fossil fuels.

This kind of cost-cutting is false economy, for the longer we delay in addressing climate change the more expensive – and dangerous – it becomes.

The federal government could address the climate crisis by putting a straightforward and transparent price on carbon through a carbon fee and dividend policy that (finally!) charges industry the true cost of carbon pollution, and rebates the money back to Canadian households, helping us all make the shift toward the clean energy economy of the 21st century.

At the same time, the market will be allowed to pick winners and losers in the energy race, rather than government through inefficient sector-by-sector regulation. Sounds like a solution that might get Canadians back to a saner, safer reality.

An Evening Reminder Of Just How Hostile Stephen Harper Is To Canada's Long-Term Interests

For more information, this link is a good place to start.

Each Day Seems To Bring A Fresh Outrage

I am someone who believes people should never be too happy or contented. Such states breed a complacency that can lead to an indifference, if not downright disengagement, from the pressing issues that citizenship demands. That being said, however, there are days when I almost wish that I could be blithely detached.

As many who read this will likely attest, being a Canadian with a government that betrays us in so many ways is at times very difficult to accept and endure.

Where to start in discussing those betrayals? Since this post would never end if I were to enumerate all of them, I shall deal with only a few of the most recent ones.



There is, of course, the Fair Elections Act, about which I have written numerous times. Despite ever increasing awareness of the real threats it poses to democratic participation and the overall health of our system, and despite increasing numbers of prominent Canadians speaking out against it, the Harper regime, through one of its favorite puppets, the contemptible and oleaginous Minister of State for Democratic Reform, Pierre Poilievre, shows ongoing contempt for all who oppose it.

And probably the most egregious Tory contempt is reserved for the people, given the regime's refusal to hold cross-country hearing on the bill.



Then there is the arrant hypocrisy of the Harper regime.



Harper blithely and steadfastly justifies his uncritical and unwavering support for Israel by calling it the Middle East’s only democracy, surrounded by autocratic and hateful regimes that wish it ill.

But what happens to this ostensibly high-minded commitment to democracy abroad when money is involved? It is revealed as a blatantly empty and hypocritical pose.

What else can explain the fact that Canada recently signed a $10 billion arms deal with one of the Middle East's most repressive regime, Saudi Arabia? As Humera Jabir Murtaza Hussain noted in his recent Toronto Star commentary, the sale is an affront to Ottawa’s alleged commitment to human rights in the Middle East.

In his visit to the region in January, Prime Minister Stephen Harper espoused the high-minded rhetoric that Canadian values of tolerance and human rights would underpin Canada’s Mideast policy. But this unprecedented $10-billion sale of military equipment to Saudi Arabia, a known human rights abuser, makes clear that these values hold no water when there is a profit to be made.

But it gets even worse, as Hussain notes:

Last year, a Canadian Press analysis found Bahrain, Algeria and Iraq to be new buyers of Canadian-made weapons with weapons exports to Pakistan increasing by 98 per cent, Mexico by 93 per cent, and Egypt by 83 per cent from 2011 to 2012.

So what happens to Canada's oft-declared commitment to human rights? Consigned to the rhetorical ashbin of politics, I guess. Or, as Walter Dorn, the chair of international affairs studies at the Canadian Forces College, put it:

"The danger is that the almighty dollar may become the predominant motivator in trade deals and therefore weapons are more easily shipped."



Then yesterday came news of Harper's latest salvo against the environment and climate change mitigation.



As reported in The Toronto Star, Environment Canada will see drastic reductions in its funding over the next three years.

While the Harper cabal claims that the reduction in funding from the current $1.01 billion in 2014-2015 to $698.8 million in 2016-2017 is largely attributable to temporary programs that could be extended, altered, or enhanced , two statistics pierce the litany of lies we have come to expect from this corrupt regime:

Environment Canada’s full-time equivalent positions will decrease by over 1000 from the current complement of 6,400 to 5,348 in 2016-17. Most alarming and telling is the fact that many of those cuts will come from Environment Canada's climate change division, where FTE positions will be reduced by about half, from the current 699 to 338 in 2016-17.

Said Halifax MP Megan Leslie, the opposition New Democrats’ environment critic,

“Knowing what the situation is with greenhouse gas emissions worldwide, one would think they got the numbers backwards. And that we would be ramping up rather than ramping down...That is a shocking decrease, it really is.”

Shocking, obscene, indefensible... there are many words that one could apply here, none of which seem adequate, especially given the fact that the Harper government has done little to reach its goal agreed upon under the Copenhagen Accord, of reducing its greenhouse gas emissions to 17 per cent below 2005 levels by 2020.

And of course, no measures have been imposed on the oil and gas sector, which is projected to contribute 200 megatonnes of GHG emissions in 2020 — almost a third of Canada’s target under the Copenhagen Accord.



How can a government be so out of tune with the needs and demands of both its own citizens and those of most of the world?

I suspect Harper has done a cost-benefit analysis and concluded that none of these measures, or the countless others his regime has thus far undertaken, however odious, evil and contemptuous in nature, will rouse Canadians from their comfortable torpor and impel them to go out into the streets en masse.

My biggest fear is that he is correct in his calculations.

Some Days A Reactionary Just Can't Catch A Break

At least if you are a reactionary in the Harper vein. First came the bad polling news showing increasing numbers of Canadians growing increasingly suspicious and weary of the relentless divide-and-conquer tactics of the so-called master tactician. Then came some stinging rebukes from that old icon of conservatism, Preston Manning, who, over the weekend, suggested that it is time for the Harper regime to start focusing on policy rather than politics, perhaps a veiled way of suggesting it might be time 'to try that sincerity thing.'

Even that once-trusted source of cabal strategy, Tom Flanagan, weighed in as he told an audience at the Manning Centre that the Conservatives are paying a price for the “perceived hyper-partisanship of the prime minister.”

Ah, but the abuse of the reactionary Harper mind-set continued beyond the confines of Manning's think-tank. In yesterday's Star, Haroon Siddiqui showed that he has Harper's number as well.

Entitled How Stephen Harper divides and conquers our many minorities, his piece begins with what many would agree is an accurate assessment of the chief failing of the prime minister:

Stephen Harper governs not so much for Canada as for his Conservative party. He used to do it by stealth. Now he does it openly.

He cites as evidence the following:

The Fair Elections Act, which will gut the power of the chief elections officer Marc Mayrand (who had taken the Tories to court for breaking election laws) and make it more difficult for voters to cast ballots but easier for political parties to raise money.

John Baird’s trip to the Ukraine, which excluded any opposition party members, thereby allowing the Harper regime to take full credit for its 'concern' over events there.

The government’s boycott of the opposition from the Aga Khan’s speech Friday at Massey Hall. As Haroon notes, even Chrystia Freeland, the riding's MP, was frozen out.

And so it goes on. All of this deeply repugnant partisanship is part of a well-established pattern — Harper’s “you are with us or against us” approach to governing; his hijacking of Canadian foreign policy to serve Conservative interests.

Increasing numbers of Canadians seem to be awakening to the truly odious nature of Harper's rule. This can only be seen as an encouraging sign of the possibility of regime change in the near future.

Not Everyone Has Drunk The Kool-Aid: A Doctor Speaks Out On The Health Effects Of Tarsands' Development

As reported in The Vancouver Observer, grave health risks from the Alberta tarsands are both statistically significant and deeply disturbing.

A northern Alberta doctor, John O'Connor, was invited to Washington to brief two U.S. Senators who are against the proposed TransCanada Keystone XL pipeline that would carry bitumen from Alberta to Texas. O'Connor told them there have been the devastating health impacts of the tar sands on families – effects, he says, that have been willfully “ignored” by the Canadian and Alberta governments.

He sighted statistics for rare cancers – of the bile duct for example – that have shot up 400 times for what is considered normal for a tiny community, such as Fort Chipewyan – which is downstream, to the north of the oil sands.

“These are published, peer-reviewed studies that indicate that the government of Alberta and Canada have been lying, misrepresenting the impact of industry on the environment,” said O’Connor.

Unfortunately, his warnings have, not surprisingly, fallen on deaf Canadian governmental ears. Yesterday, In Washington, he clearly hoped for more open minds.




Without doubt, Doctor O'Connor has a prominent place on Harper's Enemies List.