Corporate Corruption

With corrupt corporate practices so much in the news these days, thanks to the Trudeau government's attempts at subverting justice for SNC Lavalin, I couldn't help but be struck by the naked greed so evident in the practices of a pharmaceutical called Insys Therapeutics. Several of the company's executives

... are currently on trial in Boston on charges of racketeering, fraud, and conspiracy, in connection to an alleged nationwide scheme to pay doctors bribes and kickbacks in exchange for prescribing the company’s fentanyl-based pain medication Subsys to patients who would not otherwise require the drug. The executives are also accused of conspiring to mislead and defraud insurance providers that were reasonably reluctant to cover costs for a medication designed for cancer patients when prescribed to patients without cancer.

To appreciate the depth of the company's greed and depravity, go to the 9:16 mark of the following news report, which includes a video extolling the virtues of something called titration, the practice of increasing the dose of a drug:



The 'rap' video excerpted in the above report (I will provide links to the full video at the end of this post) was created for and shown at Insys' 2015 national sales meeting. The message was clear: the more you 'push' the drug, the higher your sales commission will be.

According to former Senator Claire McCaskill, who helped investigate Insys last year,

"What they are saying to their sales representatives is, 'It's not enough that you get a doctor to prescribe it," said McCaskill, now an NBC News analyst. She said the company was telling its employees, "'We're going to pay you five times as much if you can get him to prescribe the strongest dose possible.'"

Interestingly, the company's response to these charges echoes the one heard from SNC Lavalin about the 'rogue employees' who acted without company authority in bribery of Libyan officials to the tune of $48 Million - (their petty cash reserves must be a marvel, eh?):

"The company in no way defends the misconduct of former employees and is fully cooperating with the government."

Nothing to see here, eh?

NEW: Here's the internal Insys video to the tune of A$AP Rocky's "F--kin' Problems" in which employees dance around former sales VP Alec Burlakoff, who is dressed as a life-size bottle of fentanyl spray. It was shown to a jury in Boston federal court today. pic.twitter.com/0SPIEDRpnX

— Aaron Leibowitz (@aaron_leib) February 13, 2019

Here's Part 2. They're singing about "titration," a reference to the process of doctors increasing the dosage for patients as they build tolerance. pic.twitter.com/J60hYQw0PA

— Aaron Leibowitz (@aaron_leib) February 13, 2019

A Fascinating Rorschach Test

Reading the newspaper this morning, it occurred to me that the reactions to Jody Wilson Raybould's testimony before the Commons Justice Committee constitute a kind of political Rorschach Test, one that helps reveal people's values, psychology and moral sensibilities. As one would expect, it demonstrates that the Canadian psyche is a multi-faceted one, one that prompts reactions ranging from outright condemnation of the government as if it were the devil incarnate to a reflexive defence of the Liberals. While some of these public reactions constitute nothing more than political theatre, they are worthy of deeper examination.

First, there was the overblown call by Andrew Scheer for Justin Trudeau to resign. A risible attempt to suggest he occupies the high moral ground, his gesture would satisfy only inveterate Conservative supporters who think with their adrenaline, not their brains. In many ways, his stunt represents politics at its manipulative worst.

But extreme partisanship that abandons critical thinking is hardly limited to the right. A popular theme in so-called progressive circles found online and in Facebook political groups is that it is incumbent upon all to rally to the Liberal Party. The argument, simplistic in the extreme, is that to join in the criticism of Trudeau's tactics is to empower the Conservatives and risk handing over the next federal election to them.

This depiction of the political landscape through a Manichean filter benefits no one. Like the Conservative hysteria, it demands a surrender of critical thinking and morality in service of what is depicted as a far lesser evil than the party of Scheer. As well, there is a distressing tactic, taken right out of the reactionary's page, of shooting the messenger. The CBC, CTV, major newspapers, etc. are condemned as tools of the right for reporting on this scandal and keeping it alive. I choose to provide no links to demonstrate any of this, as I do not want to give them further exposure, but they are quite easy to find if you look.

The idea of voting for the lesser of evils no longer holds any appeal for me. Perhaps that sensibility is a function of my age as well as extensive reading and my ongoing efforts to be a critical thinker. The fact is that the Liberals and the Conservatives are not the only choice in the next election, and perhaps it is time for people to start taking their vote with greater seriousness and reflection. For a perspective on this, I highly recommend a post by The Mound that he wrote last month. As well, a post he wrote yesterday makes for worthwhile reading.

Finally, there is the reaction based, neither on pragmatics nor partisanship, but on morality and integrity. As I wrote yesterday, what I took away from Wilson-Raybould's testimony was a woman who fought hard to maintain her principles and integrity in the face of incredible pressure from both the Prime Minister and his operatives. It is a theme upon which Tanya Talaga writes:

Across Indigenous social media, this one quote of Wilson-Raybould’s was shared over and over again, “I was taught to always hold true to your core values, principles and to act with integrity. I come from a long line of matriarchs and I am a truth-teller in accordance with the laws and traditions of our Big House. This is who I am and who I always will be.”

An indigenous upbringing helped inform those principles:

“The history of Crown-Indigenous relations in this country, includes a history of the rule of law not being respected. Indeed, one of the main reasons for the urgent need for justice and reconciliation today is that in the history of our country we have not always upheld foundational values such as the rule of law in our relations with Indigenous peoples. And I have seen the negative impacts for freedom, equality and a just society this can have firsthand.”

For over 150 years Canada has bent laws, disrespected treaties, spent millions taking First Nations to court over resource sharing and tried to bully communities into pipelines.

But Wilson-Raybould refused to be complicit.

Integrity in public office is rarely seen, but I like to think I can recognize it when I see it. And judging by some of the reactions I have seen and read about, I am hardly alone in valuing it.

We have all witnessed politicians of various stripes come and go. Our cynicism, our pragmatism, our ideology clearly play a role in that revolving door. But sometimes the truth really is out there; all we have to do to see it is to try to shed some of our preconditioned responses.

The Dark Underside Of Sunny Ways

Her testimony was riveting, her aura of integrity palpable. One could only come away from the testimony of Jody Wilson-Raybould into the SNC-Lavalin scandal drawing at least two conclusions: politics really is a dirty game, and it is one that a person of principle cannot easily navigate while holding on to her integrity. It was also stunning to see someone who really believes that politics should and must be conducted in a principled way.

Wilson-Raybould's moral compass stands in sharp contrast to the players who fought tirelessly to try to change her mind. Here is but a taste of her testimony:



While the above is damning enough, the pressure didn't stop there.

In a 38-minute opening statement and repeatedly in answers to questions, Wilson-Raybould pointed the finger directly at Trudeau, as well as his top officials in the PMO, the Privy Council office and the office of the minister of finance, citing phone calls and in-person meetings that she felt amounted to a “barrage of people hounding me and my staff.”

“Within these conversations, there were express statements regarding the necessity of interference in the SNC-Lavalin matter, the potential of consequences and veiled threats if a DPA was not made available to SNC,” she said.

Wilson-Raybould also detailed interactions with Ben Chin, the chief of staff to Finance Minister Bill Morneau; Trudeau aides Elder Marques and Mathieu Bouchard; Butts, the prime minister’s principal secretary; and Katie Telford, Trudeau’s chief of staff.

She said Telford and Butts summoned her chief of staff Jessica Prince to a meeting on Dec. 18, where Butts told Prince they had to find a solution to the SNC issue. Reading from a transcript of Prince’s debriefing afterwards with her minister, Wilson-Raybould told the committee that “Gerry said ‘Jess, there is no solution here that doesn’t involve some interference.’”

According to Wilson-Raybould, Prince told her, “Katie was like, ‘We don’t want to debate legalities anymore’ … They kept being, like, ‘We aren’t lawyers, but there has to be some solution here.’”

No doubt, Trudeau operatives and fanboys whose sense of morality depend on party affiliation will be contorting themselves almost beyond human endurance to suggest that Jody Wilson Raybould's testimony exonerated Justin and his functionaries.

The critical thinker, on the other hand, will be deeply disturbed by yesterday's revelations.

And for voters like me, it is further fodder for the deep disenchantment and anger we cannot help but feel over the squandering of potential. Justin Trudeau and his team came to office promising so much. But from the betrayal of his electoral reform vow through to the purchase of a pipeline that gives the lie to climate change mitigation promises to the conducting of politics in the usual, corrupt way, the dark underside of the Prime Minister's "sunny ways" is now exposed for all to see.

A Cowardly Silence

Human nature is a strange, wondrous, and sometimes shameful thing. For every Nelson Mandela who takes a stand against arbitrary authority, there are countless millions who will simply go along to get along. If an edict, no matter how obviously wrong or unethical, is issued in the name of authority, it is usually obeyed.

"I was just following orders" is a refrain that echoes throughout modern history.

An egregious example of such is surely to be found in this story from Ontario.

The provincial government quietly ordered autism service providers last September to stop admitting new children for therapy and to keep parents in the dark about the move, documents obtained by the Star reveal.

Internal documents — from the Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services and senior administrators of nine regional service providers — state that the 23,000-child wait-list for autism therapy was closed because of “financial pressures.”

While the Ontario government, led by Doug Ford, and Lisa MacLeod, his Children’s Minister, deny any wrongdoing, memos obtained by The Star paint a totally different picture:

The documents obtained by the Star reveal that the waiting list for therapy has been closed for five months unbeknownst to parents. And while therapists could have been seeing new children during that time, they were instead ordered to spend their extra time elsewhere.

And autism service providers were asked to be complicit in this deception:

A Sept. 27 email to staff from a senior administrator at one service provider states: “As of this afternoon, we have been asked to ‘pause’ on making calls to families (on the wait-list) … We have been assured that this is very short term, and as soon as we get more information from the ministry on how to proceed we will share it.”

Another email to staff from a service provider the following month reveals how the ministry wanted inquiries from parents to be handled: “Note that the ministry has asked us not to stray outside of their messaging (e.g. we would not tell families directly that there will be no service offers…”

And the reason for this immoral obfuscation boils down to politics. One therapist, speaking anonymously for fear of reprisal,

... argued that there are far fewer than 23,000 children on the waiting list. But by freezing the list, the government has allowed the numbers to grow in an attempt to justify its changes...

Those changes include hard caps and severe reductions in funding for each family with an autistic child, changes that have provoked a firestorm of protest at Queens Park.

My point, however, is how readily autism service-providers complied with this government order of secrecy, while at the same time knowing they could be helping more children:

In an interview, one therapist said that she and her co-workers could have been helping new children on the wait-list all this time.

“There was capacity. We did have space on our caseload to pick up children from the wait list but we couldn’t,” said the therapist who spoke on the condition of anonymity because she was not authorized to give media interviews.

And yet they said nothing. Indeed, were it not for the investigative efforts of The Star, this sordid story would never have come to light.

To a one, autism therapists should be deeply and thoroughly ashamed of their collective silence. There can be no excuse for such craven collaboration.

Following The Trail Home

Letter-writers in today's Star ask questions that demand to be answered. The first makes a point that occurred to me early on when SNC-Lavalin averred that bribery and fraud charges were the result of rogue employees, an oft-used disclaimer by those seeking to evade criminal responsibility:

Re PM loses top aide, Feb. 19

This excellent article mentions that SNC-Lavalin has pleaded not guilty to bribery and fraud charges related to its work in Libya, saying any wrongdoing or illicit payments made to the regime of Moammar Gadhafi were made by employees without its consent.

It seems highly unlikely that those employees would fund such initiatives out of their own pockets. Once again, the key to unravelling sordid affairs of this nature is to follow the money.

Harry J. Rollo, Toronto

The SNC-Lavalin affair seems to be mostly about our prime minister doing all kinds of things to keep that company running as it is now. Why is he doing this? It smells like money.

First, the company is well-known to be a strong supporter of the Liberal Party. More importantly, the goods the company manufactures in Canada for export ensure a steady flow of money into the federal treasury.

Note that this includes war materials sold, indirectly, to Saudi Arabia. Does this not matter to us?

Alan Craig, Brampton

Then again, perhaps the above writers are clinging to a sense of morality and justice that is quickly becoming but a quaint notion. If so, our nation has deeper problems than the hyped-up loss of 50,000 jobs should SNC-Lavalin be held accountable for its crimes. (Have we no other engineering companies in Canada to bid on contracts and employ people?)

For What It's Worth

I would like to use this post to comment on one of the questions swirling around the resignation of Jody Wilson-Raybould, one that came up yet again on last night's At Issue panel:

Why did Wilson-Raybould wait until she was was moved to Veterans Affairs to resign from cabinet?

The implication of the question is that hers was a 'sour-grapes' resignation, not a principled one, since the time to resign was when she felt she was being pressured to change her mind about the criminal prosecution of SNC-Lavalin. Indeed, early on in this scandal, Justin Trudeau cited her ongoing presence in the cabinet as evidence of her contentment, after which the former Justice Minister resigned.

I beg to differ. And I believe yesterday's testimony to the justice committee by Michael Wernick, the clerk of the privy council, sheds some light on this sordid episode; pertinent are three meetings in particular:

The first was a meeting on Sept. 17 between himself, the prime minister and Wilson-Raybould.

... Wilson-Raybould told the prime minister that a deferred prosecution agreement “was not a good course and she had no intention of intervening,” Wernick recalled. In turn, the prime minister told Wilson-Raybould the decision to intervene in the case was hers alone, he said.

Ergo, it is clear that Wilson-Raybould had made her decision not to direct the Public Prosecutor to offer SNC-Lavalin a DPA (deffered prosecution agreement). If we are to take Wernick's testimony at its face value, that should have been the end of the matter if, indeed, Trudeau said it were her decision alone.

The next event he predicted Wilson-Raybould would raise was a conversation between her chief of staff and officials from the Prime Minister’s Office on Dec. 18. Wernick, however, said he was not there and is not aware of what transpired.

Strangely, although Wernick claims no knowledge of the nature of the meeting, he predicts she will bring it up in her testimony.

Finally, Wernick highlighted his own conversation with Wilson-Raybould on Dec. 19. Wernick said he wanted to “check in” with her on SNC-Lavalin and the possibility of mediating the criminal charges against the company, as well as other legal issues before the government.

“I conveyed to her that a lot of her colleagues and the prime minister were quite anxious about what they were hearing and reading in the business press about the future of the company, the options that were being openly discussed in the business press about the company moving or closing,” Wernick said.

Asked later if he pressured Wilson-Raybould to intervene in the case and halt the SNC-Lavalin prosecution, Wernick said no — he doesn’t believe he improperly pressured her.

“There’s pressure to get it right on every decision, to approve, to not approve, to act, to not act. I am quite sure the minister felt pressure to get it right,” he said.

“Part of my conversation,” he added, “was conveying context that there were a lot of people worried about what would happen, the consequences — not for her — the consequences for the workers in the communities and the suppliers.”

Now, many will argue, as Wernick himself did, that there was nothing improper about these meetings and that he didn't consider them to constitute undue pressure. We all know that politics is a rough and tough arena, so that may well be. I do not have the expertise to make that assessment. But I do have some thinking ability, and here is where it has led:

To return to the point I began with, the character-undermining question being asked is why Raybould-Wilson did not immediately resign if she felt she was being pressured to change her decision. My question (and answer) is, why would she?

She had remained firm in her conviction that SNC-Lavalin should receive no preferential treatment. She had received the assurance from Mr. Trudeau that the decision was hers alone. She successfully weathered pressure from both the PM and the PMO to change her mind. Presumably, she felt that she had prevailed in upholding her own principles in the matter, and the issue was closed. Until, of course, it wasn't.

On February 11, Wilson-Raybould tendered her resignation, mere hours after Trudeau publicly declared all was well, attested to by her ongoing presence in the cabinet. I suspect this assertion was the breaking point for Raybould-Wilson, that and the likely belief that her replacement as Justice Minister, David Lametti, would ultimately order a DPA.

In his testimony yesterday, Michael Wernick expressed his fears about the direction in which Canada is heading. He

told MPs he’s worried Canadians could lose “faith in the institutions of governance in this country.”

As a citizen who loves Canada, I have the same fears. However, Messieurs Wernick and Trudeau should look to their own house as one source of this crisis of faith. Justin Trudeau came to office with great promises, including 'doing politics' in a new way.

In that, he would seem to have failed abysmally.

Dissecting Justin

The first cut, they say, is the deepest.



And now, for something completely different:

Breaking News: Gerald Butts Resigns!

For those who claim the SNC-Lavalin affair is much ado about nothing, this is certainly an interesting development:

OTTAWA—Gerald Butts, Justin Trudeau's principal secretary and long-time friend, has resigned amid allegations that the Prime Minister's Office interfered to prevent a criminal prosecution of SNC-Lavalin.

In a statement, Butts unequivocally denies the accusation that he or anyone else in the office improperly pressured former attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould to help the Montreal engineering giant avoid a criminal case on corruption and bribery charges related to government contracts in Libya.

Yeah, I forgot. It is always the innocent who resign.

Mike Pence's Very Bad Day

Speaking at the Munich Security Conference in Germany, Vice- President Mike Pence quickly realized that things were not going as planned. The rest of the world can, I hope, rejoice at the strong message he receives in the following:

Speaking to a security conference in Munich, Pence tells his audience he brings greetings from President Trump... and not a single person claps. #awkward pic.twitter.com/JkFpsKqfgk

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 16, 2019

But wait! There's more! Note the juxtaposition of the following, where only one person in the room withholds her applause for Angela Merkel.

OMG -- Pence was visibly shook in Poland when he received absolutely no reaction to what was clearly supposed to be an applause line about how "the time has come for our European partners to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal." pic.twitter.com/biRxARZkcM

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 16, 2019

It would seem that actions, or the absence thereof, do indeed speak louder than words.

The 'Evolving' Story Of Justin And Jody

Evolving is one of those words I have never particularly cared for. It can, and should, of course, most be used when pertaining to the growth and change over time of various forms of life. Too often, however, it is used as a weasel word, one that is employed to try to suggest that the first answer was incomplete rather than a lie. For a good illustration of this tactic, read about Donald Trump's evolving justifications for a border wall.

In the Justin Trudeau SNC-Lavalin Jody-Wilson Raybould imboglio, I believe we are now witnessing a concerted effort on the part of the Prime Minister and his functionaries to 'evolve' their explanation of this sordid business. Consider, for example, what the country's doe-eyed leader had to say just the other day as he engaged in some victim-blaming:



According to this story, Justin was absolutely blind-sided by her unhappiness.

Now, that 'story' has 'evolved':




Presumably, this public admission was prompted by the Trudeau government's fear that Wilson-Raybould's version of events will soon be made known; hence, repeating his denial that he "directed" her on the SNC-Lavalin file would seem to be a safe bet, since she apparently specifically asked him whether this was the case. However, where the story falters and whose spin may give those prone to vertigo some problems is that he said, as shown in the first clip, that she did not express any concerns to him.

The two stories obviously can't both be true, unless we are to believe the question was asked and answered so casually that both went away whistling a happy tune. But for those of us who care to think and are not in the thrall of misplaced party loyalty, common sense dictates that the exchange must have been fuller, with her providing a context for the question (i.e., pressure from the PMO).

So the ostensibly corrupt machinations of the old Liberals continue apace. Somehow, I wonder whether this particular manifestation of diseased morality will ever be fully exposed to the light of day.

Just Who Was The DPA Enacted To Help?

If you watch the following interview with law professor Jennifer Quaid, you will find her take on the Omnibus Bill provision for the DPA (deferred prosecution agreement) that SNC-Lavalin salivates over very, very disturbing. Start at about the 1:40 mark. The big 'reveal' is at the 4-minute mark, when Quaid discusses what she claims is an open secret:



Of course, the Liberals denied any such assertion during yesterday's committee meeting, as they

... denounced Opposition suggestions that SNC-Lavalin had gotten the Liberal government to change the law to allow deferred prosecutions for companies like the Quebec engineering giant facing fraud charges.

In the closest thing to an explanation anyone on the government benches has offered for the change since the scandal broke last week, Boissonault said Canada adopted the legal change to allow deferred prosecutions for companies facing fraud charges to align with its trading allies and called Opposition allegations of political favouritism “specious.”

If the allegations are true, this is a far, far bigger scandal than simply trying to pressure Wilson-Raybould to go easy on SNC-Lavalin. It reeks of the rankest corruption imaginable.

A Political Mushroom Cloud

An atomic usually bomb expands its destructive range outward, so it is perhaps understandable that Mr. Trudeau does not yet realize he has unleashed a weapon of mass destruction whose fallout will eventually land back on him.



And here is what The Tyee writes:

...certain Liberal pundits who evidently didn’t get the sunny-feminist-ways memo have been indulging in character assassination, running a whisper campaign that Wilson-Raybould is not a team player, is difficult — one even said on the CBC that she is reputed to be incompetent. This feels very familiar to many women across the country, now rolling their eyes, recognizing this for the stereotypical cheap shots against women who beg to differ.

Ah, the politics of symbolism. Perhaps Trudeau et al. forgot that the MP for Vancouver- Granville is a powerful political and professional actor in her own right. She has a heritage of illustrious politicians in the Kwakwaka’wakw Nation. She has served as Crown Prosecutor in British Columbia, as a Treaty Commissioner, and as Regional Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, places where competence and political acumen are valued. Her public contributions are likely far from over. She is not someone to be messed with and she’s nobody’s trophy.

UPDATED: Sounds Like A Version Of Victim-Blaming To Me

I doubt that this performance will endear Mr. Trudeau to women or indigenous communities:




UPDATE: Chantal Hebert explores the optics of Trudeau's take-no-prisoners strategy:

Trudeau may hope to tilt the balance of public opinion in his favour by undermining Wilson-Raybould’s credibility. But he should worry about a boomerang effect on his already damaged moral authority.

The optics of this prime minister attacking the integrity of a prominent Indigenous champion is already dismally poor. The fact that this crisis pits Trudeau against one of the highest-profile women in his caucus makes for a lethal political combination.

The last thing the prime minister needs at a time when he has bridges to repair with the Indigenous community is to give Canadian women — including some of those around him in the House of Commons — cause to close ranks behind Wilson-Raybould.

Breaking News! Wilson-Raybould Has Resigned

You can read her official announcement here.

UPDATED: Where Is The Public Good In All Of This?

H/t Greg Perry

His fulminations about the need for a public inquiry notwithstanding, it should surprise no one that Conservative leader Andrew Scheer met with officials of SNC-Lavalin to discuss the criminal charges they were facing. But to simply accuse him of his obvious hypocrisy and dismiss the controversy of Justin Trudeau's alleged attempt to interfere with the pursuit of justice is surely to ignore the increasingly fetid odour emanating from his office.

Consider, for example, what Canada's top prosecutor has to say about political and corporate interference in prosecutorial decisions:

In Federal Court documents obtained by the Star, [Kathleen] Roussel responds to SNC-Lavalin, saying that it has no legal right or entitlement to any deal; that prosecutors are independent with broad discretion on how to proceed with charges; and that under the Constitution, prosecutors are free from political or judicial interference.

She says the law passed last year allowing for what is called “deferred prosecution agreements” (a new regime that was stuffed into an omnibus budget bill) [the very kind of bill the Liberals railed against while in opposition - funny how the perch of power changes one's perspective, eh?] is explicit about what factors prosecutors must not consider in corruption cases:

“The prosecutor must not consider the national economic interest, the potential effect on relations with a state other than Canada or the identity of the organization or individual involved” where an organization is charged under the Corruption of Foreign Public Officials Act, as in SNC-Lavalin’s case.

In other words, the the director of public prosecutions is arguing that, while the law sets out other criteria Roussel could consider when weighing the public interest, she’s not allowed by law to consider whether a company is too big to fail.

Implicit is that the administration of justice should be the guiding principle behind the pursuit of cases, neither corporate nor political considerations being part of the formula.

The written brief also takes a strong stand against any political interference in prosecutorial decisions, saying it “could erode the integrity of our system of prosecution.”

And it is integrity that should be our uppermost consideration. We have, in this country, the likely accurate perception that there are two kinds of justice: one for the powerful and entitled, and another for the rest of us. To willfully and cravenly defer prosecution on the basis of who the accused is would further erode public confidence in our institutions at a time when there are many forces, both within and without, committed to sowing division and disunity.

More cynicism is the last thing we need today. It is time for the Trudeau government to pull in its neoliberal horns, respect the independence of the federal prosecutor's office, and allow the corporate chips to fall where they may.

UPDATE: An interesting new development:

The federal ethics commissioner has launched an investigation into allegations that former justice minister Jody Wilson-Raybould was pressured by the prime minister’s office to seek mediation instead of pursuing criminal charges against Quebec construction giant, SNC-Lavalin.

Mario Dion, the conflict of interest and ethics commissioner, confirmed in a letter to two NDP MPs that he would probe allegations that became public last week.

In his letter, Dion says that based on the complaint by the two MPs, media reports and other information, he has “reason to believe” that a possible contravention of section 9 of the Conflict of Interest Act has occurred.

That section prohibits a public office holder from seeking to influence a decision of another person to improperly further another person’s private interests.

The Shameful Behaviour Of Pharmaceuticals

Daniel Dale recently wrote a piece about how a provision in the new NAFTA could lead to higher drug costs in Canada.

Some Democrats are demanding a change to a rule that would require the U.S., Canada and Mexico to protect the intellectual property behind sophisticated and expensive drugs known as biologics for at least 10 years.

These Democrats, like Canada’s generic drug industry, warn that the new biologics rule would keep drug prices high by requiring citizens to wait longer before they can get their hands on lower-cost similar drugs known as biosimilars.

We would be wise to heed the warning.

If you have seen the Netflix documentary series Dirty Money, the episode on Valeant Pharmaceuticals is quite revealing, illustrating the rapacity of an industry whose interests lie in maximizing profits, often at the very real expense (literal and figurative) of the people it is supposed to serve. If you watch the episode, you will see that Valeant became little more than a hedge fund, buying up other drug companies for their patents, slashing R&D while at the same time rasing drug costs exorbitantly.

The following video is another story of pharmaceutical corporate greed, one that should serve as a wake-up call to all of us. It tells the tale of a drug that had been provided free of charge but is now available only for those who can pay $375,000 per year.



We are constantly told that business does things better. If that involves exploiting human misery, you will get no argument from me.

Some Habits Die Hard

In some ways, it is hard to believe that the old Liberal propensity for corrupt coziness with corporate chums has reasserted itself so quickly, barely three years into Mr. Trudeau's tenure. In other ways, it is not hard to believe at all. After all, old habits die hard.

Th latest allegation is that Trudeau tried to influence former justice minister Jody Wilson-Raybould to help SNC-Lavalin avoid a criminal prosecution for bribery of Libyan officials in order to secure business contracts. It is an allegation the Prime Minister stoutly denies, but the fact is that Wilson-Raybould was recently demoted to Veterans Affairs.

Cause and effect? The smell of a smoking gun is in the air.

First, there is what has been described as Trudeau's legalistic denial in response to reporters' and House of Commons' questions:

“The allegations in the Globe story this morning are false,” Trudeau told reporters Thursday in Vaughan. “Neither the current nor the previous attorney-general was directed by me or anyone in my office to take a decision in this matter.”

The new justice minister, David Lametti, repeated Trudeau's words in answering the charge of interference in the House.

So, are we simply jumping to judgement, based on little or no evidence? The Toronto Star doesn't think so.

And what communications, if any, did members of Trudeau’s office have with Wilson-Raybould and her office on this issue? These are questions that can’t simply be waved away with a carefully worded blanket denial. The Globe reported that the company lobbied federal officials more than 50 times since 2017 on “justice” and “law enforcement” issues, including 14 times with Trudeau’s closest advisers in the PMO.

What exactly did they discuss? Did it include the possibility of SNC-Lavalin benefitting from a so-called remediation agreement that would allow the company to avoid a criminal trial on serious fraud and corruption charges (and therefore remain eligible for lucrative government contracts)?

And what communications, if any, did members of Trudeau’s office have with Wilson-Raybould and her office on this issue?

These are questions that can’t simply be waved away with a carefully worded blanket denial.

Susan Delacourt finds Wilson-Raybould's silence on the matter quite telling:

... she didn’t have a thing to say in the wake of the Globe and Mail’s explosive story of how the former justice minister reportedly stood in the way of a deal to let SNC-Lavalin detour around prosecutions that could have blocked it from receiving government contracts for years to come.

“That is between me and the government as the government’s previous lawyer,” Wilson-Raybould was quoted as saying in the Globe’s scoop, as well as a cryptic, “I don’t have a comment on that,” in reply to more pointed questions about how she handled the SNC-Lavalin case.

Pro tip: “No comment” only works as a clever misdirection in fictionalized political journalism. In real life, it is often regarded as confirmation.

Did she speak truth to power?

Delacourt attended a Robbie Burns dinner last week in which Liberal MP Celina Caesar-Chavannes took jabs at her own government:

One of those jabs was aimed squarely at the ouster of Wilson-Raybould from the justice job, and a joke about how an Indigenous woman lost her post for doing it well and unsettling the “white man.”

None of which 'proves' these allegations. However, it is worth noting that SNC-Lavalin, a Quebec company, has had a long relationship with the Liberal Party of Canada, even when it was out of power:

SNC-Lavalin, many were reminding us on Thursday, was the same firm that was detouring around election laws for much of that decade to put roughly $110,000 in the party’s pocket in those lean years.

And so, an old pattern re-emerges. Coupled with Trudeau's stout defence and dismissal of allegations regarding his good friend and fundraiser Stephen Bronfman over what was revealed about offshore accounts in the Panama Papers, as well as the CRA foot-dragging in going after the big corporate cheats who operate such accounts, one can justifiably wonder whose interests the Prime Minister really is protecting.

This may rankle those who believe a Liberal government should never be criticized, given the poor alternatives, but to take such a position is to be willfully and woefully ignorant.

Lord knows we have enough of that already today.

Far Less Than Meets The Eye

The moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; those who are in the shadows of life; the sick, the needy and the handicapped.

-Hubert Humphrey

By the above standard, Ontario is quickly heading for a damning assessment. Under the self-proclaimed "government for the people," the buffoonish thugs collectively known as the Doug Ford regime are moving quickly to make the province a decidedly inhospitable place for the vulnerable. With a tacit philosophy of short-term gain for long-term pain, Community and Social Services Minister Lisa Macleod is promising to clear a long waiting list for autism treatment by giving treatment dollars directly to families.

Macleod says the amount of funding will depend on the length of time a child will be in the program, and support will be targeted to lower and middle-income families.

A child entering the program at age two would be eligible to receive up to $140 000 for treatment, while a child entering the program at age seven would receive up to $55 000.

If you watch the following video, you will learn how wholly inadequate this funding model will be:


And here is another story that brings home the point equally poignantly:



Should you wish to learn more about the devastation this new policy will wreak for the 'ordinary folks' Ford purports to serve, please click here.

Today's Star editorial most succinctly sums up the bait-and-switch nature of the government's new approach:

All the government has done is to distribute the current $321-million budget for autism services among far more people. That means less support and services for everyone who is eligible. And not everyone is eligible anymore, since the government has decided to deny families with incomes over $250,000 the right to even access this aspect of publicly funded health care.

Increasingly, I suspect Ontarians are experiencing buyer's regret in their electoral choice. Unfortunately, by the time such remorse sets in, it is usually too late, and the damage done by reactionary voting is extensive and long-lasting.

Better luck next time, eh?

Here Is The Super Bowl Ad GM Didn't Want You To See

Despite their best efforts to block it, it still ran:

A Powerful, Impassioned Message From Ellen Page

One that needs no comment from me:

Thank you Ellen Page. pic.twitter.com/Ykdn2z7J1W

— Red T Raccoon (@RedTRaccoon) February 1, 2019

Ship Of Fools

To the untutored and blunt mind, the world is black and white. Incapable of nuanced thinking, it apprehends things only as they immediately appear. While, as the old saying goes, a mind is a terrible thing to waste, when that mind resides in the President of the United States, it is both tragic and terrifying:

In the beautiful Midwest, windchill temperatures are reaching minus 60 degrees, the coldest ever recorded. In coming days, expected to get even colder. People can’t last outside even for minutes. What the hell is going on with Global Waming? Please come back fast, we need you!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 29, 2019

This, of course, is not the first time that Americans have had to endure a national leader with limited intellect. The difference under Trump, however, is that the usual correcting mechanisms are absent. First, like the fool he is, Trump thinks he is the smartest guy in the room. Hence, his reaction to the Worldwide Threat Assessment of the U.S Intelligence Committee:

The Intelligence people seem to be extremely passive and naive when it comes to the dangers of Iran. They are wrong! When I became President Iran was making trouble all over the Middle East, and beyond. Since ending the terrible Iran Nuclear Deal, they are MUCH different, but....

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 30, 2019

....a source of potential danger and conflict. They are testing Rockets (last week) and more, and are coming very close to the edge. There economy is now crashing, which is the only thing holding them back. Be careful of Iran. Perhaps Intelligence should go back to school!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 30, 2019

No matter what the threat assessment asserts, be it the dangers of Russia or China or global warming, or the fact that Iran has been abiding by the nuclear pact, Trump knows better. Compounding, aiding and abetting his massive ego and ignorance is a White House staffed with spineless quislings. One of the most public faces of that quisling cadre is Sarah Sanders, who suggests our hearts should not be troubled, claiming that God wanted Trump to become president.

You need only watch the first minute of the following, if you can stomach even that much:



The current American ship of state is a ship of fools. Hopefully, it will sink soon beneath the waves of history, taking the entire incompetent crew with it.

It is the only way forward for such an extraordinarily troubled nation.

Still Here

I haven't been posting much lately, and will probably do so sparingly for the next little while. The problem is that I can think of very little that is in any way constructive, filled as I currently am with a bleak and cynical picture of our species. Just to illustrate, I shall offer two brief videos that amply demonstrate a short-sighted and foolish humanity.

Exhibit One: While there can be few people who are unaware of the juggernaut of climate change quickly overtaking us and the need to reduce our consumption of fossil fuels, like Pavlovian dogs (no disrespect to canines intended) they react to lower gas prices by doing this:



For Exhibit Two, please advance to the 18-minute mark of the following:



So I think I shall lay low for a little while, try to return to some semblance of equilibrium (admittedly difficult, given that I live in Doug Ford's Ontario, where education is the latest institution under attack. And that, my friends, is a whole other magnitude of stupid.)

Things We Don't Know

One of the things I have always used this blog for is to bring to readers' notice things they might be unaware of. For example, although most of us know something about the environmental and fiscal impact of rapidly filling landfills, how many of us are aware that almost 85% of mattresses can be diverted from them and recycled?

Imagine what we could achieve if the efforts outlined in the following report were to be adopted nation-wide:

The Way We Were

At the risk of being accused of "old-fartism," I offer the following which a Facebook friend posted. While I don't agree with the implicit and explicit denigration of the young in the post, it does serve as a reminder of certain advantages Western lifestyles of yore possessed.

Checking out at the store, the young cashier suggested to the much older lady that she should bring her own grocery bags, because plastic bags are not good for the environment. The woman apologized to the young girl and explained, "We didn't have this 'green thing' back in my earlier days."

The young clerk responded, "That's our problem today. Your generation did not care enough to save our environment for future generations."

The older lady said that she was right -- our generation didn't have the "green thing" in its day. The older lady went on to explain:
Back then, we returned milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over. So they really were recycled. But we didn't have the "green thing" back in our day.

Grocery stores bagged our groceries in brown paper bags that we reused for numerous things. Most memorable besides household garbage bags was the use of brown paper bags as book covers for our school books. This was to ensure that public property (the books provided for our use by the school) was not defaced by our scribblings. Then we were able to personalize our books on the brown paper bags. But, too bad we didn't do the "green thing" back then.

We walked up stairs because we didn't have an escalator in every store and office building. We walked to the grocery store and didn't climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks.

But she was right. We didn't have the "green thing" in our day.

Back then we washed the baby's diapers because we didn't have the throw away kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy-gobbling machine burning up 220 volts. Wind and solar power really did dry our clothes back in our early days. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing.

But that young lady is right; we didn't have the "green thing" back in our day.

Back then we had one TV, or radio, in the house -- not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief (remember them?), not a screen the size of the state of Montana. In the kitchen we blended and stirred by hand because we didn't have electric machines to do everything for us. When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used wadded up old newspapers to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap. Back then, we didn't fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn. We used a push mower that ran on human power. We exercised by working so we didn't need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity.

But she's right; we didn't have the "green thing" back then.

We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water. We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced the razor blade in a r azor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull.

But we didn't have the "green thing" back then.

Back then, people took the streetcar or a bus and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their moms into a 24-hour taxi service in the family's $45,000 SUV or van, which cost what a whole house did before the"green thing." We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And we didn't need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 23,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest burger joint.

But isn't it sad the current generation laments how wasteful we old folks were just because we didn't have the "green thing" back then?

Please forward this on to another selfish old person who needs a lesson in conservation from a smart ass young person.

So, Anything New To Report?

Well, the world becomes harder to understand. Despite my many years on this earth, the irrationality of humans is still the thing that most perplexes me. Despite the fact that it is much later than we like to think, we are still partying like it is the 1950's. And payment is coming due.

Kendra Pierre-Louis reports that the world's oceans are warming 40% faster than had been previously estimated:

“2018 is going to be the warmest year on record for the Earth’s oceans,” said Zeke Hausfather, an energy systems analyst at the independent climate research group Berkeley Earth and an author of the study. “As 2017 was the warmest year, and 2016 was the warmest year.”

The fact that the oceans are absorbing so much heat means that surface temperatures are not nearly as high as they would be without this buffer. However, there is a massive downside to this reprieve:

... the surging water temperatures are already killing off marine ecosystems, raising sea levels and making hurricanes more destructive.

As the oceans continue to heat up, those effects will become more catastrophic, scientists say. Rainier, more powerful storms like Hurricane Harvey in 2017 and Hurricane Florence in 2018 will become more common, and coastlines around the world will flood more frequently. Coral reefs, whose fish populations are sources of food for hundreds of millions of people, will come under increasing stress; a fifth of all corals have already died in the past three years.

An additional effect is rising sea levels.

As the oceans heat up, sea levels rise because warmer water takes up more space than colder water. In fact, most of the sea level rise observed to date is because of this warming effect, not melting ice caps.

The warming alone would cause sea levels to rise by about a foot by 2100, and the ice caps would contribute more. That could exacerbate damages from severe coastal flooding and storm surge.

Some of the worst effects of climate change were once thought to be waiting until 2050 and beyond, a measure of time people had a hard time getting agitated about. The fact that some of those worse effects are already being felt through more intense storms, hurricanes, wildfires, etc. should be sobering.

And yet we largely continue to ignore all of this, get outraged at the mere mention of piddling carbon taxes and felt massively aggrieved when people suggest moderation of our bloated, carbon-intensive lifestyles.

Can our species be saved or, more to the point perhaps, do we deserve any manner of salvation from what we have wrought?

A Further Descent Into Banana Republicanism

While the Toddller-in-Chief continues with his temper tantrum, and the American government shutdown is now in its third week, it is good to know that unpaid federal workers are not being forgotten. Indeed, the U.S. Coastguard has offered a plethora of suggestions as to how its employees can get through these difficult times.

I'm sure they will make all the difference in the world:

- Have a garage sale - clean out your attic, basement and closets at the same time.

- Sell unwanted, larger ticket items through the newspaper or online.

- Offer to watch children, walk pets or house-sit.

- Turn you hobby nto income

-Have untapped teaching skills and expertise? Tutor students, give music or sports lessons.

- Become a mystery shoppers. Retailers are desperate to check how their in-store customer service is and will employ you to shop and rate their
service.

It must be comforting to all that in this time of crisis, good old American know-how and stick-to-it-ness will win the day.

UPDATED: A Breath Of Fresh Air

Newly-elected Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez articulates the kind of values that progressives pine for in their political leaders. Given the gladiatorial nature of American politics, the chances of her vision coming to fruition are probably slight; however, just getting her ideas out there in the public arena is an accomplishment, one sure to spark a great deal of heated discussion in many quarters.

While the following video is about 14 minutes in length, even watching just a few minutes will give you a measure of the woman:



You can read more about her, and see additional video, here.

UPDATE: Predictably, the perpetually aggrieved and threatened and outraged rabid right has already launched a full frontal assault on Ocasion-Cortez.

Things We Would Like To Forget

One of the benefits of receiving the print edition of the Toronto Star seven days a week is the Sunday edition. While not necessarily replete with news, the Sunday paper frequently embraces the opportunity to explore issues in depth. Today, Mitch Potter looks at an aspect of Canada's bigoted past, something, I suspect, we would all like to forget.

Unfortunately, I cannot provide a link, as it is not on the Star website, but here are some excerpts:

Let’s start with the seemingly benign but in fact casually racist phrase “Restricted Clientele” — a phrase that appears in a wide range of old advertisements for jobs, apartments and resorts in and around Toronto.

It wasn’t just Toronto advertisers that employed the words. “Restricted Clientele” can be found in old newspaper ads from Vermont to Miami. Unpack the phrase and it bleeds blatant anti-Semitism and white supremacy.

A few examples: a mid-’30s ad for the now-defunct Beaumaris Hotel and Yacht Club in Muskoka offering sumptuous accommodation and “cuisine par excellent” with the glaring caveat, “Restricted Clientele.” Nearer to home, a 1935 classified ad for “attractive, newly decorated rooms with screened verandas” on Centre Island in Toronto Harbour, “Restricted Clientele.”

A cluster of ads for ski resorts in the Laurentian Mountains entices Torontonians to make the journey “90 miles north of Montreal” to sample the best runs this side of the Rockies. A majority of those ads include the phrase “Restricted Clientele” but one in particular, a1941 ad for Mont Tremblant Lodge, juxtaposes that small-type condition beneath a much larger banner message proclaiming, “Skiing For All.” What they are really saying is “Skiing for all white people, excluding Jews.”

Of course, "restrictive clientele" is a euphemism, a phrase that sounds innocent but obscures an ugly truth. Oftentimes, such niceties were disposed of entirely, and the prejudice was quite blatant:

... far more direct — is the phrase “Gentiles Only,” which recurs in Star classified ads throughout the first third of the 20th century. Here’s a typical example from the mid’30s: “A fast-growing factory has a good opportunity for two neat, quiet women to fill good permanent positions. Gentiles only.”

Or how about this one?

... the Toronto-based Independent Order of Foresters, a fraternal benefit society that was among the first to offer not just friendship but to extend insurance benefits to average working families... in 1937 — Foresters launched a series of ads championing the organization ... All seven of the ads include these three toxic words: “White race only.”

Uncomfortably, racist exclusions were relatively common in the last century, and they extended into home ownership. In 1944, a Toronto labour group, The Workers’ Education Association (WEA)

announced it had developed plans for “ideal workingman’s home.”...The price: just $4,700.

But there was a catch:

... when WEA officials purchased the property, they discovered an unwelcome surprise on the deed: a so-called “restrictive covenant” preventing the land from being sold to “Jews or persons of objectionable nationality.”

While such covenants on new developments were ultimately struck down, old ones were allowed to remain. Consider the section of Hamilton, Ontario known as Westdale:

Westdale was envisioned as an exclusive white Protestant neighbourhood. Specific groups such as blacks, Asians, Slavs, and Jews were unable to purchase homes; near the end of the Second World War restrictions upon Jewish home ownership were lifted whereupon many relocated from the central part of the city. However, legal loopholes allowed for discrimination to persist into the 1950s.

The lessons of history are often ignored. However, with bigotry increasingly rearing its ugly head worldwide, now would be a good time to make an effort to remember our recent past, lest we make the same mistakes again.

What Fools These Mortals Be!

We humans are a strange species. Despite access to almost unlimited information and data, far too many prefer to notice only what is front of them at the present moment, simply reacting rather than anticipating and planning. Probably the best illustration of this is the fact that the majority of countries, and this certainly includes Canada, wring their hands when disaster strikes and pay the upfront costs of many billions of dollars instead of putting that money to better use: mitigating climate change and adapting to it. Interestingly, at least in Canada, that shortsightedness breaks down somewhat along gender lines, as you will see shortly.

If you have five minutes to spare, three stories, beginning at the four-minute mark, amply illustrate the above:

A Note of Thanks To A Very Important Group

I am currently reading a book by Seymour Hersh called Reporter. If you are unfamiliar with him, click on the link I have attached to his name, and you will see what a long and distinguished career he has had as an investigative reporter who first notified the world of the My Lai Massacre, one of the mos egregious war crimes committed by the United States during the Vietnam War.

Although I have read only about 100 pages thus far, the book serves as a reminder of the very hard work, determination and integrity that are the foundations of true journalism. I highly recommend the book.

Since this is the end of the year, may I also suggest that you read this Star editorial, which begins as follows:

When U.S. President Donald Trump, the purported leader of the free world, calls members of the media “enemies of the people” and refers to anything critical of him as “fake news,” it’s clear that freedom of the press, one of the pillars of democracy, is imperilled.

And so are the lives of too many journalists.

Indeed, Reporters Without Borders says 63 professional journalists were killed around the world in 2018 as a result of doing their jobs, a 15 per cent increase over the previous year. It blamed their deaths on “the hatred of journalists that is voiced, and sometimes very openly proclaimed, by unscrupulous politicians, religious leaders and businessmen.”

The editorial then goes on to list the names of those killed this year, It is a sobering read.

Also in today's Star is a piece by the public editor, Kathy English, well worth perusal. Entitled What readers should know about journalism, it should be especially instructive to those who disdain contemporary journalism as "fake news" or adamantly refuse to pay for one of the true pillars of democracy.

I will leave you with an excerpt of a recent piece by Paul Berton, the Hamilton Spectator's editor-in-chief, in which he enumerates some of the reasons people should subscribe to a newspaper, reasons that should resonate with all of us:

1. A newspaper subscription, whether it's for print or digital editions, helps keep you informed.

2. It allows you to better understand the world around you.

3. It helps you live your life productively by giving you a glimpse of opportunities and new ideas.

4. It keeps you safer by reminding you of risks or pointing out new threats.

5. A newspaper — digital or print — is more reliable than an increasing number of other popular news and information platforms today. Reliable information is increasingly lost in the new wave of misinformation and disinformation.

6. Once you start reading the news regularly, it's a joy you'll look forward to and a habit that's hard to break.

7. It is said children who grow up in households where a newspaper is delivered are more likely to attend post-secondary education.

8. Journalism helps shape public policy, by telling you stuff governments often don't bother to, or indeed try to hide.

9. Journalists hold public officials to account.

10. Newspapers connect communities.

11. Newspapers tell us about each other.

12. Journalism helps us help each other, by sharing stories that spur action or charity.

13. Newspapers put the world in perspective, describing people who aren't as lucky as we are, whether they are sick neighbours or homeless people downtown, or refugees in far-off places such as Syria or Myanmar.

14. Journalism takes you places you've never been and places you may never go, whether these places are just down the road in an off-limits building, or in a remote valley in the Himalayas or a city in North Korea.

15. Newspapers tell us how we can aspire to something greater, by showing us what is possible, what can be done, who can do it, and how.

16. Journalists ask questions many are afraid to ask. They demand answers from people who are often reluctant to provide them.

17. Journalists tell us they've at least asked questions we are all curious about, even if answers are not forthcoming or available.

18. Responsible newspapers, and good journalists, believe in a balance of views and equal time for all reasonable viewpoints. We may not agree with all of it, but we try to reflect all views.

19. Good newspapers decry increasing polarization in society and try to promote healthy debate.

20. Journalists make the world a better place, despite increasing utterances to the contrary.

Happy New Year, everyone, and here is to a better informed, more critical-thinking 2019 populace.

Think Again, Canada

I sometimes feel that many Canadians are complacent about climate change, assuming that we will somehow be protected from the worst of its effects. As this CTV 2018 weather review amply illustrates, such thinking is unforgivably naive:

Calling The Rewrite Department

Also, a new cameraman, ideology and leader might not be a bad idea for the Conservative Party of Canada:

The Climate Year In Review

Go ahead. Tell me that climate change is an unproven theory.



Meanwhile, if you live here in Ontario, 2019 will likely prove at least as depressing as the second part of 2018 has been:

In the midst of this season of giving, a precious treasure is being taken from Ontarians; the hard-won tools that protect our environment are being stolen in broad daylight by a provincial government that claims the need to do this to fight “red tape” and make Ontario “Open for Business.”

It has taken Ontario’s current provincial government remarkably little time to sweep away an array of laws and policies that are crucial to the protection of Ontario’s natural environment and farmland. It took decades of discussion by previous Ontario governments, academics and other experts for these environmental safeguards to be finally put into place.

The heart and soul of the Environmental Bill of Rights Act is the oversight provided by the creation of an independent environmental commissioner. A bill to cut “red tape” strips the commissioner of many of her powers and much of her independence.

Similarly, the Greenbelt Protection Act, intended to give permanent protection to this area, became law in 2004 after decades of studies, planning and debate. The act was intended to give permanent protection to an ecosystem of forests, streams and farmland surrounding the Golden Horseshoe. Less than six months after their election, the Ford government has introduced legislation that opens the door to development within the Greenbelt.

It has also taken decades for governments, including Ontario’s, to accept that harmful climate change is real and to take action to slow its acceleration. Ontario’s cap-and-trade program was introduced less than two years ago by the former Liberal government.

By July of this year, the Ford government had repealed those regulations and quickly replaced them with a scheme which the environment commissioner considers only a fraction as effective as the one it replaced.

If this were a movie, it would be called How Doug Ford Stole Christmas.

The effects of the Grinch’s theft of Christmas presents were at least limited to inhabitants of the small village of Whoville. The same cannot be said of Doug Ford’s theft of some of our most precious gifts of a clean and healthy environment. The harm will be felt throughout Ontario by both present and future generations. Nor is there any evidence that the eventual redemption of Dr. Seuss’ Grinch will be replicated by Ontario’s Grinch. This movie is not likely to have a happy ending.

John Swaigen, Toronto

Payment Is Now Due

For those who don't want to be saddled with additional costs such as carbon taxes to battle climate change, may I humbly suggest that the price of doing nothing is even greater, as the following amply illustrates.

Start the video at the 4:15 mark:



Clearly, payment has come due.

On Demagogues Debasing Language

“[The English language] becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts... if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.”

― George Orwell, Politics and the English Language

The language sins of politicians are many, but there is surely a special place in hell for those whose distortions, lies and hyperbole ultimately render words meaningless. Such are the sins of demagogues like Donald Trump and Doug Ford.

While a single post cannot hope to address all the complexities of language abuse, I'd like to offer a very limited exploration of why language is so regularly debased today, especially by the aforementioned culprits:

1 - Neither Donald Trump nor Doug Ford is very bright. As Orwell said, our language becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish. The truth of this is readily apparent if, for example, one notes the fondness with which Donald Trump abuses the mother tongue.

Trump uses a pretty small working vocabulary. This doesn’t seem to be a conscious strategy, though it works as well as if it had been. Much was made during primary season of the way in which reading-level algorithms (unreliable though they are) found his speeches pitched at fourth-grade level, ie the comprehension of an average nine-year-old.

The workhorses of his rhetoric are charged but empty adjectives and adverbs. Things are “great”, “wonderful”, “amazing”, “the best”, or they’re “crooked”, “fake”, “unfair”, “failing”. He sprinkles intensifiers liberally: “a very, very, very amazing man, a great, great developer”.

Concisely put, the simple language mirrors a simple mind or, as the NYT succinctly put it, Trump has the intellectual depth of a coat of paint.

Like Donald Trump, Doug Ford's language reveals a paucity of intellectual heft, a fact reflected in his use of hyperboles, absolutes and superlatives. Consider his statement about chum Ron Taverner (found at the two-minute mark on the linked video):

"There's never been a more popular police officer in this province than Ron Taverner..."

"The front-line police officers, the OPP, are more excited than anyone. They're looking forward to actually having a commissioner that actually cares about the front-line people."

He will be the best commissioner that the OPP has ever seen."

And then there is this whopper:

He also praised Taverner as “a cop’s cop” and insisted OPP officers have been ringing his phone off the hook.

Sadly, people like Ford and Trump, as I wrote in a recent post, are oblivious to their limitations, instead fancying themselves to be the smartest person in the room. This delusion prompts them to make the kinds of statements that invite only ridicule and dismissal from discerning minds, while having a totally different effect on their base of supporters.

2 - A coincident fact is that supporters of demagogues tend to like language that is simple and direct. It helps to solidify their world as one of absolutes, either good or bad, black or white. Real thinking entails hard work, but because we tend to be a rather lazy species, when a politician offers the 'answers' without requiring any cerebration, many will readily swallow the Kool-Aid. A world of absolutes can be very comforting, and helps to demonstrate that the demagogue is 'a man of the people.'

Consider the above examples in this light: "great",“amazing”, “the best”. "He will be the best commissioner that the OPP has ever seen." There is no room for doubt in such language, is there?

And unfortunately, it can be very effective. In his 2016 book, “Enough Said: What’s Gone Wrong with the Language of Politics?”, Mark Thompson examined effect of Donald Trump's fractured pronouncements:

“Trump’s appeal as a presidential candidate depends significantly on the belief that he is a truth-teller who will have nothing to do with the conventional language of politics,” warning that:

“We shouldn’t confuse anti-rhetorical ‘truth telling’ with actually telling the truth. One of the advantages of this positioning is that once listeners are convinced that you’re not trying to deceive them in the manner of a regular politician, they may switch off the critical faculties they usually apply to political speech and forgive you any amount of exaggeration, contradiction, or offensiveness. And if establishment rivals or the media criticize you, your supporters may dismiss that as spin.”

Without doubt, this analysis is equally applicable to Mr. Ford's acolytes, who show cult-like to their man, despite his manifest incompetence, an incompetence that Martin Regg Cohn addresses at some length in his column today:

Our embattled premier is uniquely accursed because he is so often the author of his own misfortune. At year-end, Ford keeps running the ball into his own end zone — colliding with allies, trampling on teammates, fumbling at every turn, blinded by hubris.

Unquestionably, my post barely scratches the surface of how demagogues abuse language. Clearly, however, an informed awareness is the best defence against such debasement succeeding, but that awareness can only come with an engaged and thinking electorate, the greatest enemy of people like Doug Ford and Donald Trump.

Is The List Another Piece Of Fiction From Doug Ford?

My guess is "yes'"

“I could sit here and give you all the items that weren’t accurate in that letter and there’s endless ones. I could give you a list of all the Police (Services) Act that was broken throughout that whole letter, but none of you want to report on that,” Ford said, blasting the media for being “a little slanted” in its coverage.

The Gift That Keeps On Giving

H/t Theo Moudakis

Meanwhile, Martin Regg Cohn reminds us why Doug Ford is not fit to lead the province:

Never mind, for now, the potential misdirection of law enforcement and miscarriage of justice as the premier’s office rammed the appointment through, potentially skewing or shielding him (if not others) from future police probes.

Forget, for a moment, that no one stood up to him in cabinet — not the chief law officer of the Crown, Attorney General Caroline Mulroney; nor the minister of community safety, Sylvia Jones, who supposedly oversees policing; never Greg Rickford, the minister ostensibly responsible for Indigenous affairs.

Spare a thought, instead, for those most affected by Ford’s manipulation of the OPP if his latest gambit works.

Think of our Indigenous peoples.

At the very time Ford tried to foist Taverner onto Ontario’s biggest police force — North America’s third-largest — Ontarians were learning about the recurring racism (politely and technically described as “systemic racism”) in the Thunder Bay police force in recent years. Why would Ford perpetuate that kind of disconnect by installing as commissioner a crony from Etobicoke with no feel or familiarity for the issue that overlays OPP challenges?

And Star letter-writers weigh in on the fiasco that is the Ford government:

Doug Ford governance

Looks like this consists of making up two lists: one of all the people and institutions that he has a grudge against, so that he can pass legislation and take steps to get even with them; and another of all the people he considers as friends, so that he can offer them choice, unqualified appointments.

John Marsh, Scarborough

I wish to comment on the impending appointment of Ron Taverner as the commissioner of the Ontario Provincial Police, and to express my dismay at the way Premier Doug Ford and Nipissing MPP Vic Fedeli and the government you lead continue to sacrifice integrity to ego and reason to expediency.

It is my perception that one of you is not smart enough to know the difference between self-gratification and the common good. That the one who knows better — Fedeli — continues to stand by and take no principled stance is breathtakingly shameful.

Please do something to stop the Ontario Provincial Police and every fine thing that they stand for in this province from being dragged to the sleazy level of political cronyism that you and your government inhabit.

Perhaps one of you even has the courage to pick up the telephone to speak with an actual average citizen in this province about this very compelling issue.

Frank Petruzella, North Bay

The government of Ontario may be exceedingly weak, but the vox populi is still strong, the latter something to be very thankful for at this and any other time of the year.