Our Baby-In Chief Strikes Again

It doesn't take a degree in psychology to know that Stephen Harper has, as they say, issues. His obsessive secrecy, reported emotional volatility, deep vindictiveness and completely ruthless dispatch of those who represent perspectives, policies and values differing from his own are all markers of a deeply disturbed individual. That he is Canada's prime minister is a national tragedy.

The latest instance of his lashing out, his puppet finance minister's public denunciation of Ontario's plan to establish its own Retirement Pension Plan, is yet another prime example of his unfitness to govern. Martin Regg Cohn writes,

People of goodwill can disagree. But why does a prime minister of ill will have to be so willfully disagreeable, so reflexively destructive, when playing electoral politics?

Stephen Harper’s pettiness in trying to sabotage Ontario’s legitimate efforts to create a public pension for middle-income workers sets a new low in gamesmanship. It will only take money out of the pockets of workers, taxpayers and employers who will be forced to pay higher fees because of the federal intransigence.

The establishment of the plan, upon which Ontario premier Kathleen Wynne campaigned, is a response to the refusal of the federal government to expand the Canada Pension Plan, which most provinces desire to see happen.

Harper’s decision this week to stab Ontario in the back — and middle-class Ontarians in the front — may go down as one of the most offensive, retrograde and thoughtless blunders ever committed by a sitting prime minister plotting his re-election on the backs of prospective pensioners.

His Conservative government is toying with the futures of young people who face a lifetime of precarious employment without proper pension coverage. Ontario’s plan is being designed by some of Canada’s foremost pension experts as a cost-effective, low-fee program that parallels the successful Canada Pension Plan.

Here's what minion Joe Oliver leaked to the public before sending to Ontario:

“The Ontario Government’s proposed ORPP would take money from workers and their families, kill jobs, and damage the economy,” Oliver writes with fatuous hyperbole in the undated letter leaked to the media before it was even transmitted to Queen’s Park.

As Regg Cohn tartly observes, this rejection is conspicuously absent of any research or statistics to back up his shrill dismissal. And to compound the insult, the feds are refusing to make any legislative changes to facilitate the Ontario pension:

Astonishingly, the Harper government will refuse to collect pension deductions on Ontario’s behalf or provide any information to assist the plan — services for which it would have been fairly compensated by the province. In short, it’s not merely a hands-off attitude but a hands-to-the throat approach.

The result of the PM’s partisan tantrum? Higher accounting and compliance costs for business, and additional government funding made necessary by the same federal Tories who always claim to be reducing red tape and cutting waste.

There appears to be only one solution for a prime minister who seems to have a temperament that never grew beyond the 'terrible twos' - isolate him from any further contact with the electorate by tossing him and his playmates out of their playpen in October.

Change Is Coming To Cuba, Not All Of It Necessarily Good

Readers of this blog will know that I have a special affection for Cuba, having visited it many times and gotten to know, to some extent, the 'real' Cuba. Yet it would be wrong for me or any other non-Cuban to pontificate about what is best for the country, given the changes that are coming due to its increasing normalization with the United States. The course of Cuba's future has to be decided by Cuba itself.

Nonetheless, one hopes that the ecological balance highlighted in the following will continue well into the future, despite what will undoubtedly be an onslaught of American tourism:

UPDATE: Why Isn't This Getting Wider Coverage?

While this story seems most timely and relevant, given the ongoing Council of the Federation meeting discussing pipeline growth, I couldn't even find a reference to it in this morning's Toronto Star. It should be front-page news.







UPDATE: Here is a live update from Nexen. One of the most interesting revelations is that the pipeline responsible for the spill is brand new, set up in 2014.

Our World - The Illustrated Version

Sometimes, words only muddy the message, so I'll let the following speak for themselves:









H/t Felipe TeTz

Kill The Messengers

For those of us who follow Canadian politics closely, Mark Bourrie's scathing chronicle of the Harper years, Kill the Messengers, perhaps offers few things that we don't already know. Nonetheless, to have a comprehensive written record of the myriad abuses of democracy, transparency, openness and free expression is an unsettling reminder of how much Canada has suffered and lost under the Harper regime. On that basis alone I strongly recommend the book.

Now more than halfway through it (I read it in measured amounts out of respect for my mental health), each chapter yields much that is worth reflecting on and writing about. However, since yesterday's post dealt in part about Harper's utter disdain for war vets, a disdain he attempts to conceal through his lofty rhetoric about "our brave men and women in uniform," I offer the following excerpt from the book dealing with Lt.-Col Pat Stogran, who says,

"It is beyond my comprehension how the system could knowingly deny so many of our veterans the rights and benefits that the people and the government of Canada recognized a long, long time ago as being their obligation to provide.'

Hired in 2007 as Canada's first veterans ombudsman, Stogran lost his job in 2010 for criticizing Harper and then Veterans Affairs Minister Julian Fantino for the way vets are treated.

Stogran, a combat veteran in the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry in Afghanistan who suffered post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) from his experiences in the Balkans in the 1990s, knew well the problems that veterans face and wanted to be a fierce advocate for them and hence his interest in the position. Terminating him was not the finest strategic move on the part of the Harper regime:

Firing Stogran didn't shut him up: he immediately became a vocal critic of the government, saying it was not living up to its obligations and promises. He says that the administrators of the veterans' pension program had a "penny pinching insurance company mentality."

We started to put pressure on. They basically told me to pound salt. It became clear they weren't going to co-operate. It was a waiting game for me to leave . . . My ministers were as thick as three short planks. They were completely dependent on their deputy minister. Julian Fantino is a classic example. He's one of Harper's yes men who says the government is backing vets and is pouring money into programs to help them. At the same time, you have federal government lawyers saying in British Columbia that the government has no legal or moral obligation to the veterans. I argued against the lump sum. I said it was wrong to give people who were physically and emotionally traumatized a lump sum of money and then tell them 'have a good day.' Harper never did anything to back me up ... I despise Harper personally. He's pushed politics to another level."

Compounding the injustice of his dismissal is Stogan's belief that his medical records were improperly accessed:

In 2010 he applied to the privacy commissioner to find out why his Veterans Affairs file had been accessed hundreds of times.

The experiences of the erstwhile veterans ombudsman is but a small example of the nature of the Harper regime, serving as a pungent reminder of its intolerance of any dissent or criticism. I can only hope that voters in October roundly express their own intolerance of this repressive regime by casting it out of the office it is so manifestly unfit to hold.

Unfriendly Fire

One hopes and expects that veterans have long memories; if they do, the Harper regime will find their lies catching up with them.

A new campaign, entitled Vote To Stop The Cuts, has been launched by the Public Service Alliance of Canada, its aim to put the Harper record under scrutiny with facts that even the most seasoned spinmaster might find hard to counter. Consider this damning information about Veterans Affairs:

- In 2013 and 2014, the Conservative government closed nine Veterans affairs offices across Canada – in Corner Brook, Charlottetown, Sydney, Thunder Bay, Windsor, Brandon, Saskatoon, Prince George and Kelowna. Total served by affected offices = approximately 21, 432.

- Total value of cuts to Veterans Affairs Canada as of 2015: $113.7 million

- From 2011–12 to the current 2014–15 budget year, the Veterans Affairs staff has been cut by 24% with an additional 1% cut planned by 2016–17. The majority of these jobs were front-line positions.

- The department now has the smallest workforce since before the war in Afghanistan.

- Veterans Affairs offices are now so short-staffed that there is a backlog of 6 to 8 months in providing requested services to veterans. 1 in 5 veterans suffering from a mental illness has to wait more than 8 months before their requests for help are answered.

The genius of the campaign is that it is framed in such a way to show that ordinary Canadians are also falling victim to the parsimonious practices of the current regime, making it much harder to dismiss it as simply an effort by public servants to save their own jobs. In addition to the plight of veterans, it offers up facts on cuts to border security, environmental protection, employment insurance eligibility, public search and rescue capabilities and Canada's food safety.

This video offers an overview:



The site also has downloadable posters to help spread the word on these issues. In my view, it is incumbent upon all of us who yearn for a better Canada, a Canada free of the lies, distortions and myriad failures of the Harper regime, to help promote this and other efforts to ensure that October marks the month when our country begins what will undoubtedly be a lengthy but long overdue rehabilitation.

Back To Business As Usual?

After all of the feel-good rhetoric of the Climate Summit of the Americas, held last week in Toronto, it would appear that we are back to business as usual, at least in Canada.

The Globe and Mail reports the following:

Canada’s premiers are poised to sign an agreement to fast-track new oil sands pipelines while watering down commitments to fight climate change.

The Canadian Energy Strategy will be finalized and unveiled at a premiers’ conference in St. John’s beginning Wednesday.

While it appears that the political will to facilitate the flow of tarsands oil is strong, a commitment to mitigating climate change is not:

Two sections of the plan commit the provinces and territories to help get more pipelines built, in part by cutting down on red tape to speed up regulatory decisions.

But the strategy contains little firm commitment on battling global warming. Its strongest environmental section – a pledge for all provinces and territories to adopt absolute targets for cutting greenhouse gases – is marked as a point of contention that might be scrapped.

There is vague environmental rhetoric peppered throughout the draft strategy, but no binding promises on exactly what the provinces and territories will do to fight climate change – only a general pledge to “transition to a lower carbon economy.” One section, for instance, lists a series of possible climate-change policies, including carbon capture and carbon pricing, but does not appear to require that provinces and territories do any of them.

The obvious contradiction between expanding pipelines and lowering greenhouse gas emissions is one of those pesky details that our provincial political leaders seem happy to ignore:

There is also no explanation on how oil-sands production can expand – a likely scenario if more pipelines are built – while the country still reduces greenhouse gas emissions.

Well, of course this is an obvious explanation, isn't there: egregious contempt for the suffering more and more people will experience as the world continues to warm, and lavish cossetting of those who stand to profit the most from the continued burning of fossil fuels, a truth that no political rhetoric, no matter how skillfully spun, will be able to conceal for very long.

If You Know Some Young Potential Voters

Please send them this


so that we can have less of this


and this

in the future.

A Pat Robertson Rival

Does Todd Starnes have what it takes to unseat Pastor Pat for most unhinged evangelical? You decide:



Can you give me a big Amen?

The Muslim Threat To Stephen Harper

Were I of the Muslim faith, I suspect I would have a deep and abiding contempt for Stephen Harper and his cabal. After all, he is the prime minister who has made Islamophobia a centrepiece of his re-election hopes and, unlike other groups that he has vilified for political gain, has persistently portrayed the religion as a hotbed of terrorism, so much so that repressive measures that threaten the very foundations of Canadian democracy are now ensconced in the legislation known as Bill C-51.

What is a self-respecting Muslim to do?

One answer, it seems, is to encourage one's coreligionists to vote.

Groups like Canadian Muslim Vote (CMV) and the Canadian Arab Institute (CAI) have launched major campaigns to try and pull the Muslim vote.

These groups are trying to circumvent the potential for political sectarianism by staying away from addressing specific issues and by maintaining a strict standard of non-partisanship.

In other words, they simply want the Muslims, who don't have the best voter turnout, to vote—regardless of their political taste.

It would seem that the key lies in younger generations of Muslims, those born here who see themselves as part of the Canadian fabric and are deeply disturbed by the Harper demagoguery that labels them as 'the other' and potential terrorists. Yet the venue for discussing and addressing their frustrations is not likely to be found in the mosques for a number of reasons.

Much of this is due to the political climate in Harper's Canada, which is characterized at least in part by the chilling of political speech within an atmosphere of fear.

Mosques often have charitable status, which can often be stripped away if Muslim leaders decide to take up certain political causes in ways the administration finds distasteful.

The Harper government's appetite for auditing and disrupting organizations that it differs with ideologically is well-known.

Fortunately, alternative venues are developing:

Groups like the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM) have broken through the mainstream in an effort to improve the portrayal and treatment of Muslims in the public sphere.

Their nationwide campaigns have attracted Muslim youth to build similar structures of civic and political engagement.

Dawanet, an influential Muslim organization based out of Mississauga, Ont., just launched an initiative called Project Civic Engagement earlier this summer, aimed primarily at addressing Muslim political engagement and the influence of Islamophobia on Canadian politics.

Winnipeg's own Islamic Social Services Association (ISSA) has also launched public awareness campaigns in an effort to dispel myths surrounding Muslims in the Harper era.

Whether the Muslim vote will turn out to be a formidable influence in the upcoming election remains to be seen. But like other Canadians busy building coalitions to prompt greater voter engagement, any increase in participation can only contribute to an ultimately stronger and healthier democracy in Canada.

The Art Of Misdirection

Some, I guess, are better at it than others.

Who Can I Trust?

Regular readers of this blog will know that I am an enthusiastic supporter of The Toronto Star. The paper's investigative reports, like no others, have had real impact, influencing decisions at the highest levels of power locally, provincially and federally; its dogged pursuit of the truth has always impressed me deeply. The Star has consistetly demonstrated and embodied the role good journalism plays in a healthy democracy.

And yet now there are disturbing allegations by journalist Paul Watson, allegations so serious that the veteran reporter has resigned from the paper. While many of the details are far from clear, The Star, which denies all of his assertions, certainly appears to have acted very oddly.

An extensive interview conducted by Jesse Brown at Canadaland reveals that Watson, who had been on the lead exploration ship, CCGS Sir Wilfrid Laurier, last September and wrote a series of articles on the expedition that found the Franklin flagship the HMS Erebus, was stymied by his editors when he was investigating the exaggerated role accorded to the Royal Canadian Geographic Society and its CEO, John Geiger:

So there was a [media] blackout [after the discovery] of roughly two days, could’ve been three. Remember, I was on the lead vessel in this successful search last September, the Coast Guard icebreaker. I was living with and working beside the experts who were searching for these ships. And because of that blackout, a person who’s the CEO of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society (RCGS) - a former Globe and Mail Editorial Board Chief - a journalist - was able to step into that power vacuum and answer journalists' questions in a way that I immediately saw people [involved with the effort] react to in a way that made them deeply angry because they believed that he was distorting facts, stating untruths and ruining the historical record that they were working so hard to create. And that was just a moment way back in September.

A variety of distortion and untruths emerged, so much so that Jim Basillie attempted to intervene, as reported in The Globe:

In late April, philanthropist Jim Balsillie, whose Arctic Research Foundation was instrumental in the search, sent a letter to Leona Aglukkaq, the Minister of the Environment, saying he was “troubled that Canadian history is not being presented accurately” in a documentary that aired on CBC’s The Nature of Things that month. He was upset that the program “creates new and exaggerated narratives for the exclusive benefit of the Royal Canadian Geographic Society.”

Mr. Balsillie said he was dispirited that the Prime Minister and public agencies seemed to take a back seat. “Government partners, in particular the Government of Nunavut, Canadian Hydrographic Service and the Canadian Coast Guard are shown as supporting players to RCGS and [the Russian vessel] Akademik Sergey Vavilov when the opposite is true.”

Apparently, for reasons that are not yet clear, the Harper government ignored the letter and made no effort to correct the historical record.

The trouble for Watson started when he attempted to question Geiger, who was awarded a Polar Medal for what Governor-General David Johnston’s office called his “essential role in the success of the 2014 Victoria Strait Expedition” and who, according to Watson,

has access to the Prime Minister’s office .... [has] been photographed in close situations around campfires in the Arctic with Stephen Harper ... [and] has political connections.

Within three hours of sending an email to Geiger, Watson was contacted late at night by a Star editor who wanted to know hat he was working on. Fearing Geiger might be tipped off as to the kinds of questions he wanted to ask him, Watson revealed little to the editor, a decision that ultimately led to a 'six-week reporting ban.'

There is much more to the story that is discussed in the Canadaland interview. But for me, what makes it so significant are its implications, implications so severe that Watson resigned his position. Here are his own words to explain what is at stake:

The people who’ve been looking for these ships, they’re really hardworking federal civil servants, archeologists and others who know the truth of how those ships were found and had every right to tell that truth themselves. But because of the country we live in, and because of the government we live under, that message could only come from Prime Minister Stephen Harper himself.

There is an open fear in our federal civil service and I’m sure it applies to other capitals across the country as this phenomenon grows and our democracy weakens. There is a fear among these civil servants that if they stand up and tell the truth, that they will lose their jobs because the politically connected have more power than the truth.

This is a symptom of a broader disease that is eating away at the core of our democracy. Experts on climate, on medicine, on things that are central to our society are being silenced by a government that does favours for the politically connected. And that is just very dangerous for our future.

That, more than anything else, should make this a story worth following.

An Update To Yesterday's Post

I don't have a new post today, as I just changed ISPs and am preoccupied trying to solve a problem in configuring my wife's computer for the encrypted router I set up. However, if you read yesterday's post about Murray Lytle, the newest member of the NEB appointed by the Harper regime, you will know that he is affiliated with the Coulson Center for Christian Worldview, which offered quite a profile and high praise of Mr. Lytle.

I just received a comment from Anon, who offered this:

Glad you captured the info from the Colsten Centre as they seem to be trying to remove all references to it.. Glad we have a conservative new earth creationist looking out for the environment as part of the NEB.. sheesh

Sure enough, the click on the link yields nothing about Lytle now, although my excerpts are available in yesterday's post.

One can't help but wonder who initiated the censorship action, eh?

Another Fox Guarding The Hen House

It is hardly news to suggest that the National Energy Board (NEB) is rife with bias favouring the energy sector. Half of its members are professionals from the gas and oil industries, and all but one was appointed by the Harper regime. But now it seems the government is not even trying to pretend that the Board exists for anything but the good of the energy industry.

Mychaylo Prystupa reports the following:

On Tuesday, Conservative Natural Resources Minister Greg Rickford appointed Calgary engineering PhD Murray Lytle. "Dr. Lytle brings many years of experience in the oil, gas and mining fields and will prove to be a valuable asset for the National Energy Board as it continues to fulfill its mandate to ensure the safety and security of Canadians and the environment,” said Rickford in a statement.

This appointment is especially egregious given Lytle's background, not just as a consultant and executive to the mining industry and former employee of Imperial Oil, but also as a Conservative Party volunteer:

The Chuck Colson Centre for Christian Worldview website says this about his past: "Mr. Lytle has been heavily involved in national politics (Canada) and is happy to have lived to see the fruition of that labour, and his small part in it, with the election of the ruling Conservative Party,” .

An apparent admirer of theocracy, Lytle has this to say about God's special relationship with the United States:

From his perspective as a Canadian, Mr. Lytle thinks that the American experiment is alive and well - if somewhat fatigued from constant sparring. His understanding of history leads him to believe that God continues to extend His blessing to those who value and offer freedom to other bearers of His image. And no other culture offers that freedom in the abundance of the Americans and for this cause the United States is unquestionably the most creative society in the history of mankind.

Such NEB appointments, to say the least, invite widespread cynicism:

Liberal Environment Critic MP John McKay said public confidence in the NEB has sunk so low that its chair, Peter Watson, just completed a 34-stop “national engagement” tour in an attempt to reverse that sentiment.

“I think he’s doing a national tour known as the ‘No, I’m not a lackey tour,’" said McKay.

"It’s extraordinary that the head of the board feels he has to go from one end of the country to the other... because clearly the NEB has lost credibility of the eyes of the public,” McKay said on Thursday.

“This appointment [of Lytle] just fuels the suspicion, even when they comply with the regulations, that they are beholden politically to Mr. Harper,” he added.

And here is Elizabeth May's take:

Green Party leader Elizabeth May said Harper’s spring 2012 omnibus budget bill fundamentally altered the environmental assessments of pipelines into an “absolute sham of a review process.”

The reforms removed the responsibility to do environmental reviews of oil pipelines from the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency (CEAA), and put it in the hands of the NEB, which “doesn’t have the credentials” to do the job said May.

She said the legal reforms also nullified the Species at Risk Act, the Navigable Waters Act and the Fisheries Act from the board's decisions on pipelines.

"So the pipeline ruling trumps all those laws. The NEB is now basically a pipeline approval agency."

But perhaps the Harper regime is once again counting on something that has served them so well for so long: Canadians' apathy and ignorance. I guess this October's election will show if that faith continues to be well-placed.

Sid Ryan Has A Plan

Given the odious, intrusive and likely unconstitutional nature of Bill C-377, the 'private member's' bill covered with the indelible palm prints of Stephen Harper that forces labour unions to publicly disclose how they spend their money, it would be surprising indeed if unions did not have a plan to fight back. Sid Ryan, president of the Ontario Federation of Labour, which represents 54 unions, has no intention of letting this blatant sop to the Tory base slip by unopposed.

In the following, Ryan explains what could be an effective strategy going into the October election:

The Earth's Future Is Our Future

While I have deeply-held spiritual beliefs, I do not for a moment think that transcendent agency was involved in humanity's appearance on the earth. In my view, we just happened to arise owing to the potential inherent in the universe for development toward greater and greater complexity. To assume otherwise is to embrace a hubris that is largely responsible for the degradation, despoliation and perhaps ultimate destruction of our habitat.

In today's paper, a Star reader Kevin Farmer effectively expresses the situation that we find ourselves in today:

Re: Cooler planet, better health, Editorial June 29

In his recent column, (“Was Rachel Dolezal on to something?”), Rick Salutin poetically captured a basic truth: “Each individual is hewn organically from material reality and returns there eventually.”

Without wanting to co-opt Salutin’s discussion of race and group identity, I wonder why we do not identify more with that “material reality” from which we are so clearly hewn; namely living Earth. In fact, I would argue we are not “hewn” from living Earth at all; rather we are expressions of it. Only our fleeting sense of self makes us feel separate.

To paraphrase Alan Watts: Life did not appear on Earth like a flock of birds alighting on a barren tree; rather life came out of that tree as its flowers. In the same way that some trees are simply flowering trees, Earth is simply a life-ing and, at least for now, a people-ing “rock.”

This claim might seem like new age fluff, but it is supported by hard science. Life simply might have been inevitable on a planet such as Earth. And while it might be fluffy to think of human life as an act of self-expression by living Earth – to think that living Earth currently “identifies” as mostly human – it is entirely reasonable to wonder why human self-expression is increasingly devoid of identification with living Earth.

So, I am perplexed by the prevailing norm to timidly frame calls for environmental action in terms of furthering our self-interest; as though there were ever any such distinction. It is true that “healing the planet will make us healthier.” But the real issue is that destroying living Earth is making us sick – more than just physically.

We do not have a clear definition of “life,” but, whatever it is, Earth is bursting with it. We are all temporary patterns in the incomprehensible flow of matter and energy that is the ecosphere of living Earth. As we disrupt and destroy this flow on a planetary scale, it should come as no surprise that what we are doing to living Earth, we are doing to ourselves.

Life on Earth might have been inevitable. But that does not mean that human life was, or is, inevitable. And, unlike birds on a tree, we cannot fly away after fouling our nest.
Ironically, as we struggle with the concepts of identity and self, it is our selfishness as “individuals” that is destroying the very wellspring of our selves: living Earth.
Who are we, really, if we knowingly continue to do this?

Kevin Farmer, Toronto

A Barbaric Practice

I have written before on the ugly and wholly indefensible slaughter of sharks so that their fins can be enjoyed as a delicacy, but now seems a good time to remind people of this barbaric practice. I just received notice of a petition from Change.org calling on the Canadian government to ban the distribution, consumption and sale of shark fins.

Please take a moment to watch the following brief video, read the ensuing explanatory text and then consider signing the petition, obtainable by clicking on the above link.

Sharks – the apex predators of the oceans – have survived 400 million years of evolution, yet many species may face extinction within our lifetime. Up to 100 million sharks are being killed every year, most often their bodies are discarded and only their fins are kept to be used in Shark Fin Soup – a delicacy in some Chinese restaurants. Over hunting of the world’s largest fish has caused severe declines among many shark species, including the iconic Great White. Currently a third of shark species are threatened with extinction, and some populations have plummeted by over 90%. Sharks are essential to the health of our oceans. As apex predators, sharks maintain a critical balance in the ocean. When sharks are eliminated, disastrous effects have been documented further down the food chain, including the collapse of commercial fisheries and the degradation of coral reefs. If sharks were to become extinct, this would have massive unintended consequences for our ocean ecosystems worldwide. Time is running out for the world’s shark populations. It is time to take a big step in preserving the world’s vital oceans by banning the sale and distribution of shark fins and shark fin products nationwide.

Shaming Those Who Deserve It

Many of them probably sleep quite well at night in the belief that their unethical, criminal behaviour is likely never to see the light of day, and even if it does, it will at worst be exposed on a somewhat obscure Ministry of Labour website. Taking advantage of people seems to come naturally to them; denying workers their rightful wages perhaps even gives them some pleasure. They are employers no one should ever have to deal with. And now, some of them are finally being exposed.

Guided by the Atkinson principles (A strong and united Canada, civic engagement, individual and civil liberties, a necessary role for effective government and the rights of working people), The Toronto Star takes its mission seriously, as recently demonstrated by its exposure of two people, Robbie Elpueppeto Yuill and Kim McArthur, for their refusal to pay their employees the wages they are owed.

Let's start with the experience that Kris Kadas had at the hands of Mr. Yuill, the operator of a small restaurant called Grilled Cheese in Toronto's Kensington Market. Kadas says he is owed backpay of $856.75, part of what he says are thousands of dollars owed to a handful of workers:

In a string of text messages Kadas showed the Star, between himself and a phone number that former workers identified as belonging to The Grilled Cheese owner Robbie Yuill, Kadas repeatedly asked for the owed money.

The texts he got back included: “Hey why don’t you come over here stand right in front of me my brothers want to talk to you too.”

Kadas fought back, telling Yuill: “you need to treat your workers better,” but he still received no pay.

Kadas went on to post his experience on Reddit, advising people not to patronize the business, now temporarily closed owing, one assumes, to the adverse publicity generated. Kadas sees this closing as a ploy:

As of yesterday the doors have been locked and the owner is nowhere to be found. He has done this before and reopened with a new team only to screw them over as well. When and if the place becomes operational again please do not give your money to a terrible person.

Global News took up the crusade, and filed this report:



After that report was aired, other former employees came forward:



Exposing corrupt practices to the light of day through both social and mainstream media may be the best way to remedy them.

..... Canada Day

I wish that I could have inserted 'Happy' in front of today's title, but for reasons too obvious to discuss, I couldn't. However I will say this: may next year find all Canadians in circumstances whereby we can freely use that adjective in a heartfelt salutation to our country.

Meanwhile, allow me to offer the following to observe this day:





And my most heartfelt wish:

As Canada Day Approaches

A little something to think about:

Robert Reich's Warning About the Trans Pacific Partnership

Although directed to an American audience, these warnings are equally applicable to Canada:

The Trans Pacific Partnership is a zombie that refuses to die no matter how many stakes are driven through its heart. Today the Senate voted 60 to 37 in favor of “fast track” negotiating authority, and final passage of fast track is expected tomorrow – laying the groundwork for an up-or-down vote on the TPP without amendment or full discussion. The big global corporations and Wall Street banks that initiated and have lobbied hard for this anti-worker deal smell victory. Don’t let them have it. Please call your senators and representative now, even if you’ve phoned before, and tell them: No to fast-track and no to the Trans Pacific Partnership. Congressional switchboard: 202-225-3121. Here, again, is what’s at stake:

Posted by Robert Reich on Tuesday, June 23, 2015

Reprobate Redux

For your Monday discernment, I offer this volley of wise observations about that unrepentant felon, Dean Del Mastro, from the usual suspects - Toronto Star readers:

Re: Ex-Tory MP Del Mastro sentenced to month in jail, June 26

Finally a crooked Conservative gets a jail sentence, proclaiming his innocence all the way. In fact, he has the nerve to say, “that’s her opinion,” when the judge declared him guilty of election fraud. Yes, Dean Del Mastro, that is her opinion, her legal opinion, that is.

When is Stephen Harper going to learn that blind loyalty to him isn’t half as important as being honest? I also wonder when all members of the press are going to stop slavishly following Harper around, hoping for some little crumb of a quote when most of us don’t care where he is or what he says.

In fact, since he seems to have a personal vendetta against the general public, why not just ignore him altogether and let his own spin doctors continue to spew the B.S. that he thinks we’re all going to believe.

I am really tired of the deterioration of my country’s standards and the chipping away of our democracy so that one person can wake up every day feeling in control. Mr. Harper, I can hardly wait until October when you face all of the voters whose jobs and rights you have so easily destroyed.

Of course then you will move on to all those oil and mining company boards whose stock holders you have so nicely taken care of. As long as you are not in Ottawa anymore.

Roseanne Quinn, Trenton

I find Dean Del Mastro’s behaviour in actively and most wilfully attempting to suborn the Canadian electoral process by committing electoral fraud and his failure to accept responsibility for his actions profoundly unsettling. Elections are a civic matter grounded in civic social trust and any breach in this trust is indeed most profoundly appalling.

Monte McMurchy, LL.D., Toronto

During his trial, and afterwards, Dean Del Mastro was not repentant and has shown no remorse for breaking the country’s election laws. His stupid, illegal behaviour has caused irrevocable damage to himself, his constituents, Parliament and the country.

That said, he should have been given a conditional sentence. The conditional sentence of imprisonment (or CSI) was introduced in Canada in 1996 as an alternate form of incarceration subject to specific criteria. It is not, as some assume, the same as probation.

In 2000, the Supreme Court clarified its use and differentiated it from probation. When the sentence is a term of imprisonment of less than two years, an offender deemed not to pose a danger to society is allowed to remain in the community, but with a more stringent set of conditions than offenders on parole. The offender must abide by a number of typically punitive conditions, such as house arrest and a strict curfew. If a condition is broken without a lawful excuse, the offender may well serve out the rest of the sentence in prison.

House arrest conditions can be designed to address the factors that led to the offence in the first place. Moreover, some conditional sentences force the offender to make reparations to the victim and the community while living under tight controls. Conditional sentences sustain Canada’s tradition of granting discretion and independence to the judiciary.

Canada’s growing prison population, mounting evidence that jail time does not reduce the chances of re-offending and other factors gave way to an increasing use of conditional sentences.

The illegal, stupid and irresponsible behaviour that Del Mastro indulged in that led to the charges can only be described as “tragic and senseless.” But the question must be asked: what would jail time accomplish that a conditional sentence could not accomplish?

In 2008-09, according to Statistics Canada, the number of offenders serving conditional sentences was 13,500 — a not insignificant number.

Denunciation and imprisonment satisfy society’s desire to punish offenders and reinforce shared values by deterring crime. However, there is little evidence to support the general deterrence argument — that is, that the more severe the punishment, the greater the deterrent effect. Research simply does not support that proposition.

Emile Therien, Ottawa

The Conservative law and order plan finally kicks in.

Bob Larocque, Carrying Place

Like A Festering Pustule That Refuses To Heal

Perennial posterior pain K(T)ory Teneycke just won't go away. Currently a Conservative Party campaign spokesman, he once again appears to be out of his depth.

In the following video, which gets really interesting at the four-minute mark, a principled Tom Clark pursues the irritating gnat over his party's use of terrorist imagery in its latest political ad, an apparent contravention of his leader's Bill C-51 anti-terror legislation. You will see that Teneycke is no match for the tenacious Clark.

A Site Young Voters Should Visit

I have written several past posts on the fact that for the most part, youth do not vote, largely because they see nothing on offer from any of the major parties dealing with their issues. The problem, of course, is that as long as they remain a minor presence at the polls, their issues will continue to be ignored. We only have to see the current political rhetoric revolving around the middle class to know who our politicos fear.

Change can only come when the young show that they are indeed a force to be reckoned with. I discovered a site yesterday that makes specific appeal to that demographic. Check it out, and if you know any young potential voters, send it along to them. Below is a sample of how Harpoon 2015 is approaching the problem.

Speaking Of Conservative Crime

It seems that our Prime Minister may have violated his own anti-terror law against terrorist imagery and propaganda.

As reported by CTV,

A new Conservative attack ad takes aim at Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau’s position on the mission against the Islamic State, but it uses the terrorist group’s own horrifying propaganda images.

In the online ad, posted on the Conservative Party’s Facebook page, Trudeau is shown in a CBC interview saying he would end the CF-18 bombing campaign against the terrorist group, also known as ISIS or ISIL.

The ad uses Islamic State propaganda, including gruesome images of prisoners facing death by drowning and beheading -- and those images may actually violate the government’s own anti-terror law.

Given its pattern of skirting and breaking laws, this may be of no great concern to the Harper regime. But perhaps this will give the apparatchik pause:

Advertising executive Tony Chapman wondered how the uses of ISIS imagery would help the Conservatives score political points.

“Not only are they providing free advertising for ISIS, they’re completely offside and driving Canadian politics to a new low,” said Tony Chapman.

While the exploitation of fear is nothing new to the Conservatives, perhaps this latest example will provoke the backlash it so roundly deserves:

On the same day that ISIS releases yet another barbaric video, Justin Trudeau promises to stop bombing ISIS. He’s clearly just not ready for the serious job of Prime Minister.

Posted by Conservative Party of Canada - Parti conservateur du Canada on Thursday, June 25, 2015

What Constitutes Reasonable Return?

Orphan diseases are perhaps the most cruel of illnesses. Frequently life threatening, they afflict only a very small percentage of the world's populations, thereby discouraging research and making any drugs that are developed prohibitively expensive. Are pharmaceutical companies that do develop treatments merely getting fair return on their investment, or are they in fact extorting governments through manipulative emotional pressures as they assist families in publicizing their plight in bids to get government approval?

These questions and others are raised in a documentary shown on The National the other night. The drug in question, Solaris, costs over $600 thousand per year to save the life of one person.

As you will see, parents and other loved ones are put into untenable positions, making them easy pawns for what some would say are unfair pharmaceutical practices. That being said, I would do exactly what they are doing to save someone close to me.

You decide the ethics here:

God, I Love The Perp Walk

Burn, Baby, Burn

Click hear to learn about pastor Rick Scarborough's plan to defend 'traditional marriage.'

Would it be wrong of me to offer this 'man of God' some waterproof matches?

Breaking With Tradition

... there were no reports of Dean Del Mastro breaking down in tears, a first for the former star of the Harper regime. Perhaps knowing that he will only serve one week in jail for his crimes lightened his mood.

Things We Are Not Supposed To Know Or Think About

While The Star's David Olive recently wrote an article extolling the economic benefits of the proposed Trans Pacific Partnership, others strongly suggest the need for extreme caution, not just because of potential job losses, but also due to the very real losses in national sovereignty that will ensue if the agreement is ever finalized.

Consider the following from The Young Turks' Cenk Uygur, who argues that the secrecy behind the negotiations is understandable, given that its benefits will redound not to the people, but to the multinational corporations. While speaking from an American perspective, his observations are equally applicable to Canada:



As well, Star readers sound these notes of caution about free trade agreements:

Trade pact coming, despite opposition, June 19

David Olive’s championing of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is so wrong-headed, I hardly know where to begin. In suggesting that state authority and power in developing countries should rather give way to corporate power, he is doubling down on the proven dysfunction of such corporate hegemony, in terms of income inequality, and the impact on workers and the environmental.

To suggest that countries will be better off in a corporate-dominated world is naive at best. His assertion that Canada has really done fine as a result of free trade so far is also an amazingly blinkered view of reality.

Even measured in that narrowest of measures, GDP, we have not done as well in the last 20 years as we did in the “protectionist” era of the 1950s through 1970s. When you look at distribution of this GDP, it is obvious that middle class families have not benefited at all.

John Simke, Toronto

Free-trade agreements are based on the premise that if every country exports what it makes most efficiently and if governments clear the way for market forces to engage in transactions, then everyone will be better off. However, in practice, only multi-national corporations have benefited from free-trade agreements as national interests are undermined.

Taxes are lowered, public services are cut, wages are downgraded, environmental protection is weakened, and regulations are abolished. In short, economic activities have taken precedent over other considerations, such as social justice and national democratic mandates.

The European and North American experiences have shown how, under free trade, governments lose the ability to be responsive to the national needs. Under NAFTA, the Chapter 11 clause has allowed investors to launch successful legal challenges against governments, undermining their efforts to enforce environmental, health or safety standards.

The free trade arrangements worked for the West in the follow up to World War II. However, in the complex 21st century world, they are no longer working. We should come up with a way to regulate the damage done by free trade without undermining its advantages.

Ali Orang, Richmond Hill

Trade deals a big threat to Medicare, Letter June 21

I sincerely hope that the Star is mustering its considerable investigative talents to check out the alarming allegations in Professor Meyer Brownstone’s letter. He claims that the new Trade in Services Agreement (TISA) “includes health among services to be shifted to the corporate sector in a wholesale global privatization process that includes education, prisons and other public services.” He also claims that “all participants are sworn to secrecy for five years even if the negotiations fail.”

Thanks in advance for your excellent service in this and so many other secretive and complex matters.

Jean Gower, Kingston

And so the world moves on, not always for the better, while we sleep.

Entitled To Her Entitlements

That seems to be the attitude of Ann Gray, another former Harper appointee, on her and her husband's lavish 'fact-finding' trips, which cost the taxpayer plenty. She regards the fuss as much ado about nothing, seeing the trips as a 'thank you' for her unpaid time sitting on the Blue Water Bridge Canada crown corporation.

Rarely has a volunteer done so little for so much, some might say.

Michael Chong And The Reform Act

Yesterday, Owen at Northern Reflections wrote a post on Michael Chong, one of the few members of Stephen Harper's caucus with real integrity, attested to by his principled resignation as Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs after Harper's unilateral declaration of Quebec as a nation. A legitimate question posed is why he remains in the caucus, given the principles he seems to represent. I opined that perhaps he is biding his time, looking toward a future Conservative Party that is no longer led by Stephen Harper, when there is a real opportunity for renewal.

Another reason Chong should feel profoundly disaffected is the fact that his Reform Act has been gutted, and up to yesterday, looked likely to be killed by the Senate through an odious amendment, despite the fact that it was passed by the House. Fortunately, the bill was passed last night without the amendment.

Here is Michael Chong talking to Terry Milewski about the bill on Power and Politics yesterday that perhaps gives some insight into his thinking:

This Is What Real Protest Looks Like

All Canadians could learn a lot from the Brits:

London, United Kingdom - Activists and trade union leaders have called for a general strike and a mass campaign of civil disobedience to bring down the country's new right-wing government as hundreds of thousands took to the streets of London and other cities to protest against austerity and public service cuts.

Organisers said a quarter of a million people had joined Saturday's march from the Bank of England to the Houses of Parliament, with smaller protests also taking place in Glasgow, Liverpool, and Bristol, and pledged the event was only a beginning.

"We've got to get rid of this government quicker than five years. This government cannot last the full term," Sam Fairbairn, national secretary of the People's Assembly, the anti-austerity campaign group that organised the march, told a rally in Parliament Square.

"Today is just the start of a campaign of protests, of strikes, of direct action and civil disobedience up and down the country. We are going to organise the biggest mass movement this country has ever seen, and it is that mass movement that is going to kick David Cameron out of office."

There is similar anger in Canada over the Harper regime's many abuses of the country's citizens. How can we best mobilize that anger?

In Which John Ibbitson Continues His Audition For A Senate Seat

But he'd better hurry. There is talk of regime change this October.

Watch The Sunday Scrum as John consistently, stoutly and steadfastly defends Dear Leader at every turn while opining on matters such as cabinet departures, the Senate scandal involving Don Meredith, and Mr. Harper's refusal to take questions from national reporters.

All in all, Mr. Ibbitson shows he clearly has what it takes to ably represent his master in The Red Chamber.

Some Days I Don't Have To Write Anything

... thanks to groups like this:

On The Dyspeptic Rona Ambrose

In a post last week, I explained the basis for my outrage over Health Minister Rona Ambrose's manufactured rant at the Supreme Court's decision permitting medical marijuana users to ingest their medicine in any form they wish. Reading this morning's Star letters to the editor, I was pleased to see that I am not alone in my reaction to Ms Ambrose and the regime she is a mouthpiece for.

Here are but a few of many excellent missives:

Re: Chill out, minister, Editorial June 14

How ironic is this? Rona Ambrose, health minister in the Harper government, infamous for their disdain for science, invokes science in her rejection of the Supreme Court decision on medical marijuana.

While I happen to agree that much of the medical use of marijuana is not evidence based, the Harper government shows their cynicism in challenging medical marijuana. It’s not a good fit with their popular tough-on-crime agenda, which the evidence shows is expensive, ineffective and cruel.

When this government revitalizes StatsCan, environmental research and protection and evidence based justice then they can legitimately pronounce on marijuana use.

Peter Crosby, Toronto

Kudos to the Supreme Court for legalizing the use of medical marijuana through oils and foods; it is a common-sense decision that will benefit patients across Canada, and have a profound effect on the lives of individuals with the most extreme forms of epilepsy.

For years, too many of our members have been unable to control their seizures with conventional therapies. Medical marijuana has provided seizure control for adults and children, some of whom have gone from having dozens of seizures every day to none. While more research is needed, these anecdotal cases are having a real impact on the lives of many people with epilepsy.

Providing families with the option to use oils and foods to take their medical marijuana instead of being forced to smoke or inhale it gives individuals already living with medical challenges an easier and more sensible way of getting the medication they need.

Drew Woodley, Director of Communications, Epilepsy Toronto

Perhaps Health Minister Rona Ambrose’s sense of outrage about the Supreme Court decision regarding medical marijuana could have been better directed at her boss. If she had done her homework she would have discovered that the Harper government itself cancelled the research component of the medical marijuana program shortly after he took office.

Since he wasn’t able to obliterate the program entirely he quickly began the process of enacting barriers and demonizing users. Ironically if he had known then that he would later learn to muzzle scientific communications at will, he could have let the research go on, comfortable that any unwanted positive findings would never be heard.

It is so like this government to be so easily outraged when frustrated, much like a toddler.

Steven Gaber, Toronto

Health Minister Rona Ambrose is “outraged” that the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that marijuana can be legally consumed in forms other than smoking. “This is not a drug,” she said. “This is not medicine.”

Such breathtakingly ill-informed statements coming out of the mouth of a so-called health minister is appalling. I wonder if she would be willing to repeat such canards to all of the children with debilitating forms of epilepsy who are helped through the ingestion of small amounts of various cannabis preparations? Perhaps she could embrace one of these children in her motherly arms as they suffer yet another seizure, maybe offer them a joint?

Strains of low or no THC marijuana that are high in cannabidiol (CBD) have been developed and have proven remarkably effective at controlling not only seizures, but providing relief from neuropathic pain, PTSD, Crohn’s disease, and nausea as a result of chemotherapy, to name but a few. The loving minister, however, appears to be wantonly ignorant of such developments to the point of unmitigated callousness.

Ambrose goes on to say “There’s very harmful effects of marijuana, especially on our youth.” Really? Would the good madame care to list them?

I applaud the Supreme Court and the wisdom of its decision. If only such sage reasoning could be instilled elsewhere, beginning with the health minister’s office.

Walter Ross, West Richland, Wash.

Another One Bites The Dust

Bye, bye, James Moore.

More On The Precariat

In yesterday's post, I wrote about Angel Reyes, the 61-year-old member of the precariat terminated from his five-year 'temp' job at a recycling company one week after speaking to The Star about his inability to secure a full-time designation for the work he was doing, which meant that he was paid minimum wage while those classified as permanent at the plant made much more.

Unfortunately, Reyes is but one of many unable to escape the cycle of poverty and uncertain work, a situation aided and abetted by provincial regulations that seem to pay obeisance to the business imperative, an imperative that enhances corporate profits while exploiting workers.

Consider these facts:

Ontario’s low-wage work force has skyrocketed by 94 percent over the past two decades, compared with just 30 percent growth in total employment, according to a new report.

It shows that 40 percent of low-wage employees are saddled with unpredictable shifts, and the overwhelming majority do not get paid when they need time off.

The report, compiled by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives,

shows that the share of Ontario workers labouring for the minimum wage is now five times higher than in 1997. It rose from less than 3 per cent of all employees to about 12 per cent in 2014.

The share of low-paid work has also ballooned: almost a third of all employees in the province are now making within $4 of the minimum wage, compared with less than 20 per cent of the workforce in 1997.

And while more than half of all minimum-wage workers are still young people, most of those making less than $15 an hour are 25 or older.

Add to that these sobering statistics:

50.5: Percentage of Ontario employees working less than 40 hours a week

29.4: Percentage of Ontario workers who are low-wage

6.7: Percentage of employees unionized in private-sector businesses with fewer than 20 people

23.7: Percentage of employees unionized in workplaces with 500 or more people

The human face is all-important in truly coming to grips with these statistics. Responding to the above are two Star readers:

Re: Ontario's ‘eye-popping' shift to low-wage work, June 15

This is the second article I’ve read recently about low-wage workers in Ontario becoming the norm. I’m one of those folks. I went from full-time decent pay to part time (15 hours a week) at barely more than minimum wage. Why? Downsizing, loss of work, poorly managed companies. Yet the upper executives and company owners suffering is little to non-existent.

And I have been doing all I can to change that in the last six years by taking college courses. Now, at 50, I feel stuck, marginalized and depressed that there is no way out.

I see my government care less for those who support the infrastructure and more for those in the 1 per cent. How do we fix this? I don’t know, but something needs to change and none of the parties seems to care or have a plan or even address this issue in meaningful ways.

Janet Swainston, Cambridge

Anyone even remotely surprised by the tone of this article clearly hasn’t been paying attention these last 20-odd years. Corporate taxes were slashed, ostensibly to increase profits and free up monies for research and more jobs. That didn’t happen. Jobs have been outsourced and wages have dwindled.

Companies now hire contract employees who are responsible for paying their own taxes, EI, etc. Their continued employment is subject to the whims of their employer.

This is all backed by complicit governments whose sole economic plan seems to be that if they cut corporate taxes it will trickle down to the citizenry.

Escalating corporate bonuses have put to rest the bromide that “when times get tight we must all tighten our belts.” Translation: “You tighten your belts while we loosen ours.”

John Dickie, Toronto

Punishment For A Member Of The Precariat Who Spoke Out

Human nature is a funny thing, especially in its ability to compartmentalize things. For example, I suspect that the vast majority of us are able to witness the plight of suffering around the world with a certain dispassion; images from halfway across the world of disaster, for example, we are able to process without a great deal of emotional involvement, the mediating influence of geography being a big factor. Statistics show a widening gap between the rich and the poor, but that information is received intellectually, not personally. It is only when the suffering is up close and personal, when we are able to put a particular face to injustice, for example, that we are moved to emotions like sympathy, empathy, even outrage.

The plight of the precariat has the potential to elicit the latter reactions. The Toronto Star has been conducting an ongoing series on the topic, and its individual portrayals of those toiling under low-paying and uncertain jobs has been quite moving. But, perhaps predictably, one of those who spoke to the paper has now experienced retaliation from his employer.

In the May 10 installment of the series, 61-year-old Angel Reyes was profiled. Here is a brief excerpt:

For more than five years, 61-year-old Angel Reyes has woken up five days a week at 3 a.m. and braced himself for eight hours of hauling garbage at a Toronto recycling plant.

The university-educated refugee is the longest-serving worker on the floor, hired through a temp agency more than half a decade ago.

Half a decade and, technically, still a temp.

Half a decade earning minimum wage, never having seen a raise.

Half a decade, and still paid less per hour than his permanent colleagues for doing the same job.

Half a decade, and still no benefits.

Half a decade, and still no obligation for his employer to hire him permanently.

“If hell exists, that is hell,” says Reyes, a father of three who came to Canada in 1993 after he was kidnapped and imprisoned in El Salvador for — ironically — lobbying for workers’ rights.

I remember after reading his and others' stories how long it would be before retaliation was meted out. For Reyes, the day of corporate judgement came just a short time after his story appeared:

Just one week after sharing his story with the Star, he was told to finish out the hour at the plant and go home.

Almost a month later, he has not been called back. He has not received termination pay. And he has not been given a straight answer as to why he was let go.

“I feel so sad, because I’ve been working there for so long,” he says.

His de facto employer, Canada Fibres recycling plant, will not discuss his situation, and they are likely able to get away with this reprehensible treatment for a simple reason: technically speaking, Reyes was employed, even after five years at the same job, by a temp agency, United Staffing Services. In Ontario, agencies are considered the “employer of record” for temps. Not that this in any way absolves Canada Fibres of its moral culpability in this very sordid business:

When he spoke to the Star in May, Reyes had a simple request for the company: “Hire me.”

Instead, one week later, Reyes and six temporary colleagues were summoned by United Staffing Services, which has an office at the plant itself, and told to go home.

Reached by the Star, Chris Ilkanic of United Staffing said the plant was “downsizing” and that plant management, not the temp agency, decided who to let go.

Ilkanic added the plant manager told him Reyes had appeared in the Star but “didn’t have any problems with it.”

Reyes says when he approached Canada Fibres’ general manager to plead for his job back, he was batted back to the temp agency.

Reyes says he didn’t get an explanation as to why he was let go and former colleagues told him that several of the temps sent home at the same time are now back on the job.

A spokesman for Canada Fibres, Mark Badger, responded to requests from The Star for comment with the tiresomely predicable non-answer due to "privacy concerns" and the standard platitudes:

... the company is growing overall and strives to provide a good work environment.

“There are a lot of people who are really proud of what they do here and have worked here for a long time,” he told the Star.

Tell that to Angel Reyes, Mr. Badger.

Yet Another Sign Of Just How Much Trouble We Are In

When we think of climate change, the first things that may come to mind are our increasingly violent storms and melting Arctic ice. Another, of course, is drought and its ever-widening destructive swath. It is the latter that has led to a new threat:

The world’s largest underground aquifers – a source of fresh water for hundreds of millions of people — are being depleted at alarming rates, according to new NASA satellite data that provides the most detailed picture yet of vital water reserves hidden under the Earth’s surface.

Twenty-one of the world’s 37 largest aquifers — in locations from India and China to the United States and France — have passed their sustainability tipping points, meaning more water was removed than replaced during the decade-long study period, researchers announced Tuesday. Thirteen aquifers declined at rates that put them into the most troubled category. The researchers said this indicated a long-term problem that’s likely to worsen as reliance on aquifers grows.

The crucial role acquifers play in our lives cannot be overestimated:

Underground aquifers supply 35 percent of the water used by humans worldwide. Demand is even greater in times of drought. Rain-starved California is currently tapping aquifers for 60 percent of its water use as its rivers and above-ground reservoirs dry up, a steep increase from the usual 40 percent. Some expect water from aquifers will account for virtually every drop of the state’s fresh water supply by year end.

It is a problem that cannot be easily remediated, no matter our technology:

Aquifers can take thousands of years to fill up and only slowly recharge with water from snowmelt and rains. Now, as drilling for water has taken off across the globe, the hidden water reservoirs are being stressed.

In addition to climate change, the other reasons for the precipitous drop in aquifer levels include heavy agricultural irrigation, mining, and oil and gas exploration.

No one knows how much groundwater is left in the world. This report simply brings to our attention once again the environmental destruction we are all a part of, either directly or indirectly.

UPDATED: Going, Going ....

...soon to be gone?



There are many things we take for granted in our lives: our health, our family, our way of life. Sometimes, changes in those and other areas happen so gradually that we really don't notice until it is too late. The state of democracy, both globally and domestically, is one of those things that, over time, has become grievously imperiled, with the vast majority seeming either not to notice or, perhaps even worse, not to care.

A newspaper report from a few days ago serves as an international illustration. In India, Greenpeace and a multitude of

other NGOs and charities — environmental and other — have been under the government radar since last June, when the Intelligence Bureau leaked a report accusing several foreign-funded NGOs of stalling infrastructure projects.

The government has also restricted direct transfers of foreign donations.

The language of an intelligence report on these organizations is chilling:

The report named several activists and organizations but singled out Greenpeace as a “threat to national economic security.” The report also said the global organization was using its “exponential” growth in terms of “reach, impact, volunteers and media influence” to create obstacles in India’s energy plans.

Since then, Greenpeace India’s offices have undergone inspections, its bank accounts have been frozen and at least three staffers, including Pillai, have been refused permission to either enter or leave India.

The parallels with what is happening at home should be obvious. There is, of course, the Harper use of the CRA to intimidate organizations that are critical of government policies. There is his widely reported muzzling of scientists. And then there are the very worrisome provisions of Bill C-51 that could be used to criminalize dissent. These are just three examples of the tip of a very large iceberg.

Today's Globe and Mail tells us that a a 66-page report is being issued today that should be of great interest to all Canadians:

The report is being released under the banner of Voices-Voix and its signatories include the heads of Amnesty International Canada, Greenpeace Canada and the former head of Oxfam Canada.

The coalition of 200 organizations and 500 individuals accuses the government of taking away funding or otherwise intimidating organizations that it disagrees with.

It accuses the government of muzzling scientists and public servants and portraying First Nations and aboriginal groups as threats to national security.

The implications for democracy are deeply troubling:

...the government is silencing the public policy debate on important issues.

“We have borne witness to hundreds of cases in which individuals, organizations and institutions have been intimidated, defunded, shut down or vilified by the federal government,” the report states.

The report accuses the government of targeting dozens of charities that it deems “too political” for its taste.

It also says the government has undermined the function of Justice Department lawyers by discouraging them from giving important advice to the government.

And it points to the “muzzling” of several government watchdog agencies, citing the sacking of senior leadership at the Canadian Wheat Board and the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission.

It also accuses the government of undermining the work of the military ombudsman, the Commission for Public Complaints against the RCMP, the federal commissioner of the environment and the correctional services investigator.

The report says the government has mounted an attack on “evidence-based” policy-making and cites Statistics Canada, which has undergone an 18 per cent staff reduction and $30-million in budget cuts since 2012.

It also takes the government to task for doing away with the long-form census.

“Canadians deserve a vibrant and dynamic democracy and they are capable of building that together,” the report concludes.

The report ends with what is ultimately the ideal of which the Harper regime is the antithesis:

“It is the job of government to support those engaged in this task, not undercut and destroy their striving for a better and more inclusive democracy.”

If this does not move Canadians, perhaps we are beyond saving.

UPDATE: You can access the full report by going to this website.

As well, environmentalist Paul Watson has not been able to return to Canada since his Canadian passport was seized in Germany in 2012 and turned over to the Canadian embassy in Frankfurt. Canada has refused to return it to him, and Watson believes the decision was driven by Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper's dislike of environmentalists.

And ThinkingManNeil has provided this link to Paul Watson's story on the outrage.

The Choice Before Us

Chris Hedges explains: