Elizabeth Warren Eviscerates Wells Fargo CEO

The world may need more Canada, but it also needs more Elizabeth Warren. A tireless defender of the unrepresented, i.e., the majority of Americans, the Democratic Senator, as you will see in the following videos, is relentless in her systematic pursuit and evisceration of the self-serving rhetoric of Wells Faro CEO John Stumpf as he avers complete innocence in the scandal that has rocked his institution.

First, some brief background which saw the bank firing some 5300 frontline employees

roughly 1 percent of its workforce — for signing up customers for checking accounts and credit cards without their knowledge. Authorities said about 2 million sham accounts were opened going back to 2011, complete with forged signatures, phony email addresses, and fake PIN numbers — all created by employees who were hounded by supervisors to meet daily account quotas. The bank then charged customers at least $1.5 million in fees for the bogus accounts.

The greater scandal is that Ceo Stumpf knew about this practice going back to at least 2013 and did nothing. Indeed, his performance bonuses only grew, and Carrie Tolstedt, who oversaw the banking division responsible for the fake accounts, just left in July with a $125 million retirement package.

The following videos are brief; the first one shows Senator Warren masterfully outlining the parameters of, as she calls it, "this scam;" the second shows her eviscerating the no-longer-smug CEO.

"His Life Mattered"

“The big bad dude was my twin brother. That big bad dude was a father ... That big bad dude was a son. That big bad dude was enrolled at Tulsa Community College, just wanting to make us proud. That big bad dude loved God. That big bad dude was at church singing with all of his flaws, every week. That big bad dude, that’s who he was.”

- Tiffany Crutcher, talking about her brother who, unarmed and posing no threat, was murdered by Tulsa police on Friday.

Sometimes, all we can do is bear witness.





May justice be served.

This Reality Is Becoming Too Pressing To Ignore

The other day I wrote a post describing how the National Media Council dismissed a complaint from a Toronto Star reader that arose from a New York Times story detailing climate change's impact on the people of Isle de Jean Charles, Louisiana. The reader objected to the fact that climate change was cited as a reason the residents are facing relocation.

The judgement was that there was no need to provide a counterbalance, as the complainant insisted, on the climate change assertions made in the story; the Council declared that climate change is a fact that has been scientifically established, and hence junk science alternatives were not required for balance.

The fact of climate change is evident for anyone who cares not to indulge in willful ignorance. Increasingly intense storms, floods, droughts, habitat destruction, loss of biodiversity and wildfires are attested to in the media almost daily; it seems we have crossed a line, and the changes are happening far more rapidly than predicted by the models.

A case clearly in point is what is happening to the people of Barrow, Alaska, the northernmost municipality in the United States, now facing the prospect of becoming climate-change refugees.

Warming air, melting permafrost and rising sea levels are threatening their coastline, and researchers predict that by midcentury, the homes, schools and land around Barrow and its eight surrounding villages will be underwater. This despite decades of erecting barriers, dredging soil and building berms to hold back the water.

“The coastline is backing up at rates of 10 to 20 metres per year,” says Robert Anderson, a University of Boulder geomorphologist who has studied Alaska’s landscape evolution since 1985 and who first noticed in the early 2000s how alarming the erosion was becoming. “It’s baffling.”

When the sea ice melts, the coast becomes exposed to waves, wind and storms that slam into the shore, causing erosion. As ice moves farther from shore, waves can be six-metres high when they reach land, Anderson says.

“The only thing we can do, as far as I’m concerned, is move our towns inland,” says Mike Aamodt, the former acting mayor of Barrow and its surrounding villages of the North Slope Borough, which stretches over 230,000 square kilometres, an area larger than Southern Ontario.

Yet another danger the residents face is posed by a thawing permafrost:

As air and sea temperatures have notched up, there has been a warming of the permafrost, the thousands-of-years-old subsurface layer of frozen soil, rocks and water. That layer can be as much as 600 metres deep in parts of this area.

“Sometimes I have that eerie feeling — I’m, like, ‘Oh gosh, we’re on the permafrost,’ ” says Diana Martin, a Barrow-born Inupiaq who works in the town’s museum, over a bowl of caribou soup at her sister’s home a little more than a kilometre from the coast. “What if we start floating away?”

Adaptation has not worked in Barrow, and the remaining alternative, relocation, is fraught with problems, not the least of which are the costs that would be involved in such a migration:

One of Barrow’s nearby villages, Point Lay, “is (a mere) 400 people, 40 houses, big buildings, an underground utility system, pipes,” he says. But it’s “probably $500 million to move that town. Then we have Wainwright: We need to move that town, too. It’s on a bluff right against the ocean. That’s 700 people, so I imagine $700 (million) to $800 million.”

So the grave problems caused by human activity and indulgences are continuing apace, with no real plans for either mitigation or adaptation. It is all well and good, for example, for Barack Obama to call for $10 billion annually to combat climate change, but as you can see in the case of Barrow and surrounding Alaskan communities, that amount will prove a mere pittance in the very near future.

UPDATED: Thank You, Germans, For Fighting What Should Also Be Our Battle

While Canadians by and large seem content to sleep through the entire CETA negotiations, uttering nary an objection to a deal that will severely compromise our sovereignty, ordinary Germans are turning out en masse to protest its dangers:

Demonstrators took to the streets of Berlin and six other German cities Saturday to voice their displeasure with pending trade deals, one between the European Union and Canada and another with the U.S.

The treaties they’re concerned with are the yet-to-be ratified EU pact with Canada, known as the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), and the EU’s Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) [the Canadian version is called the Trans Pacific Partnership, but carries essentially the same perils] deal with the U.S. that is still being negotiated.

While the deal between the EU and Canada has escaped the same scale of criticism and widespread outrage among the Canadian public, it continues to be a hot button political issue in Germany and one that protesters are hoping to stop from being ratified sometime in the fall.

In broad terms the critics say that CETA would give multinational corporations too much power within European Union markets and they object to a dispute resolution mechanism that has been proposed in the framework agreement.

This dispute resolution mechanism would allow companies to bypass national courts in both countries, allowing then to argue their cases in front of international arbitration panels instead.

Despite the fact that we have access to the same information about the dangers of these free-trade deals, few seem upset by the unbridled enthusiasm that both Justin Trudeau and his poodle Chrystia Freeland profess for them:





Despite Freeland's rhapsodic recitation of the improvements that have been made in the CETA deal, a quick check of the facts reveals something quite different, unless motherhood statements and feel-good empty rhetoric are your thing. I would encourage you to read about these 'improvements' yourself under the pertinent sections, but here are a few highlights:

Dispute Settlement

CETA includes a more robust voluntary mediation mechanism than has been included in Canada’s previous trade agreements. Mediation is a cost-effective and expeditious way to resolve disputes without the need for a third party to decide the outcome. When parties choose arbitration rather than mediation, CETA improves on the WTO dispute settlement mechanism by streamlining and shortening the process. In addition, CETA includes an accelerated arbitration procedure for cases requiring urgent resolution, such as those involving live animals and perishable or seasonal foods.

So in other words, the great improvements Freeland was extolling have nothing to do with changing what might come under dispute, such as environmental and labour laws, but only offers a faster and potentially cheaper way to resolve conflicts. There is nothing that protects our national sovereignty here, nothing that prevents the signatories from suing governments that enact legislation that may hamper the profits of corporations.

Similarly, the language dealing with labour, environment and sustainable development are peppered with platitudes like commitments to cooperate, provisions encouraging Canada and the EU to continue developing our resources in a way that is environmentally sustainable, establishes shared commitments to promote trade in a way that contributes to the objectives of sustainable development in Canada and the EU, etc.

All in all, empty language that enables the Trudeau government to lie to Canada's citizens. But at least our Prime Minister has a nice smile, perhaps something to dream about as we continue our long, collective snooze.

UPDATE: Be sure you read Owen's excellent post today on Investor State Dispute Settlement Mechanisms.

A Very Small Victory

In a seemingly endless battle, even small victories deserve to be noted. And it is indeed a small victory on the climate-change front that The Star's public editor, Kathy English, reports on in today's edition.

In dismissing a complaint against the Toronto Star’s publication of a New York Times report about repercussions of climate change on the Louisiana coast, Canada’s National NewsMedia Council has affirmed two important principles.

First, the council indicated that fair and accurate reporting on some subjects — most importantly, climate change — need not engage in what is known in journalism as “false balance” – that is, a perceived need for journalists to seek out “the other side” of a controversial issue when the overwhelming scientific consensus strongly supports one side.

False balance wrongly seeks to provide equal weight to two sides of an argument when in fact the evidence-based information indicates there is no real argument.

In adjudicating the complaint, brought by Georgetown resident Pav Penna in response to a New York Times article attributing climate change as a reason for the relocation of residents of Isle de Jean Charles, Louisiana, the Council told Penna

... it is a journalistic standards organization, not “an arena for assessment of or debate on deep science” and pointed out that the article did not say that climate change is the sole reason for changes on Isle de Jean Charles.

“Journalistic standards related to fairness and balance has been satisfied in the article’s noting of factors such as subsidence and channel cutting,” it stated. “Council finds this is a reasonable balance considering the weight of scientific and expert views.”

In the greater scheme of things, this victory perhaps means very little, but at least it establishes the principle that fair and balanced reporting does not require the inclusion of those that hew to 'junk science' and other similar crackpot ideas that seek to deny the overwhelming scientific consensus that climate change is not simply 'a theory among theories,' but rather an established fact.

Those who take exception are, of course, free to read the favourite organs of the far right, including The Sun and The National Post, both of whom rarely let facts get in the way of a good screed.

Do You Know You May Be Under Surveillance?

Last month I wrote a post on the increasing appetite of police departments to use mass surveillance techniques that make their job easier but represent yet another threat to the privacy rights of citizens. That post revolved primarily around a device called a Stingray, which indiscriminately surveils any cellphone within its multi-kilometre range, and it appears that authorities' appetite for snooping is growing insatiable.

A report, commissioned by the Telecom Transparency Project and the Canadian Internet Policy & Public Interest Clinic and released to The Globe and Mail, explores the use of what are known as ISMI catchers.

An “IMSI,” which stands for “international mobile subscriber identity,” is a unique serial number now affixed to every smartphone’s chip set. It is one of several digital identifiers that police build modern investigations around if they can tie a specific number to a specific suspect.

A major problem is that our government does not seem eager to make such technology part of a consultation with Canadians on security issues. Last week, Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale announced

he is soliciting the public’s views on the powers of police and spy agencies.

Mr. Goodale’s department posted a backgrounder stating that police are frustrated by criminals’ anonymous use of computers and phones.

Unfortunately that background, which provides context for the consultation, makes no mention of exploring the use of IMSI devices.

[M]ention of the technological equalizers that allow police to bypass corporate gatekeepers have been left out of the government’s consultation exercise. For some pro-privacy advocates, this is the conversation Canadians should be having.

“IMSI catchers pose a particularly insidious threat to real-world anonymity,” write Mr. Parsons and Mr. Israel, who are part of digital-research labs at the Universities of Toronto and Ottawa respectively. Their paper, which is titled “Gone Opaque,” points out that corporations that manufacture IMSI catchers often swear police to non-disclosure agreements.

They suggest the scope of IMSI catchers is currently limited only by the imaginations of government agents who use them. “They can be deployed to geolocate and identify individuals in private homes, to see who visits a medical clinic or a religious meeting, or to identify travelling companions,” the research paper says. “They can be deployed permanently at border crossings, airports or bus depots, or distributed at various points of a city so that movement becomes effectively impossible without a record of it being created.”

Like one of the commentators on this article, many will blithely suggest that if we have nothing to hide, why worry?

Can anyone provide the name of a law-abiding person, or non-terrorist sympathising individual in Canada who has been harmed by the use of IMSI devices?

If we are to be kept safe from both domestic and international terrorists and cyber-criminals, the government needs adequate tools.

Such a stance betrays a naivete that I find intellectually insulting, so narrowly focused as it is on a particular tree that it fails to see the forest.

Unless we are willing to give carte blanche to our government and the security forces that up to now were supposed to operate within confined and constitutional limits, unless we are willing to give absolute trust to those that have so much power over us, I suggest that all of us should be very, very concerned about our rights and freedoms which, as other countries will readily attest, are never truly secure unless citizens are very, very vigilant and engaged.

As one commentator on the article said,

You realize, right, that the aim of "terror" is to attack free societies to make them give up their freedoms. Democracy is not for sissies.

Joseph Stiglitz On The TPP

A very brief video, but a very important message about the dangers of the Investor-State Dispute Settlement mechanism that is a central part of the Trans Pacific Partnership, and something enthusiastically embraced, it would seem, by our 'new' government:

She Asked For It

Kellie Leitch has made her 'values test' a central issue in her leadership campaign, and Evan Solomon, now host of CTV's Question Period, asked a logical question about her politics of division and exclusion. However, as you will see, Leitch clearly lacks even the scintilla of integrity it would take to answer his question honestly.

Trudeau Has Some Explaining To Do

While our 'new' government continues upon the Harper neoliberal path, apparently never having met a free trade agreement it doesn't like, one issue that never seems to be honestly addressed by either Mr. Trudeau or his most ardent acolyte, Chrystia Freeland, is the Investor-State Dispute Settlement provisions.

Thanks to always astute Toronto Star readers, this contentious issue is being kept in the public forum.

It seems if we look behind Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s ‎”sunny ways” persona, we find he is perpetuating the agenda of the Harper government.

The hearings and meetings being held across the country are a sham, as the PM’s G20 remarks on European trade and the Trans Pacific Partnership ‎show the Liberal government is right in line with the Harper regime, promoting flawed so-called trade deals like the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Consultation with Canadians on the TPP has consistently raised concerns and objections over the same issue that concerns Europeans – the Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) clauses that give corporations power above that of the federal government and bypass our judicial court system‎.

The PM states that Canadians are largely supportive of international trade, but, like Stephen Harper’s omnibus bills that contained lots of hidden, usually objectionable, legislation, the TPP is only partly concerned with trade.

Justin Trudeau seems intent on ignoring Canadians concerns over increased corporate powers as well as the relatively toothless and unequal protections the TPP offers for workers’ rights and the environment‎.

He misleads Canadians by characterizing those who are opposed to the “hidden” aspects of the TPP (and the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, or CETA) as being “anti-trade.”

In this respect, he is simply following in Stephen Harper’s shoes, albeit with a sunnier disposition, placing corporate interests above those of the Canadian people.

Terry Kushnier, Scarborough

What is missing in this news report is that most people, in fact most Americans as well as Canadians, are not against the enhancement of international trade. They are against the dispute settlement mechanism (ISDS) that is included in most trade agreements, which requires dispute settlement by non-governmental arbitration panels.

Historically these are loaded toward corporations that sue sovereign governments, which are legislating on behalf of their citizens. Abuse of this system abounds, for example tobacco companies suing Uruguay for loss of income due to anti-smoking campaigns. They lost that one in the end but the inhibition of social (and environmental and labour) programs, and the cost to governments in worrying about and fighting such “disputes” so that corporations can do international business unfettered, is inexcusable. Much of the opposition to recent draft trade agreements such as CETA by social democratic countries in Europe is for this reason.

Roger H. Green, Brighton

Apparently, Justin Trudeau is going to continue the foolish initiative of Stephen Harper and grant investor protection rights to powerful corporations in order to sign CETA, the Canada-Europe trade deal. These rights would allow foreign companies to sue the Canadian taxpayers for billions of dollars if our elected Parliament passes laws regarding, for example, the environment, health or financial regulations, that adversely effect their bottom lines.

What twisted ideology would inspire any thoughtful politician to undermine our democracy in this way? That Justin would even consider this trade-off is proof that corporations already possess too much power. And these are the same corporations that protect billions of dollars through tax avoidance and evasion.

Stop this madness. Mr. Trudeau, please refuse to sign any trade deal that would erode our sovereign rights.

Cliff Lelievre, Burlington

In addition to the above letters, there is a wealth of information readily available demonstrating the folly of embracing deals that elevate corporations over citizens. What happens next is up to all of us.

Guess Who's Coming To Dinner

Given the viscerally-stimulating ort that Kellie Leitch has lovingly lobbed to a certain core of the Conservative Party's constituency, it might perhaps be timely to remind the leadership hopeful of the old adage, "Be careful what you wish for." And despite a new poll that suggests many Canadians favour screening would-be immigrants for 'anti-Canadian' values, she would be well-advised to proceed with extreme caution.

As The Mound of Sound suggests, she should start by looking closer to home. Consider, for example, something that recently appeared in Press Progress, which included a clarification of what Leitch means when she advocates screening newcomers:

"Screening potential immigrants for anti-Canadian values that include intolerance towards other religions, cultures and sexual orientations, violent and/or misogynist behaviour and/or a lack of acceptance of our Canadian tradition of personal and economic freedoms is a policy proposal that I feel very strongly about."

While I encourage you to read the entire article, here are a few of the things Press Progress pointed out about some of the Conservatives within Leitch's political ambit:

Leitch says personal "freedom" is not only a Canadian value – it's a proud "Canadian tradition."

A proud and avid anti-abortionist, Kenney apparently doesn't hold with some personal freedoms:

Kenney even tried to suppress a women's group from spreading awareness about abortion rights on campus, claiming that if they allowed women to talk abortion, there would be no stopping the Ku Klux Klan, pedophiles or the Church of Satan from peddling their ideas too.

So much for freedom.

Another worthy addition to what could be a lengthy rogue's gallery would be fellow-traveller Candice Bergen:

Leitch vows she won't let anyone in who doesn't believe in "equality of opportunity."

If that's true, then being a good Canadian mean supporting an affordable national childcare program too, right?

Two big barriers preventing kids from starting off life on an equal footing are skyrocketing child care costs and lack of affordable child care spaces.

Unfortunately, Conservative MP Candice Bergen once said she opposes child care (like the rest of her party) because it is her "core belief" that "big, huge government-run daycares" should not "dictate to families how to address their child care needs" – a set of talking points that perfectly mirrors Republican Tea Party arguments opposing Obamacare.

Now that doesn't sound very Canadian, does it?

An indisputable Canadian value is acceptance of a wide range range of values and orientations. A test for oppositional values might send someone like Brad Trost fleeing.

This spring, Trost reacted to his party's decision to drop its opposition to same-sex marriage in favour of a neutral position on the question by publicly announcing "gay marriage is wrong":

"I will say homosexual marriage, gay marriage is wrong. I'll be public about it ... The language of equality and comparisons, to me that's socialist language, the way they do it. The same way they talk about equality of income where they want a tax from the rich to bring them down to the level of the poor. So I completely reject the underlying philosophy behind this."

Personally, I am waiting for a reporter to ask Leitch whether she would apply her screening criteria to those fundamentalist Christians (who incidentally comprise a large cadre of the party's base support) wishing to come to Canada.

Neoliberalism In Four Easy Panels

This probably says all we need to know about neoliberalism.



Should you have the stomach for it, you can read more here.

Kellie Leitch's Canada?

Thanks to Alison for this:



Meanwhile, Leitch's colleagues don't appear to favour her approach. Deepak Obhrai, who filed his own leadership candidacy papers yesterday, had this to say:

What I am really concerned about is the tone and the message this question puts forward. As you know, right now, there has been, during the British exit, Donald Trump, those anti-immigrant parties in Europe and everywhere have been giving a negative message about immigration. Nobody's talking about the merits of immigration. This country was built by immigration. USA was built by immigration. So immigration has been completely a positive thing in a country. It has been a strength for that country. Yet, we have seen this negativism going into the fears that somebody has about immigration.

In response to Leitch's sudden 'passion' for Canadian values, Obhrai opined,

They are world values, everywhere. When immigrants come here they already have those values. [...] Most immigrants are already following them at their own homes. There is nothing new about Canadian values. Which is why everyone is having trouble with what is a Canadian value. A Canadian value should be what is in the Charter of rights -- the right for religious freedom, the right to speak, the press and all your basic rights. That is the Canadian values that is not in many countries. But being anti-violent, being anti-abusing women...these are values which are universal.

Expect the condemnation of Leitch's approach by Obhrai and several other leadership contenders to have no impact on the psyche of this strange, strange leadership hopeful. She appears to be deaf to everything, save the shrill sound of the dog whistle.

Is This Kellie Leitch's Constituency?

As Montreal Simon's recent post makes abundantly clear, Kellie Leitch is a pathetic human being. Her recent embrace of divisive 'dog-whistle' politics leaves no doubt about her manifest unfitness to hold public office, let alone lead the Conservative Party.

Perhaps The Soldiers of Odin, now setting up shop in Edmonton, is her new but limited constituency?

About 10 men, all are wearing matching insignia on their backs, a Norse horned helmet with a Canadian flag for a beard, have been seen patrolling the city's streets at least twice, on July 23 and Aug. 28.

While some see them as protectors, others consider them glaring examples of the worst in society.

As a response to the influx of refugees, the group was founded in late 2015 in Finland by Mika Ranta, a self-proclaimed white supremacist. Since that time it has become international, with local chapters forming in cities and provinces across Canada this year.

According to social media posts by the group, marches have also taken place in B.C. and Ontario.

The cancer is, in fact, spreading:

Soldiers of Odin — a group critics denounce as a racist hate group that is anti-Muslim and anti-immigration — is setting up in Hamilton.

But apparently there is no cause for alarm. SOO national president Joel Angott

denies that the group is anti-immigration, or anti-Muslim, although the group's bylaws lament the government "accepting refugees from countries that hate us" and "letting illegal aliens into this country and giving them the ability to vote and drive."

But perhaps a clearer definition of their orientation is needed. To elaborate on the above, consider more of what the bylaws and the 'president' of this 'organization' have to say:

We believe that the higher authorities are failing the Canadian citizens. Between the allowing of illegal aliens into this country and giving them the ability to vote and drive, accepting refugees from countries that hate us while Canadians are on the streets, releasing confirmed terrorists back to their organizations to cause more havoc against Canada and demonizing anything that has to do with European Culture to try and create racial tensions to turn citizens on one another' we as Soldiers Of Odin realize that it is time to take back our streets, provinces, and country.

Angott said the group is "for sustainable immigration," meaning that the government thoroughly screens new immigrants, and they "want to come in and follow Canadian law."

"We don't want people coming in and pushing any kind of agenda on Canada," he said.

This kind of thinly-disguised racism needs to be widely and loudly condemned. There is no middle ground here, simply because this ilk insists on dealing in absolutes and popular prejudices. They are not to be reasoned with, understood, justified or condoned. To do any of these is to be complicit in their evil.

I shall leave the final word to Hamilton city councillor Matthew Green, who expresses his own thoughts on the need for vigilance in the protection of the values balanced, fair-minded Canadians hold:

On Corporate Plundering

H/t makaycartoons.net

Having written previously on the breath-taking legalized theft of our groundwater made possible by an Ontario Liberal government that has yet to meet a corporate entity it doesn't love, I avidly follow public reaction to this outrage. Today's Star offers an excellent series of letters on the topic, two of which I reproduce below:

Re: Let's stop being suckered by water-bottling giants, Aug. 27

The long-standing practice of allowing our fresh water supplies to be drawn by huge private commercial multinational companies like Nestlé and bottled for profit is egregious. In the ultimate perverse and twisted irony of capitalism a free, publicly owned resource is privatized and then sold back to those who previously owned it.

For decades the Ontario government has allowed Nestlé and other private companies to draw Ontario’s fresh water from our aquifers at literally no charge so that it could be bottled and sold back to us at a massive profit in the form of bottled water, beer and soda pop. After an outcry at this practice by environmentalists many years ago, they then placed an insultingly low token fee on the water of $3.71 per 1 million litres and quietly allowed Nestle to continue taking an average of 3 million litres a day of our publicly owned finite resource for bottled water.

Recently, without fanfare the Ontario government renewed the agreement. This should have been a large front-page headline in the Star but was not even noted.

As Ontarians we should all be outraged that a large multinational private enterprise is given our water without charge and under secrecy by our own government in what amounts to nothing more than legalized corporate theft with the willing collusion of the province.

Ontarians gain absolutely nothing from these arrangements while losing our finite supply of fresh water; Nestlé gets everything.

What possible motivations or explanation could the government have for agreeing to such terms while they are struggling with a large cumulative debt and an ongoing deficit and cutting government funding for a variety of critical services? What obligation does the government feel to a faceless mega-corporation that is happily stealing our water for its own enrichment with the blessing of the government? This is corruption at the highest level. Would Nestle agree to the deal if the terms were reversed?

The Ontario government is willingly forgoing billions in water revenues that are desperately needed. Why would the government at the very least not bottle our own water and sell it on the open market to recoup full value for Ontarians for this precious resource while eliminating the middle-man? Water bottling is not a sophisticated, expensive or complex process.

This is yet another example of the corruption of free enterprise and the willing collusion of our own public officials in its practice much like the recent revelations about offshore tax havens. The Minister of the Environment should resign. These agreements should all be cancelled.

We are regularly treated to egregious examples of governments selling off public assets to the private sector in perpetuity at fire-sale prices. It happened with Highway 407, it is happening with Hydro and it has been going on for decades with our water. The private sector is licking its chops over the LCBO. Where will it end and when will we have and demand a government that is truly a steward of the shared resources we all own.

The sale of any public asset should be placed under the lens of critical public scrutiny. These public resources are not theirs to sell to the lowest bidder! There should be a public inquiry into the privatization of public assets. If this keeps up soon we will have water, water everywhere but not a drop that we own.

Robert Bahlieda, Newmarket

Martin Regg Cohn’s evaluation of Nestlé’s right to bottle large quantities of Ontario water at a cheap price, then to sell it back to us, reveals an insidious corporate profit-making ploy that has gone on for several years. It happens in the U.S., too.

I suppose that Ontario Liberal Premier Kathleen Wynne believes that $3.75 per million liters of water is better than nothing, but she fails to note the effect on rural aquifers. Farmers depend totally on water they draw from their expensive wells, and resent bottling companies drawing down their valuable resource so city folk can sip from costly plastic bottles.

I hope that this report will persuade some Torontonians to revert to tap water, thereby reducing Nestlé’s profits and water draw. Meanwhile I suggest Mr. Cohn investigate the many government-instigated restrictions that cause farmers to wonder why we should keep working as farmers.

Charles Hooker, East Garafraxa

Our Paradoxical Species

Anyone who reads this blog regularly probably knows that I am something of a cynic when it comes to our species. Sure, there are many exceptions, but as a whole, we seem oblivious to our obligations to the world around us. Cossetted by our conveniences, our technologies and our bloated lifestyles, we far too often prefer to ignore all the evidence of the toll such indulgences take on the world.

I doubt that yesterday's message from the Pope will have much effect on us, given our endless capacity for kicking the ball down the road. The CBC reports the following:

In the message, Francis said the faithful should use the holy year to ask forgiveness for the "sins" against the environment that have been committed by the "irresponsible, selfish" and profit-motivated economic and political system.

He called for all of humanity to take concrete steps to change course, starting with repaying what he called the "ecological debt" that wealthy countries owe the poor.

"Repaying [the debt] would require treating the environments of poorer nations with care and providing the financial resources and technical assistance needed to help them deal with climate change and promote sustainable development," he wrote.

But on a personal, more local level, we all have a role to play, he said:

For example: “avoiding the use of plastic and paper, reducing water consumption, separating refuse, cooking only what can reasonably be consumed, showing care for other living beings, using public transport or car-pooling, planting trees, turning off unnecessary lights, or any number of other practices”.

Each of the above is easy to accomplish, but my hunch is that most can't be bothered, consumed as they are by the busyness of their lives.

Is our collective indifference because we can't personalize the existential threats we face (until, of course, we are flooded or burned out, of course)? I pose the question as I acknowledge the deeply paradoxical and conflicting facts of our nature. When, for example, we are called upon to act to help individuals, our courage can reach heroic, almost mythical proportions, as witnessed in the following:





How can we simultaneously be so selfish and so selfless? And more importantly, how can we harness what we are truly capable of for the common good? I wish I had some answers.

This Bonobo Should Humble All Of Us

Yesterday's post dealt with our troubling capacity for human supremacism, a capacity that is destroying our world. This seems a fitting followup:



You can read about this bonobo here.

Are You A Supremacist?

Where I live, the summer has been, with just the occasional respite, unbearably hot. It has certainly interfered with one of my seasonal pleasures, sitting on the deck and reading the newspaper while watching various species of birds visit both my feeders and my bird bath. In those quiet moments, the wall that we humans far too frequently erect to separate us from nature seems to barely exist. The air, the sunlight, the perennials at the side and back of the yard are but a few of the things that I, the birds, squirrels, chipmunks and rabbits, butterflies and bees share. The illusion of Eden, however ephemeral, percolates into consciousness. All, for a few moments, is tranquil and holy.

But of course, the above is a very idealized version of reality; nature, in its more intrusive forms, elicits an entirely different response. For example, several years ago we awoke to find a bat in our bedroom. Let's just say that its presence was a source of deep consternation culminating in its capture and ultimately, its death, as it had to be tested for rabies.

While few would blame me for the actions I took, the incident does underscore another truth. We enjoy nature, we want to recognize ourselves as simply part of a vast and powerful reality, but we want it only on our terms. In a recent column, Rick Salutin reminded us of that truth:

When I got home from the cottage Monday, there were signs of struggle in the kitchen, like scratched, torn packaging on rice cakes. Mice? But why didn’t the cat disperse them as he always does? Rats? Later I heard scuffling and went back in: a squirrel!

It’s shocking how menacing they look in there, versus through the backyard window. Panicked and dangerous — the squirrel that is, but me too.

There’s such a sharp separation involved: them out there, us inside. Panic looms if it breaks down.

Salutin goes on to talk about other aspects of nature that we are increasingly contending with: the forest fires, the coastal flooding, etc., all a response to the separation that we have allowed to evolve and culminate in the early stages of climate change. That reality, he says, stands in sharp contrast to the romanticized nature that urbanites maunder on about (‘I love Nature.’). (See opening paragraph.)

And, in the way that only Rick Salutin can, he offers us this insight:

There’s a reason why indigenous peoples everywhere have led on dealing intelligently with climate change: not because they’re wiser or nobler but because they haven’t experienced a rupture with the non-human world to the same degree as most of us. They remain aware of the ways we’re part of the natural realm, and how dangerous and menacing it can be if, like any relationship, that one is left unattended or gets misshapen by a power imbalance. If you live oblivious to something you’re intimately part of, the odds don’t favour you, ultimately.

He might just as well have added that, with the power we wield, it doesn't favour nature either.

Indeed, Derrick Jensen, in a piece well-worth reading, has a name for what we do to the planet: human supremacism.

Here is human supremacism. Right now in Africa, humans are placing cyanide wastes from gold mines on salt licks and in ponds. This cyanide poisons all who come there, from elephants to lions to hyenas to the vultures who eat the dead. The humans do this in part to dump the mine wastes, but mainly so they can sell the ivory from the murdered elephants.

Right now a human is wrapping endangered ploughshares tortoises in cellophane and cramming them into roller bags to try to smuggle them out of Madagascar and into Asia for the pet trade. There are fewer than 400 of these tortoises left in the wild.

Right now in China, humans keep bears in tiny cages, iron vests around the bears’ abdomens to facilitate the extraction of bile from the bears’ gall bladders. The bears are painfully “milked” daily. The vests also serve to keep the bears from killing themselves by punching themselves in the chest.

And those are only a few dramatic examples of our ruptured relationship with the larger world. Every time we use our cars when we could have walked, every vehicle we buy that is bigger and more powerful than we need, every minute we spend idling our cars so we can stay cool or warm, every drop of water we waste when we let the tap run while brushing our teeth, all and so many more of our heedless daily decisions and actions reveal us for the human supremacists we are.

Our arrogance, our assumption of a natural superiority over nature, our insistence that we are separate from nature, continues apace. It is destroying our world and, of course, us along with it. All because of a perceived right to do what we will with the world around us.

A benighted and shameful view, but one that, despite all the indicators, sadly shows absolutely no signs of abatement.

Every North American Should Watch This

I'm often a critic of mainstream media, but the following is an example of what they can accomplish when they have the will:



H/t Ricochet

Groaning Beneath The Yoke

Last week, that paragon of rectitude, impartiality and righteousness (irony alert!), The Fraser Institute, performed its annual service to all Canadian by reminding us of the tax yoke under which we all groan:



This non-profit, tax-payer subsidized 'independent' think tank without a political agenda was keen to share details of our collective burden:

The Fraser Institute calculates that the average Canadian family paid $34,154 in taxes of all sort last year, including "hidden" business taxes that are passed along in the price of goods and services purchased.

The study's authors conclude that visible and hidden taxes would have been equal to 42.4 per cent of the cash income for an average Canadian family in 2015, estimated at $80,593.

By comparison, the study estimates the average Canadian family spent $30,293 on housing, food and clothing last year — about 37.6 per cent of the family's total cash income.

Thanks to a largely compliant and/or lazy mainstream media, this is now being accepted as a factual and grievous injustice. However, leave it to Press Progress to provide some much-needed balance and perspective:

Although the Fraser Institute claims the average family spends 42% of its income on taxes, less than one-third of that number actually refers to federal and provincial income tax.

The Fraser Institute inflates its numbers by tacking on average costs for health insurance, pensions and employment insurance (as if they're all one in the same thing) and further pads their numbers by including corporate taxes and oil and gas royalties for some reason.

Fraser Institute defends their curious methodological choices by arguing "the cost of business taxation is ultimately passed onto ordinary Canadians."

Is that true? To the extent that taxes on corporate profits are passed along to anyone, a US study shows four-fifths of the corporate tax burden would be passed onto income earners in the top 20% – in other words, even by the Fraser Institute's own logic, it's not being passed on to the "average Canadian family."

In a similar vein, that outlier of the mainstream media, The Toronto Star, offers offers this counsel about the alarmist report:

- it deceptively includes corporate taxes, which are largely shouldered by richer Canadians.

- as a share of Canada’s economy, taxes are now at a low rarely seen over the last three decades.

- the portion of income going to taxes has increased by only 7 per cent since 1961.

The biggest flaw in the Fraser report, typical of the kind of right-wing propaganda it regularly disseminates, is the glaring omission of what we get for those tax dollars:

A 2009 report from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives found that middle-income Canadians enjoy public services, from education to health insurance to pensions, worth about $41,000 annually per family – or roughly 63 per cent of their income. Conversely, we have watched as decades of tax cuts have led to eroding public services, but also to rising inequality, persistent homelessness, traffic gridlock and crumbling schools.

So clearly, that yoke under which the Fraser Institute would have us believe we all slave isn't quite the burden they have presented. Indeed, many would not call it a yoke at all, but rather a representation of the values we hold dear as a society. But I guess the Fraser Institute lacks both the will and the tools to measure such vital intangibles.

BDS, May And Israel’s Occupation

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Alisa Gayle, Toronto

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

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

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

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

Morris Sosnovitch, Toronto

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

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

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

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

Martin Gladstone, Toronto

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

David E. Bronfman, Toronto

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

Marek Machtinger, Thornhill

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

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

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

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

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

Pathetic Political Posturing

Yesterday, I posted about the outrageous pillaging of our groundwater made possible by a government that seems oblivious to anything but its corporate clientele. It is a sad situation which I and many others have known about for a long time; it is the same knowledge that Premier Wynne has long been in possession of, since it is the system of permits her government grants that makes this kind of aquatic depredation possible. Yet to hear her political posturing, it is almost as if it is a revelation to her:

There is a difference between taking water for agricultural or industrial use and taking it to sell bottled water, Premier Kathleen Wynne said Wednesday. Some of the conditions of the permits for bottled water use are outdated, she said.

"There's the issue of the quantity of water that's taken, there's the issue of the cost of that water," Wynne said.

Actually, that is not the issue for a lot of people, Ms. Wynne. The real issue, which you are studiously ignoring, is why your government issues such permits in the first place, given that it is yet another sop to your corporate friends and, as the saying goes, a licence to print money.

Environmental group Wellington Water Watchers is urging Ontario not to renew a permit for Nestle Waters in Aberfoyle, Ont., that expired on July 31. It's upset that the company has been allowed to keep extracting water from a local well in the midst of a severe drought in the province.

A water-taking permit remains in force if a renewal application is made at least 90 days before it expires.

Wynne continued with her pathetic political posturing:

"Thirty years ago, we wouldn't have envisioned an industry that took water and put it in plastic bottles so that people could carry it around," Wynne said.

"I mean, we didn't drink water from plastic bottles 30 years ago. We turned on the tap and the fact is our tap water in Ontario is among the best in the world."

If you have the stomach for it, you can watch the following news report that only underscores the political prostitution taking place at Queen's Park.

UPDATED: Where Is The Outrage?

Buy land, they're not making it anymore.
-Mark Twain

The above quote, attributed to Mark Twain, is self-evident. What doesn't appear to be self-evident is that the same applies to all the water that exists in the world. Water is not, as some seem to believe, a self-replenishing resource; it is merely one that gets shifted about, due to increasingly volatile storms, droughts, evaporation, etc. And yet the government of Ontario operates as if it were ignorant of these facts.

Consider its disdainful treatment of this precious resource.

In the middle of a severe drought in southern Ontario, the bottled water giant Nestle is buying up more groundwater sources and now has permits from the Ontario government to remove a total of over 20 million litres of water per day!

To compound the ignominy of this flagrant commercialization of something that all citizens have a right to,

Ontario charges companies $3.71 for every million litres of water they extract- a total of less than $75 per day for their total permits of 20,000,000 litres of groundwater.

That Nestle feels emboldened to continue with its depredations is not really the fault of the company. After all, it is doing what companies always do: maximizing its profits, consequences be damned. This imperative, of course, is made possible by the fact that governments do little to protect this resource, even in drought-stricken California.

And yet, as you will see in the following report from Global News, Nestle considers itself a responsible steward of the environment and a sterling corporate entity:



What bothers me about the above report is the insistence that, if governments charged more for the water, it could be classed as a commodity under NAFTA. While I am not a lawyer or trade specialist, my question would be that even in charging the paltry sums that governments currently do, isn't water already being treated as a commodity?

As well, despite the comparative statistic showing that Nestle only takes 1% of the water, its commercialization is distinct from the fact that almost all other permit holders in Ontario are municipalities drawing water for their citizens to drink. Hardly equivalent to what Nestle is doing.

In the best of all possible worlds, we could stop companies from taking our water by not purchasing their bottled water. Since that is never going to happen, the only thing concerned citizens (and we should all be concerned) can do is make their displeasure known to the provincial government. Kathleen Wynne already has her eye on the next election, and if this issue incites public discontent, as it well should, she is far less likely to take direction from our corporate overlords and start listening to those who ultimately hold her electoral fate in their hands.

UPDATE: Thanks to The Mound of Sound, who reminded me of this chilling message from the Chairman of Nestle:

News Many Would Prefer Not To Know

For anyone who knows anything about climate change, the news is not good. There is a large and growing crack in the fourth-largest Antarctic ice shelf, known as the Larsen C.

Larsen C, according to the British Antarctic Survey, is “slightly smaller than Scotland.” It’s called an ice “shelf” because the entirety of this country-sized area is covered by 350-meter-thick ice that is floating on top of deep ocean waters.

The crack in Larsen C grew around 30 kilometers (18.6 miles) in length between 2011 and 2015. And as it grew, also became wider — by 2015, yawning some 200 meters in length. Since then, growth has only continued — and now, a team of researchers monitoring Larsen C say that with the intense winter polar night over Antarctica coming to an end, they’ve been able to catch of glimpse of what happened to the crack during the time when it could not be observed by satellite.

What they found is deeply disturbing:

The rift had grown another 22 kilometers (13.67 miles) since it was last observed in March 2016, and has widened to about 350 meters, ... The full length of the rift is now 130 km, or over 80 miles.

This means that at some time, likely in the next few years, another major chunk of ice will be lost, and ultimately that will be bad news for rising sea levels:

Researchers have estimated that the loss of all the ice that the Larsen C ice shelf currently holds back would raise global sea levels by 10 centimeters, or just under 4 inches.

At least equal in consequence is the loss of reflective surface area, meaning that more and more heat will be absorbed by the ocean, adding to an already warming planet, the release of methane, etc. An ugly feedback loop.

Closer to home, there are these worrisome images of a world in the grips of dangerous, if not yet runaway, climate change:



Why do I continue to post such material? In many ways, considering who reads my blog, I am preaching to the converted. But on the other hand, perhaps someone will send a link to a skeptic, at least causing him or her a moment or two of introspection. If that is too far-fetched an aspiration, it at least provides, I hope, a little bit more information for those keen to understand how our world is being destroyed while our 'leaders' mouth platitudes and we blithely continue our indulgent, self-destructive and heedless ways.

A Lesson In Living

Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
-Dylan Thomas

Although I am of an earlier time musically, and cannot say that outside of about two songs I am familiar with the Tragically Hip's oeuvre, I watched almost all of last night's concert from Kingston, televised by the CBC. I watched because I wanted to see how a man deals with the knowledge of impending death, and I wanted to partake in something that, no matter where we live, links all of us together. The latter is a fact that the CBC clearly recognized, broadcasting the show entirely commercial free, doing exactly what a public broadcaster should do, promoting the kind of experience that unites a country, breaking down some of the silly barriers that separate far too many of us.

Like Gord Downie, my brother-in-law suffered from glioblastoma, succumbing to the disease almost eight years ago. He lived the last year of his life with grace, refusing to succumb to the kind of self-pity that I think many of us would be all too prone to. And like my brother-in-law, Gord Downie showed the same resilience and strength of spirit in his final performance. He showed us what dying with dignity really means; he showed us the awesome strength that human beings can muster in the face of tragedy.

What he is contending with is perhaps epitomized here:



So I watched to be part of a pan-Canadian event, and I watched, not out of morbid curiosity or disrespect for the man's mortality, but to take a lesson in living life until the end. May I have at least a small amount of Downie's fortitude, class and strength of spirit when my time comes.

Pillaging The Public Purse: On Hydro One's Privatization

I have written in the past on my strong opposition to Kathleen Wynne's selloff of 60% of Hydro One. She has no mandate for this pillaging of the public purse, and no good reason for it except her politically and ideologically-driven obsession with balancing the budget before Ontario's next provincial election. She will not be getting my vote.

Recently, Linda McQuaig wrote a column that came out strongly against this sale, offering an historical perspective showing the public good that accrues from public ownership of such a utility.

In today's Star, readers offer their own insights on this issue, one that is likely a big contributing factor in the Liberals' current poor showing in the polls:

Re: The case against privatizing Hydro One, Opinion Aug. 4

What’s most disturbing about reading Linda McQuaig’s strong case against privatizing Hydro One is that it reveals clearly that Premier Wynne seems to be selling it for no worthwhile reason.

When 73 per cent of Ontarians disagree with the sale and she insists on it, then she is not serving the public will. Further, to trade off the long-term benefits of Hydro One for a short-lived infusion of cash for infrastructure is economically incomprehensible.

With this kind of foolish, arbitrary decision, which is symptomatic of the disconnect between the public will and its leadership, Wynne will certainly join the infamous ranks of other failed premiers of Ontario, such as Mike Harris and Dalton McGuinty, who also carried out their personal agenda while forsaking the common good of the electorate.

Pity the serious voters.

Tony D’Andrea, Toronto

Timing is everything. Currently, along with a several other Ontarians, I am particularly interested in the timing of the Ontario Liberals’ Climate Change Action Plan.

Last Nov. 15, the Ontario Liberals privatized Hydro One when they sold off 15 per cent of the former Crown Corporation. Sad but true.

In April, they sold off another 15 per cent. The following month, Ontario’s Minister of the Environment and Climate Change let the world know that Ontario is moving away from natural-gas home heating. Some back-peddling followed. Shortly after that, the Liberals released their official Climate Change Action Plan.

It indicated their intention to move to a more electricity-based society. Once complete, Ontario is to have far more electric vehicles, electric charging hubs, electric home initiatives, etc.

In summary, the Liberals are moving Ontario to a more electricity-based society after privatizing our province’s transmission grid and largest local distribution company! That means Hydro One will now go on to make record profits and a huge amount of potential income is being stripped away from Ontarians.

But why? To balance the current Liberal budget and dangle some shiny gifts ahead of the 2018 election. All this at the expense of Ontarians.

The whole thing reeks of corruption. Just waiting for the smoking gun to be revealed. Timing is everything.

Joel Usher, Newcastle

Thanks to Linda McQuaig for detailing the long history of support in Ontario for a public monopoly on electricity — right up to today. The public instinct is right: it is best to keep this rare and valuable asset so that profits go back to our treasury, and to avoid the risk of the monopoly control falling into the hands of those who would maximize their returns at the expense of consumers and the environment.

Ms. McQuaig could have added that selling off Hydro One is a bad deal, as concluded by Ontario’s Financial Accountability Officer. After all, investors are not stupid.

They will not pay full price for the value of the future Hydro One profits they would get as minority shareholders, due to the risk, because key decisions affecting profits are taken by government. The monopoly is worth more to the government as the decision-maker.

If you must sell an asset, this is a particularly bad one to sell.

Kim Jarvi, Toronto

A Time For Some Critical Thinking

With Canada's police chiefs clamoring for new powers that would allow for a massive invasion of our collective privacy, Canadians need to take some time to think critically about our rights and freedoms. As you will see in the following, the first commentator, Rich van Abbe of Toronto, has done just that:

Re: Police chiefs pushing for your passwords, Aug. 17

It’s a bedrock principle of our justice system that no one should be compelled to give evidence against him- or herself.

That makes the demand by Canada’s police chiefs that a law be enacted to force citizens to divulge their computer and phone passwords such an odious suggestion.

There’s no question that authorities engaged in a lawful investigation should be able to obtain warrants from the courts to search suspects’ homes or businesses to seek evidence — even to bust down a locked door if necessary.

But no law requires that a subject of a search tell the cops where evidence may be concealed, or help them retrieve it. Finding it is what detectives are paid to do.

The law the chiefs are demanding might make investigators’ jobs easier, but it would enshrine a perverse violation of the principle of no self-incrimination, one of our most cherished legal protections.

The federal government should slap down this foray against Canadians’ rights in no uncertain terms.

The second letter-writer, Claude Gannon of Markham, is quite happy to surrender his privacy, because he has "nothing to hide":

The police want my password? Here it is. I have nothing to hide.

The Internet has given criminals and radicalized individuals the possibility to operate anonymously, so the police and other law-enforcement bodies must be given the tools to curtail their activities. If this involves getting a hold of someone’s password, then so be it. Honest citizens have nothing to hide and will support the police.

Of course, civil libertarians and constitutional lawyers are very quick to cite privacy concerns, but safety and security should come first. Look around you: do people really care about privacy? Most of us are quite happy sharing our lives with banks, credit card companies, major retailers, rental companies…and the list goes on. Some people even display their whole lives on Facebook.

Let’s face it, we live in an increasingly dangerous world, and we need to give law-enforcement agencies all the help they need to combat crime and terrorism. If this means the occasional breach of privacy, then so be it!

Finally, some fitting irony from Randy Gostlin of Oshawa:

Perhaps we should just assume everyone’s guilty until proven innocent —except, of course, for police. They’re always innocent.

We Should All Be Very Concerned

Given the authorities' recent success in thwarting Aaron Driver's plans for a terrorist attack, I suspect that most Canadians are not too concerned about protecting their privacy rights. The fact that existing laws, legal surveillance and a timely tip from the FBI were responsible for stopping him should, however, be uppermost in our minds as a recent resolution by Canada's police chiefs and technology that allows for indiscriminate eavesdropping are now in the news.

Canada’s police chiefs want a new law that would force people to hand over their electronic passwords with a judge’s consent.

The Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police has passed a resolution calling for the legal measure to unlock digital evidence, saying criminals increasingly use encryption to hide illicit activities.

This law, by the way, would involve unfettered access to all electronic devices that are password-protected, including computers, tablets and cellphones, something that many would argue the state has absolutely no right to.

Thanks to some sleuthing done by my son, who sent me a series of links, you might also be shocked to know that our privacy rights are already being regularly violated by police in what would, in the old days, be called 'fishing expeditions.'

Motherboard reports the following:

The Edmonton Police Service owns a controversial surveillance device called a “Stingray” that indiscriminately surveils any cellphone within its multi-kilometre range, a police spokesperson confirmed on Thursday to Motherboard.

Previously the exclusive domain of the RCMP, these devices

force any phones within a target radius [usually several kilometers] to connect to the device and transmit identifying information. When a phone is caught by a Stingray, the police obtain the phone and SIM card IDs, as well as its location and service carrier. More recent Stingray devices are capable of intercepting voice and text communications. Stingrays surveil phones indiscriminately, leading some commentators to label them as “mass surveillance” devices.

Queries to a several other major police services were met with refusals to acknowledge their use, and now the Edmonton police are trying to backtrack. Police spokeswoman Anna Batchelor has issued a'retraction,' saying that

“there was some miscommunication/misunderstanding internally surrounding the information obtained on whether the EPS owns a StingRay, and in fact, the EPS does not own a StingRay device.”

She said it was police policy not to comment on “equipment used in electronic surveillance or on investigative techniques, therefore EPS cannot provide any further information on this topic.”

This feeble attempt at damage control should fool no one, nor should it lull us into a false sense of our privacy security. The problem is that we are currently dependent only on the honesty and goodwill of police departments to use such devices properly. For example, the Vancouver Police admit to using it only once, and records indicate that use was legitimate and authorized. But there are almost no legal safeguards to its legitimate deployment, as

we have absolutely no policy or regulatory response to police and intelligence agencies’ use of Stingrays despite the RCMP having had Stingrays for over a decade.

Contrast this lackadaisical approach with Germany, which has had federal regulation over such devices since 2002, stipulating the following:

-a warrant is required;

-Stingrays can only be used for investigation of serious crimes;

-Stingrays can only be used to determine suspects’ geo-location (not interception of communication’s content);

-the process must limit the collection of non-suspects’ data;

-non-suspects’ data cannot be used for any purpose other than confirming that it is non-suspects’ data and that this incidentally captured data must be deleted without delay;

-police use of Stingray is subject to reporting requirements for oversight and review.

Canadians, meanwhile, are being kept in the dark:

WE DO NOT KNOW whether warrants are always being sought or the nature of the warrants being applied for;

-WE DO NOT KNOW what judges are being told about the capacities of Stingrays with respect to the warrants being applied for;

-WE DO NOT KNOW if any minimization techniques are used to limit the collection of data of people who are not the targets of surveillance;

-WE DO NOT KNOW what is being done with the personal information of the thousands of people who are not the targets of legitimate police investigation.

Over the years I have tried to chronicle the myriad abuses of authority the police regularly engage in. In these fraught times, the temptation to take shortcuts, violate charter rights and generally abuse the citizenry is high. Now is not the time to give police even greater opportunity for intrusion into and violation of our lives. They need to work within tight and responsible constraints. To do otherwise should be unacceptable to all Canadians.

Finally, Some Relief ....

The months-long drought where I live appears finally to be at end. However, any relief I feel is tempered by the knowledge that the weather system responsible for it is also part of the one that has wrought so much devastation in Louisiana:



Meanwhile, in the West, the years-long drought and all that that entails, continues: