Only A Start

A bane of the neoliberal agenda but salvation to countless Canadians, the vision of a national pharmacare program has made a baby step toward realization.

The federal government has joined Canadian provinces and territories in a bulk-buying drug program that aims to lower the cost of prescription medications.

Health Minister Jane Philpott says drug plans administered by the federal government will unite with the provincial and territorial pan-Canadian Pharmaceutical Alliance, which negotiates to lower prices on brand name and generic drugs.

Philpott says in a statement that combining the negotiating power of federal, provincial and territorial governments achieves greater savings for all publicly funded drug programs, increases access to drug-treatment options and improves consistency of pricing across Canada.

While this development is most welcome news, (after all, the Alliance did save buyers $490 million last year) it can only be viewed as an interim measure on the seemingly endless journey toward a national drug plan that would save countless lives and billions of dollars currently being spent inefficiently by both government and private citizens; indeed, many of the latter can ill afford the costly prescriptions that could keep them out of hospital or worse.

A recent column by The Star's Martin Regg Cohn casts the problem into sharp relief:

[I]f we had grappled with prescription drugs the way advanced West European countries have, we would be saving billions of dollars a year by now. Canada is second only to the U.S. in per capita spending on prescription drugs, well ahead of European countries.

In fact, Canada keeps paying the price for a wasteful, inefficient, inequitable, fragmented system that leaves every patient to fend for himself or herself — unless he or she has a company drug benefit plan, gets welfare, or qualifies for seniors’ subsidies. If you’re working poor, or merely working precariously (as many young people are today, jumping from job to job or flitting from contract to contract, never qualifying for benefits coverage) ... tough luck.

While we are rightfully proud of our healthcare system, one that stands in sharp contrast to that of the United States, we have tended to ignore the fact that ours is the only Western publicly-funded system that doesn't have a pharmacare component. This grave deficiency has even been acknowledged and deplored by the right-leaning C.D Howe Institute which, in a recent study, drew the following conclusion:

It is clearly time to rethink pharmacare in Canada. Though the immediate effect of expanding public drug coverage would be an increase in government expenditures, this would likely be more than offset by savings to patients, employers, unions, and individuals who purchase stand-alone private drug coverage, producing a net cost reduction for Canada as a whole.

As pointed out in a Star editorial, the burden of paying for prescription medicines can be very heavy for some individuals:

It’s estimated that one household in five spends $500 or more on prescription drugs each year, and 7 per cent pay more than $1,000 annually. Those unable to pay often go without medicine. And even people covered by workplace drug insurance plans are typically stuck with costly deductibles and co-payments.

It is to be hoped that with the termination of the Harper regime, Canada has left behind its official contempt for evidence-based decision-making. Compelling research clearly tells us that the time is right for finally initiating pharmacare for all of us.

A Return To Sanity

I am currently reading a book by Tim Weiner entitled, One Man Against The World: The Tragedy Of Richard Nixon, and although I lived through that time, I am rediscovering what a nasty and paranoid piece of work the disgraced former President of the United States was. But what struck me most relevantly was the fact that he and Stephen Harper had a lot in common, most notably a disdain, suspicion and contempt for those who questioned their agenda. It is enough to make me wonder whether Harper was a student of Nixon's dark stratagems.

Nixon, for example, was merciless in his many abuses of power while in office; one of the more egregious instances saw him directing Internal Revenue audits against what he termed leftists and liberals. A take-no-prisoners attitude toward his own citizens betrayed the animus and paranoia of his tortured psyche. And while I have no insight into Harper's mind, his own abuse of power through Canada Revenue Agency witch hunts/audits against charitable groups voicing even a scintilla of opposition to his disdain for the environment and his extolment of the tarsands is well-known.

Today, however, brings news that the Trudeau government is winding down these politically-motivated audits.

As recently as November, when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau delivered public mandate letters to his new cabinet, [Federal Revenue Minister Diane] Lebouthillier was asked to ensure that Canada’s registered charities are “free from political harassment, and modernize the rules governing the charitable and not-for-profit sectors.”

“The results of the political activities audit program have shown that the charities audited have been substantially compliant with the rules regarding their involvement in political activities,” Lebouthillier said in the release.

“In light of these outcomes, the program will be concluded.”

Despite all the previous disclaimers that the CRA was taking no direction from government on the audits, the fact that the Federal Revenue Minister has made this announcement of termination belies that claim, of course.

Let us hope against hope that the era of dirty tricks in Canada is over.

How Online Censorship Works: A Guest Post By Cassie Phillips

The internet is pervasive in our daily lives, but equally pervasive is online censorship and surveillance. You've likely come head to head with this in the past. For example, have you ever tried to access a site and received an error message that had nothing to do with your internet connection? Or have you ever seen ads targeted toward you based on something you wrote to a friend in an email message? There's a lot of information about web surveillance and censorship laws and scandals in the news these days. Here are ten things you should know:

1. The government censors a lot of content.

From political messages to pornography, there's a lot of information that the government doesn't want you to have access too. There are different stages of censorship. Some content is taken down before it can spread; other content is hidden from view. Actually, you may not even realize everything that's being censored. Of course, we all know the big sites that are blocked; often sites that offer illegal downloads, mature content, social networking, etc. But there's a lot more to it than that.

2. They do this in a variety of ways.

In the past, you may have encountered a message saying that a specific site is being censored. But what you may not realize is that governments can also act in stealthier ways, asking search engines to remove sites from their search results or quietly taking down sites altogether so that you might not even realize those sites exist. During times of protest, governments might even black out the whole internet by disconnecting services.

3. This happens all over the world.

While we all like to think that our governments are wonderful and would never do anything like this to us, the truth is that web censorship happens all over the world. The US has been in the news frequently due to its heavy-handed internet monitoring, but other countries have also passed and implemented legislation that limits what you can do online. Australia, for example, has recently introduced laws to limit access to sites where copyright infringement is a known issue, which means most torrenting sites are blocked, even if you're looking to share or download legal content.

4. There's no set expiration date on the data collected about you.

Part of the problem with internet surveillance is that a lot of it is being done without warrants and without anyone really knowing just what is happening. The newness of this whole situation means that there are very few laws governing what the government can and can't do with your information, and that there's often no timeline for when they decide your browsing history is no longer important enough to hang on to.

5. It's meant to protect you…-ish.

A lot of government censorship is well-intentioned—things such as keeping kids from viewing inappropriate content or tracking suspected criminals. That said, there are a lot of nuances to what's done on the internet, and sweeping gestures such as the Australian government's desire to cut out all sites with any link to copyright infringement often do more to penalize the innocent than deter the guilty.

6. Not all censorship is done by the government.

If you've ever tried to access Netflix or Hulu from abroad or encountered a YouTube video that wasn't available in your region, you've seen the effect of geo-restricted sites, which check out your IP address and determine if content is allowed in your region—again, often because of potential copyright infringement. Targeted advertising is also often targeted because email companies survey your emails and look for keywords in your correspondence. And your internet service provider sees plenty of information about you too. Even if you trust the government to perform surveillance, the fact that a company is watching you as well can be a little unnerving.

7. The internet was intended to be free.

Of course, the government is there to protect people; that's a good thing. But why should a government in another country be able to tell you that you can't read a specific blogger's site? Or why should your own country be able to tell you that you can't access material that is freely available in another country? Doesn't that seem just a tad unfair?

8. Feeling uncomfortable about censorship does not make you the enemy.

There are lots of people who feel as if they're doing something unpatriotic if they feel uncomfortable about having the government snooping through their browser history. After all, if you're not up to anything illegal, you've got nothing to hide, right? But if you're doing not doing something illegal, why should you be under surveillance at all? Your government shouldn't automatically treat you as though you were guilty!

9. There are ways to bypass restrictions.

Fortunately, if you're trying to access blocked content, there is one tool you can use—a VPN. VPNs will hide your IP address, getting you around those pesky geo-restrictions, and limit what information is available to the government, your internet service provider, and the sites that you visit, meaning that overall you'll have a more secure browsing experience. They'll also help protect you against potential hackers.

10. Circumventing censorship measures is (not always) illegal.

Best of all, the use of a VPN is, in most cases, not illegal. You'll want to read up on local laws before installing one because there are some places (e.g. the UAE) where even the use of a VPN is illegal, but in Australia, the US, and many other places, there's nothing criminal about using a VPN.

There's plenty of more information about web censorship available, but that's most of the important information. If you're aware of the fact that surveillance and censorship goes on, you can take steps to make sure you can access the content that you need as well as start to minimize the risk that you might do something that leads to unpleasant consequences.

Send In The Clowns

No! Wait! Cancel that order!

Blowhard Blah Blah Blah

Please pardon the rather inarticulate nature of this post's title, but it seemed appropriate in dealing with this subject:



And it would appear that Toronto Star readers have taken the full measure of Kevin O'Leary:

O'Leary mulls Tory leadership bid, Jan. 15

Our Donald Trump of the North. A hard-nosed, right-wing Conservative who loves his own voice and thoughts over everything else. Honestly, I don’t understand all the media coverage.

Kevin O’Leary is a mean-spirited, every man for himself, sell the farm to the highest bidder type of guy. Didn’t we just vote out the same type of guy?
Does Canada have to be subjected to the same buffoonery as the U.S.?

D’Arcy Rattray, Mill Bay, B.C.

It is sad to see Kevin O’Leary taking to Donald Trump trash talking for self-aggrandizement. Ridiculing Alberta Premier Rachel Notley who inherited a huge provincial debt and a tough Canadian economy is easy to do for anyone rude enough to do it.

O’Leary has adopted the Trump persona to show that arrogant people with big money feel it entitles them to also have a big mouth. I’m not a supporter of the NDP but I do dislike “bullies,” especially adult bullies who think money makes it all right to act that way. Shame on him.

Patrick Reid, Edmonton

O’Leary would pay $1M to get Notley out, Jan. 14

Kevin O’Leary makes a telling contribution to the issue of electoral reform: His vote plus $1 million trumps the votes of the 603,457 Albertans who cast ballots for the NDP in 2015.

Ab Dukacz, Mississauga

Kevin O’Leary, of CBC’s O’Leary Exchange infamy, is now offering a one million dollar donation to the oil industry if Rachel Notley resigns.

I have a better idea, I think we could convince one million Canadians to each donate $1, if only Mr. O’Leary will keep his mouth shut in public.

Kim Levis, Toronto

Democracy In Crisis

This is a clearer and more succinct explication of the rise of dangerous right-wing politics than I think I have ever heard.

It might be tempting to view the political success of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump as something uniquely American. But, argues Gary Younge, rightwing populism and scapegoating of society’s vulnerable is cropping up all across the west. This is what happens when big business has more power than governments

The Wrong Friends In High Places

This is a selfie that neither Lloyd Axworthy nor The Mound of Sound would want to be included in, I suspect.

Those At The Top Just Aren't Doing Their Jobs - Part 2

Continuing with the theme of my previous post, another institution whose leadership frequently fails the public that it is sworn to protect and serve is that of law enforcement. Stories abound of police abuse of their authority, and yet it seems increasingly rare to see a public accounting for that abuse.

While the 2010 Toronto G20 Summit is probably the worst example of unaccountability in recent memory, with the man the at the top, Bill Blair, accepting no responsibility for the terrible violations of citizen rights that took place, there is a plethora of other, less dramatic cases that seldom see the light of day. A recent Toronto Star investigation revealed some disturbing facts about widespread concealment of police misconduct:

A Durham cop was caught on video threatening to beat up a man and plant cocaine on him, behaviour that prompted a Superior Court judge to say the officer “committed several criminal offences in the course of his duties.”

A Toronto officer refused to help his partner arrest an off-duty cop for drinking and driving.

Seven Ontario Provincial Police constables made fake notebook entries claiming they were conducting a RIDE check to catch drunk drivers when they were really hanging out at Tim Hortons.

All of these officers were disciplined under a secretive informal process that is supposed to be used only for cases that are not of a serious nature, an ongoing Star investigation has found. Critics say this is serious misconduct that should have been aired in a public hearing.

This bizarre culture of concealment means that for the most part, the offenders' names and actions are kept from the public, and after two years of good behaviour, the misconduct must be scrubbed from the offending officer’s employment record, according to the Police Services Act, which governs policing in Ontario.

Like the officials profiled in Part 1, the people at the top have much influence over what is concealed and downplayed, thereby distorting the public's perception of both the force and those at the top of that force:

Under Ontario’s Police Services Act, a chief can choose to handle a discipline matter through informal resolution if she is of the opinion the misconduct “was not of a serious nature.”

Although these 'in-house' proceedings are meant to deal only with minor matters, the record reveals they are used to hide some pretty serious matters, with the Peel constabulary having a rather unenviable record:

In the last five years alone, 640 Peel officers — roughly 30 per cent of the force — have been sanctioned under the secretive system, some multiple times. The OPP, a force three times the size, informally disciplined almost the same number of officers over that time period.

While the police insist on the efficacy of these tribunals, the glaring and uncomfortable fact is that names and offences are kept secret, thereby obviating the crucial component of public accountability.

The Star investigation lists numerous examples of misconduct dealt with secretly, but this video of Constable James Egdon is perhaps emblematic of how serious transgressions can be swept under the rug:

In a 2015 decision, a Superior Court judge ripped into Const. Ebdon’s conduct, calling it “reprehensible.”

“The evidence establishes that Constable Ebdon committed several criminal offences in the course of his duties,” Justice Laura Bird said in her decision.

“Const. Ebdon showed a staggering lack of appreciation for the seriousness of his conduct. Perhaps that is not surprising in light of the fact that the only penalty that was imposed on him by the Durham Regional Police Service was the loss of 24 hours pay.”

Because he was disciplined informally, Ebdon’s misconduct wasn’t required to be disclosed in a court case where he testified as an officer — a fact the judge called “concerning.” Durham police will not publicly discuss Ebdon’s case.

The final word goes to Alok Mukherjee, former chair of Toronto Police Services Board.

During Mukherjee’s tenure on the police board, which provides civilian oversight the Toronto force, he said groups of officers were informally disciplined for removing their name tags during the G20 and turning off their in-car cameras — what he calls serious offences that undermine police accountability and integrity.

“My fear is that an impression is created that the discipline is not serious,” he said. “The next person who does that (misconduct) will act knowing that his matter is not serious.”

As I titled this post, those at the top just aren't doing their jobs.

Those At The Top Just Aren't Doing Their Jobs - Part 1

Probably everyone has encountered those who vie for the top positions in an organization; with their eyes always on the prize, they are the ones who see each job within as a stepping stone to something much greater: a management position that entails both a very high salary and a very large set of responsibilities. Unfortunately, once attained, the burden of those responsibilities lead some to dodge them, especially if there is a chance that doing their jobs with integrity and vigor will either compromise or impede their career prospects for even greater position and authority.

The ruling ethos among some of the higher echelon today is that protecting one's rear flank and not rocking the boat or causing headaches for others is the mark of good leadership.

Having met enough of this ilk during my teaching career, I suppose I am rather sensitive to any action or inaction that bespeaks failures of personal integrity and courage, failures that ultimately compromise the mission of the institution or organization. No group is immune to what my friend Dom calls "the resume polishers."

That this kind of career self-preservation and advancement is alive and well is suggested, in my view, by two stories recently in the news. The first involves a fifth estate investigation into a series of sexual assaults that took place at the University of British Columbia. The identity of the perpetrator was brought to the attention of the school administration by a number of women, but absolutely nothing was done for a very long time:

It took the University of British Columbia more than a year and a half to act against a grad student, despite mounting complaints of harassment or sexual assault by at least six women on campus. The women say Dmitry Mordvinov, a 28-year old PHD student in the history department, committed a wide range of offensive acts against them from inappropriate touching to sexual assault. Mordvinov was quietly expelled and told the fifth estate he's appealing.

Should you get a chance to view the above story, you will learn that Mordvinov's expulsion came only after an unconscionably long period, since the school's administration dismissed the first complaint, telling the woman involved that since it happened off-campus, it was essentially not their concern. When the number of complainants grew to six, officials

urged mediation between the female students and their alleged attacker, which the women refused.

"I don't want to sit in a room with this student," said Cunningham [one of the victims]. "And I don't think it's appropriate for assault, especially sexual assault, that you sit in a room … and have a mediation."

It didn't end there:

But Kaitlin Russell, a former executive in the history graduate students' association, said UBC is failing to protect women on campus.

She was one of the students who led a campaign calling for the department to protect the physical and psychological safety of students and take action against harassment — only to be rebuffed by administrators who said the "unsubstantiated allegations" would "sow fear and suspicion."

And the conspiracy to suppress the truth, seemingly endemic among UBC officials, continued:

Glynnis Kirchmeier says that when she approached UBC's Equity Inclusion Office with concerns about Mordvinov, she was told in effect by conflict manager Monica Kay to keep quiet.

"We can't have you guys tell anybody or talk about this or say that there's … a problem, because that's like if people know there are snakes in the grass but they can't see the snakes, they'll get really afraid," she says Kay told her.

But the women persisted:

Then in March 2015, when history students presented a petition for action to department head Tina Loo, she told them in an email that it was "potentially problematic legally because of the allegations of harassment it contained."

Russell, the former student executive, was shocked at what she says Loo later told them in an face-to-face encounter.

"She said that she could not allow us to present the statement" at a department meeting, Russell said, because the petition "was politically inflammatory and was endangering to the department."

Russell said, "She said that she would shut us down."

In a response to the fifth estate, Loo insisted "the suggestion that I tried to keep students from speaking publicly is wrong."

But she acknowledged she told the women "unsubstantiated third-party allegations … can sow fear and suspicion among students" and that the petition "could be viewed as defamatory."

The only person who seems to have behaved with any integrity in this sordid matter is veteran history professor Paul Krause, who wrote a blistering online article about the culture of concealment at the university, a culture that almost cost him his job about 20 years previously, as you will learn if you read his piece.

About the frustrations that the six women faced in trying to have the grad student dealt with, Krause had this to say:

"The damage is that we send out a signal that we have abandoned them, that we don't care about them. And that the corporate brand of UBC and of the care that we give to it in the public arena is more important than signalling to our students, we care about you, we're going to make sure you have a safe place."

That observation, it seems to me, comes closest to getting to the heart of the matter: brand protection, and by extension, career protection. He or she who handles situations quietly, with minimal fuss and publicity, is the one whose job is safe and whose career trajectory will continue unimpeded.

In Part 2, I will discuss another organization where handling things 'in-house' offers the same benefits and rewards.

Meeting Evil

In my days as a teacher, despite the fact that most of the students I taught were good kids, almost each semester would present me with one or two who, as a former colleague of mine once said, were 'difficult to serve clients.' These were the ones who could be disruptive and confrontational. And these were the ones who invariably stuck in my craw, often dominating my thoughts and pushing their significance way out of any reasonable perspective. It's funny how human nature often fixates on the negative.

One of my favourite authors, James Lee Burke, often writes on themes of good and evil, with situations often pushing his protagonists into contemplating some kind of illegal or unethical response to the dark forces surrounding them. But, as in more than one of his novels, they are often cautioned not to give those dark forces power over them; in other words, to resist the response that evil often elicits - responses of despair, vengeance or other such behaviours. It is advice we should all take to heart.

The despicable, cowardly and evil act perpetrated the other night against Syrian refugees in Vancouver is one such event where we would all be wise to keep a balanced perspective:

Shortly after 10:30 p.m. PT Friday 100 people were gathered outside of the Muslim Association of Canada Centre, located at 2122 Kingsway Avenue, when an unknown man on a bicycle rode up and pepper sprayed a group of men, women and children, which included newly arrived refugees from Syria.

Paramedics and the Vancouver Fire and Rescue Service treated 15 people for exposure to pepper spray.

The words of both the mayor of Vancouver, Gregor Robertson, and Prime Minister Trudeau, set this terrible incident in its proper context:

Last night’s pepper spray incident was a disgusting display of hate - and Vancouver won’t stand for it. #VanWelcomesRefugees and always will.

I condemn the attack on Syrian refugees in Vancouver. This isn't who we are - and doesn't reflect the warm welcome Canadians have offered.

So the best response, in my view, to this deranged act is not to obsess about it but to see it as a crime committed by an unbalanced and evil person. Nothing more. It is an act that has no chance of defining us or diminishing our efforts to bring some relief and comfort to a group of people that has known so much misery these past several years.

Canadians Speak Out About Saudi Arabia

While our new government would, I'm sure, dearly love to change the channel on the indefensible arms deal with Saudi Arabia that I have been recently writing about, it is clear that Canadians are not about to be easily diverted. A selection of letters from today's Star attests to that fact:

Would someone please explain why we are selling armoured cars to Saudi Arabia? Would we sell armoured cars to the Islamic State? Of course not. In that case, tell me the difference between those two entities.

Both ISIS and the House of Saud, in the name of their various twisted interpretations of Islam, turn their guns on innocent civilians and demonstrate a particular interest in decapitation. At least 4 of the 47 people beheaded by Saudi Arabia on Jan. 1 were guilty, it seems, of peacefully protesting against that country’s repressive regime. That’s all.

I therefore ask again, why are we sending war material to the likes of the Saudis? Ah, why am I so naive as to believe that money shouldn’t trump morality?

Richard Griffith, Ravenna

The minute I heard of the executions in Saudi Arabia I thought that the delivery of light armored vehicles to that country would be halted. I was shocked to hear that nothing was to be done. We have a moral obligation to prevent arms going to a country that will not hesitate to use them on its own people.

Even if contracts have been signed and money transacted, it does not mean that Canada must honour this agreement. If we have to compensate the company concerned, so be it. We are aiding, abetting and condoning the atrocious acts of last Saturday if we do not cancel this sale.

Carol Duffy, Richmond Hill

In its Jan. 6 editorial, the Star says that the sale of $15 billion worth of Canadian-made arms to Saudi Arabia “bears close watching.” What we will be watching is people being run down and otherwise scared into submission by ruthless Saudi rulers using our armoured vehicles.

This deal, begun under the abolished Harper regime, should be cancelled at once. Our new government’s talk about new ways should not be undermined by the same old greedy hypocrisy.

Jean Gower, Kingston

ISIS beheads people under their control who disagree with them. So do the Saudis. ISIS invades sovereign territories and kills civilians who dwell there. The Saudis do it by air in Yemen. ISIS practices an absolute dictatorship form of goverment. So do the Saudis.

Why is it that we vilify ISIS, but provide military hardware to the Saudis? Why are the Saudis our valiant allies in the soi-disant War on Terror?

Patrick McDonald, Toronto

Government Secrecy Returns

Having lived for almost 10 years under a cone of silence and secrecy, Canadians can be forgiven for expecting more openness from the Trudeau government. That expectation appears to be a forlorn hope, at least if this is any indication:

The Liberal government is refusing to make public a recently completed assessment of the state of human rights in Saudi Arabia even as it endures criticism for proceeding with a $15-billion deal to ship weaponized armoured vehicles to the Mideast country.

Saudi Arabia, notorious for its treatment of women, dissidents and offenders, became the focus of international condemnation this month over a mass execution of 47 people, including Shia Muslim cleric Sheik Nimr al-Nimr, an exceptionally vocal critic of the ruling Al Saud family.

A country’s human rights record is an important consideration in the arms export control process that determines whether Canadian-made weapons can be exported there. The Saudi deal was brokered by Ottawa, which also serves as the prime contractor in the transaction.

As pointed out yesterday, Canadians have every right to be wary of this deal, given that the armoured vehicles are destined for Saudi Arabian National Guard (SANG), charged with protecting the royal rulers against internal threats.

Hiding behind the usual bafflegab of government, Canadian officials had this to say about the how the deal meets the criterion that the vehicles not be used against the Saudi people:

“A report on Saudi Arabia has been prepared for 2015 as part of the department’s annual process of producing human rights reports on numerous countries. This document is intended for internal Government of Canada use only, and, as such, will not be made public,” said François Lasalle, a spokesman for Global Affairs Canada.

The Liberal government is also refusing to release any information on how Ottawa will justify the export of armoured vehicles under Canada’s export control regime.

“For reasons of commercial confidentiality, Global Affairs Canada does not comment on specific export permit applications,” Mr. Lasalle said.

Perhaps another reason that the government has chosen opacity over transparency in this matter is the realization that they are fooling few Canadians here, the majority realizing this deal is one of economic and political expedience over principle and law.

Not a good beginning for our 'new' government.

The Latest Atrocity Out Of Syria

How can a government treat its people like this? The question, sadly, is a rhetorical one, and the scenes that follow are hard to watch, yet another reminder of the terrible things human are capable of inflicting upon one another.

UPDATED: A Further Indictment Of Canada's Arms' Deal With Saudi Arabia

Yesterday's post dealt with the egregious hypocrisy of Canada's condemnation of Saudi Arabia's recent spate of executions while at the same time refusing to revisit the $15 billion arms sale to the Middle East kingdom. A report in today's Globe and Mail suggests the situation is even more grim than previously thought.

Some of the armoured combat vehicles Canada is selling to Saudi Arabia in a controversial $15-billion arms deal will feature medium- or high-calibre weapons supplied by a European subcontractor – such as a powerful cannon designed to shoot anti-tank missiles.

These details shine a light on how lethal a product the Saudi Arabian National Guard – a force that deals with internal threats in the Mideast country – will be getting from Canada.

While the Trudeau government, adamant that the deal go through, is refusing to provide details of the agreement, certain details have leaked out. The two key players in the manufacture of these weaponized vehicles are General Dynamics Land Systems in Canada and its Belgian supplier, CMI Defence.

CMI, which manufactures turrets and cannons, announced in 2014 that it had signed a large contract with a “Canadian vehicle manufacturer” to supply two gun systems, including a medium-calibre weapon and the Cockerill CT-CV 105HP, which it advertises as a “high-pressure gun with an advanced autoloader to deliver high lethality at very light weight,” one with the capacity to fire 105-mm shells and a heavy-armour-penetrating missile. CMI did not name the Canadian company.

About a year ago, The Tyee had this to offer about the weaponry involved:

...various reports say the LAV III light armoured vehicles, made by General Dynamics Land Systems Canada in London, Ontario, are not for the Saudi Arabian Army.

According to reports in a variety of specialist military publications -- including Jane's, the UK-based group of defence industry publications -- the LAV IIIs are for the National Guard (SANG), a 100,000-strong force of Bedouin tribesmen and Wahhabi religious zealots whose prime task is to protect King Abdullah and the royal family from domestic opponents.

According to Ken Epps of Project Ploughshares, the deal is one that could prove very costly to Saudi Arabia's domestic dissenters:

“Such vehicles, far from simple troop carriers, are capable of major destruction, and given the ongoing deplorable human rights situation in Saudi Arabia, there is great risk that they will be used against civilians opposed to the Saudi government. This is why the new Canadian government should be reconsidering the Saudi contract,” Mr. Epps said.

Through its recent spate of executions, the Middle East kingdom has sent a powerful message that those who demonstrate against or oppose the royal family will pay a heavy price. Once this indefensible arms deal goes through, that price will clearly be even heavier.

UPDATE: Owen over at Northern Reflections has a very interesting post on Saudi Arabia's true nature.

UPDATED: The Limits Of Principles

Despite the widely-condemned mass executions recently perpetrated by Saudi Arabia, the Trudeau government is going ahead with its $15 billion arms sale with the Middle East kingdom.

Foreign Affairs Minster Stéphane Dion released a statement this week decrying the capital punishment meted out Jan. 2 and calling on the Saudis to respect peaceful dissent and respect human rights. Sheik Nimr al-Nimr, the Shia cleric, was executed along with 46 others convicted on terrorism charges.

But the biggest Saudi mass execution in decades – delivered by beheading and in a few cases firing squad – is not moving Ottawa to reconsider a massive deal to supply the Mideast country with armoured fighting vehicles. The transaction will support about 3,000 jobs in Canada for 14 years.

“A private company is delivering the goods according to a signed contract with the government of Saudi Arabia. The government of Canada has no intention of cancelling that contract,” Adam Barratt, director of communications for Mr. Dion, said on Monday.

The hypocrisy of the government's position on the deal is not escaping notice. Said Cesar Jaramillo, executive director of Project Ploughshares, an anti-war group that tracks arms sales,

Mr. Dion’s criticism of the mass executions carried out by Riyadh sounds unconvincing given Ottawa’s unwillingness to cancel the arms sale.

Critics including Project Ploughshares and Amnesty International have cited Riyadh’s abysmal human-rights record and said this transaction would appear to violate Canada’s export-control regime.

The Department of Foreign Affairs is required to screen requests to export military goods to countries “whose governments have a persistent record of serious violations of the human rights of their citizens.” Among other things, it must obtain assurances that “there is no reasonable risk that the goods might be used against the civilian population.”

This will not be the first time that Canadian arms have been used to suppress human rights:

Activists allege Saudi Arabia sent Canadian-made fighting vehicles into Bahrain in 2011 to help quell a democratic uprising. The Canadian government does not deny this happened.

Despite the fact that the lucrative deal will provide over 3000 jobs, is it expecting too much that the new government act with principle rather than expediency in this matter?

UPDATE: Alex Neve, Amnesty International’s secretary-general for Canada, is joining the chorus of criticism over this deal, saying

it is time Ottawa made public how it has determined that exporting $15-billion worth of armoured fighting vehicles to Saudi Arabia would not pose a risk to Saudi civilians.

He said such transparency would be “very much in keeping” with the “new values and principles” the Liberals have said they intend to promote in Canadian foreign policy.

“We still have no confidence that there has been a thorough and meaningful human-rights assessment of this deal, and if there has been, it is time for the results of that assessment to be shared with Canadians,” Mr. Neve said.

H/t trapdinawrpool

God Sure Is A 'Wascally Wabbit' *

Or that is the conclusion one might draw if one accepts the logic of young Earth creationism evangelist Kent Hovind as he explains why the deity placed apparent contradictions in The Bible.



* Readers of a certain vintage will recognize my indebtedness to Elmer Fudd for part of this post's title.

Three Dangerous Mythologies

Although directed at an American audience, Robert Reich's insights are equally applicable to Canada.

On Sartorial Disgrace

I suspect those sweaters that Bill Cosby is so fond of just don't fit like they used to.


H/t The Hamilton Spectator

Remembering Sammy Yatim

To listen to James Forcillo, the Toronto police officer who shot Sammy Yatim eight times as the knife-wielding teen stood inside an empty streetcar, he had no choice but to kill him:

"If I had done nothing, he would have stabbed me," Const. James Forcillo said at his trial, being held in front of a jury in Ontario Superior Court. "If I had waited for the Taser, he would have been off the streetcar. He forced my hand. He was the one who decided to come forward."

If you have watched any of the video of that fateful night (available on this blog), you will likely find that a difficult defence to accept, especially given the distance that separated Yatim and Forcillo. Was there a better way to have handled the situation? A recent machete attack in Toronto that was stopped by two unarmed security guards suggests there was:

The security guards in the above say that they were just doing their job. It's a pity that the Toronto police seem to have an entirely different way of looking at their positions. It is a perspective that has raised the ire of some Toronto Star readers:

Re: Security guards were just doing their jobs, Dec. 26

Please help me to understand this situation. On Dec. 23, an unarmed security guard was willing and able to risk his life by tackling and disarming an apparently agitated, machete-wielding man who had already injured an apparently innocent passerby.

In contrast, early in the morning of July 27, 2013, one Toronto Police Service officer fired multiple rounds into a knife-wielding man who had harmed no one, and another TPS officer deployed a taser on the recumbent, mortally wounded man.

Three questions: First, why is the TPS failing to train its officers as well as the security company seems to have trained its guards?

Second, why is the TPS failing to recruit officers who are apparently as brave and resourceful as this security guard and his partner demonstrated themselves to be?

Third, if the TPS had attended at the incident on Dec. 23 would we now be facing another scenario in which an accused person never had the opportunity to stand trial for the charges against him?

Edward Bricknell, Toronto

There is an important lesson to be learned from the recent incident near the Eaton Centre, where a man wielding a machete and a hunting knife was successfully disarmed by two security guards.

It would have been easy for them just to call the police, but the situation required immediate action to avert any further danger to the public. The security guards followed their training and immediately resolved a volatile situation that could have resulted in many more casualties.

This should be a salutary reminder to law enforcement officers when dealing with armed assailants. The use of a lethal weapon to resolve such situations must remain an option, but only as a last resort, not a first response.

Keith Spicer, Oakville

The headline says it all about Nathaniel McNeil, the unarmed security guard who tackled a machete-wielding man near the Eaton Centre. How many times have the Toronto police encountered a knife-wielding person (often mentally ill) who ends up being shot and killed. Perhaps the Toronto police should follow the example and/or learn from these security guards.

J.G. Wong, Toronto

So a security guard is able, with his bare hands, to disarm a machete-wielding lunatic who had attacked an innocent bystander, yet Constable Forcillo, flanked by members of his force, felt it necessary to pump 8 bullets into Sammy Yatim despite the fact that no citizens were at risk.

What a coward.

Michelle McCarthy, Toronto

You can read the rest of the letter here.

Mandy Patinkin's Impassioned Defence of Refugees

Even though he co-stars in a show, Homeland, that presents a quite bifurcated view of the world, (and even though it does, I love its suspense and its flawed characters), a recent television appearance by Mandy Patinkin saw him offering an impassioned plea for constructive rather than destructive actions in the Middle East. It is a lesson directed at the United States, but it is one I think we can all appreciate. I would suggest starting the video at about the three-minute mark:

Where Is Help To Be Found?

Over the past several weeks I have been reading a number of letters to the editor from 'concerned' citizens about the arrival of Syrian refugees in Canada. Some offer a racist perspective thinly disguised as concern for our fellow Canadians (Instead of helping those people, shouldn't we be dealing with our own homeless?) while others are genuine and heartfelt, happy that we are helping those who have suffered so much thanks to a civil war not of their own making, but also wondering why we can't be doing the same for our fellow Canadians who toil away in desperate situations, often despite their best efforts to get off the street, get jobs and housing, etc. And that is a good question indeed.

Contrary to what some would like to think, it is not simply the poorly educated who are often in fairly desperate straits. As I have written more than once on this blog, the precariat is growing in number, a fact that I was once again reminded of this morning in an article about Toronto's library workers:

Jobs have been slashed by 17 per cent since 1998, according to the city’s library worker union, despite a 30 per cent increase in circulation. And while the number of public library managers on the Sunshine List has skyrocketed, around 50 per cent of non-management library jobs are part time — leaving many strapped with irregular hours and limited access to benefits and pensions.

With good job creation a staple of the City of Toronto’s proposed poverty reduction strategy, library workers say the city needs to start by looking at its own standards.

While there will always be those who insist on disdaining unions, more out of envy than anything else, the above amply illustrates that having a unionized job offers only limited protection against privation and the vagaries of the workplace. So where does a possible answer lie?

The notion of a guaranteed annual income is once more gaining traction.

At a Montreal convention in 2014 when the Liberal party was a lowly third power in Parliament, its members passed Policy Resolution 100, pledging to create a “Basic Annual Income” to solve problems in the social safety net, from pension risk to seasonal worker benefits.

That promise, to guarantee a minimum income, has a new urgency entering 2016, as the new Liberal majority government brings that platform to life in a country clamouring for new ways to manage welfare and benefits.

While some see it as simply a program that would discourage people from working, the fact is that it has a myriad of benefits that makes it attractive to those on both ends of the political spectrum:

Evelyn Forget, one of the few researchers to have actually studied the policy in the wild, described guaranteed basic income as an idea whose time has come, and “definitely doable.”

One popular version of the idea works like a refundable tax credit. “If an individual has no income from any source at all, they receive a basic entitlement,” Forget wrote in an op-ed this year. “As earned income increases, the benefit declines, but less than proportionately. As a result, low-income earners receive partial benefits so that they aren’t worse off than they would have been if they had quit their jobs and relied solely on income assistance. This means that there is always an incentive to work, and people who work are always better off than they would be if they didn’t work.”

And there have been some surprising enthusiasts of the concept:

It has had proponents such as Milton Friedman, the iconic free marketeer who liked it as a simplification of welfare, and leading Canadian Tories from Robert Stanfield to Hugh Segal. No less a neo-con pair than Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney once oversaw a mincome pilot project for the Nixon White House, aimed at measuring labour market reactions.

Lest we forget, there was an experiment conducted in the 1970's in Dauphin, Manitoba which some very encouraging results. Evelyn Forget was

the University of Manitoba economist who analyzed data from a pilot program during the 1970s, where everyone in Dauphin, Man., was guaranteed a “mincome” as a test case. The program ended without an official final analysis, but Forget did her own and found minor decreases in work effort but larger benefits on various social indicators, from hospitalizations to educational attainment.

The results suggested to her that a national mincome could improve health and social outcomes at the community level.

Is a guaranteed annual income a means of addressing the growing income gap in Canada, a way of starting to rebalance the disproportionate transfer of wealth to the few at the expense of the many? Perhaps, although the one quibble I have with it is the possibility that it could ultimately work against the development of fairer minimum wages and labour laws to protect workers more than they are today. Indeed, would it become essentially a subsidy to business, who could justify ongoing low wages by pointing out the safety net provided by a guaranteed annual income?

I don't have the answers, but surely something other than the current sad status quo is needed.

"It's A Trojan Horse In A Global Race To The Bottom"

That's how Former Secretary of Labour Robert Reich, in this brief but very illuminating explanation, describes the Trans Pacific Partnership, approved by the Harper government but not yet ratified. It will be the first real test of how well the new Trudeau government listens to people.

The True Voice Of Canada

As we well know after enduring almost 10 years of darkness, sometimes the loudest and ugliest voices are the ones that command the most attention, thereby skewering our perceptions of reality. If the Harper government had been the true voice of Canada, we would have had to resign ourselves to being an intolerant, suspicious, mean-spirited and xenophobic people, a people who despised logic, science and any whiff of 'the other.' A very similar scenario, of course, is playing out in the United States today under the demagoguery of Donald Trump. The American people have my deepest sympathies.

No, I much prefer the voice of tolerance, moderation and compassion, the voice that is surely being cultivated by the new Trudeau government these days. And it is heartening to know that that voice is not limited to government circles, as the following letters from today's Star heartily attest to.

Canada does well by immigrants, says integration study, Dec. 27

Some Canadians say Syrian refugees are not welcome because there may be terrorists among them. They need to relax. We must never fear accepting refugees. Even if there will be problems with this newest wave of refugees, and there are bound to be some, goodwill and compassion must always triumph over fear.

Even though we presently have problems meeting the needs of many poor Canadians, our doors for refugees must remain open. The larger problems this will produce will no doubt require our larger effort but we must not be afraid of this task.

We must never fear refugees or the challenges they will bring. Our freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes. Whenever we do make them, this is Canada and we will overcome them.

It would certainly be a real black mark on Canada, or any other country, that reduces or stops the process of helping refugees because of fear or a lack of compassion.

Canada is proud to be a country known for tolerance, goodwill, compassion and respect for others. Let’s hope that never changes, and let’s hope other countries will follow our lead.

Bob Hicks, St. Catharines

Love is batter than hate. How wonderful to be inclusive rather than exclusive. It’s the heart of all world religions. It’s the base to our understanding of who we are, and what our society aspires to. It’s a resolution of our conscience to accept those in need.

I’m proud that our Prime Minister welcomed Syrian refugees into Canadian society personally. Donald Trump’s rhetoric exposes his insecurity and feeds to the protectionist mindset of those with a need to hide in their homes with a gun.

Surely the citizens of the U.S. deserve the respect of a higher standard of conscience. He might note that our Prime Minister’s ratings have soared while he shot himself in the foot.

Our world society’s hope is that of acceptance, not rejection. Its populace needs to accept a basic love of each other, if we, as an international community, are to survive. A narrative of prejudice has no place in it.

Keep it up Mr. Trudeau. Make us proud to be Canadian.

John Wiggins, Collingwood

This holiday season has been eventful in its gift giving, spending quality time with family and enjoying a much needed break from our jobs, schooling and other commitments.

For myself personally, I’ve had the special privilege of enjoying dinner with a Syrian refugee family who just recently immigrated to Canada. After spending an evening learning about their experiences, I’ve realized that – despite our differences – we were all vocal in expressing our gratitude and loyalty to Canada, and shared the desire to be contributing and productive citizens in this great country.

I hold Canada’s value of freedom and liberty – irrespective of religion, culture or ethnicity – very important and ideal for any modern country. As Canadians, we must value our diversity, and realize that our differences make us unique.

Arslaan Khokhar, Brampton

A Tale Of Two Canadas

That is the title of a very interesting piece by Michael Valpy in today's Star that is well-worth reading. His thesis offers something of a challenge to a post I put up the other day talking about the fact that our core values as Canadians managed to survive 10 years of dark rule under the Harper Conservatives.

While admitting the recent election was a rejection of a policy direction that was simply alien to most Canadians, Valpy notes that it was the participation of a certain demagraphic that tipped the scales against Harper:

What shifted on Oct. 19 was the appearance of three million more voters than in the previous election of May 2011 — most of them young and wanting to declare that the Harper government was alien.

What shifted were the significant numbers of small-l liberals who had voted NDP in 2011 and large-L Liberals who stayed home, but not this time. As well, in the last days of the campaign, what shifted was a significant chunk of the over-65 vote from Conservative to Liberal.

Citing pollster Frank Graves' analysis of the election, this past election differed from the one in 2011 thanks to values and emotional engagement,

values that said Harper’s-Canada-is-not-my-Canada and an emotional engagement largely absent in centre-left voters in 2011. Emotion is what gets people to the polls.

Whether it was tough-on-crime, the passivity toward climate change, the diminution of the federal state to an unprecedented 14 per cent of GDP, the shuttering of research and evidence-based decision making, or a much more militaristic foreign policy with an unblinking pro-Israel stance, collectively those positions were increasingly disconnected from what the majority of Canadians considered their country’s core values and the public interest, says Graves.

However, Valpy points out that there is another side to this picture:

The popular vote that gave Harper his majority in 2011 — 39.6 per cent — was almost identical to the popular vote that gave Trudeau his majority in 2015: 39.5 per cent.

Harper’s absolutist approach to government with the backing of not much more than one-third of ballots cast (and the support of only 24 per cent of all Canadian voters) was branded a debasement of democracy.

That assessment will likely not be made of the Liberals, Valpy suggests, because theirs are values represented by a larger proportion of Canadians. However, the fact is

the roughly one-third of voters who stuck with the Conservatives on Oct. 19 are real people, with a very distinct profile in terms of both demography and values. Conservative Canada is older, more likely to be male, less educated, rural, and focused to the west of the Ottawa River.

Valpy concludes that

there are two Canadas, each with seemingly irreconcilable values, maybe bringing us to the necessity of seeing the country in a new light — as a modern, pluralistic society with no national consensus, with only limited harmony at the political level, with tensions and contradictions cemented into the basic operating DNA of the country.

It means that while the positive response to the new Trudeau government is the highest this century, the idea of common values in Canada is a chimera, a fantasy.

While his last sentence may be a source of discomfort for some, and certainly challenges my notion about Canadian core values, the tension between opposing visions is also something that should remind all of us of the importance of political engagement and the nurturing of our voices and values. It should also prompt an acknowledgement that a competing vision and competition for our vote is an absolute necessity in a healthy and dynamic democracy, preventing to a degree both governments and voters from taking things for granted.

Geoengineering: A Technology Fraught With Consequences We Can't Anticipate, Or Saviour Of Humanity?

I was watching The National last night, which presented what I felt was a too-cheery piece on geoengineering, the process whereby climate is purposely altered through human intervention. The report looked at the aspect of climate intervention known as Solar Radiation Management, a process that involves putting materials into the air (often the stratosphere) to reflect sunlight and thus reduce global warming. The problem with the entire concept is that it has the potential to adversely affect billions of people.

One point that sticks in my mind from the report, however, is that the scientist interviewed stated, in answer to the objection that artificially altering our climate would be undesirable, that we are already doing so by the billions of tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions that have already accumulated in the atmosphere since industrialization began.

Take a look and see what you think. Is geoengineering inevitable? Will it become a necessity? I would be especially interested in reading the thoughts of The Mound of Sound, whose recent post explored the fact that carbon being released from our soil is about to become a huge problem in our attempts to confront climate change.

Let's Not Feel Smug

After almost 10 years' dalliance with darkness, Canadians certainly have no reason to feel smug. That we survived with our core values intact, something I was far from certain would be the case should, however, be a source of pride. A story in today's Star makes the case quite nicely, I think.

Contrasting Canada and France's welcome and integration of Muslims is instructive:

Canada ranks among the best countries in the world for integration, according to the 2015 Migrant Integration Policy Index, a study of 38 developed countries. Canada scored highly — No. 6 — for its open job market, pathway to citizenship, investment in language training, settlement services, cultural diversity and training programs. The government has pilot programs in specialized language training, helping newcomers strengthen language skills in occupational areas so they can get jobs that reflect their qualifications.

Jeffrey Reitz, a University of Toronto sociologist, found that while employment rates for recently arrived Muslim women in Canada are low at first, and they are less likely to work outside the home, they catch up over time.

“Group differences fade for those with more than 10 years in Canada, and completely disappear for their children born here,” he noted. “This is not the case in France.”

The same cannot be said for France, a fact that some suggest is one of the causes of the country's homegrown jihadism.

In contrast, even French-born Muslim women in France are 13 per cent less likely to find work than the mainstream population, said Reitz. He attributes the discrepancy, in part, to the French ban on wearing head scarves in public. “The ban is punitive and ends up pushing more people into poverty,” he says.

The November terror attacks in France highlight again how vital it is for host societies to ensure newcomers and their families can succeed.

Success, in turn, may be the perfect antidote to second-generation Islamic radicalization.

A country must always guard against hubris, often a pathway to the kind of jingoistic imperialism that so hobbles countries like the United States. A modest national pride, however, is a totally different matter, and one we should all embrace.

One Thing Is Clear

The older I get, the more I realize that there are no simple solutions to problems, be it world hunger, war and conflict, climate change, or something as seemingly straightforward as getting along with that difficult guy down the street. And while I have cast aside most of the facile answers I thought I had in my youth, one thing remains, for me, an immutable truth: the power of education.

In a world beset by extremism and creeping demagoguery, some of it very close to our doorstep, the only real inoculation, although hardly a foolproof one, is that which is conferred by being as well-educated as possible. Had I not believed this, I doubt that I could have managed 30 years in the classroom.

Knowing things, especially how to think critically, provides tools that can help prevent people from falling into an insularity that ignores the larger world and allows for the construction of a world based, not on reality, but rather the prejudices and values that appeal to the lowest instincts of humanity.

A well-considered letter in today's Toronto Star addresses this issue quite nicely, I think:

Re: Fear of Donald Trump is overblown, Dec. 18

Wondering why Donald Trump has so much support for his racist views?

Two anecdotes: In 1941, when I was four, my parents moved from Chicago to a suburb that had good schools. So by 1941, long before the documented flight of whites from U.S. cities, some U.S. school systems were in trouble.

Fast forward to the mid-1960s when I was the manager of Actors’ Theatre of Louisville, Ky., the local professional theatre company. In an attempt to sell tickets, I visited an official at the Jefferson County Board of Education, responsible for Louisville schools. When I suggested that the board consider buying play tickets for their students, the official told me that they had trouble finding dollars to buy chalk, paper and pencils, and couldn’t think about theatre tickets. He said that any increase in school funding had to be approved in a plebiscite, and citizens always voted “no.”

In addition to poor investment in education, many U.S. citizens have no experience outside of their country. In the far west and far east, near the coasts, people do travel, but in most of the U.S., including the giant midwest, people don’t even have passports. Plus, their slimmed-down, dumbed-down media are mostly controlled by big corporations whose civic responsibilities are thin.

So who better to respond to a demagogue’s simple, angry answers to complex questions than people who have been poorly educated, don’t know the rest of the world, are poorly informed by media, and have been fed a diet of myths about U.S. greatness. All this while their higher-paying union factory jobs have gone to low-wage countries.

Little was learned from the loss of the Vietnam War, other than learning not to allow the media unfettered access to what is really happening in U.S. wars. Little has been learned from the 1940s and 1950s McCarthy “Red Scare” blacklisting of supposed Communist sympathizers, another time in which politicians deliberately stoked U.S. citizens’ fears, ruining the lives of thousands.

And, most people are unaware that, beginning in the 1930s, large corporations deliberately and successfully courted U.S. Christian leaders in an attempt to counter Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal. The message was, and is, that Christianity and capitalism have similar goals.

We in Canada, my chosen country, can’t be smug. We are the people that elected Rob Ford, and Stephen Harper three times, and “the base” in both countries is angry for real reasons, but instead of real solutions being offered, “the base” is fed fear and hatred of others by cynical opportunists. Unfortunately, hate boomerangs.

The solutions lie in better education and more opportunities for all, and in setting strict limits on how much wealth or power any person or corporation can amass.

A long, dangerous path is ahead of us. The enemy, and our better selves, are within each of us. In the words of W. H. Auden: “We must love one another or die.”

Douglas Buck, Toronto

The Illusion Of Separateness

Developed in the late 60's by British Scientist James Lovelock, the Gaia theory states

that the organic and inorganic components of Planet Earth have evolved together as a single living, self-regulating system. It suggests that this living system has automatically controlled global temperature, atmospheric content, ocean salinity, and other factors, that maintains its own habitability.

In other words, everything within this living breathing organism we call Earth is interconnected; make a change in one part of that organism, and those changes will reverberate throughout the system until a new equilibrium is reached. As we now know through the destructive forces unleashed by climate change, that new equilibrium is not necessarily hospitable to existing life, including that of our own species.

As I observed in a post a few years ago, every impact humanity has on the earth, whether intentional or unintentional, has far-reaching ramifications. I was reminded of that fact the other day while reading an article in Scientific American. Entitled Missing Tropical Animals Could Hasten Climate Change, the piece asserts that

the hunting and poaching of tropical animals could change the face of rainforests such as the Amazon, diminishing their ability to store global carbon dioxide emissions by up to 20 percent.

The study by scientists at Sao Paulo State University in Brazil presents solid evidence that the heedless activities of humans is exacerbating the almost out-of-control climate change we are already experiencing:

Hunting and poaching threatens 19 percent of all tropical forest vertebrates, with large vertebrates, including frugivores, disproportionately favored by hunters, the study says. As the frugivore population declines—a process called “defaunation”—fewer seeds of carbon-dense trees are spread throughout the forest, study co-author Mauro Galetti, a Sao Paulo State University ecologist, said.

“The result is a new forest dominated by smaller trees with milder woods which stock less carbon,” study lead author Carolina Bello, a Sao Paulo State University PhD student, said in a statement.

These two graphics amply illustrate the problem:



The equation is rather simple: killing the animals=reducing our longterm chances for survival.

José Maria Cardoso da Silva, an environmental geography professor at the University of Miami, said many studies, including some of his own research, have been published over the last 15 years showing that big, carbon-dense trees could go extinct without the large animals that spread their seeds.

“We demonstrated that by eliminating the big frugivorous birds, the big trees in the region will move towards extinction,” Silva said. “All studies afterwards have confirmed the trend. (Bello and Galetti’s) paper adds one more step to the chain. It shows that if the big trees go extinct, then the capacity of the forest to store carbon is reduced. If forests cannot store carbon in the way that they usually did, then the negative effects of climate change can be exacerbated.”

The folly of humanity continues apace.

A Brief Programming Note

Although the right-wing would heartily disagree, as amply pointed out by Montreal Simon today, my sense is that the waters perpetually roiled by the Harper government and their spawn have finally settled down. While there will undoubtedly be countless times in the future when I take the Trudeau government to task, for now I am content to let things unfold in their natural course. Therefore, I suspect (although I may be wrong) that I will be blogging more sporadically in the next little while.

I shall continue to read and benefit from the contributions of others, however. Enjoy a good Christmas, everyone, although I shall likely post more before December 25.

Taking The Time To Get It Right

Rather than plunging headlong into the legalization of marijuana, it sounds like the Trudeau government is taking the time to ensure that the legislation achieves its stated goals: keeping it out of the hands of young people, diminishing the black market, and not using it as an opportunity to make windfall profits:

Trudeau promises to set up a task force with representatives from the three levels of government and, with input from experts in public health, substance abuse and policing, design a new system of marijuana sales and distribution.

It would include federal and provincial excise taxes. However, Trudeau cautioned against imposing steep levies designed to discourage its use.

"The fact is that, if you tax it too much as we saw with cigarettes, you end up with driving things towards a black market, which will not keep Canadians safe — particularly young Canadians."

I Guess The Barbados Has An Open-Door Policy Toward Felons

Few Canadians will forget this scene:



The people of The Barbados, however, apparently hold no animus toward foreign felons:

Dean Del Mastro and his cousin David are establishing a $26-million solar technology manufacturing plant and solar farm in Barbados, according to a report Thursday in the online newspaper Barbados Today.

The Del Mastros' company is called the Deltro Group, and Barbados Today states that David Del Mastro is the president and Dean is company director.

The article states that Deltro Group is expected to represent “stiff competition” for Barbados Light and Power Company.

“We are not just excited for ourselves,” Dean Del Mastro told Barbados Today. “We are excited for Barbados because we believe it has potential to really transform the economy in Barbados.”

The plant is expected to hire more than 160 people by next June, the article states.

Dean Del Mastro is Peterborough's former MP. He is currently free on bail after he was sentenced to a month in jail for electoral fraud.

He spent one night in jail in June, and then was released on bail pending an appeal. The appeal is going to court Jan. 4 and 5 in Newmarket. He was convicted of having overspent on his electoral campaign in 2008.

David Del Mastro is the owner of Deltro Electric in Missisauga. He'll be on trial in February over allegations of wrongful contributions to his cousin's 2008 campaign.

He allegedly had 22 of his employees and their friends each contribute $1,000 to his cousin's campaign, and then reimbursed them with cheques from Deltro Electric for $1,050.

But Barbados Today doesn't mention any of that. It is reporting that the Del Mastros' solar plant will be operating by March or April, 2016.

It's expected to include a solar farm that will produce electricity for sale at rates less expensive than Barbados Light & Power Compan

David Del Mastro told the newspaper that Barbados was chosen as a location to establish the plant because the government there was “dedicated to incentivize us to come here.”

Out of either politeness or ignorance, the online newspaper, Barbados Today, made no reference to Del Maestro's criminal conviction. You can read their story here by going to page 2 and 3 of the publication.

Am I Wrong To Feel Contempt For The Unhinged Right-Wing?

You decide.

Sure Sounds Like Union-Busting To Me

Call it what you will, anything that circumvents union rights is odious, and it appears to have happened to Hamilton, Ontario. Independent television station station CHCH, a mainstay of the community for over 60 years, summarily fired all of its employees on Friday and filed for bankruptcy, despite the fact that its parent company, Channel Zero, is in good financial health. It then rehired less than half of the staff over the weekend under a new management company that in what appears to be a blatant case of contract-flipping, a practice that Pearson Airport seems to have popularized in recent years.

The Hamilton Spectator reported the following:

Nearly 130 full-time and almost 40 part-time employees of CHCH were left jobless Friday in the wake of Channel 11 Limited Partnership's stunning bankruptcy announcement.

Channel 11 LP, a subsidiary of Channel Zero, provided the news content to CHCH TV for the parent company and employed the on-air news personalities, producers and camera operators.

The bankrupt company listed nearly $4.5 million in liabilities versus just $60,000 in assets.

The largest liability, which was not secured, was about $1.6 million owed to the employees, which likely represents unpaid severance.

Shortly after the bankruptcy announcement, a privately held numbered company separate from Channel Zero offered 58 full-time jobs and 23 part-time jobs to some of the former CHCH news employees.

Many of the terminated, however, are not going gently into that good night. Long-time reporter Lauran Sabourin had this to say:

"We were told that Channel 11 was declaring bankruptcy and that our jobs were terminated," said Sabourin. "I was expecting that because we both [she and her cameraman] had seniority and are part of Unifor (their union), we would be protected because Dwight and I have been there for a number of years."

When she asked about the seniority, she was told that because this is a bankruptcy, the usual seniority rights do not apply.

And when she asked about severance, she was told once again that because this is a bankruptcy, if anyone wanted severance they would have to apply for it, but with a long list of creditors, employees usually end up near the bottom of that list.

Sabourin said 58 employees were made an offer by the company to work, but neither her or Penner were part of that group.

What appears to have happened, she adds, is that all the employees of the company were terminated under the bankruptcy rules, a separate company has been set up and they have rehired some of the former employees.

"I never expected something like this. I always thought that I would leave CH on my own terms," said Sabourin. "I never expected to be kicked to the curb like this. I loved working in Niagara and have loved the people here.

Long-time weatherman, Matt Hayes, who you will see in the clip below, offered this:

"It happens. But I think the thing that really stung in all that was there is no severance. And, you know, especially at this time of year, that's really hard."

Is there a smoking gun in all of this? While station owners deny it, it would seem that there is evidence of a coldly-crafted scheme to do an end-run around the union:

A leaked email by a CHCH TV account manager suggests that a subsidiary company was taken into bankruptcy Friday to help the television station avoid its contractual obligations to unionized employees under the collective bargaining agreement.

The email, apparently sent to a prospective advertising client by Kathleen Marks, stated "we just needed to disband the previous company and form a new one where changes could be made, free from old Union employees and their demands and free from carry-over debt of CanWest."

Will the terminated employees see any form of justice? Given the many loopholes that current labour laws allow in Ontario, my guess is that the prospects for redress are very dim indeed.