The Harper Government and The Eve of Environmental Destruction

Despite recent toned-down rhetoric, I suspect Harper and his minions are fooling very few people.

Take, for example, the recent words of our Anti-Environment Minister, the integrity-challenged Peter Kent:

Confronted by a looming 2020 deadline for curbing greenhouse gas emissions, the Harper government will ramp up its efforts to reduce climate change pollutants, Environment Minister Peter Kent said Wednesday.

In fact, as the article points out, the Harper regime has contributed almost nothing to achieve current reductions which take us halfway to the target; that has been wrought primarily by the combined efforts of environmentally conscious consumers and actions taken by provincial governments.

To further undermine any semblance of veracity, it was recently revealed that last year, this contemptible Harper mouthpiece presided over a department that

tried to minimize Canadian media coverage of its contribution to a major international scientific assessment report that highlighted evidence linking human activity to extreme weather events, according to a newly released federal memorandum obtained by Postmedia News.

Actions, as they say, do speak louder than words.

And of course, it is only words we are getting from our Prime Prevaricator, the man who has amply demonstrated through the actions of his micro-managed government nothing but withering contempt for science, data, and facts in general, doing everything he can to neutralize their threat along with those who dare to challenge his stunted and regressive world-view.

Take this rather rich statement Harper recently made, apparently with a straight face:

“The only way governments can handle controversial projects of this manner is to ensure that things are evaluated on an independent basis scientifically, and not simply on political criteria,” Harper told reporters during a visit to B.C.

“And as I’ve said repeatedly, the government does not pick and choose particular projects,” the prime minister said. “The government obviously wants to see British Columbia’s export trade continue to grow and diversify, that’s important. But projects have to be evaluated on their own merits.”

I guess that explains why he neutered the National Energy Board, robbing it of its ability to make a decision on the Northern Gateway Project, a power now residing solely in the hands of Harper and his cronies.

In his column today, which I hope you will get a chance to read, Thomas Walkom has much to say on some of these issues.

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Thomas Walkom - Harper and Oil

In this time of unprecedented climate change, I think most people realize that Stephen Harper has an unhealthy addiction to oil, one that marks him as truly retrogressive as he seeks to return Canada to its traditional role as primarily an exporter of resources, all the while couching that backward movement with the use of muscular language, calling us, for example, an energy superpower.

And of course, when that language fails to convince, there is always the vilification of opponents, the muzzling of scientists, etc., all arrows in the quiver of this fatuous autocrat.

Yet despite all of those weapons and propaganda efforts, resistance to sending Alberta tarsands to the west coast via pipeline is growing. Thomas Walkom has some interesting insights to offer about the Harper strategy in today's Star, which you can read here.

The Fluidity Of Our Charter Rights

Judging by both past events and current practices, I think it is safe to say that neither Premier Dalton McGuinty nor Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair, along with his underlings, have a great deal of respect for Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

First, of course, there are the well-documented violations of those rights that took place during the Toronto G20 Summit of June 2010, a summit in which both the above-mentioned conspired to deprive thousands of their charter rights throuh illegal arrests, detentions, and search and seizures, both 'leaders' fully aware of their complicity in illegal behaviour.

Unfortunately, however, these Charter violations continue on a daily basis. There is a program in Toronto called Toronto Anti-Violence Intervention Strategy (TAVIS), fully endorsed by both McGuinty and Blair and recently guaranteed permanent funding by the Premier, that aims to reduce gang violence in The Big Smoke which this summer has been beset by gun violence.

And while I don't pretend to know what the answer to this problem is, I hardly think it makes sense to go out of one's way to alienate the black community, which already has ample reason to be suspicious of the authorities.

Today's Toronto Star has a disturbing story with accompanying video about four young black men, ages 15 and 16, who decided to assert their rights against arbitrary police stops by refusing to identify themselves and attempting to walk away from the authorities. As you will read in the story, that attempt to enforce their charter rights had a very unpleasant consequence that could have ended in fatalities.

So my question is this: has anyone ever checked on the constitutional legitimacy of programs such as TAVIS? Indeed, would they withstand a Charter challenge?

Enbridge Apparently Spares All Expense

Unless you are one of those naive souls who believes in corporate integrity, this video should disturb you:

H/t 404 System Error

Mirror, Mirror, On The Wall...

It isn't always pleasant to look into the mirror, but I'm glad we have people like Chris Hedges to force us to on a regular basis.

Another Unpleasant Fact of Omnibus Bill C-38 Revealed

Given that it is a government with a well-known contempt for openness and democracy, the Harper regime rarely shocks me anymore. Its vilification campaigns of those with opposing views, its use of government power to muzzle the voice of science, its almost demonic obsession with resource extraction at any cost has left me pretty much inured to any emotional reaction other than disgust.

Yet even I was both shocked and appalled at what I learned reading The Toronto Star's editorial this morning.

The headline tells it all: Drilling for oil in the Gulf of St. Lawrence without a clue:

Buried within the more than 400 pages of this spring’s federal omnibus budget bill is an invitation for resource companies to open a new frontier in Canadian oil: the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

The gulf, which touches the coastlines of Canada’s five easternmost provinces, is the world’s largest estuary. It’s home to more than 2,000 species of marine wildlife — an ecosystem integral to the health of our Atlantic and Great Lakes fisheries.

Now, due to measures deep in the federal budget, that ecosystem may be under threat. The bill explicitly highlights the region’s potential for petroleum extraction and includes amendments to the Coasting Trade Act that give oil companies greater access to exploration vessels.

The editorial reveals that a company called Corridor Resources Inc. has applied to drill the first-ever deep-water well in the gulf, a development with dire environmental implications. Even without an oil spill, the seismic drilling will have profoundly negative effects on marine life, and to compound the environmental crime, there will be no way to measure those effects:

The budget rescinded the requirement for environmental assessments of exploratory drilling and crippled the Centre for Offshore Oil, Gas and Energy Research, the federal agency best equipped to deliver such assessments.

In a world already in the midst of the biggest disaster ever experienced by humanity, climate change, the Harper regime is unbowed in its headlong rush to give the corporate sector every opportunity to 'live for the moment," something it has historically proven to be very adept at.