Things We Are Not Supposed To Know Or Think About

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

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



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

Trade pact coming, despite opposition, June 19

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

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

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

John Simke, Toronto

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

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

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

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

Ali Orang, Richmond Hill

Trade deals a big threat to Medicare, Letter June 21

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

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

Jean Gower, Kingston

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

Entitled To Her Entitlements

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

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

Michael Chong And The Reform Act

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

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

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

This Is What Real Protest Looks Like

All Canadians could learn a lot from the Brits:

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

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

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

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

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

In Which John Ibbitson Continues His Audition For A Senate Seat

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

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

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

Some Days I Don't Have To Write Anything

... thanks to groups like this:

On The Dyspeptic Rona Ambrose

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

Here are but a few of many excellent missives:

Re: Chill out, minister, Editorial June 14

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

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

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

Peter Crosby, Toronto

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

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

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

Drew Woodley, Director of Communications, Epilepsy Toronto

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

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

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

Steven Gaber, Toronto

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

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

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

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

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

Walter Ross, West Richland, Wash.