Behind Bars No More

 

As we have become increasingly aware these past several years, institutional investments matter. And as public awareness has grown, so has pressure for the big funds to divest from ethically and environmentally suspect parts of their portfolio, be they holdings in fossil fuels, tobacco, firearms or gambling, to name but a few.

For teachers, the pressure to divest is not new. Well over two decades ago, there was a group of us who tried to convince the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan to take its money out of Maple Leaf Foods. At the time, the food-processing giant was in the midst of crippling wage cuts (about 40%) at its Burlington Ontario plant. 

The response we got was disappointing. We were told that the Plan had a "fiduciary responsibility' to its members to make as much profit as possible. Matters of principle could not be taken into consideration.

Fortunately, that amoral strategy is changing in Canada, thanks to grassroot pressure by union members.

A Canadian Crown corporation has sold off its entire stake in the American private prison industry following a public campaign by the union that represents the majority of federal employees.

The Public Sector Pension Investment Fund (PSP) bought more than 600,000 shares of CoreCivic and the Geo Group, two of the largest providers of private prisons, jails and immigration detention centres in the United States, in the last half of 2020.

In late February, days after a Toronto Star story exposed those acquisitions, PSP moved to sell off its shares in the two companies, according to a letter signed by PSP president and CEO Neil Cunningham.

“We believe it’s a victory,” said James Infantino, the pensions and disability insurance officer at the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC). “We got out of an investment that our members abhor, so that’s in itself something to note and hopefully, it’s something that we can build on.”

A victory it is. If you know anything about the private prison industry in the United States, you know that its profits come from cutting corners (understaffing, denial or delay of needed medical care for prisoners, inferior food, etc.) If you are interested in the topic, an excellent book is American Prison: A Reporter’s Undercover Journey Into The Business of Punishment, by Shane Bauer. Given that a disproportionate number of people in prison are Black and Latino, it is difficult to see private prisons as anything other than a system of modern slavery.

Indeed, there is a thought-provoking documentary on Netflix called 13th, which looks at the sad history of incarceration that followed the abolition of slavery and continues to this very day. 

There is no way of avoiding the fact that inmates in both public and private prisons have become mere fodder for a cold, cruel and very calculating capitalism that should make everyone feel ashamed. An awakening public conscience is one reason to feel at least a modicum of hope that things may be changing. 

It is to be hoped that other institutional investors soon will no longer be behind bars.

Crisis Deferred, Not Ended

I recently wrote about a plan to bulldoze the Duffins Creek wetlands to make way for an Amazon distribution centre. Facilitated by an MZO (Ministerial Zoning Order), a heavy-handed tool designed to shortcut environmental assessment and speed development ("It's all about jobs," says Doug Ford); ("It's all about promoting the profits of your developer friends," say opponents), the plan has now been suspended. Given the public outcry over destroying environmentally-vital land, Amazon has decided to build elsewhere.

One would be foolish to think that the crisis has ended. Only ongoing public awareness and engagement will help ensure the Ford government is much less profligate in its future use of MZO's. To that end, this letter from a Toronto Star reader offers some salient points to ponder:

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READERS' LETTERS

Bulldozing Duffins Creek Wetland a crime against nature, humanity

Thu., March 18, 2021timer1 min. read

Pickering mayor calls for ‘pause’ in wetlands development fast-tracked by Doug Ford government after Amazon loses interest, March 12

To bulldoze the Duffins Creek Wetland and try to create another wetland is the epitome of insanity. Every existing wetland is home to a plethora of living beings: frogs; crayfish; turtles; fish; dragonfly, mayfly and giant water bug nymphs; snakes; birds; water striders; cat tails; water lilies; water hyacinths, and many other plants and animals.

Each wetland has developed and evolved over dozens, if not hundreds, of years, and may be fed and drained by creeks and streams. Bulldozing Duffins Creek would mean death to all of its inhabitants. Trying to create another wetland elsewhere would be like trying to play Mother Nature.

Wetlands help protect us from water pollution by cleaning the water we drink, helping prevent flooding, and protecting us from drought and climate change, by reducing greenhouse gasses.

If this preposterous project goes ahead, it will be another blight on Doug Ford’s legacy and a crime against nature and humanity, as the citizens and living creatures of Ontario will be deprived of yet another wetland.

Please save the Duffins Creek Wetland.

Mara Glebovs, Etobicoke

Now He Is Just Being Absurd

With all that is going on in the world, this is where Jason Kenney directs his fervour, railing against a Netflix cartoon called Bigfoot Family.

A Novel Defence

The devil, they say, is in the details, but here in Ontario, the devil apparently is in the Ontario government.

Outside of this province, I'm not certain how well known the tale of bureaucrat Sanjay Madan is, so here is a quick summary:

Madan was the $176,608-a-year IT boss on the computer application for Support for Families, which gave parents $200 per child under age 12, and $250 per child and youth under 21 with special needs for educational expenses.

In Ontario Superior Court filings, the province alleges that “some or all of” Madan, his spouse, Shalini Madan, their two adult sons, Chinmaya and Ujjawal, and associate, Vidhan Singh, funneled millions in such payments to thousands of BMO, TD, RBC, Tangerine, and ICICI bank accounts last spring.

Madan's wife and two sons, no longer employed by the government, are currently engaged in separate lawsuits against the Ontario government, denying any knowledge of Madan's activities, despite the fact that he used his sons' bank accounts to funnel some of the ill-gotten gains. 

Moreover, in a novel defence, Madan is blaming the victim for all of this unwarranted fuss. In his own

January testimony in civil court [he said] that he “thought there may be an opportunity to take the funds out … it looked like easy money for me,” so he “relaxed” some security provisions to allow more payments to be made into the same bank accounts.

“The (government) knew, or ought to have known, that unscrupulous individuals, including potentially its own employees, might try to exploit weaknesses in its security measures to take money, and having anticipated such threats, ought to have taken steps to prevent them or reduce any losses arising from them,” his statement says.

“By failing to do so, the (province) has failed to mitigate its loss and is largely the author of its own misfortune,” it continues.

Madan is additionally implicated in a computer contract kickback scheme, where he allegedly received secret commissions in awarding the contracts to bidders.  The unrepentant Sanjay's response?

“The (government) not only suffered no loss arising from the alleged “kickback scheme,” but in fact saved money by selecting the highest score bidder in an open bidding contest,”... 

One of the definitions of chutzpah is shameless audacity. In addition to the many millions he is alleged to have pilfered, it is obvious that Sanjay Madan has vast reserves of it.

 

UPDATED: Piers Has A Moment

It must be hard to be Piers Morgan. The erstwhile CNN host, now a presenter on Good Morning Britain, loves to level caustic criticism at any number of targets, his latest being Meghan Markle. And no matter how you feel about the Oprah interview the another night, you will have to agree that the following shows Morgan to be both hypocritical and thin-skinned, the latter of course being one of the classic markers for bullies.

Piers Morgan stormed off the set of Good Morning Britain on Tuesday after his co-presenter, Alex Beresford, criticised the way he “continues to trash” the Duchess of Sussex.

His co-host, Susanna Reid, was forced to send the ITV show to an early break after the row boiled over and Morgan walked off live on air. Beresford called his behaviour “pathetic” and “diabolical”.

The GMB weather presenter Beresford later tweeted of the incident: “I wish I had the privilege to sit on the fence. In order for me to do that I would have to strip myself of my identity and that’s not something I can do. It’s not any of our places to pick apart claims of racism in order to make us to feel more comfortable.”

Here is the video of Morgan's shameful behaviour:

UPDATE: Apparently as a result of the furor provoked by his questioning of Markle's veracity, Piers Morgan has resigned from Good Morning Britain.

 

A Humbling Realization

The older I get, the more I realize that I really don't understand people. For someone who for a long time thought otherwise, it is a humbling realization.

The story of  Toronto registered nurse Jess Faraone is a case in point. She

arrived at Pearson International Airport this week and refused to wear a mask, undergo a COVID-19 test or cooperate with the mandatory three-day hotel quarantine period despite legislation requiring all international travellers to do so to protect public health.

Jess Faraone returned to Toronto from a trip to Tanzania on Thursday prepared to fight the COVID-19 airport rules, which have been implemented to protect the health and safety of travellers as well as all Canadian residents, and she shared the unpleasant encounter with airport officials that followed on her Instagram stories. 

Why a so-called health-care worker would behave in such a flagrantly dangerous, contemptuous manner is hard for me to understand. Is it simply a manifestation of the rampant narcissism that the age of social media has made possible, even encouraged?

I really don't know, but I can only hope that she will face sanctions by her professional association for behaving in such a willful, wanton way that will doubtlessly encourage others to follow her reckless example.

The Developers' Friend

Wetlands, or marshes, fens, bogs, and swamps, are the link between land and water. Wetlands include trees, grasses, shrubs, moss, and other plants that require at least some water coverage. Wetlands provide an abundance of essential ecosystem services, including:

1. Water storage, storm protection, and flood mitigation
2. Water purification through retention of nutrients, sediments, and pollutants
3. Groundwater recharge
4. Essential habitat for many plants and animals, including over 90 percent of the roughly 200 Great Lakes  fish species that occur in the Great Lakes
5. Shoreline stabilization and erosion control.

Excerpted from Wetlands Destruction

If one were to think of the provincial premier most inimical to the environment, one would naturally think of  Alberta's Jason Kenney. His unwholesome addiction to bitumen is an ongoing exercise in flagrant disregard for the future of our planet.

However, hiding under the cover of our current pandemic is another who is proving that a Tory leopard cannot change its spots: Ontario Premier Doug Ford. While earlier earning praise for his apparently compassionate response to this public health crisis, it is clear he is now reverting to form with a vision for sensitive wetlands that is chilling.

Toronto’s conservation authority is pushing back against the Doug Ford government, urging the public to get involved after the province ordered it to issue a permit allowing a developer to level and fill with soil a provincially significant wetland in Pickering.

In a statement issued Friday afternoon, the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority said it was being forced to issue the permit “under duress” and “would ordinarily decline permission of such a permit.” It added that its only option was to add conditions to the permit to “lessen negative impacts” —conditions the developer is now challenging.

Friday’s move is the latest in the province’s attacks on the authority of conservation authorities, which included a rewrite of legislation last fall intended to rein them in. The development of the Duffins Creek Wetland — approved through a ministerial zoning order (MZO) — has become the first test of the new conservation authority regulations.

Anyone who has done even a modest amount of research on climate change know that with rising levels of water 'baked into' our collective future, the preservation of wetlands is a key tool in our survival arsenal. Yet Mr. Ford seems far more dedicated not only to the survival, but to the financial elevation, of  his friends.

An MZO is a tool that allows Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing Steve Clark to fast-track developments by overriding local zoning rules.

So far this year, the province has approved 33 MZOs. A handful of them are on land that is deemed environmentally sensitive, and according to the current provincial legislation would normally be untouchable.

“TRCA’s Board of Directors must now, under duress, adhere to the Province’s legally mandated directive, which conflicts with TRCA’s mandate to further the conservation, development, and management of natural resources in watersheds within our jurisdiction,” the TRCA said ....

On Thursday evening, the province passed a regulation ordering the TRCA to issue a permit to developer by March 12 to allow them to “to carry out part of a development project” on the 22-hectare Duffins Creek wetland at Squires Beach Road and Bayly Street just south of Highway 401.

That part of the development project, entailing the filling in of the wetlands with soil in preparation for its development, beggars belief, Fortunately, there are those refusing to accept this as a fait accompli.

“If this law passes, the minster can just waltz in with one of his developer friends and wipe away all restrictions on developments,” said Tim Gray, executive director with Environmental Defense, about the proposed changes to the Planning Act.

Gray’s organization is one of three environmental groups that has filed a lawsuit against the province, contending the Pickering MZO was a breach of provincial policy.

“Nothing that is currently protected by planning rules in Ontario — wetlands, river valleys, forests, endangered species habitat — is protected now,” added Gray.

And the Ford government is feeling the pressure:

 In confidential documents leaked to the media this week, the government expressed concern that the groups’ lawsuit had grounds and there was a risk the MZO could be found to be illegal.

“In the absence of the proposed amendments to the Planning Act, 1990 — and in particular the proposal for retroactive application — there is a moderately high risk that the MZO would be found to have contravened the Planning Act.”

It is difficult to know how all of this will ultimately play out. With any luck, however, as we gradually emerge from the pandemic, Ford and his cronies will realize that their actions are facing increasing scrutiny. With a provincial election not all that far off, that should give all of them real pause.